The Battle Joined

Posted by Jesus on April 3, 2007

A really interesting thing happened out in Connecticut recently. Normally I tend to overlook neighborly spats even if they are about me or Dad, but in this case I feel a little compelled to talk a bit about what is acceptable and what is not when dealing with a neighbor. In a little shopping center a nice lady who prays at least three or four times a week put up a cute little Easter sign prodding people to honk their car horns for, of all things, me! Her neighbor, in a spiritually repugnant retaliatory strike, placed a matching sign in his window prompting passers-by to honk twice for Satan.

From the article:

The first shot in the spiritual warfare now underway in a small shopping plaza in Naugatauck, Conn., began when Claudette Soden, a devout Christian and owner of Photos Onto DVD, posted a sign at the front of the parking lot proclaiming, “Easter: Beep for Christ.”

For Soden, who told the Waterbury Republican-American Jesus is her “partner in business,” the sign was just an opportunity for her to express her faith.

So far, so good. Claudette and I go way back, and I did indeed help her get the business running. In fact, I still help her gain customers today. But just like a commercial relationship on Earth, I get something in return from her for my assistance in her business venture. Along with increased praise and a little more tithe for my pockets, I get a successful business owner who will promote my name and my good deeds not only to her customers, but to simple passers-by as well. The sign she put up is not only her “opportunity to express her faith” - it is a cleverly designed way to help spread that faith.

More from the article:

The sign not only drew beeps from drivers, it drew the attention of Phil Young who works next door at No Regrets, a tattooing and body piercing shop that’s been operating since 2003.

Young put his artistic skills to work and posted his own sign next to Soden’s.

“Honk twice for…,” reads the sign, with a caricature of a red devil painted beneath the text.

Young, who insists he’s not a satanist, says he doesn’t want his clients, who come from a variety of religious backgrounds, to associate Soden’s message with his business.

“My main point is that we share a parking lot, and what goes on in this parking lot represents not only hers, but both shops,” he told the Republican-American. “What she does inside her business is her business. I would not tell her to get rid of the sign.

“More people have been killed in the name of God than over anything else, and so I don’t think people should fight about religion,” he said. “Satan is part of the same religion as Christ, so it’s a contrast, not a competing religion.”

There are a few things that need to get addressed, the least of which is the fact that this guy would even dare to put up a sign promoting the Prince of Evil himself. Phil here claims not to be a satanist, but what else could one be expected to infer from such a sign? We don’t look at Claudette’s “honk for Jesus” sign and think oh, she must be Buddhist, do we? No, and we can’t be expected to look at a sign telling people to honk not once, but twice, for Satan and somehow be expected to believe that the person hanging the sign has no affiliation with the subject of the honking either. Of course he claims it’s just to differentiate his business, which is a tattoo parlor (which we all know to be a place which promotes sin), from that of his neighbor. His clients, he suggests, being from different backgrounds might not appreciate being subjected to a sign bearing my name. Well of course his clients don’t want to see my name - they’re reminded every time they look at the ink used to foul their temple of the agony and eternity they’ll spend watching that same liquid bubble under their decorated skin, or at least they should be.

Honk for Jesus And as for his point about more people being killed in the name of God than anything else, I’d just like to set the record straight. Any God which is not the God of the Christian religion, which is to say that the god employed by muslims, mormons, hindus, and all of those other non-Christian sects, are not counted in the same category as Dad when calculating human deaths. It is true that Dad has smitten a lot of people in His time, but let’s be realistic about this. The number of people killed on Earth by humans in the name of Dad is much, much smaller than the number killed in the name of all those other false gods. Don’t be tempted to lump them all together just because the basic premise of God seems similar in all of the religions - the very moment people start to accept another prophet besides me they begin worshiping a false religion, and by extension a false God. And another thing, how many of those other gods have done their own work? At least Dad took it upon himself to kill the masses when they screwed up as opposed to farming out the work to a bunch of humans. To be sure, far fewer people have been killed in the name of Dad than most would expect.

And you know, I feel that it’s important to point out exactly why this sign has gotten my attention when so many things seem so more important in the world. While it may appear that the war between Christians and muslims is the most critical engagement today, or even that the war against religion in America is the more pressing matter, nothing comes close to the impending war between myself and Satan. We’ve both been working out every day (except the Sabbath, which he does work out on, so he has a tiny little edge there) in preparation for the big fight, which is going to be so huge you’ll forget that muslims ever existed. It’s one thing to support a sect which doesn’t really matter because they’ve gotten lost and followed a false prophet for too long, that can be overlooked because that just gets people dropped into Hell. To support my direct enemy, and the one being who actually holds power over people besides Dad? Well, that’s just wrong.

More from the article:

Whether it can be called a fight about religion or not, both businesses say they won’t remove their signs.

“His sign is not bothering me, but I know it’s bothering Jesus,” Soden said. “And children are going to pass by that sign and say, ‘What is that? It looks like a devil.’ And what are parents going to say to that?”

In closing, I just want to say a couple of things here. While it’s fine that she’s taking a stand and addressing this (I’d rather she defer this to her husband or a male preacher to manage), her not being bothered by a sign promoting my only real enemy is disheartening. There was a time not so long ago that this sort of thing would have led to a stoning in the street and that would have been the end of it. Instead we get a long and drawn out argument over a pretty simple matter of salvation versus damnation.

Finally, despite Claudette’s apparent reservations about talking to one’s kids about the world around them, I believe that it is important that kids be made aware that there are individuals who support and promote Satan as an alternative to the Truth. I know it’s so easy to get wrapped up in the whole “now kids know about xyz” drama, but let’s be realistic. How are they going to be decent humans when they’re adults if they’re kept intentionally far away from the very people they need to learn to rally against? In a perfect world, the world that is coming, a sign like this wouldn’t warrant concern over what kids might ask when they see it. No, it will be a world where a sign like this causes children to gather with their parents on the sidewalks around the business in an orderly fashion, just with smaller rocks piled up next to them.