Friday, February 7, 2014

He Put the Ten Commandments in the State Capitol, and you won’t believe what happened next!


A little while ago a judge erected a statue of the Ten Commandments at the court house in his state capitol. You probably didn’t hear about it because there are many more important things in the world, but if you did, you might have heard that some people were upset about it.

The first great protest came from the Satanists – all eighteen of them who lived in the major metropolitan area, and several thousands of their friends who donated funds online. The Satanists delivered a hulking goat-headed statue of their lord and demanded that, if Judeo-Christian religions could be commemorated, then so must theirs.

The local Hindu Temple called the governor the next morning to inquire how many of their gods were allowed representation. Methodists, Roman Catholics and Unitarian Universalists called up asking if that one statue in the capitol was their only shot, because each caller had his or her own idea of what belonged, and really, shouldn’t every denomination have its representation?

Atheists lobbied for a statue as well, perhaps one commemorating the atom, the substance of which all humans are made. Their lobby was shot down by a majority who claimed the absence of a statue was the best statue to atheism, and given that most of the capitol had no statues, atheists were technically overrepresented.

Soon Christians were protesting that, as they made up over 70% of the local population, they should get seven tenths of the state capitol covered in their statues. One per denomination was offensively dismissive of their numbers and sincerity. Soon came great granite crosses, recreations of The Mount, and busts of the Lord in contemplation, and agony, and ecstasy, and in a diversity of ethnicities, as the Black Baptists and Roman Catholic groups seemed to differ as to how their Lord had looked. Even local Archaeological Society, a secular institution that worshipped historical accuracy, modeled the most plausible visage of Christ and had it 3D printed and donated it to the increasing crowd of idolatry.

Within one week people summoned to the court house could no longer navigate the number of religious icons in order to reach chambers. Several people who were one hearing away from sentencing for high felonies had to be dismissed – a miracle, in their eyes. The judge who had installed the original Ten Commandments was never found, and it’s suspected that he left town on one of the trucks carrying all the statues, so as to avoid the sheer of tonnage of press chasing him. There’s a statue of him hunched over reading at the court house now, though the stone commandments he would have read have since been removed.

18 comments:

  1. I would have fled if I were him, too. The part about the atheists being over-represented by lack of statues was funny.

    The Warrior Muse

    ReplyDelete
  2. A very comprehensive statuary. Everyone should just have voted for a statue of Ganesh, because, well... elephants

    ReplyDelete
  3. Yeah, atheists being over-represented was funny. Shows you how out of control something can get.

    ReplyDelete
  4. lol, as an atheist, I particularly loved how the atheists were represented by the absence of a statue!

    ReplyDelete
  5. This was great, from the Buzzfeed headline all the way down. Something like this *needs* to happen, then maybe we can get back to whatever "normal" looks like.

    And I too laughed at "the absence of a statue was the best statue to atheism, and given that most of the capitol had no statues, atheists were technically overrepresented."

    ReplyDelete
  6. "Several people who were one hearing away from sentencing for high felonies had to be dismissed – a miracle, in their eyes." At least religion made a positive impact on one group. It's funny (and sad) how religion can raise the level of insanity and lower discourse at the same time.

    ReplyDelete
  7. atheists were technically overrepresented -> like everyone else, I thought this was funny.

    And I can't really blame the judge for pulling a disappearing act, considering the insanity he caused.

    It was a good time for the felons who were dismissed. LOL

    ReplyDelete
  8. That was great. Very article-like. I almost expected a source link at the end.

    ReplyDelete
  9. This was actually quite hilarious. Shows how sensitive religion still is nowadays.

    www.modernworld4.blogspot.com

    ReplyDelete
  10. I love how the knock-on effect just grew and grew until everything devolved into idiocy. Nicely done :)

    ReplyDelete
  11. Oh my, just look what he started. :-)

    I didn't half smile at the 'logic' of Para 4. :-)

    ReplyDelete
  12. Great work here John, a "full" story with the potential of generating much debate.
    Like Stephen, I find it interesting (and terribly sad) that religion can cause so much turmoil when it's supposed to do the direct opposite.

    ReplyDelete
  13. This is too funny! And as atheist I think that was the funniest part!

    ReplyDelete
  14. The image in my head is of a clay statue market I once saw in Mexico... fun!

    One quibble: Satanism is a Judaeo-Christian religion. Specifically, it is a branch of Christianity -- just a branch that is not in line with the other branches.

    ReplyDelete
  15. I would have founded my own religion and demanded a statue too! Ha! Could be seen as a funny read via the way religions are all pretentious and demanding one over another, and for the same reason it's not funny at all.

    ReplyDelete
  16. That's odd. Suddenly my comment disappeared as I was writing it. At the risk of repeating myself, my favorite part was visualizing the building so full of statues that one could barely move.

    I was going to suggest the addition of a giant dollar sign for those who worship money/wealth, but then they would need to represent every other form of currency in the world...and so on, until finally the earth is nothing but statues and humanity dies out having used up all of its resources to build statues.

    ReplyDelete
  17. I love the idea about the atheists being overrepresented by having no statues!

    ReplyDelete
  18. Loved this piece, especially the atheist bit and the part where the archeologists used 3D printing for their statue. :)

    ReplyDelete

Counter est. March 2, 2008