I want to say that I'm not a religion trasher. I think a healthy dose of prayer, forgiveness and sweet, sweet love helps us live more productive lives (PICTURE two adorable children kneeling at their bedside for a goodnight prayer). But really, it's a lovely thing despite its misuse throughout time, i.e., people blastin' baby-be-gone clinics and airplanes, beheading, burning at the stake, seizing, stealing land, enslaving, scamming, etc. in the name of their God.

This constant demolition of the true meaning of spirituality and religion is devastating, but I have to say The Church (Catholic, not the 80's band) has gone too far when they put Pope Coin Dispensers in the Notre Dame Cathedral. Can 2 euros really buy salvation? Well, I'll have to think about it since it's a bit higher with the US Dollar conversion.

If you can afford the First Class/All Inclusive ride to Everlasting Paradise, check out the video (low quality, sorry) I snagged of the Crystal Nativity Scene before the lovely (SHOP IN THE CATHEDRAL) woman slapped my camera down and roped me out. For a mere 1,500 euros, you can purchase the Disco Baby Jesus Nativity Bling Set. Say good-bye to that played out disco ball and WOW your party guests with a Holy Sparkle they're sure to remember.

Senator Ernie Chambers of Omaha sued God last week for "making terroristic threats, inspiring fear and causing widespread death, destruction and terrorization of millions upon millions of the Earth's inhabitants.'"

And God replied!

His response argues that the defendant is immune from some earthly laws and the court lacks jurisdiction.

It adds that blaming God for human oppression and suffering misses an important point.

"I created man and woman with free will and next to the promise of immortal life, free will is my greatest gift to you," according to the response.

So there you have it. The reason your prayers haven't been answered recently is because God's been busy answering lawsuits. I wonder what He'd say to Gabriele Pauly?

I could say a number of things about this, but I think our good friend Tom Waits said it best —

"Well it's got to be a chocolate Jesus, make me feel good inside."

Amen brother. Amen.

Guess what kids? Jesus Christ has declared February 28th to be "High Five A Muslim Day"! Yes!

It seems he's noticed Muslims being the victims of unfair stereotyping and prejudices and he wants to let them know, "Hey! Follower of Islam, we're on the same team dude".

So mark it down on your calendars and give all of our Muslim brothers and sisters one up top this February 28th.

The Bible has so many fun rules and stories to live by.

For example, take this excerpt from Corinthians 14:34-5.

34 women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the Law says. 35 If they want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home; for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church.

That's right ladies. Less talkie, more shut the hell up-ie!

There's also the story of Lot, a man who offered up his virgin daughters for gang rape in order to save some angels but then gets drunk and gets them pregnant himself, all without getting in trouble. What a great father!

Genesis 19:1-38

1 The two angels arrived at Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting in the gateway of the city. When he saw them, he got up to meet them and bowed down with his face to the ground. 2 “My lords,” he said, “please turn aside to your servant's house. You can wash your feet and spend the night and then go on your way early in the morning.”
“No,” they answered, “we will spend the night in the square.”
3 But he insisted so strongly that they did go with him and entered his house. He prepared a meal for them, baking bread without yeast, and they ate. 4 Before they had gone to bed, all the men from every part of the city of Sodom—both young and old—surrounded the house. 5 They called to Lot, “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us so that we can have sex with them.”

6 Lot went outside to meet them and shut the door behind him 7 and said, “No, my friends. Don't do this wicked thing. 8 Look, I have two daughters who have never slept with a man. Let me bring them out to you, and you can do what you like with them. But don't do anything to these men, for they have come under the protection of my roof.”

9 “Get out of our way,” they replied. And they said, “This fellow came here as an alien, and now he wants to play the judge! We‘ll treat you worse than them.” They kept bringing pressure on Lot and moved forward to break down the door.

10 But the men inside reached out and pulled Lot back into the house and shut the door. 11 Then they struck the men who were at the door of the house, young and old, with blindness so that they could not find the door.

12 The two men said to Lot, “Do you have anyone else here—sons-in-law, sons or daughters, or anyone else in the city who belongs to you? Get them out of here, 13 because we are going to destroy this place. The outcry to the LORD against its people is so great that he has sent us to destroy it.”

14 So Lot went out and spoke to his sons-in-law, who were pledged to marry [a] his daughters. He said, “Hurry and get out of this place, because the LORD is about to destroy the city!” But his sons-in-law thought he was joking.

15 With the coming of dawn, the angels urged Lot, saying, “Hurry! Take your wife and your two daughters who are here, or you will be swept away when the city is punished.”

16 When he hesitated, the men grasped his hand and the hands of his wife and of his two daughters and led them safely out of the city, for the LORD was merciful to them. 17 As soon as they had brought them out, one of them said, “Flee for your lives! Don’t look back, and don't stop anywhere in the plain! Flee to the mountains or you will be swept away!”

18 But Lot said to them, “No, my lords, [b] please! 19 Your [c] servant has found favor in your [d] eyes, and you [e] have shown great kindness to me in sparing my life. But I can't flee to the mountains; this disaster will overtake me, and I‘ll die. 20 Look, here is a town near enough to run to, and it is small. Let me flee to it—it is very small, isn’t it? Then my life will be spared.”

21 He said to him, “Very well, I will grant this request too; I will not overthrow the town you speak of. 22 But flee there quickly, because I cannot do anything until you reach it.” (That is why the town was called Zoar. [f] )

23 By the time Lot reached Zoar, the sun had risen over the land. 24 Then the LORD rained down burning sulfur on Sodom and Gomorrah—from the LORD out of the heavens. 25 Thus he overthrew those cities and the entire plain, including all those living in the cities—and also the vegetation in the land. 26 But Lot's wife looked back, and she became a pillar of salt.

27 Early the next morning Abraham got up and returned to the place where he had stood before the LORD. 28 He looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah, toward all the land of the plain, and he saw dense smoke rising from the land, like smoke from a furnace.

29 So when God destroyed the cities of the plain, he remembered Abraham, and he brought Lot out of the catastrophe that overthrew the cities where Lot had lived.

Lot and His Daughters

30 Lot and his two daughters left Zoar and settled in the mountains, for he was afraid to stay in Zoar. He and his two daughters lived in a cave. 31 One day the older daughter said to the younger, “Our father is old, and there is no man around here to lie with us, as is the custom all over the earth. 32 Let's get our father to drink wine and then lie with him and preserve our family line through our father.”
33 That night they got their father to drink wine, and the older daughter went in and lay with him. He was not aware of it when she lay down or when she got up.

34 The next day the older daughter said to the younger, “Last night I lay with my father. Let's get him to drink wine again tonight, and you go in and lie with him so we can preserve our family line through our father.” 35 So they got their father to drink wine that night also, and the younger daughter went and lay with him. Again he was not aware of it when she lay down or when she got up.

36 So both of Lot's daughters became pregnant by their father. 37 The older daughter had a son, and she named him Moab [g] ; he is the father of the Moabites of today. 38 The younger daughter also had a son, and she named him Ben-Ammi [h] ; he is the father of the Ammonites of today.

I particularly enjoy the fact that “Again he was not aware of it when she lay down...”

Oh man. Those bitches! Taking advantage of their nice dad who only offered up their virgin bodies to save some dudes who said they were angels. And shame on them for making the Bibles contributors have to state twice that their father didn't know he banged his daughters. Cause we all know a man couldn't possibly do that without being drunk.

Don't believe that this is in the bible? Check it out for yourself!

Don't have a bible of your own? It's okay, you can look at any verse in the Bible at BibleGateway.com

- picture c/o ChristianAnswers.net

Most of you reading this have probably only heard of Chabad Lubavitch (one of many Hassidic Jewish groups whose interpretation of Judaic scripture is just a little more than backwards) via rapper C-Rayz Walz admittedly mangled name-check on Cannibal Ox's "Battle For Asgard" (paraphrased in the title of this very post).

But if you're a fan of Israeli porn (and with the buxom Jewess Eden Mor walking Ha Eretz who wouldn't be?) you may have unwittingly caught a glimpse of the Chabad Lubavitch Rabbi recently as a group of ultra-orthodox hackers billing themselves as "Haredi Sex Commando" (which sounds like a porno title if ever I heard one) have been erasing Israeli porn sites and replacing them with a picture of their beloved Rabbi!

The hackers erased the explicit content and wrote that "the holy kabbalah warns that the sin of spilling sperm in vain is the cause for most diseases and misfortune!"

In the days following the first strike of the "Sex Commando" an ultra-orthodox website called "Shofar" was hacked into, possibly in retaliation, with the religious content being replaced with anti-censorship and anti-religious items.

Still, I can't help but speculate how many people, surprised at seeing the Rabbi on the porn site, remarked "jeez that chick needs to shave her choch!"

Link via: A Berg Above The Rest

JESUS CHRIST HE'S COMING BACK!

Jesus Christ: The Musical

Washington D.C. area police arrested 114 protesters outside a Capitol office building last Wednesday for taking part in a carefully choreographed event organized by progressive faith-based groups who are none-too-pleased with the way the Government's new budget helps the rich while hurting the poor.

"There is a Christmas scandal in this nation ... but it has nothing to do with shopping malls saying 'Happy holidays' instead of 'Merry Christmas,'" Wallis said. "The Christmas scandal is the immoral budget coming out of this Congress."

Hoping to match conservatives' use of religious rhetoric, Wallis and others said that the budget would take the song of the Virgin Mary when she was told of Jesus' impending birth - "He has filled the hungry with good things, but has sent the rich away empty" - and turn it on its head. "This is not just bad public policy," said the Rev. Wesley Granberg-Michaelson, the general secretary of the Reformed Church in America. "This is morally disgraceful."

Of course, not all Bible thumpin' Jesus freaks agree with the protestors. The types of conservative Christian groups who focus their energy on things such as Wal-Mart "holiday greetings" for example did not participate in last week's rally and have in fact urged their followers to support the budget bills being passed by the Government. Tom Wildmon, the president of the American Family Association ( one of the groups that has been pressuring retailers to put the "Christ" back in "Christmas" ), thinks the whole thing is boring, and that worrying about such matters should be below "good Christians."

"The budget bores people, and this (Christmas) is an issue everyone can understand," Wildmon said, adding that Wallis' message "sounds like to me the liberal social gospel.

"The gospel message is about individuals helping individuals. I don't see it in the Bible where it's the government's responsibility to take care of everyone."

What Wildmon doesn't seem to understand is that in a Democracy the Government is the people. So if the people are charged as individials to do good deeds and help the poor, then the Government as an institutionalized representative "of the people" should do the same. I guess legislating Biblical moralism is only appealing to some Christians when it deals with other people's sex lives and reproductive organs though.

That's the question tens-of-thousands of visitors, local government officials and possibly some doctors and scientists are posing to a 15 year old Nepalese boy named Ram Bahadur Banjan. Many have come to believe the boy may be the reincarnation of The Buddah and are attributing the status of godhood to him. Much of the fuss arises from the fact that he has apparently spent the last seven months sitting cross-legged and motionless with his eyes closed among the roots of a tree in the jungle of Bara, about 100 miles south of Katmandu.

Many visitors believe Banjan is a reincarnation of Gautama Siddhartha, who was born not far away in southwestern Nepal around 500 B.C. and later became revered as the Buddha, which means Enlightened One.

Others aren't so sure.

Police inspector Chitra Bahadur Gurung said officers have interviewed the boy's associates about their claim that Banjan has gone six months without food or drink.

Officers have not directly questioned the boy, who appears deep in meditation and doesn't speak.

More than 10,000 pilgrims are supposed to visit the boy daily, catching a glimpse of him from a roped off area some distance from the spot where he's meditating. However, his handlers keep the boy cordoned off at night, which has lead some to be skeptical of his incredible fast. A scientific examination of the boy may be in the works.

Notorious pop singer, Vanilla Ice bed-mate, and nude hitch-hiker, Madonna has a number of Kabbalist Rabbi's pissed after she dedicated a song on her forthcoming album 'Confessions On A Dancefloor' to 16th Century Rabbi Yitzhak Luria who founded the modern form of mystic Judaism known as Lurianic Kabbalah, and who some secretly beleived was the messiah.

Rabbi Rafael Cohen, head of a seminary named after Luria, suggested Madonna's actions could lead to divine retribution.

"Jewish law forbids the use of the name of the holy rabbi for profit. Her act is just simply unacceptable and I can only sympathize for her because of the punishment that she is going to receive from the heavens," Cohen told the newspaper.

Another rabbi called for Madonna to be thrown out of the community.

"Such a woman brings great sin on kabbalah," Rabbi Israel Deri told Maariv. "I hope that we will have the strength to prevent her from bringing sin upon the holiness of the rabbi (Yitzhak Luria)."

Hey, guys, it could be a lot worse. I mean, at least she's not publishing pictures of her and dude in a thong in some ill-advised "Kabbal-ah-rotica" coffee table book or something. Right?

Not content with the prestige that comes when one of your leaders is named doppleganger for Emperor Palpatine the 16.3 million-member Southern Baptist Church has announced an ambitious plan to baptize 1 million new members between October 30th 2005 and September 30th of next year.

"We have been playing it too close to the church," said President Bobby Welch, who will speak at the opening of the two-day convention Tuesday following a satellite address by President Bush. "Southern Baptists have to reconnect themselves with the communities and the needs of the people in the communities."

So I guess all of us non-Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Agnostics, Athiests, Pagans, Wiccans, Satanists, Scientologists and "others" should keep an eye out for more drive-by baptisms over the next year.

Remember to watch out! Because this time it may have been Tom Cruise, but the next person to catch a load of Jesus spunk to the grill could be YOU!

So by now I assume everybody is aware that archeologists believe they have found the burial box of James, the brother of Jesus in the collection of some shady antiquities collector. Could it be that this is the box that held the bones of Jesus' brother? Well, maybe. I think it's interesting that the inscription makes refference to James as Jesus' brother and calls them both sons of Joseph. This is right on as historically Jesus was recognized as Joseph's blood son and Jesus' proper name would've been Y'shua ben Yosef, or Joshua son of Joseph. The problem I have is in the way James' name is treated. It's alleged that James was an important figure in the Jerusalem of his time and his title Yacob Ha Tzadik, or James The Just was well known. I would think his burial box would've been inscribed with his title as well as his status as the brother of Jesus, not just the fact that he was the brother of the crucified revolutionary. But that's just my little piece of supposition. The manner in which this box was found lends itself to being fruadulent, but I'm sure they're going to do more tests on it. Either way, it's kind of nice to see that more attention is being paid to real historical Jewish personages behind the Christian mythology.

On a completely different note I gotta say that the new Jay-Z track "Hovie Baby" is ridiculously dope. This joint is fire jackson! Jay drops some incredible rhyme schemes the likes of which are not being touched by anybody right about now. This just might be the finest lyrical performance of his career. So, despite the wackness of the lead single "Bonnie & Clyde '03" with the 2pac jacking and annoying background vocals from Beyonce, if this other record is any indication then Jay's new album just may be something to keep your ears open for.