The Funniest Shit You've Never Seen: God Edition

Written by Steve

Sunday, 09 May 2010 05:22

This article was originally published in the April issue of Bazooka magazine.

April is a month chock-full of holidays. In addition to April Fool’s Day, we’ve also got Easter and 4/20. For this month’s FSYNS, we thought we’d combine all three, because there’s nothing funnier when you’re stoned than religion. So without further ado, here’s some funny God-related stuff that should keep you giggling in between taking hits and wolfing down chocolate bunnies.

The Skeptics Annotate Bible (http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com)

As the name suggests, this site annotates the Bible from a skeptical viewpoint. You can read the Bible straight through, navigate by Book, or look up particular categories of wackiness, such as “Absurdities,” “Science and History,” or (because we know what our readers want) “Sex.” There are also pages related to specific topics, such as “What the Bible Says About Parenting,” which includes useful tips like “Disobedient children should be executed” (Exodus 21:15, among others) and “God’s instructions for selling your daughter” (Exodus 21:7). As an added bonus, the site also includes annotations of The Koran and The Book of Mormon.

The Landover Baptist Church (http://www.landoverbaptist.org/)

The Landover Baptist Church (“Guaranteeing Salvation Since 1960!) is a web site devoted to parody and satire of religious fundamentalism, especially those sects who believe that the Bible is the literal Word of God (and who are apparently unaware of the sheer number of times the book has been edited and translated). The site is sort of a religious version of The Onion, with headlines like “Tampons: Satan’s Little Cotton Fingers” and “Mind Altering Energy Drink Turns Senior High Bible Study into Godless Sex Orgy!” The site also offers a variety of fun merchandise, like the Landover Baptist Book Burning Club T-Shirts and Obama 666 coffee mugs.

Objective Ministries (http://objectiveministries.org/)

This web site claims to serve one primary purpose: to get the Landover Baptist website shut down. Of course, in reality the site is run either by Landover or by someone with a very similar sense of humor. Unlike Landover, which makes its parody status obvious, Objective Ministries plays it straight, doing a great job of selling the idea that it’s really written by religious wingnuts (when my friends and I first discovered the site several years ago, it took us about a week to decide whether or not it was serious). The site has lots of funny stuff, but by far my favorite sections are “The Creation Science Fair,” with projects like “My Uncle Is A Man Named Steve (Not A Monkey)” and “Rocks Can’t Evolve, Where Did They Come From Mr. Darwin?”; and the “4Kidz” section, with its mascot, Lambuel the Lamb and an assortment of other characters, like Hopsiah, the Kanga-Jew. The kids section includes fun activities, like “How to Make a Witness ‘Stache” ( “Look just like a youth rock minister!”) as well as important advice, like what to do if you spot an atheist (“TELL A PASTOR OR PARENT RIGHT AWAY!”).

Jack T. Chick (http://www.chick.com)

You may not know Jack Chick by name, but you’ve probably seen his work. He publishes those little comic book tracts that tell stories about people who either accept Jesus and go to Heaven or deny Christ and go to Hell. Unlike most of the others on the list, Jack is deadly serious about his particularly amoral brand of Christianity, but that doesn’t mean his site isn’t a lot of fun. Many of his tracts are available online, and if you’ve got a group of friends around, it’s surprisingly fun to do dramatic readings of the comics. Additionally, a Google search of “Jack Chick Parodies” should turn up several chick-like tracts about Cthulhu, Eris, and probably even the Flying Spaghetti Monster. While we’re on the subject of Chick parodies, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention Waxman’s Warriors, a role-playing adventure from Hex Games (the good folks who generously host the Bazooka web site) that takes place in the afterlife as laid out by Jack Chick. Whoever wrote that is obviously some kind of comic genius.

For those of you who got baked and forgot to pay your internet bills, there are also some funny God-related books worth checking out.

Towing Jehovah, by James Morrow

The premise of this book is very simple: God is dead, he’s two miles long, and he’s floating in the Atlantic. The Catholic Church wants to keep God’s demise quiet, so they hire a disgraced oil tanker captain (who was involved in an Exxon Valdez-type incident) to tow the body to the Arctic so it won’t rot before they figure out what to do with it. The book, which is hard to put down, manages to balance slightly absurd comedy with very insightful commentary on religion. My personal favorite scene happens after the crew, realizing that there’s no Heavenly father figure watching over them, has a big orgy of sex, gluttony, and all-purpose sin. When they come back to their senses, they’re stuck in the middle of the ocean with nothing to eat, so the ship’s priest has to perform a black mass to turn the body of God back into food. The book is followed up by two sequels (known collectively as the Corpus Dei trilogy) that follow God’s body as it’s put on trial and parts of it are turned into a Baptist amusement park and later sent into geosynchronous orbit. Morrow also has a few other theological comedies, including Only Begotten Daughter (about Jesus’ modern-day sister) and Bible Stories for Adults (a collection of short stories). All are well worth reading.

Good Omens: The Nice And Accurate Prophecies of Agnus Nutter, Witch by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett

This hilarious book by Gaiman (Sandman) and Pratchett (Discworld) is kind of a parody of movies like The Omen, and tells the story of the coming end of the world. The Anti-Christ has been born and the Apocalypse is on the way, but an angel and demon who have been on earth since the Garden of Eden (Crowley, the demon, was the snake who tempted Eve) decide that they kind of like earth and work together in order to prevent the End Times. The only problem is that the Anti-Christ was switched at birth with another child, so they’ve been watching the wrong kid the whole time. The book is often compared favorably with Douglas Adams’ Hitchhikers’ Guide to the Galaxy series, and the style is very similar to Adams’ work. At one time there were rumors of a Terry Gilliam film adaptation, but sadly the last I heard Gilliam couldn’t get funding and the rights went back into limbo.

Battle Pope by Robert Kirkman and Tony Moore

The initial Battle Pope series, self-published by Kirkman and Moore under the name Funk-o-Tron comics, told the story of Pope Oswald Leopold II, a hard-drinking, womanizing Pope who was called by God to save Saint Michael from Lucifer and the Hellcorp corporation in a post-rapture world overrun by demons. With his rather goofy sidekick Jesus H. Christ, Leo fights his way through demons and zombies to save Saint Mike. If the idea of a comic promoted by a T-shirt with a picture of the Pope and the slogan “Bring On The Whores!” sounds like fun, you should definitely check it out. The original mini-series, as well as a handful of other Battle Pope books, has been reprinted by Image Comics.

Finally, for those of you who aren’t into all the reading, here’s a good Jesus flick to check out:

Jesus Christ: Vampire Hunter

In Jesus Christ: Vampire Hunter, Jesus returns to earth to, if I remember correctly, fight vampires who are depleting the world of lesbians because lesbian skin protects them from sunlight. Or something. He is joined by a Luche Libre wrestler and periodically the film goes to a really freaky shot of John the Baptist giving you a really mean look. The movie is awful, but it’s such a surreal kind of awful that you can’t help but enjoy it.

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