(With a huge Hat Tip to Mr. Grahame, we offer you this bit of silliness that he forwarded to our inbox. It’s another one that might offend folks, but at least it will do it equally.)

Stop it…

Suppose you’re traveling to work and you see a stop sign. What do you do? That depends on how you exegete the stop sign.

1. A postmodernist deconstructs the sign with his bumper, ending forever the tyranny of the north-south traffic over the east-west traffic.

2. Similarly, a Marxist sees a stop sign as an instrument of class conflict. He concludes that the bourgeoisie use the north-south road and obstruct the progress of the workers on the east-west road.

3. A serious and educated Catholic believes that he cannot understand the stop sign apart from its interpretive community and their tradition. Observing that the interpretive community doesn’t take it too seriously, he doesn’t feel obligated to take it too seriously either.

4. An average Catholic doesn’t bother to read the sign, but he’ll stop if the car in front of him does.

5. A fundamentalist, allowing the text to interpret itself, stops at the stop sign and waits for it to tell him to go.

6. A suburban preacher looks up “STOP” in his lexicons of English and discovers that it can mean: 1) something which prevents motion, such as a plug for a drain, or a block of wood that prevents a door from closing; 2) a location where a train or bus lets off passengers. The main point of his sermon the following Sunday on this text is: when you see a stop sign, it is a place where traffic is naturally clogged, so it is a good place to let off passengers from your car.

7. An orthodox Jew does one of two things: 1) Take another route to work that doesn’t have a stop sign so that he doesn’t run the risk of disobeying the Law 2) Stop at the stop sign, say “Blessed art thou, O Lord our God, king of the universe, who hast given us thy commandment to stop,” wait 3 seconds according to his watch, and then proceed. Incidentally, the Talmud has the following comments on this passage: R[abbi] Meir says: He who does not stop shall not live long. R. Hillel says: Cursed is he who does not count to three before proceeding. R. Simon ben Yudah says: Why three? Because the Holy One, blessed be He, gave us the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings. R. ben Isaac says: Because of the three patriarchs. R. Yehuda says: Why bless the Lord at a stop sign? Because it says: “Be still, and know that I am God.” R. Hezekiel says: When Jephthah returned from defeating the Ammonites, the Holy One, blessed be He, knew that a donkey would run out of the house and overtake his daughter; but Jephthah did not stop at the stop sign, and the donkey did not have time to come out. For this reason he saw his daughter first and lost her. Thus he was judged for his transgression at the stop sign. R. Gamaliel says: R. Hillel, when he was a baby, never spoke a word, though his parents tried to teach him by speaking and showing him the words on a scroll. One day his father was driving through town and did not stop at the sign. Young Hillel called out: “Stop, father!” In this way, he began reading and speaking at the same time. Thus it is written: “Out of the mouth of babes.” R. ben Jacob says: Where did the stop sign come from? Out of the sky, for it is written: “Forever, O Lord, your word is fixed in the heavens.” R. ben Nathan says: When were stop signs created? On the fourth day, for it is written: “let them serve as signs.” R. Yeshuah says: … [continues for three more pages]

8. A Karaite does the same thing as an orthodox Jew, except that he waits 10 seconds instead of 3. He also replaces his brake lights with 1000 watt searchlights and connects his horn so that it is activated whenever he touches the brake pedal.

9. A Unitarian concludes that the passage “STOP” undoubtedly was never uttered by Jesus himself, but belongs entirely to stage III of the gospel tradition, when the church was first confronted by traffic in its parking lot.

10. A divinity professor notices that there is no stop sign on Mark street but there is one on Matthew and Luke streets, and concludes that the ones on Luke and Matthew streets are both copied from a sign on a completely hypothetical street called “Q”. There is an excellent 300 page discussion of speculations on the origin of these stop signs and the differences between the stop signs on Matthew and Luke street in the scholar’s commentary on the passage. There is an unfortunately omission in the commentary, however; the author apparently
forgot to explain what the text means.

11. A tenured divinity professor points out that there are a number of stylistic differences between the first and second half of the passage “STOP”. For example, “ST” contains no enclosed areas and 5 line endings, whereas “OP” contains two enclosed areas and only one line termination. He concludes that the author for the second part is different from the author for the first part and probably lived hundreds of years later. Later scholars determine that the second half is itself actually written by two separate authors because of similar stylistic differences between the “O” and the “P”.

12. A rival scholar notes in his commentary that the stop sign would fit better into the context three streets back. (Unfortunately, he neglects to explain why in his commentary.) Clearly it was moved to its present location by a later redactor. He thus exegetes the intersection as though the stop sign were not there.

13. Because of the difficulties in interpretation, a later scholar emends the text, changing “T” to “H”. “SHOP” is much easier to understand in context than “STOP” because of the multiplicity of stores in the area. The textual corruption probably occurred because “SHOP” is so similar to “STOP” on the sign several streets back that it is a natural mistake for a scribe to make. Thus the sign should be interpreted to announce the existence of a shopping area.

(A Hat Tip to Matt for telling us about this one.)

(A Hat Tip to Jen for forwarding us this bit of silliness she found circling the internet. We had no idea that The Beast could come with a warranty. Enjoy!)

[tag]Numbers of the Beast[/tag]

Well, most of you have heard that “666″ is the number of the “[tag]Beast[/tag]” … but did you know that:

$699.25 – Price of the Beast plus 5% sales tax

$769.95 – Price of the Beast with all accessories and replacement soul

$766.25 – Price of the Beast with extended 6 year/66,000 mile warranty

1-666 – Area code of the Beast

00666 – Zip code of the Beast

110 110 110 – Binary code of the Beast

1-900-666-0666 – Live Beasts! One-on-one pacts! Call Now! $6.66/minute. Over 16 please.

1-666 – Interstate Highway of the Beast

668 Hell Street – Next-door neighbor of the Beast

666 F – Oven temperature for roast Beast

666k – Retirement plan of the Beast

9666 – US Dow Jones Industrial Average Index is heading to

16661 – Hong Kong Hang Seng Stock Index is away from

6.66 % – 6 year CD interest rate at First Beast National Bank, $666 minimum deposit.

RU-666 – Abortion drug for the Beast

Levis 666 – Designer jeans for the Beast

Phillips 666 – Gasoline of The Beast

665.99999987 — Pentium number of the Beast

666i – BMW of the Beast

i66686 – CPU of the Beast

66.6 Kbps – Modem of the Beast

Windows666 – Windows upgrade for the Beast

Error 666 – Attempt to access daemon or demon failed

EECS 666 – Intoduction to Beast programming

http://www.666.com – Home page of the Beast

beast@666.com – Email address of the Beast

(A hat tip goes out to Joe for sending us this bit of silliness he found circling the Internet. We agree, by the way, it’s always good to be clear…even in the silliest of situations.)

[tag]Proper Communication is Important[/tag]

Two nuns, Sister Marilyn and Sister Helen, are traveling through Europe in their car. They get to Transylvania and are stopped at a traffic light.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, a tiny little [tag]Dracula[/tag] jumps onto the hood of the car and hisses through the windshield.

“Quick, quick!” shouts Sister Marilyn. “What shall we do?”

“Turn the windshield wipers on. That will get rid of the abomination,” says Sister Helen.

Sister Marilyn switches them on, knocking Dracula about, but he clings on and continues hissing at the nuns.

“What shall I do now?” she shouts.

“Switch on the windshield washer. I filled it up with Holy Water at the Vatican,” says Sister Helen.

Sister Marilyn turns on the windshield washer. Dracula screams as the water burns his skin, but he clings on and continues hissing at the nuns.

“Now what?” shouts Sister Marilyn?

“Show him your cross,” says Sister Helen.

“Now you’re talking,” says Sister Marilyn.

She opens the window and shouts, “Get the fuck off our car!”

(A hat tip goes out to Alyse, Bernie, and Vickie for this bit of silliness. It’s always nice to see Forrest Gump outwit someone, don’t you think?)

[tag]Forrest Gump[/tag] Goes To [tag]Heaven[/tag]

The day finally arrived. Forrest Gump dies and goes to Heaven. He is at the Pearly Gates, met by [tag]St. Peter[/tag] himself. However, the gates are closed, and Forrest approaches the gatekeeper.

St. Peter said, “Well, Forrest, it is certainly good to see you. We have heard a lot about you I must tell you, though, that the place is filling up fast, and we have been administering an entrance examination for everyone. The test is short, but you have to pass it before you can get into Heaven.”

Forrest responds, “It sure is good to be here, St. Peter, sir. But nobody ever told me about any entrance exam. I sure hope that the test ain’t too hard. Life was a big enough test as it was.”

St. Peter continued, “Yes, I know, Forrest, but the test is only three questions.

First: What two days of the week begin with the letter T?

Second: How many seconds are there in a year?

Third: What is God’s first name?”

Forrest leaves to think the questions over. He returns the next day and sees St. Peter, who waves him up, and says, “Now that you have had a chance to think the questions over, tell me your answers”

Forrest replied, “Well, the first one — which two days in the week begins with the letter “T”? Shucks, that one is easy. That would be Today and Tomorrow.”

The Saint’s eyes opened wide and he exclaimed, “Forrest, that is not what I was thinking, but you do have a point, and I guess I did not specify, so I will give you credit for that answer. How about the next one?” asked St. Peter.

“How many seconds in a year? Now that one is harder,” replied Forrest, but I thunk and thunk about that, and I guess the only answer can be twelve.”

Astounded, St. Peter said, “Twelve? Twelve? Forrest, how in Heaven’s name could you come up with twelve seconds in a year?”

Forrest replied, “Shucks, there’s got to be twelve: January 2nd, February 2nd, March 2nd… ”

“Hold it,” interrupts St. Peter. “I see where you are going with this, and I see your point, though that was not quite what I had in mind….but I will have to give you credit for that one, too. Let us go on with the third and final question. Can you tell me God’s first name”?

“Sure,” Forrest replied, “it’s Andy.”

“Andy?” exclaimed an exasperated and frustrated St Peter. “Ok, I can understand how you came up with your answers to my first two questions, but just how in the world did you come up with the name Andy as the first name of God?”

“Shucks, that was the easiest one of all,” Forrest replied. “I learnt it from the song, “ANDY WALKS WITH ME, ANDY TALKS WITH ME, ANDY TELLS ME I AM HIS OWN.”

St. Peter opened the Pearly Gates, and said: “Run Forrest, run.”