When I was visiting Iowa, I learned about the UNIFI blog, and the students told me that they have a weekly series called Blasphemy Friday, sort of like the Friday Cephalopod, only with heresy instead of molluscs. I thought that was brilliant, so I decided to steal their idea (it’s OK, atheist, you know), and just change it around a little, and do it on Sunday instead of Friday for extra sacriliciousness, and I’m going to focus on blasphemous imagery.
There’s real peril here. After all, if these images are so horrific that they make gods weep in anger, then think what they’ll do to minds of mere mortals: they will blast your brain and sear your soul, and turn you into gibbering feral fiends wandering the streets and committing acts of rapine, robbery, and ruffianism. Now I know most of you are already atheists so that won’t change anything for you, but there could be innocents wandering by…so I’ll always put these blasphemous pictures below the fold. It’ll be your choice. Pass by, or click through and…suffer the consequences.
Behold the sacrilegious t-shirt of Justin Surber.
Too late, you’re doomed. You’ve seen the Shirt of Justin. This is kind of like that video in The Ring, only instead of seeing a creepy drowned girl, you’re going to have visions of Justin and his shirt, shambling ever closer, until after a week, he grabs your soul and turns you into a godless zombie, your face contorted into a sneer of superiority forevermore.
Justin was going to have a picture of himself wearing the shirt in his high school yearbook, a plan the administrators squelched. After all, including such a picture, which innocent children might glimpse by just flipping through the book, would rank the Arlington High School 2010 Yearbook up there with the Necronomicon of the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred as a talisman of insanity and evil, and explaining that to the PTA would be so awkward.
I guess it’s better that the school official acquire a reputation for being censorious bluenosed pissants with no appreciation of a classic philosophical concept than that they be progenitors of an unholy madness. Now instead of appearing in a small book with limited circulation and a very specialized, limited audience, the Shirt of Justin is featured in a blog that will get millions of hits all around the world. Bwahahahaha! They never considered the unintended consequences of their action!
The Justinshirt makes me hungry for baybeeeeeeeee
Hot damn. That photo reminds me of the bridge in Silver Bullet.
he should have made a shirt with a text ‘Dog Is Dead’.
Oh the hilarity which would ensue over a misread word.
Dammit. Now I want a “Nietzsche is God” t-shirt.
“Agnes Moorehead is God”- seen spray painted on the wall of the parking lot at the Palace nightclub in L.A.
Now there’s a god I could worship.
Hmm, I think I’m going to enjoy those nightmares. Handsome young Justin is already provoking some extremely blasphemous thoughts in me if Leviticus 20:13 is to be believed…
How can something that doesn’t exist, die?
But…but…but…you don’t understand. If a yearbook photograph of Justin’s t-shirt were to be seen by the innocent masses of Arlington, Iowa, chaos would ensue. Rabid mobs would storm the streets, looting shops and cutting down power line poles with chainsaws. There might even be someone who looks at the yearbook years later and say: “Hm, nice t-shirt.”
Bravo, Justin. I was censored – i.e., told to leave for the day – by high school administrators for wearing evil, blasphemous, Satanic white tennis shorts to school on a hot June day. Never mind that for the infraction of not wearing shorts in gym class, one would fail gym and thus not graduate – and that there was no school dress code. So the next day I strutted around the administrative offices on every break and between classes dressed as some deranged, feral, goth prostitute or something (hey, it was the 80s), and this had to be okay of course, because I wasn’t wearing shorts.
Justin, I hope seeing your pic on this blog gives you the same sense of satisfaction I felt that day. Kudos.
do it on Sunday instead of Friday for extra sacriliciousness
Ah! Ah! You just wouldn’t dare do it on Friday because that’s the Muslim holy day.
/fatwah envy
Justin, you could wear one of these noodly T-shirts, instead. Although none says he is dead, at least you can learn the value of carboloading.
First time through, I read that as “Rabbi mobs”. Made for a whole different comment, let me tell you.
Whoop, no using Google accounts to sign in for me anymore…
We need pictures before we can accept the veracity of this claim.
Great shirt (except for job interviews).
What makes this picture particularly precious is its bucolic setting. I can think of few outdoor structures more wholesome than a covered bridge.
Message: Check
Context: Check
Backpack: Check
Ready for school. It would be wonderful if we could necromance Munsch and commission him to put this on canvas.
I went to Catholic Schools that had strict dress codes, and it was always a treat to find ways to skirt the dress code. So to speak. On rule required boys to maintain a hairdo so that the hair did not hang below the collar. In keeping with this rule I grew the hair in front down to my chin, whilst keeping the back closely trimmed. When told that this hair-cut, while not technically a violation, was introducing a safety hazard because the hair was always in my eyes, I used Elmers glue to fashion it into a horn that stood up straight from my forehead.*
*In case any one was wondering, I had long since given up the idea of having friends or being popular with the ladies.
Congrats to Justin, nice t-shirt…new favorite word of the day “Bwahahahaha!”
#7
Well, with strange eons even death may die, so maybe it’s just one of them strange eons.
I wonder if the administration also bans the wearing of crosses in school yearbook photos.
And yet – one must wonder how many of those yearbook photos featured young’uns with that Bronze-Age Capital Punishment Device hung around their necks.
JC
WTF? Everybody knows that Eric Clapton is God, and he ain’t dead.
Agnes Moorehead? WTH is Agnes Moorehead?
Obligatory HS dress code story: I got kicked off the X country team my senior year, because the wrestling coach didn’t like my athletic-dresscode-incorrect whispy little barely visible moustache (my coach couldn’t have cared less). I raised a stink about it, letters to the school paper and such, and a year later there was no more dresscode. A few years after that, said wrestling coach was wearing a handlebar moustache and relatively long hair, but I was still remembered as “that troublemaker”.
NO FAIR! Lou FCD stole my comment!
I was going to suggest that we count the visible crosses in yearbooks.
I’m guessing that if the shirt said “Jesus died” (for your sins, or whatever), that would be ok.
So where’s the problem with saying “God is dead”? Is the simple fact that you don’t accept some fiction like his coming back to life again the problem?
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/mxaa3p
Actually, I wouldn’t have a problem with them banning his shirt, provided they tell other kids they can’t have crosses, the little Jewish beanies I cannot remember the name of, headscarves or any other religious symbolism.
Ah yes, finally found the covered bridge scene in Silver Bullet (link).
Justin is exposing the hypocrisy of Christians as any “meddling little shit” would.
next t-shirt :
“There’s
probablyno godSo stop worrying and enjoy your life”
Or :
“Leave me out of your bronze age myth, please”
I believe Agnes Moorehead was the mother-in-law on Bewitched. The fact that i actually remember that is a source of shame to both my wife and family…sigh
That would be “cross-dressing”. “cross-dressing”, of course, causes the already difficult-to-control urges of students, staff, and even parents, to be come uncontrollable, resulting in lewd and smutty behavior. IT IS OF THE DEVIL AND NOT ALLOWED!
Reminds me of the t-shirt I bought my nephew last Christmas. On the front a generic sanctimonious caucasian hippy image of Jesus, on the back: “Stop following me!”
Iris:
We had a similar incident at my high school, also in the early 80s. Our vice principal (who had the unfortunate last name of Stucker) sent some kids to detention for having the temerity to wear shorts during a heat wave. He followed this up with an announcement that from this moment on all boys were to wear slacks and all girls were to wear dresses with hems that fell somewhere between the knees and ankles.
The next day several hundred students showed up at school wearing shorts.
That looks like the bridge from Beetlejuice.
It was probably advertising this movie of the same name.
“Oh, yes, there will be blood … & cocktails”
llewelly #28
FTW!
I wonder if Bill Donohue’s will be fuming over this.
#23 Glen Davidson: That might be an interesting idea: “Jesus Died” on the front, and “God is Dead” on the back.
While I can appreciate the humor, I must caution your readers about the hazards of taking up blasphemy, sacrilidge and good-humored mockery as a hobby. As a nun myself, I can tell you all it is hard work! Long hours for a few good payoffs.
Let us know if you need any tips. Or pictures, we have galleries.
Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence
Yours in Travesty,
Sister Mary Fucking Poppins, LASPI
Matron, St Inappropriata’s School for the Discombobulated
Chief Nursing Sister at Our Lady of Bishounen Hospital for the Insufferably Romantic
I always carry smelling salts to aid the blasphemed.
A workmate was once berated for being a ‘scruffy git’
Next day turns up in immaculate full highland evening dress, kilt, lace shirt, sporran silver buckled shoes silver buttoned jacket – the whole schmeer.
He is not a scot.
We were not in Scotland.
At our high school in the late….{okay, just spit it out, they already know you are older than dirt}…. 60s, we had a number of incidents of student rebellion very similar to those described above. The three I remember most are the time the entire basketball team shaved their heads because one of them had been benched for a game because his hair was too long. Another one was the time, after being explicitly told not to have anything in the class homecoming skits that had anything to do with hippies (don’t ask). Our Senior Class skit had already been planned when this dictum was delivered. Our rivals for the game were the Bishop Kelly Knights. We made a huge paper mache knight, the entire Senior class (ca. 150 kids–this was in Mountain Home, Idaho) carried it out in sections, dressed in as hippie-like clothes as our parents would let us get away with (not all that hippie-ish, most of the town kids were Mormon, though the air force base kids were all sorts), while the most popular local garage band (all seniors) played a modified version of San Franciscan Nights that included the phrase “On a dead Bishop Kelly knight”. When the song was over we tore the knight apart.
We called it a “happening” which was just too hippie for words, but the real killer was the song–that was considered completely hippie by the school administration. There were threats of suspending everyone who was involved (the entire senior class), but in the end they just refused to give the class the win for the skit that we had clearly won. They also cancelled the big Seniors-get-to-wear-shorts day (whatever they called it–it was a tradition) In protest, the entire student government, from all the classes (and including the two girls), came to school in shirts, ties, sports jackets, and shorts. They had insisted that only they would do it and they took their suspensions with their heads held high.
I know. Childish. But then, we were children.
@21: this is silly! *Everyone* knows that Mike Patton is god!
@27: I knew who she was too, I didnt even have to think about it. I think maybe those people who dont know are the sad ones…… according to findadeath.com, Paul Lynde called her “one of the all time Hollywood dykes”. Sounds like someone I would have liked to know :)
Hey,
I too got sent home from high school (1979) for wearing shorts. Khakis, with a crease.
The principal was really nice about it. He basically said that my shorts were okay but if he let me wear them, then the girls would come in the next day with really short shorts.
I said something about this seeming more like an opportunity than a problem. No go.
In Texas in middle school (that being where you go when you are roughly between 11-ish and 13-ish), I was once sent home for NOT wearing shorts.
Under a skirt, that is. School dress code mandated that girls could wear skirts to school only with shorts under them. The fact that the skirt was practically a costume, ankle length and tiered and frilled like a farthingale, didn’t matter. The fact that someone noticed I wasn’t wearing shorts under all that mess was a little more disturbing, though I didn’t understand at the time why Mom got all bent out of shape.
Or my ex.
BS
It’s already been tested by the supreme court: you lose freedom of speech if attending public school.
Knockgoats #10: /fatwah envy
Okay, my SIWOTI compels me to point out that, despite the natural assumptions of pretty much everyone in the Western World following the Salmon Rushdie affair, a fatwā is not necessarily a death sentence, just a religious opinion from any Muslim scholar. All fatwās are more or less irrational, of course, but not all of them are murderous.
Of course, Knockgoats may already have known that anyway. So I guess I’ll just call it EIWOTI. Because I’ll bet most of you didn’t know that before! So there!
Okay, my SIWOTI compels me to point out that you are playing this card in the wrong venue.
There’s a bunch of atheists around here, we know this shit.
Or he could declare himself a member of the Church of Free Speech, patron saint Pat Condell.
@ Spiro Keat #7-
I’m really really tempted to go on a philosophy rant about what Nietzsche meant when he said “God is dead”, but I’ll summarize it in as few words as possible. The idea of an omnipotent deity is dead in the minds of humanity and we are now free to exert our will to power. He may have been a tad premature in his predictions.
Obligatory high school dress code story: So I was in high school until last year, and we had no dress code whatsoever. We had cosplay fridays where the huge cosplay club would come dressed in some theme like disney characters, and steampunk day was tuesday. Dress up like a pirate or ninja was a school organized event. I once went to school wearing full victorian garb just for the hell of it, and no one even gave me a second look.
Agnes Moorehead, among her many other stage and film roles, was Charles Foster Kane’s mother in Citizen Kane.
-fyreflye
Agnes Moorehead also played Madge in the following:
http://www.imdb.com/media/rm1920638720/tt0039302
I love old movies.
MOAR!!!!
hello , new here. I used to wear a t-shirt that said ” jesus died for his own sins not mine” a song by a band called crass. Got me barred by my local
PZ –
I must point out that you’ve unknowingly stolen my idea. Okay, the “unknowingly” part disqualifies it as theft. Over at my relatively backwater blog, “the evolving mind,” I’ve been doing a Sunday Sacrilege post for half a hear now. I invite you and your readers to check it out here: http://evolvingmind.info/blog/category/sunday-sacrilege/
Let’s contact the Principal on Tuesday and express our support of Justin Surbur (after 11am, east coast time, as Justin’s school is on the west coast). Arlington High School 18821 Crown Ridge Boulevard Arlington, WA 98223-4015. Phone:(360) 618-6300