In a blatant copy (absolute posing, actually) of how my friend Brian writes on his blog, I bring to you the first installment of Reediculous Monday, a segment devoted to ridiculous things.

Tonight Randi and I were bored, flipping through our handful of basic cable channels, when we found the Daystar Television Network, a Christian television station devoted to faith-based programming. Now, while the fact that Daystar exists isn’t surprising–at least eight of our twenty channels are devoted to church somehow–the absolute crap that was on tonight was amazing.

Pastor Mike Murdock was on tonight’s “Sharathon”, and, in exchange for giving 58 dollars to his ministry, he was promising everything short of the Presidency. In the 10 minutes that I watched, he promised that at least one of the following “blessings” would happen–in the next 58 days–to every person that pledged close to 60 bucks a month for the next year:

1) Credit card debt will disappear, completely. Especially if the 58 dollars is charged to the credit card in question. Only applies to American Express, Discover, and “Visamastercard”.

2) 600 dollars of blessings will befall the donor. Apparently this is in addition to everything else.

3) Your car will be miraculously fixed.

4) Something about prosperity. There was a vocal tic in the middle of this sentence.

5) Rapid, otherworldly healing.

…Mike had a bunch of people on his show, too, who made a few of these promises for him, so credit where credit’s due. What really got me, though, was this quote he made during an especially passionate anecdote:

“Now, this one lady, she called in… and she said, that she didn’t have 58 dollars. I asked her, well, do you know anyone who will give you 58 dollars? …and she said ‘no’. Now [laughing in background], I understand someone being poor… but poor and stupid [more laughing]?! …so I asked her, now, I have in my garage a new, shiny, really nice black Jaguar. Would you find 58 dollars for that [more laughing in the background]?”

Jamion