Updates on God: Jesus is The Reason For The Decaf.

God is supposed to have told people (ie us) not to make graven images in the form of anything in Heaven (or on the Earth or in the waters so pretty much everything is out, graven-image-wise) but what does God know about what He said? Also, God probably didn't mean thou shalt not honor Jesus with pictures of snowflakes and such, which is why the people that are protesting Starbucks' new Xmas-less design for their Xmas coffee cups are absolutely right to be outraged. From HuffPo via Gawker:

Some Starbucks’ customers are outraged over the coffee chain’s new holiday cups, just because they lack a Christmas-themed design. In the past, the company released cups depicting images of snowflakes, reindeer, white doves and ornaments. This year, the cups are plain red — and people are really pissed. ...some Christian customers feel the coffee chain is oppressing their religion.

They are fighting back exactly the way Jesus taught them to never ever ever take anything lying down: by putting the "Christ" back in coffee, or something:

one gruff-voiced customer dressed like Fred Durst circa 1999 wrote, “Starbucks REMOVED CHRISTMAS from their cups because they hate Jesus,” then brags about “pranking” Starbucks by having them write “Merry Christmas” as his name on the cup.

OH HO HO! That'll show those commie libtards who run the world's most profitable coffee chain whose profits somehow managed to rise even though sales dropped. But in case you have somehow missed the message of love that is the heart of the Xmas story, that customer also flashed a gun that he takes to Starbucks because you'll take his coffee from his cold dead hands, Obama.

Starbucks says the cups are intended to embrace the simplicity and quietness of the season, but the Gun Toting Disciple is having none of it. He writes on his blog that

If there are people on this planet who get emotionally worked up over a throw away coffee cup, that says more about their mental state than it does about the “intolerant” views of others.

YEAH MAN RIGHT ON IT'S NOT WORTH GETTING ALL WORKED UP OVER... wait I think I missed something here.


PS Starbucks settled six complaints of violating workers' rights in just 3 years, routinely denies workers meal and rest breaks mandated by law, fails to pay them all the money they are owed (and then tries to keep them from collecting it) and uses worker-scheduling software that makes it difficult, if not impossible, for workers to plan ahead and/or work a second job all things that I, in my layman's opinion, would think Jesus might find questionable. But by all means, "Christians," protest those cups by buying more coffee but making them write Merry Christmas on it. Just remember to please tip the underpaid worker who hasn't had a break in 13 hours.

Update On God: God is sort of like a defense attorney or life coach I guess.

The Atlanta police investigating
the double murder of two men
by Ray Lewis and his friends.

A 2013 poll showed that 27% of Americans believe God directly intervenes in the outcome of football games. (30% of Americans, meanwhile, believe there is no point in planning or trying to do much of anything because their fate is in God's hands.)  But God apparently does directly intervene in people's lives, or at least in the lives of (allegedly) murderous NFL player-turned-commentator Ray "That Ain't A Knife/This Is A Knife" Lewis.  In his new biography Ray says that after he was arrested for obstructing the investigation into a murder that 'happened' right next to him in a fight he was in:

 I heard God’s voice. I did. he came to me from somewhere in the darkness of that holding cell—said, “Can you hear me now?” And underneath this voice, in the middle of that darkness, there was a message—came in clear and loud and true. The message: whatever much and more I had to slog through in that jail cell in Atlanta, it would strengthen me. Whatever shadows there were now, hanging over me and my family, it would strengthen me. Whatever dirt these people in law enforcement were determined to do to my name, my standing, my pride, it would only strengthen me. Can you hear me now? Oh yes—yes, I can hear you! Yes!

Ray had been arrested for interfering in the investigation into two as-yet-unsolved murders at a nightclub in Atlanta, a nightclub Ray was at; the two men were in a fight with Ray and his group.

Ray Lewis didn't say whether God had previously told him to hide his bloody white suit in a dumpster outside the hotel, or whether God's advice was that Ray tell everyone in the car to shut up and not talk to the police.  Ray was also silent, in his book, about whether it was true his two friends had gone to buy knives the day before the murders, and didn't comment on whether God had any advice about how to deal with the victims' blood being found in Ray's limo.

There is a statue of Ray Lewis put up by the Baltimore Ravens. Ray says he prays every day that God ease the pain of "anybody who was affected by that whole ordeal." His book doesn't say if God answers back.

Ray's victims do not have a statue in their honor.