Semi-Random Utterances of which I Am Fond

God said, "Let there be light." Nothing happened for a few moments. Then God said, "Who the heck am I talking to?"


Give a man a fish, and you'll feed him for a day. Give him a religion, and he'll starve to death while praying for a

fish


A little boy prayed for a bike. Then he realized God doesn't work that way so he stole a bike and asked for

forgiveness.


Every time someone predicts the date of the end of the world, God pushes the date back a little, just to be funny.


The religion of one age is the literary entertainment of the next.


On the 6th day, God created Man. On the 7th day, Man returned the favor.


If money is the root of all evil, why do churches want it so badly?


Is it an accident that the symbol of a bishop is a crook and the sign of an archbishop is a double-cross?


If Jesus was a Jew, how did he get a Spanish name?


Why does the Vatican have lightning rods?


If Noah took two of every animal on the ark with him, then what did they eat?


Did Noah bring termites with him on his ark?


If God's love is unconditional, then why does hell exist?


If man is fallible, is it possible his interpretations of religion are as well?


If God is all-knowing, why is prayer necessary?


"Everything Happens For a Reason"
What It's Supposed To Mean

All this suffering is part of a cosmically divine plan.

Why I Hate It

I suppose this cliche wouldn't be intolerable if it were merely meant to be taken literally. Everything does happen

for a reason. People die young because they get hit by trains or get cancer. People are maimed and disfigured in

wars because of bombs. I mean, if that's all this cliche were trying to convey then it would just be vaguely

annoying. You'd assume the speaker were just some mental deficient who says things like "water is wet," "ice cream

is yummy," or "Tosh is funny."

But the annoying thing about this phrase is that the speaker believes he/she has some inside track to God or Fate or

whatever mystic unseen hand controls the universe. As if there is a power and that power decided there was an actual

reason to inflict a newborn baby with Trisomy 18 or have a woman get gang raped. And given the existence of this

rational force --that operates only with justification and reason-- who are you to question why someone ravaged your

wife, or blew apart your son, or took your leg? This cliche insists that either happy endings always exist ("see,

they never would have found that tumor, unless they were repairing that machete wound to your abdomen") or if there

is no happy ending for you then your suffering was part of some greater plan that benefited another ("don't be sad

that you were imprisoned for twenty years by a racist jury for a crime you didn't commit, I mean, think about the

valuable lesson you've taught us about bias in criminal juries!) I'm not saying all suffering is random and

pointless, or that nothing good can ever come out of a bad situation, but the arrogance that comes from the belief

that tragic events are always justified as part of a larger plan is just intolerable. I don't know why bad things

happen, but I do know that no one who throws this cliche around knows either. So to everyone keeping this miserable

expression alive, please leave people to their misery and save your cliche for yourself the next time you're walking

in the woods and step into a bear trap after getting shot in the eye by a drunken hunter.