"It was a gorgeous Palm Sunday. The kind of day that makes you want to ride on a donkey and get hit with palm fronds..." Or Support the War On Easter

buahahaha:

"People go to churches to hide from the truth," Flemming said in a statement. "At no time is this more apparent than Easter, when Christians get together to convince each other that a man died, stayed dead three days, rose from the dead and then flew into the air above the clouds.

Worldnetdaily has its undies in quite a bunch over an (obviously very effective) PR stunt capitalizing on everyone's favorite - the war on xmas:

A media company that produced a best-selling documentary asserting that Jesus Christ never existed today launches its "War on Easter," encouraging volunteer atheists to plant copies of the film "The God Who Wasn't There" in churches across the United States.

Dubbing the effort "Operation Easter Sanity," Brian Flemming, a self-described "former Christian fundamentalist" and president of Beyond Belief Media, hopes to covertly place 666 copies of the documentary in churches by Easter Sunday, April 16. The number 666 is the biblical mark of "The Beast," which also is the name of another film by Flemming set for a 06-06-06 release.

Now, who would do such a thing? It's so... pushy. Invading the privacy of this place of worship and planting propagandist materials in hopes of converting some vulnerable thinker is so... deliciously ironic. Really, atheist tracts? I've never met a more satisfying idea. The Atheist Mama put it to work:

She reports:

The strike began at dawn...

Ok, not really. It actually began about around 9:30 after I had dropped my oldest off at school, and cleaned out my car... I was very polite and I have no ill feelings towards anyone there, and was very welcomed. The woman at the front desk actually suggested that I was sent by God because she was just praying that she would meet women from my side of town for her new Women's Group. Besides, I can't count how many times Xian tracts have been left on my doorstep.

Sure you could argue that she was just as bad as evangelimentalists leaving tracts and knocking on doors, but you'd be wrong. Upending the dominant culture's tactics to criticize is valid comment and satire on it's own (not to mention damned funny). That she's spreading her truth (or rather lack thereof) is even more justification. In a postmodern world it does matter who starts the fight. (buy a t-shirt if you like - and check out the War's blog for more reports from the troops)

Comments

[Cassandra]

LMAO!! Thanks for the write up!! Excellent!
Too bad the "headquarter's" site is down!!

[ryan]

thank YOU. I snickered audibly at your post. Love the photos.

[kelly g.]

Is it just me, or does Christ's mouth on the waroneaster.org's banner look like a vagina?

On a more related note, I'm happy to report that my local library actually has a copy of "The God Who Wasn't There" - especially shocking since I live in Kansas!

[ryan]

(!) It took me a while to see the Christ around that vagina!

[heidi]

"(!) It took me a while to see the Christ around that vagina!"

me too! i don't know if i would have seen it all if i hadn't been told to look for it.

I thought this was really hilarious until i read one person's post about planting easter-egg-filled fliers around a church for kids to find. then i cklicked on the fliers link to see the fliers specifically directed at children.

this strikes me as an activity equally manipulative and destructive towards children as Christian and anti-choice propaganda directed towards non-christian kids. EXTREMELY disappointing! what it's no longer satirical, ironic, funny, or fair to *use* kids in this manner. and yes, i see it as using children to get at their parents, just like those we would criticize do. what effect do they really think these fliers will have on little kids? they're fooling themselves if they think the effect will be anything other than bewilderment, confusion, and/or distress - let alone the likelyhood that fanatical parents might be inspired to further excersize control/censorship over their children's lives. Telling children that their parents are bad is *always* damaging, no matter how fucked up the parents may or may not be.

sorry for being so serious, but that really pissed me off and is indicative of the general lack of responsibility towards the well-being of children that our culture exhibits. damn.