Friday Night Fights

Here at DoG, we don’t espouse any religion other than using one’s own brain. You can worship the Moon Gods for all we care as long as you don’t start telling us how your lunar overlords think we should live our lives. That said, in light of a recent press release from the Pope, I decided to compare and contrast two popular Christian religions – Evangelical Whackjobs and Catholicism – and definitively tell you which is better.

Spiritual Leader
EW – Failed oil baron and former cokehead George W. Bush
C – Pope Benedict XVI
Winner - Catholicism

Parties
EW – Crackers and Tang
C – Wine and Guinness
Winner – Catholicism

Music
EW – Michael W. Smith, Stryper, Amy Grant
C – Gregorian chant
Winner – Draw (let’s face it, Satan wins this round)

Literature
EW – Left Behind, The Purpose Driven Life
C – Saint Thomas Aquinas, Dogmatic Constitution on the Church of Christ
Winner – Catholicism (Latin is pretty damn cool)

Clothes
EW – Wal-Mart
C – Flowing robes and hats as big as Charles and Di’s wedding cake
Winner – Catholicism

Sex
EW – Only within the confines a loveless marriage and for the purpose of babies, babies, babies.
C – Only with alter boys
Winner – Evangelical Whackjobs (by a nose)

Art
EW – None
C – Almost everything up to the 17th Century
Winner – Duh

Celebrities
EW – James Dobson, Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, Cotton Mather, John Ashcroft
C – John F. Kennedy, John Kerry, Mel Gibson, Antonin Scalia, Mother Teresa, Conan O’Brian, Sinead O’Connor, Alec Baldwin, Eddie van Halen, Bela Lugosi, Christina Aguilera
Winner – Catholicism (but Mel Gibson makes it close)

Church Proceedings
EW – You can bring drums and guitars into church, but you’d better not dance to them. Did Jesus really turn grape juice into the Blood of Christ?
C – Is this thing ever going to end? Uck, did he just throw water on me?!
Winner – Evangelical Whackjobs

Schools
EW – Buy Mom a blackboard for Christmas
C – Notre Dame, Boston College, Trinity College (Dublin), Fordham University
Winner – Catholicism

Gays
EW – Sure, if you want to burn in hell for all eternity
C – If I become a priest, maybe I’ll stop having such sinful thoughts
Winner – Draw (grow up, you guys)

Science
EW – Sure, if you want to burn in hell for all eternity
C -

Monsignor Gianfranco Basti, director of the Vatican project STOQ, or Science, Theology and Ontological Quest, reaffirmed John Paul's 1996 statement that evolution was "more than just a hypothesis."

"A hypothesis asks whether something is true or false," he said. "(Evolution) is more than a hypothesis because there is proof."

Winner – Catholicism

And the winner is...

CATHOLICISM

But it’s more of a lesser of two evils. Can’t we just think for ourselves and turn to the church only in matters of private spiritual and existential crises? Hmmn… Maybe the Moon Gods will grant that wish.