Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

I really should read my own blog.

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

I was promised a recession.

No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

“Squeaker” McCarthy

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

Despite his magical powers, I don’t think Trump is thinking this through, to be honest.

No one could have predicted…

An almost top 10,000 blog!

We still have time to mess this up!

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

Schmidt just says fuck it, opens a tea shop.

Wow, I can’t imagine what it was like to comment in morse code.

Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?

When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

The revolution will be supervised.

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

You are here: Home / Riddle Me This, Jeebus

Riddle Me This, Jeebus

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So I was watching WVU do their best to lose to Marshall, and near the end of the game, there was a commercial for the cardiac unit at Ruby Memorial Hospital (which really is an amazingly good hospital), and after discussing the joint, they had a testimonial from this old guy who had had a heart attack, and he sang the praises of the unit, and then said “If it wasn’t for God and these doctors, I’d be dead.”

And look, he’s a sweet old guy, happy to be alive, but all I am doing while watching this is “WHY ARE YOU THANKING GOD FOR SAVING YOU- HE’S THE ONE THAT GAVE YOU THE HEART ATTACK IN THE FIRST FUCKING PLACE?”

And look, I know that according to Fox News and a lot of people, thinking this makes me a horrible person, because right now we apparently have some sort of fucked up social contract that I never agreed to where we all have to pretend we are shoulder deep up Santa’s pasty white Jesus blessed ass, but for fuck’s sake. Why does God get credit for all the good shit?

Every Super Bowl winner praises God. The losers gather and pray. Leon Festinger, anyone? How come no one on the losing side ever mans up in front of the camera and says “Jesus screwed us.”

THE END

Reader Interactions

125Comments

  1. 1.

    Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)

    England is crumbling in the first session of Day 3 of the Perth test. It’s looking more and more like the Ashes will be settled before the sides get to Sydney and Melbourne.

  3. 3.

    dmsilev

    When someone is saved from certain death by a strange concatenation of circumstances they say that’s a miracle. But of course if someone is killed by a freak chain of events – the oil spilled just there, the safety fence broken just there – that must also be a miracle. Just because it’s not nice doesn’t mean it’s not miraculous.

    Terry Pratchett, _Interesting Times_.

  4. 4.

    Scott S.

    It’s probably the same reason Harry Whittington apologized to Dick Cheney. What if the cranky old bastard decides to fuck you over even worse?

  5. 5.

    scav

    “If anything fits the description of miracle, it’s the lightning that hit the plane… God’s plan was thwarted by their [the plane crew and rescue teams] satanic competence.”

    Name that J?

  9. 9.

    Jebediah, RBG

    My office “adopts” a couple of families each Christmas and everybody buys presents for them. This year, one of the families is a grandma who is in charge of three young kids cuz Mom got deported. Also, each of these families includes a pediatric cancer patient.
    If God gets credit for saving that nice old man, He also gets credit for giving little kids cancer.

    ETA: I was going to try to put a humorous “button” at the end of this comment, but I’m too pissed off by the notion of pediatric cancer patients. (Some of whom have a deported mom.)

  10. 10.

    StringOnAStick

    I went to the memorial service today for a friend who died way too miserably and way too young; apparently that was God’s will.

  11. 11.

    Comrade Dread

    The best thing about The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus was Tom Waits as the Devil.

    I personally thank God for the good things in my life to acknowledge that while my actions may have contributed to my good fortune, there were a host of other factors involved that might have caused things to go another way. I also thank God for the good things in my life to remind me of just how good my life is even on the days when it sucks because there are people out there who don’t have families, who don’t have a house, who don’t have food to put in their stomachs and it reminds me that I need to give to them and support charities and government programs that help them.

    As to why I don’t thank God for the bad times in my life, it’s usually because I try to be honest in my prayers and not lie about how I’m feeling. If something f***ing sucks, I’ll say it f***ing sucks. I trust I’m not hurting His feelings by telling Him so.

  13. 13.

    Percysowner

    Every Super Bowl winner praises God. The losers gather and pray. Leon Festinger, anyone? How come no one on the losing side ever mans up in front of the camera and says “Jesus screwed us.”

    I knew a devout Christian who when she did something good she said God needed to be thanked and if she did something bad, the devil had been in charge. As far as I could see that girl never felt personally responsible for anything.

  15. 15.

    Tokyokie

    @efgoldman: Actually, Brett Butler, a devout Christian, was a member of that team, and he’d rip into teammates who said that sort of thing. I think his reasoning was God gave the players the ability to play the game at a high level, but what they did or didn’t do with that ability was their own doing.

    Always like Butler, and the Braves sending him to the Indians in the deal for Len Barker was a dark day in team history.

  16. 16.

    hildebrand

    I am with Rabbi Kushner on this one – I would rather posit a god of limited power and unlimited love and justice than vice versa.

  18. 18.

    KG

    They’ll tell you that The Lord works in mysterious ways, or that he’s testing us, or that trials and tribulations are necessary to enjoy the kingdom of heaven. It’s bullshit, of course. If there is a god, he doesn’t much care about us or our suffering… Or he can’t do anything about it.

  19. 19.

    Cervantes

    While your agony (or, at least, your irritation) appears to be real enough, John, I have to ask: do you think of religion as an edifice based primarily on reason?

  22. 22.

    scav

    For god so loved the world that he sent them his only quarterbacks and, no matter how good they all were, no matter how much they all obeyed each and every of his precepts, commandments, whims and carbo-loaded, generally half of them will be damned on any applicable weekend.

  25. 25.

    Cassidy

    I have no excuses, least of all for God. Like all tyrants, he is not worthy of the spit you would waste on negotiations. The deal we have is infinitely simpler – I don’t call him to account, and he extends me the same courtesy.

  26. 26.

    Paddy

    Why do some people point and ridicule loudly the poor and downtrodden then praise and whisper kudos about the rich and affluent? Hmm.

  27. 27.

    kdaug

    Oddest thing today. Sitting in my office, knock on the door. The BACK door. And then it opens, and some woman with a little child thing are talking to my dog, who was somewhere halfway between play and bite/tear/mangle.

    I came to the door, dressed in my usual dapper Saturday afternoon regalia. OK, “came to the door” probably doesn’t do it justice, cause the woman looked terrified, and I wasn’t smiling, and she stammered something about retrieving a lost ball from my back yard for the child thing. Which is fine (and I said so), but shit, damn, fuck, what are you opening my back door for? And coming halfway in house? And talking coochie-coos to the dog who, seriously, could have ripped that kid’s face off and asked for a biscuit afterwards?

    With a ~3 yr old kid leading the way? “Let’s go in here!!!”

    Images of the 10,000 ways this could have ended much worse all involve sirens and lights and testimonials from the other neighbors. And blood. I hate blood.

  28. 28.

    NotMax

    One director in a theater group to which I belonged in an on-again, off-again fashion got totally bent out of shape when I flatly refused to participate in the prayer circle to J.C. he insisted on having before every performance.

    Having a lead role, it was a safe stance to take, but would have opted out regardless.

    Also got into a row with the county when I found out from someone that one of the guest speakers at their mandatory DUI classes was a guy proselytizing that the only way to drive safely was to turn your soul over to you-know-who. Far as I know, that ended and he hasn’t collected his speaking fee from the public till in the 25 years since.

  30. 30.

    kdaug

    Oh, so I thank God for not having to clean up toddler face pieces off my floor today.

    That’s something. Right?

  31. 31.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    I know that according to Fox News and a lot of people, thinking this makes me a horrible person, because right now we apparently have some sort of fucked up social contract that I never agreed to where we all have to pretend we are shoulder deep up Santa’s pasty white Jesus blessed ass

    Tack on “Amen” and you’ve got the core prayer for a whole new religion right there. I can hear millions now reciting it nightly. Snif. Beautiful.

  32. 32.

    NotMax

    Every Super Bowl winner praises God.

    If the winning team at the Stupor Bowl got paid and the losing team got zero, might make for a livelier contest.

  34. 34.

    smike

    Even though their god has been responsible for a lot of pillaging, genocidal attacks (including the flood one, you know), and rape (including, evidently, one certain virgin a couple of thousands years ago), you’d better not talk shit about him because, you know, Hell. So, win or lose, thank god. He’s one mean sumbitch who will take you out if you cross him. But he is also a loving god if you know your place. And your place is to take whatever shit he throws at you and to heap upon him high praise. And maybe, someday before he kills you, he will stop throwing shit at you.

    Seems weird, but it just works that with with some gods.

  36. 36.

    srv

    And here the John Cole of the Left, War-on-Christmas Denialist, ranting about Christian expressions of freedom during Christmas Season.

    Baby Jesus Weeps.

  39. 39.

    scav

    @srv: Being mocked for internal incoherency is so just so total war on the jebus princesses that the whole being chewed on by lions thing or hanging about with nails poking through bodyparts just pales in comparison. Your halo blinds and stigmata turns the green one red.

  42. 42.

    jl

    I don’t know about Cole’s glib atheistic logic. Many sweet old guys and gals give themselves heart attacks and strokes through hideous food choices and health habits. That couldn’t happen in West By God Virginia of course, but there are other places.

    And maybe God tried as hard as s/he could to stop the heart attack and/or stroke but couldn’t. Hmmmm… how about that, master logician, Cole?

    But that brings up the puzzle of whether God could make rock too heavy for hermself to lift, or create an angel who could get prideful, and so evil and powerful that said fallen angel Satan could efeat hissm or herrem said God.

    Which confuses me, so, time for a cold beer out here on the left coast.

  46. 46.

    Keith P

    It’s like when fighters thank God for winning the fight (saw one do it tonight, in fact), but they never blame God when they lose. Just once I would like too see someone to say “It was God’s fault that I lost tonight”. Adrien Broner was a good candidate to do it, but he ran out of the ring too fast for that to happen (total lack of professionalism and class, which isn’t God’s fault).

  49. 49.

    David Koch

    Digya see they gave the Heisman Trophy today to a darkie!

    OUTRAGEOUS!

    Johnny Heisman was white! He’s a historical figure!

    Now the liberal media bias turns the Heisman into a black award!

    First they came for Christmas, then they stole the White House and the Vatican, then they came for Santa, then they came for Jesus, then they came for the Heisman Trophy….. WAKE UP sheeple! we’re inches away from liberal FEMA detention camps!

  51. 51.

    John Cole

    @jl: God’s allegedly omnipotent and omniscient (and not only that, a greedy dude, because some guy came down off a hill with a bunch of stones for the masses where God stated, quite clearly, that he is a jealous God), so if he can not stop a heart attack that he either caused or knew about, we might start to run into all sorts of ridiculous internal contradictions in this whole invisible deity bullshit.

  52. 52.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @John Cole: Cannot or will not? Remember the jealous part. What if the dude did something that pissed off the big guy? Like wearing a cotton/cashmere blend…

  54. 54.

    eemom

    @Jebediah, RBG:

    If God gets credit for saving that nice old man, He also gets credit for giving little kids cancer.

    “He that made kittens put snakes in the grass.”

    (Who said THAT, ye multitudinous BJ Gods of musical history?)

  60. 60.

    wasabi gasp

    I think it’s all hooey, too, but when I see my arm still attached after dropping one of the chainsaws, I thank god.

  62. 62.

    kwawk

    John Cole said:

    Every Super Bowl winner praises God. The losers gather and pray. Leon Festinger, anyone? How come no one on the losing side ever mans up in front of the camera and says “Jesus screwed us.”

    My thoughts are that if somebody, a divine being maybe, has the power to give you testicular cancer. It’s probably a good idea to refrain from giving criticizing them publicly.

    Just saying.

  63. 63.

    danielx

    Read somewhere about how every night of high school football season in Texas, teams on both sides of every game pray before the game…do the losers say God done forgot about us?

  65. 65.

    ruemara

    My mother-my entire family- loves to quote this verse: “I have never seen the righteous forsaken, nor his children begging bread.” The urge I have is to say in response, “That’s because I’ve never bothered to look”, but the FB fallout would be so irritating to deal with. Frankly, I’ve seen a lot of righteous types going through crap and it’s always some secret test that god is giving out. After a while of constant travail, I wondered if there’s not a god in the vein I was raised to believe, or if he was a huge asshole. Jury is still out.

  67. 67.

    kwawk

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    True. But this particular being as a nasty vindictive streak if you’re inclined to believe those things. Lot. Abraham. Job. Best not to challenge the being publicly. It gets real angry when it doesn’t get it’s way.

  69. 69.

    Churchlady320

    @hildebrand: Thank you. That IS the point. Anyone who thinks God saved them is insulting those who died or were harmed. God is not a cranky and capricious Santa Claus with a Big List but the life force among us all. The power of good and compassion arises from us and can be killed just as quickly by us. Life and death just ARE. It’s what we do for the living that matters – and is the manifestation of “God”.

  70. 70.

    Churchlady320

    @hildebrand: Thank you. That IS the point. Anyone who thinks God saved them is insulting those who died or were harmed. God is not a cranky and capricious Santa Claus with a Big List but the life force among us all. The power of good and compassion arises from us and can be killed just as quickly by us. Life and death just ARE. It’s what we do for the living that matters – and is the manifestation of “God” and the extension of Jesus as he taught us to be: expressions of unconditional love and just peace. And this IS the basis of contemporary Protestant and other manifestations of real Christianity and other compassionate and non hateful faith.

  78. 78.

    Villago Delenda Est

    John, I hear you on this. It drives me absolutely bonkers for people to praise some non-existent supernatural being for the actions of other humans.

    The worst offenders are the Mammon-worshiping scum who dare call themselves “Christians”.

  79. 79.

    angelfoot

    “All things scabbed and ulcerous,
    All pox both great and small,
    Putrid, foul and gangrenous,
    The Lord God made them all.
    AMEN.”

  80. 80.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Villago Delenda Est: Dude. One can also look at it as a way of trying to be humble. Not saying “Fuck yeah! I am the fucking best thing you have ever seen and if I had good offensive line you would not believe what I could have done. Fuck you, you puny little man.”

  81. 81.

    A Humble Lurker

    I just don’t care. Sometimes the atheists and the Jesus freaks just look too similar and I have to leave the room. To make popcorn. So I can come back and watch the ensuing blood shed with a proper nosh on hand.

  84. 84.

    angelfoot

    Also, football is a brutal and unforgiving sport run by greedy bastards. The players may be confused about their allegiance. If you gotta serve somebody.

  86. 86.

    NotMax

    @Omnes Omnibus

    “Fuck yeah! I am the fucking best thing you have ever seen and if I had good offensive line you would not believe what I could have done. Fuck you, you puny little man.”

    Popular psalm at the Church of Mr. T.

  88. 88.

    Violet

    Does anyone have a good explanation for why God has to be praised all the time? Seems like God must be awfully insecure to need all that praise. Churches just praise and praise and praise. Everything God does is perfect and he’s the most wonderful, greatest entity ever and believers can’t get enough of saying so to him.

    If he’s that great, why does he need to be praised all the time? Doesn’t he know he’s amazing? Is he insecure?

  93. 93.

    Radio One

    I think that, in a cosmic sense, God was right to ask Job what right he had to judge God for his decisions in the climax of the Book of Job. But by doing that, it makes God sort of an alien, divorced from human rationality or social constructs, and also divorces God from the central message of the Bible, that God has always had a personal stake in shaping humanity.

  94. 94.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    @Violet: Realizing that was less a serious question and more a rhetorical one, nonetheless I think there’s a serious answer.

    “Praise the Lord!” and the bowing and all the rest of it comes directly from a time when there were lords of the very human kind roaming the Earth, I mean more so than there are now, and they absolutely demanded constant displays of obedience and declarations by the peasants about how inferior and subservient they were. The Lord is great and I am not and so on. The minute one of the little people showed a slackening of awe, awff went his head or whatever.

    It’s a mechanism of control, basically. So in that sense the Lord in those cases was absolutely insecure about keeping his position, terrified most likely.

  95. 95.

    KG

    @A Humble Lurker: when I really want to fuck with the jeebus freaks and the atheists, I tell them that I’m a pagan and keep faith with the old gods… I’m honestly mostly agnostic but tend to believe if one god exists, it’s logical that a race of them could exist

    @Violet: Jesus actually told people to pray in private, which fits with his whole humility schtick. But there is a long line of evangelicalism within Christianity, going back to Paul, which hold that Christians have a duty to spread the good word of the one true god, to save other souls

  96. 96.

    Betty Cracker

    My sister (yes, la cucaracha) and I finally finished the goddamned Christmas cookies, just moments ago. It doesn’t matter how early we start. We’ll be boxing them up in the wee hours. Currently enjoying a nice red wine on the porch and watching a helluva storm across a lake that is headed our way.

  99. 99.

    Ruckus

    If he didn’t get credit for all the good stuff, such as it is, then he could only get credit for all the shit, which we all notice because it happens so often. So if he only got credit for all the bad shit then we’d all think he is a pretty fucked up deity and wouldn’t give a damn at all.

    It’s just easier to not give an invisible sky pilot any credit or thought at all, good or bad. The world makes a lot more sense that way. One does have to take responsibility for stepping in dog shit however.

  101. 101.

    moderateindy

    Ther is an old comedy bit I remember where the comedian talks about this, his line was “We were doing just great until Jesus made me fumble….he hates our team.”
    A couple years ago I remember someone that survived a shark attack but lost a limb speak about how lucky he was that Jesus was with him. All I could think was, Jeebus must hae not have liked you too much, as he was too busy to get off the couch and help until after the shark started dining on you.

  105. 105.

    Comrade Mary

    Thank you, football game I cared not at all about, for making John post that Waits video. A-fucking-men.

  107. 107.

    bago

    This fumble was brought to you by the almighty. I don’t know what that receiver was up to last Tuesday, but the powers that be cursed him with fingers so buttery he should consider cooking pastry.

  114. 114.

    Ruckus

    @NotMax:
    The ad right above the crack house was for the book of mormon. Damn inappropriate considering the topic of this post. Or the other way around, what the hell do I know?

  115. 115.

    Betty Cracker

    @Ruckus: My sister and I have always been the best of friends — we’re 15 months apart in age and were close allies during all kinds of crazy family shit. But I know that’s definitely the exception rather than the rule. Most sisters seem to have much more fraught relationships. It’s sad. Who else in the world can totally understand your family dynamics?

  116. 116.

    Baud

    Why does God get credit for all the good shit?

    Beats me. I’m still trying to figure out why Republicans are treated the same way.

  117. 117.

    RepubAnon

    @Keith P: One particularly disgusting variant on this are the movies where a bunch of angels decide to help some depressed little kid by helping the kid’s favorite team make it to (or win) the championship game. (“Angels in the Outfield.”) Notice how, in the entire world, there’s only one such kid?

    I’ve always wanted to see a movie where there’s another bunch of angels helping another kid (kid #2) – whose favorite team happens to be the arch-rivals of kid #1’s favorite team. What happens next – do the rival teams of angels fight with each other?

    As for me, I find comfort in this thought: “”I used to think it was awful that life was so unfair. Then I thought, ‘wouldn’t it be much worse if life were fair, and all the terrible things that happen to us come because we actually deserve them?’ So now I take great comfort in the general hostility and unfairness of the universe.” Marcus Cole, Babylon 5: A Late Delivery from Avalon (#3.13)” (1996)”

  119. 119.

    Snarla

    I’m amused at the idea of God trying real hard to prevent a man from having a heart attack, but just not quite being able to stop it.

  120. 120.

    divF

    Don’t you know there ain’t no devil, there’s just God when he’s drunk.

    -Tom Waits, Heartattack and Vine”.

    One of my favorites.

  121. 121.

    Heliopause

    Why does God get credit for all the good shit?

    Christians have never been able to quite make sense of the contradictory portraits of the Deity in the Bible. The anthropomorphic Deity who gets pissed off and intervenes in human affairs coexists in the same text with the Hellenic Deity who is invisible and loves us from afar. Not surprising, then, that people don’t quite know how to work Him sensibly into the ups and downs of daily life.

  122. 122.

    kc

    How come no one on the losing side ever mans up in front of the camera and says “Jesus screwed us.”

    No one wants to piss God off. He’s very vengeful, you know.

  123. 123.

    karen

    How come no one on the losing side ever mans up in front of the camera and says “Jesus screwed us.”

    Because they don’t want any nuts with guns shooting them.

  124. 124.

    Joe Buck

    You’re going to hell for that, John. This is because, as every true Christian evidently knows, the all-loving God sends people like you to be burned and tortured for all eternity for making disrespectful jokes.

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