[Note: This satirical article has also been posted at my home blog, 360 Degree Skeptic]

Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. (1 John 2:15)

While Christians are supposed to keep their eyes on the prize to come, I have my eyes on lunch. Continuing with last Sunday’s theme of the sacred mundane, I present to you part II of my personal Bible: The Culinary Commandments.

Maybe the following commandments ought to be discussed in Sunday school sessions across the land, in addition to the customary 10. You know, teach the controversy. Why not let children hear alternatives so they can choose for themselves?

—

The Lord of my stomach spake the Commandments (which had been scribbled upon the most holy index card and attached to the fridge with a kitty-cat magnet). The kitchen echoed with these words:

Thou shalt put no other Lords before me, not even the Lord of thy intellect, and especially not the Lord of thy privates.

Thou shalt not make graven images in thy mashed potatoes, nor shall thy wrestle naked in thy coleslaw.

Thou shalt surely kill thy fish and fowl and swine and steer and cook these before eating of them. Raw flesh is food of foreigners and trendy infidels. Thou must save thyself from the temptation to sample a bite.

Thou shalt not steal the plumpest shrimp from the platter before thine dinner guests arrive. Thou shalt nibble on the ugly little ones.

Thou shalt not lie about thine Thanksgiving pumpkin pie being made from “scratch.” If thou has taken up thy can opener, thou must pay homage to Del Monte.

Thou shalt not commit an adulteration of thy pancake batter. If it ain’t broke, thou shalt not go throwing chocolate chips in there.

Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s grilled sirloin, though the savory smoke wafts into thine open window, and thou full knowest that thou is having tunafish casserole for dinner.

Now the Lord fell silent. He pulled a package from the freezer, put it in the microwave, and set it on “defrost.” The Lord continued . . . .

Remember thy napkin, and keep it in thy lap, and not just when dining with Grandma, who hath an eagle eye.

Honor thy father’s and thy mother’s recipes. Thou shalt never banish the blessed, original ingredients and in their stead use the lesser, “low-fat” kind. Nor shalt thou ever attempt to sneak soycheese, soyburgers, or soydogs into thine unsuspecting family’s supper.

Thou shalt not bear false witness about the milk. Thou shall check the expiration date and lift it to thy nose and thy mouth. For if thy wife drinks of it, and becomes ill and perishes, she will nevermore be in the mood to be fruitful.

And finally, the Lord said, For six days shalt thou toil at thy sink and at thy stove. But on the seventh day, thou may use thy cell phone to cry out for pizza. And though that prayer will be answered, thou shalt be charged for it.

Amen.

Related posts:

1. The Genesis of Dessert

“Today I Quit Being a Christian” By Jesus Christ

Interview by Nick Farrantello

This just in:  Today, on his Twitter page, Jesus Christ, philosopher and rumored “Son of God” announced “I quit being a Christian.  I’m out. ”

Twitter followers were stunned.  “I refuse to be anti-gay. I refuse to be anti-feminist.  I refuse to be anti-science, anti-movies, anti-Halloween, anti-Harry Potter, anti-Teletubbies, anti-science fiction conventions, anti-Indian food, anti-Large Hadron Collider, anti-big words, anti-yoga, anti-Karma Sutra (pages 17 thru 49), anti-news that isn’t Fox, anti-history books, anti-Wikipedia, anti-trees, and especially anti-Will and Grace.  I mean come on, who didn’t like Will and Grace.  Jack was so funny.  Am I right?”

“I just, in good conscience, can no longer associate myself with this quarrelsome, hostile (and frankly way too needy) group.  They all just need to get a life, always asking me for stuff.   “Can you give me the  lottery numbers?  Will you rig the football games so my team will win?  Can you smite the entire population of that country, over there, so I can continue to drive my SUV?”  It’s tiresome.

How do your friends feel about this decision?

I suppose I have a lot of Christian friends.  I never really thought about it.  They’re going to be disappointed.  I understand that, but let’s face it.  A lot of them had it coming.  I don’t mind sitting there listening to them talking about their kids or their crumby job, but when they start talking about burning Korans and blabbering about the Tea Party and how great Glen Beck is, I just turn off.  And when I started seeing the “Palin/Coulter 2012” bumper sticker, frankly, I thought my head was going to explode.

What do you say to your fans?

I know this might come as a shock to some, but those people who have been following me on Facebook, probably knew this was coming for a while, ever since my break with the Catholic Church in 05.  In the old days it was cool being Roman Catholic.   It was like a private party.   There was ritual, the churches were all glittery, John Paul was lovable.  You just wanted to squeeze him.  But when Ratzinger took over, it just stopped being fun.

How will this affect your books?

If you’re asking me if I think this will affect sales, I doubt it.  Face it.  People are looking for a certain type of thing when they buy my books.  That market has always been there and will always be there.  That’s not going to change. Besides, that whole thing kind of runs itself now.  I really don’t get involved with that part of my business.  To be really honest here, I wasn’t even very involved with the first book.  It was a fluke.  Who knew it would take off like that?  Now there are movies and games.  It’s a whole industry.  I can live a good life on the royalties from the action figures alone.

What is your opinion on the state of Christian literature today?

Being responsible for a few bestsellers myself, I find it harder and harder to get behind the Christian literature coming out these days.  Frank E. Peretti’s stuff is sooo “preachy,” and Tim LaHaye’s, Left Behind series?  It’s like reading The Road Warrior.  I’m sure Mel Gibson would love to star in the next movie.

What do you think about Ann Rice’s books?

I liked the vampire books.  But I have a real problem with Rice’s recent stuff.  The problem is that they claim to be based on exhaustive research by the author, but really it is nothing more than pure fiction.  Don’t get me wrong, fiction is my middle name, but let’s call a spade a spade here.

If you’re no longer a Christian, is there one denomination that you do like?

Frankly, I don’t have much use for any of ‘em.  I would prefer to walk away from the argument, from the confusion.  I’m not leaving just the Christians.  I want to leave the entire fray, the entire quarrel – the entire public face of religion.  I guess you could call me a reverse-theist or maybe call it anti-beleifism.  How about an athei-theologionism?   There probably is a better term for what I have become but god knows what it is.

What’s next for JC?

I think I need to be more comfortable with myself before I can go worrying about the whole world, you know what I’m saying?  Take some “me time.”  Maybe, I’ll do some traveling, head out East.  I know some people out there who said they would put me up for a few nights.

Related posts:

1. Jesus in the Football Huddle
2. Was Jesus a Stone Mason?
3. Book Review – Jesus Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible (and Why We Don’t Know About Them)

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I just love this strip.  Funny, irreligious, insightful.

A statement by a Supreme Court justice comes to mind: I know pornography when I see it. Similarly, heresy and humor are largely, if not fully, in the eye of the beholder.  As a liberal atheist, in defining either pornography or heresy, I would probably define these differently than other people.  The question of outlawing one or the other can depend on what definition a person uses.

Should visual images ever be outlawed?  While I can think of images I consider highly offensive and immoral — starting but not limited to sex acts with children — I don’t know if the viewing or the possessing of such images should be illegal.  I really don’t know.  Words and deeds are two separate things, and we currently tend to group images closer to words than we do to deeds.  Should that change?

Of course, there is a big difference between images that display violence of some type against innocent individuals and violence against other targets.  What about images that merely offend one’s values?  At this point I have come to no comfortable answer.  But in such cases I always opt to err on the side of freedom.

While I would nearly instantaneously amend the schoolyard rhyme about sticks and stones to, sticks and stones will break my bones, but words will never hurt me, I’m not so certain about images.  Images are significantly more provocative, and hence motivating, than words.  They can more readily influence behavior.  And individuals might get hurt.  But I draw the line, as do many democrats, at protecting the powerless: children and minority groups in real physical danger . . .  As for the powerful and the non-human, have-at-it.  Corporations, nations, mythical creatures, gods.  Go ahead and crack an iron pipe, in words or images, across their knees.  For they will feel no pain.

What do you think?

Related posts:

1. Images that Speak