Of course, around these parts every day is Blasphemy Day, so today we’re actually focused on celebrating the anniversary of when a thetan was reborn as Jenna Elfman.

Nonetheless, we like to think that we have some expertise in things blasphemous. In that spirit [ha!], here are some celebratory tips:

• participate in the CFI’s contest to come up with the best 20-word-or-less blasphemy. I am unable to write succinctly enough to participate; therefore, you are welcome to my idea of rhyming “Medina” and “vagina.” If you are less strict about your rhymes, “Jesus” and “penis” could work too. Let me know if you come up with anything good.

  There’s also some sort of essay contest for college students, which I am unfortunately too old to enter. Based on my hazy recollections of college, I’m pretty sure a good strategy would involve writing about Ayn Rand.

• give gift copies of Your Religion Is False, the Official Book of Blasphemy Day. (Note: not actually associated with Blasphemy Day.)
• using the internet (or any other computer network), download your favorite slashfic (I myself am partial to Dumbledore/Snape pairings), recast it into a first-person narrative, and “confess” it to a priest.
• create some B.C. cartoons featuring Mohammed. This is doubly blasphemous! Also, as they are “B.C.” cartoons, there’s no need to make them funny. Perhaps Mohammed could be climbing a mountain to ask a question of some wise ascetic, like “oh, great guru, at what age should I deflower my child bride?” The guru could then come back with a pithy retort, which you can write yourself. I’m not going to do all your work for you!
• aerosol cheese + Most Precious Body of Christ = yummy! (Also, fruit + sugar + Blood of Christ makes for a refreshing, linguistically-authentic sangria.)
• rent a hot dog cart and set up shop right outside a Hindu temple. Offer special prices on the “100% all-beef Brahmin Dog.” As there might be Buddhists hanging around, you should also stiff your customers and use the “change comes from within” joke.
• make “Jesus is coming, so” jokes on Twitter. Suggested punch lines include “look busy,” “close your eyes and open your mouth,” “grab a towel,” “tell the cameraman to zoom in on her face,” and “don’t be surprised if you feel a burning sensation. That’s normal. Totally normal. We promise. Mention this to anyone and you’re dead!”

Above all, make sure to have fun!

Among the demonstrators who will be standing outside the Kentucky Exposition Center in Louisville as the SBC opens its two-day meeting on Tuesday will be one dressed as Jesus, carrying a sign reading “For Christ’s Sake, Go Vegetarian,” and another dressed as a chicken with a sign reading “Jesus Loves Me Too.”

Other members will be holding signs reading “Thou Shalt Not Kill. Go Vegetarian” and “Blessed Are the Merciful. Go Vegetarian.” They will also hand out leaflets that relate vegetarian living to Christian teachings.

Now, if you’ve read my book, you know that I’m not a big fan of granting people’s imaginary premises in order to engage with them.

If vegetarianism is a good idea, then PETA should be making the case that vegetarianism is a good idea. If a bacon cheeseburger, cooked medium rare, with aged cheddar cheese, two thick-cut strips of peppered bacon, a mix of mayonnaise and BBQ sauce that I like to call “BBQonnaise,” dill pickle chips, fried onion straws, crisp lettuce, ripe tomato, and sweet red onions isn’t the tastiest thing on the planet, they should be arguing that it isn’t the tastiest thing on the planet.

Instead, their argument contains the following pieces:

• “god’s mythological garden was vegetarian, according to the cave-people-written book of myths you cherish”
• maybe the fish Jesus ate were only symbolic fish, just like the one that “got away” on your last trip to the lake
• because Jesus “gave his life willingly,” eating his flesh and blood doesn’t actually count as eating flesh and blood (and possibly also because they’re actually crackers and wine, but we’re not going to mention this common sense fact, because we’re trying to participate in your fantasy world)
• meat-eating is “part of the fallen creation” (whatever the hell that means)

You’ll have to forgive me for being skeptical that the PETAns actually believe any of these arguments, any more than they believe their arguments that “Mohammed only symbolically slaughtered the Banu Qurayza,” that “adhering to a vegetarian I-tal diet will increase the ‘life energy’ that Haile Selassie puts inside us,” or that “Bhai Gurdas’s praise of goat meat doesn’t really count because it was written in poetry form.”

Hopefully soon they’ll get back to more sensible behavior, like opposing the throwing of dead fish or hiring the granddaughter of a murderous guerilla to lend his violent cachet to their cause, or taking a brave stand for the rights of houseflies.

Many Christians, new and seasoned alike, tend to bank on promises that God never made, says one pastor.

So when God doesn’t come through on those “promises,” some are likely to become angry at God.

And “that to me as a pastor over all my years is always one of the saddest things,” says Larry Osborne, teaching pastor at North Coast Church in Vista, Calif.

Osborne, whose church draws over 7,000 people, is hoping to spare a lot of Jesus followers from that anger. He’s also hoping Christians will peruse Scripture more and align themselves with what God really says rather than the “word on the street.”

Wait, that doesn’t sound promising at all! Does he at least have a good list of ten?

1. Living God’s way will bring good fortune
2. Faith can fix anything
3. Forgiving means forgetting
4. A godly home guarantees godly kids
5. God has a blueprint for my life
6. Christians shouldn’t judge
7. Everything happens for a reason
8. Let your conscience be your guide
9. A valley means a wrong turn
10. Dead people go to a better place.

Well, a number of those are stupid things. But if I were making a list of “Ten Stupid Things Smart Christians Believe,” none of those would be on it. What’s that? You want to know what would be on it? Good question!

Ten Stupid Things Smart Christians Believe

1. A mistranslated book written by cave people is a reliable guide to the modern world.
2. There’s an invisible man in the sky who likes to watch you while you’re showering.
3. Two thousand years ago, an alter ego of this invisible man knocked up a Jewess whose husband wasn’t satisfying her.
4. The progeny of this drunken coupling was both god and the son of god.
5. This son of god was killed (but not really, since he’s also god, and god can’t die) and then came back to life to seek revenge, just like J.D. Walker.
6. His killing was a necessary sacrifice in order that we might be forgiven for the sins of Eve, the first woman in the world, who lived 6000 years ago in a magical garden, where a talking snake convinced her to eat a forbidden apple.
7. To show our thanks for this sacrifice, we should put special crackers and wine in our mouths, where they will be magically transformed into his flesh and blood, which we should then swallow despite taboos regarding cannibalism.
8. If you don’t believe all the preceding items, then after you die you will be plunged into a lake of fire and tortured for all eternity.
9. If you do believe all the preceding items, then after you die you’ll get to go to heaven, which is a cloud in outer space connected to the earth with a dotted line bent into a heart-shape
10. Thomas Kinkade is an awesome painter.

Which book would you rather read?