105 Comments
User's avatar
jomicur's avatar

I know that faith alone is a very unreliable guide to the truth. But I want very badly to believe this is true, and I would like encourage as many other pastors as possible to attempt the same thing. Who knows, one of them might actually succeed and win the 2023 Jesus Hat, and if none of them do, at least they might inspire lots of lay christians to follow suit. The world would be a better (if not necessarily holier) place.

larry parker's avatar

I tried on a Jesus Hat once. Didn't like it. Kind of prickly.

Zizzer-Zazzer-Zuzz's avatar

And not content with that,

With our hands behind our backs,

We pull Jesus from a hat,

Get into that! Get into that!

Donrox's avatar

You will not get any takers from the big bellied preachers in my neck of the woods!

XJC's avatar

A Christian Hunger Games...literally.

Joan the Dork's avatar

I don't even believe the 18-day record- food, maybe, but water? Dehydration can kill in as little as two or three days... I might believe a week, at the very most, in a 𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺 humid environment, with 𝘦𝘹𝘵𝘦𝘯𝘴𝘪𝘷𝘦 documentation by medical professionals... but more than 𝘵𝘸𝘪𝘤𝘦 that? Guinness either missed something, or they were paid to miss something. Humans aren't camels; we have no internal means of storing water for later use, and we leak like sieves from all over every part of our bodies on a constant basis.

Joan the Dork's avatar

Self-reply because Suckstack won't let me edit: I looked at the Guinness entry... and it's for an Austrian prisoner who was reportedly neglected and forgotten about by the guards for the 18-day period in question (read that: 𝘯𝘰𝘵 a record based on an observed, well-documented event).

Also, 𝘥𝘢𝘮𝘯- and here I thought 𝘰𝘶𝘳 prisons were awful.

Zorginipsoundsor's avatar

Have you tried clicking on the three dots to the right of the word "Collapse?"

Joan the Dork's avatar

They ain't there. I actually had the edit box open, but it failed to post, and the function wasn't available for that post when I refreshed the page.

Guerillasurgeon's avatar

People survived by sucking condensation off stonework before I believe. But maybe he did a Bear Gryls and drank his own pee.😃

StochasticTerrorist's avatar

"Well Madam, if they're on course they should be nearing the urine-drinking stage by now"

Grant Jackson's avatar

Or he couldeatshit too. May be some moisture there and he would get to understand how his followers exist.

Richard Wade's avatar

I don't know why they call it fasting; it goes so slowly.

Fasting is very difficult. To keep up your strength, you should eat three meals every day.

larry parker's avatar

I could fast when I was younger. These days, my bad knees won't allow it.

Zizzer-Zazzer-Zuzz's avatar

I supplement my fasting with at least a couple extra meals, plus some snacking.

Straw's avatar

Don't write things like that an Friday evening, when I already has drunk a glass of wine. Now my sofa is dark red and my trousers are wet.

larry parker's avatar

Must have been fasting to the wrong god.

wreck's avatar

"These stories always have crocodiles."

Crocodiles can go for a year without eating. But if a preacher comes their way, they can't resist.

StochasticTerrorist's avatar

"Snakes ... why'd it haf'ta be snakes?!"

(Tick-Tock, Tick-Tock, Tick-Tock ...)

jomicur's avatar

As long as you don't top them with pineapple.

wreck's avatar

I believe they prefer anchovies.

jomicur's avatar

That must be why you should never smile at a crocodile.

Straw's avatar

Nobody likes pineapple. Top yourself with pineapples and you are safe from snakes, krokodiller, wasps, thieves, evil motorcycle gangs etc.

Note that you are not safe from the nice motorcycle gangs, for that you need to use bicycles.

NOGODZ20's avatar

I love pineapple.

I chuck big cans of pineapple at motorcycle gangs while I am fleeing from them.

StochasticTerrorist's avatar

Don't use too much or the proteases may make you let you softly and silently vanish away.

Straw's avatar

I actually don't know what proteases is.

Zizzer-Zazzer-Zuzz's avatar

A step above amateur teases.

Straw's avatar

Hahaha, I still have no idea, but had a good laugh. Thanks.

StochasticTerrorist's avatar

They are the enzymes from the pineapple juice that dissolve the fingerprints on the pineapple packers.

Zizzer-Zazzer-Zuzz's avatar

"40-day Jesus fast"

I've been fasting from Jesus for a lot more than 40 days.

NOGODZ20's avatar

Just like everything else you find in the bible.

StochasticTerrorist's avatar

Well, Nebuchadnezzar did sack Jerusalem and carry away a good bit of the population.

Not so much Tyre, though, as prophesied in the Tanakh ..., unless you think his ghost hired Alexander the Great to do it a couple hundred years later for him.

NOGODZ20's avatar

Ah, Tyre. "Destroyed and never to be rebuilt."

Unfortunately for believers, a quick wikisearch on Tyre tells quite a different story. Oopsie!

StochasticTerrorist's avatar

Google Earth: "Fake News!"

I think Amon Ra has a whole chapter on it in his "Foundational Falsehoods of Creationism" book and audio.

Val Uptuous NotAgain's avatar

I’ve been seeing this story all week, I’ve ignored it every time. Nothing about it interests me. Preachers are all grifters. Faith is folly. Fasting, especially this extreme, is ridiculous and dangerous. Even the idea that this might work to support atheism, proving faith is folly, is just a bit selfish and cruel.

Guerillasurgeon's avatar

Gosh, how the BBC have fallen from their reputation for accuracy. 😞

StochasticTerrorist's avatar

Well, The Tories, ever up to the latest, have been saying that for a long time ..., just over 100 years, now!!

Straw's avatar

A lot of former reliable news sources have in Norway as well. It's annoying, frustrating and scary.

NOGODZ20's avatar

Christians telling tall tales? Impossseroo.

40-day Jesus fast? I find this story hard swallow.

RegularJoe's avatar

Much as Jesus is in his cracker form....dry and tasteless.

I prefer saltines, or maybe Ritz.

StochasticTerrorist's avatar

Well, it made it to Twitter via an africanews.com tweet, so it must be true.

Space Karen ..., er ..., Saint Elon and his digital parchment are the blue-check standard of accuracy!

The web site also has a picture of allegedly a Portuguese bishop wearing a crucifix AT A NEWS CONFERENCE and EVERYTHING! (But, we don't see the bishop, just black fabric and a crucifix.

Lot's of details on the pastors history on this kinda thing, and it couldn't be "Merely corroborative detail ...", cuz Jesus.

Zorginipsoundsor's avatar

OT - Here we go again

𝐘𝐨𝐮𝐭𝐡 𝐩𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐫, 𝐟𝐨𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐚𝐫𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐨𝐧 𝐡𝐮𝐦𝐚𝐧 𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐟𝐟𝐢𝐜𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐠𝐞𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝐇𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐬𝐛𝐨𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/youth-pastor-foster-parent-arrested-on-human-trafficking-charges-in-hillsborough/ar-AA17CXP1

NOGODZ20's avatar

They need to abolish "youth pastor." It's irrevocably associated with child molestation.

Then again, the Christian religion is all about about molesting children's minds as well as their bodies.

Black Hole and DM mourner's avatar

Another isolated rotten apple. How many this year ?

cdbunch's avatar

I find I'm more concerned about a foster parent than a youth pastor.

XJC's avatar

What would Jesus do? Starve and dehydrate himself so he could die and become God.

Zizzer-Zazzer-Zuzz's avatar

Dehydrated Jesus: Just add wine.

XJC's avatar

Anybody who doesn't think religion is delusional is...delusional.

Marycat2021's avatar

I learned long ago to double and triple check everything I read or hear. Besides, 40 days was never meant to be taken literally, according to biblical scholars. The article was undoubtedly meant to ridicule people in South America, who happen to be largely religious Catholics. This is a case of "holier than thou," the Catholics vs. The Evangelicals.

StochasticTerrorist's avatar

"The number 40 is another recurring figure in the Bible and seems to be closely associated with times of trial and testing that lead to transformation."

https://people.howstuffworks.com/numbers-bible.htm

Heard this is a couple other places, too, and over several years.

Marycat2021's avatar

Yeah. But Nitpickistan isn't.

StochasticTerrorist's avatar

Thomas Huxley: “The great tragedy of science – the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact.”

NOGODZ20's avatar

Better the hard truth, I say, than the comforting fantasy. And in the final tolling it often turns out that the facts are more comforting than the fantasy."

-- Carl Sagan, "The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark"

larry parker's avatar

Tell me again how "The article was undoubtedly meant to ridicule people in South America,"?

Black Hole and DM mourner's avatar

Maybe it's about the lent, it's supposed to last 40 days.

Marycat2021's avatar

Not literally, which is my point. A long time ago I read somewhere that the 40 days was not really 40 days, but a nonspecific time of several weeks. The great flood was 40 days. Jesus went into the desert for 40 days. Even Mohamed went to the caves where he was to have been given the first revelations that were to begin the Quran. Try googling biblestudytools.com

Tinker's avatar

"I’ve already seen this story appear on Yahoo! News..."

Well, there ya go...

I don't trust Yahoo News, I prefer to get my news for a reliable source...like The Onion.

xenubarb's avatar

You can only live for 3 days without water. So... I am dubious.