Here is Weird Al’s Amish Paradise, a parody of Coolio’s Gangsta’s Paradise. I changed some words and phrases to turn it into Fundie Paradise while loosely retaining the general flow of the song. I suggest you play the video and sing along with the new ‘lyrics’ I wrote below.
FUNDIE PARADISE
.
As I walk through the valley of the shadow of death
I shall fear no evil ‘cause I feel my Shepherd’s breath
And that’s just perfect for a Fundie like me
Because I have an abs’lute stand on morality
Early morning ev’ry Sunday I go to church
Sing with the minister as he comes down from his perch…fool
And I’ve been praising, arms raising so long that
Even Peter thinks that my mind is gone
I’m not a man of this world, I’m into…afterworld
Into hell all you heathens will one day be hurled
But if I finish all my prayers and you finish yours
Then we can get back to reading those Bible verses some more
.
We’ve been spending most our lives
Living in a Fundie paradise
I spoke in tongues once or twice
Living in a Fundie paradise
No human effort will suffice
Living in a Fundie paradise
Only His blood, sacrifice
Living in a Fundie paradise
.
An atheist challenged my belief last week
I just smiled at him and said, “Your future’s so bleak”
From nothing to nothing and this life’s everything?
“Thou shall have eternal life” – on this promise I cling
But I never bashed an atheist even if he deserved it
A Fundie’s never rude – though he may get sarcastic
I never use reason ‘cause it’s all there in the Bible
We must take to tradition – no matter how tribal, fool
There is a beautiful promise to which I adhere
A promise yet to be fulfilled after two thousand years
But we ain’t realy dumb so please don’t be despaired
We’re just a little logic’lly impaired
.
There’s no proof, no solid evidence
But Faith is all I need
I will never trust in reason
Because reason can mislead
.
We’ve been spending most our lives
Living in a Fundie paradise
We’ll have mansions in the sky
Living in a Fundie paradise
On this future we rely
Living in a Fundie paradise
In a life of great supply
Living in a Fundie paradise
.
Saying all my prayers, reading all those verses
Asking for forgiveness for those blasphemous curses
Think you have the answers? Think you know the truth?
Well for abiogenesis will you please show me some proof!
I’m the Fundie guy those poor lost souls wanna be like
Lest upon them divine wrath like lightning will strike
Opened my eyes.
I am floating in a seemingly endless lake.
(tricked myself to believe that this surrounding of water is surrounded by land)
I long to stand on my feet…and touch solid ground.
***
Dull.
There is no wind.
The water is as still as the air.
Need to wade my arms, trash my feet
in order to see waves in this otherwise clear still flat waterscape.
***
Think.
Must I swim?
To where?
Blankly I stare, flat horizon everywhere.
Or should I wait?
For what?
Something, anything that’d rescue me from this tranquil waters for a hell.
***
Should I drown in order to end this peaceful monotony for a life?
Sink or swim?
Neither.
I will float.
***
Strange.
I feel no hunger for food nor thirst for water.
I am still alive.
Here I am,
dying to satisfy the hunger, quench the thirst-
the question:
Why am I still alive?
***
Opened my eyes.
Surprised to see a wooden box floating nearby.
I smiled.
Finally, my coffin.
I swam towards the box… it is locked.
***
Where is the key?
Is there a key?
Perhaps there is…lying somewhere at the bottom which I couldn’t see.
***
I dived, dived really deep
to find the hopefully existing key.
I dived, dived really deep
the pressure kept on pounding at my chest,
still determined to find the key that’d open that mysterious wooden chest.
***
I am running out of air.
Need to surface…
to breathe.
***
Opened my eyes.
Frowning, I brood at the thought of me drowning
without finding out what’s inside that wooden box.
***
The closed wooden box still laughs, mocks me with its lock.
***
I punched the lock over and over with my right hand
-in a desperate attempt to break it-
instead it broke my right hand, my fingers.
Most specially, my middle finger.
Great.
Now I am deprived of my only source of twisted satisfaction-
the art of clenching my right hand into a fist,
extending my middle finger
-proudly
confidently straight-
pointing it at the sky that has no clouds, sun, moon nor stars.
All stolen.
All I have is an insane blue ceiling for a heaven.
Then I laughed.
I laughed at my stupidity.
Why am I lamenting over my right hand?
I still have my left left.
***
Opened my eyes.
Delighted to see a scarlet bird
-a cardinal-
defy the azure sky.
The bird circled
then perched on my disfigured, outstretched right hand.
Talons tightened their grip
my expressionless face is ripped by a painful smile.
Once again
hot-living blood flowed out of my hand,
trickled down on my arms to desecrate the sea.
Gently
I lowered my right hand to better see the cardinal’s beauty.
I noticed- something is in its beak.
Slowly
I placed my left palm under the cardinal’s proud head.
I begged.
The cardinal dropped what it was holding in its beak
and I was not surprised to see
that it is a key…
it must be that key.
***
The cardinal flew away.
I shed tears as I witness the most depressing scene-
a moving scarlet dot vanishing in the still blue horizon line.
***
Opened my chest.
Found only blank sheets of white paper.
Paper.
HA!!!
Broke my right hand just for paper!!!
I grabbed, crumpled and threw the nearest sheet.
***
So surreal ( as if my problem of existence is not surreal enough)
the sheet which I grabbed, crumpled and threw
flew back to its pack.
***
***
***
So, I am to write.
-But I have no pen.
A scarlet feather floats nearby.
-But I have no ink.
Water is all that I could see.
But I have blood.
***
Counted the blank sheets of white paper,
the treasure I found in my chest.
Forty-four.
Forty-four sheets where I could squeeze my thoughts.
Thoughts…
About what?
I looked around
my tranquil water hell
mocking blue heaven
broken right hand
broken fingers
broken middle finger.
I smiled.
Serenely.
I know what to write.
Defiance.
First, I must learn how to use my left hand
so that I may begin writing my silent crusade of screaming thoughts
of defiance…
…thoughts.
All that is left of me.
Thoughts that are, I strongly believe, right.
.
.
.
-Jonathan Maines Ramirez, circa 2003
left the playeronbacktobackrepeat,songsOrestesAndRosebyAPerfectCircle.
woke up with the idea for a poem in mind…finished in an hour.
Come on guys, let’s show our love for science and poetry. Let’s keep the creative juices flowing. Here’s my start on this mess. I’m sure you can think of other creative limericks, whether they be about science, math, or anything under the freethinking sun, no?
There was a guy named Schroedinger
who was quite an exceptional thinker
He posited that
there’d either be a dead or live cat
Even before you laid down a finger
(to appreciate my limerick even more, here’s a good reference on Schroedinger’s cat)
And I don’t want to leave another favorite subject of mine (among others) without its own limerick.
I took the lyrics of the song The Big Bang Theory and tried to write a line after each of the song’s lines. The original lyrics are in normal type while my lines are in italics.
* * * * *
THE BIG BANG THEORY
Our whole universe was in a hot dense state A singularity – you can’t predict its fate
Then nearly fourteen billion years ago expansion started. Wait… Space-time became a growing estate
The Earth began to cool And formed the primordial pool
The autotrophs began to drool Helped produce our fossil fuel
Neanderthals developed tools Placed the beasts under their rule
We built a wall (we built the pyramids) And scaled them like we’re arachnids
Math, science, history, unraveling the mysteries As well as mankind’s glory and all that misery That all started with the big bang!
“Since the dawn of man” is really not that long A lot has happened before we came along
As every galaxy was formed in less time than it takes to sing this song (In one of them we happen to belong)
A fraction of a second and the elements were made The stars and planets then came in cascade
The bipeds stood up straight Tried new positions when they mate
The dinosaurs all met their fate Just like the animals they ate
They tried to leap but they were late Imagine jumping with all that weight!
And they all died (they froze their asses off) While the furry mammals merely coughed
The oceans and pangea
Tibet and Himalayas See ya, wouldn’t wanna be ya
Saying all this blah blah Set in motion by the same big bang!
It all started with the big bang!
It’s expanding ever outward but one day Gravity will make it sway
It will cause the stars to go the other way And bring to mankind a great dismay
Collapsing ever inward, we won’t be here, it won’t be hurt What will be left is only our dirt
Our best and brightest figure that it’ll make an even bigger bang!
Australopithecus would really have been sick of us Wondering what’s all the fuss
Debating out while here they’re catching deer (we’re catching viruses) They really needed good irises
Religion or astronomy, Encarta, Deuteronomy Chemistry, biology, philosophy, theology It all started with a big bang!
Music and mythology, Einstein and astrology The proletariat and the bourgeoisie fighting over a decree It all started with the big bang!
It all started with the big BANG!
I’d rather see this picture hung upside down.
Makes it more interesting to see
the familiarity
`top -> sky; bottom -> ground’
shattered -
now, it’s the other way around.
Still, horses don’t fly into the sky.
Their feet are hanging by the ceiling of verdant grass.
Chandelier trees are not uprooted to join the company
of the what used to be company of clouds.
Water of the lake, dewdrops on grass mountains
don’t rain to put the light out of the morning sun.
How I wish to see -
rose petals sprinkle on the opalesque sky.
One thing is quite surprising -
the rainbow,
which used to look like a giant frown,
is now a radiant prismatic smile.
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