God Is In The Animated Gifs

Warning: If you are religious, and blasphemy seriously bothers you, I suggest you skip this post. (Let's face it, it's probably not going to be that good anyway.) These are all meant to be cheeky, but they may offend you. Come back next week when I'll probably be talking about how the GO Train sucks or something.

I am an atheist, and I have been for a while now. Used to be a believer as a kid, then an agnostic in my teens. But the older I got, the more I thought about it and the more I saw of life, the more skeptical I became. Then Bruce Almighty came out, and that was pretty much the last straw.

However, I find religion, and more importantly, the social and cultural need for humans to believe in an omnipotent being and some sort of afterlife, fascinating. I like to talk and learn about religions and love to hear people's thoughts about it, even when they are opposed to mine - as long as it's an open dialogue and we can both present our ideas. One-sided proselytizing, however, tends to get my intellectual knickers in a metaphorical twist. I confess to getting a bit testy about it from time to time.

Over the years, people have taken it upon themselves to send me emails giving me their cogent arguments in favour of Christianity. That is to say, they've forwarded me graphic-heavy emails of animated gifs with bible verses written in glitter. This puzzles me as I've never sent even ONE email filled with secular sentiments and animated gifs of Richard Dawkins biting the head off of an alter boy to warrant receiving them.

Which gave me an idea. While I will never have the brass cojones to send out that kind of email to a real person, I can always write a blog post about it! That way I can let off a bit of steam and no one gets hurt (unless they actually read the blog, and how likely is that?)

Below are a few of my favourite real images sent to me in actual emails, each followed by my filthy heathen response.

*Note: unfortunately, the site that hosts these images doesn't allow the animated gifs to animate for some reason. That really takes the fun out of some of them, but what are you going to do? I'll give a hint as to what it should be doing in the image.

Image #1: (For some reason, this one works)

Apparent reverent sentiment: It is right to be humble in the face of Jesus' incredible sacrifice.
My immediate thought: Be with you in a minute, Jesus. Fish bone caught in my throat!
Image I would've used:



Image #2:


Apparent reverent sentiment: You should... uh... save yourself for Jesus... I guess? Wow.
My immediate thought: Eddie Rabbitt enjoys a lovely day at the spa, while a young girl has lots and LOTS of time to improve her embroidery skills.
Image I would've used:

Image #3: (The water should be rippling)


Apparent reverent sentiment: Jesus' peace is flowing like a river.
My immediate thought: *Yawn* Where's the zazz, people?
Image I would've used: (Hand is moving back and forth)



Image #4:



Apparent reverent sentiment: Jesus is cool! Certainly cool enough to relate to today's youth!
My immediate thought: "Jesus is one sexy mother-" "Shut your mouth!" "I'm just talkin' 'bout the son o' god!"
Image I would've used:



Image #5: (Wings are flapping)

Apparent reverent sentiment: I think it's pretty clear.
My immediate thought: Oh, for the love of--.
Image I would've used: