***WARNING***

The following column may, in fact, be offensive to some readers. I just read it over and I think even I was slightly offended by parts of it. I've had it lying around for a little while and considered not posting it, especially after Rick recently posted a column in the same vein which got many of you reader's panties in a bunch. Some of the readers even sent ME hate mail to forward to Rick when they couldn't find his e-mail address!

At any rate, if you offend easily, are overly religious, or just have a stick up your ass in general, you might want to skip this column and head over to the "Celebs Without Makeup" section. As for the rest of you soulless bastards, read on.

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One of the most frequent questions posed to me over the past few weeks has been "Have you seen 'The Passion of the Christ'?" I haven't seen it, but I'm starting to become the minority--three weeks after its release, the film is still dominating the US box office. (The late J.C. opened a big can of whoop-ass all over "Starsky and Hutch" last weekend.) I must say this surprises me. I, like many other people, go to the movies to escape reality and forget about how badly my life sucks for a few hours. And somehow, a film that spends most of its running time showing a man getting savagely beaten and murdered does NOT sound like a popcorn-gobblin' good time at the movies. But maybe that's just me.

Now, I realize that many of you religious types would tell me I'm missing the entire point of the film. Maybe you're right about that--but we all spend our free time in different ways, don't we? Some of us spend our spare evenings at church trying to atone for our sins. And some of us spend our free time eating Easy Cheese, drinking beer and watching NHL games. (Guess which category I fall under?)

A lot of my co-workers just happen to be Catholic, and many of them take their faith very seriously. I watched them bemusedly as they walked around with ash smeared on their foreheads on Ash Wednesday, which is their way of giving Jesus props. That's nice of them to do that. Hell, if Dean's Planet readers wanted to smear Easy Cheese on their foreheads in honor of me, I'd be flattered. Who wouldn't be? I saw one of my fellow employees eating pizza last Friday, and he was carefully picking the pepperoni off. "What are you doing that for?", I asked him. "I'm not supposed to eat meat on Fridays during Lent," he explained. When I pressed him further, he actually admitted that he wasn't sure why his faith required this--I guess you could say he was just following orders from "the Boss", as it were. I'm not sure he needed to worry, though. I mean, really, does pepperoni even qualify as a meat product? And where does that shit come from, anyway? It's not like you can hunt for free-roaming pepperoni in the wild...

Listen, I'm not trying to pick on Catholics here. The Catholic church has enough problems right now without an asshole like me taking potshots at them. Besides, the concept of faith is subjective, just like everything else--it's just a matter of different strokes for different folks. Whether you worship Jesus, Buddha or even Bozo the Clown, it makes no fucking difference to me. Just leave me out of it. If you want to pray for my troubled soul to a deity of your choice, go right ahead. But do NOT preach your beliefs at me or bang on my door with religious literature in your hand in a vain attempt to try and "save" me. If you pull that bullshit, YOU'LL be the one in need of saving--especially when you find that my shoe has been shoved so far up your ass it will need to be surgically removed.

My own views of God and faith are somewhat outside the norm. I wasn't raised in a religious household and my parents never took us to church. I'm not sure why, exactly, but I do know that my dad spent a few of his formative years at a Catholic school. He doesn't speak glowingly of the experience--in fact, I wasn't even aware that he'd been raised Catholic until my grandmother's funeral. My brother, my cousins and I were tapped to be pallbearers and the poor priest conducting the service had no idea that we were not raised as Catholics. Needless to say, none of us had the slightest clue as to what the fuck we were doing. We must have looked like real retards to the priest, because in the middle of the service he leaned over and whispered "Weren't any of you alter boys?"

Many religious people have told me that my life will never be complete until I have a "personal relationship with God." What does THAT mean, anyway? Does that mean I could invite God over for a few beers? Call me cynical, but something about that concept gives me the willies. I'm not sure I WANT a "personal relationship" with God. I'm not very good at relationships, personal or otherwise. And what exactly would this relationship entail? Would God take a special interest in me if I had a "personal" relationship with Him? Would He nag me, like my mother does? Would He scrutinize every little thing I do and hold me to a higher standard? I know that God is supposedly impotent... er, omnipotent, but I've convinced myself that He's way too busy sorting out dead members of the Kennedy family to give two shits about what I'm doing.

Still, I can just see it now--I'd be sitting there in my living room trying to enjoy a nice porno video when a great voice would come booming out of the Heavens;

GOD: "MY CHILD, JUST WHAT IN THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?"

JEREMY: (Yanking hand from pants) "Nuthin'."

GOD: "IT LOOKS TO ME LIKE YOU'RE WATCHING A PORNO TAPE. YOU KNOW, IF I'VE TOLD YOU ONCE, I'VE TOLD YOU A THOUSAND TIMES... IT'S A SIN TO LOOK AT A WOMAN'S BODY WITH LUST IN YOUR HEART."

JEREMY: (Innocently) "Really?"

GOD: "IT'S ALSO A SIN TO JERK OFF."

JEREMY: "I wasn't! I was... uh... scratching my balls!"

GOD: "I EXPECTED A LOT BETTER FROM YOU. SEX IS SUPPOSED TO BE USED FOR PROCREATION ONLY."

JEREMY: (Confused) Used for what?

GOD: "MAKING BABIES, MORON."

JEREMY: "Oh. I think that's what they're doing in this video, God."

GOD: "NO, THEY AREN'T."

JEREMY: "Sure they are! Look, that guy's not even wearing a rubber! See?"

You can call me a heathen all you want, but I don't believe in that angry God found in the Old Testament. I think that maybe He's calmed down considerably in His old age. Instead of flooding the world and killing us all like He did in the days of Noah, he's probably taken up shuffleboard to keep himself relaxed. And I also think that God must have a wry sense of humor, considering some of the shit that's going on in the world. I don't picture him as some old man frowning down at me
from the sky, marking off points on my scorecard everytime He catches me ogling a woman's ass. I think He's more of a practical joker, doing things like making Justin Timberlake a star and gleefully laughing about it, saying "Just let them try and figure THAT one out!"

Still, joker or not, we've always been told that God loves us. He loves us so much that he sacrificed His own son to save mankind. My whole life, people have been telling me that Jesus died for my sins--but really, I don't like taking the blame for that one. I wasn't doing much
sinning two thousand years ago when Jesus was crucified. Why should I be held accountable for the actions of people in the past? That's almost as ridiculous as black people demanding slave reparations. Besides, the Bible tells us that all men are sinners and we all fall short of the
glory of God. Why should I feel guilty about the fact that God made me defective?

Before I end this column, please be aware that I'm not trying to offend anybody. I've read the Bible, and if people want to live their lives based on Jesus's teachings, I see nothing wrong with that. And if it makes you happy, good for you. But after I saw some of the hatred directed at my fellow columnist Rick for his latest column, I think a few of you need to practice what you preach. Remember... love thy neighbor. Judge not, lest ye yourself be judged. Um... thou shalt not steal. (Okay, so I'm reaching on this one.)

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to get going. I invited God over to watch the hockey game tonight. I hope He remembers the Easy Cheese.

-JTL

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