Showing posts with label JESUS. Show all posts
Showing posts with label JESUS. Show all posts

Monday, April 9, 2007

CRUCIFIXIONAL CHARACTER

We’ve stated previously our belief that Jesus Christ was created by Christian priests as a myth to justify their religious hegemony. The ensuing chicken/egg-style question of priority is therefore highly germane for a holiday that has appropriated similar imagery in its stated purpose of selling chocolate to the world. Yes, we’re talking about Easter: Halloween of the Spring.

Personally, we prefer Good Friday: any holiday that celebrates the execution of a nettlesome fantasy is fine by us. But the underpinnings of Easter are more troubling than even we would like to admit. By killing off a fabrication only to resurrect it, the Christians created a scenario in which they expected us to believe about anything, including but not limited to an eternal afterlife based on occult justice; the appearance of holy figures on billboards and foodstuffs; and the self-imposed celibacy of priests.

We walked the streets yesterday, and saw firsthand how unmoved modern humans were by thoughts of resurrection. It was a normal Sunday, all told – despite the occasional inflatable rabbit bouncing in the wind atop a front stoop, there was no wide-eyed rejoicing, no “hosanna”-hurling, no wearing of outlandish bonnets. To our knowledge, no Jews were persecuted. Instead, folks were shopping, eating a strange hybrid of breakfast and lunch, and following other such earthly pursuits. (We didn’t see much else, because we don’t like to be outside for that long.)

Shouldn’t we just let Easter go once and for all? The candy oligarchy will raise holy hell, sure, but aren’t there more interesting things to commemorate? On April 8, 1766, the first fire escape was patented (a wicker basket at the end of a pulley). On April 8, 1946, the League of Nations assembled for the last time. On April 8, 1972, the official nickname of Firth, Michigan was changed from “Outpost of the Mundane” to “America’s Arthritis Capital.” Wouldn’t any of these events make for a more wholesome, invigorating feast than what we saw yesterday? We could keep the basket motif, and instead of bunnies, we could have chocolate diplomats, and gnarled marzipan hands – kids won’t know the difference once they’ve put them in their mouths.

Of course, the Catholic Church has a trick up its sleeve. By changing the date of Easter each year, it spawns a system of stealth attacks on less well-fortified holidays. As soon as a new celebration begins to arise, the Easter behemoth waits until it lands on a Sunday, and BAM! – the poor thing is in tatters. Turn the other cheek indeed.

Friday, March 9, 2007

MYTH MANAGEMENT

We’ve decided that it was a bit unfair to devote multiple posts in a single week to revealing the nonexistence of various notable figures. In order to prevent us from pulling another such nasty trick in the future, we would like to clear the air by offering a complete list of Individuals Who Most People Assume Are Real But Actually Were Completely Made Up. If you receive leads about any other such figures that we may have missed, please inform us immediately.

PEOPLE THAT DON’T EXIST
Jesus
Jean Baudrillard
Jacques Derrida
Michel Foucault
Charles Dickens
Aristophanes
Chef Boy-ar-Dee
Grover Cleveland
Lee Harvey Oswald (duh)
Sidney Poitier
Charlie McCarthy
Alexander Graham Bell
King Henry III
Enrico Caruso
Mamie Eisenhower
Ponce de Leon
Sid Vicious
Susan B. Anthony
Hercules (but not Herakles)
Spike Jonze (but not Spike Jones)
Dave Thomas (the Wendy’s guy, not the SCTV star)
John D. Rockefeller
Ho Chi Minh
Phillip K. Dick
Lillian Gish
The Pope (any)
Cavemen
Mr. Snuffleupagus
Whoever invented Tupperware
That rich aunt you’re expecting to inherit money from
Jesus’s clone
All who disbelieve the arcane wisdom of The Apocryphist
Bob Hope
Bonus List:
PEOPLE WE CAN’T GET ENOUGH OF
Jennifer Hudson

Tuesday, March 6, 2007

OURS IS PURPLE

We are almost as tired of hearing about the fact that Jesus was a real human being as we were formerly tired of hearing about his status as the Son of God. Have 2000 years of this bullshit really taught you nothing? THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS A JESUS. Now, we know how difficult it is to prove a negative, but damned if we’re not going to try. (Also damned if we are, depending on what you subscribe to.)

A compelling piece of evidence for the case of there never having been a Jesus of any kind ever can be found in the following interview with a Wisconsin snow-plow driver named Morris Berkman. In 1973, Berkman received a visitation from the Angel Gabriel, who went on to tell him that Jesus did not exist before he was created by Christians. The below is excerpted from a 1977 pamphlet entitled Does God Know Your Favorite Color? It is, as we hope you have guessed by now, so far out of print that there is no record of it ever having been. (Much like Jesus! Except that in this case it’s real, whereas Jesus is not.)
INTERVIEWER: Tell us about your visitation.

MORRIS BERKMAN: Well, it was January 17, 1973. We had a blizzard the night before, and I had been working for about eleven hours. It was getting to be sunset, and I was on a back road, when my plow just stopped. Stalled out.

INTERVIEWER: Was there anything unusual about that?

MB: It was a pain in the ass.

INTERVIEWER: What happened next?

MB: Well, I was sitting in the cab there, about to radio back to the B and R -- that's Buildings and Roads -- when a raccoon started walking across the snow in front of me.

INTERVIEWER: Was it a normal raccoon?

MB: At first. But when it got in front of my plow, it turned and looked right at me. Into my soul, you know? I hate it when animals do that.

INTERVIEWER: What happened next?

MB: Well, it jumped onto the hood of the vehicle and started pawing at my windshield.

INTERVIEWER: Did you let it in?

MB: No sir! Those things have rabies!

INTERVIEWER: So how did you know it was an avatar of the Angel Gabriel?

MB: Well, it pointed at me with one of those sharp claws it had, and when I shook my head no, it cut out a perfect circle on the windshield and hopped in. It sat on the passenger seat.

INTERVIEWER: Did it speak to you?

MB: Yeah. But kind of in my mind, you know? It didn’t have a larynx.

INTERVIEWER: Uh-huh. What did it say?

MB: I’ll be honest, I didn’t understand the half of it. But it told me that it was the Angel Gabriel, and that it was visiting me because I had to be a prophet of truth.

INTERVIEWER: Did it say anything about Jesus?

MB: I’m getting there! God… So it told me there was no such person as Jesus. He was just a myth, that the priests created in order to make up Christianity and oppress people and crap.

INTERVIEWER: Did it tell you why the priests did this?

MB: It said a lot of stuff about free will and Providence and some Bible names that I couldn’t keep straight. But by this point, though, I was thinking, there’s a goddamn raccoon talking into my mind in the passenger seat of a snow-plow in the middle of Nowhere, Wisconsin. Why should I trust it?

INTERVIEWER: But you felt compelled to come out and tell your story.

MB: Hell yes. It told me if I didn’t, it would come into my house and give me rabies. But worse rabies than normal rabies, some kind of God rabies. And that it would bite me on my balls to do it.

INTERVIEWER: Did you ever stop to ask why a supposed agent of God would be trying to argue against the existence of Jesus, the belief in whom has been a major source of religious faith for millennia?

MB: No.

INTERVIEWER: Why not?

MB: I didn’t understand the question.
If anybody runs into a copy of Does God Know Your Favorite Color?, please write to us at theapocrpyhist@gmail.com. We will trade an uncut page of Series 1 Wacky Packages for it.