Why is This a Story?

Because our nation is full of people who are gullible as %$*#.

And Al Lewis of The Denver Post thinks burying a statue of St. Joseph in front of your house in order to sell it is worth writing about.

Even though the statue does nothing. Because it’s a #%&$ing statue.

Next time any of you are selling your house, please plant uncooked spaghetti in the front yard instead. It’s just as powerful as the statue and you get the added bonus of possibly seeing the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

I’m most offended by this statement:

Apparently, [not being Catholic] does not matter to St. Joe, husband of Mary and stepfather to Jesus, said Richard Weigang, owner of the Catholic Store on South Broadway in Englewood. Weigang sells more than 100 St. Joseph statues a month.

“Catholics, Jewish people, Protestants, atheists – everybody does this,” he said. “Realtors come in and buy tons of them. … They ask (St. Joe) for his intercession to invoke God’s mercy and get his top dollar. I always joke, ‘You’ll get an extra $10,000 of equity for every foot of statue you buy.”

If I ever catch any of you buying this #@&% to sell your house, you will be receiving a blogly smackdown.

Lewis adds this:

Maybe it’s a test of faith. All I know is that there were a lot of houses for sale on my street. And within days after my Jewish mother-in-law buried this Catholic statue, I received a noncontingency offer at about my asking price.

I sold the home on Aug. 31.

Maybe it was a miracle, or maybe my asking price was too low. I don’t know.

All I can say is thank you, God.

Oh, and thanks for putting in a good word for me, St. Joe.

You don’t know?

If those are your two options, you don’t know?!

YOU’RE A COLUMNIST FOR A NEWSPAPER! YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO BE INTELLIGENT!

$%*&ing Denver.

(Thanks to Donna for the link. And for raising my blood pressure for the day. She says the columnist is joking, though I don’t think he is…)

[tags]atheist, atheism[/tags]

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olvlzl, no ism, no ist

Why does that bother you? It’s certainly cheaper than the scam to get people to redecorate and add “features” before they sell, now that’s a scam.

Geesh, burying religious statues in the dirt upside down doesn’t even please you guys! I’d have thought you’d like that kind of thing.
olvlzl, no ism, no ist

YOU’RE A COLUMNIST FOR A NEWSPAPER! YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO BE INTELLIGENT!

Oh, now I see the problem. Anyone who knows reporters will be able to tell you that columnists are generally idiots.
Jennifer

Hemant needs some valium. 🙂
Jen

Wait, tell us how you really feel!
Mriana

If I ever catch any of you buying this #@&% to sell your house, you will be receiving a blogly smackdown.

I’ll remember that. 😆

However, I really hate to tell this guy, but St. Joe had nothing to do with it nor did God. It rests squarely on the humans. Unfortunately, they do seem like a superstitious lot at times. I guess he also forgot that this statue was made by human hands. Oh well… What I else can I say? 🙄
writerdd

Sorry for getting you so pissed off, Hemant. I hate it when I blow up over stuff in the news.

I actually did think that article was funny. And I usually am too dense to realize when something is a joke.
Reed Braden

Hemant. Wow. You’re cursing! You’re the FRIENDLY Atheist! Leave the cursing to me, the Asshole Atheist.

Anyhoo, I see where you’re upset about this columnist being so stupid, but save your anger for the more dangerous stupid people. This guy isn’t worth getting angry at. Get angry at Bush or Robertson or the vast majority of the populace. Not this one simple rube.
Mriana

I agree. I’d just laugh him off and worry about the extremists.
PrimateIR

So I should dig it up then? Are you saying I should dig it up?
Alyce de Carteret

I’ll remind you that marijuana use is legal in Denver. If that’s not “free thinking,” what is?
Richard Wade

Al squirmed through the dirt underneath his house as he buried the last figurine. He was exhausted from dragging a canvas sack full of figurines to strategic places under his house.

He had buried three under the kitchen, one of Saint Lawrence and one of Saint Martha, both the patron saints of cooks, as well as one of Saint Anne, the patron saint of housewives. Under the baby’s room he had buried a figurine of Saint Sebastian, the patron saint of cranky children. For burying under the master bedroom he had purchased a figurine of Saint Valentine of course, and as an afterthought also included one of Saint Thomas More, the patron saint of difficult marriages. The extra bedroom, which served as his home office now had buried under it figurines of Saint Lucy and Saint Catherine Sienna, both patron saints of writers. Saint Clara, the patron saint of television lay buried under the TV in the living room, or as close as he could determine.

He couldn’t get to the dirt under the concrete slab that was the floor of the garage, so he’d have to figure out some other way to bury a second figurine of Saint Sebastian, the patron saint of hardware, as well as one each of Saint Christopher, the patron saint of truck drivers, and Saint Fiacre, the patron saint of cab drivers. He didn’t drive a truck or a cab, but he hoped they would be close enough for his S.U.V. Burying another figurine of Saint Fiacre, the patron saint of gardeners and one of Saint Roch, the patron saint of dog lovers in the backyard would have to wait until tomorrow. He could tell he was going to be sore from all the awkward crawling around.

Finally, into the biggest hole dug under the bathroom he had buried figurines of Saint Patrick, the patron saint of toothache, Saint Cecilia, the patron saint of throat trouble, Saint Charles, the patron saint of stomach trouble, Saint Peregrine, the patron saint of skin disease, and Saint Rita, the patron saint of healing of wounds. He should have included another figurine of Saint Lawrence, the patron saint of lumbago, because when, covered with dust, he finally emerged from the crawlspace and stood up, he felt a searing pain explode in his lower back and fainted.

Al woke up in the hospital with his wife at his side, a worried look on her face. He was in traction with an I.V in his arm. While crawling around under the house digging all those holes he had ruptured one of his lumbar disks. The pain meds were making him groggy so he didn’t notice as his wife placed a small figurine on the floor under his bed. It was of Saint Dymphna, the patron saint of mental illness.
Maria

LOL Richard Wade, as usual your posts are great.

The columnist may have been joking-I have several friends in Denver and they tell me that the media out there tends to have a very sarcastic sense of humor. I definitely know they to blast religion sometimes b/c I have seen Mormonism get blasted many times-though they’re right next to Utah so that steps things up a notch.

As for the statues-yeah, this is a big thing with some Catholics. Admiring saints didn’t bother me, but when I would see people getting all worked up over statues I thought it was dumb, even when I was still a practicing Catholic. I thought the statues were pretty-that’s about it. I certainly didn’t think I needed a certain number of them or had to put them in a particular place. If there really is someone listening to your prayers, shouldn’t what you feel and say in your head and heart, and how you treat others matter more than what you do with a statue or how many of them you have? I always wondered this.

And it is true, as the article says, that not just Catholics do it-I actually witnessed a family of Wiccans buying a statue of Saint Anthony to put in front of their house (to guard the house). I couldn’t quite figure out why, especially when someone made off with saint Anthony’s head. Oops. These superstitions are usually harmless, until people base their whole lives around them, push them on others, or spend ridiculous amounts of money on them.

You see with not just religion-you see it with all kinds of “good luck charms” that are supposed to help you and tend to be seem to me to be superstitions (like certain types of herbs, it’s big with new age people). 20/20 had a thing on it a couple of months ago.
Mriana

You’re right, Maria. I never could figure out that rabbit’s foot though. The rabbit is dead and it’s just a furry foot. How is there luck in that? Now if the rabbit is alive and you’re carrying it around without it biting you, well DAMN! You’re one lucky person. 😆
MB

I’m curious… Why do you care what people put in their own front yard?
Why is it necessary to mock something you don’t agree with and call it “stupid”?

“If I ever catch any of you buying this #@&% to sell your house, you will be receiving a blogly smackdown.”

I’m sure your using rhetorical over expression here, but is a “smackdown” because someone buried a statue in their front yard, really all that “intelligent”?

What if buring the statue made them feel better- is it really that unintelligent then?
Kelly

Ha! The people we bought our house from had done this. At the closing, she said “I’m going to run over and dig up Joe.” I thought it was an odd statement, and wondered if Joe was a family pet, or strange family member they had buried in the garden…she then proceeded to tell me about this strange superstition, and that she wasn’t even Catholic. She laughed about it though, so I don’t think she took it too seriously. With the housing market the way it is, I think sellers are pretty much willing to do ANYTHING to sell their house.
Slut

His asking price was definitely too low. You need to have at least 3 realtors give you an estimate before you list. I sold my own house a couple of years ago and the first realtor lowballed the price by at least $100,000. I think his name might have been Joe.
Maria

You’re right, Maria. I never could figure out that rabbit’s foot though. The rabbit is dead and it’s just a furry foot. How is there luck in that? Now if the rabbit is alive and you’re carrying it around without it biting you, well DAMN! You’re one lucky person.

LOL, I agree