And in the beginning, I was angry.

Well the Rapture has come and gone, and as expected everyone is still here. Imagine my surprise on Monday when I got to my commuter train and still had to stand. There were no ground shattering earthquakes or the fires of hell opening up to consume the non-believers and leaving the shadow of perdition for those left behind to rummage a meager-but-doomed life through. No, the earth let out a small bit of flatulence and rolled over to go back to sleep (this might have been me, not the earth -ed), and most everyone got up on Sunday and chuckled to themselves that they had paid the idea a passing though in the three months leading up to May 22.

I think this may prove a thing or two: 1) never listen to billboards, 2) this is as bad as it gets (my vote) or 3) God does not really have a plan for killing us all.

Maybe, if we take a look at the good book, as opposed to imposing some deformed apocalypse math upon it like a certain dread-spewing Oakland sermonizer, we'll figure out what happened...Oh, here it is:

"As Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately. 'Tell us,' they said, 'when will this happen, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?'" Matthew 24:3

[prattle prattle prattle, something about olive trees...]

...“'But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.'" Matthew 24:36

There it is! The answer! in the kings english no less, and a thousand other languages no doubt! Not even a senile civil engineer from Oakland knows--in fact, he's expressly ruled out in the passage. He must have stroked out while this part was being read to him over his morning meal of applesauce and narcissism.

But this raises deeper questions, like, WHEN THE FUCK WILL IT HAPPEN! I better prepare, there is no way I am capable of fumbling around a flame-scorched hellscape waiting for death; waiting for death now is hard enough. And I, for one, do not want to continue to rub shoulders with the equally loathsome homeless, hipsters and professionals the morning after the rapture, I'm going to make sure my dance card with God get's punched, starting now.

Thus begins my in depth review of the bible, not out of fear of God, but the fear of sharing a seat with another human being on a short train ride between here and -Hades- work.

Without further ado, Genesis 1:1:

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

That's it! That's the beginning! We can't even pre-suppose humanity! How the fuck to people know that this is how it went? It sure doesn't say, "God created a witness so people wouldn't ask stupid questions 6000 years later." No, I read ahead, people don't come until later!

I'll calm down now, I swear, I'll just take it at its word....and we're underway.



....How much of this shit do I have to read before finding salvation?

The Tsunami and Pearl Harbor

Now, I guess that there have been a few people out there that are crediting God with the earthquake in Japan as payback for Pearl Harbor. Yes, the bombing that happened in 1941...69 years ago.

There are a few things wrong with this, obviously, I mean double obviously, or obviously squared, 1) The people saying these things are too damn young to know anything about the war, 2) God has some misplaced priorities if this is his way of proxy vengeance.

First, a little math problem, if you were in the service at the time of the war, 18 or so, and you add the subsequent 69 years to get to the present, you get 87. You would have to be 87 years old to have first hand experience with the bombing of Pearl Harbor. In between bouts of pudding mess and continually fighting off the ravages and wrinkles of age, the Pearl Harbor vets probably were not hoping for long delayed revenge on an otherwise useful and peaceful ally. In fact they probably recall that they were on other boats and planes that rained down get-even juice on those silly Japs.

I know lots of seniors old enough to remember the war and they don’t hate Japanese people, they’re to busy working on still breathing to hate. It’s only the young and, in all likelihood, mentally impaired that appear to blame the devastation on God’s incredibly belated Pearl Harbor vengeance. Which does not give me much hope for this country, or at least little hope for Facebook and Twitter users.

Onto the second point, If this is God's way of getting back at Japan for Pearl Harbor, that's kinda fucked up. I guess it's not in a biblical sense, the good book is full of bad shit. Like destroying towns and first born sons and all that. I guess the destruction of a large swath of an industrialized nation that the United States heavily depends on falls right in line with all that pillar of salt vengeance. But here's where it gets screwface, the Japanese quake will cost Japan in excess of 100 Billion dollars, that's billion with an obvious "B". Not to mention the tens of thousands dead, many of which continue to wash up on the beaches implying a drowning death. (Now, I haven't been water-boarded, but I imagine being drowned by a tsunami is pretty much God's water-boarding.) If we compare that to Pearl Harbor, 2,400 dead, you can start to see the order of magnitude difference. Oh, and as vice magazine kindly pointed out, and which should be fucking obvious even if your only knowledge comes from half-baked fact bereft high school history books, Like Inspektah Deck, we proceeded to bomb atomically the shit out of the land of the rising mushroom cloud. There we go, no need for God, we can doll out our own atomic death vengeance thank you very much.

BUT, in the vocal idiot minority didn't feel that was enough, they thought, "man I know we vaporized the shit out of them, but if only god would step in also." and possibly 69 years later. However, I don’t see us getting “punished” for Panama (est. 2,500 dead), Grenada (Est. 200 dead), Haiti or countless other small Christian countries. Not even a rancid pussy fart has escaped the crotch of a god-fearing American which could be categorized as vengeance. Nothing. Maybe God must favor America if he’s wreaking vengeance over stale conflicts and forgotten dead. If this God only favors America you can have him back, I don’t want that God that only favors the impoverishment of millions, for the benefit of the prick few.

If God loves the United States so, he should smite a fucking hedge fund manager with a very expensive falling piano, and use the left behind millions to buy the people of Appalachia toothbrushes. He should cancerize (I made this word up, but I think you get it) the proselytizing hate mongers who shit on god’s gift of reason, and tell the congregation to hold onto that 10%, maybe use it to plant some trees. At the least he should take the Tsunami=Pearl Harbor Vengeance crowd and smite them by water-boarding their bodies through sucking them through toilets a la Goulies, ground the brain dead haters to mulch, and transport said mulch to Japan to use as top soil for the washed away farm land. I’ll make a deal with God, if he does that last one, I’ll believe and use 10% of my money to plant some trees.

The Mission

This blog is about one thing, making me laugh, and possibly that other guy that contributes here. If he laughs, that's all well and good, but it's about me.

The theme to the blog is the bible and all it's wonderment. You'll no doubt read the sarcasm hanging over the word "wonderment". In honesty, we're here to read the bible straight through, and then to ruthlessly analyze it for amusement.

While my partner in heresy might look to crap on everything the good book has to say, I intend to jump in with open arms and look at it through the eyes of a drunken third grader. It'll just have to make sense to a person who still believes in Santa Claus for me to be happy with it.

From time to time we may feature some other things about religion beyond the bible, that's okay. There's no need to freak out, we'll get through our cover to cover reading eventually, and ideally it will be able to convince me on it's face to disavow my belief in Santa Claus and accept Jesus, Moses, God or the Holy Spirit (whoever that is) as my new non-pagan idol.

If you want it summed up in a nutshell just think, "Holy HaHas." Then say it five times quickly. There, now you're already laughing.

-Thommy

Why Hast I Forsaken Thee??

I may have a different perspective than my partner in blasphemy. I work with religious people, and have them on both sides of my family and to a lesser extent, among my friends. It effects me every day, not in the sense that they look down on me for being gay, not observing the sabbath, eating shellfish or whittling my own litte graven images, but that the stupid, cruel, and wrong decisions these people make are often directly influenced by their religious beliefs. Oh sure, I hope for my posts to be entertaining and dripping in sarcasm, but I have religion surrounding me every day and it is often responsible for turning up my anger dial to eleven, and turning up my "tired movie reference" dial to twelve.

There are many people who I love very much that are Christians, Catholics (they will swear they are different, unless they need to join against the Muslims), Hindus, Jews, and people who think that astrology is real. This blog is in no way an attack on specific people but on their basis of their beliefs. I often find myself in debates and discussions about religion with religious people who do not understand their own magical textbooks. I hope that by reading the bible cover to cover I can head into some of these debates (wars) with some knowledge (ammunition) to be loaded into my brain (gun) which I can use to argue (shoot) with people who have a different view of religion than I do (people who have a different view of religion than I do).

So let's make like Sonic the Hedgehog and come with the Genesis.

- Charlatan Heston

...And on the First Day

Thom created a post so he could test this page.