I run out of superlatives for your strips, Author. Let’s just call this one tasty. I ran into the “The bible could not be anything but the Word of God because it is so beautifully written.” argument as a pre-teen, delivered by some cleaning lady or other. All I could say was… Really? So it applies to the Koran as well. Whoda thunk it.
If x number of monkeys, typing for a period of time, might produce the works of Shakespeare, how many fewer would it take to produce the Bible or any other scripture?
“[…] every combination of Arabic words and letters have been used to try and imitate the Qur’an.”
after billions of year trying to produce every combination of arabic words and letters, deep thought yielded the answer: 42! (not 42 factorial, just 42. exclam added for comical effect; works like a charm.)
as a corollary, can’t we conclude that god doesn’t speak arabic, or rather, doesn’t *just* speak arabic? how could an infinite being be constrained by a language that yields only a finite set of combinations of words and, umm, letters?
on the other hand, considering that there is no god but god, chatting probably isn’t his or her main occupation.
So, an entirely new literary form must be the work of a god?
God is always getting the credit for amazing human endeavors. How many times was god thanked when the Chilean miners made it to the surface? How many thanks did the engineers who made it happen get? Hardly seems fair, especially since it was an ‘act of God’ that collapsed the mine in the first place.
The problem with interpreting books
Is it’s frequently done by conniving crooks
Who find weak minded fools
Then use them as tools,
While profits, with hands clean, just look.
Oh Dear Nassar, you seem to have run afoul of text auto-correction. Unless, of course, you don’t know the difference between prophet and profit. Given your defense of religion, that may well be a possibility…
Salman Rushdie, Richard Dawkins, Ophelia Benson, Jerry Coyne, and Greta Cristina are your fans? I am not worthy, I am not worthy, but I will remain a fan in spite of that.
Oh, I forgot to mention – your credit to Hamza Tzortzis as guest scriptwriter is a touch of genius. I hope a few readers check him out – the banana man of Islam.
I was at a Robin Ince show last night (which was brilliant – go see it), and mention of his Radio 4 show “The Infinite Monkey Cage” led to a discussion on the old though experiment of an infinite number of monkeys typing the works of Shakespeare. This gave me a blinding flash of insight – The Koran (and probably the Bible as well) is the result of an early attempt to carry out this experiment for real, but failing to use enough monkeys.
Bugger! My internet connection just went down. Will post later. Or is this a sign? Perhaps this comment makes me next one up against the wall when the stonings start. At least I’ll be in good company :-).
Actually don’t know what all the fuss is about. As a young man I was stoned fairly frequently, with no lasting ill effects (I’m sure my professor will disagree with that).
If my connection doesn’t come back on soon this post will just keep getting longer – sorry guys!
Haggis: I have a better thought experiment to the infinite monkeys/typewriter/ Shakespeare one. We live in the digital age. Every computer program and data file can be reduced to binary. And each program and data file is a binary number, finite and known to maths. A long number usually but nowhere near infinite and in many cases much smaller than Italy’s national debt. This means that every piece of code that could be written already exists. You just have to identify the number it represents in binary. The same goes for, say, word documents. You can, therefore, reach the complete text of Shakespeare, the Bible And Koran in perfectly formatted word or even Kindle files by starting at zero and just adding one repeatedly till you get there. You only need one monkey for that. I think he currently works for BT Broadband. This applies to anything. You would also eventually reach a number corresponding to a paragraph of text accurately detailing the date time and circumstances of your own death. You would also reach far more versions hat are wrong. You’ll only find out which one is right when your number is, literally, up.
But if you take me too seriously, my money would be on “cardiac arrest after staring at a computer screen and bashing a keyboard for 150 hours straight..”
Now it might take an infinite number of typing monkeys an infinite amount of time to reproduce the Shakespear back catalogue, but give one monkey a pencil and piece of paper and you get Hollyoaks scripts for a year.
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December 2, 2008
I run out of superlatives for your strips, Author. Let’s just call this one tasty. I ran into the “The bible could not be anything but the Word of God because it is so beautifully written.” argument as a pre-teen, delivered by some cleaning lady or other. All I could say was… Really? So it applies to the Koran as well. Whoda thunk it.
Not meaning to put down cleaning ladies there. I have great respect for a hard working cleaning lady. It’s just that this one was demented.
If x number of monkeys, typing for a period of time, might produce the works of Shakespeare, how many fewer would it take to produce the Bible or any other scripture?
“[…] every combination of Arabic words and letters have been used to try and imitate the Qur’an.”
after billions of year trying to produce every combination of arabic words and letters, deep thought yielded the answer: 42! (not 42 factorial, just 42. exclam added for comical effect; works like a charm.)
as a corollary, can’t we conclude that god doesn’t speak arabic, or rather, doesn’t *just* speak arabic? how could an infinite being be constrained by a language that yields only a finite set of combinations of words and, umm, letters?
on the other hand, considering that there is no god but god, chatting probably isn’t his or her main occupation.
must be awfully lonely out there.
Made me laugh out loud even before the punch line. You are in fine form Author.
So, an entirely new literary form must be the work of a god?
God is always getting the credit for amazing human endeavors. How many times was god thanked when the Chilean miners made it to the surface? How many thanks did the engineers who made it happen get? Hardly seems fair, especially since it was an ‘act of God’ that collapsed the mine in the first place.
The problem with interpreting books
Is it’s frequently done by conniving crooks
Who find weak minded fools
Then use them as tools,
While profits, with hands clean, just look.
Oh Dear Nassar, you seem to have run afoul of text auto-correction. Unless, of course, you don’t know the difference between prophet and profit. Given your defense of religion, that may well be a possibility…
Brings to mind “Success has a thousand parents, failure is an orphan”. Nothing personal, I’m just saying…
I love what Jesus is reading – “The Saviour, getting over a bad weekend”
Brilliant!
@ percyF I’ll bet the whole resurrection thing must cure a hangover real quick!!
I’d like to see Hamza Tzortis explain Ulysses by James Joyce.
If God is omnipotent, how come He “CANNOT write badly”? Please, don’t underestimate the Big Guy :p
@Audi: LMAO. Exactly. Cannot the Judge of All the Earth do wrong?
It is a true miracle that so much crap can be written. I am referring to both Hamza and Muhammad.
@gondil You are right. Hamza’s article was dull, repetitive, too long, and overly eager to convince. Just like the Koran. It’s a miracle!
@author: Well, how do you explain it? ^_^
Of course, it makes sense now
only god can make up new rules
so anything with new rules is created by a god
Ooooooooooooh author you have the best fans.
Ok you’re not going to tell so I will. Salman Rushdie loves J and M. For reals.
@Ophelia Benson
Well that’s done it. If Author wasn’t totally fucked before, he is now! 🙂
If God is omnipotent and cannot do wrong, then he’s not omnipotent is he? If he can’t do something, then, by all rights, he’s not all powerful!
Salman Rushdie, Richard Dawkins, Ophelia Benson, Jerry Coyne, and Greta Cristina are your fans? I am not worthy, I am not worthy, but I will remain a fan in spite of that.
Oh, I forgot to mention – your credit to Hamza Tzortzis as guest scriptwriter is a touch of genius. I hope a few readers check him out – the banana man of Islam.
Can God write a holy book so badly that even He cannot make sense of it?
“The bible could not be anything but the Word of God because it is so beautifully written.” – Darwin Harmless (well, some poor deluded acquaintance)
…So anything beautifully written must be the Word of God? I wonder if Shakespeare knew he was a deity.
I was at a Robin Ince show last night (which was brilliant – go see it), and mention of his Radio 4 show “The Infinite Monkey Cage” led to a discussion on the old though experiment of an infinite number of monkeys typing the works of Shakespeare. This gave me a blinding flash of insight – The Koran (and probably the Bible as well) is the result of an early attempt to carry out this experiment for real, but failing to use enough monkeys.
Bugger! My internet connection just went down. Will post later. Or is this a sign? Perhaps this comment makes me next one up against the wall when the stonings start. At least I’ll be in good company :-).
Actually don’t know what all the fuss is about. As a young man I was stoned fairly frequently, with no lasting ill effects (I’m sure my professor will disagree with that).
If my connection doesn’t come back on soon this post will just keep getting longer – sorry guys!
Hooray, back up again.
Haggis: I have a better thought experiment to the infinite monkeys/typewriter/ Shakespeare one. We live in the digital age. Every computer program and data file can be reduced to binary. And each program and data file is a binary number, finite and known to maths. A long number usually but nowhere near infinite and in many cases much smaller than Italy’s national debt. This means that every piece of code that could be written already exists. You just have to identify the number it represents in binary. The same goes for, say, word documents. You can, therefore, reach the complete text of Shakespeare, the Bible And Koran in perfectly formatted word or even Kindle files by starting at zero and just adding one repeatedly till you get there. You only need one monkey for that. I think he currently works for BT Broadband. This applies to anything. You would also eventually reach a number corresponding to a paragraph of text accurately detailing the date time and circumstances of your own death. You would also reach far more versions hat are wrong. You’ll only find out which one is right when your number is, literally, up.
But if you take me too seriously, my money would be on “cardiac arrest after staring at a computer screen and bashing a keyboard for 150 hours straight..”
@ JoJo
🙂 🙂
Now it might take an infinite number of typing monkeys an infinite amount of time to reproduce the Shakespear back catalogue, but give one monkey a pencil and piece of paper and you get Hollyoaks scripts for a year.