It’s Official: The Christian God Will Soon Have a Bigger Dick Than Your God

Everyone who has ever visited Branson, Missouri has inevitably asked the same question: Why isn’t there a giant cross for my family to visit?

Worry no more. It’s happening:

This is why we can't have nice things (Kerry Brown)

Kerry Brown said the “God-given vision” of the Branson Cross came to his father Dean two decades ago after he bought land atop Bear Mountain near the intersections of U.S. highways 160 and 65 in Branson, tourist mecca famous for its country music venues.

“It started as a vision with a 7-foot-tall cross just so people would have a place to go and meditate with the Lord,” Brown told FoxNews.com. “As time went on, additional portions of the vision came to him and ultimately it was to build the largest cross that anyone has ever seen.”

Brown hopes to have the $5 million project completed by the end of 2013. The cross will feature a 100-foot crossbeam and twin elevators to the 17-story-tall horizontal bar. The project is being funded by donations, and though Brown declined to say how much he’s taken in, a website associated with the effort said some $410,000 has been raised so far. Much of the expense will go to preparing the mountaintop site.

It’s a good thing this is going up. I was beginning to think Missouri was going to suffer from a complete lack of crosses.

“I know St. Louis has the Gateway Arch and San Francisco has the Golden Gate Bridge, and those are all fantastic monuments, but they’re all secular monuments,” he said. “This will be the first monument to the spirit of man and there’s a reason why it’s being built in the heartland of the nation. It’s absolutely in the right place at the right time and it’s going to have ten times the spirituality as any one of those monuments.”

Would someone like to tell Brown that 10 times 0 is still 0…?

If it’s all happening on private land with donated money, there’s not going to be much of an argument from atheists. But if they suddenly get tax breaks for a monument to their faith, they’re going to see a lawsuit. In both cases, this is an unnecessary monument that accomplishes nothing useful.

And can we stop with all the nonsense about how the Cross isn’t a Christian symbol? It was a bad argument then and it’s a bad argument now.

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Margaret Whitestone

Just think how many hungry and homeless people that 5 million would help. Instead it’s going to that gaudy eyesore.
Ken

Just think how such a structure, with those wide flat crossbeams, is going to fare in tornado alley. Maybe god will deliver a judgment on this nonsense.
Dbaker13

I’m from Harrison, AR which is about 30 minutes south of Branson. This makes me sad.
kaellinn18

This is what I was going to say. What an egregious and disgusting waste of money.
Adrian Liston

Even if it is built with private money on private lands, surely there is reason to complain based on aesthetics? What about visual pollution?
Onamission5

Because Maude knows, that’s a better use of funds than five or six community tornado shelters.
ScarabDrowner

I thought the Christian god already had the biggest dick amongst gods? http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_qUFDMUpk9jE/TJZTsOkF5fI/AAAAAAAAlzw/JiaVegbujyI/s1600/Jesus-penis.jpg
Digitalatheist

I was just about to make a similar observation. I would love to see how they explain it getting knocked down in a twister… oh… but then it would just be a case wrong place, wrong time.
Chas

He talks about the First Monument to the Spirit and the Largest Cross, bue didn’t anyone ever tell him about this:

http://www.baldknobcross.com/
Or maybe this:
http://www.roadsideamerica.com/tip/4116
I never wanted to go anywhere near Branson. Now I have even more reason. If he really wanted to improve people’s lives, he’d build a 4-lane road around the place.
Edmond

Good thing he’s building this so that people will have “a place to go and meditate with the Lord”. Nobody’s been able to do that ANYWHERE yet, so this will really fill a need!
Melissa Williams

“Maude knows”
I like that.
jdm8

If you think it will hurt your property values, that’s a valid consideration for objecting to a zoning variance. Or if it harms your use of your own property. I think similar complaints have been used to stop wind turbines twelve miles off shore, where they’re hardly visible.
C Peterson

Yeah, but just think of the great numbers of hungry and homeless people who will accept their misery because, after all, a god with such a big dick must have a great afterlife planned for them.
slantrhyme

He kinda sorta unknowingly admitted that God is a human fiction:

“This will be the first monument to the spirit of man…”
Yeah, you got that right. If God wanted a cross on the top of Bear Mountain I have a feeling he would have put it there himself.

I suppose it would be too much to ask Mr. Brown just give Bear Mountain back to the bears? Does middle America rally need more automobile access? I was thinking perhaps a hiking trail and scenic guide posts….
Atheist144

Way to ruin a perfectly good mountain top. If I could spot the giant small letter “t” from anywhere on my property I’d sure as hell let someone in planning and zoning know about it.
Erin W

Went around the place a couple months ago as it was the most direct path from somewhere else to somewhere else. 65 is a 6-lane road that more or less does go around Branson. The only monument really visible from the highway is a 5-story portrait of Yakov Smirnov’s face, which is scary enough on its own.
Erin W

Surely you’re forgetting Priapus?
brianmacker

That’s a big effing cross in Effingham.
Grrrowler

You took the words right out of my mouth. Instead of using the money to do their lord’s work, he’s using it show how big and powerful, and important, his god is.
Digitalatheist

Case in point: Priapus shows his goods!
Onamission5

I wish I could take credit, but I totally ganked it from a group of mamas friends! All hail the patron non-saint of women who don’t give two shits what anyone thinks of them.
MartyM

As a Missourian I’m totally embarrassed.
MartyM

Can we cry NIMBY?
Dan Dorfman

CHARITY!!!!! CHARITY!!!! FUCKING CHARITY!!!!! HELP OTHER PEOPLE WITH THAT 5 MILLION FREAKING DOLLARS!!!!
The dopey selfishness of these pigs makes me want to put my head through a brick wall. Holy cannoli. Hoarding 5 million dollars for a stupid bauble to wave around is pure evil. Think of the lives that can be saved with that.
Someone should start an organization that tells people they’ll use donations for a similar useless gesture of faith, but instead use the money to get clean water for kids in Africa or something. Anything to offset this crime against humanity.
Cafeeine

What this thing reminds me of? Touchdown Jesus. Someone better add a lightning rod, if there are going to be people in that monstrosity.
Lee Miller

F-ing ham?
BransonAtheist

65 is 4 lane…not 6, and it does go right through Branson, not around it. It’s only 6 lane in Springfield, 30 miles away. I live in Branson and am going to have to look at this thing. 🙁
Richard Wade

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Ultracross. My name is John Cleancut, and I will be your Ascension Captain in our Sweet Chariot elevator ride to the top. I’ll briefly go over some important points mentioned in the disclaimer forms you all have signed.

We will be ascending approximately 2000 meters per minute, and you will feel a sensation of weight until we gradually accelerate to our full velocity. Just relax, recline back in your seats, and any discomfort will quickly pass. Your pressure suits will keep you warm and breathing safely as we climb above altitudes where there is breathable air. Although the Heavens Gate observation room is well shielded, you will be exposed to slightly higher levels of solar radiation and cosmic rays, which the Anointed Surgeon General has found are associated with a slightly higher likelihood of developing certain cancers.

We have a special treat today. Some of the larger remnants of the ancient International Space Station should be visible orbiting above us. It will take about 50 minutes to reach the top, 100 kilometers above the surface of the Earth. This is the Karman Line, the internationally recognized altitude where outer space begins.

For your illumination and entertainment, please enjoy watching this video telling the inspiring story of how the Ultracross was conceived and built for the glory of God by Hezekiah Huckabee, the great grandson of the First President for Life Mike Huckabee, following the Constitutional Conversion. Here we go…
ScarabDrowner

Yes, I had forgotten about him. Since I have (thankfully) never suffered his wrath, I’ve had no reason to think about him at all.
Annie

Not to mention the giant shadow it will create.
mkb

My guess is that the real point is to compete with the Christ of the Ozarks in fellow Ozark tourist town Eureka Springs, Arkansas.
http://www.roadsideamerica.com/story/17113
Sarah

Ha! 17 stories is still not as tall as the 20-story observation platform that I visited today beneath the bells of Sather Tower, a historic monument used to store fossils on the campus of the university that I am graduating from tomorrow, with a bachelor’s degree in science, reason, and thinking for yourself. This could not have come at a more perfect time for me.

(The full height of the tower is around 31 stories. The fossils are from the La Brea tar pits. The science that I’m getting a degree in is linguistics, which is “soft,” but it still counts.)
Richard Wade

Congratulations on your graduation! I hope you’re able to use your knowledge of linguistics to help us understand ourselves and each other better.
Dylan Walker

Back when I lived in Arkansas I used to go up to Branson every couple of years.

Glad I don’t live out that way anymore.
David Kopp

You say that like there would be a financially and industrially prosperous economy in said theocracy… I can’t imagine that their outlawing of science would encourage that 😉
Richard Wade

Oh they will gladly accept the gifts of science, just as they do now, but like little spoiled brats who want their dessert without eating their veggies, they’ll not want to accept any of the responsibility that science sets at their feet. The Anointed Elders will keep a very tight rein on those untrustworthy egghead scientists just so their theories don’t publicly conflict with State Biblical Truth. Ultracross will be financed by plundering all the natural resources of New Missouri, formerly known as Brazil, which was conquered during the Great Culling.

The financial and industrial prosperity will not be generalized at all. It will be highly focused amongst the privileged and favored Sobapt Class. Everybody else will have to make do with a perpetual 1930’s lifestyle, coughing on fumes and dodging super tornadoes.
Chris Leithiser

Announced near the 200th anniversary of the New Madrid earthquakes, some of the largest in recorded American history and not too damned far away. They’re just ASKIN’ for some smitin’.
Chris Leithiser

At least put some wind turbines on the damned thing.
TCC

Seriously, the best thing about Effingham is being immortalized in a Ben Folds song (appropriately, with its name garbled).
Renshia

Fuck all the starving children, lets build a 5 million dollar cross.

Praise the lord.
Michael Connor

My money is on burning to the ground after repeated lightening strikes. There is a reason that you don’t build 1 solitary tall building on top of a mountain. The other possibility is the wind catches that crossbeam like a sail or twists it off like a top, both epic.
It’s not that I think that it can’t be done, it’s that these dufuses don’t know what they’re doing.
Miss_Beara

“HE is testing our faith by destroying this cross, the cross HE died upon. GOD will help us build again. Our faith in GOD is stronger than ever.”

– Future response to inevitable tornado/lightning strike
Ndonnan

Good idea ,or a tv/phone antenna,or a big swing,or you could bungy jump from it
username999

I wonder if he’d still want to build it if he wasn’t allowed to put his own name anywhere on it or near it.
username999

Who needs god? We got weathermen for that!
Jay Arrrr

Guess they forgot the story of the Tower of Babel…
Jay

I live right down the street from where this is supposed to go up. I wish I was rich, I’d buy the land in front of it and build a giant flying spaghetti monster right in front of it and completely block it from view. Bet I could do it for less than 5 million!
Cafeeine

Since we’re dreamin’, make it so that from far away, it looks as if its crucified 😛
David Kopp

Have you ever considered writing a novel? Hehe
ReadsInTrees

Wankers.
brianmacker

Follow the link. It’s the name of the town.
brianmacker

He, he.
Tom

Such arrogance to claim “the spirit of man” as exclusively Christian; to assert that no other monuments exist to it.

Everything men and women have ever constructed that still stands, good or bad, is a monument to the “spirit of man.” Every hospital; every prison. Every library, university and museum; every labour camp, tenement and shanty town. The Chernobyl sarcophagus. The probes we have fired into space, which may drift for aeons after the last human is dust.

Every civilisation, every culture, every community that still counts living members.

These all stand as monuments to the spirit of man.

This damn fool is apparently blind to all of it. A giant cross isn’t even a remotely original thought, and neither is the idea of simply taking something countless other people have done and making it ten times bigger to no practical benefit. Besides, anything he does bigger than anyone else could just as easily be overshadowed by another in turn at any time.

How could one have such a poverty of imagination to even suggest that this must be divine inspiration anyway? You don’t *need* the mental faculties of a god to come up with such a vacuous scheme; there are countless mere mortals who had infinitely grander, more beautiful ideas and never needed help, divine or otherwise.

The “spirit of man” has many aspects, not all of them admirable. If this cross were a monument to any of them, it would be self-aggrandizing banality.

Even that is taking the short view – anything we build of mere matter will be
gone, forgotten or simply marginalised in a few generations; it is only those who have a truly unique idea that have a
real shot at immortality. You’d think a Christian, of all people, should realise that.

“Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair.”
Onamission5

Why can’t I “like” something more than once? A hundred likes to this.
Richard Wade

Perhaps at the base of this gigantic monument to the builder’s arrogance, vanity and selfishness, they should put this inscription, so that in centuries to come it might remain:

My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings: Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!

http://www.aggieband.com/poems/ozymandias.html
Nazani14

Is the base really going to have that quasi-Greek paganish colonnade? Will those drops of blood glow red? That might be pretty cool. It reminds me of the palace of Thulsa Doom from Conan: http://www.movie-censorship.com/www/SBs/121/image123.jpg
With all those steps they’re going to need some industrial-strength liability insurance.
Chas

You’re right! I-65 does go around. Like I said, never been there — but I’d heard that Bus 65 is only three nales when it isn’t two, and that when all those tacky theatres let out at once, it’s a nitemare.
Corey

“preparing the mountaintop site” i wonder how much damage will be done to the mountain and how many animals they will slaughter by posion and other quick and easy ways building use to clean-up the area of all living things. I wonder, is the poision they plan on using, one the Conservatives believe should not me regulated by the EPA? If so, maybe this is a good thing after all….maybe all those who visit the icon (which I think is a sin in the bible), will eventually get poisoned. That’ll teach them….lol
Allen

How many of you give to the poor. Judas’s comment was that same thing exactly, you could have given that money to the poor. The poor will always be with us. But the givers won’t. Taking God out of everything from our Government to poor, only leaves Satan. Who only Steals, Kills and Destroys.
Onamission5

Pointing out the hypocrisy of building a 20 story cross is hardly “taking god out of everything.” Putting your particular version of your particular deity INTO everything is what other countries call a theocracy. Your religion has no more right to ownership of the US than any other. It’s merely one belief set among hundreds and is due no special consideration over any other belief.

How do you feel about decadent monuments to other people’s gods being built in view of your home, or their tenets being plastered on city buildings, or their dogma being taught to your kids in your schools without any opposition?
Billstpor

Someone should tell that cuckoo that his giant cross will still be a far cry from the hideous cross built on top of the “Valle de los caídos” (valley of the fallen) near Madrid in Spain, so if building that atrocity to become the tallest cross anyone has ever seen was part of a ‘God-given vision’ he should get his divine eyesight tested.
Besides, the cross in the “Valle de los caídos” was commissioned by Spanish fascist dictator General Franco as a victory prize after winning the civil war, using prisoners of war who died by the hundreds, so the Spanish cross will not only keep being the biggest of the two eyesores, but it also has the upper hand in the creepiness department.
harmfulguy

Let us not forget the mighty Big Butter Jesus while we’re cataloging America’s mega-idolatry:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0OxLXe5YnQ
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_of_Kings_%28statue%29
capital$

I think it’s pretty apparent this is about God, spelled with a capital $. I’m betting this site, which will be one hell of a road side attraction, will bring in a pretty penny. It’s not a bad business plan, but I feel bad for the donors who are funding this enterprise.
menameis

I totally agree