Ah, at last.
Author, I don’t know whether the fault was at my end or yours, but I’ve tried several times to post comments over the last couple of days but got an error screen telling me to enter a valid e-mail address. I checked, double-checked and checked again and I was entering my address correctly.
The lack of comments over the last couple of days, both on the last strip and now on this one is making me wonder if there may be some mischief being had.
Or am I just crap at tech and everybody is too busy to be here?
I’ve always had problems understanding the redemption thingy. Yahweh is annoyed at people so he send part of himself to be sacrificed to himself so he becomes unannoyed. But according to the propaganda Yahweh is omnipotent. He could unannoy himself just by willing himself to be unannoyed. So why didn’t he do that?
Also Jesus didn’t die. He spent an unpleasant afternoon hanging around the cross and then, a day and a half later, he’s all better. What’s the sacrifice?
“A bit late”? Author, your humor and excellent wording make the posts timeless.
I also received the error message several times this morning; a few hours later, try again. Regards.-
So…God had to punish his son for OUR sins. Why not just forgive us. Xtians say “this shows great love”. I can’t understand how LOVE is shown by hurting some one else, even if father and son are the same.
I guess it’s the bronze age eye-for-an-eye thing. There has to be punishment. From the Jewish sacraficial lamb.
But I wasn’t raised Xtian. I can’t make them understand how cruel this sounds; even to kill a baby sheep for YAHWEH
The one who really did save humanity is / was mr Iscariot. He made Jesus do it. And he died for it.
Jorge Luis Borges wrote a characteristic and wonderful short story, Three Versions of Judas, on precisely this theme. (Spoiler: three hours on the cross was nowhere near sufficient!)
…for Runeberg, the punctual prophesy not of a moment but of the whole atrocious future, in time and in eternity, of the Word made flesh. God made Himself totally a man but a man to the point of infamy, a man to the point of reprobation and the abyss. To save us, He could have chosen any of the destinies which make up the complex web of history; He could have been Alexander or Pythagoras or Rurik or Jesus; He chose the vilest destiny of all: He was Judas.
Forteatwo, if you’re asking what “OBVS” is, the answer is that it’s texting shorthand for “obviously.” If you’re asking, “What does Mo think is obvious?” the answer is that it’s obvious that J had to die in order to redeem mankind from the sin that he himself built into mankind when he created Adam & Eve.
Of course, such reasoning is obvious only to people who believe in this doctrine. From another perspective, it sounds a bit* like a tale from ancient Japan: J died to make up for the fact that he botched the job of creating mankind because he didn’t debug his design. He was angry at mankind for being sinful, but also angry at himself because it was his own fault that the flaw of sin is/was inherent in mankind. (*I say “a bit” because this doesn’t cover the J’s-death-cleanses-man’s-sin-so-J’s-no-longer-angry-at-man part of panel 2.)
People who believe in this doctrine might point out that, actually, the story goes that mankind was created not by J as J, but as his alter ego “the father.” That reminds me of this song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYlJH81dSiw
two cent’s worth, I’ve left an answer on the previous strip to your query.
re. Judas: it’s the same as all the ‘Christ killers’ shit that the Jews have suffered for 2000 years. When are the Christian idiots going to get it into their thick heads that the Jews were a vital part of God’s perverse plan? Jesus had to die in order to be resurrected. Ironically, just this once the Jews really were God’s chosen ones..
Unfortunately, this is where the fictional story ends: the rest is history.
jb, thanks for introducing me to the work of Leon Rosselson! I look forward to searching out his other songs, the way I searched out Tim Minchin’s songs when I heard about him here at the pub.
A peeve of mine is that the version of “Christianity” presented in this strip, while orthodox and so common and widespread as to be close to universal today, does not remotely resemble the version taught in the “synoptic” gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke. There, (1) the world is ending, Judgment Day is coming soon, possibly next Thursday, certainly within the lifetime of the people standing there hearing Jesus speak. (2) On Judgment Day, all people will be sorted into the saved and the damned, going to Heaven or a fiery Hell respectively, a place of “eternal punishment”. (3) Very few will be saved, almost everyone will be going to Hell. (4) to have any hope of being among the few who are saved, you should FIRST do EVERYTHING that Jesus commands his followers to do, and THEN say “we are unworthy servants” and hope that Yahveh will be gracious. Believing without actually DOING all that stuff will help you not at all. (5) What Jesus caommands his followers to DO makes quite a list. See http://atheistnexus.org/profiles/blogs/the-ethics-of-jesus
Hilarious. Every Easter, we are reminded how ridiculous the fundamental heart of Christianity is. I can only assume that most professed believers haven’t really thought the thing through.
Within the framework of the entire Abrahamic religions Jesus is a confidence trick. God used to promise his chosen people He would give them political power and rewards in this world, if only they behaved. He kept promising during the (historically completely imaginary) Egyptian slavery, the Babylonian occupation, and the Roman occupation. And it became apparent that He couldn’t or wouldn’t deliver on his promise. To cover up for His breach of contract, God came up with this brilliant con: Instead of giving the Jews a kingdom in this world, He would give ALL MANKIND the entire kingdom of the NEXT world. All they had to do was trust Him. Trust and worship Him now, and they’d get everything after death. And like all good confidence tricks, what it mostly needs is smoke and mirrors, patter, flourish. Panache. That’s what the whole crucifixion, empty cave, walking on water spiel is about. Jesus is God’s version of the Nigerian Mail Scam (or rather the Spanish Prisoner, as it was first known).
I first heard Stand Up for Judas on the radio in the 80s, without catching the name of the singer or song, and it took me months to track it down. Nowadays…
BTW, I actually met Leon Rosselson in person once, through a mutual acquaintance, and he was every bit the old communist you might expect him to be. He deeply lamented the (then recent) fall of the Soviet Union as the tragic failure of a noble experiment. And I swear, I have never met anyone so naive about basic economics in my life!
two cent’s worth, how about a little coincidence to take us full circle to our last conversation in the previous comments?
Here goes: you have just mentioned Tim Minchin. If you can picture Tim as being around 20 years older, 3-4 stones (42-56 pounds) heavier, and rather less hair on top of his head but still long at the back and sides, you will have a fair image of British comedian and musician, Bill Bailey. Coincidentally, both incorporate music and comedy into their acts, although whilst Minchin tends towards a piano, Bailey uses an electronic keyboard (and a host of other instruments, both the familiar and the obscure).
Bailey has made several appearances on the excellent QI;* he is also a keen birdwatcher, and during one of his appearances he made the rather startling announcement that he was able to identity many bird species from their jizz alone.
That was the first time I’d heard the word used in that context.
*Bailey and Minchin have appeared together on QI. Seeing them together I could almost have believed that Bailey actually was Minchin, returned from the future to appear alongside himself. Actually, that could be why they sat on opposite sides of the set; to accidentally make physical contact would have destroyed them both in an instant.
What I don’t understand is how the day he ‘died’ moves around from one year to the next -almost as if Jesus was a made up fictitious character with author proof reading inconsistency
always later
Free fox
reminds of how the muslims always say ‘if ‘god’ wills’ – yet so far ‘god’ has shown very little willingness to side with Islam since at least the year 1529 CE if not earlier
re ‘He would give ALL MANKIND the entire kingdom of the NEXT world. All they had to do was trust Him. Trust and worship Him now, and they’d get everything after death.’
not strictly quite true – they get to stay in the ‘magic kingdom’ after death but as I understand it ‘god’ is still in charge there and the ‘souls’ permitted entry still have to spend their time trusting and worshipping ‘him’- so humanity is NOT given heaven -they just get to stay there – and presumably they MUST continue the abject worship – cos if Satan can be thrown out – so can any of the resident human’ souls’ too. What sane person could trust such a capricious deity – at least with ‘Satan’ [PBUH] you know where you stand.
And another thing
‘soul value’ ratio
The bible suggests that ‘god’s’ patience with humanity is finite, therefore it follows that the amount of sin that can be forgiven is also finite
therefore the amount of sin that Je died for is also finite
therefore as population increases [ even more so if humanity eventually settles other planets] will there come a point at which the ‘sin deficit ‘ will need paying for agian
Hey, Author I was wondering if you could do a cartoon about the Lahore bombings or the protests against Qadri’s death, support for Asia Bibi’s death. The bombings were a tragedy but ironically people are prepared to kill those who blaspheme. Also in some countries people from different faiths are not allowed to drink from the same water/use same facilities. Maybe you could do a cartoon about how people are upset that the children were killed but then are fine when they heard a 4 year old child committed blasphemy-although I think I’ve seen you publishing a similar cartoon like that before?
Dear author,
I’ve tried several times to send you an email for an idea I have for a cartoon, but I keep getting the message that the email address is invalid. The email address I’m trying is the one shown in your contact tab:- authorATjesusandmo.net
@pink squirrel: Well, in the original version of the tale, the “kingdom come” actually comes here. First they believed that the world would end and the divine kingdom would begin in their actual life times. When that didn’t happen, they switched to the bodily resurrection, ie heaven would be on earth after the apocalypse, and the souls of the dead would return to their bodies and be resurrected (“to your scattered bodies go!”) and only much later to the “angles on clouds” idea of a continuous afterlife. But yes, in each version, God and Jesus are the actual rulers of that kingdom. But since only the faithful shall enter, they will all be of one mind and purpose, so it won’t be tyranny, just harmony. Right? ^_^
it won’t be tyranny, just harmony- at first perhaps – but whatever the actual locale- how long before the self designated ‘jealous god’ gets bored and decides to change its mind on something
Re- website that really tears apart Christianity.
The bible does that without help – and given how deranged believers tend to be
E.G- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhibN89WJtI
[world of batshit vidoes]
I doubt they will be very affected by the website you supply
@ two cents’ worth: Regarding last weeks discussion about causes of terrorism, I think you are seeing people as way too rational. There is method to the madness, but not a conscious one. Yes, poverty, a sense of impotence, and the lack of perspectives all contribute to people’s desire to identify and punish some “enemy”, but also to the need to find something (perceived to be) great and powerful and glorious to identify with and even become a part of. It is a lot like what fuels right wing extremists like violent Trump supporters or the cunts setting fire to refugee shelters in my former home country, Germany. Of course it is people like Trump or banks and large corporations that are mostly to blame for the death of the middle class, stagnating incomes, cuts in social systems, etc. If protests were rational it would be easy to direct them against those banksters and other real world villains. But that would mean that people would have to admit that they are on the losing side of class warfare. That they are themselves the downtrodden, the forsaken, the impotent. People hate feeling that way about themselves. Europeans and Americans begin to discover “national pride”, kicking refugees and minorities for displaying the very weakness the nationalists feel themselves, and trying to identify some such weak, foreign, low element to cast out, as if by doing so they could somehow rejoin the “winners”, the rich and powerful. That, too, is why the middle class is most susceptible for extremism, more so than the true lower classes, here just as in your countries. The truly poor KNOW they are poor. For the most part they have accepted it. It’s the people on the edge, who feel themselves slipping, and who have been taught that falling is a sign of their worthlessness (in capitalism because they don’t show enough enterprise to pull themselves out by their own shoestrings, here because apparently they are not favoured by God), who are most likely to become violent. In middle Eastern Islam that violence goes against the “sinful” West, just like in the West it goes against the “filthy immigrants”, because in each case the enemy mirrors what people feel as weakness in themselves and what they blame for their disgrace and powerlessness.
Of course that is the followers. The leaders in most cases are also sort of true believers (or usually have at least convinced themselves that they follow a more sophisticated version of the “plebeian” faith), but their true motive is of course their own importance. Managers do not really need that much money, and politicians and religious leaders not really that much power. What they crave is the narcissistic sense of ego. And that can never be enough. That explains perfectly why terrorist organisations keep re-initiating violence whenever some kind of peace process starts, but why the Western military keeps things stoked just as much: As you said, each act of violence first serves the enemy. Each drone strike on civilian targets creates many more terrorists than it kills, each bomb attack on some Western city creates much more hostility against Muslims than… well… than it solves ANYTHING here, of course. But it is by keeping the conflict constantly at its hight, the leaders of both sides stay in power. Where would Bush have been without 9/11? Where anyone in power in ISIS without the mass murdering West? Where Hamas or Netanyahu without each other? Where would the NSA, or Homeland Security, or indeed the FBI without Islam? Where would the Ayatollahs be without the CIA? They keep each other propped up, and swimming in the money the supporters throw at them – thus keeping themselves impotent and poor, and so the wheel continues to go round and round.
@AoS and the rest of the old crowd: I am actually sad I missed the talks of the last two weeks, but I was out of internet range for most of that time. Hope you all stick around.
machigai – Nassar’s limericks are a valued addition to the comments here. However, occasionally – and with increasing frequency – he compares a large and diverse section of humanity (i.e. Muslims) to animals and/or brands them all rapists. I do not like that. When he does it, I trash the limerick.
This is OT, but on topic for many discussions we’ve had. I’m a supporter of multiculturalism, and I think those who use the term as a pejorative or are alarmist about it simply don’t understand that it’s not the same as cultural relativism, the idea that one can’t criticize the culture of another group, which I detest.
Here’s an interesting look at multi-culturalism that makes things very clear. http://the-orbit.net/almostdiamonds/2016/03/30/problem-naive-multiculturalism/
More on topic, it has always amazed me that anybody could hear the basic Christian story and not laugh at it. Obviously there’s been a great lack of critical thinking in human history. The “He died for our sins so that we might live” thing is just say what?
AoS, thanks for the tip about Bill Bailey! I’ll have to look him up, and will first look for the QI episode featuring him and Tim Minchin. Isn’t the Internet wonderful?! But, like you, I am wary of falling down the rabbit hole and never getting out again, so I think I’d best save this Web search and use it as a reward to myself for completing some dreaded chore (such as compiling my timesheets and submitting them to my project leader). 😉
FreeFox, you wrote, I think you are seeing people as way too rational. You’re right. I keep forgetting that the human brain is set up so that reason is used not to make decisions but to justify the decisions already made by the unconscious/emotions. When I was in the middle of reading your post, I wondered: if the corporatocracy were brought to heel (not because the people now fighting the war on terror switched to working on that instead, but because others got the job done while the war on terror continued), would terrorism die down as the fortunes of the middle class improved? But, as you pointed out, the wheel would continue to go round and round because both sides are obsessed with feeding their own egos and bank accounts.
Remember when terrorists were doing things like taking hostages on airplanes or hijacking planes and demanding that they be flown to Cuba? Why did that kind of terrorism practically stop? Was something done that we can replicate so as to reduce terrorism today? Or did that terrorism fade away because the Palestinians who were involved shifted their focus to conflicts between/among their own factions, because the communists who were involved lost their funding and their inspiration when the Soviet Union disintegrated, etc.?
I still want to look up Leon Rosselson and Bill Bailey, but now I feel the urge to search for individuals or groups that are doing research on terrorism–on how it played out in the past, and how societies managed to go on in spite of it–in the hope of identifying things we can do now to cope with terrorism and to help it to subside. I’ve heard about (but have yet to read) Steven Pinker’s book The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined, about how human beings have become (and are becoming) less and less violent over time. Maybe I should start with that. Better yet, since it’s after 1 a.m. here, maybe I should step away from the rabbit hole and get some sleep 🙂 !
Re two cents’ worth saying: Was something done that we can replicate so as to reduce terrorism today?
Yes, the usual.
Treat them as ordinary criminals. Do not, I repeat not, treat them as political criminals, nor as if military enemy, nor as is insane. Just as ordinary criminals, to be apprehended, convicted and jailed. That’s the war the baader-meinhof gang, the brigato rosso and all them eejits ended. No sweat, just patience and extensive policing. No soldiering, no shrinks.
If you make them a political factor, you’ll end up at the conference table rewarding them.
FreeFox and two cents’ worth, very good points, nothing to add but my approval.
DH – Yes, the redemption story is ludicrous and totally illogical. Do these Xtians never stop and think it through? Very good link to multiculturalism post.
AoS – I hadn’t thought of the Tim Minchin/Bill Bailey likeness before, but now I’ll see it every time. I’ve had the pleasure of seeing them both on stage (separately), and they are at the top of my favourites list. Must go and look for the QI episode. I try never to miss one, but can’t remember that one.
Pinker’s book The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined is a good start. Next, I suggest Where have all the soldiers gone? by James J. Sheehan. These might clarify why islameejits consider the western world a target.
Then I recommend to read Mao Tse Tung on guerilla warfare by Mao Zedong (that’s not his red booklet), Guerrilla: insurgents, patriots an terrorist from Sun Tzu to Bin Laden by David Rooney andGuerrilla diplomacy: the NLF’s foreign relations and the viet nam war by Robert K Brigham. You’ll notice that alqaeda/isis is following mao’s recipe to the step: 1. start guerrilla, 2. secure a base. 3. expand base to territory. 4. fight regular war at the territories border and extend guerrilla to enemy homebase, 5. start negotiations and simultaneously enhance guerrilla at enemy homebase. 6. Win.
We’re now between phase 4 and 5; maybe isis was a trifle too early to start the planned caliphate state.
These errorists should read as I would recommend Why the west has won: carnage and culture from salamis to Vietnam by Victor Davis Hanson and additionally Matt Ridleys The rational optimist: how prosperity evolves in combination with The edge of the world: how the North Sea made us who we are by Michael Pye. These illustrate why their effort is doomed: only open societies with a certain amount of turbulence will survive and prosper because basically everyone is ‘fighting’ for his own personal cause and not or some elitists cause. (No need to read Popper’s The open society on that, though recommended nevertheless). Islam has grown way too conservative since 1450 to make a chance, unless it changes itself into some liberal, progressive society they just do not want.
to reduce terrorism today?
‘Society needs to condemn a little more and understand a little less,’
and be
‘tough on terrorism, tough on the causes of terrorism’
@Darwin and all others enjoying the good chuckle at stoopid Xtians: Isn’t it obvious to you that the power of these stories are not based on the sort of logical thinking you are applying?
Of course it is funny to think about it that way. Personally I love http://www.jesusandmo.net/2014/04/16/eggs2/ for example. Makes me giggle every time. But seriously trying to criticise religion on that level is like saying The Lord of the Rings makes no sense because they could have flown with the Eagles instead, or that Shakespeare’s dramas are silly because everyone is speaking in rhymes and iambic pentameter, even uneducated people, and anyway, there were no clock towers in Caesar’s Rome. All true and makes for some nice jokes, but obviously has nothing to do with what makes millions of people love these stories. The resurrection makes perfect sense as an emotional story.
People feel sinful (often but by far not only because of religion) and they often fear that to anyone actually knowing their heart of hearts they may be unforgivable, unlovable and are deep down utterly alone in the world. They feel only some huge retribution could balance their inner darkness. That has little to do with religion and is part of human neuropsychology. So people seek a way out. Daoism teaches to accept yourself but let go of desires and to go with the world, but that is actually very hard to achieve, and requires huge mental discipline, and is actually more useful for a monkish life than normal everyday life in society. Confucianism treats it very formally, by declaring emotions moot and requiring deeds to be “honourable” and submissive to hierarchies, which creates its own slew of neuroses and self-destructive repression.
The idea that some all-knowing parental figure just forgives you, just so, out of love, is of course nice, but goes against what we know about emotional nature. Very few people have ever experienced that kind of unconditional love, even by their own parents, and deep down it smacks of “oh, s/he’s just saying that, but either s/he doesn’t mean it or s/he doesn’t really know how bad I actually am, and probably doesn’t want to know.” Being “forgiven” unconditionally isn’t emotionally satisfying and leaves you wondering about the sincerity of the act.
So, having someone say “I fully recognise just how bad you are, and we can agree that it requires a huge sacrifice to make up for it, but I want to forgive you, so I will commit the sacrifice for you, to prove to you that I am genuinely forgiving you” makes a huge amount of emotional sense.
Yes, the story is cobbled together… the resurrection sort of negates the gravity of the sacrifice, but stories do not need that sort of consistency. How many Hollywood films have the hero “die” near the end only to miraculously come back. Coming back doesn’t reduce the sacrifice but rewards it. Each step has its own emotional pay off. Listen to the lyrics of “American Pie” or Cohen’s “Hallelujah”. They don’t tell one coherent story but are a flow of images and associations, but they still create a huge emotional catharsis.
The success of religion proves that it isn’t believers who don’t get it, but you. Religious claims aren’t necessarily true, but saying that they make no sense only means that you are missing something about it.
@pink squirrel: “to reduce terrorism today […] society needs to condemn a little more and understand a little less and be tough on terrorism” is an astoundingly and exceptionally stupid thing to say, even for you.
Freefox, that is one of the clearest and most insightful descriptions of the situation I have ever read. Bravo. Spot on.
Two Cents Worth, when you get around to reading Pinker’s “The Better Angels of our Nature” you’ll find his central principle – that low level killing is possible in conventional warfare and territorial battles, but to really get a good body count, to really rack up those numbers into the millions, you need ideology. Those ordinary men and women committing truly horrible acts, like herding men, women and children into gas chambers or instituting genocide, need to be given a promise that, once the killing is done, heaven on earth will be achieved. Whether it be communism or manifold destiny or the caliphate, the followers need a vision of a world they are trying to accomplish. Give them that and blood can flow in rivers.
I read someplace about the difficulty in disarming and demobilizing the IRA. Apparently that was accomplished by marrying off the warriors. Giving the killers a wife and family, some people who depended on them, and a place in society was how they cooled the violence. Something similar was done, come to think of it, after the second world war when the boys came hope to make babies and raise a family. Seems the leaders have ways to stoke the flames or cool them down, depending on what they want to see happen.
Freefox, some cross posting involved there. My bravo applied to your assessment of the causes of terrorism, though I rather admire your explanation for religion as well and it’s obviously true. What it lacks, I think, is an understanding of he feedback loop. You seem to treat the discomfort of the human condition as intrinsic to our nature. I tend to believe it is caused by our culture, and that religion is a major cause of the need for religion, i.e. if we didn’t tell children that they are worthless sinners they wouldn’t feel the need for redemption when they grew up.
Good to have you back on the threads.
Hey, am I mistaken or is that pesky plus sign gone again? Maybe the ability to edit will come back someday too.
FreeFox, I don’t deny that the Bible was written by people who understood the power of a good story, but it’s important to remember that the masses weren’t – dare I say still aren’t – people who sat around discussing the finer points of literature, who understood that the stories they were told by the preachers were heavy on analogy and light on facts.
The truth is, all but the very highly educated took the stories exactly as they were supposed to, as the absolute truth.
Anyway, J&M just wouldn’t be funny if each week all we got was one of the boys unpicking the analogies. It’s far funnier watching them squirm as they defend the myths knowing how ridiculous they sound.
To see this in real life, ask a priest to explain the trilogy and really press him on the ‘three are one but not really one, one is three but not really three’ nonsense. It’s amazing how quickly they remember they have somewhere to be!
My previous comment was written in haste as my mutt was bugging me for his evening walk, so I hit ‘submit’ and took him. I was ambling along when out of nowhere I said out loud “It’s the Trinity, you twonk!”
Have I really just described the Central tenet of Christianity as a feckin’ trilogy? Ah well. As my dear late mother would say, same shit, different smell.
She was a proper lady, my mum.
Shaughn, many thanks for the reading list! It should keep me occupied for quite a while 🙂 .
Darwin Harmless, when I read your comments about how ideology fuels blood baths and how marrying off the warriors helps bring peace, I was reminded of something Scott Adams posted in his blog at http://blog.dilbert.com/post/133468720601/which-interpretation-of-daesh-is-right . Tongue in cheek here, but maybe one of the tactics in the war on terror should be to have a battalion of young women whose mission is to seek out potential or wavering jihadis, get them into bed, and keep them there as much as possible.
This really is the most perfect encapsulation of Christian dogma I’ve ever encountered — demonstrating clearly and accessibly the inherent absurdities and contradictions, yet saying (as far as I can see) absolutely nothing that any pastor or priest could identify as inconsistent with their own express theology.
I’d bow before its brilliance — except that would no doubt entail some hypocrisy on my part.
I’d pass it on to certain friends, except I’d fear they wouldn’t be friends any more if I did so. Besides, they know better than to try to proselytize me — least I can do is return the favor.
Author, having read your comment re. Nassar, whilst I hope that he’s making misguided attempts at satire rather than expressing his own views, he certainly deserves censure.
But then again, since he first came here he does at least appear to have done a 180 on religion.
whats the difference between xianity and islam
A- In xianity the prophet has to die so that humanity can be forgiven for its sins
while in islam humanity has to die so that the prophet can be forgiven for his sins
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In a world defined by outrage and offence and liberal spinelessness, Jesus and Mo is a treasure, whose value we should never fail to recognize. Read them. Laugh. And think. Kenan Malik
The brilliant, celebrated, freaking hilarious atheist comic strip ... Greta Christina
...rays of sanity in a befuddled world. Keri Hulme
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J & Mo is the funniest and most consistently thought-provoking cartoon strip on the Net. In a saner world, it would run in a major newspaper. Nelson Jones, Heresy Corner
Consistently amusing, frequently thought-provoking and often heart-warming. New Humanist
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Wittily captures much of the absurdity of religious apologetics. Mano Singham
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Often hilarious, frequently wry, these cartoons do what all the best cartoons do: they tell the truth through humour. Terry Sanderson, NSS President
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includes the freedom to mock any person, any thing, any activity, and
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October 30, 2009
Where is everybody?
Ah, at last.
Author, I don’t know whether the fault was at my end or yours, but I’ve tried several times to post comments over the last couple of days but got an error screen telling me to enter a valid e-mail address. I checked, double-checked and checked again and I was entering my address correctly.
The lack of comments over the last couple of days, both on the last strip and now on this one is making me wonder if there may be some mischief being had.
Or am I just crap at tech and everybody is too busy to be here?
No need to do the Alpha Course, this cartoon tells you all you need to know about Christianity.
I’ve always had problems understanding the redemption thingy. Yahweh is annoyed at people so he send part of himself to be sacrificed to himself so he becomes unannoyed. But according to the propaganda Yahweh is omnipotent. He could unannoy himself just by willing himself to be unannoyed. So why didn’t he do that?
Also Jesus didn’t die. He spent an unpleasant afternoon hanging around the cross and then, a day and a half later, he’s all better. What’s the sacrifice?
The one who really did save humanity is / was mr Iscariot. He made Jesus do it. And he died for it.
Oh my glob, I want a print of this SO BADLY.
“A bit late”? Author, your humor and excellent wording make the posts timeless.
I also received the error message several times this morning; a few hours later, try again. Regards.-
So…God had to punish his son for OUR sins. Why not just forgive us. Xtians say “this shows great love”. I can’t understand how LOVE is shown by hurting some one else, even if father and son are the same.
I guess it’s the bronze age eye-for-an-eye thing. There has to be punishment. From the Jewish sacraficial lamb.
But I wasn’t raised Xtian. I can’t make them understand how cruel this sounds; even to kill a baby sheep for YAHWEH
“It only works if you believe” is a favorite saying of any snake oil salesman.
What is obvs?
Awful when you apply logic to religion isn’t it.
AoS – yes sorry the comments problem was my fault. Some updating of the site led to the glitch. Fixed now I think.
The one who really did save humanity is / was mr Iscariot. He made Jesus do it. And he died for it.
Jorge Luis Borges wrote a characteristic and wonderful short story, Three Versions of Judas, on precisely this theme. (Spoiler: three hours on the cross was nowhere near sufficient!)
So in awe and appreciation, let’s all stand up for Judas!
Forteatwo, if you’re asking what “OBVS” is, the answer is that it’s texting shorthand for “obviously.” If you’re asking, “What does Mo think is obvious?” the answer is that it’s obvious that J had to die in order to redeem mankind from the sin that he himself built into mankind when he created Adam & Eve.
Of course, such reasoning is obvious only to people who believe in this doctrine. From another perspective, it sounds a bit* like a tale from ancient Japan: J died to make up for the fact that he botched the job of creating mankind because he didn’t debug his design. He was angry at mankind for being sinful, but also angry at himself because it was his own fault that the flaw of sin is/was inherent in mankind. (*I say “a bit” because this doesn’t cover the J’s-death-cleanses-man’s-sin-so-J’s-no-longer-angry-at-man part of panel 2.)
People who believe in this doctrine might point out that, actually, the story goes that mankind was created not by J as J, but as his alter ego “the father.” That reminds me of this song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYlJH81dSiw
two cent’s worth, I’ve left an answer on the previous strip to your query.
re. Judas: it’s the same as all the ‘Christ killers’ shit that the Jews have suffered for 2000 years. When are the Christian idiots going to get it into their thick heads that the Jews were a vital part of God’s perverse plan? Jesus had to die in order to be resurrected. Ironically, just this once the Jews really were God’s chosen ones..
Unfortunately, this is where the fictional story ends: the rest is history.
AoS, my response to your answer is also posted under the previous strip. Cheers!
jb, thanks for introducing me to the work of Leon Rosselson! I look forward to searching out his other songs, the way I searched out Tim Minchin’s songs when I heard about him here at the pub.
For those who haven’t heard of Tim Minchin, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SFdUJLebzU
A peeve of mine is that the version of “Christianity” presented in this strip, while orthodox and so common and widespread as to be close to universal today, does not remotely resemble the version taught in the “synoptic” gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke. There, (1) the world is ending, Judgment Day is coming soon, possibly next Thursday, certainly within the lifetime of the people standing there hearing Jesus speak. (2) On Judgment Day, all people will be sorted into the saved and the damned, going to Heaven or a fiery Hell respectively, a place of “eternal punishment”. (3) Very few will be saved, almost everyone will be going to Hell. (4) to have any hope of being among the few who are saved, you should FIRST do EVERYTHING that Jesus commands his followers to do, and THEN say “we are unworthy servants” and hope that Yahveh will be gracious. Believing without actually DOING all that stuff will help you not at all. (5) What Jesus caommands his followers to DO makes quite a list. See
http://atheistnexus.org/profiles/blogs/the-ethics-of-jesus
Hilarious. Every Easter, we are reminded how ridiculous the fundamental heart of Christianity is. I can only assume that most professed believers haven’t really thought the thing through.
Within the framework of the entire Abrahamic religions Jesus is a confidence trick. God used to promise his chosen people He would give them political power and rewards in this world, if only they behaved. He kept promising during the (historically completely imaginary) Egyptian slavery, the Babylonian occupation, and the Roman occupation. And it became apparent that He couldn’t or wouldn’t deliver on his promise. To cover up for His breach of contract, God came up with this brilliant con: Instead of giving the Jews a kingdom in this world, He would give ALL MANKIND the entire kingdom of the NEXT world. All they had to do was trust Him. Trust and worship Him now, and they’d get everything after death. And like all good confidence tricks, what it mostly needs is smoke and mirrors, patter, flourish. Panache. That’s what the whole crucifixion, empty cave, walking on water spiel is about. Jesus is God’s version of the Nigerian Mail Scam (or rather the Spanish Prisoner, as it was first known).
@two cents’ worth
I first heard Stand Up for Judas on the radio in the 80s, without catching the name of the singer or song, and it took me months to track it down. Nowadays…
BTW, I actually met Leon Rosselson in person once, through a mutual acquaintance, and he was every bit the old communist you might expect him to be. He deeply lamented the (then recent) fall of the Soviet Union as the tragic failure of a noble experiment. And I swear, I have never met anyone so naive about basic economics in my life!
two cent’s worth, how about a little coincidence to take us full circle to our last conversation in the previous comments?
Here goes: you have just mentioned Tim Minchin. If you can picture Tim as being around 20 years older, 3-4 stones (42-56 pounds) heavier, and rather less hair on top of his head but still long at the back and sides, you will have a fair image of British comedian and musician, Bill Bailey. Coincidentally, both incorporate music and comedy into their acts, although whilst Minchin tends towards a piano, Bailey uses an electronic keyboard (and a host of other instruments, both the familiar and the obscure).
Bailey has made several appearances on the excellent QI;* he is also a keen birdwatcher, and during one of his appearances he made the rather startling announcement that he was able to identity many bird species from their jizz alone.
That was the first time I’d heard the word used in that context.
*Bailey and Minchin have appeared together on QI. Seeing them together I could almost have believed that Bailey actually was Minchin, returned from the future to appear alongside himself. Actually, that could be why they sat on opposite sides of the set; to accidentally make physical contact would have destroyed them both in an instant.
What I don’t understand is how the day he ‘died’ moves around from one year to the next -almost as if Jesus was a made up fictitious character with author proof reading inconsistency
always later
Free fox
reminds of how the muslims always say ‘if ‘god’ wills’ – yet so far ‘god’ has shown very little willingness to side with Islam since at least the year 1529 CE if not earlier
re ‘He would give ALL MANKIND the entire kingdom of the NEXT world. All they had to do was trust Him. Trust and worship Him now, and they’d get everything after death.’
not strictly quite true – they get to stay in the ‘magic kingdom’ after death but as I understand it ‘god’ is still in charge there and the ‘souls’ permitted entry still have to spend their time trusting and worshipping ‘him’- so humanity is NOT given heaven -they just get to stay there – and presumably they MUST continue the abject worship – cos if Satan can be thrown out – so can any of the resident human’ souls’ too. What sane person could trust such a capricious deity – at least with ‘Satan’ [PBUH] you know where you stand.
And another thing
‘soul value’ ratio
The bible suggests that ‘god’s’ patience with humanity is finite, therefore it follows that the amount of sin that can be forgiven is also finite
therefore the amount of sin that Je died for is also finite
therefore as population increases [ even more so if humanity eventually settles other planets] will there come a point at which the ‘sin deficit ‘ will need paying for agian
Where is Nassar?
@ Michigai:
Yeah! I miss those limerick too.
@pink+squirrel:
Here’s a hugh website that really tears apart Christianity. Hope the link works.
http://www.jesusneverexisted.com/index.html
Hey, Author I was wondering if you could do a cartoon about the Lahore bombings or the protests against Qadri’s death, support for Asia Bibi’s death. The bombings were a tragedy but ironically people are prepared to kill those who blaspheme. Also in some countries people from different faiths are not allowed to drink from the same water/use same facilities. Maybe you could do a cartoon about how people are upset that the children were killed but then are fine when they heard a 4 year old child committed blasphemy-although I think I’ve seen you publishing a similar cartoon like that before?
Dear author,
I’ve tried several times to send you an email for an idea I have for a cartoon, but I keep getting the message that the email address is invalid. The email address I’m trying is the one shown in your contact tab:- authorATjesusandmo.net
judas was a hero who tried to save the world from xtanity.
@pink squirrel: Well, in the original version of the tale, the “kingdom come” actually comes here. First they believed that the world would end and the divine kingdom would begin in their actual life times. When that didn’t happen, they switched to the bodily resurrection, ie heaven would be on earth after the apocalypse, and the souls of the dead would return to their bodies and be resurrected (“to your scattered bodies go!”) and only much later to the “angles on clouds” idea of a continuous afterlife. But yes, in each version, God and Jesus are the actual rulers of that kingdom. But since only the faithful shall enter, they will all be of one mind and purpose, so it won’t be tyranny, just harmony. Right? ^_^
it won’t be tyranny, just harmony- at first perhaps – but whatever the actual locale- how long before the self designated ‘jealous god’ gets bored and decides to change its mind on something
Re- website that really tears apart Christianity.
The bible does that without help – and given how deranged believers tend to be
E.G-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhibN89WJtI
[world of batshit vidoes]
I doubt they will be very affected by the website you supply
@ two cents’ worth: Regarding last weeks discussion about causes of terrorism, I think you are seeing people as way too rational. There is method to the madness, but not a conscious one. Yes, poverty, a sense of impotence, and the lack of perspectives all contribute to people’s desire to identify and punish some “enemy”, but also to the need to find something (perceived to be) great and powerful and glorious to identify with and even become a part of. It is a lot like what fuels right wing extremists like violent Trump supporters or the cunts setting fire to refugee shelters in my former home country, Germany. Of course it is people like Trump or banks and large corporations that are mostly to blame for the death of the middle class, stagnating incomes, cuts in social systems, etc. If protests were rational it would be easy to direct them against those banksters and other real world villains. But that would mean that people would have to admit that they are on the losing side of class warfare. That they are themselves the downtrodden, the forsaken, the impotent. People hate feeling that way about themselves. Europeans and Americans begin to discover “national pride”, kicking refugees and minorities for displaying the very weakness the nationalists feel themselves, and trying to identify some such weak, foreign, low element to cast out, as if by doing so they could somehow rejoin the “winners”, the rich and powerful. That, too, is why the middle class is most susceptible for extremism, more so than the true lower classes, here just as in your countries. The truly poor KNOW they are poor. For the most part they have accepted it. It’s the people on the edge, who feel themselves slipping, and who have been taught that falling is a sign of their worthlessness (in capitalism because they don’t show enough enterprise to pull themselves out by their own shoestrings, here because apparently they are not favoured by God), who are most likely to become violent. In middle Eastern Islam that violence goes against the “sinful” West, just like in the West it goes against the “filthy immigrants”, because in each case the enemy mirrors what people feel as weakness in themselves and what they blame for their disgrace and powerlessness.
Of course that is the followers. The leaders in most cases are also sort of true believers (or usually have at least convinced themselves that they follow a more sophisticated version of the “plebeian” faith), but their true motive is of course their own importance. Managers do not really need that much money, and politicians and religious leaders not really that much power. What they crave is the narcissistic sense of ego. And that can never be enough. That explains perfectly why terrorist organisations keep re-initiating violence whenever some kind of peace process starts, but why the Western military keeps things stoked just as much: As you said, each act of violence first serves the enemy. Each drone strike on civilian targets creates many more terrorists than it kills, each bomb attack on some Western city creates much more hostility against Muslims than… well… than it solves ANYTHING here, of course. But it is by keeping the conflict constantly at its hight, the leaders of both sides stay in power. Where would Bush have been without 9/11? Where anyone in power in ISIS without the mass murdering West? Where Hamas or Netanyahu without each other? Where would the NSA, or Homeland Security, or indeed the FBI without Islam? Where would the Ayatollahs be without the CIA? They keep each other propped up, and swimming in the money the supporters throw at them – thus keeping themselves impotent and poor, and so the wheel continues to go round and round.
@AoS and the rest of the old crowd: I am actually sad I missed the talks of the last two weeks, but I was out of internet range for most of that time. Hope you all stick around.
machigai – Nassar’s limericks are a valued addition to the comments here. However, occasionally – and with increasing frequency – he compares a large and diverse section of humanity (i.e. Muslims) to animals and/or brands them all rapists. I do not like that. When he does it, I trash the limerick.
This is OT, but on topic for many discussions we’ve had. I’m a supporter of multiculturalism, and I think those who use the term as a pejorative or are alarmist about it simply don’t understand that it’s not the same as cultural relativism, the idea that one can’t criticize the culture of another group, which I detest.
Here’s an interesting look at multi-culturalism that makes things very clear. http://the-orbit.net/almostdiamonds/2016/03/30/problem-naive-multiculturalism/
More on topic, it has always amazed me that anybody could hear the basic Christian story and not laugh at it. Obviously there’s been a great lack of critical thinking in human history. The “He died for our sins so that we might live” thing is just say what?
David, you may already have done this, but if you haven’t, try using a version of the Author’s email address where
AT
is replaced by
@
Some Web pages list email addresses with AT instead of @ to prevent bots from sending spam to those addresses.
AoS, thanks for the tip about Bill Bailey! I’ll have to look him up, and will first look for the QI episode featuring him and Tim Minchin. Isn’t the Internet wonderful?! But, like you, I am wary of falling down the rabbit hole and never getting out again, so I think I’d best save this Web search and use it as a reward to myself for completing some dreaded chore (such as compiling my timesheets and submitting them to my project leader). 😉
FreeFox, you wrote, I think you are seeing people as way too rational. You’re right. I keep forgetting that the human brain is set up so that reason is used not to make decisions but to justify the decisions already made by the unconscious/emotions. When I was in the middle of reading your post, I wondered: if the corporatocracy were brought to heel (not because the people now fighting the war on terror switched to working on that instead, but because others got the job done while the war on terror continued), would terrorism die down as the fortunes of the middle class improved? But, as you pointed out, the wheel would continue to go round and round because both sides are obsessed with feeding their own egos and bank accounts.
Remember when terrorists were doing things like taking hostages on airplanes or hijacking planes and demanding that they be flown to Cuba? Why did that kind of terrorism practically stop? Was something done that we can replicate so as to reduce terrorism today? Or did that terrorism fade away because the Palestinians who were involved shifted their focus to conflicts between/among their own factions, because the communists who were involved lost their funding and their inspiration when the Soviet Union disintegrated, etc.?
I still want to look up Leon Rosselson and Bill Bailey, but now I feel the urge to search for individuals or groups that are doing research on terrorism–on how it played out in the past, and how societies managed to go on in spite of it–in the hope of identifying things we can do now to cope with terrorism and to help it to subside. I’ve heard about (but have yet to read) Steven Pinker’s book The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined, about how human beings have become (and are becoming) less and less violent over time. Maybe I should start with that. Better yet, since it’s after 1 a.m. here, maybe I should step away from the rabbit hole and get some sleep 🙂 !
Re two cents’ worth saying: Was something done that we can replicate so as to reduce terrorism today?
Yes, the usual.
Treat them as ordinary criminals. Do not, I repeat not, treat them as political criminals, nor as if military enemy, nor as is insane. Just as ordinary criminals, to be apprehended, convicted and jailed. That’s the war the baader-meinhof gang, the brigato rosso and all them eejits ended. No sweat, just patience and extensive policing. No soldiering, no shrinks.
If you make them a political factor, you’ll end up at the conference table rewarding them.
FreeFox and two cents’ worth, very good points, nothing to add but my approval.
DH – Yes, the redemption story is ludicrous and totally illogical. Do these Xtians never stop and think it through? Very good link to multiculturalism post.
AoS – I hadn’t thought of the Tim Minchin/Bill Bailey likeness before, but now I’ll see it every time. I’ve had the pleasure of seeing them both on stage (separately), and they are at the top of my favourites list. Must go and look for the QI episode. I try never to miss one, but can’t remember that one.
two cents’ worth :
Pinker’s book The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined is a good start. Next, I suggest Where have all the soldiers gone? by James J. Sheehan. These might clarify why islameejits consider the western world a target.
Then I recommend to read Mao Tse Tung on guerilla warfare by Mao Zedong (that’s not his red booklet), Guerrilla: insurgents, patriots an terrorist from Sun Tzu to Bin Laden by David Rooney andGuerrilla diplomacy: the NLF’s foreign relations and the viet nam war by Robert K Brigham. You’ll notice that alqaeda/isis is following mao’s recipe to the step: 1. start guerrilla, 2. secure a base. 3. expand base to territory. 4. fight regular war at the territories border and extend guerrilla to enemy homebase, 5. start negotiations and simultaneously enhance guerrilla at enemy homebase. 6. Win.
We’re now between phase 4 and 5; maybe isis was a trifle too early to start the planned caliphate state.
These errorists should read as I would recommend Why the west has won: carnage and culture from salamis to Vietnam by Victor Davis Hanson and additionally Matt Ridleys The rational optimist: how prosperity evolves in combination with The edge of the world: how the North Sea made us who we are by Michael Pye. These illustrate why their effort is doomed: only open societies with a certain amount of turbulence will survive and prosper because basically everyone is ‘fighting’ for his own personal cause and not or some elitists cause. (No need to read Popper’s The open society on that, though recommended nevertheless). Islam has grown way too conservative since 1450 to make a chance, unless it changes itself into some liberal, progressive society they just do not want.
to reduce terrorism today?
‘Society needs to condemn a little more and understand a little less,’
and be
‘tough on terrorism, tough on the causes of terrorism’
@Darwin and all others enjoying the good chuckle at stoopid Xtians: Isn’t it obvious to you that the power of these stories are not based on the sort of logical thinking you are applying?
Of course it is funny to think about it that way. Personally I love http://www.jesusandmo.net/2014/04/16/eggs2/ for example. Makes me giggle every time. But seriously trying to criticise religion on that level is like saying The Lord of the Rings makes no sense because they could have flown with the Eagles instead, or that Shakespeare’s dramas are silly because everyone is speaking in rhymes and iambic pentameter, even uneducated people, and anyway, there were no clock towers in Caesar’s Rome. All true and makes for some nice jokes, but obviously has nothing to do with what makes millions of people love these stories. The resurrection makes perfect sense as an emotional story.
People feel sinful (often but by far not only because of religion) and they often fear that to anyone actually knowing their heart of hearts they may be unforgivable, unlovable and are deep down utterly alone in the world. They feel only some huge retribution could balance their inner darkness. That has little to do with religion and is part of human neuropsychology. So people seek a way out. Daoism teaches to accept yourself but let go of desires and to go with the world, but that is actually very hard to achieve, and requires huge mental discipline, and is actually more useful for a monkish life than normal everyday life in society. Confucianism treats it very formally, by declaring emotions moot and requiring deeds to be “honourable” and submissive to hierarchies, which creates its own slew of neuroses and self-destructive repression.
The idea that some all-knowing parental figure just forgives you, just so, out of love, is of course nice, but goes against what we know about emotional nature. Very few people have ever experienced that kind of unconditional love, even by their own parents, and deep down it smacks of “oh, s/he’s just saying that, but either s/he doesn’t mean it or s/he doesn’t really know how bad I actually am, and probably doesn’t want to know.” Being “forgiven” unconditionally isn’t emotionally satisfying and leaves you wondering about the sincerity of the act.
So, having someone say “I fully recognise just how bad you are, and we can agree that it requires a huge sacrifice to make up for it, but I want to forgive you, so I will commit the sacrifice for you, to prove to you that I am genuinely forgiving you” makes a huge amount of emotional sense.
Yes, the story is cobbled together… the resurrection sort of negates the gravity of the sacrifice, but stories do not need that sort of consistency. How many Hollywood films have the hero “die” near the end only to miraculously come back. Coming back doesn’t reduce the sacrifice but rewards it. Each step has its own emotional pay off. Listen to the lyrics of “American Pie” or Cohen’s “Hallelujah”. They don’t tell one coherent story but are a flow of images and associations, but they still create a huge emotional catharsis.
The success of religion proves that it isn’t believers who don’t get it, but you. Religious claims aren’t necessarily true, but saying that they make no sense only means that you are missing something about it.
@pink squirrel: “to reduce terrorism today […] society needs to condemn a little more and understand a little less and be tough on terrorism” is an astoundingly and exceptionally stupid thing to say, even for you.
Freefox, that is one of the clearest and most insightful descriptions of the situation I have ever read. Bravo. Spot on.
Two Cents Worth, when you get around to reading Pinker’s “The Better Angels of our Nature” you’ll find his central principle – that low level killing is possible in conventional warfare and territorial battles, but to really get a good body count, to really rack up those numbers into the millions, you need ideology. Those ordinary men and women committing truly horrible acts, like herding men, women and children into gas chambers or instituting genocide, need to be given a promise that, once the killing is done, heaven on earth will be achieved. Whether it be communism or manifold destiny or the caliphate, the followers need a vision of a world they are trying to accomplish. Give them that and blood can flow in rivers.
I read someplace about the difficulty in disarming and demobilizing the IRA. Apparently that was accomplished by marrying off the warriors. Giving the killers a wife and family, some people who depended on them, and a place in society was how they cooled the violence. Something similar was done, come to think of it, after the second world war when the boys came hope to make babies and raise a family. Seems the leaders have ways to stoke the flames or cool them down, depending on what they want to see happen.
Freefox, some cross posting involved there. My bravo applied to your assessment of the causes of terrorism, though I rather admire your explanation for religion as well and it’s obviously true. What it lacks, I think, is an understanding of he feedback loop. You seem to treat the discomfort of the human condition as intrinsic to our nature. I tend to believe it is caused by our culture, and that religion is a major cause of the need for religion, i.e. if we didn’t tell children that they are worthless sinners they wouldn’t feel the need for redemption when they grew up.
Good to have you back on the threads.
Hey, am I mistaken or is that pesky plus sign gone again? Maybe the ability to edit will come back someday too.
Haggis, the QI episode you want is Series K, episode 8.
FreeFox, I don’t deny that the Bible was written by people who understood the power of a good story, but it’s important to remember that the masses weren’t – dare I say still aren’t – people who sat around discussing the finer points of literature, who understood that the stories they were told by the preachers were heavy on analogy and light on facts.
The truth is, all but the very highly educated took the stories exactly as they were supposed to, as the absolute truth.
Anyway, J&M just wouldn’t be funny if each week all we got was one of the boys unpicking the analogies. It’s far funnier watching them squirm as they defend the myths knowing how ridiculous they sound.
To see this in real life, ask a priest to explain the trilogy and really press him on the ‘three are one but not really one, one is three but not really three’ nonsense. It’s amazing how quickly they remember they have somewhere to be!
My previous comment was written in haste as my mutt was bugging me for his evening walk, so I hit ‘submit’ and took him. I was ambling along when out of nowhere I said out loud “It’s the Trinity, you twonk!”
Have I really just described the Central tenet of Christianity as a feckin’ trilogy? Ah well. As my dear late mother would say, same shit, different smell.
She was a proper lady, my mum.
Free fox – I was quoting politicians for sake of humour
AoS – Got it, thanks.
Ah, irony in text. My apologies, Mr. Squirrel.
Thanks very much Two cents’ worth for telling me about the email address for the author. Changing AT to @ did the trick. Much appreciated.
Ah, irony in text. My apologies, Mr. Squirrel. ???
what you meant to write of course was
Ah, irony in text. My apologies, Ms. Squirrel
Shaughn, many thanks for the reading list! It should keep me occupied for quite a while 🙂 .
Darwin Harmless, when I read your comments about how ideology fuels blood baths and how marrying off the warriors helps bring peace, I was reminded of something Scott Adams posted in his blog at http://blog.dilbert.com/post/133468720601/which-interpretation-of-daesh-is-right . Tongue in cheek here, but maybe one of the tactics in the war on terror should be to have a battalion of young women whose mission is to seek out potential or wavering jihadis, get them into bed, and keep them there as much as possible.
David, you’re welcome!
Author
re: Nassar’s limericks needing trashing
I understand but that makes me very sad.
This really is the most perfect encapsulation of Christian dogma I’ve ever encountered — demonstrating clearly and accessibly the inherent absurdities and contradictions, yet saying (as far as I can see) absolutely nothing that any pastor or priest could identify as inconsistent with their own express theology.
I’d bow before its brilliance — except that would no doubt entail some hypocrisy on my part.
I’d pass it on to certain friends, except I’d fear they wouldn’t be friends any more if I did so. Besides, they know better than to try to proselytize me — least I can do is return the favor.
Author, having read your comment re. Nassar, whilst I hope that he’s making misguided attempts at satire rather than expressing his own views, he certainly deserves censure.
But then again, since he first came here he does at least appear to have done a 180 on religion.
whats the difference between xianity and islam
A- In xianity the prophet has to die so that humanity can be forgiven for its sins
while in islam humanity has to die so that the prophet can be forgiven for his sins
AoS: I think Nassar always tried to satirize religion, but in the first year or so, he suffered a severe case of Poe’s law.