Religious Easter Decorations More Offensive Than Cuddly Bunnies

I was driving up to my dad's place last night when I passed a Catholic church gearing up for Easter in the traditional way: they erected a life-size cross in the front yard. And when I say "life-size," I mean that in the most traditional way. It was appropriately sized for crucifying a grown man.

Why would anyone do that? "Hey, they killed our messiah, so let's celebrate with a giant reminder of the excruciating, agonizing death he went through to save us all." And again, literally excruciating. "With the pain of being crucified." That sounds like such a wonderfully Christian ideal.

Let's focus on how Jesus died, not the point that he was dying miserably in order to redeem everyone and teaching us to appreciate that as we live our lives in a better, more cooperative way. Yes. That makes perfect sense.

But let's not be morbid about the business! Let's take a pretty, purple shawl and drape it over the cross so no one thinks we're a actually trying to crucify anyone or run a family of blacks out of town as soon as we get back from the gas station with a lighter and a gallon of petrol. You know, we don't want to look like weirdos. Let's just put a big scarf up their and say it's the shroud of Turin. It's representative.

And fabuloussssss.

Oh, and yes, just in case you still weren't getting that this is religious and not offensive or anything, up top of the big old cross is that wonderfully condescending sign "I.N.R.I." Do you know what that is? It's what the Roman government smacked up top of Jesus as they killed him. It's an abbreviation for "Iesvs Nazarinvs Rex Iudaeorvm," the Latin for "Jesus the Nazarene, King of the Jews." Historically, that was what the Roman authorities dubbed Jesus to sound incredibly offensive to the populace of Judea, so that they would vote to allow him to die when they were given the choice to have either Jesus or a lowly thief be pardoned.

So yeah, apparently Catholics have forgotten the true meaning of Christian Easter. Not even the real Pagan Easter, the Christian one.

And while we're here, can I just ask you why in holy hell you thought a crucifix would be a good symbol for your religion? It's just a horrifying torture device! Are you trying to turn the weapon of evil against its masters? I'd say that went out once Constantine converted the entire Roman empire and you guys started liking Rome. Jesus, you're even using the Latin word "Christos" to describe your savior! You just used to call your religion "The Way." That's so wonderfully Buddhist! Your symbols included a happy fish! Why can't you just use a little crystal man as a symbol? Something symbolizing Jesus' resurrection and conquering of death (as per the plan) instead of the way he was ritualistically slaughtered? I'll tell you, I have a couple of Obi-Wan Kenobi action figures that'd be perfect models for a new money-making opportunity there.

What happened to you, Christians? You used to be cool.

"Catholics still cool! You pay later! LATER!"