It’s official: we love food more than we love God.

Or so according to a recent survey which pitched the two divine deities of the modern world against one another in an unlikely ‘faith off’ or ’wrap battle’ – Christian God v. Ubiquitous Food God, Ronald McDonald.

What the researchers uncovered might not come as such a happy meal for some of the more devoted of us.

The results showed that 88% of people could identify the iconic McDonald’s Golden Arches logo, as opposed to only 54% who could name the Christian cross.

To quote a rival fast food company, that’s a whopper of a fact.

It appears that people have been going on a bit of a religion detox, while loosening their belts to make way for the 21st century creed – one that unites all racial, political, cultural and religious groups, crossing generations and oceans, indiscriminate and all-encompassing.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the human race has fallen under the spell of a smiley man in a yellow jumpsuit and striped tights.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, considering it’s fronted by a clown – triggering a lifelong psychological war between every child’s coultophobia (a fear of clowns) and lust for a quarter pounder – there’s something less benign lurking behind the curtains of the world’s largest burger chain – plans for world domination.

For their 68million daily customers worldwide to get their calorific fix, McDonald’s has to produce 75 hamburgers per second, which adds up to 2.4 billion a year.

A new McDonald’s restaurant opens every 14.5 hours. In America alone, McDonald’s annual ad spending totalled US$988 million, almost as much as Obama and Mitt Romney spent together in the last US presidential election.

The company can also boast of raking almost US$30 billion each year – so it’s not just their chips that can induce cardiac arrest!

Gluttony may be one of the seven deadly sins, so we might be better off muttering a few ‘Hail Ronnies’ the next time we find ourselves inexplicably drawn to the golden dome-like arches of our modern Mecca.

Picture courtesy of Rupert Ganzer, with thanks