Frodo behind 78% of world’s good

Frodology has conclusively surpassed Christianity in its claim to be the supreme moral arbiter of civilizations past and present. Christianity’s argument is based on its notion that without God, people are basically immoral fiends who bathe in the blood of unbaptized children and don’t reuse their plastic bags. Prominent atheists reject this claim, confoundingly purporting that people can be good of their own volition. Wait, didn’t we just read about people bathing in blood?


Fig. 1, Everything bad you've ever thought about an atheist is true

The problem with Christianity, however, is that it has never been able to quantify what proportion of the world’s benevolence is attributable to their God. While certain apologists will tell us that all of the goodness in the world is the direct result of Yahweh being a beneficent deity, this rings a little hollow. It is for one thing woefully unscientific. For instance, the Christian God makes no mention of dolphins, so preoccupied is He with the morality of man. On the contrary, dolphins are one of the few truly altruistic species on the planet. Why only last week they single handedly disabled and sank Paris Hilton’s private yacht, to the vast amusement of all.

Frodologist scientists, however, have conclusively proven that Frodo is behind at least 78% of the world’s good. Though the remaining 22% remains unaccounted for, Frodo’s lead is unassailable. Already, lesser deities are conceding to His greater moral authority and considering selling their minority stakes. Zeus is reportedly regretful that he expended so much energy on vengeance. “People look for different qualities in their overlords these days, but on the plus side, now I can focus on my music without having to worry about my worthless subjects.”

Christians are wondering where their God went wrong. After all, Yahweh was for so long a savvy deity, reinventing himself as the zeitgeist required. Like David Bowie, he jumped from being a jealous, embittered Jehovah in the Old Testament, to being a loving, forgiving daddy in the New. Somewhere in the subsequent 2,000 years, however, God clearly dropped the ball. The Archbishop of Canterbury admits that the writing was on the wall as far back as Jesus. “We should’ve recognized something was amiss when God could only show his face to the world through a totally different person. He probably couldn’t handle being genuinely nice. It was all smoke and mirrors.”


Fig. 2, Parenting comes easy to no one

Tired clichés aside, Christians are at odds as to when precisely God lost His dominance in the moral market. Some argue it was the First Crusade, in 1099. Others the Second Crusade. Still others believe it was the Third. A minority believe that God still had some moral authority in the early years of the 13th Century, and it was the slightly less early years of the same century that saw his undoing with the Fourth Crusade. Crusades Fifth through Ninth are not considered to have killed enough innocents to be seriously turpitudinous.

Lest this start to look like a guided tour of Christianity’s foibles through the annals, readers should remember that Frodology has a score to settle. So please, humor us while we examine a few more:

• The Spanish Inquisition (1478-1834, approx. 150,000 killed)
  
• Salem witch trials (1692-3, nineteen innocent witches hanged)
  
• Black Death (1340s, approx. 75 million killed because Christians weren’t praying hard enough)
  

Not all of Jesus’ flock are as quick to abandon their religion as the Archbishop however. In an interesting example of double standards, at least six Christians are demanding to see evidence of Frodology’s claim before ditching their faith, evidence being the one thing they did not require in order to start believing in the first place. When this contradiction was pointed out to the hypocritical half dozen, four withdrew their request, leaving a pair of Christians still unconvinced of Frodo’s moral superiority.

Luckily, Frodologist authorities have an ace up their sleeves. “Ordinarily considered a logical fallacy, the ‘appeal to popularity’ technique was frequently employed by majority Christians to get others to adopt their beliefs. It’s sort of like peer pressure. Now that Frodology is morally on top, we see no reason why they shouldn’t accept our fallacious reasoning.”

The Bible: a book review

Literary critics make a living out of cutting arrogant writers down to size. It seems only fitting that a tome whose author had the audacity to call it ‘the Book’ should eventually come under the microscope. How it escaped for two millennia without eliciting much in the way of derision is nigh on inconceivable. Perhaps minority religions go out of their way to avoid offending Christians in the hope that they will be spared the universal reach of God’s gnarled pointy finger. Does Frodology have such compunctions? No, it does not.


Lacking in character

Contrary to the misleading subheading, one of the biggest problems with the Bible is its overabundance of characters. In contrast to The Lord of the Rings, which has a tightly knit cast of a dozen or so main protagonists, the Bible is filled to the gunnels with Semites, Messiahs and whores. It has more characters than War & Peace, which has so many names to keep track of, I’ve never even read it.

And seven tribes of Israel is far too many. A quick scan of the literary canon reveals that great stories thrive on dialectics. Montagues v Capulets, Greeks v Persians, Confederacy v Union, Americans v Indians, Columbus v the convention of naming civilizations according to where they actually come from. Things aren’t much clearer in the New Testament either, with Romans, Jews, Gentiles, and Jedis all vying for control of the galaxy.


Fig. 1, Episode VII: Return of the Jesus

Suspending disbelief and sheer boredom at the same time

Since the fantasy genre only came into being centuries after the Bible was written, much of it reeks of implausibility. One character reaches the ripe old age of 950, which stretches the imagination a little. Unless it was set on Mercury, which has quite short years. Perhaps it was set on Mercury.

It wasn’t set on Mercury. And worse still is the all too frequent literal reliance on deus ex machina to get the story going again. When the hero of the New Testament meets his end too soon, the author makes the novice decision to resurrect him, putting the book on par with day time soap operas. And when Moses is leading his people out of Egypt, the author was stymied by his own poor geography, cornering the Jews against the Red Sea. “What now?” the author must have thought. “I can’t just have Moses part the Red Sea. Oh wait, no, I can just have him part the Red Sea!” Faced with such cheap tricks, I would have been happier with an aborted exodus.


Fig. 2, The Red Sea defies gravity while God defies talent

The New Testament also employs a narrative device whereby it retells the same story from four different perspectives, subtly changing details at times and outright contradicting itself at others. Its cleverness has perhaps been diminished by the recent box office mediocrity of the movie Vantage Point, which employed a similar device ad nauseam. Readers will therefore probably tire of the trick, as it has been executed more ably by authors such as, off the top of my head, J.R.R. Tolkien. The Dead Sea Scrolls suggest that the author already disposed of the worst of the offenders, but the tedium is such that editors of subsequent revisions would be advised to cut these ‘Gospels’ down to just two, or perhaps even one. Zero is also a good number.


Plotting and scheming

The plot itself is predictable, but this is as much to do with the protagonist’s tribulations being revealed as ‘prophecies’ much earlier in the book as it is to do with it just being a crappy story. One of the critical elements of the story feels so contrived one suspects the author of reverse engineering it. In the protagonist’s eyes, copulation is such a heinous sin that he later has to become a martyr in order to exculpate everyone for their own existence, begging the obvious question as to when and why progeny inherit the guilt of their own parents for sins which they weren’t alive to prevent. It would have been far more realistic for all concerned to celebrate rather than mourn his death. After all, nobody asked him to die for them. And this brings me to another point: whence the immorality of sex? The protagonist’s demonic obsession with the dirty deed is such that one smells a severe case of sexual repression. The character was clearly a closet homosexual. Why didn’t the author make more of this avenue?


Fig. 3, 32/M, loves cooking, Sex & the City, and spin class

All's well that shouldn't have been written in the first place

All in all, this novel is poorly written and stretches the imagination too far at times. It also comes across as too preachy. By contrast, Frodo’s message can be so subtle that many ignorami have been unaware until recently that Frodo is a prophet and a God, and worthy of worship as our Messiah. While the movie adaptation may be more accessible to modern audiences, its overt anti-Semitism is still a little off color. The crash of the Hindenburg is more surprising than Mel Gibson’s dislike of Jews. By way of advice to the Bible’s author as regards a sequel, I will say only this. Don’t presume you’re above editing, respect rather than resent your audience, and for Frodosake, get your head out of the clouds!

Intelligent (but not perfect) design

Fig. 1, Not that intelligently designed

The credibility of a belief, be it theological or otherwise, is often made or broken by its stance on evolution and creationism. There is an enormous amount of pressure on deities to take credit for designing species past and present, and many find the prospect of glory too much to resist. Just last week, Tom Cruise buckled and admitted to creating a species of nematodes in his image.


Fig. 2, Scientists believe that egg thing next to the worm
is probably Katie Holmes

The source of this pressure is twofold: first, it lends credence to religious dogma that may not have been written contemporaneously. Second, it helps to demonstrate the omnipotence of the deity in question.

But Frodology is not bound by Christian dogma, and Frodo can prove His omnipotence in other ways, such as through His mastery of Rock Band.

The Faith’s ethos is best summed up by the views of our resident scienceism expert, Frodologist Prof. J. Toss, who has read an entire book on the subject. “At first glance, the creatures of the planet do seem intelligently designed. The inclusion of breathing and sight in many organisms was really quite clever. Making reproduction fun was certainly a coup, and the inclusion of the appendix in our own species demonstrates a certain divine sense of humor”.

However, to take just our own species, we certainly aren’t perfect. Prof. Toss points to our shortgevity and susceptibility to diseases by way of example. “Including a ‘sleep’ button might have been helpful to people suffering insomnia, and ‘plug and play’ organ swapping would be a real boon.”


Fig. 3, Hot swappable stomach, ISO13485 compliant: "a real boon"

Professor Toss thus concludes that, while we certainly show signs of intelligent design, there’s a lot left wanting. After all, a dog shows signs of intelligence. The lack of such obvious attributes as described above suggest that we are in fact not the work of an omnipotent being. Instead, it is now obvious that we were designed by an evolutionarily primitive god.

Some observers have called our Creator the “special needs god”, but Prof. Toss prefers the analogy of the baboon. “He was probably too busy playing with His own ass to fix a lot of obvious flaws in His designs.” The professor suggests that His failure to stamp out human vices such as jealousy, hatred, and transfats, demonstrates considerable lack of emotional maturity on the part of the Almighty.

By contrast, more evolutionarily advanced gods have created things like quantum physics and conceived of the seventh dimension. Our God appears on burnt pieces of toast.


Fig. 4, Evolution of the gods

As can be seen from the illustration, the most advanced gods obviate the need for their own existence through achieving utter perfection.

At this point, Frodologists will be concerned to know how evolutionarily advanced their Messiah is. We are proud to report that Frodo has never even considered taking credit for designing humans. He is of the opinion that if Jehovah wants that ignominious distinction, He can have it. Frodo is however hard at work on designing the Human 2.0. Reviving a German project initially begun in the 1940s, Frodo has gone back to the drawing board to overhaul our species’ design. The US Army has expressed interest in funding the project, while Georgia Tech is providing the necessary expertise. Frodo is confident that the new model will be a success. "As a hobbit, I'm much more evolutionarily advanced than the Creator of the Human 1.0. Natural selection actually finished off all His ilk yonks ago. He's the last one left!"

Unfortunately, as lack-witted as our Creator may be, He has got a crack team of lawyers. They are currently threatening to sue Frodo for an injunction over copyright and patent abuses in connection with the design of the Human 2.0. As the Creator of the Human 1.0, He is believed to have exclusive rights to the design.

The case continues.

Sun angry God credited for beautiful sunsets

The sun spoke out today for the first time about the increasing number of its beautiful sunsets which are being attributed to God. The outburst occurred today at a Mormon wedding reception in Oahu, Hawaii. Witnesses agree that it occurred shortly after the mother of the bride exclaimed that the sheer beauty of the sky's celestial palette reassured her of God's magnanimous beneficence and reinforced her devotion to Him. Actually, it was more like "gee, that sunset sure is super. It really makes me feel closer to the Lord Jesus Christ. Like I feel like I really know him when I see that."

Confused onlookers admitted to being surprised to hear the voice coming from above. Not knowing any better, they attributed it to God, only angering the sun more.

The sun was pissed

Later on the sun calmed down and tried to explain the nature of its grievances. It became clear that he does not understand why the credit for all his hard work is continually given to God. Frustrated at the lack of appreciation, the sun finally decided to speak out. "Who is this 'God' anyway? I've never even met the guy, but I'm up there all the time in the sky working my ass off. People show their friends their holiday snaps, and it's 'God' again. I'm right there in the freakin' picture!"


The sun alleges that is him there in the freakin' picture, not God

With the sun setting somewhere on Earth during every second of the day, the frequency of mistaken praise received by God must be enormous, and the sun's chagrin should perhaps not come as a surprise. The sun wanted to make it clear that he is not angry at God per se, but he certainly feels He could be doing more to set the record straight. "At least humans have dropped the whole Apollo thing. I'm not a deity, I'm just a flaming ball of gas."

The sun believes that taking all the credit when something goes right smacks of double standards when everything’s just sort of ho hum the rest of the time.


Three notes in harmony

The sun’s angry outcry against the Almighty follows on the footsteps of other disenfranchised groups such as the Coalition of Independent Ova and Snowflakes for an Atheist Tomorrow. A representative for CIO explained that many ova worldwide feel that they deserve more attention for the role they play in creating foetuses. “Conception? Yep, that’s us. Babies’ smiles? Us again. Haven’t a clue why people think God has anything to do with it. Never even met the guy.”

Frodo however spoke out on behalf of God. "Yeah, he could be doing more, and I'll grant you he's not perfect. But he is pretty old, and in spite of that he's doing a reasonable job. Plus you can't really blame him for pulling out of Michigan. It was a lost cause." At this point the interviewer asked Frodo what the hell he was talking about. "Oh, I thought you were talking about Senator McCain." When prompted about God, Frodo admitted "actually, I've never even met the guy."

God was not available for comment.