Religion

Lenten Loophole

BALLS! I gave up Catholicism before I could come up with this brilliant idea!

A man in Iowa is giving up everything except beer for Lent. Read that again. Not giving up beer. Keeping beer. Giving up everything else that is food.

Because that’s what monks do.

I want to be a monk, too. Whenever I drink beer for 3 meals a day for a month, they call it “a visit from DCFS”.

You win this round, Jesus. But I’ll be back…. or you’ll be back… whatever.

Elyse

Elyse MoFo Anders is the bad ass behind forming the Women Thinking, inc and the superhero who launched the Hug Me! I'm Vaccinated campaign as well as podcaster emeritus, writer, slacktivist extraordinaire, cancer survivor and sometimes runs marathons for charity. You probably think she's awesome so you follow her on twitter.

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18 Comments

  1. That’s an interesting “experiment” he’s got going there… At least he’s using actual beer, and not that swill that you Americans call beer. (I’m looking at you, Budweiser!)

    Here, in Canada, we have a saying: American beer is like sex in a canoe. They’re both fucking close to water.

  2. Elyse – Thanks so much for starting my morning off with a nasal coffee cleansing. I was getting worried my sinuses were filling up with toxins.

    I’m glad your powers of snark are only used for good.

  3. This fellow is only consuming 1,200 calories a day. That doesn’t seems sustainable, or healthy.

  4. @SkepLit: Elyse going over to the dark side? *shuddres*

    I can’t help but wonder how much of lent he will remember (but I bet his liver will)

  5. This could be one of those eternal torments out of Greek mythology. “You can drink as much beer as you like, but you can never pee!”

  6. @Anthony: I can only assume you’ve never actually been to America. You should hop the border some day! You might learn that like any country, we have crappy mass-market beers, good mass-market beers, and delicious microbrews that are available in all major cities.

  7. My uncle is a Greek Orthodox Irish Catholic (wrap you head around that) and he gives up Jameson whiskey for lent every year.
    “He gives up whiskey?” you say.
    No, just that brand. He drinks his second favorite during lent. It may be Glennfiddich, but I am not sure. He calls it “protestant swill”.

  8. @anthony:

    Email me your address ([email protected]) and I will send in incontrovertible proof that Americans make fine beer. For successfully baiting an American beer lover you will receive a fine selection of beers from one of our local breweries: Oskar Blues.

  9. @Anthony: You were asking about overcoming new-poster-anxiety on the AI yesterday (which was a great post resulting in many new people delurking, which can only be good), and one of the concerns was “What if I post something non-skeptical or wrong and everyone jumps all over me?”

    This comment thread shows exactly how it is supposed to work:

    1) You posted something that while often true (most American beer, where most is determined by production volume, does suck.)

    1a) You included a funny joke about it, which I’ve heard before, but hey!

    2) But there are many exceptions to this claim, so uncritically accepting it is non-skeptical.

    3) Lots of people called you on this, telling you to do more research.

    4) (This is the good bit) People offer to assist you in the research by providing you with free beer!

    5) You gain knowledge, get to hone your skeptical skills, and get free beer.

    See how participating in the Skeptical Community can improve your life, promote world peace, and save baby numbats?

    P.S. It isn’t science unless the results are published. Please report on the results of your beer testing. You can use a good Canadian beer as your control; the basic hypothesis being tested is not that some American beers are awful, but that some are good. So you don’t really need to drink any Bud.

    P.P.S. If you can ever make to a Boston Skeptics SitP, I’ll buy you a beer…

  10. I have no problem with the generalization that most Canadian beer is better than BudMiller. There are lots of breweries within an hour or so of me.

    Anheuser-Busch is the closest, and produces horrible swill.

    Any of the others I cite below will categorically kick Canadian Beer Ass. Not that Canadian Beer is bad, well some if it is not bad. Mostly it is meh.

    http://www.redbrickbrewing.com/
    http://www.sweetwaterbrew.com/
    http://www.terrapinbeer.com/

    That is just three of many local brews available nationally that way win the North American Beer Arms Race. Bob and Doug McKenzie totally agreed, but recanted after being threatened by radical Mounties, so take off, eh.

  11. I forgot to mention that I was a monk. We did not have beer though. I guess gods and choir boys are not the only differences between catholic and zen monasteries?

  12. @davew: Dammit, Dave. Now I have that quote running through my head to the tune of the last line in “Hotel California.”

  13. @Buzz Parsec:

    I used to think I didn’t like beer. Then I found out I just didn’t like Budweiser.

    I totally resemble that remark. I didn’t mean to imply that all american beer sucks, I do enjoy a good Sam Adams when I can get one. Some (most, actually) of our national brands here (Labatts, Kokanee, Molson, Keiths, Moosehead, are 5 examples off the top of my head) really suck as well, in my opinion.

    But we have some great craft beers here. Garrison in Halifax, Sleeman in Guelph.

    @Rebecca Watson:
    I was working on a ferry from here to Portland, ME, and my favorite haunt was a place called Stone Coast… they had 27 of their own homebrews on tap. I don’t remember how the hell I made it back to the ship the night I sampled them all, needless to say, but I do remember that most of them were pretty damn tasty. (except for the IPAs… Blech!)

    @Buzz Parsec:
    The experiment will begin soon. I’ll post a link when I collect enough data to make a decent chart. Also, Boston isn’t all that far from here ;)

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