From a 1996 issue of The Onion.

Parishioners of Pastor Theo Leobald’s First Congregational Church of Holy Christ In Heaven will not meet next Sunday morning for a coffee social and morning Bible study as they do every week, gathering in fellowship and offering thanks and praise to God on high. The reason for the cancellation? Simply the fact that, according to Leobald, God does not now, has never, and will never exist.

When asked why he is convinced of God’s nonexistence, Leobald became visibly irritated with reporters.

“What’re you, an illiterate peasant? Aren’t you familiar with 20th century thinking at all? Christ, read a book, or maybe just think about the idea for a minute. Pretty ridiculous, huh?” he said.

When pressed, however, he sighed heavily, and explained that thousands of years ago, tribes of nomadic desert peoples made up God because, being incapable of scientific reasoning due to caveman-like existences, they had no other way of making sense of things like sunshine, rocks and pork-transmitted trichinosis.

“They made it all up, and they were ignorant, unwashed, half-naked pre-historic barbarians,” Leobald said. “So who are you gonna believe: Carl Sagan, and the pantheon of the world’s greatest scientific and intellectual minds, or some guy who measured wealth by how many goats he had?”

More silliness from that comedy duo.

This old clip from Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie, although written in the British election context, gives us a preview of what the speeches during the Republican primary campaign are going to look like.

(Via Balloon Juice.)

For obvious reasons, I don’t write much about Sarah Palin. But I could not help passing on this clip.

Not having grown up in the US and learned its history in any formal way, my knowledge is a bit sketchy. It is especially weak on the specific details of some of the iconic events. But even I have learned enough of the folklore informally to know that Palin had botched the details of Paul Revere’s ride, which raises the question of how it could be possible that she could grow up in the US and not know this. It truly baffles me.

The Holy Ghost (whom I like to call Harvey) has always been the weak link in the Trinity. He did not seem to do much. Melvin and Jesus were the ones who seemed to do all the heavy lifting. So it was no surprise to me to hear this Onion News Network radio report that the Holy Ghost has become the latest victim of the recession.

I’ve shown this before but we need to be periodically reminded of the reality that he starkly points out. (Language advisory)

There is a remarkably good New York Times parody site. The site was created by Tony Hendra whom some may recognize as the put-upon manager of the band in This Is Spinal Tap.

They do a particularly good job with their David Brooks column on Michele Bachmann, where they capture perfectly his technique of seamlessly blending the banal and the obvious and delivering the result with an air of profundity.

They also have a report on what caused the Rapture to not occur on schedule.