David Thorne received a permission slip for his son to go see “the true meaning of Easter.” When David emails Daryl, the “Christian Volunteer,” things get hilarious.
My favorite lines:
As I trust my offspring’s ability to separate fact from fantasy, I am happy for him to participate in your indoctrination process on the proviso that all references to ‘Jesus’ are replaced with the term ‘Purportedly Magic Jew.’
Your inference that I am without religion is incorrect and I am actually torn between two faiths; while your god’s promise of eternal life is very persuasive, the Papua New Guinean mud god, Pikkiwoki, is promising a pig and as many coconuts as you can carry.
If I too knew some guy that had been killed and placed inside a cave with a rock in front of it and I visited the cave to find the rock moved and his body gone, the only logical assumption would be that he had risen from the dead and is the son of God. Once, my friend Simon was rushed to hospital to have his appendix removed and I visited him the next day to find his bed empty. I immediately sacrificed a goat and burnt a witch in his name but it turned out that he had not had appendicitis, just needed a good poo, and was at home playing Playstation.
You raise a valid point and I appreciate you pointing out my failings as a parent. Practising a system of ethics based on the promise of a reward, in your case an afterlife, is certainly preferable to practising a system of ethics based on it simply being the right thing to do.
Many years ago, I lived next door to a Christian named Mr Stevens. You could tell he was a Christian because he had a fish sticker on his Datsun. He used to wave at us kids from his bathroom window on hot summer days as we played in the sprinkler. I learnt a lot from Mr Stevens. Mainly about wrestling holds.
Your job would be made much easier if, after making the school children sit through an hour of church youth group teens dancing, singing and re-enacting Jewish magic tricks, you simply told them that it was just a small taste of what hell is like and if they didn’t believe in Jesus they would have to sit through it again.
If Pikkiwoki throws in some mangoes, I’m in!
that does sound like heaven!
I made the mistake of reading this at work. I’m still wiping my makeup off. I look a little like Tammy Faye….
That was side splitting!!
That entire thing was hilarious! I especially like the “christian volunteer” part. No idea if that is true, but would be cool if it is.
I am nearly crying trying to hold in the laughs. That is brilliant and I am keeping that. May print it off so I can read it whenever I want. Wow
An excellent piece! Poor humorless Daryl. He just has no idea how funny this is.
I shouldn’t be reading this at work. I’m in tears as this is the funniest thing I’ve read in a long time.
Good show Sir David!
Hilarious!
Nicely rendered cactus with a hat.
*gigglesnort*
But Pikkiwoki has NOTHING on Cthulhu!
I wasted a day and a half reading his whole website a couple of weeks ago when it was pointed out by The Bloggess. I love 27b/6
Pity. I’m finding the account has been suspended. Does anyone know if his site can be found elsewhere? This guy is wickedly clever! ^_^ I want more!
Account suspended. Typical.
Don’t jump to conclusions The Nerd. He might have been suspended for exceeding his traffic allotment. Some servers have stop commands so the blog owner doesn’t get hit with a multi thousand dollar usage bill.
It’ll come back up, just take a bit.
Oh my. The ending was hilarious. This man’s funny approach to his atheism is totally awesome!
Holy Pikkiwoki, that was funny! You gotta love humorless people…they’re so much fun to poke at (until they get all stabby/shooty, that is).
This is a wonderfully awesome technique for dealing with Christianity.
*gears turning in head, followed by maniacal laughter*
I wonder if he ever got his Toyota Prado? It would be just like satan to screw with the gas pedal
Am I the first to notice a (public?) school has a chaplain? For elementary school?
This is apparently in Australia, not the US. Who knows what manner of madness goes on Down Under? (j/k)
The Shadow knows.
Followed the link but it said “account suspended”. Know anywhere else the full story can be found?
That must have happened within the last hour–I tried to go to older posts, but the account had been suspended, but not that particular post. Go figure!
His spelling of practicing makes me a sad panda. Pikkiwoki does not approve.
Weird – I read the full exchange earlier this morning – but now it says account suspended. Pity – it’s one of the funniest things I’ve read in a long time!
Cached version:
From: David Thorne
Date: Wednesday 10 March 2010 7.12pm
To: Darryl Robinson
Subject: Permission Slip
Dear Darryl,
I have received your permission slip featuring what I can only assume is a levitating rabbit about to drop an egg on Jesus.
Thank you for pre-ticking the permission box as this has saved me not only from having to make a choice, but also from having to make my own forty five degree downward stroke followed by a twenty percent longer forty five degree upward stroke. Without your guidance, I may have drawn a picture of a cactus wearing a hat by mistake.
As I trust my offspring’s ability to separate fact from fantasy, I am happy for him to participate in your indoctrination process on the proviso that all references to ‘Jesus’ are replaced with the term ‘Purportedly Magic Jew.’
Regards, David.
From: Darryl Robinson
Date: Thursday 11 March 2010 9.18am
To: David Thorne
Subject: Re: Permission Slip
Hello David
The tick in the box already was a mistake I noticed after printing them all. I’ve seen the play and it’s not indoctrinating anyone. It’s a fun play performed by a great bunch of kids. You do not have to be religious to enjoy it. You are welcome to attend if you have any concerns.
Darryl Robinson, School Chaplain
From: David Thorne
Date: Thursday 11 March 2010 11.02am
To: Darryl Robinson
Subject: Re: Re: Permission Slip
Dear Darryl,
Thank you for the kind offer, being unable to think of anything more exciting than attending your entertaining and fun filled afternoon, I tried harder and thought of about four hundred things.
I was actually in a Bible based play once and played the role of ‘Annoyed about having to do this.’ My scene involved offering a potplant, as nobody knew what Myrrh was, to a plastic baby Jesus then standing between ‘I forgot my costume so am wearing the teachers poncho’ and ‘I don’t feel very well’. Highlights of the play included a nervous donkey with diarrhoea causing ‘I don’t feel very well’ to vomit onto the back of Mary’s head, and the lighting system, designed to provide a halo effect around the manger, overheating and setting it alight. The teacher, later criticised for dousing an electrical fire with a bucket of water and endangering the lives of children, left the building in tears and the audience in silence. We only saw her again briefly when she came to the school to collect her poncho.
Also, your inference that I am without religion is incorrect and I am actually torn between two faiths; while your god’s promise of eternal life is very persuasive, the Papua New Guinean mud god, Pikkiwoki, is promising a pig and as many coconuts as you can carry.
Regards, David.
From: Darryl Robinson
Date: Thursday 11 March 2010 2.52pm
To: David Thorne
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Permission Slip
Hello David
While it would be a pity for Seb to miss out on the important message of hope that the story of the resurrection gives, if you don’t want him to attend the presentation on Monday then just tick the box that says I do not give my child permission to attend.
Darryl Robinson, School Chaplain
From: David Thorne
Date: Thursday 11 March 2010 5.09am
To: Darryl Robinson
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Permission Slip
Dear Darryl,
I understand the importance the resurrection story holds in your particular religion. If I too knew some guy that had been killed and placed inside a cave with a rock in front of it and I visited the cave to find the rock moved and his body gone, the only logical assumption would be that he had risen from the dead and is the son of God. Once, my friend Simon was rushed to hospital to have his appendix removed and I visited him the next day to find his bed empty. I immediately sacrificed a goat and burnt a witch in his name but it turned out that he had not had appendicitis, just needed a good poo, and was at home playing Playstation.
Someone probably should have asked “So the rock has been moved and he’s gone… has anyone checked his house?” I realise Playstation was not around in those days but they probably had the equivalent. A muddy stick or something. I would have said “Can someone please check if Jesus is at home playing with his muddy stick, if not, then and only then should we all assume, logically, that he has risen from the dead and is the son of God.”
If we accept though, that Jesus was the son of an Infinite Being capable of anything, he probably did have a Playstation. Probably a Playstation 7. I know I have to get my offspring all the latest gadgets. God would probably have said to him, “I was going to wait another two thousand years to give you this but seeing as you have been good… just don’t tell your mother about Grand Theft Auto.”
Also, is it true that Jesus can be stabbed during a sword fight and be ok due to the fact that he can only die if he gets his head chopped off?
Regards, David.
From: Darryl Robinson
Date: Friday 12 March 2010 10.13am
To: David Thorne
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Permission Slip
Nowhere in the Bible does Jesus have a sword fight. Learning the teachings of the Bible is not just about religion. It teaches a set of ethics that are sadly not taught by parents nowadays.
Darryl Robinson, School Chaplain
From: David Thorne
Date: Friday 12 March 2010 2.23pm
To: Darryl Robinson
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Permission Slip
Dear Darryl,
You raise a valid point and I appreciate you pointing out my failings as a parent. Practising a system of ethics based on the promise of a reward, in your case an afterlife, is certainly preferable to practising a system of ethics based on it simply being the right thing to do.
Many years ago, I lived next door to a Christian named Mr Stevens. You could tell he was a Christian because he had a fish sticker on his Datsun. He used to wave at us kids from his bathroom window on hot summer days as we played in the sprinkler. I learnt a lot from Mr Stevens. Mainly about wrestling holds. The trick is to oil up really well making it hard for the other person to hold you down. I would often lie on his living room rug looking up at the pictures of sunsets behind quotes from Psalms while waiting for him to unwrap his legs from around my torso.
Your job would be made much easier if, after making the school children sit through an hour of church youth group teens dancing, singing and re-enacting Jewish magic tricks, you simply told them that it was just a small taste of what hell is like and if they didn’t believe in Jesus they would have to sit through it again.
When I was at school, we were forced to attend a similar presentation. Herded into the gym under the pretence of free chips, we were assaulted with an hour of hippies playing guitars and a dance routine featuring some kind of colourful coat and a lot of looking upwards. Due to the air-conditioning in the packed gym not working and it being a hot day, the hippie wearing the colourful coat blacked out mid performance and struck his head against the front edge of the stage spraying the first row of cross-legged children with blood. Unconscious, he also urinated. There was a bit of screaming and an ambulance involved and everyone agreed it was the best play they had ever seen.
Regards, David.
From: Darryl Robinson
Date: Friday 12 March 2010 2.47pm
To: David Thorne
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Permission Slip
Hello David
I don’t see what any of that has to do with this play. It’s important for children to have balance in their life and spirituality is as important in a childs life as everything else. There’s an old saying that life without religion is life without beauty.
Darryl Robinson, School Chaplain
From: David Thorne
Date: Friday 12 March 2010 3.36pm
To: Darryl Robinson
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Permission Slip
Dear Darryl,
I agree completely that balance is an important component of a child’s education. I will assume then that you will also be organising a class excursion to a play depicting the fifteen billion year expansion of the universe from its initial particle soup moments following the big bang through to molecule coalescion, galaxy and planetary formation and eventually life?
Perhaps your church youth group could put together an interpretive dance routine representing the behaviour of Saturn’s moon Hyperion, shattered by an ancient collision and falling randomly back together, tugged to and fro by the gravitational pull of Titan, sixteen sister moons, the multi-billionfold moonlets of Saturn’s rings, Saturn’s gravitational field, companion planets, the variability’s of Sol, stars, galaxy, neighbouring galaxies… or possibly not, according to an old saying, there is no beauty in this.
Also, while I understand that the play is to be held outside school grounds, due to the fact that it is illegal to present medieval metaphysic propaganda in public schools, it is also my understanding that you are now required by law, as of last year, to go by the title Christian Volunteer rather than School Chaplain. A memo you may have missed or filed in your overflowing ‘facts that cease to exist when they are ignored’ tray.
Regards, David.
From: Darryl Robinson
Date: Monday 15 March 2010 9.22am
To: David Thorne
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Permission Slip
I’m not going to waste any more precious time replying to your stupid emails. If you don’t want your child to attend the play just indicate that on the permission slip.
From: David Thorne
Date: Monday 15 March 2010 11.04am
To: Darryl Robinson
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Permission Slip
From: Darryl Robinson
Date: Monday 15 March 2010 2.11pm
To: David Thorne
Subject: No Subject
I will pray for you.
From: David Thorne
Date: Monday 15 March 2010 2.19pm
To: Darryl Robinson
Subject: Re: No Subject
Thanks. Mention that I want a Toyota Prado if you get the chance. A white one. With dark grey leather interior and sat nav.
Regards, David.
From: Darryl Robinson
Date: Tuesday 16 March 2010 9.20am
To: David Thorne
Subject: Re: Re: No Subject
I’ve had enough of your nonsense. Dont email me again.
From: GOD
Date: Tuesday 16 March 2010 10.18am
To: Darryl Robinson
Subject: Word of God
DARYL, THIS IS GOD. BUY DAVID A TOYOTA PRADO. A WHITE ONE. WITH DARK GREY LEATHER INTERIOR AND SAT NAV.
From: Darryl Robinson
Date: Tuesday 16 March 2010 2.35pm
To: GOD Cc: David Thorne
Subject: Re: Word of God
I’m serious.
From: GOD
Date: Tuesday 16 March 2010 2.48pm
To: Darryl Robinson
Subject: Re: Re: Word of God
OK.
Pikkiwoki bless you!
Too bad returned copy can’t be shown. I love the cactus with a hat and his face on jesus’. I am glad I printed this off with the pictures. I can look at it all the time.
THANK YOU. I checked Google, and the page is no longer cached. I was about to get pretty angry.
Good man :-)
That was downright nasty. That was downright hilarious.
Also, is it true that Jesus can be stabbed during a sword fight and be ok due to the fact that he can only die if he gets his head chopped off?
LOLOLOLOLOLOL!
So Jesus is the same as vampires. Oh no – wait. Vampires are real.
And they’re sparkly!
Oh for the love of…
Let’s get one thing straight – Cullen is not a farking vampire:
1. He lives in a forest
2. He’s a “vegetarian”
3. He sparkles
He’s not a vampire, he’s a fairy.
Associating him with the likes of Dracula, Blade, Alucard (Castlevania), Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, and The Count is insulting.
Agreed! Vampires should burst into flames and die in the most metal way possible, not gracefully sparkling!
1, 2, 3 reasons Cullen is not a Vampire. *Thunder* Awah ah ah ah……
I thought Jesus was a zombie
He is. It’s his followers who are the cannibalistic vampire death-cultists.
That was great! Funniest thing I’ve read in a while.
Oh my god. This is great. I am in heaven.
This was a TOTALLY inappropriate way to deal with the… erm, Christian Volunteer, but it’s also fuggin’ hilarious. Besides, I doubt the results would have been any better if he’d just checked the box and gone on his way.
And it was hilarious. XD Yay trolls.
rehosted
http://i.imgur.com/864Av.png
It may not be nice to deal with Christian volunteers, but at least David isn’t hypocritical…
His responses are just hilarious, and he brings up valid points :D
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I wander, can a school choose to employ an atheist volunteer or is child indoctrination option are restricted to xtians.
Read the Blockbuster Video one, say style of random emails. Not as good as Jesus getting in sword fights, but still great
This guy is hilarious. Wonder if _any_ of his stories are true.
One of the best things I’ve ever read. Truly hilarious. Parent of the year.
Thanks Dan!
I think Darryl handled the whole thing very well.
“I’ve had enough of your nonsense. Dont email me again.”
All the coconuts you can carry? MALIBU RUM!!!!!!!!!!!
I’m so saddened to hear that Australia is beset by “Christian volunteers” who waste school time with such nonsense. I do hope the kids who didn’t attend the play got to do something fun; perhaps a hunt for bunyip eggs.
Particularly dismayed by the juxtaposition of the words “fun filled play” with the image of a man with thorns shoved into his scalp.
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I thought it was hilarious.
But I find it funny that when this same thing was presented to an atheist forum on LiveJournal, everyone pretty much said David was a prick and made atheists look bad.
I think I enjoy the company here more.
Is Pikkiwoki gonna throw in some male strippers? Or Virgins?
Hell, I’m in.
http://australianpolitics.com/constitution/text/116.shtml
I wrote to the government a couple of years ago when they were pulling qualified professional counsellors – psychologists out of school and replacing them with “Chaplains” asking why section 116 of the Australian Constitution was being ignored and voilated in this action by the Howard government and was met with a whole load of blah de blah that did not address my complaint. I answered that if the chaplains also had to study all religions, Buhhdism, islam, christianity, wicca, shamanism, sikhs, hindu, janists, athiests, judaism, as well as a psychology masters then fine. Other wise, to revisit clause 116 of the Australian Constitution
When I wrote to various members of Parliament about this I also asked how a Chaplain, with no formal psychological training could actually be of any real assistance in the counselling of children who may require professional help, who may be of a different religion to Christianity, and why the Chaplains therefore are not also trained (besides Christiantity) in religious and philosophical such as Buhhdism, islam, christianity, wicca, shamanism, sikhs, hindu, jainism, athiesm, judaism, taoism, metaphysics, as well as having a psychology masters to actually be of some real assitance.
The responses I recieved back was varied including a
“Chaplains have no religious alligence and can be from any religion” …(When you look up how to become a Chaplain you find you can become a CHaplain if you are from any religion… (so long as it is a Christian Relgion, kind of like Red Rooster, KFC, Chicken A Go Go, it’s all still chicken when you may want to go vegetarian!)
and
“This is great for our schools to reinforce ethical and moral codes in our youung children”
The most noted response was when one minister I put this to simply resigned within the week of my question to him. Was it something I said? probably not.
I asked back in response how the Christian Church can offer moral and ethical resources for my children when its own acts documented throughout history towards peoples of other faiths and cultures has involved all that would be on a satanists to do lis I am sure such as Killing and burning people of cultures you do not ascribe to, stealing their children away, child sex abuse, appropriating a “White Australia” policy of “breeding out” the Indigenous race, and openly attacking and vilifying people of other cultures and races than their own as heathens in the name of their supposed god.
To quote Ghandi, “I like your Christ, But I do not lke your Christians, they are so unlike your Christ.”
http://www.iheu.org/node/2306
I think this whole trend of church and state – schools- running together like that is worrying in the least.
I also at the time asked to particpate in the local COMMUNITY market, but when the organisers found out that my stall had something to do with Metaphysics I was disallowed on the basis that funds from the proceeds of the COMMUNITY market would be going to support the Chaplain in the local school and that therefore I coudl not run a stall.
Does this mean that community only exists for Christians and not for the rest of the population?