…and this is a 
I guess I'm not the only person in the world to get ranty emails from devout Christians. I was sent a copy of the message below which was originally sent to a store (name hidden to protect the guilty) which was selling a copy of the hideous leg lamp from the movie, A Christmas Story.
To 'Your Retail Store':
Today I went into your store, and I was appalled and disgusted that you blasphemed Almighty God Jesus Christ and His Most Holy Nativity Christmas by selling from your store shelves a filthy pornographic lamp that said "Christmas" Story on it. REMOVE THAT PIECE OF FILTHY, PORNOGRAPHIC BLASPHEMY FROM YOUR STORESHELVES AT ONCE! Christmas is the Most Holy and Sacred Birthday of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ of the Most Holy Perpetual Virgin Mary. It is MOST SACRED! How dare you blaspheme Jesus Christ with a filthy, disgusting, pornographic product by daring to put the Holy Name of Christ in Christmas on your filthy disgusting product! REMOVE THAT FILTHY, DISGUSTING, PORNOGRAPHIC, BLASPHEMOUS PRODUCT FROM YOUR SHELVES AT ONCE! Repent! And go to confession AT ONCE, and get down on your knees and beg Almighty God Jesus Christ to forgive you for your filthy pornograph blasphemy of the Sacred and Holy Name of Christmas, which is the Holy Nativity of the One and Only God, the Messiah, Jesus Christ. Almighty God will not let go unpunished those who blaspheme His Holy Son, or His Holy Nativity Christmas. It is Most Holy and Sacred, and you must always treat it in a Holy and Sacred manner.
I will NEVER shop in your stores again. And as long as you continue to sell that blasphemous filth of yours, I will encourage others to not to shop at 'Your Retail Store' because of your anti-Christ blasphemies, and will promote a BOYCOTT of 'Your Retail Store'.
In Deepest Adoration, Reverence and Respect for Almighty God Jesus Christ and his most Sacred Nativity Christmas.
P.S.: No e-mails from you will be received. Remove those filthy blasphemies from your shelves, as I fully intend to implement what I have stated.
(*Do not contact me about this inquiry.)
Category: Customer service
Type: Other service
Sub Type: Other
It makes me wonder if good Catholics tend to wear out the caps lock and shift keys on their keyboards at a faster rate than sane people.
Comments
Posted by: Sven DiMilo
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October 27, 2010 2:23 PM
dude needs to buy another adjective
Posted by: catalinsf
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October 27, 2010 2:27 PM
Hmm, okay... but what I want to know is, did the store comply with the terrorist demands?
Posted by: Bunkie2
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October 27, 2010 2:29 PM
That lamp is getting me kinda excited. BRB
Posted by: macleodcartoons
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October 27, 2010 2:30 PM
So THIS is what you'd find at an atheist porn site.
Posted by: Haruhiist
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October 27, 2010 2:32 PM
.... all I can say is the quality of porn is going down, if this qualifies
Posted by: rlrrlrll
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October 27, 2010 2:32 PM
I actually got one of those lamps for Christmas last year...
Posted by: Mattir-ritated
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October 27, 2010 2:32 PM
So I guess they don't want to know about the Baby Jesus Butt Plug?
Posted by: steve
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October 27, 2010 2:33 PM
So is this what they mean when they say "you can put that where the sun don't shine" ?
Posted by: pragerr
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October 27, 2010 2:35 PM
That movie is a Christmas classic -- my brother-in-law insists that we all watch it every year. I bet he'd love one of those lamps...
Posted by: Lee Picton
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October 27, 2010 2:35 PM
Either this is a woman who has lead a very sheltered life, or this is a poe. The only thing bad about the lamp is that it is in very bad taste, which I think is the point. Camp to the max.
Posted by: MrFire
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October 27, 2010 2:37 PM
Methinks the kook doth protest too much.
I'll take MENDACIOUS for $500 please, Mr Kw*k.
Posted by: Didaktylos
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October 27, 2010 2:37 PM
My middle sister always buys a new bad-taste-kitsch Xmas decoration every year.
Posted by: Randy (not Randy)
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October 27, 2010 2:40 PM
If the lamp is a replica from the movie, wouldn't that mean that "A Christmas Story" is a FILTHY, DISGUSTING, PORNOGRAPHIC, BLASPHEMOUS PRODUCT? Because I'd never seen it because it looked lame. Perhaps I need to re-think this.
Posted by: Jeffrey A. Myers
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October 27, 2010 2:41 PM
Given all the talk about 'aggressive atheists' or 'militant atheists' I can only assume that this would this qualify as militant Catholicism? Seriously, when was the last time an Atheist sent a retailer a letter like this? Oh wait...
Posted by: Orac
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October 27, 2010 2:43 PM
Absolutely. "A Christmas Story" is one of the greatest Christmas movies ever made. It's absolutely hilarious.
Posted by: Algernon, elle sans chapeau
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October 27, 2010 2:46 PM
Hahaha!
It must come from Italy.
I'd like to know what is pornographic about a... leg.
Posted by: Rasmus
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October 27, 2010 2:48 PM
Poor Mary.
Posted by: https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOawmRjbXoDgCq4N0aNWT2Z2RtB4Mm9CbDVys
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October 27, 2010 2:51 PM
The Christian Taliban has spoken!
I'm celebrating the war on Christmas.....
Posted by: h2atheist
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October 27, 2010 2:53 PM
We got something similar when I was an analyst for a catalog in NY. A woman was really upset that one of the advertising inserts that arrived with her order was for other catalogs, particularly a very ordinary swimsuit catalog. Children could see this, it's anti-family, etc.
The VP joked that we should respond with:
Posted by: matt.yarbrough
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October 27, 2010 2:55 PM
I'm always a bit surprised when it's Catholics being insane and reactionary. I realize that the Catholic Church is a right wing bureaucracy pushing totalitarianism, but I grew up in a liberal Jesuit church and always thought that the far right nut jobs were 'other' Christians, not Catholic ones.
By this age you'd think I'd have reconciled the vast difference between the church community I grew up in and the larger Catholic community...
Posted by: frustum.myopenid.com
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October 27, 2010 2:57 PM
The author of that letter has a bad case of religious testifying Tourette's. How can someone be so stridently humble before the Lord?
I wonder if this person talks like that in real life? You can almost hear the repressed feelings of something or other making cracks at the surface of his soul just before the lava of sin comes jetting out. This guy probably buys hookers on Saturday, spends Sunday flogging himself over it, and spends all week waiting for the next weekend.
Posted by: raven
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October 27, 2010 2:59 PM
OH NO!!!
Dammit, the War on the War on Xmas comes earlier and earlier every year.
We haven't even finished the War on Halloween. The fundies hate Halloween for some obscure reason. OTOH, they hate everything so who cares?
It has been another disappointment. I really haven't seen too many wingnut fundies ranting and raving about the children's holiday. Must be out looking for small female liberals to head stomp or something. The religious kooks have the attention span of flies.
Posted by: AJ Milne OM
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October 27, 2010 3:00 PM
Severed, too, really. I mean, shapely or not, I don't so much find myself thinking of sex, looking at it...
No, more a violent motor vehicle collision. Possibly involving a moving van carrying a lamp...
(/Granted, mebbe Cap'n Allcaps is into that kind of thing. And hey, who am I to judge?)
Posted by: kev_s
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October 27, 2010 3:01 PM
Do these lamps come in left and right footed models I wonder?
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp
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October 27, 2010 3:02 PM
Fragile
It must be from Italy
Posted by: eyespy
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October 27, 2010 3:02 PM
I'm marshalling my forces as we speak.
WAR!!1!!1!1!!!
Seriously, I love xmas. Big time.
I just don't need gob and jebus polluting what used to be a nice, simple tradition of partying on the winter solstice in case the sun god decided not to come back again.
Posted by: kev_s
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October 27, 2010 3:04 PM
... I mean, you'd probably want to buy a pair; one for each side of the Christmas tree ... and you wouldn't want them both to be right (or left) footed. It would spoil the effect.
Posted by: umkomasia
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October 27, 2010 3:06 PM
But that's my only chance at a major award!
Posted by: Sven DiMilo
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October 27, 2010 3:06 PM
Indeed, and that's because it faithfully retains the feel of the original: the great Jean Shepard.
Posted by: recovering catholic
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October 27, 2010 3:06 PM
You know, I used to think that any letter like that was made up. That was before I started reading Pharyngula.
Posted by: feralboy12
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October 27, 2010 3:07 PM
Jeez, lady, calm the hell down. It's just a lamp! Put down the gun! You'll shoot your eye out!
Posted by: kev_s
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October 27, 2010 3:07 PM
Actually this lamp is a good motif for science ... spreading light where the sun doesn't normally shine!
Posted by: Jules, Bride of Death
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October 27, 2010 3:09 PM
Watch it. It's a good one.Though it's not terribly pornographic (for a non-crazy person).
Posted by: Caine, ghetto féministe
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October 27, 2010 3:11 PM
A fake leg is pornographic? I don't want to know what this person thinks about prostheses.
Is this person trying to win some sort of praise contest?
Yeah, yeah. We hear this all the time, that god won't tolerate this, won't tolerate that, god will get you, yada, yada, yada. How is it that you have to write letters and dream up whacked schemes to "punish" a retail store? How about you let your god take care of the problem?
Oooh, they must be shakin' in their boots, Cupcake.
Posted by: Crystal
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October 27, 2010 3:12 PM
I guess he didnt watch the movie.
The funniest part is the repetition of FILTHY, PORNOGRAPHIC BLASPHEMY over and over.
Posted by: recovering catholic
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October 27, 2010 3:12 PM
Am I the only one who keeps looking for the "like" button here??
Posted by: lhikanliveson
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October 27, 2010 3:13 PM
Well, the guy has obviously not seen the movie in question, first off. Secondly, isn't Easter supposed to the be the big deal holiday in Christianity? I mean, if it's just Christmas, then whoop-de-doo, a guy was born, so what? Easter's supposed to be the big deal with the whole "dying for your sins" schtick, right?
Oh wait, I forgot: in America, "Christian" means "capitalist" now, and Easter doesn't sell shit.
Posted by: Dark Matter
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October 27, 2010 3:13 PM
---------------------------------------
Let him go down to the local megamart mall on
Black Friday and stand in front of the stampede
and do his little speech....
Or do a recital of the Grinch's "Maybe Christmas... perhaps...
means a little bit more! ..." speech.
Or tell 'em to just go home and play with their kids.
They'll flatten him into a pancake in six seconds flat.
---------------------------------
Black Friday stampede:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aeSgBL7gpAk&feature=related
Posted by: cnocspeireag
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October 27, 2010 3:15 PM
Oh, come on, someone has to call Poe.
Posted by: Tulse
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October 27, 2010 3:16 PM
Historically, Christmas was most definitely not a huge celebration in the Catholic Church. It is only relatively recently (perhaps the past hundred or so years) that is has become so. Easter was thought to be far more important. (As it was explained to me, anyone can be born, but it takes a god to rise again. Or, more seriously, it is only with Jesus' death and resurrection that salvation comes.)
Posted by: Dust.....spy
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October 27, 2010 3:17 PM
It's not the leg thats pornographic...it's the shoe! That's definitely a "fuck me pump" right there, it is.
Posted by: Carlie of the lacy, gently wafting adjectives
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October 27, 2010 3:17 PM
It is most definitely not a FILTHY, DISGUSTING, PORNOGRAPHIC, BLASPHEMOUS PRODUCT. It is a MAJOR AWARD!
Posted by: MrFire
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October 27, 2010 3:20 PM
Ah Caine, but see, when you finally die, at the age of 102, peacefully in a comfortable hospital bed, surrounded by your loved ones, with all your affairs resolved...on THAT day, God will KILL you!
Posted by: Jules, Bride of Death
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October 27, 2010 3:21 PM
Look, lady, do you want us to say Christmas or don't you?Posted by: https://me.yahoo.com/a/4Sbxdidln.gj_yIpnR9mQHE1qmE-#7d5ec
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October 27, 2010 3:21 PM
Don't you just love how these Christian freaks use words like ALMIGHTY GOD? They are too dumb to relaize that is an oxymoron. I say, let that all powerful being take care of his own damn self!
Posted by: Cor (formerly evil)
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October 27, 2010 3:21 PM
Walgreen's. I damn near bought one last night.
$29.95, sinful!
Posted by: Dark Matter
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October 27, 2010 3:23 PM
BLACK FRIDAY FIGHT!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehSkxg7wvyk&feature=related
Posted by: Caine, ghetto féministe
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October 27, 2010 3:25 PM
MrFire:
Oh, yes of course! Silly me, expecting almighty sacred whatever god to fight xyr own battles.
Posted by: Margaret
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October 27, 2010 3:26 PM
Well, it does have a certain rhythm to it. At least with an email you don't have to worry about the, um, DNA evidence left by the excitement.
Posted by: Lynna, OM
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October 27, 2010 3:29 PM
Is it just me, or is the letter writer stroking certain nether regions with every utterance of "filthy" and of "disgusting" -- all the while imagining, no doubt, reaching up the leg to turn the lamp on.
Christmas, christmas, christmas is coming early.
Posted by: https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOawmqD_mcUIrSfOTlK3iGVsnEDcZmI43srbI
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October 27, 2010 3:30 PM
Not only does my atheist brother have one of these, he has the entire collection of Christmas Story chachkis.
The movie is on one of the cable channels for 24 hours Christmas Eve through Christmas Day. And when you go over to my bro's house, that's what's on.
And then they play the South Park Christmas Album.
Merry fucking Christmas.
/Kevin the googlemess
Posted by: Rick Miller
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October 27, 2010 3:30 PM
Oh come on. That letter was just too far out there to believe.
Poe? Is that you, Poe?
Posted by: Doc Wally
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October 27, 2010 3:33 PM
Boy, if he thinks the leg-lamp is FILTHY, DISGUSTING, PORNOGRAPHIC, BLASPHEMOUS, I hope he doesn't see the coffee mug my dad owns...
Posted by: dkeane
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October 27, 2010 3:35 PM
I have that very leg lamp on my desk at work. I think it is the high heel that really does it for me.
Posted by: egaeus
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October 27, 2010 3:35 PM
@7 Mattir, there are some things in life that I am content never to see, or even know that they exist. That was one of those things.
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp
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October 27, 2010 3:38 PM
I will say, I do love that movie.
Posted by: dillman.alan
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October 27, 2010 3:40 PM
Its like there is this universal constant. As the world becomes more secular, the religious that remain have to ramp it up.
"Sacred Nativity Christmas"... Its like the vocabulary reduction in "1984".Double plus ungood, eh?
And that repeated forbiddance against contact kind of suggests they are sitting pining for some attention. Have you no heart PZ? Let us attend to the poor soul.
Posted by: Caine, ghetto féministe
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October 27, 2010 3:40 PM
Googlemess:
Pardon my picking a nit, but that would be tchotchkes. See here.
Posted by: Janine, The Little Top Of Venom, OM
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October 27, 2010 3:41 PM
What would the response be if the composer of this letter saw a Official Red Ryder Carbine-Action Two-Hundred-Shot Range Model Air Rifle on sale?
If you continue to sell THAT FILTHY, DISGUSTING, PORNOGRAPHIC, BLASPHEMOUS PRODUCT, YOU'LL SHOT YOUR EYE OUT!
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp
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October 27, 2010 3:42 PM
coffee everywhere
Posted by: Lynna, OM
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October 27, 2010 3:47 PM
The Colorado Republican candidate for Senate, Ken Buck, criticized President Obama for calling the White House Christmas tree a "holiday tree."
http://thinkprogress.org/2010/10/26/buck-church-state/
Buck's statement also included his stance of separation of church and state, namely that there should not be any separation.
Posted by: fauxrs
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October 27, 2010 3:47 PM
Before his Priest does......
Posted by: Sophist
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October 27, 2010 3:48 PM
If you continue to sell THAT FILTHY, DISGUSTING, PORNOGRAPHIC, BLASPHEMOUS PRODUCT, YOU'LL SHOT YOUR EYE OUT!
How do I shot eye?
Posted by: echotopia
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October 27, 2010 3:49 PM
Clearly this letter was written by Glenn Moon of Livonia, Michigan. Don't believe me? View this intro from youtube.
City of Livonia, pick up your trash!!! Or you'll put your eye out, kid!
Posted by: Janine, The Little Top Of Venom, OM
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October 27, 2010 3:50 PM
It seems that I shoot my "o" out.
Posted by: 'Tis Himself, OM
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October 27, 2010 3:51 PM
I love the lampshade. It looks just the thing to wear at certain parties.
Posted by: F
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October 27, 2010 3:56 PM
Well. It is nothing if not repetitive.
Posted by: Inky
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October 27, 2010 4:00 PM
I'm wondering if this email was a joke?
If not, I think that the guy must have had an erotic reaction to the lamp, felt guilty that he had a sinfully lustful thought connected to Jesus, and then tried to point the blaming finger on the naughty store that dared to tempt him so mercilessly.
To the writer:
Go jack off in the confession booth and get own with your day, you miserable idiot.
Posted by: oihorse
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October 27, 2010 4:04 PM
This overwhelmingly smells like a Poe.
Posted by: SirBedevere
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October 27, 2010 4:07 PM
#16
Perhaps the respondent is a dog?
(After all, on the Internet no one knows...)
Posted by: bbgunn071679
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October 27, 2010 4:10 PM
If I was the store owner, I'd send the guy a complimentary set of National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation moose mugs with a little note: "To help you chill out this holiday season. By the way, check out our extensive inventory of condoms and vibrators in our upcoming Easter catalog."
Posted by: epawson3
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October 27, 2010 4:10 PM
I love it… (*Do not contact me about this inquiry) If it were an inquiry, then WHY wouldn’t you want A RESPONSE.
in•quir•y
[in-kwahyuh r-ee]
-a seeking or REQUEST for truth, information, or knowledge.
-an investigation, as into an incident: a Congressional inquiry into the bribery charges.
-the act of INQUIRING or of SEEKING INFORMATION by questioning; interrogation.
-a QUESTION; query.
Posted by: MJM
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October 27, 2010 4:10 PM
The author is probably secretly basking in the warm glow of electric sex.
Posted by: https://me.yahoo.com/a/O.jullMj0I2VvJaxMMVeNKSfOPf73voLSxJAe9PdlOWwi8Y-#258ec
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October 27, 2010 4:12 PM
religious paranoid schizophrenic
or
paranoid schizophrenic religious ??
uncle frogy
Posted by: FrankT
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October 27, 2010 4:14 PM
So, they refuse to go into the store until their demands are met, but they also refuse to read any e-mails from the store. How would they even find out if their demands were met? They won't go into the store or accept correspondence.
-Frank
Posted by: Just Al
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October 27, 2010 4:16 PM
Wow, I get the feeling that this letter was intended to get back on god's good side after the writer accidentally saw an open page from the Sear's underwear catalog during the weekly book-burning. Probably typing furiously in case the rapture came early.
I never saw "A Christmas Story" all the way through, so I missed the reference to this, but there's a still at IMDB. Might have to watch it all the way this season.
Just for the sake of it, our new holiday staple is "Hogfather," worth the long runtime. And a pretty well done interpretation of Pratchett.
Posted by: Dhorvath, OM
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October 27, 2010 4:20 PM
How does that work? She is perpetually a virgin no matter how much sex she has? She is perpetually a virgin because she has the most other holes? I can never figure this stuff out.Posted by: Rey Fox, Bird Caller Guy
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October 27, 2010 4:31 PM
"REMOVE THAT PIECE OF FILTHY, PORNOGRAPHIC BLASPHEMY FROM YOUR STORESHELVES AT ONCE!"
Heh, make me. (That's the source of their rage, of course, that they can't make anyone do anything)
"YOU'LL SHOT YOUR EYE OUT!"
On one of the Simpsons DVDs, Dan Castellaneta revealed that the "S-M-R-T" part of the "I Am So Smart" song that Homer sings was a genuine slip-up in his performance, and speculated that his IQ actually goes down when he does the Homer voice. Similar things seem to happen when one tries to imitate a fundie.
"It makes me wonder if good Catholics tend to wear out the caps lock and shift keys on their keyboards at a faster rate than sane people."
I'll have to check for wear on my left and right carrot buttons from all that tagging that I do.
Posted by: Silič O'Nopolitanopoulos, Färschdbischuf Beesknees aus Ulm und Klein Elguth, Elector Pharynguline.
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October 27, 2010 4:34 PM
I have no clue where that ugly piece of kitsch is from, but it's really rather disturbing that it can turn anyone on like that.
Different strokes for different folks an' all tha', but I really really don't get gore and amputation fetishes.
Posted by: BlueIndependent
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October 27, 2010 4:37 PM
I'm somewhat intrigued as to what retailer this was, but chances may be that it was WalMart, soo...
Maybe this year we can do a pop-culture themed blasphemy challenge 2010, and we can all post YT vids or FB announcements about how we are "desecrating" a day which was set aside for pagan worship in the first place, and that was only made "sacred" - whatever the hell that is - in the 3rd century C.E.
I can kick things off with my miniaturized version of the Christmas Story lamp (for use as a plug-in night light), which I got as a gag gift last Xmas.
Posted by: Tulse
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October 27, 2010 4:37 PM
I second that recommendation. Then again, I have the hots for Susan.
Posted by: https://me.yahoo.com/a/4Sbxdidln.gj_yIpnR9mQHE1qmE-#7d5ec
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October 27, 2010 4:38 PM
And so this is Christmas
And what have we done...
Posted by: jaranath
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October 27, 2010 4:41 PM
My response would be:
Dear customer: Thank you for bringin this problem with the product "Christmas Story Lamp" to our attention. We agree that the product is inappropriate, and will be removing it from our shelves.
Additionally, we would like to commend you on the clear, powerful, compelling argument you made in your inquiry. Customer feedback such as yours is essential to our business, helping us to determine which products to offer and to gauge customer satisfaction with said products. We encourage quality customer feedback, and as such we wish to recognize your fine contribution with a Major Award. Please forward us a mailing address, and enjoy it with our compliments.
Posted by: mattheath
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October 27, 2010 4:42 PM
It's the Catholic version of this: http://slacktivist.typepad.com/slacktivist/2010/09/tf-reaching-for-the-cookie-sack.html
Posted by: nigelTheBold, Minister of Spankings
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October 27, 2010 4:44 PM
It's from the moderately-humorous (and fairly well-written) movie "A Christmas Story." It's not a bad movie, and definitely one of the better Christmas movies out there. Not as funny as "The Ref," nor as classic as the MST version of "Santa Claus Conquers the Martians," but definitely better than any Tim Allan Christmas movie, and a hell of a lot better than this piece of shit.
Posted by: Th0th
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October 27, 2010 4:48 PM
I bet that person used up all the glue...ON PURPOSE!
(If only Jean Shepherd were still alive to give a witty, owning remark to the letter writer).
Posted by: jaranath
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October 27, 2010 4:48 PM
Blueindependent @80:
Walgreens. $30.
Posted by: otrame
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October 27, 2010 4:50 PM
Jean Sheppard would think that letter was hilarious. It has to be either a Poe or someone with some serious need to live better chemically.
That movie IS Christmas to me.
The Little Orphan Annie decoder ring. The tongue stuck to the pole. "So help me god, he had yellow eyes!" The discussion of the relative merits of the flavors of various soap brands while having one's mouth washed out. The Mom's valiant fight against that lamp. The Bumpus's dogs. The bunny suit. The Chinese guy chopping the head off the duck. What the hell could be better? Or less pornographic.
Posted by: arensb
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October 27, 2010 4:51 PM
If the store stops selling leg lamps, you can always make your own.
Posted by: Judy L.
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October 27, 2010 4:52 PM
Hey, now! That is not a PORNOGRAPHIC DISGUSTING BLASPHEMOUS product...it's a Major Award!
There is a war on Christmas, and it's a war that nutbar fundies are waging against Santa Claus and the joys of my most favourite Choco-Secularized holiday.
Here's Tim Minchin on the subject:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCNvZqpa-7Q
Posted by: LarianLeQuella
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October 27, 2010 4:53 PM
Man, that is such a great movie! :)
And seriously, I get so sick anbd fucking tired of xtians complaining at this time of year. That's why I always wish people a happy Saturnalia or merry solstice, since that's the holiday the xtians stole for this time of year...
Posted by: Sven DiMilo
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October 27, 2010 4:53 PM
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0059032/
Posted by: Nemo
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October 27, 2010 4:56 PM
@FrankT #75:
They'll just check the papers for reports of the store being burned down by a lightning strike. If that didn't happen, the store must've complied.
Posted by: Ichthyic
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October 27, 2010 4:57 PM
And so this is Christmas
And what have we done...
QFT
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUCbZhIfQbA&feature=related
Posted by: grudgedk
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October 27, 2010 5:01 PM
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.Clearly there can not be more than one thing that is most holy, in the same way there cannot be more than one thing that is most dangerous, or most stupid. There can be lots of contenders, but there can be only one. Four is way off.
True. The most holy celebration in the Christian tradition is Pentecost. But you should never let small things like "facts you don't know about your own fucking religion" get in the way of your righteous fury. Think of all the lulz we would be missing out on, if Christians knew the first damned thing about Christ!Posted by: skeptical_hippo
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October 27, 2010 5:04 PM
One of my neighbors does an awesome "A Christmas Story" window every year, complete with lamp. It's my favorite holiday decor in the entire subdivision.
Posted by: JohnnieCanuck
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October 27, 2010 5:05 PM
Caine @58
From your link:
"A wide variety of spellings exist for the English usage of the term, e.g. tshotshke, tshatshke, tchachke, chachke, tsotchke, chotski, or chochke, because there is no standardized transliteration."
You didn't actually read through that Wiki entry, now did you?
Are you familiar with the expression "Hoist by your own petard"?
Posted by: Jeffrey A. Myers
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October 27, 2010 5:09 PM
I'm still trying to figure out what is pornographic about this? Has this crazed lunatic never actually seen pornography?
Posted by: Xenithrys
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October 27, 2010 5:10 PM
@64
Yes! I knew I'd seen this writing style (for want of a better word) before. All the adjectives strung together, missing definite articles; definitely Glen Moon, or someone with the same, er, condition.
Posted by: https://me.yahoo.com/a/SaqGVG0xvJEQVwURVamS3DTCdvov0BLhXK1jOsYPPJQ-#b4893
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October 27, 2010 5:12 PM
Oooooooooh Fuuuuuddddggge.
Except I didn't say "fudge."
MikeM
Posted by: Petzl
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October 27, 2010 5:19 PM
I don't think we should be too hard on the catholic emailer. I mean, it's possible s/he was just celebrating CAPS LOCK day in her own way.
Posted by: timgueguen
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October 27, 2010 5:22 PM
We need to find this person immediately. Their letter indicates they come from the Victorian Era, and hence they must have come to our era via time machine.
Posted by: timothy vogel
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October 27, 2010 5:28 PM
PZ,
I coined the term "cavalierly belligerent uninformedness" a while back;
"In God We Trust" was placed on to our currency in an act of conspiratorial subterfuge while Abraham Lincoln was rather busy doing other things by two religiot bureaucrats, the Secretary of The US Treasury and Director of the US Mint.
They all want to keep God's name permenantly inscribed on "the vehicle of Mammon" but inscribing "The Christmas Story" on a decidely non-pornographic household item is SIN?
You get right in touch with the vagaries of genetics actively expressing its varied influence across diferent individuals comprising a species when this sort of rank-yet-comfortable stupidity rears its ugly head.
best,
TV
TheScientificMethod @Facebook
Posted by: hombremoleculos
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October 27, 2010 5:30 PM
Not a Poe. I have a copy of the email.
Posted by: lotusgirl1
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October 27, 2010 5:44 PM
that's the funniest thing I've seen all day.
The funniest part however, is not the screeching practically incoherent bullshit, but that I sincerely doubt they will actually follow through with their boycott.
Posted by: DaveL
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October 27, 2010 6:10 PM
@64 - That was my first reaction, too. The combination of over-the-top religiosity and obsessive repetition of certain formulae (i.e. "filthy pornographic blasphemous", "filthy disgusting", and "Holy and Sacred"). I have to think it's either him or else it's characteristic of some psychiatric disorder or other.
Oh, and now I have to go see if Best Buy sells pornographs.
Posted by: John Morales
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October 27, 2010 6:11 PM
Here we see the results of Catholicism's sophisticated theology on True Believers™.
Posted by: Craggsy
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October 27, 2010 6:36 PM
I think he was so angry because he was so ashamed of his inability resist the tempations of a one-legged, partial woman of his dreams.
Posted by: jaranath
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October 27, 2010 7:10 PM
hombremoleculos:
You have the email, but was it just a chain email that's being passed along, or do you have inside info? If it's a chain letter, it could still be a Poe...
Posted by: https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOawmlkibAxFXVGQ1TjBxVvYNg2glbutW-ggc
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October 27, 2010 7:13 PM
Inside info. My daughter works at said "Retail Store".
Posted by: FTS
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October 27, 2010 7:43 PM
Bob Clark, who directed A Christmas Story, also directed Porky's. There's a double feature.
Posted by: entropia
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October 27, 2010 7:49 PM
This thing can't be real. I think it was a Poe.
Posted by: entropia
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October 27, 2010 7:51 PM
This thing can't be real. I think it was a Poe. (Having the e-mail does not mean the sender was not pretending.)
Posted by: hombremoleculos
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October 27, 2010 8:00 PM
I agree but who would go to such great lengths to pretend to be an asshole.
Posted by: Eidolon
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October 27, 2010 8:15 PM
Well,pretending or not, the author clearly did not check out the wide range of leg lamp related products available on Amazon. Who knew??
I did not not see any mention of left/right selections. This is unfortunate in that it precludes some interesting decor options.
Posted by: Eidolon
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October 27, 2010 8:18 PM
I forgot to mention that I did see one available that used a votive candle. Now, that's a fun image for your local catlick church...rows and rows of glowing votives, each in a leg.
Posted by: jaranath
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October 27, 2010 8:38 PM
How did your daughter verify the email's authenticity? Sorry to be anal...but I could easily see Store X's (Walgreens, no? At least I know they're selling them...) employees passing it around in particular, since they got it and it mentions them.
Posted by: John Morales
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October 27, 2010 8:42 PM
To those of you opining "I think it was a Poe", I remind you of why Poe's Law even exists.
Posted by: Accipiter
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October 27, 2010 8:43 PM
Speaking of crazy xians on camera:
http://vidmax.com/video/5444/Crazy_racist_in_coffee_shop_starts_yelling_at_Mexican_dude/
Posted by: jaybgee
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October 27, 2010 8:44 PM
Now it's pornographic for women to wear stockings? Would it be worse if the leg was bare?
For some reason, seeing this makes me want to buy a sexy Santa outfit, to blaspheme the hell out of Xmas.
Posted by: Celeste
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October 27, 2010 9:00 PM
BWAHAHAHAHA! This may be the first ever documented case of Religious Tourettes.
Posted by: David Marjanović
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October 27, 2010 9:06 PM
Probably she didn't have any sex ever. The "brothers" and "sisters" mentioned in the Bible must be cousins. And when Jesus was born, he passed through Mary's hymen "like light"; she was a virgin before, during, and after the birth, let alone the miraculous conception.
Seriously. That's Catholic theology, even though almost no Catholics know about it.
Posted by: cyan
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October 27, 2010 9:27 PM
Watched that movie once - never again because it was showing what many people do at a holiday because of tradition and not because of the reason a holiday was instituted. Going through the motions because others do, rather than thinking about why and how the holiday should be celebrated personally.
One of the only christmas vids I like is one of the original movies (black & & white) of Dickens' Scrooge, because it emphasizes how our actions impact the lives of others. The silly ghosts of past and future are fantasy that none-the-less are effective in making one think of why we do the things we do and then what effect those actions can be to others' lives.
The writer of this letter is not focusing on other people at all, but instead what little images have been drummed into his/her nonthinking head by someone posing as a fount of "truth": a christian preacher.
From evidence of people like this person and other christians on many other topics, I have so much more in common with other animals' thinking processes than with christian animals - because other animals' thinking processes seem much more logical and practical.
Posted by: schparrow
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October 27, 2010 9:34 PM
My friend has this tattooed on her leg!
http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash1/hs513.ash1/30237_385189000171_508395171_4126596_6207407_n.jpg
Posted by: savagemickey
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October 27, 2010 9:47 PM
I get similar letters from 'regular customers' who don't like the fact that I have The City Pages weekly newspaper available in the lobby of my restaurant. There's advertising in the back of a "sexual nature" that upsets their "christian sensibilities." I wonder what they would say if they knew that I was a sponsor of MN Atheists' talk radio program?
Posted by: 'Tis Himself, OM
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October 27, 2010 10:20 PM
All this time I thought the War on Christmas™ was a wholly owned subsidiary of Fox News.
Posted by: paulmurray
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October 27, 2010 10:23 PM
Did anyone else, briefly, fleetingly, just for a moment you understand, consider humping it?
Posted by: Cowcakes
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October 27, 2010 10:57 PM
Let me guess, the letter was sent by Mel Gibson.
No sorry my bad, not enough profanities to be from him.
Posted by: cicely (Inadvertent Phytocidal Maniac)
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October 27, 2010 11:13 PM
Ah, yes---celebrating the year's end, and the "return of the sun", by feasting and generally partying. I like going through those motions! :)
Posted by: Caddisfly
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October 27, 2010 11:19 PM
Loved the lamp when it made its' appearance in the movie. It captured all the tackiness that is Christmas in this country. Now we have the tackiness of the outraged christian as well.
Posted by: Metatwaddle
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October 27, 2010 11:34 PM
Personally, I celebrate the holiday just because my friends and family are celebrating too. Introspecting about how I want to celebrate Christmas, independently of how my friends and family celebrate, isn't likely to get me anywhere. Call that "going through the motions" if you want.I guess some people feel they have a religious imperative to celebrate Christmas in a certain way, or something. But somehow I don't think that applies to most Pharyngula readers, including me. So... what sorts of insights do you think can be gained by "thinking about why and how the holiday should be celebrated personally"?
Posted by: Metatwaddle
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October 27, 2010 11:38 PM
(Also, I agree with Cicely @ 129. Going through these particular motions is fun!)
Posted by: butterflyfish.heidi
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October 27, 2010 11:50 PM
@echotopia #64: Moon was my first thought when I read the letter, too. There can't be more than one of them, can there??
Posted by: Crewvy
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October 28, 2010 2:32 AM
I`m thinking ,maybe a serial killer alert, is in order here.
Posted by: OurSally
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October 28, 2010 2:50 AM
It's obvious. The writer wants to hump the leg. Therefore the writer must be a small dog. We could call it Dogmatix. Now it makes sense.
Posted by: ekwhite
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October 28, 2010 3:10 AM
Is anyone certain this email wasn't sent by a certain General JC Christian?
Posted by: Ragutis
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October 28, 2010 3:21 AM
Must have been a really slow day at the Catholic League. Or they're trying to break in a temp while it's slow. You don't want a green recruit on the keyboard next to you when the Offended Offensive gets under way.
Posted by: McCthulhu is taking ∞ to eat all the pi
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October 28, 2010 3:56 AM
I wish I knew the name of the store. Anything that gets the Religulious that over-the-top, mad-dog frothy and insane immediately gets put on my 'must shop just to piss them off' list. ESPECIALLY (yay! I can use the cap locks too!) if they're selling the soft glow of electric sex gleaming in the window!
Posted by: ScottDogg
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October 28, 2010 4:46 AM
This made me laugh so hard I coughed up a lung.
Posted by: Corbie, Wicked Auntie of Death
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October 28, 2010 5:26 AM
Caret.
I participate in a holiday display at a historic site, and have been gleefully educating the public there that Christmas started out as a pagan holiday -- esp. that the pine tree was very much a pagan thing, that Martin Luther more or less coopted it into the Christian tradition, and that in Europe it was more or less a German thing until Victoria married Albert and brought it to England, at which point Anglophiles in America took it up too. (We also talk about the German Belsnickel character, which is lots of fun -- bringing the best nastiness of Halloween to the Christmas season, yay! Whips and chains for everyone!)
I also like to point out to them that, since my Dad went through a fairly strict Calvinist phase (as in, he was actually reading the works of John Calvin), we barely celebrated Christmas, since it was a Pagan holiday -- didn't have a tree until I was about 16, when the Calvinist streak weakened enough to permit it. Instead we had a creche, which was deemed more or less acceptable. You can actually see the gears turning in the heads of some people when you tell them this stuff -- I'm not sure it's all to the good, since some of them may insist on nativity scenes on the town green instead of Christmas trees, but at least maybe they'll stop complaining about the Holiday Tree nomenclature.
We also try to make the point that Christmas was a lot less commercial in the pre-industrial era. Children only got a few gifts; the emphasis was on food and enjoying the company of family and friends. That message is generally well-received.
The most encouraging thing about the War on Christmas rhetoric, I suppose, is that it's Not Working, and makes the people doing the shouting look like crazy spoilsports.
Posted by: GravityIsJustATheory
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October 28, 2010 7:20 AM
logic: they're doing it wrong.
ps: i appologise for not capitalizing my post properly, but i'm concerned that the original message may have caused a world-wide shortage of capital letters, so i think i'll ration my use until i can be sure there are enough to go round.
Posted by: mrburdicksblog
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October 28, 2010 8:39 AM
Wow. That dude really doesn't like "A Christmas Story". He must've stuck his tongue to a lamppost when he was a kid or something.
Posted by: krtmckenney
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October 28, 2010 9:17 AM
Strangely they didn't comment on the Ramadan Mohmed on a Rope one aisle over...
Get over it...
EVERYBODY
Posted by: https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOawnj2ElkPXOBizRyjpz7Ur9hKF3xve_MY6c
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October 28, 2010 9:33 AM
Don't look at the blasphemy! You'll shot your eye out!
Posted by: jaranath
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October 28, 2010 9:45 AM
I giggled myself to sleep last night imagining this letter in George Hrab's voice. "Mmmmm....sweet, filthy, pornographic blasphemy..."
Posted by: Carlie of the lacy, gently wafting adjectives
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October 28, 2010 9:56 AM
Perhaps you'll love Christmas with a capital C, staring Ted McGinley and a Baldwin that is surprisingly not Steven.
Posted by: llewelly
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October 28, 2010 9:58 AM
Ol'Greg-OM | October 27, 2010 2:46 PM:
Try licking one.
Posted by: Algernon, elle sans chapeau
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October 28, 2010 10:00 AM
How hairy is it?
Posted by: Bill Dauphin, avec fromage
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October 28, 2010 10:22 AM
Walgreens, eh? Don't they also sell Snuggies? <PearlClutch>
Actually, before somebody mentioned Walgreens, I was thinking that the only "Your Retail Store" I had personally seen leg-lamp replicas in was Spencer's Gifts, and I was wondering what a good Dog-fearing pearlclutcher like this e-mailer could possibly have been doing in that den of low-rent, lowbrow iniquity.
Posted by: unbound
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October 28, 2010 10:26 AM
Actually, I'm more amused by the P.S. at the end. Do as I say, no questions...I am right, end of story. Xtian fundamentalism distilled to its core. They are simply not interested in understanding or actually being understood...everyone else should just comply with whatever story they make up.
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp
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October 28, 2010 10:31 AM
Saturnalia?
Posted by: Carlie of the lacy, gently wafting adjectives
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October 28, 2010 10:33 AM
Hallmark has a whole line of Christmas Story stuff, too. Haven't seen a full-sized leg lamp there, but I did see a leg lamp tree ornament last year.
Posted by: Rey Fox, Bird Caller Guy
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October 28, 2010 11:34 AM
NOTAFINGA!
"Watched that movie once - never again because it was showing what many people do at a holiday because of tradition and not because of the reason a holiday was instituted. Going through the motions because others do, rather than thinking about why and how the holiday should be celebrated personally."
Yeah, why couldn't that movie have the decency to hit you over the head with the True Meaning of Christmas like everything else on TV in December?
"It captured all the tackiness that is Christmas in this country."
It did? It was the part of the movie that had the least to do with Christmas.
Posted by: Victor
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October 28, 2010 11:50 AM
This tactic is cute. I've received messages from Christians on my blog that stated right out that if I replied they would not read it. What is that? A drive by condemning? I can yell all I want but don't dare think you can reply. It's not wonder these people are stuck in the dark ages. They have a one way filter on their brains.Posted by: Bitchfinder General
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October 28, 2010 11:58 AM
Some what ironic; at least that lamp, unlike the nativity story, actually has a leg to stand on.
Posted by: Velociraptor
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October 28, 2010 12:14 PM
Maybe I should see that film? The reviewers on the Internet Movie Database liked it.
The shop should sell one of those milk dispensers from 'A Clockwork Orange'!
Not that I would buy one myself, of course:)
Posted by: Scorpy1
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October 28, 2010 12:22 PM
Holy Name of Christmas?
Posted by: Rey Fox, Bird Caller Guy
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October 28, 2010 12:57 PM
NOTAFINGA!
Posted by: ButchKitties
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October 28, 2010 1:20 PM
Corbie,
For a bonus you can teach them about the Puritan proclamation that banned Christmas celebrations in Boston. The ban was put in place partly because the Puritans felt they were being forced to adopt English customs, and partly because they felt Christmas was an offense against God. Christmas didn't really catch on in the US until the mid-1800s because it was viewed more as an English custom than a holy holiday.
Or you can remind them of Jeremiah 10:1-4, which warns against pagan tree-decorating. "Do not learn the ways of the nations or be terrified by signs in the sky, though the nations are terrified by them. For the customs of the peoples are worthless; they cut a tree out of the forest, and a craftsman shapes it with his chisel. They adorn it with silver and gold; they fasten it with hammer and nails so it will not totter."
Posted by: Lynna, OM
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October 28, 2010 1:20 PM
She's a Deciduous Virgin™ -- she grows a new hymen every spring.Posted by: Molly, NYC
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October 28, 2010 2:05 PM
Look, this woman clearly has problems that go well beyond her objections to a funny lamp (as is true of many writers of the Comic Sans rants printed here).
Religion tends to not only attract people with honest-to-God mental health problems, but to act as if this sort of unhinged religiosity is normal. I imagine church is the only place this unfortunate woman can go where they don't treat her like she's completely batshit. However, if anyone in her congregation actually cared about her, they'd get her some help.
Posted by: Alan B
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October 28, 2010 3:33 PM
Don't cry for Mary - she had other children the normal way like any good Jewish girl! From the way Joseph is talked about in the gospels they probably had a loving, caring relationship in which normal marital relations would have had a significant role. He comes across as a sympathetic and loving character, going beyond normal custom in protecting her.
Jesus is called the firstborn of Mary. IANOGS* but I understand there are 2 Greek words available - one meaning "firstborn", the other meaning "only child". Guess which word was used (and translated correctly)?
Just this choice of words strongly suggests Mary and Jospeh had other children and the NT says they did!
Also, see:
http://bible.cc/matthew/1-25.htm
(scan through the varied translations)
http://bible.cc/matthew/13-55.htm
and /13-56
(again scan through the translations)
How can I square that with RC teaching? I can't. Ask them - it's their problem!
* IANOGS = I am not a Greek scholar (but you knew that, didn't you?)
Posted by: Alan B
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October 28, 2010 3:36 PM
Or try the 249 pages here:
http://www.evangelicaloutreach.org/virgin.htm
Posted by: azumahazuki
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October 28, 2010 4:15 PM
@159
Even better, 25 December is the birthdate of many pagan solar deities. There need to be "Mithras is the reason for the season!" bumper stickers! Because, unlike the cracker flavored variety, IT'S TRUE.
Posted by: shpbk45213
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October 28, 2010 4:17 PM
I bet this letter would sound SOOO much better if you read it out loud using your best impersonation of Lee Ermey, or maybe Clint Eastwood as Dirty Harry.
Posted by: Carlie of the lacy, gently wafting adjectives
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October 28, 2010 5:11 PM
I give that comment an A + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + ...
Posted by: don.reisig
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October 28, 2010 5:20 PM
Until I read that article, I did not want one. NOW I DO!!!!!! WHERE CAN I BUY IT!!!!
Posted by: darkknight9761
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October 28, 2010 7:01 PM
She obviously didn't realize that Christmas was co-opted from the Pagans and the Egyptians. "Christmas" is a stolen holiday from many other far earlier religions. I almost feel sorry for these small minded, narrow minded people,"almost" meaning I really sit back in amusement at how most people have not read much past the "damned bible" (quoting Penn Gillette).
Posted by: cyan
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October 29, 2010 1:48 AM
@ 131 what I really want to do with my precious break from work, instead of just going along with what most other people around me do just because everyone else did it as they were growing up
@ 151 Rev BD: exactly!
Posted by: Michael Jacobs
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October 29, 2010 9:16 PM
Jesse Ventura was right when he said that, "religion is for weak-minded people who can't think for themselves." The writer of this letter is a total FUCKTARD, just like all of those right-wing bat-shit crazy Christians.
Posted by: mick.long
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October 30, 2010 6:21 AM
That was hilarious!
Posted by: John Phillips, FCD
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November 1, 2010 5:17 AM
For those who want one, there is a whole range of 'official' ones of different sizes, from full size all the way down to a xmas tree string of lamps. Amazon offer many of them through their marketplace suppliers.
Posted by: Markita Lynda: Healthcare is a damn right
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November 2, 2010 2:30 AM
Why are people assuming that the writer is a woman?