I just got a look at the most recent issue of The Onion, and I have to say that it’s very, very well done. If you’ve not read them before, The Onion is one of the more biting online humor sites — basically, they use a news-site format to skewer whatever is going on in the world.
This issue is their special issue regarding the terrorist attacks, and I really think that it’s an incredibly effective series of articles — using humor and irony to point out very serious, deep truths. Plus, it’s really funny — and it’s nice to see someone able and willing to take the initiative to look at some of the opportunities for intelligent humor in the wake of the tragedies. Sometimes, laughter really can be the best medicine — and The Onion is giving us just the right dose.
Some of my favorite quotes come from the article God Angrily Clarifies ‘Don’t Kill’ Rule:
“I tried to put it in the simplest possible terms for you people, so you’d get it straight, because I thought it was pretty important,” said God, called Yahweh and Allah respectively in the Judaic and Muslim traditions. “I guess I figured I’d left no real room for confusion after putting it in a four-word sentence with one-syllable words, on the tablets I gave to Moses. How much more clear can I get?”
“To be honest, there’s some contradictory stuff in [the Bible], okay?” God said. “So I can see how it could be pretty misleading. I admit it — My bad. I did My best to inspire them, but a lot of imperfect human agents have misinterpreted My message over the millennia. Frankly, much of the material that got in there is dogmatic, doctrinal bullshit. I turn My head for a second and, suddenly, all this stuff about homosexuality gets into Leviticus, and everybody thinks it’s God’s will to kill gays. It absolutely drives Me up the wall.”
“I don’t care what faith you are, everybody’s been making this same mistake since the dawn of time,” God said. “The Muslims massacre the Hindus, the Hindus massacre the Muslims. The Buddhists, everybody massacres the Buddhists. The Jews, don’t even get me started on the hardline, right-wing, Meir Kahane-loving Israeli nationalists, man. And the Christians? You people believe in a Messiah who says, ‘Turn the other cheek,’ but you’ve been killing everybody you can get your hands on since the Crusades.”
Upon completing His outburst, God fell silent, standing quietly at the podium for several moments. Then, witnesses reported, God’s shoulders began to shake, and He wept.
Anyway, go check it out. There’s quite a few different articles, and so far all of them I find well worth reading.