humor

This has nothing to do with religion, either for or against. I just like this picture of Rocket Jesus lifting off, to symbolize the soaring Brazilian economy. (That's the 40 meter-tall Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro, in case anyone should not recognize it.)

"This is my solid rocket booster stage which is for you. Launch this in remembrance of me."

J minus 10 and counting!

Quick pointer to a humor piece at The Onion, If You Put Your Mind To It You Can Believe Anything:

It may seem hard at first, but once you start believing in God, and presupposing that this God condones all of your thoughts and actions, it gets a whole lot easier. Believing in a supreme being like that not only absolves you of any responsibility whatsoever, which is handy, but it also allows you to be self-righteous about the made-up stuff you've convinced yourself is true in order to gain some sense of structure or meaning in your worthless life.

And much more along those lines. Of course, this is where Poe's Law steps in: any attempt to parody fundamentalists ends up indistinguishable from the real thing. There are indeed believers saying things awfully close to the above. Or things like this – apparently earnest! – question that I just love: How do I find enough faith to believe that prayer works?

Just put your mind to it, Brother!

This really has nothing to do with anything on this site. It's just... I felt it has to be noted, and I have nowhere else appropriate to put it:

San Francisco Chronicle columnist Mark Morford coins a most delightful term:

Look, I don't care if Dick Cheney threatened you with razor wire and a concrete pumps. I don't care if Karl Rove said he'd suffocate you with his giant clammy hog thighs if you dared to speak up...

Karl Rove and his "giant clammy hog thighs". That spot of journalism deserves some sort of award, even if only for Worst Mental Image Ever. Thanks (sort of), Mark!

So the other day I'm walking through a Tokyo-area shopping center, and in a drug store I see stacked boxes of Jesus Body! (exclamation mark theirs).

What's this? Communion crackers? No, those would make for grisly boxes of actual Jesus flesh (or so the priests insist). The tomato-red Jesus Body! boxes I saw are a diet product – 180 tablets of slimming ingredients. 

Putting aside the skeptic's natural suspicion of diet tablets, why the name "Jesus Body"? Well, the association of Jesus with miracles must be part of it. But I assume the product is mainly seeking to attract lady shoppers with a well-known popular image: the lean, slim-bodied Jesus that artists have been hanging on the cross for near 2000 years now.

(I mean, Buddha was a miraculous guy too, but would Buddha Body! sell?)

So, there's no mystery behind the appeal of a savor who always looks so fit (well, fit apart from the blood and the dying and all that). But on the other hand, there may be more to a "Jesus body" than just slimness. A church in Oklahoma has a painted Jesus whose... interesting anatomy has some faithful up in arms. (And maybe has a few swooning as well.) 

My, Christ certainly does appear to be pointing the way to heaven, doesn't he. Or as quicker wags have already quipped: I knew Jesus was crucified, but I didn't know he was hung! 

Is it just me, or are these the same faces?

Carl Sagan

David Lee Roth

If it weren't for Carl's untimely departure, I'd have to ask whether the beloved astronomer was ever spotted shouting "Bill-ions upon bill-ions of stars!" while doing high-jump splits off a Cornell podium.

From The Onion:

"Ha, really funny", the believers will say, but the funny part is that this has actually been taking place over the centuries. 

I don't want to make a habit of reposting things that have already been spotlighted by a far huger site. But I like the following so much, I want to repost just so I'll see it again and again.

From the clever designer at Somethink Fun. Spotted on Pharyngula.  

Don't laugh – it's every bit as good as the rest of the evidence for Young Earth Creationism.

Via Eat Liver. 

From a silly Photoshop contest at CRACKED magazine (I read it so you don't have to, okay?) comes this reader-submitted masterpiece. Ah, now that explains much about our universe! The frigid, lifeless gulfs of infinite space... the murderous cataclysms of our own planet... its trackless dry wastes and unsurvivable polar regions... flesh-eating bacteria... brain-devouring viruses... our own greed, bloodlust, and savagery... With Cthulhu properly identified as the Inhumane Designer, we no longer have to ask whether mankind's miseries point to an evil God. Now we know.

Besides, what but an Inhumane Designer explains the sanity-rending aesthetic ugliness riddling creation, crawling just below its patina of butterflies and puppies? I'm looking at you, arachnid faces, tumescent monkey butts, and human feet. No, wait, I'm not looking at you. AHHHH! Go away!!

A cartoon from our side of the fence:

From Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal