IN HONOR OF FREE BEER THURSDAY:

I have always wanted to start my own cult so people could freely worship me, give me money, and to help me avoid paying taxes.... but as normal with all of my good ideas, someone beat me to it. Here are the commandments of the perfect cult, brought to you by the geniuses over at the beer church.

1. "Thou shalt have no other gods before me."
This means that it is okay to like wine, or whiskey, or what have you, but you must love Beer above all others.

2. "Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image."
Remember those hats that were vaguely popular back in the 70’s? The hats that were made of macramé and old beer cans? Don’t do that.

3. "Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain."
No beer bashing. Never say things like, "fuck beer" or "beer sucks." Also, try to refrain from dissin’ on beers that you yourself would not chose to drink. For instance, you may not like Hamms, but that does not mean it sucks. It simply means that you don’t like it. Someone else does. All beers have their place. Just because it’s place is not in your fridge, that doesn’t mean you should call it names. That creates bad beer karma. An example: Upon first tasting a premium American lager, a famous English humorist once said, "Put it back in the horse!" Not long after that, while adventuring in New Guinea, he found himself stripped naked, lathered in honey, tied to a pole and fed to vicious hordes of fire ants for the amusement of a native tribe. Fire ants go for the "soft" tissue first. Ouch.

4. "Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy."
There are two reasons why you should not work on Sunday: Hangovers and the NFL.

5. "Honour thy father and thy mother:"
I grew up around Seattle. That means my Dad had to choose between being a Rainier man, or a Oly man. My Dad was a Rainier man. I respect that. My Mom sometimes adds a couple pinches of salt to a glass of draught beer. She doesn’t really have a reason, she just likes it that way. That’s cool. And if your parents don’t drink beer, it's okay to pity them as long as you honor them by having a cold one in their name!

6. "Thou shalt not kill."
Do not waste beer. We all joke about "party fouls," but truthfully we should morn the loss of a perfectly good beer.

7. "Thou shalt not commit adultery."
In short, this means that you should never aspire to be President. That station in life will open you up to far too much scrutiny. No job in the world is tougher to do, and no job will expose you to such high levels of stress. It therefore follows that no job will make you want a beer more than being President. Also, since beer is easier to obtain when you are a person of such significant power, it is a bizarre twist of fate that being President so seriously hampers your ability to drink freely. Something as simple as drinking a beer in the Oval Office will likely cause a hyper-political media backlash and you will be forced to apologize to a nation of ungrateful people who likely would have done the exact same thing given the opportunity.

8. "Thou shalt not steal."
This one is pretty obvious. Don’t steal someone else’s beer. Always share the last bit in the pitcher evenly. When splitting a 6 pack with someone, don’t drink extra fast just so you can have 4 beers. Respect your fellow human being’s appreciation of beer.

9. "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour."
This means that you should always invite, or at least advise, your neighbors when you have a party.

10. "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house, nor anything that is thy neighbour's."
There is no reason to be jealous of, or to harbor ill will for your neighbor just because he has beer. You can have beer too. Every grocery store and every convenience store has got beer for sale to the public, and you are free to go there and get some beer of your own. However, if your neighbor has got a stainless steel Snap-On Beer Fridge and a urinal in his carpeted garage, nobody will blame you for being jealous.