Thursday, December 25, 2008

The Porpoise Driven Life, by Pastor Slick Warden









Flipper Has a Plan for Your Life

by Pastor Slick Warden


Why are you so hung up on yourself?

Your life has nothing to do with you. If you’re ever going to have a clue as to what life is all about, you’ve got to start with Flipper. Flipper has a plan for your life, so get over yourself. You don’t know what’s going on in life because you’re so damn selfish. You keep asking, “I haven’t eaten in three days, where can I get a meal? How can I get a job? How am I going to pay for mom’s chemotherapy?” Me, me, me.


This book is not about accomplishing your goals, having a better life, or learning anything useful. It’s about turning your life over to Flipper and putting money in the author’s pocket.


How do you find out what is your porpoise in life? Well, you could think for yourself, but that’s not why Flipper gave you a brain. You could read the world’s greatest literature, study philosophy and science, or ask your parents and others you respect, but what the hell do they know? Who are you going to trust, some Nobel Prize winner, or the chubby minister of the Humpback Church in Flake Forest, California?


You don’t have to guess about the meaning of life. In fact, you don’t even have to think because I’m giving you all of the answers. You see, Flipper has laid everything out for you. He speaks to us through Flipper the Movie, the Old Flipper TV Series, and the New Flipper TV Series, starring Jessica Albacore. You probably weren’t even born when Flipper the Movie came out in 1964 A.D. (AnnoDelphis, or “Year of the Dolphin,” not to be confused with B.C., “Before Cetacean.”), but Flipper the Movie and the Old and New TV Series will be around long after you’re dead. Since you’re not immortal it really wouldn’t matter if you stepped out in front of a Mac truck right now, so you might as well turn your life over to Flipper and buy a buttload of products from the author.


Your Life Is Not a Fluke

Flipper made you. While some parents are bastards, there are no bastard children. The fact that your parents got jiggy with it 9 months before you were born and you resemble your parents is just coincidental, and certainly doesn’t mean that any kind of sexual reproduction, DNA mumbo-jumbo was involved. So if you’re the bearded lady or the dog-faced boy in a traveling freak show, it was all Flipper’s idea and handiwork. That’s just His way of providing you with a steady, effortless income.


Flipper made you so He could love you. Flipper likes squid, and prefers herring, but He loves you. If there were no Flipper, life would have no porpoise. Sure, you could savor gourmet meals, swim in the ocean, cradle a baby in your arms, find a cure for cancer, take a shower with a supermodel, and so on, but without the existence of an omnipotent, invisible porpoise living someplace outside of this universe, life just wouldn’t make any sense.


What Drives Your Life?

Many people are driven by guilt. What Flipper wants to do is to mandate dozens of do’s and don’ts to ratchet that guilt up to unbearable levels, so your life will be intolerable.


Many people are driven by resentment. So somebody tattooed your forearm and put you in a concentration camp, while butchering millions of Jews, Gypsies, and the mentally handicapped. So somebody raped and murdered your child. That was last week. The past is done. Get over it.


Many people are driven by greed. They want to be best-selling authors of hokey meaning-of-life books, while becoming millionaire pastors with thousands of adoring lackeys in their congregation.

How pathetic.


Many people are driven by the need for approval. Shallow people like this make Flipper weep. (If you enjoyed this book, please send a flattery-filled e-mail to slickwarden@wahoo.com)


You could be a multimillionaire living a life of incredible luxury, cruising through the Greek islands in a yacht with a bikini-clad Playmate of the Year sprawled suggestively on the deck, but what’s that compared to knowing what Flipper wants you to do next? Once you have a porpoise in life, things get simple, because you no longer have all the hassle of thinking for yourself: Do what Flipper tells you to do and write out those checks to Slick Warden.


You were put here to prepare for eternity. The problem is that you’re constantly thinking about your life and being alive, when you really ought to start obsessing about death.


Once you die, the first thing Flipper is going to ask you is, “What did you do with my child, Jessica Albacore?” Flipper wants you to know and love Jessica. I mean really love Jessica.


The second thing Flipper is going to ask you is, “What did you do with your life?” You didn’t do anything sinful like try to figure out things on your own and live your life as though it were your life, did you? Flipper created you with a mind and freewill so that you could obey his every whim without question.


The third thing Flipper is going to ask you is, “Did you bring me that herring like I asked you to?” It should be fresh, because if the eyes are cloudy and it smells like fish, Flipper is going to be pissed off.




















Seeing Life Through a Fish-Eye Lens

Life is a test. Isn’t it great that you’re about to live life Flipper’s way? We all know how fun tests are! Every day with Flipper is a non-stop test! Think of all those years you wasted doing body shots off of curvaceous nymphomaniacs when you could have been taking a test.


Life on Earth Is a Trust. God has asked humans to take care of his “stuff,” which is a scientific term that means “things.”


Once a couple of dupes in our congregation let me and my wife use their home in Maui. We swam and peed in their pool, devoured everything in their refrigerator/freezer, used their sexual aids, and I even cleaned out the bird feeder in the backyard after drinking their bottle of single malt Scotch. But we put everything back, including the food and birdseed I threw up in the sink the next morning.


The main point is, since you don’t really own anything, because Flipper is simply loaning you everything you’ve got, do you have a BMW, a luxury condo, or a hot teenage daughter Pastor Slick could borrow for the weekend?


Money is both a test and a trust. (Don’t ask me what that means.) The neat thing is that if you’ll just give your money to Flipper, and if he’s not in your swimming pool at the moment you can send that money to me and I’ll make sure that He gets it, Flipper will give you spiritual riches. Imagine the look on your friend’s face when you say, “You hit the lottery for five grand. Is that all? I’ve got a cool mil in spiritual cash.”


Life on Earth Is as Short as a Crackhead’s Attention Span

I live in California, which is overrun with illegal aliens who don’t buy any of my books. Hell, they can’t even read, let alone read in English. While some immigrants have green cards, all of us should carry spiritual green cards. That way, if Immigration and Naturalization officers stop you, you can say (translated from Spanish), “No officers, I’m not a citizen and I don’t have any papers, except for this spiritual green card.” At which point they respond, “I’m so sorry, sir. Please forgive the inconvenience.”


Or suppose some day you wind up in heaven and Flipper says, “Hey, what are doing here? Aren’t you the guy who ate tuna that wasn’t dolphin-safe?” You could reply, “Yes, but I have a spiritual green card, and I’ll mow your lawn cheap.” Problem solved.


When you view things from the perspective of eternity, life on earth is so short that it’s meaningless. Have sex? Why waste your time, when you’ll soon be dead? Why get a new car? You might as well just pick out a casket. Do you have a horrific degenerative disease? Worst case scenario, you’ll spend 10-15 years in excruciating pain, before your body withers away and you die a slow, agonizing death. Compared to eternity, it’s a drop in the ocean. So cheer up.


Because Flipper doesn’t want us to get too attached to this earth, he makes us miserable. The good news is that this misery will last a century or so, tops. If you’re lucky and Flipper wills it, you’ll be toast long before then.


The Reason for Everything

It’s all about Flipper.

You were created by Flipper, so now he owns you. Everything in the universe reflects Flipper’s glory, from the smell of a wino, to the erratic convulsions of a squirrel that’s been hit by a car, to the flatulent, overweight woman in a trailer park who’s eaten a chili boat and sounds like she’s playing a cheap trombone.


Want to know what Flipper is like? Just look at Jessica Albacore. Go ahead, take your time and get a good, long look. Jessica said in the New Series, Episode 8, Minute 17, “Hey, you got me all wet!”


We humans are commanded to give praise to Flipper. Even though He’s all powerful, it’s very important to Him to have an unemployed construction worker in Bakersfield tell Him just how great He is.


Of all of Flipper’s creations, only three refused to give Him glory: demons (including fairy sprites), humans, and Charlie the Tuna. So how does it feel, being lumped together with demons and Charlie the Tuna?


When anything in the creation does what it was designed to do, it gives glory to Flipper. When an intestinal parasite attaches itself to a child’s colon, it gives glory to Flipper. When a dog urinates against a tree, it gives glory to Flipper. Just keep in mind that as a human, anything that you’re designed to do, like have sex with more than one person, to feel jealousy and anger, and to reason, is a sin that will doom you to hell. That’s why the safest bet is to stay alone in your room and pray while watching Flipper the Movie, the Old Series, and the New Series.


So you’re asking, “How can I give Flipper the groveling adulation He craves?”


You bring glory to Flipper when you love Him and His only child Jessica Albacore. Do you love Jessica? I’m talking about a deep, all day and all night love. The New Series says, “Use your whole body as a tool to do what is right for the glory of Flipper.” Are you willing to use your whole body –not just the part or parts you find convenient-- to love Jessica?


You bring glory to Flipper by learning to love others in His family. So you love dolphins; how are you with narwhals? When was the last time you went out of your way to show kindness to a beluga?


You bring glory to Flipper by serving others. Flipper has given everyone a special gift. Some people are endowed with a janitorial gift, and have the privilege of cleaning the Humpback Church’s toilets. Others have the gift of service, which means they got screwed, and so they wind up doing a whole lot of thankless jobs in obscurity. Others have the gift of evangelism, which entails writing books while jet-setting around the world, but no menial labor.


So it’s time to make a choice: Are you going to take charge of your life, live it to the fullest and try to make sense of it on your own, or will you give your life to Flipper as explained by Pastor Slick Warden, best-selling author?


If you’re ready to surrender your life to Flipper, say this simple prayer with me:


Oh, Flipper the Father, forgive me, for I have sinned against you. I have eaten tuna that is not dolphin-safe, and have not worn a mullet.

I have tried to live my life and think for myself as if you had given me a life and a brain.

Oh, Jessica, perfect child of Flipper the Father, show your love to me. Touch me in a special way, repeatedly.

In the name Flipper the Father, Jessica Albacore, and the Holy Mackerel, amen.

Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Rick Warren: Phenomenal Mediocrity


“The Porpoise Driven Life” is my satirical take on Rick Warren's book, “The Purpose Driven Life.”


While I have have fun ridiculing the book, I am not saying that Rick is a scammer, a hatemonger, narrow minded, and so on. Homosexuals and liberals may want to paint Rick as an extremist, a whacko on the the fringes of society, but the reality is that Rick is relentlessly mainstream.


Warren is the embodiment of mainstream, middle class Christianity, which explains why he has thousands of members in his church (22,000, to be exact!) and has appeared on the cover of Time magazine. Regardless of Warren's flaws or limitations, he must be given credit for his masterful handling of the presidential candidates' forum he hosted. In that forum he showed that he is intelligent, articulate, and hardly some Bible thumping, mouth breathing hick pastor. The Purpose Driven life has sold more than 25 million copies, and according to his website, “is the best-selling hardback book in American history, according to Publisher’s Weekly.”


But I have to wonder why the book sold at all, let alone became such a mammoth blockbuster. Here are my objections to the book, and I've included a link where you can download the first seven chapters to read it yourself.


1) According to Rick, your purpose is to give your life to God. Let us say this is true. What is next? This still doesn't answer the question of what to do with your life. What career should you choose? Whom should you marry? How do you find happiness?


Note how this leaves Rick unaccountable. He isn't claiming to produce any tangible result in the reader's life. By giving up your life, you're giving up any right to concrete results. If you've surrendered your life to God then you shouldn't be concerned with wealth, sex, entertainment, status, physical appearance and strength, etc. Think about it: if you buy “Make Money in Real Estate,” you can judge the merits of the book according to whether or not you make money dealing in real estate. If you buy “The South Beach Diet,” you judge the book by whether or not you lose weight. But if you buy a book that tells you to give up any self-direction and the desire to get anything out of life, then how do you judge the book's effectiveness?


If you say, “I tried Rick's way, but I'm not happy,” the Christian response is, “Your life is not about your happiness. Don't you see how selfish and self-centered you are, always thinking about your happiness?”


2) Why does God give you a life, but not want you to live it? God does not need you. As a human, I need worship in one form or another because I have doubts about myself. When someone praises me, it helps to assuage my insecurities. God, on the other hand, has no self-doubt and neither needs nor desires anyone to worship him.


It seems to me that the point in creating humans with minds and free will is to allow them to create and to choose.


3) The book is poorly written. Rick talks about “spiritual green cards.” This is where an editor should step in and say, “Hey, Rick, that's a clunky metaphor. Drop it, okay?”


Rick repeatedly cites scripture, assuming that the reader accepts it as authoritative. This is like Christians who prove the Bible is true by quoting the Bible saying it's true.


4) Rick stresses the unimportance of this life, which is nothing, compared to the next life, which is everything. Ultimately, this is a nihilistic view. If my desires are inconsequential (if not evil), and my life on this earth is inconsequential, then why does this life –and whether I live or die-- matter? I know the response will be that the afterlife is what matters, but doesn't that make this life meaningless? If the afterlife is what matters, why not just start with the afterlife?


Suppose you come to my house and I serve appetizers. You say, “Ugh, this tastes like cardboard.”

I say, “It is cardboard. It's not real food.”

Then why in the hell did I serve it? If the main course is all that matters, why mess around?


Does there have to be a life on earth in order to determine who winds up in the afterlife? What is the point in a trial (i.e. being tested on earth) if God knows the outcome? Doesn't it say in the Bible somewhere, “The Lord doth not dick around?”