Is Jesus more important than capitalism? What about Cyber Monday Deals?

So, the girl in the gray sweatshirt… not bad, huh?

We all love Friday –it’s the best — but two fridays in America stand out more than all other Fridays. There is today, Black Friday — the day where salivating shoppers stampede Wal-Mart in hopes of laptop deals, grabbing a flat-screen or a nifty pair of pants. Then there is Good Friday, the day that Pontius Pilate (and the Jews!) condemned Jesus Christ to death on a cross. You can’t kill Jesus, by the way.

I’m a recovering Catholic. Recently a friend of mine asked what happens on Good Friday. I said, “You go to church for three hours.” At these services, we sang some solemn songs and contemplated the historical event. If I remember correctly, there is a part of the service where the priest imitates Pontius Pilate, the roman judge, and we catholics imitate the Jews. We yelled, “Crucify him!” a lot. Something tells me this isn’t quite what happened.

I’ve never been much of a Black Friday shopper, but as far as I can tell, it is a day where Americans get up a 3 a.m. to save $28 on something that costs $1014. Gizmodo has a Black Friday guide that has 640,000 pageviews, which is roughly 426 times the page length of an average bible.

Others describe Black Friday as a social event. People get into the spirit of competition, hoping to nab that Galaxy Tab out of the hands of a soon-to-be forlorn consumer. In olden times, people didn’t have social events like this. Instead, they had hangings and crucifixions.

With so many Black Friday online deals to go, one would think the need for a Cyber Monday would be superfluous. Not so. Cyber Monday is the latest trend in a consumer-driven nation with a 9.6% unemployment rate. It looks like Cyber Monday will soon surpass Easter Monday in popularity. Yes, Easter Monday. You haven’t heard of it?