I hear you down there, Mr. Snarky-Pope, and all your red-robed Snarkettes, too. The acoustics in this place are incredible, so don’t think your tittering whisper-fest isn’t reaching me up here on this scaffold—130 feet closer to Heaven than you are, I might add.
Let me set the record straight for you: yes, every single man, woman, angel, and deity referenced in the Bible was totally jacked.
And, YES, they were all completely naked.
Okay, Mr. All-Knowing Pontiff, I hear you pontificating—oh, wow, is that where that word came from? I guess we’re all learning something today. Anyway, you’re saying that my ceiling features “a whole lot of Saint Peters, if you catch my drift.”
Everyone catches your drift. You’re the pope, and you’re talking about penises. Got it. But you make it sound like I’m up here whipping out huge hogs on this chapel ceiling, and we both know that’s not true.
All my wangs are church-appropriate. They’re wanglings, even. A smidgen of wangs, just hangin’ out with God. Who also has a wang, but I covered it with a robe of the finest gossamer silk because none of us can withstand the majesty of the Almighty Member.
Are you still complaining? Look, I’m going to check my language, seeing as we’re in church, but I am Michel-effing-angelo, no last name required. I carved David (and his wang) out of marble. I carved the Pietà (silk-covered Jesus, because again: sacred schlong).
You’ve seen my work, so you knew what you were getting: nude human masterpieces with, like, one percent body fat and a penchant for perfectly clenching their gluteal muscles.
Some of them also have half-sphere chest attachments. Breasts? Yeah, sure, whatever you want to call them. They look like they’d get in the way of chest flys, but to each their own.
And the nudity is important. You know the word “gymnasium” literally means “naked exercise” in Greek, right? You think anyone gets that ripped without daily throw-downs at the gym?
God’s out, guns out, my friends.
The Bible is absolutely swole with brawny muscles and sinew, because Creation required conditioning. What, you think angels aren’t cut like slabs of grade-A prime beef? You think Adam and Eve managed to go forth and multiply without well-developed posterior chains? You think Noah didn’t whale on his lats and traps so he could load up all those animals?
Think again. I am but a humble messenger of God’s Gospel of Gains.
Still not a fan? You think you can do better? Well, sure! Just climb up here and lay on your back on this rickety platform for five straight years. Take this brush and see what you come up with, your Grace.
No? I didn’t think so.
I understand reasonable minds may differ about whether all of Western theology is merely well-defined or intimidatingly shredded. But this particular reasonable mind is the one you hired to paint this ceiling, so you will behold this oiled-up heavenly throng, and you will LIKE IT.
And look on the bright side. My work is as immortal as its subject matter, and it will survive us all—even the meek, who will inherit the Earth and every squat rack thereon. And they will need models to inspire them. And wherever God’s children admire my work —in a church, or in a museum, or reproduced in a vacant storefront in a half-abandoned shopping mall—they all deserve to experience the Divine.
And Divinity could crush your pointy-hatted head between its veiny quads, so if I were you, I’d make like an organ and pipe down.