The most bizarre Easter display--ever--and the customer of the year

[jmowreader]

I gotta tell ya, some of these "Christians" take this Jesus stuff WAAAAAAAAAAY too seriously.

Today I got a telephone call from someone claiming to represent a church. "I need some 6x8 timbers." He wanted three 8-footers and three 24-footers.

6x8 timbers are fucking huge, folks. I don't have anything that big. You could build a bridge and drive medium trucks across it with these timbers, so I had to know what he wanted them for. "We're going to build three crosses, put them in the ground in front of our church, then hang people from them."

(Worse: It took me ten minutes to talk this moran out of burying only two feet of the 6x8 in the ground. Our dirt is pure sand. How many parishioners, not counting the poor bastard who's hanging on the cross in the first place, can you take out by dropping a 400-pound cross on them?)

Oh....kay! We are talking about Serious Religious Insanity on a scale never before attempted.

I've heard of Living Nativity Scenes. They're nice.
I've heard of Heaven's Gates and Hell's Flames. It's okay.
I've even heard of people building crosses out of wood then dressing up like Jesus and dragging them through the streets of your fair city.

But I have Never. Ever. In My Wildest Nightmares. Dreamed that someone would conduct a fucking CRUCIFIXION.

Do y'all think this display screams out for Serious Corporate Sponsorship? "Jesus will be crucified this year with the Paslode Impulse Cordless Framing Nailer. Its ruggedness, power and dependability will let us nail up Our Lord and Savior in the morning, then build picnic tables for the church social in the afternoon!"

WHO THINKS UP THIS SHIT?!?!?!?!?

[salin]

1. Very creepy

imo. Sorta Howard Stern shock-jock merges with Pat Robertson phoney crusador.

[MissB]

2. Tell them they'd probably be okay with only 1 feet of depth.

:rofl:

[BlueJazz]

15. ROFLMAO!

Funny!

[DS1]

3. this calls for a devil suit, can of gasoline, and a match

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

4. After Easter is over and they're finished with the crosses

will they burn them on some liberal's front lawn?

I'm also curious -- did he want treated lumber so they can keep the crosses up and use them year after year without worrying about the wood rotting?

Were you also able to sell them some spikes, or will a big nail gun do the trick?

[jmowreader]

10. He would have HAD to buy treated lumber

Timbers that big are going to be treated to very high concentrations of ACQ--we're talking Below Ground level, which is way more than what I've got--or .60 CCA (yes, you can still treat with arsenic for industrial use, and these timbers are definitely industrial), or creosote.

I didn't have anything for him. And I have no idea where he'll get this.

[Ron Green]

5. Tell him he needs hardwood, to make it more authentic.

I wonder what 6X8 in maple would weigh?

[realisticphish]

27. no

i think oak would be his best bet :evilgrin:

[jmowreader]

41. Not oak. Not maple. Ipe.

Ipe is one of the Ironwoods--a group of four woods with a specific gravity above 1, which means they won't float.

Ipe is:

naturally rot resistant
extremely heavy
impossible to drive nails into without predrilling pilot holes (which means Our Lord and Savior would have to be nailed up with the Hilti Powder Actuated Fastening Gun, which is made for driving nails into concrete)
And expensive enough that the church might decide not to do something stupid like this.

[A HERETIC I AM]

6. You should have told the guy he needed a 10" X 10" cross beam and a

2" X 4" upright. The cross beam should be 15 feet long and the twobyfour should be 25 feet long. That way, the poor dummy that volunteers for this nonsense can get to the ground quickly when the damned thing bends and breaks 2 minutes after it is erected.

[MissMarple]

7. That is just too funny for words.

:rofl:

The Penitentes in northern New Mexico and southern Colorado do a maiming type ritual, but I think it is more flagellation and carrying the cross than a nailing thing. And a group in the Philippines does one as well, but I don't know about the hanging on the actual cross part. They make your guys look like rank amateurs

[mohinoaklawnillinois]

8. Please tell me this is a JOKE.

"We're going to build three crosses, put them in the ground in front of our church, then hang people from them."

Dear God, these people are truly sick...

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[jmowreader]

12. No can do. Not a joke.

Gonna crucify three parishioners right in front of the church.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

16. Like with nails and stuff? Or are they just going to tie them with ropes?

Either way, it's pretty bizarre; but totally grotesque if they actually use nails.

(Unless, of course, you can sell them a nail gun.)

[jmowreader]

22. I HOPE they tie them with ropes!

And there are two reasons for that.

The first is that actually getting nailed up would really fucking hurt. And there's that whole infection thing to think about--I know these guys don't have an autoclave, and nobody who had one would run nails through it. Getting nailed up with a nailer would be quicker and less painful, but if you're going for that realism thing you are going to use a hammer, or perhaps a big rock.

And the second is purely selfish--a pound of 16d bright common nails is $1.73; rope strong enough to hold a person to a cross is 75 cents a foot or $6.50 for a 50-foot roll. (The 50-foot rolls come from a different vendor.)

[trof]

9. Ok, I'd go with the 8" pvc sewer pipe instead.

Sink it 6' in a concrete foundation and fill it with rebar and concrete.
Make it a permanent display.
Wire it for mini halogen lights.
Oh yeah.
;-)

[xchrom]

11. they do this in the phillipines every year.

but they REALLY nail the person to the cross.

[philosophie_en_rose]

14. Yep. I've seen it in person.

Not pretty at all. Not sure God likes you any better for having nailed yourself to a cross, but I suppose it's better than nailing someone else to a cross.

:shrug:

[seemunkee]

13. Shouldn't he be asking for them in cubits?

[jmowreader]

38. I'm surprised he asked for them in feet

What I am about to tell you, I could never make up:

Most of the people I deal with cannot read a tape measure. They cannot read a ruler.

The number of people who come in the store with either:

* a nylon string with two knots tied in it: "I need a board this long"--remember, nylon stretches
* "I need a board 74 inches and three lines long" (and when you ask how many lines there are on the tape measure, they do not know)
or
* "It needs to be this long (holds hands apart)"

is mindboggling. Easily 25 percent of my traffic.

There is a company in Smithfield that's offering a job at something like $8 per hour making things, and in the job description is "you will use a tape measure extensively. Employer gives a tape measure test." I'm sitting here going 'what the fuck?' A TAPE MEASURE TEST? In Wyoming, where I went to the first grade, we learned to read a tape measure in math class. Everyone KNEW how to read a tape measure. But you come down here and, thanks to our long tradition of high-stakes testing (Greensboro was the first school system in America to require children to pass a test to advance to the next grade), no one knows how to read a tape measure. Makes me wanna puke.

So yeah, forget cubits. And forget metric. These people can't handle feet and inches.

[ContraBass Black]

47. That's shocking.

I don't think I know anyone who can't read both.

[spindrifter]

17. How are they

getting the people to stay on the cross? Glue guns? Push pins? This is seriously nuts.

[LostinVA]

23. Probably ropes

[rockymountaindem]

18. Geez... those parishioners must have done *something* wrong.

That's some pretty harsh discipline. Can't they just throw 'em out of the congregation?

[Telly Savalas]

19. I am impressed by your professionalism.

Had I been the one to have taken the call, I probably would have hung up and ran away in terror.

And while letting them bury only 2 feet of the cross would have given them a harsh lesson on the validity of Darwin's theory of natural selection (likely in contradiction to their church's dogma), it was very kind of you to steer them from a path that would have led to big hospital bills and a small write-up in News of the Weird.

:thumbsup:

[Whoa_Nelly]

20. Be sure to post the story link when this Easter show falls flat

on its (the crucified "souls") face. Ouch! Insane!

[allalone]

21. as usual

these poor benighted churchies are missing the point. Easter is not about the Crucifixion, it's about the RESURRECTION. OK? Leave to them to focus on the the blood and guts.

[momophile]

31. great point nt

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

33. Well, yes, but a resurrection reenactment is a little tougher

to pull off. You need a lot of ropes and pulleys and stuff.

[zbdent]

24. Are you sure this is for a "Living Nativity" scene, and not for

just showing their base how liberals should really be treated?

:scared:

[tigereye]

25. best laugh I've had today

thanks.

[ET Awful]

26. I would have asked them what size nails they wanted for the hands and feet

:evilgrin:

[kwassa]

28. There is a Filipino tradition where a guy actually gets crucified ..

There is a professional crucify-eee, if that be the term, of a man who gets nailed to the cross every year in a big public Passion play. He has permanant holes in his hands and feet.

I kid you not.

Some Filipino friends showed me the literature for the event.

[momophile]

30. and isn't it an honor for the man who gets crucified...

I believe.

[kwassa]

32. Here is more on that real crucifixion tradition

http://pages.zdnet.com/AsiaBill/id11.html

Filipinos mimic Jesus' crucifixion on Good Friday about 12:00 noon. About 10 people, including a woman, will be crucified in the central Luzon Island town on Good Friday in a bloody imitation of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ
some 2,000 years ago. It's been a tradition there since after the second world war. It is their own religious belief. Filipinos do it to atone for their sins. This year, there are about 10 barangays (districts) according to
a local barangay captain Zoilo Castro. One crucifixion will take place at noon time in the Cutud district of San Pedro town, 80 kilometres (50 miles) north of Manila. The best is outside of Gua Gua, Pampanga, because the "Christ"'s hands are pierced with spikes after being tied to the wood cross.

There's not as much blood as you might expect since the tying of the arms in 2 places helps to prevent bleeding like a tourniquet.

[ChickMagic]

29. Send them this card (Onion, of course)

[leftofthedial]

34. I'll kick in some dough to get enough crosses

to do the whole congregation

I'll even dress up like a Roman and bring my own hammer, nails and spear.

[Benfea]

35. Christians are so wacky.

Now if only we could get them to stop voting, or at least get the bad ones to stop voting.

[SoCalDem]

36. Build 'em one like this :)

[Canadian Socialist]

37. I hope they know HOW crucifixion kills

Not by the nail part (that hurts, but doesn't kill). People die from suffocation.

[jmowreader]

39. Don't they die from shock too?

And from my remembrance, Jesus died from neither suffocation nor shock; one of the Roman guards ran him through with a sword.

But yeah, the nailing wouldn't kill you. There's no vital organs in the places that get nails through them.

[mikeytherat]

42. Many died from suffocation.

You can't breathe pulled taut on a cross like that, so you have to keep pulling yourself up, on your nailed hands and feet, to breathe. And it wasn't just Jesus who died like this; the road to Rome was lined with THOUSANDS of bodies on crosses.

The ancient Romans were some pretty sick fucks.

mikey_the_rat

[jmowreader]

43. Wasn't crucifixion the standard method of execution then?

I know they had beheadings, feedings-to-lions, and other fun executions like that, but it seems that if you wanted to cut down the crime rate, you'd pick some sort of very slow, very painful, extremely public execution method.

Concur on the "sick fuck" theory.

[ContraBass Black]

48. The running through was to confirm his death

By demonstrating that his blood had settled.

[crispini]

40. Bwahahahahaha!

Best. Post. Ever. :rofl:

[Fleshdancer]

44. If I were you, I would be calling every local news channel in my area

If this call was legit and not some sick prank, then there's a good chance people would get hurt. Perhaps questions and pressure from the local media will convince them that they're dumbasses.

[Dukkha]

45. and how is this supposed to be a spiritual worship

Easter is a celebration is Christ's resurrection and mankind's salvation through it. This sounds like a page right from the dark ages.

there's no religion like no religion for me.

[DemBones DemBones]

51. Easter is indeed a celebration of Christ's Resurrection, but

it is preceded by Good Friday, when Christ hung on the cross for three hours before dying. Obviously, this church wants to draw attention to the reality of the Crucifixion, to the sacrifice that Jesus made, through simulating this type of execution. They should consult some Filipinos who are knowledgeable about such reenactments so that no one is seriously injured.

[Book Lover]

46. Since there will be blood

Get the County Health people on their asses.

Crucifixion is a method of execution - can't they take their S&M scene out of public view?!

[NMMNG]

49. Do these morons realize

that if they hang people from the crosses without giving them a platform to stand on that they will actually die?

The typical means of crucifixion was not to nail people to crosses, but to tie them to the cross with rope. They died not from blood loss but from suffocation because the weight of the body pulling downward was too much for the lungs to bear over time.

If these idiots simply hang the people on the crosses they will be killing them.

[DemBones DemBones]

50. This is a longstanding tradition in the Philippines,

where they actually use nails. It is a big honor there to be chosen/ allowed to be one of those crucified.

Many religions have some sort of penance that involves pain and drawing blood. Think of aboriginal tribes that circumcise males and females as older children, not as infants, and without painkillers.

Then there's tattooing and scarification, being hung from giant hooks or walking across hot coals. Native American youths traditionally have to endure ordeals. There is a Muslim observance which involves men and young boys hitting each other on the head with swords or knives -- it's been a few years since I've seen it televised. Keith Olberman showed something last night about a Hindu ritual involving people hitting each other with canes. (At least, I think that's what he said; I wasn't in the room with the tv.)

In our "civilized" society, we admire sports figures for enduring pain, and tattoos and piercings have become very popular. Humans apparently have an innate need to make sacrifices and to prove they can endure trials.

[fleabert]

52. never been in the deep south, huh?

nothing new there, just put a little platform on the cross for the feet and handles for the hands and you got yerself a handy-dandy crucifix!

I hated growing up Baptist.