Jack T. Chick is a name I’ve not heard for some time. He’s famous for his tracts.

Probably the most famous one is “This is Your Life”, one of his older creations (the website says copyright 2002, but it’s far older than that). It contained a simple story contrasting how two men lived their lives, clearly presenting the basics of Christianity.

Then there’s “The Last Generation”. Even for someone familiar with the theology of the Rapture and Tribulation, it was bizarre, confusing and ridiculous. (If you do go read the whole thing, count the number of digs he takes at Catholicism.)

The story includes a boy wearing a neo-Nazi school uniform who learns how to sacrifice pets in class. Like I said, utterly bizarre.

You know he's evil, 'cause he's bald, dressed like one of the X-Men, and offering free drugs.

The most frightening dystopias have some connection to reality. This aspect is not captured here.

(The boy vaguely resembles me when I was about 6, but in looks only. I wasn’t into cussing and animal sacrifice.)

“The Bible is not less valid just because some of it isn’t true or factual.”

Found in the comments of the article 15 Answers to Creationist Nonsense. Of course, it’s a raging evolution vs. creation debate. LEP will refrain from fruitlessly commenting.

No clue where I found this.

There’s been speculation how Obama could possibly be the Antichrist, because of his hypnotic hold on people worldwide. And his Muslim dad. Obama says he’s Christian, but is he really? The GOP wants you to keep speculating to get more votes, BTW.

(Polite society doesn’t say this, but the insinuation’s probably easier because Obama’s not white-skinned, so he doesn’t look like most of us Americans.)

But if Obama were the real Antichrist, would it be so obvious? Would millions of people immediately become suspicious?

I propose that the real Antichrist would be more subtle than that. Someone who has even greater worldwide appeal and would be a much better deceiver. Someone who no one would suspect, because he never talks politics. So he could work his master plan behind the scenes. Someone whose name is nowadays mostly associated with hokey underwear commercials rather than any governmental power.

I am talking, of course, about Michael Jordan.

Additional Reading: Is Barack Obama the Anti-Christ?

There’s been some sort of nerdy chess player dust-up on some chick named Vicary’s blog. FIDE Master Jon Jacobs had the following to say:

They and their blogs carry colorful handles like Liquid Egg Product, blunderprone, Wahrheit, and even Man de la Maza….Less politely, they could be described as a “cult”…

Fellow bloggers, including BDK, Wahrheit, and chessloser went to bat for me, indicating that I am not part of the de la Maza cult.

Unfortunately, Mr. Jacobs is closer to the mark than I’ve been letting on.

You see, last December the Mascot converted to Mazaism, and we helped him build a dark temple in his basement so he could worship the requisite three times a day. (Worship sessions consist of constant repetition of the phrase “de la Maza is teh bomb” while moving around in circles. It’s not my cup of tea, but whatever.)

A couple months ago, FM Jon Jacobs snuck into the Mascot’s basement, snapped some photographs, and threatened to release them to the world if we at Liquid Egg Product didn’t pay up. Even though we’ve been FAITHFULLY paying the hush money every week, he went ahead and PUBLICLY outed this site yesterday.

We’ve stopped the payments, and are looking into ways we can legally recover the blackmail money.

No, the Mascot’s Dark Temple is not available for tours. Sorry.

I’m getting a little resentful that the about page still says I only do 2% of the work around here. It’s been days since Mr. Boss gave you a decent post. It’s almost like he was hoping some of you readers would wish him happy birthday, then just took off. Looks like it’s up to me to save the site…

So get this: I was eating lunch last Sunday, trying to decide on my college basketball bracket. I stared into my bowl of Chunky Soup, bending my massive intellect into the task at hand. All of a sudden, I received a flash of inspiration…the chunks of food formed an image of the Virgin Mary! (See picture, below.)

It was obvious: Mount Saint Mary would upset North Carolina. All the other picks just kinda fell into place after that.

Mount Saint Mary ended up losing by 39.

I sold the bowl of soup on eBay for $17. Images of Mary in random objects sure don’t go for as much as they used to.

Tom’s asking “Does Jesus want to be my friend forever?” finally prodded me to post this (it’s been sitting unfinished since November).

During my college days, I attended a church with a more “contemporary” style of worship. Despite attending for three years, I never found it easy to worship seriously there. At the time, I rarely talked about it, nor was able to put a finger on why that should be the case.

Eventually, I figured out one thing, made obvious when “Shout to the Lord” by Darlene Zschech was sung during the service. There was a particular point during the song when, without fail, a bunch of people would shoot up their hands and do the hand-waving thing. This was when there was a modulation (change of key) and the volume was kicked up a notch.

It was the music itself that was eliciting such a response from the congregation, not the song’s content. (Perhaps this is one of the reasons that music is frowned upon in Islam?)

While at my parents’ house some time back, a second point was revealed. One of the articles in the October 2007 issue of Tabletalk discussed contemporary worship. Here is what Gene Edward Veith had to say:

They are mostly in the form of secular love-songs to Jesus. They are often from the feminine point of view, singing “Jesus, I am so in love with you” in a way that makes men squirm. Sometimes, “Jesus” is never mentioned, with the song being addressed to a “you” who could just as easily be a human lover.

These “Jesus-is-my-boyfriend” types of songs can be sacrilegious or profane.

Now I remember. That always felt weird to me, even as other students tried to convince me it was not.

Over my first week or so of living in Houston, I’ve lived off a limited variety of foodstuffs procured from Hong Kong Food Market. But now was time to do some serious stocking up on food, and I decided to visit a Fiesta (it’s a Texas thang; you wouldn’t understand. Unless you’ve lived in Texas–specifically Houston, Austin, or Dallas. So maybe that should have been “It’s a Houston, Austin, or Dallas thang…”).

It was a mostly uneventful trip, but after I’d covered the entire store, I realized I’d forgotten to buy some sort of cheese, located at the opposite end. Evading shopping carts, dodging small children, and sidling past store employees, I finally reached the end where a blonde lady who looked to be in her 50′s was looking at the cheeses.

When I got there, she told me to make sure to buy foods only if it was OK with God. As an example, she pointed out the Borden brand of cheese: “Borden” spelled backwards spells “Ned rob”, which I guess meant that Borden mentioned people stealing so I wasn’t supposed to buy it. She pointed to some products in her own cart, like some “Grin and Giggle” bath wash which she was supposed to get because she giggled too much. And there was some VO5 or something she was supposed to buy as a punishment from God. I really don’t remember the details.

As she turned to go, she mentioned I was “very nice and very handsome”, a bit of flattery which will certainly improve my evaluation of her (more than likely, I was one of the few people willing to listen to her). Then she noted my Red Cross T-shirt, and I explained to her about my blood donorship. She warned me that when giving blood, they could inject me with AIDS or something.

I figured I was dealing with someone either paranoid or kinda nutty. Then she asked if I knew that the FBI could install an implant that could make you stop talking if they didn’t want you to. I said I didn’t know about it. She laughed and said she was kidding. So now I’m wondering whether she was just messing with me the entire time. Nonetheless, it was an interesting experience which I feel the richer for.

Oh, yeah, she wished me a Happy Thanksgiving, too. Very well, then. Happy Thanksgiving, ma’am. I hope our paths cross again.

Popular San Antonio pastor dies from lightning strike during hike.

Minister in skirt charged with indecent exposure. The minister was male, so the skirt thing was a bit unusual.

Thieves posing as coppers rob pastor. The minister stated, “I forgive. I pray for the people because they don’t know what they’re doing.” Um, sir, I would conjecture these thieves knew very well what they were doing.

I will leave you to make your own judgment on this one…

(All the pics link to the same page: a trailer for the game Bibleman: A Fight for Faith)