A Little Piece of My Neighborhood

So there are two things right in front of my apartment building in Chicago that make me sigh/chuckle.

The most prominent of the two is this sign:

It is literally directly across from my bedroom window. (Do you think they know that my boyfriend and I are living there together in sin?!) Yes, it’s kind of a total bummer, but there is one thing I am eternally grateful for: If you look closely, you can see a couple holes on each letter. The sign used to be neon. Now that would have been a bummer. So basically, if anyone ever tells me to “Stop cramming my atheism down their throat,” I shall just silently open my curtains.

And then, I recently discovered this:

I can’t explain why, but it makes me chuckle whenever I walk past it, but I have always been afraid to take a picture due to the large number of crazies who share my block. I have a long held suspicion that they do not find this as amusing as I do.

I want so badly to find out who wrote that.

So I just wanted to share a little bit of my neighborhood with you guys! Anyone else have crazy signs near their house?

(Thanks to Michael for the pictures, follow him on Instagram at: mr_mikeyg)

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Digdougdogman

Two blocks down from my house there is a flag that is about one hundered by thirty feet the says Jesus saves. Can’s see it from the house but I have a friend that lives right on the other side of the school it is hung above who sees it every time she opens her door.
Audrey

Ha! I walked by the “Bacon is life, Jesus i Lord” concrete slab the other day (on Wilson), and had to take a picture. Something about the two opposite worldviews just made it something worth noticing! Glad someone else appreciates.
Jessica

Hey, Uptown neighbor!
Ryne Smith

What a coincidence! The same sign is right outside my bedroom window. Isn’t Uptown…interesting? I haven’t seen the bacon slab though. Now I’m going to look like all the other crazies, staring at the ground muttering, “Where is that bacon?”
Onamission5

I live behind a giant baptist church. At present, the reader board says, “Welcome! Be certain that God will accept your excuses.”

Now usually my fundie to English transation program works splendidly, but I have no idea WTF that is supposed to mean.
Don Gwinn

I live across an alley from the church I went to as a child every Sunday . . . by my best friend’s parents, because my parents never went. I’m pretty sure that was their way of bowing to the peer pressure we were talking about here the other day while still sleeping in/having sexy times on Sunday mornings. But it wasn’t all their fault; I enjoyed it back then, although I did (inadvertently) cause some trouble. There were some moments I didn’t notice at the time that I now figure were pretty awkward for the Sunday school teachers.
Mike

In the magazine racks by the checkout counters in the local supermarket, the bibles and born again magazines are in the rack underneath the sign “Gossip.”
Ibis3

This is kinda alien culture for me. I can’t imagine such a sign being allowed by municipal bylaws. Or maybe they would be allowed but the churches know that they’d get a lot of disgruntled neighbours complaining at having such a sign.

There’s a United church down the road and their little sign says something like “Wishing you the blessing of a safe and fun summer” or something like that. The little sign of the Anglican church on the corner just has service times on it at the moment, I believe. There are a couple of churches on the rural highway between the village I live in and the nearest town (about 5 minutes’ drive) that generally have more ‘god-y’ sayings, and a Baptist and some kind of Pentecostal church in the other direction but there’ s nothing comparable to that eyesore.
Phil Bellerive

Try Edgewater, or even Oak Park!
julie

This isn’t religious, but at my old house there was a “Get Help” domestic violence sign right by our yard. The sign placement just made it really awkward, as if there was some guy in our house that liked to come outside to punch women and children as they walked by on the sidewalk.
Tainda

Mmmmm, bacon

I live in a little town in Missouri so the jeebus is everywhere. But our library has a sign that reads something like “If you don’t find something offensive here, let us know and we will try to find it for you”

I was proud of them for that lol
Jessica

I wonder if we’re in the same building? I’m just kitty-corner from the Uptown Baptist Church.
The bacon slab is just East on Wilson from Sheridan- it’s right outside the skate shop, FYI 🙂
Ryne Smith

I’m on Sheridan just across from in.
I’ll take a look for the bacon slab for sure. I like how we’ve already named it. Maybe we can get the city to make it a landmark 🙂
rirurjd

What a beutiful place you live in.

Also, bacon.
Chakolate

hehe – I live near 50th & Western on the southwest side, and I used to pass a church that had painted on it: “Behold, I am coming quickly” along with the Bible cite. It always made me laugh – behold, JC as the posted boy for ED. Okay, juvenile. It still made me laugh.

But you know, you should take the sign as the church telling to you have lots of sex with your boyfriend. After all, if JC died for our sins, we wouldn’t want that to go to waste, would we? Sin! Sin a lot!
Chakolate

Sorry, that should have been ‘poster’ boy.
Chakolate

Excellent – I hope you’ve complimented them on it.
Guest

And premature ejaculation, not erectile dysfunction. Still funny though.
allein

I love that. That made me think of this: http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=939

I live in NJ and there’s not an over-abundance of Jesus around, but we do have our little pockets. I miss the fundie church I used to pass on my way to work. They had some good ones. They also promoted something called NJBibleScience.org. “Tagline: God created. The Bible says so. Science proves it.”

About a year before I moved they got an electronic sign which cycles through several screens, with services and other meeting times, the current time, temperature, and their pithy little sayings and most of the time I missed the good parts as I drove past; then I moved so I don’t go past there much anymore. But now I pass a different little fundie-type church which often has sayings that don’t make much sense. Though it looks like I’m going to have to wait until “Vacation Bible School August 6-10” is over before I get more fun things to read on my way by.

Another church (Presbyterian) on my way to work right now says “Our first vets fought to worship God” (put up for July 4th; I want to hang a history book on there), and “Our church is prayer conditioned” on the other side.
snoozn

Wouldn’t it be great to see a giant “BACON IS LIFE” sign on top of a church?

I don’t have any church signs to share since I live in a Bill O’Reilly designated “secular-progressive stronghold…being run by loons.” I do see some great bumper stickers:

Keep your values off of my family.

Dog is my co-pilot.

Focus on your own damn family.

And my personal favorite:

Jesus was my co-pilot but we crashed in the mountains and I had to eat him.
amycas

Yesterday I saw a church sign that said: Don’t put a question mark where god put a period.

I assume that means not to ask questions that already have “god did it” as an answer, or it means not to ask questions about the things god supposedly commanded. Either way it was chilling.
Onamission5

Don’t ask questions, one of the creepiest parts of fundie dogma.

I remember being a kid of about nine, trying to figure out how dinosaurs fit into the whole creation myth, and wondering out loud in the car on the way home from church if maybe god sent a meteor to kill them because he’d made a mistake, the same way he sent the flood to kill his flawed human creations. The answer I got was a froth laden shriek from the front seat that god doesn’t make mistakes and I should never say that again.

I didn’t. Say it. Sure thought it real hard, though.
Kimberly Northrup

Signs along I-70 in Richmond, IN tell you “Read the Bible!” and “Christ died for your sins!” My ultimate favorite, I must admit, is an eagle (with a tear!) in front of a flag. The billboard says “America Bless God!” It’s so bad, it’s good, but I do get absolutely pissed every time I pass it.