Be god on Sundays...

Subtitle: Don’t Be No Dumbass.

Do you want to know where the real problem is with the Bible? People read it.

And when they read it, many of these people get stupid and somehow talk themselves into believing that the Bible is the literal word of god. And if that isn’t enough, they then go around spouting that silly shit right out loud.

What is anyone to think?

Sure, that these people are stupid.

Look, one doesn’t have to be a biblical scholar to figure out that the Bible is a whole bunch of metaphors, kinda put in the same place, with an attempt at a common theme. (Never mind the history of how the various versions of the Bible came about, the politics of the times, and what was included and left out and all of that…) I mean, right off the bat you know something is up, when god makes light on the first day, but doesn’t make the sun till the fourth. And even then, according to the Bible, the sun was put in the heavens to shine upon the Earth. Oh, yeah? Guess again. Not only is the sun necessary for light, the Earth isn’t the center of the solar system, the SUN is. That’s one of the reasons it’s called a SOLAR SYSTEM.

See what I mean?

Even a casual glance at the first chapter of the damned thing reveals it as either just a bunch of silly bullshit, or a metaphor…or…well, both, I guess. But what it is NOT is a literal explanation of how light and sun came about.

I’m going to make an assumption here, but I think it’s a good one. I’m going to assume that the people who originally wrote the Bible, while not being educated folks, probably weren’t a bunch of morons, either. And I think they were just trying to express something that is probably inexpressible. Or not easily expressed in words, maybe. Whatever the exact motivation, you’ll never get me to believe that some guy actually changed water into wine, or defied the laws of physics (HIS laws, to extend the logic) to make light before there was the sun, I don’t think anyone saw a dead man float up to heaven on a cloud. I don’t think that god gets tired, either. What kind of god would that be? So why would he need to rest after making the world?

Reasonable people would view these, and the huge number of other like illustrations I could have talked about, as stories, metaphors, lessons to be learned…but not as literal or factual. They were never meant to be that, I don’t think, nor are they.

So it’s not the writing of the Bible that is the problem. It’s the reading of it…by idjits. THAT is the problem.

Personally, I think it’s ALL a bunch of bullshit.

But, that’s just me…

First, though she didn’t discuss such things with her children, I don’t think my mother was really a virgin. She was pretty cute, both as a youngun and as an old woman, my dad was always a horny sorta guy, so my best guess is that good ole mom got banged pretty regularly. Of course, she wasn’t the type to discuss it, and had I asked about her sex life with my dad, she would have whacked me in the back of the head and mumbled something in Italian that I wouldn’t have understood, but would have been able to dredge the meaning out of.

As a person, my mom was a mother first. Everything else, and I do mean everything else, came second. She recognized no authority over her children but her and my father, her mostly, and would say or do anything to protect her kids, no matter what they did. I know. I wasn’t always the most laid back kid when I was growing up, and my mom protected me from all manner of things that should have been allowed to kick my ass. Talking too much in school (my boy needs his friends) to being suspended from high school for “excessive political activism and lack of respect for duly constituted authority.” (My boy has a right to Freedom of Speech, and because you don’t like what he has to say gives you NO right to destroy his education.) Now, mind you, my ma didn’t agree with my politics in the least. She was a typically conservative parent of the times…but nothing mattered to her other than her kids. And ANY authority sighting in on them was The Enemy. Including the police, most of whom she knew thru my dad, who came to the front door late one evening. Overheard as I ate some Wheaties: No, my boy would NEVER pull a fire alarm box falsely. If you have witnesses (they didn’t, because I DIDN’T pull the alarm…it was my buddy, Jim) they’re lying. Now it’s late. And she closed the door in their faces.

That was my mom.

She was more than a mother, of course. She was the best of all possible mothers, a gullible one. Not in all things, but in enough for it to be fun. Back when I was in Jr. High, middle school now, we used to be able to play with mercury. One day I coated a couple quarters with the stuff. It made them look oddly shiny and feel slick, kinda…and I convinced my ma that I made them in science class. She was, no fucking lie, ready to convert the basement into a mint for me. One time my dad and I convinced her that my dad, an investigator for the D.A.’s office, got into a gun fight when he and I went to the dumps one Saturday afternoon. God, she was pissed when we told her we were just funnin’ with her.

She was also very practical. When she got to an age where she knew her driving was beginning to decay, she called me and told me to come get her car this weekend, she was thru driving and, anyway, I needed a new car. That’s just one example of her having her life pretty well in focus.

But…

After my dad died, my ma changed some. More tentative, she seemed frightened in her own home, often, began having some pretty neat delusions. Like the couple in the home next to her was way into child pornography and made their own in the back yard. Right there on those picnic tables, can you see? And the guy on the other side of her murdered at least one person. She saw someone leave a car there and never be seen again. Ergo…murdered.

In a way it was funny. My ma having old person brain, you know? And sometimes it was fucking HILARIOUS. For example, my mother once got into a nice early-morning argument with the garbage guys, because she wasn’t about to let them steal her garbage. It was in her can, for god’s sake, behind her house (an alleyway ran behind her home) and no one is going to take it from her. LOL! This skinny old woman in her bathrobe and silly slippers out yelling at some huge guys trying to steal her trash…LOL…tell me that’s not funny. Even funnier, she lives in a small town, and the garbage guys knew my brother, who still lives there, so they called him and he came down to protect the big, bad garbage men from his hundred pound goofy mom.

Not so funny was the time I stopped by to visit after my brother had installed a central air conditioning system in her home. It must have been over 100 in there. Ma, for shit’s sake, turn on the fucking A/C, you’re gonna croak. She patiently explained to me that she couldn’t have it on, because it sucked all the air out of the house and she couldn’t breathe. Ma, you’re gettin’ loony. People all around the world use air conditioning. I can’t breathe with it on. End of subject.

Who knows what to say about their mother?

My brother stopped by to have coffee with ma on his way to work one morning, and found her propped up on the sofa in the living room watching TV…dead. (I guess if she was dead, she wasn’t actually watching the TV, but you take my meaning…)

How does one pay homage to 80 years of selfless love and devotion? Beats me. Not like this, I guess.

I love you, ma. And I miss you.

Oddly enough, so were my parents and as time went by, I ended up, not only a catholic, but an alter boy, as well. I can’t remember, now, how that happened, exactly. The tunnel of my memories gets a bit dark as I head back in my mind some 50 years, but I was certainly an alter boy by the time I was in the 4th grade.

So what? A lot of boys my age were alter boys, and probably still are, for all I know. What made my tenure different? A few things…

First, I didn’t serve mass at either one of the two catholic churches in my small town…I served mass solely at the Indian missions. I grew up in far North California, in the mountains, in the redwoods, and the Pomo Indians had long ago been herded onto reservations…called rancherias. You know, Indian slums. There were eight of them within an hour’s drive or so, and each one of them had a lovely little church that the catholics owned…and every Sunday I would serve mass at one or two of them, usually two. They all looked pretty much the same, were very small, seating maybe twenty Injuns, assuming that many could be guilted into attending mass. They looked about like this…

The Dominican sisters, Third Order, had control of everything at those missions…except saying mass, of course. That meant I “worked” for them, so drove out with Sisters Aloysius and Robertina. Whilst the penguins cleaned the church, I got the alter and sacristy set up for whatever Franciscan priest, Capishun’s, drew the short straw.

All of these places had pump organs, and S. Robertina would play and try to get all the faithful, who weren’t too hung over, to sing along. This was back in the old Latin Mass days. (You haven’t lived until you hear a church full of Pomo Indians, many of the older ones didn’t speak English, trying to sing catholic hymns in Latin!)

So, here we are one fine Sunday morning, a chapel full of Indians, everything is ready and waiting for the priest to change and get with it…but he hasn’t shown up by mass time. The sisters are frantic, the crowd is grumbling and stirring and in danger of bolting. So one of the two of them get the bright idea that I should lead the faithful in a hymn or two whilst they both head off to find a phone and call up the Franciscans and see what the fuck the hold up is.

ME lead ‘em? I don’t play the organ, what do I know about it? Besides, I’m in the fucking FIFTH GRADE, sisters…sigh…

S. Aloysius, a large and rotund woman with a fine sense of humor, suggested I lead them in some Christmas carols, since everyone knows those…mostly.

They left.

Now I’m alone with the War Whoops, increasingly restless. Of course, I saw these people once a month or so and knew them fairly well, so there I stood in front of them, my vestments clean and shiny…and I explained that we were going to sing some Christmas songs for a few minutes while the good sisters found a priest somewhere. Keep in mind that I am, maybe, 11 or so.

The ones that understood me smiled and laughed…and one lady said she played the organ, she would accompany us. Great.

Except all she knew how to play, as it turned out, was Rock of Ages and Onward Christian Soldiers. I dunno how or why, I didn’t ask. But I figured god wouldn’t give a shit and it might keep them here till the penguins got back and got this off MY shoulders.

In the middle of all this odd hoopla arrives the priest, Father Kennedy. He’s tall, thin, stern, white hair and goatee, very Irish with a very thick brogue, and probably as old as Christ. He walks into the church, sees some very large Indian woman playing Rock of Ages on the organ, me standing at the front of the church not knowing what to do, blushing bright red…and singing right along with the other heathens…

In his thick brogue, now standing next to me…thundering...

WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING?

I was terrified and tried to answer him, but he turned from me to the congregation, now sitting slack-jawed and fairly quiet…

I ASKED WHAT YOU ARE DOING! HAVE YOU NO LOVE FOR GOD? NO RESPECT FOR HIS TRUE WORD? WHAT ARE YOU DOING SINGING THAT IN HERE? THERE WILL BE NO MASS SAID IN THIS CHAPEL THIS MORNING. PLEASE GO HOME!

Which they did.

Thank god that the sisters got back before I was left with Kennedy all alone. I was sweating that one. They got there and he lit into them about it. S. Robertina very respectfully told him there was no reason to empty their church, these people need god out here. Instead of answering her, he turned to me and told me to wait outside and close the door behind me.

I did.

I don’t know what was said in there, but Father came crashing out of the place and took off after a bit, the sisters, not saying a thing to me about it, yammered back and forth in German the entire time we were cleaning up, packing and leaving…and all the way back to the convent.

As I helped the driver unload the station wagon, Aloysius came up to me, laid a hand on my shoulder, and said, Not a word about today. And lumbered off.

I not only didn’t say a word about it to anyone, I actually haven’t thought about this time really, till now.

Father Kennedy never did like me very much after that.

Too bad.

He gave the best head…

One of the problems with teaching about Jesus and the Bible is that some of the stories have been repressed by clergy over the years. Stories that didn’t seem to show Christ’s family in a good light were simply left out of the Bible or down-played and seldom spoken about, virtually never taught in church, if they were still in the Book. But every family has stories of this sort and it just makes the Christs look a little more normal than they otherwise are painted to be.

So with that, brought to you by the good people in the Bible’s Book of Jehosephat, allow me to retell the story of Homochitto Park, and the subsequent, and hasty, sojourn to Eunice.

Mr. Mohammad is known far and wide for his loving and peaceful attitude, and has just a few words for you this morning.

My Fellow followers of the Religion of Peace and Love, I bid you good morning! If you don’t mind, I will be speaking in Muslim this morning, in keeping with being sneaky in here so that the CIA people won’t catch on to what we are REALLY up to…ahem…

مبروك على الجميع التحديثات الجديدة للموقعمبروك على الجميع التحديثات الجديدة للموقعمبروك على الجميع التحديثات الجديدة للموقعمبروك على الجميع التحديثات الجديدة للموقع Be sure and use a short fuse…مبروك على

الجميع التحديثات الجديدة للموقعمبروك على الجميع التحديثات الجديدة للموقع

When the infidel’s neck is being cut, مبروك على الجميع التحديثات الجديدة للموقعمبروك على الجميع التحديثات الجديدة للموقعمبروك على الجميع التحديثات الجديدة للموقع

Beating women is always fun, but be sure not to damage her clitorectomy site, it may not be heeled yet. Still, the bitch has to service you or مبروك على الجميع التحديثات الجديدة للموقعمبروك على الجميع التحديثات الجديدة للموقع

To show the Western World how loving we really are, be sure and blow up public places, OH…and schools! Every time you kill little kids, Allah loves you more. As he once said مبروك على الجميع التحديثات الجديدة للموقعمبروك على الجميع التحديثات الجديدة للموقعمبروك على الجميع التحديثات الجديدة للموقع

And in conclusion, just let me say that camel cum isn’t THAT bad. In the words of Allah the Jihadist, مبروك على الجميع التحديثات الجديدة للموقع

Now, go and blow some shit up so all the American dogs can pretend like it’s someone else (and not us muslims) and suck up to us.

مبروك على الجميع التحديثات الجديدة للموقع

My intention was to tell you all the true story of Easter; how the Romans threw hard boiled eggs at Jesus while he was hanging on the cross…and how his mom gathered them all up in case Jesus was hungry after the crucifiction. (That tends to take a lot out of you, you know.)

Actually, Mary had intended to chop them up and mix them in with the chopped liver those folks like…but decided it might be pretty neat to color ‘em up instead.

Well…anyway…I was going to tell you all about that but I’m cold and don’t feel like it.

It’s too bad too, it’s a good story…especially the part about how Jesus’s dad was the original Easter bunny…sigh…

^{Reprinted by permission of Dumbass Press, Inc.}

Ok, I’M not doing any, but some of you may. Anyway, we’re going to talk about it. Reduced to it’s simplest explanation, praying is the act of talking to god. I have a little problem with this since, as near as I can tell, there isn’t any god, so who the hell are you people praying to? But for this discussion, let’s see if we can pretend there IS a god, shall we?

So here’s this god that you people get all enthused about and pray to. First, no matter what anyone tells you, what makes you think god has time to listen to your whining? The fucking muslims alone will take up all his time with their incessant silly praying. If you’re just a white guy in Des Moines, what makes you think god has time for YOU? Besides, how does he hear and filter all the millions or billions of prayers he gets each day? What about spam prayers? Does he listen to all of those, too? I don’t know how you people can believe this silly shit.

Plus, you know, how about one of you step up to the front of the class and prove, not just assert, how prayer has helped in your life, how god has heard and answered your prayers. Mind you, not just the rationalizations that you created to pretend like praying to a non-existent man in the clouds makes sense, but real and concrete proof that prayer actually communicates with god, rather than just your psyche; that god hears you, gives a shit, and coughs up whatever you’re begging for.

You can’t, of course. This is just more stupid shit that people have talked themselves into believing.

The way it works is this. (Let’s take one really obvious example, but it’s an example that extrapolates to all of prayer-dom…or is that prayer-dumb?) So, let’s say you live in tornado country and one is headed your way. So you and your little family gather in the living room, form a circle, kneel down and hold hands, to ask god’s help in getting thru the storm. As you are doing so, a tree crashes thru the living room windows and kills your mother and father, and one of the dogs, leaving you and your sister and that goddamned poodle the only ones living. PRAISE GOD FOR LETTING THE TWO OF US LIVE…AND THANK YOU, OUR LORD, FOR ALLOWING US TO WATCH OUR PARENTS AND DOG DIE A SLOW, PAINFUL DEATH, BEING CRUSHED BY A TREE. GOD HAS ANSWERED OUR PRAYERS!

Yeah.

Or how about the more subtle and less urgent prayers? Like, please, god, let me pass this algebra test. Has THAT every worked for you? If you studied, maybe. If not, god isn’t going to give you the answers, you dumbass!

The answer to prayers, directly from god, hisseff, fall into three main categories.

ONE:

You get what you’re praying for, either individually or collectively. Of course, this is touted as PROOF that prayer works. Oh, yeah? It don’t prove shit. If you prayed to god to help you not fall down walking on the ice and snow outside, and you did not, indeed, fall down…I’m thinking it means more that you just took your time and walked carefully, rather than god answering shit.

Two:

You don’t get what you’re praying for in any fashion. Well, you know, god knows what’s best for us and if he doesn’t give us what we pray for, it’s because it doesn’t fit his Grand Design.

Right.

Who really believes that bullshit? What Grand Design? Have you looked around the world lately? Besides, IF god really cared about you, and IF he was really listening to all these goddamned prayers from you whining, grousing people, he wouldn’t force you to have to make up even MORE bullshit that no one believes just to justify your dumb actions.

Three:

You don’t get what you prayed for, but you get something else, instead. So, like, you pray for god to grow you another leg to replace the one the muslims hacked off while you were their prisoner, and, golly, NOW the insurance company kicks in and buys you that new prosthetic leg you’ve been looking at. Obviously, god was too busy shooting craps to make a new one grow on you, so he passes the paperwork over to your insurance adjuster to deal with.

Yeah…well, god didn’t grow you a new leg, did he? Could it be that your file was just finally handled by your insurance company, and what you think is divine intervention is just the normal shifting of paperwork from one drone’s desk to another.? I mean, if you hear hoof beets, think horses, not zebras, right?

So what you have here again, as with most things religious, is an assertion that is backed up by nothing but people talking themselves into believing something holy happened, when, really, it was just the actions of shit flowing down hill. Look, it’s ok with me if you have your own private insanity. But I can’t see how you don’t find this sort of thinking embarrassing. Santa Claus answers more entreaties than god ever thought about…and he only works about a month a year, all told. Maybe Santa is really god.

How can you people believe this stuff?

It occurred to me last night whilst formulating this morning’s sermon, that I have strayed far from the original idea of this Sunday morning godshift. It’s natural that I would have, since I’d like to keep these sermons fresh…well, and there is just so much to harp talk about, you’d think I’d never run out of material…and I haven’t. Thanks to people who will believe ANY kind of silly shit, there is no end of religious idiocy to laugh at understand.

Still, the original idea of this was to point out how silly chrisitianity is. I’ve strayed from that some, enjoying watching the muslims and muslim sycophants squirm when the truth is told about them. So this morning I am pulling us back to whence this began…Stupid Christianity.

So, let’s begin our sermonic refreshment with the beginning of it all…The Creation Story...a repost from a while back when we used to have 43 Things Sunday School…

God creates a wonderful place, just for you…if you’re white, that is…

Ok, children, today we’re going to learn how Jehovah built the Earth and everything in it. Wasn’t that nice of God to give us a place to live? If he hadn’t, we might all have had to live at the Greyhound depot like all those dirty men do. See how God loves us?

God is very smart. The first thing he did was create the Earth, so we’d have someplace to stand. And he also created the sky, so we’d have something to look at while we were standing around. God so loves us.

And God is very clever. He knows that little children are afraid of the dark, so he made light. Now there was no need for the little children to cry any more, and the Earth became quiet, like our classroom is.

Ok, children, raise your hand if you know who God’s son is. That’s right, God Junior. Well, kids, God Junior never sleeps because it’s always day time in heaven, but Earthly children need to sleep. You know how crabby you can be when you don’t sleep, so God made it dark sometimes and called that “night.” Isn’t God smart, though?

Then it suddenly hit Jehovah God that many of you children probably couldn’t swim yet, except the Mexican ones, of course, and there was a lot of water, so he put a bunch of dirt to divide the waters so you didn’t all drown. Shortly after that our peace-loving Muslim brothers began butchering people, but you’ll learn all about that in another class.

And then God made grass and trees and things like that so you children would have a place to play.

But on the fourth day he realized he had forgotten to make something. What did God forget, children?

Anyone?

Mahmood?

No, not his suicide belt…anyone else?

No? Well, God had forgotten to make the sun. There can’t be any light without the sun, and the trees and grass and flowers won’t grow without it. See? Even God gets things out of order some times, just like you do when you pull up your pants before wiping your bottom. You children are just like our Lord, see?

So, on the fourth day God made the sun. He also made the moon to shine at night sometimes, so that you kids can see to sneak out of your houses when you grow up to be filthy little teenagers. God is so smart.

Then God made all the animals. Not the dinosaurs and things like that, those are just for the cartoons. No, kids, God made cows and kitties and sea gulls and turtles and lions and all of the animals you see at the zoo, except those nasty monkeys that touch their evil parts. Those were made by the devil, but you’ll learn about the devil later, kids. Right now, don’t think about monkey penises, ok?

Then God realized he would have to name all these animals so you children would know what to call them, but God is far too important for such a job, so he invented a man to do that for him. Adam. Adam was white, of course, and had a well-groomed beard like our Pastor, The Right Reverend Uncle Enore has. But he was lonely and very busy naming all the animals, so God invented is wife, Eve. She was white, too. See how God didn’t even think of the coloreds yet? He had important things to do. And Eve was invented to take care of Adam. She fixed his food, and cleaned his house, and kept the refrigerator stocked with all his favorite things to eat and drink, and she never said “no” when Adam wanted to have relations with her. That is why you girls are all here, to take care of your men when you grow up.

And after doing all this God thought he had done about enough for the time being and went off to invent other worlds so ET could come to visit us later and make a good movie.

So that is how God made the Earth in seven days.

For your homework assignment, I want each of you to draw a pretty picture of what you think the Earth looked like on the seventh day. And, children, please do not draw Adam’s evil part or Eve’s muff, ok? I will have special private classes later on when you and I will talk about those big boy and big girl subjects, alright?

He hates you all, hopes you all become miserable if you aren’t already, and, besides, I don’t feel like getting involved in god shit today.

Amen.

Now, I have to take a dump…

My last confession was back when I was about 11, I think. Had I known then that I could have gotten head and other delights from the priest hearing my confession, I certainly would have gone longer, I’ll tell you. But, there’s no sense crying over spilled boy juice, is there?

Speaking of priestly sexual conduct, I read in the news this week where the incidence of priests molesting kids is up 16%. Man, how’s that for culling the homos and deviates from the clergy? Nice job, Pope!

Normally I deliver a sermon of some sort here on Sunday mornings, but god has instructed me to cut back some, so today, instead of a sermon, I’ll be hearing confessions. So line up, my children, and tell me your sins, be truly repentant and the lord god will grant you pardon thru me. Of course, I get to hear all the neat shit you did…plus, don’t forget, if you want, head is extra. And if you’re not a little boy, or are, in fact, a girl or woman, god loves you too…and so will I, if I get the chance.

Dish the dirt for repentance, you people.

^{I’m thinking that virtually no one will respond to this, thus I have a relatively free morning, which cuts down on god’s overhead around here. I guess he is smart, eh?}