This Scientology tract features a photo of the world's religious icons, from Muhammad to Jesus to Moses to Confucius (?) standing in awe beneath an usher who also happens to be a Scientologist and is therefore the most powerful God.

Sherri Shepherd tried to religionize Andy Dick, Heidi claims Spencer makes her orgasm 20-30 times a day, the George Clooney gay rumors are back, Nick Lachey is lonely, Lindsay Lohan scored an acting gig and Mischa Barton has cellulite.

The Way We Live Now: Stripped up, ripped up, shacked up and backed up. From the chicken plant recession war to the Amish RV salesman slinging jelly to the empty rows of McMansions—getting paper is a life-threatening hobby.

File under "Probably Not In This Week's Altarcations": the founder of "Hookers For Jesus" and some guy in a Christian rock band got married in Vegas. The name of the band? "Stryper." +4 [CNN]

In light of George Tiller being gunned down in a church, this blows the mind: a Louisville pastor wants to expand his flock by encouraging them to brandish firearms while they worship.

Jonathan Tilove is a veteran Washington reporter who's seen three different employers close their bureaus in the past year. Have faith: this week, the Virgin Mary appeared on his desk:

Oh look, a new study perfect for supporting any old opinion! Pew researchers found that half of American adults switch religion at least once—Catholics, out of conviction, and Protestants, out of laziness. Theory!

Fargo, the biggest and most Hollywood city in North Dakota, is, right this moment, on the verge of being flooded in Biblical-level deluge. How bad is it? Let us explain:

Note that these segments always seem to come at the end of the broadcast, when people could use a reprieve from all the murder and house fires and terrible political machinations of the day. We need the Savior! And look how often we get Him (and sometimes her). Faith works, folks.

Ooo, the SEC has finally released the good stuff on Stanford Financial, the mini-Madoff Ponzi scheme that made $8 billion disappear. Incredibly, the company's Southern Christian leaders were big hypocritical frauds! Jesus hated money-lenders:

Newsweek, which traditionally (dentist's office joke), has for the first time ever correctly identified an overarching trend in American society and formulated a reasonable response, unaccompanied by any special "The Historical Jesus" stories!

Former Clinton White House mouthpiece Dee Dee Myers just called Barack Obama "the most famous living person in the history of the world." Whatever! What about, like, The Pope? Or Tom Cruise!

Christians are not taking the Atheist War on Christmas lying down. Heathens ran quirky, anti-god ads in DC recently, so Christians are striking back with a novel strategy—quirky, pro-god ads!

Having pissed off Oprah, the book industry, and us, former Gawker intern James Frey's working on a book, his own "theoretical third book of the Bible," that will now piss off Christians.

The annual War Against Christmas is starting again! This is the time of year when secular humanists and other assorted anti-American forces do various things to undermine Jesus, such as asking for the term "Holiday party" to be substituted for "Christmas party," and requesting that Jews, Muslims, and members of other blasphemous religions be "included" in things. But this year it's even worse, because some atheists have started a public ad campaign designed to destroy God! Fox News is taking this threat very seriously:

Do you like microblogging, but always found Twitter to be too full of godless heathens? Well rejoice, because Gospelr is here! It's the Christian version of Twitter, and do we need to explain anything further? Praise god no. The founder says he hopes it will be "effectual in regards to sharing the Gospel," but then admits "I have no idea how Gospelr might eventually be used." Hopefully not by Julia Allison! Let's take a look at the holy activity going on at Gospelr right now:

"The nude portrait was a gift from Iceland's first lady, who tells Bloomberg News she has 'yet to meet someone who does not want a naked picture of their loved ones with text about themselves.'" [Gothamist via Fleshbot]

You love working out. You love Jesus. But gyms are such meat markets: sweaty, sculpted, sexy bodies everywhere, driving your brain crazy thinking about... not the church bake sale, if you know what we mean. (Sex). So what to do? Where can you go? Is this all a setup leading into a trend story about the astounding success of a Christian-themed gym located, predictably, in Florida? God yes! And furthermore, we think it's great:

Hey kids: you think Catholicism is all about musty old churches and child-molesting priests? Think again, yo! Everything that you think is cool came from a man named g-o-d—including blunt-smoking gangster rapper Snoop Dogg. Deify him! But he's not the only one of you young peoples' false idols who came from the Godmeister. That's right, Sienna Miller did too! These two ads from the Australian version of Marie Claire are supposed to promote the Catholic Church's upcoming World Youth Day. 1-8-7 with a gat in your mouth, Jesus! Gaze upon the full versions of two [REAL] horrifying ideas of youth outreach:

You've surely seen a copy of it on the walls of your local Sunday school, A.A. meeting, or weed-filled hipster apartment, ironically: Footprints in the Sand, the mawkish little poem/ parable about Jesus carrying you when you couldn't carry yourself. The work has become a gold mine of merchandising opportunities, which is what everyone, including Jesus, really cares about (sandals aren't free). So naturally three different people have been squabbling for years over who wrote it. Now, the son of one proclaimed author is taking the other claimants to court for copyright infringement. Sigh. It would really be tidier if Jesus could just settle this himself. After the jump, the three slightly different versions of the poem that claim to be the original. One thing we can all agree on is that god needs to pick more creative messengers: