The (second) most wonderful time of the year

As the Easter season descends on us in a orgiastic tide of tree pollen, Cadbury Eggs, and Marshmallow Peeps, I encourage all of you to get out there and strike a blow for religious freedom and Eat A Bacon Cheeseburger on Good Friday. While I have nothing against organized religion per se, in this era of easily-offended spiritual beliefs I think we may have lost sight of the fact that what makes Western Civilization worth fighting for is its slow but hopefully inexorable and irreversible progress towards a society that just doesn't really give a shit about who this God fellow really is and what he/she/it wants from us.

By Eating A Bacon Cheeseburger on Good Friday, we signal our commitment to religious plurality and tolerance. Catholics and Orthodox Christians traditionally prohibit the consumption of meat during Lent, while Judaism is not cool with either mixing meat and dairy or the consumption of pork under any circumstance (something it actually agrees on with Islam -- don't tell anyone, though!), the Hindus do not eat beef, and the Buddhists eschew the taking of animal life in general. This makes the bacon cheeseburger the ideal vehicle for simultaneously violating the dietary restrictions of every major faith on the planet.

Mind you, I'm not telling you to go out and eat a bacon cheeseburger every day -- or even every month, for that matter. Bacon cheeseburgers aren't exactly the healthiest things in the world, and by now we all probably know enough about modern-day American agribusiness to pause before putting any combination of cow and pig into our mouths for fear of causing ourselves and our environment serious harm. But I ask you nevertheless to put aside such considerations for at least one day and do what needs to be done. In this world of polarized belief and white-hot zealotry that causes people to blow one another up for their choice of imaginary heavenly benefactor, Eat A Bacon Cheeseburger on Good Friday and by doing so show your fellow man that while religion is just ducky (when it's not killing anyone, that is), there are more important things in this world and the next.

Like bacon cheeseburgers.

(Now if you're just a devoted theomachist and have no time for this religion thing whatsoever, the War On Easter might be more your cup of tea, though I suspect it's only a matter of time before these guys get their asses kicked. Until then, though, it promises to be a wild and wooly ride!)