“Touchdown Jesus” Smited
Pre-smiting:
Touchdown Jesus in Glory Days
Pre-Smiting
Apres-Smiting
The Skeletal Remains
If you thought big Jesus statues were immune to lightning, well, you thought wrong.
You can read all about it here. My favorite bit:
“It sent goosebumps through my whole body because I am a believer,” said Levi Walsh, 29. “Of all the things that could have been struck, I just think that that would be protected. … It’s something that’s not supposed to happen, Jesus burning,” he said. “I had to see it with my own eyes.”
“I can’t believe Jesus was struck,” said his brother, who noted the giant Hustler Hollywood sign for the adult store across the street was untouched. “It’s the last thing I expected to happen.”
If I attributed this type of thing to supernatural causes, I would posit that the statue deeply offended God’s sense of taste and decency. Because I do not, note to megachurches planning to build giant tacky statues of Jesus out of highly flammable materials: a lightning rod is always a good idea.
3 weird sisters 
Terminator Jesus says “Ull be bock”
“It will be back, but this time we are going to try for something fireproof,” [the church founder] said.
Now that you mention it, that lightning strike did a pretty good job of turning “Touchdown Jesus” into “Terminator Jesus.” And according to Beth’s link, the thing had a cell phone tower in it…so if they’ll just get that blinking red light working on the cell tower, the Terminator transformation will be complete.
I love this post, Giant Jesuses of the World
Some of them are beautiful and some of them are … well, some of them are the Christ of the Ozarks, or that scary flying/attacking one in Indonesia.
Also, the photo of the burned skeleton in NPR’s piece is pretty cool.
Ya’ll are going to go to hale for zis! Just plain heresy!
“It will be back, but this time we are going to try for something fireproof,” [the church founder] said.
sounds like somebody is planning to on hell for the afterlife, alright…
If Substance McGravitas cannot be bothered animating the image and turning it into Unexpected Popup Jesus.gif then I guess I’ll have to do it myself.
Also “smited” should be “smitten”.
Someone is wrong on the Internet.
In this case, it’s Webster who is wrong or at the very least out-of-date. “Smitten” is a term understood these days to mean something akin to “enraptured.” Someone who is “smitten” has a crush on someone else, as in, “He was completely smitten with Mary” (in the case of the Big J’s dad). I would have gone with “smote” but that didn’t work either, since it’s used to describe the action of the one doing the smiting, not the one who was “smited”… also it’s so archaic. So “smited” it was; it seems an entirely reasonable construction given that “smitten” now has a meaning pretty much opposite of what it once had.
Yeah, I know, the dictionary is the authoritah – but it doesn’t always keep up with current usage. And don’t even get me started on the retarded-ass Americanized spelling of “judgement.”
I like “smited.” It seems to indicate the passive use of the verb. But I can’t find any evidence that it’s correct. Even musty old Fowler calls “smite” archaic. And he says the past participle is “smitten.”
The first thing the word calls to mind is William Steig’s original Shrek, whom a knight told ” ‘Magician’s mercury, plumber’s lead, I smite your stupid, scabby head.’ And the knight smote.” But the knight was doing the smiting. Was Shrek’s green head smote? doesn’t sound right. Smitten? Shrek hadn’t met his stunningly ugly princess yet, so no. I would’ve gone with smited, too.
In all uses of passive verbs, meaning is usually clearer if you flip it: Lightning Smites Touchdown Jesus. Safely correct. But not as strong a headline, in this case.
And dammit, this is our blog. No place to be safe. We write the rules here — anyone who messes with us will find herself smited!
The English language is a living, breathing organism. Let’s bring back “smite.” And let’s add “smited” for the passive participle. Go ahead and keep smote for the past participle if you want.
(In the matter of judgment, however, I must remind you that we live in retarded-ass America. So ditch the e and you won’t look like a motard.)
Re: judgement – at least in that case, “judgement” is an accepted spelling variant, considered correct even if it’s not the way most people spell it in this country. Whereas “smited” is clearly incorrect, though for the reasons both of us stated, it probably shouldn’t be.
My issue(s) with “judgment” are several – in case the first, show me another example of a root word ending with “e” where the “e” is dropped when an ending is added to turn it into a compound word. You can’t, for the simple reason that the “e” doesn’t get dropped from any other root because it’s there for a reason. In this case, the “e” at the end of “judge” is a phonetic cue to the pronunciation of the “g” sound – without it, “jud-je” becomes “jud-GUH”. It’s totally retarded, and the only reason this ONE WORD is so egregiously misspelled in American English is because some asshat back in the 1920s had this big idea about “simplifying” the spelling of certain words and just pissed all over the very solid reasons for spelling those words the way they were previously spelled.
So, motard or not, I’m sticking with “judgement”.
dropping the ‘e’ is theft, also too.
And don’t get me going on ‘atonement’…
I think Touchdown Jesus should be replaced by Throwing Yellow Flag Jesus. To remind us of our sins.
“I can’t believe Jesus was struck,” said his brother, who noted the giant Hustler Hollywood sign for the adult store across the street was untouched. “It’s the last thing I expected to happen.”
This sounds like a clear case of friendly fire. Obviously God was aiming for the adult store but the lightning bolt went astray. God’s credibility was hurt even further when he initially denied that the wrong target had been struck,attacking the “liberal media”. After being forced to admit the error, God blamed it on a “few bad apples” and announced the resignation of several low level angels.