Thought you’d like this:

Yep — you can tell a lot about someone’s theology by watching how
they deal with a stop sign:

1.A postmodernist deconstructs the sign (i.e., he knocks it over
with his car), thus ending forever the tyranny of the north-south
traffic over the east-west traffic.

2.Similarly, a Marxist sees a stop sign as an instrument of class
conflict. He concludes that the bourgeoisie use the north-south road and
obstruct the progress of the workers on the east-west road.

3.A serious and educated Catholic believes that he cannot understand
the stop sign apart from its interpretive community and their tradition.
Observing that the interpretive community doesn’t take it too seriously,
he doesn’t feel obligated to take it too seriously either.

4.An average Catholic (or Orthodox or Coptic or Anglican or
Methodist or Presbyterian or whatever) doesn’t bother to read the sign
but he’ll stop if the car in front of him does.

5.A Fundamentalist, taking the text very literally, stops at the
stop sign and then waits for it to tell him to go.

6.A preacher might look up “STOP” in his lexicons of English and
discover that it can mean either: 1) something which prevents motion,
such as a plug for a drain, or a block of wood that prevents a door from
closing; or 2) a location where a train or bus lets off passengers. The
main point of his sermon the following Sunday on this text is: when you
see a stop sign, it is a place where traffic is naturally clogged, so it
is a good place to let off passengers from your car.

7.An Orthodox Jew does one of two things:

8.(A) Takes another route to work that doesn’t have a stop sign so
that he doesn’t run the risk of disobeying the halachah (Jewish Law), or

9.(B) Stops at the stop sign, says “Blessed art thou, O Lord our
God, king of the universe, who hast given us thy commandment to stop,”
waits 3 seconds according to his watch, and then proceeds.

10.Incidentally, the Talmud has the following comments on this
passage: R[abbi] Meir says: He who does not stop shall not live long. R.
Hillel says: Cursed is he who does not count to three before proceeding.
R. Simon ben Yudah says: Why three? Because the Holy One, blessed be He,
gave us the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings. R. ben Isaac says:
Because of the three patriarchs. R. Yehuda says: Why bless the Lord at a
stop sign? Because it says: “Be still, and know that I am God.”

11.R.Hezekiel says: When Jephthah returned from defeating the
Ammonites, the Holy One, blessed be He, knew that a donkey would run out
of the house and overtake his daughter; but Jephthah did not stop at the
stop sign, and the donkey did not have time to come out. For this reason
he saw his daughter first and lost her. Thus he was judged for his
transgression at the stop sign.

12.R. Gamaliel says: R. Hillel, when he was a baby, never spoke a
word, though his parents tried to teach him by speaking and showing him
the words on a scroll. One day his father was driving through town and
did not stop at the sign. Young Hillel called out: “Stop, father!” In
this way, he began reading and speaking at the same time. Thus it is
written: “Out of the mouth of babes.” R. ben Jacob says: Where did the
stop sign come from? Out of the sky, for it is written: “Forever, O
Lord, your word is fixed in the heavens.” R. ben Nathan says: When were
stop signs created? On the fourth day, for it is written: “let them
serve as signs.” But R. Yehoshua says: … (continues for three more
pages)

13.A Haredi [ultra-Orthodox “black hat” Jew] does the same thing as
an Orthodox Jew, except that he waits 10 seconds instead of 3. He also
replaces his brake lights with 1000 watt searchlights and connects his
horn so that it is activated whenever he touches the brake pedal.

14.A Breslover Hasidic Jew sees the sign and makes hisboddidus (a
form of spontaneous personal prayer) saying: “Robono Shel Olam [Master
of the Universe] — here I am, traveling on the road in Your service,
and I’m about to face who knows what danger at this intersection in my
life. So please watch over me and help me to get through this stop sign
safely.” Then, “looking neither to left nor right” as Rebbe Nachman
advises, he joyfully accepts the challenge, remains focused on his goal
— even if the car rolls backward for a moment — then he hits the gas
pedal and forges bravely forward, overcoming all obstacles which the
yetzer hara [evil inclination] might put in his path.

15.A Lubovitcher Hasidic Jew stops at the sign and reads it very
carefully in the light of the Rebbe’s teachings. (In former times he
would have used his cell phone to call Brooklyn and speak to the Rebbe
personally for advice, but this is no longer possible, may the Rebbe
rest in peace.) Next, he gets out of the car and sets up a roadside
mitzvah mobile [outreach booth], taking this opportunity to ask other
Jewish drivers who stop at the sign whether or not they have put on
tefillin today [male ritual] or whether they light Shabbos candles
[female ritual]. Having now settled there, he steadfastly refuses to
give up a single inch of the land he occupies until Moschiach [the
Jewish Messiah] comes.

16.A Reform Jew sees the stop sign, and coasts up to it while
contemplating the question “Do I personally feel commanded to stop?”
During this internal process he edges into the intersection and is hit
from behind by a car driven by a secular Jew who ignored the sign
completely.

17.A Conservative Jew reacts by calling his rabbi and asking him
whether stopping at this sign is required by unanimous ruling of the
Commission on Jewish Law or if there is a minority position. While
waiting for the rabbi’s answer he is ticketed by a policeman for
obstructing traffic.

18.A Reconstructionist Jew, seeing the stop sign, might say: First,
this sign is part of our evolving civilization and therefore I must
honor it and stop. On the other hand, since its origins are in the past,
I must assert that “the past has a vote and not a veto,” and therefore I
must study the issue carefully and decide if the argument “to stop” is
spiritually, intellectually and culturally compelling enough to convince
me to stop. If yes, I will vote with the past. If not, I will veto it.
Finally, is there any way that I can re-value or transvalue the stop
sign’s message for our own time?

19.The Renewal-Movement-Jew meditates on whether the STOP sign
applies in all kabbalistic Four Worlds [Body-Emotion-Mind-Spirit] or
only in some of them, and if so which ones? Must he stop feeling?
thinking? being? driving? Since he has stopped to breathe and meditate
on this question, he is quite safe while he does so, barukh HaShem.
[Praise God.]

20.A scholar from the Jesus seminar concludes that the passage
“STOP” undoubtedly was never uttered by Jesus himself, but belongs
entirely to stage III of the Gospel tradition, when the church was first
confronted by traffic in its parking lot.

21.A NT scholar notices that there is no stop sign on Mark Street
but there is one on Matthew and Luke streets, and concludes that the
ones on Luke and Matthew streets are both copied from a sign on a
completely hypothetical street called “Q”. There is an excellent 300
page discussion of speculations on the origin of these stop signs and
the differences between the stop signs on Matthew and Luke street in the
scholar’s commentary on the passage. There is an unfortunate omission in
the commentary, however: the author apparently forgot to explain what
the text means.

22.An OT scholar points out that there are a number of stylistic
differences between the first and second half of the passage “STOP”. For
ample, “ST” contains no enclosed areas and 5 line endings, whereas “OP”
contains two enclosed areas and only one line termination. He concludes
at the author for the second part is different from the author for the
first part and probably lived hundreds of years later. Later scholars
determine that the second half is itself actually written by two
separate authors because of similar stylistic differences between the
“O” and the “P”.

23.Another prominent OT scholar notes in his commentary that the
stop sign would fit better into the context three streets back.
(Unfortunately, he neglected to explain why in his commentary.) Clearly
it was moved to its present location by a later redactor. He thus
exegetes the intersection as though the stop sign were not there.

24.Because of the difficulties in interpretation, another OT scholar
amends the text, changing “T” to “H”. “SHOP” is much easier to
understand in context than “STOP” because of the multiplicity of stores
in the area. The textual corruption probably occurred because “SHOP” is
so similar to “STOP” on the sign several streets back that it is a
natural mistake for a scribe to make. Thus the sign should be
interpreted to announce the existence of a shopping area.

25.A feminist scholar notes that all commentary refers to “he” and
concludes she is thus exempt, so she runs the sign and is killed.

26.A radical feminist, observing what happened to the first
feminist, concludes this is a misogynist plot to get all feminists
killed by inciting them to run stop signs. So she gets out of the car
and stages a protest against the inherent sexism in all traffic signs.

27.An observant Orthodox Jewish woman concludes that she is not
allowed to observe the mitzvah [commandment] of stopping because she is
niddah [menstruant]. This is a dilemma, because the stop sign is located
on the way to the mikvah [ritual purification pool]. She refers the
dilemma to all the Rabbinical scholars, who shrug.

28.A feminist Jewish woman sees this as a sign from the Shekinah
[feminine aspect of God] that translates roughly “enough already….”

[From Michael Smith, an aus.religion.christian poster]:

I’ve always believed that a Christian can get a good measure of the
state of their relationship with God by the thoughts that pass through
the brain as a traffic light changes from green to amber.

Do you ask yourself the question: “Can I run through that light
without being booked?”, or do you ask “Can I safely stop before that
light?”

If you ask the second question, then your heart desires to obey that
law. If you ask the first then your heart desires to break it, but you
fear the consequences.

In the new testament we are presented with the Pharisees, who
constantly test the law to it’s limit. They always obey the letter of
the law, but their wish is to evade it by technicalities.

Jesus is critical of the Pharisees.

If we love the Lord, then we desire to obey Him. To obey Him in big
things and in small. In our personal behaviour, in the way we do
business, the way we treat our family, friends and colleagues, the way
we fill out our tax returns and even the way we drive our car.

Do we obey grudgingly? Or do we really desire to obey our God?

Now we’re not perfect, and we won’t ever be perfect this side of
Heaven. However if we are serious about loving our Lord, then we should
be constantly trying to do better.

Well, we have to start somewhere.