probs
October 8th, 2014
And the Bible calls them fools.
Sometimes the barmaid just has to get things off her chest.
Latest book…
Random oldie…
March 8, 2013-
- NICE T-SHIRT (Thank you for not provoking my uncontrollable lust). Currently unavailable.
Perfect!
I don’t agree
The “StarChildren” left big, black, monolithic Swiss-Army-knives and Tycho-Magnetic-Anomalies where spacemen could find them. The Beyonders left a massive Disneyland in Antarctica. The Go’auld and the various Ancients left super-tech litter all over the place. The Kryptonians left their “Last Son”, a daughter-cousin, a dog, a horse, a chimp, an entire miniaturised city and legions of criminals in the heavily insecure Phantom Zone.
The Elder Gods left Hell-Boy and a variety of mystically powered rubbish.
Yet the almighty creator of all of those races and their planets can’t manage to produce one single sign of its existence except for a poorly written bunch of pornographic trash.
Not even one tiny, little, mile-high sign saying: “JHV woz ‘ere”.
Incompetent twat, ain’t it?
On the other hand, the Cheela left the decryption key to the secret of FTL on the surface of a planet many light-years away from the homeworld of their pals, the Humans. It was a confirmation not a test, a prize for successfully getting there.
A babbling book full of codes and ciphers and other puzzles might be a somewhat similar idea.
If humans are being prodded into achieving Ascension on their own, with the various sacred texts only being decoded once you have reached the plateau of enlightenment, then they would naturally make zero sense to normal, dumb, non-Ascended mortals.
Though one could become heartily sick of cryptic clues and ambiguous warnings from drugged-up oracles and wish that the various super-beings and wizard types would occasionally just help.
Instead of being pretentious, pompous, “prime-directive”-led prats.
On the gripping hand, if the creator really is Loki-Kickaha-Sithrak then the joke does make sense.
The universe is evil and humans are it’s toys.
Author, the Barmaid is missing the secret decoder ring that makes holy books sound, all spouses perfect, and start up companies viable – faith đ
Last resort? Feeling lonely mate? If you need to talk to someone about this, there’s always Jesus?
It might be my imagination, but Mo’s nose profile looks decidedly less, ahem, ‘Semitic’, in these later cartoons than in the earlier ones. Has he had some work done? (Which might be haram – depending on who is interpreting the Koran today). Or has author got better at noses?
Sithrak hates all equally and without discrimination. Nothing you can do will change it. What a relief!
I remember as a young teen our crazy house keeper (Yes, I suppose my family was middle class enough to occasionally get some help in for my overworked mother.) explaining to me with great passion that the bible simply HAD to be inspired by god because the prose was so beautiful, it was obviously beyond human capacity to create such a book unaided by divine intervention. I didn’t argue with her. Couldn’t really see the point. But talk about blind and deaf…
Author, not only does the bible call them fools. It goes on to lie about their character and morality: “They are corrupt, they have committed abominable deeds; There is no one who does good.” – Psalm 14-1 I resent this, but I also take heart from the fact that there must have been scoffing atheists even back when that lie was composed. Despite how it felt when I was a child, totally surrounded by crazy, we have always been there.
Because I don’t see it anyplace on this page, and because I think it is spot on brilliant, I’m going to cut and paste the little rant that Author sent with the notification for those of us who subscribe:
“No sentient adult should have a “holy scripture”. To do so is a complete
abnegation of intellectual responsibility. A cop out. A cheat as blatant and
shameful as a schoolboy copy-pasting his homework from the internet. There is no excuse for it.”
Take that, you who insist that atheism is a religion, that we have prophets, saints and holy books.
ahahah! I love how the Jesus nuts have infiltrated the comments here to demonstrate how the point flew way over their heads.
Please Mam, all we want are the facts, just the facts. Well Sgt. Friday, as barmaid in charge (BIC) what I told your two complainants are the facts. Just because I a woman, born into a ‘man-made’ wheelchair, you will find that I am neither deaf nor blind. As to that wheelchair, I gave that back to the complainants-long time ago; for when the truth, if ever, hits them they will be the ones who will need a sit down to decide whether to cry or rejoice. As for me, I donât give a damn.
Darwin+Harmless, yes, Author’s additional note in the email is brilliant. I forwarded to a friend, introducing her to the comic at the same time. Very glad you copied and pasted.
Author, very, very glad you wrote it. It is perfect! (Hmmm, shall we make a book of it? One page will do. A very concise book it would be, and, we could claim, all the holier for it!)
Yes, Sparky_shark, I am lonely but I don’t know anyone named “Jesus”. I don’t know any Mo’s, either. Most of the people I do know have ordinary, everyday names like John, Mary, Catherine and Kllhhgerk.
Darwin Harmless, prose like: “And Abnegar begat Follatar, Follatar begat Jesne, Jesne begat Abdenail, Abdenail begat Hermione, Hermione begat Selat and these were the begatings of the Yurt of Mrimmrim.”? She thought that kind of prose was beautiful?
Well, shagging sons get gout and all that.
For my taste there is an awful lot of crap in every sacred book, even the sögur and eddur but I never was a great fan of biographies.
Or long legal texts.
Sheila I suspect Sparky_shark was being facetious, witty or ironic. Maybe samariumic or cobaltic. As was I, above.
Darwin+Harmless
I’ve always snickered at “The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God.'” (Psalm 14:1 NIV). A book pushing a particular belief says that those who don’t believe are fools. That’s hardly a compelling argument. There’s also “And anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell.” (Matt 5:22 NIV) Yet another contradiction in the Bible.
The original intent of religion and philosophy
Was supposed to be understandably workable for you and me
But the scheming machinations of power mad fools
Render the concept of religion useless manipulative tools
Destroying the humanity of those who won’t see.
Traditional limerick syllable count; 9,9,6,6,9.
Syllable count in the latest NBH; 16,17,13,17,13.
Is this a record?
IS State is all the news with the US/Allies joined by some Arab states in attacking the extremists. Seems to be a good source of humor.
I am of the opinion that ridicule is the most potent weapon against belief. Ridicule is most feared by the young (see peer pressure as an example) and the proud (read “family honor”. They will murder their own children to avoid ridicule.) At least one billion others think all people believe in the skygod because they never hear anything to the contrary. Ridicule must be put in their hands, somehow. Fortunately, there are now 1 billion rationalists, thank God (OK my humor is lame) so we are headed the right way. Now we need J&M, in Arabic, put in their hands 5 times a day (I wish) and especially on Friday.
“Thereâs also âAnd anyone who says, âYou fool!â will be in danger of the fire of hell.â (Matt 5:22 NIV) Yet another contradiction in the Bible.”
Sure, but that’s Jesus himself calling people fools, and the rules don’t apply to him, do they? Doesn’t cover Ray Comfort though.
Thanks so much for articulating that cogent point: that a ‘perfect’ book cannot be misinterpreted, which means everyone would interpret it the same way — and we know that doesn’t happen with the Koran!
My favorite retort is, ‘It appears the English definition of the word perfect is far more perfect and complete than the Arabic one. It’s a shame Arabic lacks the word or phrase necessary to describe perfection as thoroughly as the English word does. Perhaps you mean to say that the Koran is very impressive.’
Why is Jesus Asian?
Also, there is only One True God and His Name is Bender. All hail the Metal Lord.
I wonder why god didn’t make the bible more timeless, perhaps by making one of the commandments, “Thou shalt not text while driving.” That would have been conviincing evidence of divine inspiration (as well as very useful!). Perhaps people would have wondered what text and drving meant for millena, but t would have made the bible much more timeless. Or commandments against slavery (my J-Dub neighbor claims god didn’t LIKE slavery, but tolerated it – when did god have to tolerate anything from us? He didn’t even tolerate eating an apple. Or a commandment against rape? Child abuse?
And if god had wanted us to be impressed, wouldn’t he have mentioned creating other galaxies? The only things mentioned in genesis are things that were obvious to the naked eye. Genesis claims the sun and the stars were made on different days, even though the sun IS a star. So much for perfection.
The Old Testament, (Deuteronomy 25:11â12) states the following:
When men fight with one another, and the wife of the one approaches to rescue her husband from the hand of him who is beating him, and puts out her hand and seizes his genitals, you shall sever her hand; you shall have no compassion.
Necessary Evil, you need to see it from the perspective of a small tribe in a land full of other tribes. A male can make new people for the tribe, especially new workers, warriors and leaders four or five times a day but each female can only make one or two additional tribesmen each year or so. By that count males are hundreds of times more fertile than females.
So male gonads are obviously valuable.
So having male gonads makes the wearer valuable. Which increases the value of the gonads themselves. Not only are they valued as boffing tools but they are also valued as status symbols, symbols of male virility, symbols of maleness.
Throw in the lÚse-majesté of having a mere girly damage the mighty and godly scrote and you have a recipe for major retribution. It would be rather like a dog peeing in your corn-flakes, save that dogs were far more highly valued than women.
It could be said that the elders among the Hebrews were being generous and gentle and quite liberal when they restricted the punishment for a girly grabbing gonads to a mere hand-lopping. Consider that the offence of being raped carried a penalty of being stoned to death and the limb-shortening looks positively humane by comparison.
There is also the fact that it was certainly highly enlightened and civilised of those elders to recognise that a one-handed female could still cook, clean and create warriors for the tribe. That speaks of great sophistication and humanity on their part.
Is there a smilie for “sneering sarcasm”?
You are right, Author, to focus on this. If we are to understand the hold some of these texts have on so many people in today’s world, we have to ask how it has come about. Is fundamentalist willingness to abandon all critical faculties – switch off one’s intelligence, so to speak, – a throwback to the time when for largely illiterate populations, writing was some kind of magic? Perhaps some people are hardwired to hanker for an idol that embodies a divine spirit? If so, book worship might satisfy that urge, especially when accompanied by the conviction that the book in question is inspired by (contains the spirit of?) one’s preferred deity?
these cartoons usually elicit a wry smile from me. Today’s caused a loud guffaw. Bloody brilliant.
We’ve all heard that “atheists are fools” verse from the psalms, but you don’t always here that the Quran has an analogue:
“And when it is said to them, “Believe as the people have believed,” they say, “Should we believe as the foolish have believed?” Unquestionably, it is they who are the foolish, but they know [it] not.”
-Quran 2:10
DanH, I read about an amazing group of sitcom actors in Baghdad who agree with you. These amazingly brave people dress up with fake beards and outfits to take the Micky out of IS. They believe they can have more power against them through ridicule than weapons.
Four or five times a day …. those were the days đ
@Darwin+Harmless
And those who cooked up the Modern Synthesis and Steve Jones who updated On The Origin of Species for the genome age were not even tarred and feathered by the scientific faithful let alone fried with a frigging laser or stood in front of a cyclotron beam or crushed to death by a redundant supercooled magnet from CERN.
Instead they were féted as contributors to the sum of human knowledge. Now we have Almost Like a Whale the only reason to read The Orign is for historical interest, as literature.
I am not sure if he looks at this site or, perhaps, has already been banned but the idiot Bobby-boy Hutton is a great fan of this type of argument. A favourite response of his, along with calling all atheists pitiful creatures, is to tell those who confront him with a question he cannot answer or a situation he cannot prove that they have been blinded by the devil.
They are coming after us, next:
“members of the public, or a section of it, will be harmed
Harm is defined as:
….
at risk from harassment, alarm or distress …”
We certainly alarm or distress some members of the public. Minimally, but I’m sure they can blow it out of all proportion, like they do with the idiots who twit.
I surrender. They win.
LastResort, thanks for that link. The UK is alarming me. Can we ban it? I mean, seriously, that is a blasphemy law writ large. Any definition of terrorism that wide and the country might as well be a theocracy.
DH, we are having the same things happen to laws in my country. The same government who proclaimed that ‘people have the right to be bigots’ (yes, the Attorney General actually said that) are now trying to ban non-terrorists from preaching anything that may even slighting, while squinting in a half dark room, look like promoting a caliphate.
@Last Resort. I don’t think the probably somewhat mediocre men who compiled the book of Deuteronomy put in the bit about gonads for a joke, though we might laugh at their concern today. As you say, the Jewish law implied that gonads were more precious than a woman’s hand, as natural selection would also have us think. I’m concerned about how relevant it all is now. There are plenty of men fighting in the world today – men who no doubt value their gonads highly. Should women attempt to grab their balls to make them stop? And should those women have a hand cut off for interfering? I think we should be told. Surely there are some wise vicars reading this who could comment constructively.
Darwin Harmless, technically we could ban UKland. We could send the place to Coventry, though, as Coventry is in the UKland this would involve a bit of “Time Lord Science” or topological twistiness.
I am not entirely sure I would like to ban UKland as I currently live there, but it might be worth a few sacrifices to cut out some of the cancer.
Of course, we’d have to send USAlia to Coventry, too. That, topologically, is rather easier as they are non-contiguous, non-intersecting spaces.
The drawback to this is that Coventry is a fairly nice place and does not deserve to have those particular governments dumped on her.
I would argue your “wise vicars” comment. There are good reasons for considering that to be an oxymoron. Were they wise they would be able to find honest work and cease parasitising off of the body politic.
Ooops, I just distressed and alarmed the vicars … the governments’ going to get me.
Author could you pass on a message to our lovely and wise Barmaid, please? There are *no* editors in Heaven. Their occupation is incompatible with the idea of “being good”.
Camp guards have a better chance at redemption. Even holiday camp guards.
In case you’re wondering, yes, I’m a Writer and I’ve met editors.
Oh, pooh.
” … the governments’ *are* going to get me …”.
Oh pooh again …
Where does that comma keep coming from? I don’t even know any Grocers, green or otherwise.
… and don’t anyone mention that that is what editors are good for …
LR:
Oh dear. This is just the sort of thing UPOTWA was set up to deal with.
…to find honest work and cease parasitising off of the body politic.
Although the rule is often ignored, as ‘parasitizing’ is derived from parasitism, it should* have a ‘z’ – UK rules, Americans disagree, but then they say ‘zee’, don’t they? Bless them.
Much worse, the ‘of’ in off of is always redundant, and in this case so is the ‘off’; one does not ‘parasitize off’ (nor ‘on’ nor ‘from’); parasitizing the body politic says it all.
No POTWA, of course – UPOTWA rules apply only to members.
* This should not, of course, be understood as any kind of endorsement of proscriptivism. Writing can be as sloppy, misleading and imprecise as the writer desires, and language is the richer for it.
Hotrats, sometimes it’s a pity I’m already shacked up with the perfect partner. I think I’m in love with you. đ
DH:
Oh my paws and whiskers! That’s the nicest thing anyone has said to me since… too long ago.
But I’m sure your perfect partner won’t begrudge you the joy of a purely Platonic liaison at the C&B.
Let’s leave it there, kind Sir, before I become lachrymose with the poignancy of your encomium.
Again from the Old Testament and relevant today if you are a Christian. From Isaiah 56 King James Version (KJV):
For thus saith the Lord unto the eunuchs that keep my sabbaths, and choose the things that please me, and take hold of my covenant;
5 Even unto them will I give in mine house and within my walls a place and a name better than of sons and of daughters: I will give them an everlasting name, that shall not be cut off.
Has anyone here actually read the KJV book of Song of Solomon? It is gibberish and totally unreadable. The book is supposedly heralded as being titillating, but in reality it reads like it was written by a sex-deprived basement dweller with tourettes. Of course, the Bible is perfect in every way according to The Religiously Impairedâą,in spite of the stark reality that the writing would get a D- even in a Special Ed class.
Where are the chords? In my copy they seem to be missing…
…Has anyone here actually read the KJV book of Song of Solomon? It is gibberish and totally unreadable. The book is supposedly heralded as being titillating, but in reality it reads like it was written by a sex-deprived basement dweller with tourettes…
You probably have to read it in the original – I think it misses a bit in translation. On the other hand Ecclesiastes is a stunning read (apart from the bits added at the end), and well worth thumbing through a lot of garbage for.
You might, however, reasonably ask why a book intended to be for all peoples and all time seems to spend so much page space on tribal lore of the 5th century BC.
cosmicstargoat, yes, many have read the SoS. Many have even read the entire … whatever it is. Polyology? Manyology? Multiology? I quite like SoS, at least relative to the rest of the rubbish. It is short on laws, rules, begatting and battles and not too heavy on the whole “I am The Law” nonsense. Compared to Leviticus and Deuteronomy it reads almost like poetry.
Almost.
It is about as sexy as six pounds of fermenting cat-meat but that’s possibly due to the nuances being lost in multiple translations.
I also quite liked the book of Ruth. It makes the whole thing a little less … relentless.
.
hotrats, okay, that’s the very last time I try a running gag using grammatical, syntactical or lexicographical errors as the mainstay of the humour. Most especially one which ends in multiple deliberate errors.
Humour doesn’t seem to translate well across bulletin boards. It never has, really.
I was aware of all of the “mistakes” and redundancies and excessive verbosiities which you so ably pointed out, and a couple you may have missed. Few of them, if any, were accidental.
This time.
There may have been accidental accidents at other times but those are left to the readers’ imaginations.
I guess I am just piss-poor at funnies?
Don’t worry, I won’t try any more of them.
Basically, the entire series was a set-up for the comment about editors ad the dangling narrative hook that in reality they are good for …
.. could it be that I was too subtle? Or not subtle enough? Or that I need that most contradictory of terms, a “good editor”?
Accidental “n” dinged?
Last Resort, old chum, you are strange.
Yes, I did expect the other word but “relentless” is funnier.
cosmicstargoat , as Tourette’s is in the universe (obviously), is there any cause to reject the idea that the writer of the Babble books may have it? That JHV could be as deranged as some of the sacred writings would have it be? Nowhere in any of them does JHV, or any of the others, make the claim that they are anywhere near sane. Or that they are even in the same universe as sanity.
Assuming JHV did actually write the thing maybe it is a nutter?
Perhaps it wrote the thing before any mental health professionals made it into the good parking zone? And perhaps the reason JHV isn’t currently doing any smiting, visiting in bushes or creating tablets is that it is currently undergoing truly massive therapy?
It’s a theory. I doubt the godly lot would like it, though.
OTOH, if JHV is a computer, maybe it was waiting for some competent C#++ programmers who could also upgrade LISP procedures? There weren’t many of those in the nice luggage rack until fairly recently.
Interesting place you have here. I like.
I see at least one Niven fan here – Last Resort. Why am I unsurprised?
C# programmers? Reality runs on Windows? No wonder it is so messed up. Viruses and malware everywhere.
An object of transcendent beauty; a crystal of Bismuth.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/75/Bi-crystal.jpg
How can God be yours and mines? Isn’t it ours? Like bread and butter, can we divide God? Well, this think is subjected to personal opinion and mind set. I am not denying that your opinion is wrong or bad. I just mean that mine can be more friendly than yours… especially in web comics đ
Betty Smith, are you asking a question? “Can we divide God?” Really? Can one divide something that doesn’t exist? I think you are looking for a theological site full of believers where you can discuss silly questions about nonsense. You’ve wandered into a pub full of non-believers who just think you are daffy.
“I’m not denying that your opinion is wrong or bad.” Uh, do you mean you are not “suggesting” that our opinion is wrong or bad? Or do you believe that our opinion is wrong or bad and you are not denying this belief? Your use of a cliche phrase in an unusual way leaves me rather confused. I get the feeling you just chose the wrong word. But maybe not.
The only webcomic on that list you spammed us with that I’m familiar with is “Dumbing of Age”. And yes, I did find it entertaining and friendly though I got bored with its slow loading time and stopped following it. Allow me to spam you in return. Here’s one I follow on a regular basis. I find the sensibility of the author to be quite refreshing.
http://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=2808
And for sheer friendliness in a web comic it’s hard to beat Sithrak: http://oglaf.com/outreach/
Now maybe you should wander off in search of like minded people with whom to commingle and converse. You don’t fit in here.
Darwin Harmless, I think your choice of ‘nym has never been shown to be more apt and more pointed. Your barbed thrusts at Our Betty are probably more subtle than is her wit but some of us appreciate them.
And I, for one, do like Sithrak. He’s my kind of deity. Honest, twisted, mean and nasty,just what you expect from the mighty and the strong.
Betty_Smith, yes, one can divide gods. Any god. “G”, then “o” then “d”. Or “go” the “d”. Or “g” then “od”. alteratively, one can define the idea of “god” such that dividing it by anything, even a wombat’s fart, yields sensible results. All one need do is use the proper axioms and logics.
If one can divide zero, divide by zero, divide the second Infinity and divide by the second Infinity and even divide topological spaces by tensor fields then one can divide anything by anything else.
One can even divide blue by Thursday.
Though why one would wish to divide “god” or blue by anything even Thursday is a puzzle best left for those with a liking for the sci.math newsgroup or other therapy sessions.
I could not possibly answer, Macumazahn, as to why you are unsurprised but I admit to being quite a fan of Mr. Niven. His performances in such classics as “A Matter of Life and Death” and “The Sea Wolves” were excellent. I have always felt he should have been in “The Wild Geese”, too, but I can’t decide which part he should have portrayed.
Betty_Smith haven’t the Christian scholars been dividing God by three, and then putting the pieces back together again in different ways, for centuries?
Not quite old enough to have seen Niven in many movies but I do remember seeing him in Wuthering Heights and thinking that only David could have played that completely awful, wussy character and made him seem like a real and sympathetic (almost noble) person instead of hoping he fell under a bus (cart may be more appropriate to the WH setting).
Of course one can divide God. What the hell else is the Christian Trinity if not one divisible by three? But, of course god can also be ‘yours and mine’, believers in the Greek pantheon believed in all but worshipped one (or two or three).
Mary2 here in the more developed world we have a thing we call “television” which is a system of broadcasting into people’s homes repeated showings of moving pictures and voices in the form of teleplays, photoplays and other such things. This includes a method of transmitting copies of old filmed plays like the ones I mentioned above. It is a useful technology for those of us to young, or too poor when younger, to have seen “Thunderbirds” and “Fireball XL5”.
I’m sure the colonies will find this “TV” system incredibly interesting should you ever develop far enough to make use of it.
I have never seen any filmed version of “Wuthering Heights”. I did not like the book when I read it some centuries ago and never found enough enthusiasm to bother with any other version of the tale. Though I did think Ms. Bush was very pretty, I did not even like her rendition of the story. I thought it screechy and painful.
I may be admitting to being a bit of a nye-kulturny here but there are a couple of classic novels I do not think are as good as they are said to be. “The Modern Prometheus” and “Dracula” among them.
Innovative they were but they were also very small tales in which nothing much of consequence happened and much was left to be said. While this is good for Hollywood it does make one wish the writers had tried harder. And written more.
Good point about tv. Maybe I’ll get my head around the new-fangled 20th century technology before trying the 21st century stuff like the interwebs!
There are a lot of ‘classic’ novels which are not as good as they are said to be. Moby Dick for example. The story is great but could have been printed in a pamphlet if a sensible editor had got rid of the chapters of pseudo-scientific pontifications about fish and musings about Quakers which go on for months. It is page 280 before they even sight a bloody whale!
… and yet, “Moby-Dick” s used as a metaphor whenever the idea of useless revenge is stumbled over in novel, movie, play or TV. As an example, I present “Star Trek :First Contact” and
Kirk Too’sPicard’s little talk with the primitive Earthling who ends up being “more civilised” than the “civilised Federationer”. Everyone knows enough of the story of the big fish for the conversation to make sense even if no one but us has actually read the book.I did rather like the Ministry’s reduction of “Moby-Dick”: “Early nineteenth century knowledge of cetaceans was inaccurate and limited.” [paraphrased from memory].
That was a book that deserved to be called “classic”.
I do know Oz has at least some access to modern tech. It’s where that awful thing “Neighbours” came from so someone there has electricity and a movie camera.
I liked “Walkabout”, too.