Religious nutjobs steal God

Incoming from our Northern Irish News With Tenuous Links To The Isle Of Man Department – someone has disappeared off with a 6ft statue of Celtic sea god Manannan Mac Lir which overlooks… er… overlooked Lough Foyle in Derry:

Installed in 2013, the life-size statue is made from fibreglass and stainless steel and had become a popular tourist attraction.

Local police issued a not-entirely-serious missing persons report, asking people to watch out for ‘a well-known six foot tall striking local male with an athletic build’.

Here’s what they’re looking for:

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But why would someone steal this statue?

The thieves left a wooden cross on the site bearing the words: ‘You shall have no other gods before me’, fuelling speculation that the unusual crime was motivated by religion.

Well, now suddenly you can see why this might have happened. Those words “You shall have no other gods before me” can be found in the Bible as Exodus 20:3 and form one of the Ten Commandments – the instant go-to guide for good Christian behaviour.

Celtic sea gods don’t feature highly in the Bible, and therefore are a definite no-no as far as sculptures in Christian territories go. And heaven knows (can I say that?) that we don’t want to upset anyone along religious grounds.

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So all perfectly reasonable then, until you read a little further through Exodus…

“But… but… we’d only got to verse 3!”
“Shut up and get on with your self-flagellation!”

…because coming in at number 7 (or number 8 if you’re a Catholic – but who’s counting anyway?) is that old chestnut:

Thou shalt not steal

Oops. Hashtag awkward.

Presumably, when the police do come knocking on their door, the thieving bastards will come clean and admit what they’ve done, although the bit about ‘not bearing false witness’ comes even further down the list than the ‘don’t nick stuff’ idea.

Because Northern Ireland falls under the UK justice system, if convicted, it’s unlikely that the vandals will be able to claim religious grounds in mitigation of sentence.

That said, if you really believe that you have to steal a 2 metre high, topless fibreglass statue of a mythical bloke because of some words in a book, then there’s always the Criminal Law (Insanity) Act of 2006 to fall back on.