It’s not religiously upright to joke about the Devil. We’re not sure what God thinks about it (he’s been silent on the matter), but many of his followers are highly offended by it.
So when a pizza joint called Hell Pizza opens up, you know you’ll get some good reactions from the fundies:
A CHURCH has condemned the opening of a Hell Pizza outlet – claiming the chain is making dough out of the devil.
Pastor John Van Bennekom of Springfield Christian Family Church said he feared advertising for the pizza outlet’s new Brookwater store would send children a confusing message about hell.
“The restaurant’s playing in dangerous territory and several members of our church have expressed concern that they have come to our area,” Pastor Van Bennekom said.
“They are making fun of a demonic world which should not be treated lightly.”
Hell Pizza’s advertising in Springfield features slogans such as “Kids are evil, feed them” while their pizzas feature names like Hot as Hell, Underworld, Purgatory and Damned.
“The flyers they send you have the word hell all over it and a devil as well and you can not choose to ignore that form of advertising,” Pastor Van Bennekom said.
“You open your mailbox and there is the word hell right in front of you.
“It’s a confusing message for children especially.”
One of Springfield church’s eight core principals is a belief in the devil.
“We believe in the personality of the devil who by his influence and power brought about the downfall of man and now seeks to destroy the faith of every believer In the Lord Jesus Christ,” the church’s website said.
Ha! Suckers.
And by “confusing to children” they mean, “makes it difficult for parents to perpetuate their intenable delusions”.
* Checks the URL to make sure he’s not reading The Onion *
Expressing the belief that “demons” or “devils” are influencing you or other people, or that “angels” or other “spirits” are talking to you, is often a symptom of schizophrenia and a number of other mental illnesses. When the underlying illness is treated, the “voices” and paranoid beliefs go away as well. I hope someday we can fix these poor deluded peoples’ minds with medicine, therapy, or technology.
Comparing evangelicals to schizophrenics is unbelievably insulting.
To the schizophrenics.
LOL!
Why can’t Christians believe what they want? Athiests don’t believe in God or Jesus by choice. Christianity is our choice. You all need to get over it.
Because fundigelicals don’t want us to have a choice. They want to proselytize us to death!!! They want inaccurate bullcrap taught to our school children and they want to take away our freedoms (like freedom to choose what to do with my body should I have an unwanted pregnancy or the intellectual freedom to explore stem cell therapy for genetic disorders– thank the FSM that Obama overturned that Bush bullsh*t). That’s why. Believe what you will, but leave the rest of us alone!!!
First, I was quite specific. I didn’t say “Christians”, I said “Evangelicals”, the modern grotesque mutation of Christianity. I have little problem with many people’s Christianity, but those folks seem hellbent on getting their Jesus Juice everywhere, all over government, schooling, society in general. I have every right to be annoyed that they do this, because it affects me directly.
Second, schizophrenia is a serious medical condition. Evangelicals choose to be deluded. One deserves compassion, the other scorn. They are nearly wholly incomparable.
Kudos to LRA and ‘Nope!
:)
I agree – except that sometimes evangelicals don’t have a choice, as such. Sometimes they never see the logical, reasoned side. They only get the brainwashed view. A bit like cult members, except that it often comes from their own families and what they think of as friends.
And – not quite on topic – until I typed that last paragraph, I’d never noticed that evangelical actually contains the word angel. That must mean they’re right. Right?
Ow. I just bit my tongue. It was too far in my cheek.
I don’t care wwhat you believe, just quit ramming it down my throat.
Unless it’s on a pizza, of course.
They need to open one up in Seattle. I would eat that all the time! hell yeah! That just gives me good ideas for names for my beers.
You brew?
That I do. Just cracked open my newest beer last night for the first time.
Man, I miss the Northwest…
THere’s actually a Swedish beer called Hell… Drank it tonight :) http://www.jamtlandsbryggeri.se/hell.html
I ate at a Hell Pizza in Taupo, New Zealand! It was good pizza and a fun atmosphere. I even lived to tell about it…
We have a Hell’s Kitchen in downtown Norfolk (VA). I don’t recall anyone here complaining. Fun place good food.
I’m sure that’s because we have such a migrant population. You try and open one out in western VA and I believe some nutsos would fall apart.
Isn’t Western Virginia where the scary mountain folk live?
If it’s not spicy enough, add some of this:
http://www.hotsauce.com/Pain-and-Suffering-Hot-Sauce-p/1872.htm
My boss just bought a bottle of The Source. 7.1 million scoville units!!!!
I’m trying to scrape together the money for the sixteen million Scoville Unit hotsaue. Me want. Me want a lot.
The warning label on The Source leads me to believe that it’s primary ingredient is enriched uranium. Seriously, they basically say, “This sauce might kill you. Totally not our fault if you are stupid enough to eat it.”
The fact that it tells you to wear eye protection and gloves, handle it only with tweezers and never let any come into contact with any part of your skin tells me it must be amazing – the fact that those instructions / warnings are NOT macho bullshit, they’re telling you what you need to do to live past owning a bottle of the stuff, just reinforces that opinion :-)
It’s like getting excited over owning a nuclear weapon. You can never use it, but daaaayum, what if you did?
The only real problem is me + beer = likes a challenge = trying some on a kebab = arse laminated against toilet bowl…
Uh, custador, that’s not a sauce. That’s the enriched uranium they make the sauces out of.
It still gets me excited :D
Read and enjoy
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/jeremy_clarkson/article6860067.ece
poor guy.
“After maybe a minute I was frightened that I might die. After five I was frightened that I might not. “
I did laugh. Clarkson is one of those annoying people who’s just unthinkingly right-wing enough to really piss me off, but also funny enough that I find his car show (Top Gear – watched in every nation in the world excpet America, apparently) entertaining.
Actually, you guys should watch the Top Gear USA Tour Special – watching three cars variously adorned with “Gay Love Rules Okay”, “Hillary for President” and “Nascar Sucks” driving from Florida to New Orleans…. Well, it was amusing. I thought the Southern Hick cliches were just cliches, but…. Damn. Just Damn.
It’s gonna confoose and mortify my little ‘uns ifin’ they associate the word hell with a pizza parlor rather than a place of eternal pain and suffering run by a sadistic demon!
Wait, wait, wait… are these the same guys who frighten their children with hell, damnation and eternal torments, if they don’t behave? Oh, the irony…
“You open your mailbox and there is the word hell right in front of you.
O No the word hell !!!
I opened my mailbox a few days ago and there was a letter form Jesus offering me to buy a special cross that was personally prayed over just for me. I find that much worse then a pizza flier.
Isn’t the word “hell” in their Wholly Babble?
I don’t think so. As far as I know the whole hell stuff came a lot later.
No, Jesus definitely believed in hell.
And I believe in stuffed crust and hot sauce – CAN I GET AN AMEN?!
Ramen! Do they serve baked noodles too?
In Khandallah, Wellington, someone opened up a Divine Pizza just down the road from a Hell Pizza :-). Not as good as Hell Pizza though, and never seemed as busy. Hell pizzas are fantastic.
I am now inordinately hungry for pizza.
I’d go to hell for a really good thin crust pepperoni….
I think a Damned pie sounds good right about now
When you open the Bible the word “hell” is right in front of you! The Bible is evil and confuses the children! Ban the Bible! Ban the double-standards!
Fecking idiots….
Also, the bible is NOT made of delicious pizza.
Sadly!
If we followed the advice of the Old Testament, pizza basically wouldn’t exist.
-no pork (pepperoni, canadian bacon, sausage)
-no meats with cheeses (it’d have to be vegetarian pizza)
-no leavened bread (think matza crust)
Plus, who knows what the writers of the Old Testament would have thought about new world vegetables like tomatoes, peppers, pineapple etc. Given their propensity to hate anything new or different, they likely wouldn’t have approved.
So Italy, where pizza and the Vatican were born, is in violation of the bible??? THAT’s irony.
Tomatoes are apparently evil: http://www.tomatoesareevil.com/
Tomatoes ARE evil! They are really, really gross tasting. All slimy and sh*t. Blech!
I do like pizza sauce and ketchup though. Go figure.
Tomatoes are evil, which is why we must mash them stupid before eating.
rAmen!
I think tomatos have their good side. Like when they’re being pummelled at Sarah Palin. Remember that book signing recently – she insisted all tomatoes be removed first? I’m thinking tomatoes have inordinately good judgment, for a vegetable! (or a fruit, depending on which side of THAT issue you are on)
Tomatoes get a bad name due to the shite they sell in supermarkets and serve at all you can eat salad buffets, well in the UK at least. Good quality (ones they actually let ripen) tomatoes at room temperature, crumble over some feta, a little olive oil, salt and pepper with some crusty bread on the side …
Now THERE’S the truth!
The ones in salad bars are the worse as not only are they low quality tomatoes they then chill them to just above freezing point to remove that last little bit of flavour.
An untapped market! The Pizza Bible, with the Words of Jesus in Pepperoni!
I’m shaking in my boots.
(I just had my boots resoled after forgetting them in my closet for three years. I’m looking forward to availing myself of boot idioms at every opportunity)
Shoe fetish?
Heck no! Shoes are dirty, stinky, and filled with bacteria to boot!
No fetish necessary.
Everybody who works on their feet all day understands the natural charm of a good pair of work boots.
So the thigh-high black leather stilletos thing is just me then?
Nope.
How feeble their puny God must be that they fear so the mere name of his nemisis.
NYC has a whole neighborhood called Hell’s Kitchen.
Mockery is a long-standing tool to take a hated enemy down a peg. You’d think that Christians would be the ones who would be doing the mocking – mock the Devil and point out his ridiculousness.
Unfortunately if you mock the Devil to the point of ridiculousness it makes a whole lot of fundamentalist evangelical Christianity really goddamn ridiculous too. Much of American fundamentalism actually revolves around fear of the Devil and fear of demons and fear of Hell. Get rid of that fear and either you have to transfer the fear to God (which, admittedly, some do) or you get left with a squishy “liberal” form of Christianity that extols the virtues of a loving God. Down that path lies universalism and other heresies, and certainly makes fundamentalism less and less tenable.
No, American fundamentalists NEED the Devil to be a real, fearsome creature who deserves respect and not mockery. Without him there just isn’t that much to their religion.
Wait, hell gets its own pizza? That’s it, I’m sold on satan worship now. Jesus had better throw in free toppings if he wants my soul.
If you want to sell your soul for toppings, you better make sure it’s available. The Simpsons can provide a cautionary tale about this. Homer wanted to sell his soul to the devil for a donut. His wife Marge insisted that he no longer had legal right to his soul, as he had promised it to her early in their relationship. Turns out that she had the better legal position since he had put it in writing years earlier that he pledged his soul to her. Now she would have to be a party to any contract with the devil for Homer’s soul. Just some free legal advice….
“We believe in the personality of the devil who by his influence and power brought about the downfall of man and now seeks to destroy the faith of every **believer** In the Lord Jesus Chris”
So that means the devil is OK with atheists? Makes sense. After all he(or she) was the first entity to have disbelief in God.
After reading all of the comments here and on the linked article, I want a freakin’ Hell Pizza.
Bravo! Fundies need their meds. AHAHAHAHA!
If you would like some “Satanic Pizza” they have outfits in New Zealand (founded there), Australia, The UK and Ireland, and are coming soon in Canada.
http://www.hellpizza.com/
Angel food cake
Devil’s food cake
Deviled ham
Deviled eggs
Those guys must be missing out on some great food.
Hell Pizza is amazing. But you know whats really amazing? Their dessert pizza.. Chocolate and banana pizza. Apple crumble pizza.
So good.
Chocolate and banana, mm…
*calls the local pizza delivery*
Cool. I’m gonna order 666 of them.
Bible can’t even get that right….
http://66.102.9.132/search?q=cache:-onyvrTU090J:www.religionnewsblog.com/11133/revelation-666-is-not-the-number-of-the-beast+the+number+of+the+beast+is+not+666&cd=3&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk
These pizzas are clearly diabolical, and designed to sow discord and undermine community cohesion.
Just look at that picture of the pizza, cut into a pentagram.
They are divided into eleven pieces! That’s a prime number of pieces; no group of people smaller than eleven can equally share all the pieces. And I very much doubt that one piece each is going to satisfy a group of eleven people.
So the inevitable result of getting these pizzas delivered is fighting within the group over who gets fewer pieces. Or, far *more* pizzas will need to be delivered at a sitting, leading to obesity or wastage.
And we all know that it’s a slippery slope from there to complete anarchy and societal collapse, which is clearly what these corrupt fiends want.
They must be stopped! (But only after I try that one with the olives and hot salami.)
Well, they would be mighty unhappy if
“Death Comes to Town”‘
“A CHURCH has condemned the opening of a Hell Pizza outlet – claiming the chain is making dough out of the devil.”
oh the irony.
This totally took me back to a bible study well over 15 years ago where we were discussing 1 Corinthians 8 which is about eating food sacrificed to idols. I used the example of a pizza carved with a pentagram and asked if members of the study would eat it, most of them said no. Sometimes I wonder why I didn’t deconvert earlier.
Hi Mike, are you angry at GOD or AT the members of the CHURCH?
I’m not angry at anyone. What on earth would make you think I was angry?
Hi, Holy One. Are you angry at English or simply the rules of capitalization?
lol
ruLes oF Capitalization are THE work of the dEVIL.
It really amazes me how consistent this is, from, shall we say, the less introspective religious folks that arrive here. I used to simply assume that it was a subconscious mimicry of certain preaching styles (namely the ones where the pastor is clearly losing a tennis match with his own voice), but the capitalized emphasis too quickly veers into out-and-out shouting for no apparent reason for this to really explain it.
LOL@Holy One. How can anyone be mad at something that doesn’t exist?
The Unholy Trinity:
The Deep Dish
The Cheese Filled Crust
Oops…. And The Thin Crust
The Wafer writ large.
Hell Pizza is a chain that started in New Zealand and has been very successful, and makes nice pizza too http://hellpizza.co.nz/
Check out http://spritzophrenia.wordpress.com/2010/01/16/satan-replies/ for other humorous (and serious) stories about atheism and religion
I lived in New Zealand about a year ago for six months, and Hells Pizza was eaten by my wife and I at least once a week. Damn it was good, especially their dessert pizzas!
Haaaaahahahahaha!
That’s a Christian star! I remember a firefighter friend telling me a middle eastern country was not accepting something because it had “christian stars” on it. First I ever heard about stars belonging to a religion.
I’m no scholar on religion or its symbols, but I think the 6-pointed Star of David is also a symbol in other ancient beliefs. I think of the 5-pointed star as a disabled, mutilated ancient symbol/Magen David. Somehow, to me, that alone makes it very Christian.
haha if i remember correctly Hell Pizza was actually quite delicious
Hell Pizza is pretty good– I’ve had it on a few occasions during my yearly trips to New Zealand. The decor of the joint is very tongue-in-cheek: the walls are black, the cash registers are made to look like tombstones. They have seven gourmet pizzas named after the seven deadly sins. They’ve got a website (just google it– its really funny) LOL A few years back they had advertisements with Bush with devil horns. They did stir up a bit of controversy in NZ once when they attached condoms to mail flyers once.
New Zealand can get away with something like this easily because most kiwis aren’t very religious (and even the religious kiwis aren’t very religious). The only religion anyone gets worked up about there is Rugby. ;-)
I’ve told kiwis that a place like this could never open up in the US, and they don’t understand why.