"Good" Friday?

By whose criteria?

Today is the penultimate event in what is known as Holy Week - the last seven days a very nice guy walked the earth. And he was a nice guy too; liked kids, didn't mind a drink of wine or a small party from time to time. But it was his message that got to a lot of people, and started a sect within Judaism that eventually became Christianity.

See, Jesus taught that it'd be great if we were all nicer to each other. That is bound to get you noticed.

You like the lawn sculpture? I put it out every Easter as a poke in the eye at the commercialization of the holiday. I call it Passion of the Flopsy.

A lot of people go on about the fact that Jesus died for our sins, which you have to admit by any criterion is a very selfless act. But we must not dwell on that death, like Mel Gibson did in his torture porn snuff film; the enabling act that started Christianity was that, according to tradition, Jesus came back from the dead.

That got the ball rolling, and look where we are now. We have closeted homosexuals in the ministry excoriating gays, and we have "Christians" making death threats against anyone they don't like, whether they're abortion clinic workers or artists who render Jesus in dark chocolate.

I'll close this with a very quotable quote:

"Can't we all just get along?"