You’re supposed to close your eyes and randomly jab at this picture to choose your deity for future worship.
I tried it — just closed my eyes and spun around in my chair and reached out and touched the screen — and have discovered that I am now supposed to praise “System Preferences” on my laptop. All hail System Preferences! My System Preferences is mightier than your System Preferences!
My System Preferences is mightier than your System Preferences!
Given that I’m running windows with most system preferences locked on what my employer wants, yes, your system preferences probably are mightier than mine.
Why does Prince Phillip have no arms? What about Thor, Xenu and all of the other deities?
I like how “God Almighty” looks strikingly like an asshole.
I’m thinking of converting.
Hmmm, I landed on Richard Dawkins.
Mine is “Shop by Price.” I am so excited!
I think worshipping science or nature is at least as sensible as worshipping Almighty God. (And what is Richard Dawkins doing on the same chart as Tom Cruise, of all people? There’s some blasphemous imagery that offends this atheist!)
(Alyson Miers)
According to this chart, all you need to do to turn Dawkins into Satan is add a fork and a tail! Also isn’t Prince Phillip missing arms because he was in that can for so long?
Doing the same, I landed on… the edge of my computer monitor. Chalking that up to Teh Debbil trying to influence me, I tried again.
I am to worship Cthulhu!
Ok, I’m supposed to worship Anubis -which is no problem. But I haven’t quite figured out who I’m supposed to hate.
Shop By Price is better than all of your other puny gods. I declare jihad on all who do not believe in Shop By Price. Die infidels!
Hah! I got PZ Myers! I was sitting here about to try it thinking wouldn’t it be funny to say I got PZ Myers, since his face is right there on the screen. Then I closed my eyes, spun around in my chair, and reached out and put my finger on PZ’s picture.
I’m sure the trolls will say we all worship PZ anyway.
To PZ be the glory, on earth as it is in the deep oceans!
That’s deep…
Because if you try it with your eyes open, you end up with science.
That is all you needed to say to show that PZ’s System Prefs are mightier than yours.
Crap. I got “God Almighty.” Now I’m forced to believe that teh jeebus guided my hand to that square.
Or maybe it was just random chance. I tried a couple more times and got sauron and tom cruise. Best to just use my brain and skip to nothing.
I had to fight the urge- I WANT to stick a pin in Tom Cruise… maybe I should do Voodoo… nah, I just want to stick a pin in Tom Cruise… I will always believe in Science. NOT Scientology.
I got the scroll bar. I’m working hard now on Scroll Bar theology. Scroll down for more information and you’re on your way to hell.
I refuse to engage in this activity for the same reason I refuse to go to church.
Shit, I have to worship the Recycle Bin now.
Damn you, Bill Gates. Damn you to hell!
man. I got satan. how . . . angsty. I guess I’ll have to go buy a lot of crappy music and torn black t-shirts.
Oops now I’ve done it. I was getting bored with the actual work I was doing and decided to play this game…however, I didn’t change the screen from the spreadsheet I was working on, which contains data on various large bowel cancers by subtype. For those who haven’t seen it coming yet, I now worship rectum. Holy days will have fun activities for all those over 18.
Huh. My finger landed on a blank space between the picture and PZ’s photo. Blank space. How exciting… :|
I think that just means that you don’t auto-hide your Dock and leave System Preferences in there to waste space, when it makes much more sense to access it through the apple menu. This probably also means that my System Preferences are actually much greater than yours :P
Don’t we get to worship communism and nazism, like Expelled promised?
Just more expulsion of Stein & co., plenty of excuse to heap more abuse on science.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/mxaa3p
Truly devoted Scrollians always automatically start at the bottom of the page and scroll up.
No, I ended up on “nothing”, obviously. Heretic, how dare you not worship nothing, in all its…um…glory…um.
I got Zarquon, can I worship his creator instead? If not, I am going to commit apostasy and go back to worshiping Anubis.
bunnycatcher,
followers of Set will be your natural enemies, but you can never go wrong by just hating all non-Anubians.
I too missed the diagram altogether with my finger but at least I hit something else in the browser window… Apparently now I’m supposed to worship Google.
Well let’s see how Google stacks up:to Yahweh:
Works in mysterious ways? check.
All-knowing? It’s the index of everything – so … check.
Over a billion people humbly submit requests daily? check.
Answers requests? Yes – (so it’s different in that regard).
Gives answers that aren’t necessarily the answers you wanted? check – this is what faith-heads claim is happening with “unanswered” prayers, so that’s a match.
Okay, I guess I’ll start worshipping Google now.
Well, now, look— Set is depicted as that really cool saluki/aardvark animal. You just can’t hate something that could be a saluki and/or an aardvark.
@ #3 (Paul W)
And his symbol resembles a sphincter too.
Be sure to tip your waitress.
@Steve Mading – oooh I’ll trade you Google for Satan any day.
“I god Giant Lizards” is a sentence?
Hmm, I got the ad on the right side of the screen. It was for toaster pastries, which are good I suppose, but not really worship-worthy. If it had been for waffles, perhaps.
I tried again and got “nothing”, which will require absolutely no shift in my thinking whatsoever – I’m going with that, then.
Remember that God Almighty is indistinguishable from nothing.
I love signing in with Google.
Free Lunch
I did the spinning in my chair as well. I ended up poking someone on Facebook. All praise to the Mighty Poke!
I have been identified as Satan by an authority, my brother’s mormon ex-girlfriend. Feel free to worship me.
Behead those who insult the one true System Preferences.
I missed too; . . . or did I?
It looks like I’m supposed to worship “pharyngula stage embryo.”
Well, of course you have to close your eyes when you pray for guidance.
What?
Fuck!
Oh, well, at least Tom Cruise is real.
#33:
I got giant lizards
I got music
I got my man
Who could ask for anything more?
*snicker* my finger landed between Science and Anubis. how do those go together? now, sci-fi and Anubis, I could do… oh wait, spinning in the chair first… ok am now worshipping Free Shipping. I can do that. =P
Vashti, #27
Anubis? That law breaking thief. He violated a direct court order to turn over everything that belonged to Set, and went so far as to bully Ra into reversing his original decision.
Besides, it is well known that he inherited Egypt from his father, Osiris after his dad was not only dead, but mutilated. According to Pharonic law the Pharaoh had to be whole and perfect in body and mind. Given that Osiris was most certainly imperfect in form, and after all those times getting chopped up then reassembled, one can only have doubts about his mental state.
What’s even worse, stories have it that Osiris stole Set’s claim to Egypt, and went so far as to rape Set’s wife, Nephyts. Indeed, he and Isis went so far as to abduct Nephyts and made her a hostage against Set’s good behavior.
Anubis? Are you kidding me?
daveau, #41
Is Tom Cruise for real?
While I was spinning, the search I was running in the background completed and I ended up poking the “okay” button. So apparently I’m supposed to worship modal dialog boxes that grab focus even when the parent window is minimized.
Which really sucks, because I hate those ….
Well, seems like I’m now a Twitter worshipper. Does that mean I have to keep my thoughts within 140 characters?
Hmmm… I touched the screen on the “Airport” menu item. Should I start a cargo cult?
Due to the small size of the image, I missed it completely (like so many before me), and I apparently now should worship the quick link to the lateset endless thread. Or maybe the thread itself. Thread. Link. Thread! Link! I feel a schism coming on and maybe a small holy war.
@neon – It’s okay, just worship Twitter. Our Bible is 140 characters long.
Good news, I’m still a Satanist.
Hmm. I am apparently supposed to worship the Miami-Dade County Transit system (which is lodged in my Firefox favorites toolbars from way back). At least any claim to the effect that it is better than yours (or even that it exists) requires gullibility and confirmation bias of religion-like proportions.
I landed on nothing :( … not much of a status change there..
Ah I recently got into a lot of trouble with my parents cos I called their god a dog in a moment of annoyance. I do not understand why they are so mad though, they are devout Hindus who told me that God is everything and everything is God.
Kevin @#50
But Twitter is blocked at work. Religious persecution!!!!!
@neon – My work policies, too, interfere with the practice of my religion. #religiouspersecution
I don’t see an attribution anywhere, but I believe the artist here is Tom Gauld.
I got “Deities.”
How vague! Am I now suppose to worship every deity that has ever existed?! At some point Huitzilopochtli will be jealous that I’m offering fruits to Jesus and Inari.
Heh. I landed on Science. How cool is that? Now when some random Xtian tells me I worship science, I can say “Yes” instead of “You’re ignorant.”
But what image do I idolize? Einstein? Sagan? Da Vinci? A microscope?
…wanders off to remind self that I don’t like the idea of worship at all….
I got the RSS feedbutton. Does this mean I have direct access to all information and voices telling me to do and think contradictory things?
My erratic wrist movements tell me I’m supposed to worship Nature. Gosh, that includes everything, doesn’t it? Let the goat sacrifice commence!
There is that, but luckily for me, PZ is part of Nature. How can they argue with randomly applied faith?
I have fallen for Nature. As Nature is All, Nature-worshipping is a kind of self-theism, which has been my personal religion for a long time.
Didac, that was Nature telling us that we are the True Believers™.
*smug smile*
OMG Paul W’s comment FTW.
Well I got giant lizards which is no surprise since dinosaurs ROCK MY WORLD and are awesome. I could totally feel the dino force pulling my finger towards that part of the screen.
I think it means you’re supposed to worship the infinitely movable set of goalposts that is god, whose followers are known as the ButWhatIfHes.
@ #29 DesertHedgehog & #44 mythusmage
Blasphemy! Just what I would expect from worshipers of Chaos: admiration of the vile Set animal and lies about noble Anubis.
The Set poison is overwhelming here. Anubis never ruled Egypt (and Osiris is only his adopted father- you might want to ask Set and Nephyts about this). Anubis was supreme ruler of the underworld until Osiris usurped his rightful place (hmm, we seem to have a common enemy, maybe we should join forces against Osiris?).
Well Osiris is a little thief, but everyone knows Nephyts tricked him into sleeping with her (I mean, who could resist that golden/wooden/clay phallus.) And then she helped Isis resurrect Osiris so I would hardly count on Nephyts to support your Set madness.
Well, keep worshiping Set but don’t expect Anubis to help you through the weighing of the heart ceremony (I doubt Set worshipers will make it pass Ammit). Plus, Anubis knows the resurrection spell which I expect might come in handy someday.
I stopped believing in Santa very gradually. I even went though a phase of almost-pretending so as to keep getting the presents.
Here is an essay I recently wrote, casting a critical eye on the whole concept of belief in Santa:
http://fucksanta.blogspot.com/2009/11/santa-claus-closer-look_24.html
Yes, that’s what my blog is called. Absolutely SFW though…
Cheers,
Leonidas
@33
I god giant lizards.
This is only the tip of the illiterate iceberg that is MotivatedPhotos.com. Lots of misogynistic, giant-mammary images (with the occasional kitteh thrown-in for good measure). I think whoever owns the site must have found this very funny (British) cartoon and done some copypasta to make it his own. Do the right thing by the original artist, crop it down before sending it on.
I’m sticking with Cthulhu, nothing else, not even Tom Cruise, can match his horrificness.
I obviously posted comment no. 66 in the wrong thread….
Spin the wheel,
Roll the dice,
Throw the dart–
Don’t think twice!
Win or lose?
Beat the odds!
What the hell,
They’re only gods.
That’s all well and good, until you get a Sunni/Shia-style schism over which third-party preference panes are orthodox and which are heretical!
Why is Dawkins shown to be “flipping the bird at his detractors?” Or is this actually Jerry Coyne explaining even-toed ungulates?
And how, exactly, does this blatant mischaracterization of Coyne’s excellent sense of humor serve to promote science & reason, PZ?
(More importantly, how long must I continue to make these crazy assertions before somebody finally tells me to shut the frock up?)
Oh, those annoying little things. Hate them. Now I suddenly feel better about worshiping the blank space next to PZ’s photo. The One True Blank Space, sitting to the right of
the FatherPZ……Never mind.
I’m supposed to worship Sauron. That’s going to be a bit hard what with him being in all intents and purposes nonexistant after the destruction of the One ring. Incorporeal, invisible, unable to do anything but whisper things inside your mind…
Wait a moment! Did I just describe just about every god ever?
Vashti @66— All things considered, and while I do like the very cool little Set animal, I’m staying with Sanrio Shinto. As the Profession of Faith says, there is no kami so kawaii as Kitty, and Tuxedo Sam is Her messenger. And when Hello Kitty inaugurates the reign of Japanese Corporate Cuteness, well…not even Great Cthulhu can stand against that.
Sigh. Here we go, attacking straw men again.
Serious theologians would never choose an object of worship from a merely finite list. They would consider at great length the ineffability of deities and become awestruck by the sheer magnificence of religious contemplation itself.
Finally, after a suitable round table discussion with other elderly white men in black clothing, they would concur that the infinite list really boiled down to God Almighty, and adjourn for sherry in the green room.
I’m with George Carlin and god Joe Pesci “‘cos I know he exists and he looks like a guy that can get things done.”
Well, something I definitely don’t believe (in?) is graphics with poor contrast, where the text and background are hard to distinguish. What I do believe is any so-called “graphics designer” who does that ought to be shot. After being eviscerated, hung, drawn, blinded, quartered, and fed to giant spiders. Godsdamnit, not everyone has perfect vision but you’d be hard-pressed to find a so-called “computer graphics designer” who understands what the feck that means in terms of dos and don’ts.
And don’t get me started on tiny fonts, including tiny Enlarge (or Zoom) buttons. Geesh… just how stupid are these so-called “computer graphics designers”? They appear to be trying to make IDiots/cretinists look like geniuses.
(If you get the impression I had a Very Hard Time reading the black text on a grey background, you’re right. You may collect your internet after eviscerating, hanging, etc., all of those bloody so-called “computer graphics designer” fools you can find.)
…hmn, apparently I’m supposed to worship Clippy (the annoying help-thing whose picture I was looking up to fill my daily quota of self-destructive deeds).
…what the hell, I’ll worship Satan. He’s GOT to be better than Clippy.
Well, I suppose they’d say Satan is in…
Just join The Church of Google.
Nephthys. (At least in Greek distortion.)
Indeed not.
Oh for crying out loud. “Verbing weirds language”…
Come ooon! It’s dark grey text on a light grey background! If you can’t read that, you need a better screen and/or glasses.
Verbing awesomes language.
Oh dear. Right on the line between FSM and Satan. I’ll have to
find out what that meansmake something up.Well, the Ptolemies were the wrapping on the mummy for Egypt. (Oh dear, that is rather horrid.) Of course Egypt was a lost cause after Ramses III anyway. But the Greeks brought the Romans and the Romans brought the Christians and that is just unforgivable.
True believers worship only Inpew and Nebt-het. And of course, we use only the sacred language (the one those dratted Greeks called hieroglyphs).
Great. My God is the BASH shell. I shall now have to write a short shell script to describe my worship of this.
That’s enough giggling from my fellow computer geeks, thank you!!
Root, god, what’s the difference?
Oh, no it’s not…
Know what I’ve been doing the last few hours? Trying to think up a 140-character theology.
My finger landed on Deity. The word in the poster.
Does that mean I get to be like the united church in Futurama? With a Space Pope and all?
Whoops. Next time I play this game I’d better close that Penthouse page first.
Well alright then, all hail to the Deititties!
When I do the spin-chair trick, I land on Channels.
That can mean a lot of things, actually. The woo is coming for me.
(Alyson Miers)
I didn’t spin in my chair the first time. Okay, spun good and my finger landed on the little octopus at the end of each post. Works for me!
Hmm, I got Zarquon.
I guess, based on my screen-name, that makes sense. Not really sure what it entails, though; I don’t, however, believe I’ll interrupt my busy insulting-everyone-in-the-universe schedule to do any worshiping.
I can’t help but wonder if there are any Christians selecting repeatedly until they get “God Almighty” and pretending it means something.
“Anubis. Do Over! Zarquon. Doesn’t Count! Dawkins. Do Over! Prince Philip. One more time! *points while squinting with one eye* Line between Cthulhu and Almighty God. Close enough! God guided my hand!”
The spics, wogs, gyps and jews stole them.
I haven’t used a pin, and yet there’s a hole in my display.
@ Kevin #87
How about: “Enjoy your life as much as you can, help others enjoy theirs, and do your best to leave this planet a little better place than you found it.”
I landed on the line between “nothing” and “Zarquon” so I guess I’m a Zarquon Agnostic.
I put my finger on Deities. So now I am polytheistic!!! Ok. I got to make my own mythology:
In the beginning it was Sauron and Tom Cruise. They fused in the Nothing and from the union arose the God almighty Flying Spaghetti Monster. He created Nature through Science, but a mistake in the millionth day produced Prince Phillip, that stole the light and put it in the Black Obelisk, guarded by four terrible and horrible obstacles: Giant Lizard (God Zilla), Zarquon, Satan and Cthulhu, the one of the unpronounceable name.
Anubis was commanded by the Flying Spaghetti to return the light and combat the forces of evil. But Anubis was devoured by the Giant Lizard the first time, scared to death by the terrible hairdo of Zarquon the second, duped by Satan the third and converted in Paella a la Valenciana by Chulhu the fourth. So, the great Spaghetti, tired of reviving the idiot of Anubis, created the hot, multilingual, highly sophisticated Goddess Isis (we need a hot female in this mythology, what was thinking the one that created this Deities poster?), whose only weak spot was her love for shoes. This extraordinary pair destroyed the four monsters, retrieved the light of the Universe and we are now all Iluminati. Until, of course, Prince Phillip, lurking in the darker spaces of Montecarlo, returns with his minions to steal the light again. Isis and the idiot, er, Anubis, shall be always vigilant to avoid… etc. etc. Ok. You get the idea.
If you want to join me in my new religion you are welcome. I only want the Chief Financial All Mighty and Wise Priesthood. You can get all the spiritual power and polish the mythology. Any money you wish to donate will be used wisely in the four pillars of our highly regarded sacred mission:
1. Our new temple in Bora Bora
2. Amassing wealth
3. Helping the poor
4. Amassing more wealth
I keep hitting the white space outside the graphic.
… I figure this either means I’m already pretty much where I should be deity selection-wise, or just that I should go a little easier on the pre-dinner cocktails.
(/Technically, I guess, these aren’t mutually exclusive, either.)
Kevin @87 – 140-character theology, hmm…
No, I ended up on “nothing”, obviously. Heretic, how dare you not worship nothing, in all its…um…glory…um.
“Ve are Nihilists, Lebowski! Ve believe in nuzzing!”
‘All hail System Preferences! My System Preferences is mightier than your System Preferences!’
And with these words did the High Templar of Ctrl-Alt-Delete PZ ignite the great and terrible System Preference holy war. The first of the three Microsoft Crusades that led to the utter desolation of nations (not to mention really, really bad online lag) and the slaughter of billions, both virtually in Halo deathmatches and in that strange place called the ‘Reale’, before the fighting was ended by the decent of the abominable and all-powerful Blue Screen of Death.
All hail the True System Preference! Father of the ‘Chip, Holy Spirit of the intertubes!
No point in worshipping Anubis. Oma Desala took care of him a while back.
I got Cracked.com. There will be no difference in my habits.
Yay! the typepad gods let me back in.
I got Richard Dawkins, but I’m thinking about converting to PZism. I hear that in the afterlife we all become immortal octopi and there is a coconut shell for everyone! In hell, our cephalopod bodies are used in a creation science museum.
Woot! I got Richard Dawkins! Nothing would’ve been better, but Dawkins isn’t a bad second.
I wish the religious would, shouldn’t be that hard for them ;). Rather than expending entire trees on circular points.
I can see the bus adverts now:
In the beginning, God spoke…Now he tweets!!!
Choose the god whos mobile compatible. Share your prayers with your friends.
Is that reinterpretation of the “I heart New York” template?
I want to play, too!
I liver vodka
I brain books
I pillow sleep
@Forbidden Snowflake
I would pay money to have those on a shirt
Crap … I picked God.
:::sigh:::
Well guys, looks like I won’t be posting here anymore. Admittedly it’s not much of a loss to
Pharyngulayou Hell bound heathens as my last couple attempts atfailhumor turned out to be previously played out up-thread. For those looking for agood deal on usedreason to cry overscienceatheistic andnaturedarwinistic books, keep an eye onEbaymy fire pit as I will beauctioning offburning all of thesecomplicated, thought provoking, and rationally thought outevil materials.Well jojame, suppose I could ask you where you like to
trollhang out seeing as I need to find somemutually re-assuring fellow cult membersnew friends. Any chance you know Andy Schlafly ? I heard he could use some help cooking thebooksbible and brewing up somebullshitE. coli. Or maybe we could hang with “Willie da Weasel” and hammer out a properobfuscationdefintion of Information or even whip up a new sciency term just likeTheoryExplanatory Filter orShit HappensSpecified Complexity.:::ouch:::
My head hurts already and I haven’t even gotten on the rationalization treadmill yet. Screw this, I’m spinning again …
Black Obelisk it is ….
STAY THE FUCK OFF OF EUROPA, YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED
As was mentioned in comment #56, the chart does look to be the work of artist Tom Gauld of Cabonon Press. I am a total fan of his art and have some autographed comics! Years ago he designed an evolution watch that I wanted very badly but it was no longer available (you can find it in the archives at http://www.cabanonpress.com/tomsshed/8.2.watch.htm ). Sweet.
Oops. It’s Cabanon Press.