About
Religion Pigeon is an advice animal image macro series featuring a photograph of a pigeon with a blue and yellow color wheel background. Similar to the Advice God and Scumbag Christian advice animals, the captions typically mock perceived religious contradictions found in various denominations of Christianity.
Origin
The original pigeon photograph comes from the photo blog AndysLens[13] (shown below, left). In August of 2010, a page for “Religion Pigeon” was created on the image macro website Meme Generator.[4] The first uploaded example included the caption “Drugs offer false hope and lies / turn to god instead” (shown below, right). Religion Pigeon can be seen as a companion meme to Advice God, another advice animal series satirizing Christian beliefs that emerged through Meme Generator around the same time.
Spread
On August 30th, 2010, a Religion Pigeon image macro with the caption “God put fossils in the ground / to test our faith” was submitted to the 4chan image archive Chan4Chan.[5]
On September 25th, the “Fuck Yeah Religion Pigeon” Tumblr[1] blog was created. On September 29th, Redditor DrCE submitted a post to the /r/atheism[3] subreddit titled “Anyone familiar with Religion Pigeon? He’s pretty funny”, which linked to the “Fuck Yeah Religion Pigeon” Tumblr. On January 8th, 2011, an image macro with the caption “Guy builds a boat and fits every animal in the world on it / but evolution is plain ridiculous” (shown below) was submitted to the /r/atheism[9] subreddit, which received over 3,150 up votes and 320 comments prior to being archived.
On April 27th, 2011, BodyBuilding Forums member CanadaBBOY submitted several image macro examples in a thread titled “Religion Pigeon Meme”[8], which received over 239 replies within 14 months. On July 26th, the Internet humor blog Rat Road[6] published a top 10 compilation of Religion Pigeon image macros. On August 12th, the first Religion Pigeon Quickmeme[11] upload was submitted, which included the caption “Gravity? That’s a myth. / Guy resurrected from the dead? Sounds legit” (shown below). On August 14th, the “Religion Pigeon” Facebook[7] page was created, which featured both Religion Pigeon and LOL Jesus image macros. As of June 19th, 2012, the Meme Generator page has received over 800 items and the Quickmeme[12] page has accumulated over 340 submissions.
Notable examples
Scumbag Christian
The stereotype portrayed by Religion Pigeon also bears many resemblances to its 2011 successor Scumbag Christian, an advice animal image macro series featuring a photo of American actor and Christian evangelist Kirk Cameron with Scumbag Hat photoshopped onto his head. Similar to Religion Pigeon, the captions typically associate the character with hypocritical biblical beliefs, homophobic attitudes and creationist debate arguments.
Search Interest
Search query volume for “religion pigeon” rose significantly in September of 2010, the month after the Meme Generator page was created.
External References
[1]Tumblr – Fuck Yeah! Religion Pigeon
[2]4chan image archive- Religion Pigeon
[3]Reddit – Anyone familiar with Religion Pigeon? He’s pretty funny
[4]Meme Generator – Religion Pigeon
[5]Chan4Chan – GODPUTFOSSILS IN THEGROUND– TO TESTOURFAITH
[6]Rat Road – Top 10 Religion Pigeon
[7]Facebook – Religion Pigeon
[8]Body Building – Religion Pigeon Meme
[9]Reddit – Religion Pigeon
[10]FunnyJunk – Religion Pigeon Comp
[11]Quickmeme – Gravity? That’s a myth
[12]Quickmeme – Religion Pigeon