Presumably you would never make fun of belief in zeus, wotan and a race of people living inside a hollow earth (Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes believed the latter), with out thorough and complete knowledge of these belief systems. Some ideas, such as the one so skillfully and playfully portrayed above, expose themselves as irrational with just the smallest amount of exposure to critical thinking.
Give it a try, you will be pleased with the results, and perhaps saddened when you look back and consider how much of your life you have already wasted.
Our joke when we were young and foolish was “Cross your ankles–I have only one nail left.” Chrisitian needs to read and ponder Barmaid’s wonderful analysis from last week.
“Are you making fun of Christianity….?” Doh. Chris, old Buddy, Author is deeply educated in religion. Why don’t you start at the beginning of this comic’s run? Author just happens to recognize a superstition when she/he sees one.
Author, how do you continue to do it? This is superb. I see one clue to your genius: you keep up with the news. I’ve long realized that human behavior needs no embellishment to be hilarious–just take it straight. Chris here is a good example.
I’m not sayind us heathens aren’t funny, mind you. Don’t forget the atheist and the bear!
Special to Ophelia: I was twitting you. In context, of course, you are right–you know men think with that littler brain of theirs. But if you knew, you’d soften up–I’ve been on the front lines of the movement since your parents were children, and I could tell you some stories. My partner (called “wife” in ancient times) and I have paid more than our share; you’ll have to take our word for it.
great one, It’s impressive how you can keep the quality and the fast rate up there all the time.
and to “A Christian”, are you an expert on Islam or Hinduism to dismiss their religions? I’m pretty sure you know they are the wrong choice of religion but do you have anything more than a superficial knowledge of them to make that decision?
My choices were being driven to drink or driven to Google News and do a “assisted suicide zurich” search. I chose the latter and now I get it. I’ve not had the same luck in finding out why christian and his ilk have co-opted the “persecution” gene, I thought we jews were the rightful inheritors of that trait. No?
Oh, and dear Jo-Jo;
Jesus is into stigmata, not alma mata or mata hari.
Be sure to tip your waiter,
and do try the veal.
No hurry, I’ll be here all week.
Chris, the argument is that, since JC knew exactly how it would play out, his participation in allowing the Romans to string him up was nothing more than assisted suicide. I’m not sure that’s totally accurate — it seems to me to be more of an unfortunate but necessary part of the plan (and not really that big a deal since he knew he could come back to life). Kinda like Jeebs’ head in Men In Black.
Of course, that doesn’t make it any less ludicrous.
What I find more interesting is that, since he did know exactly what was going on, the whole “why have you forsaken me?” bit (Matthew 27:46) was all an act for the rubes. Basically, Christianity is nothing more than a Big Con. (Perhaps the biggest of big cons.)
When you think about it – nothing’s changed.
JC gets crucified on the say-so of religious bigwigs for suggesting folk might like to be nice to each other.
These days people get crucified in the media by religious bigwigs just for suggesting folk might be nice enough to let others end their lives instead of suffering.
We have no evidence that Jesus was a pedophile but his ‘suffer the little children to come unto me’ shows the writers of those scriptures understood the value of starting early with the religious programming. A thousand years later, the Jesuits were clear on the concept and it is still happening today.
Chrisitian is one of the latest in a chain of serial child victim/abusers. It was a shock to hear Dawkins put it this way, but the more I think of it, the more apt it seems.
On topic, if Jesus is God, how could he forsake himself? What clinical diagnosis are we talking about here? Dissociative identity disorder? Bipolar disorder? He must have been deeply depressed with his Creation abilities if he couldn’t do better than this.
Lovely to see this spiritual commentary keeping relevant by involving contemporary themes. We must remain mindful, though, that when one obtains God’s “assistance” with one’s willful self-destruction, it’s quite a different kettle of fish from getting another human to do the same thing. God is a jealous god; He wills that we all must die, just in His own good time. Isn’t it fortunate, A Christian, that one can synchronize that time with Him now in Switzerland if one chooses? God gave us free choice and presumably had a hand in ensuring that Swiss timepieces have a worldclass reputation.
Guys, you are just trolled, you know that? The tub of lard that typed this is just happily jerking off in a corner to Furry porn and laughing his ass off.
I hope that “A Christian” comes back. You think THIS strip made fun of you and yours? Sheesh! Check out some of the others. You have no idea how much author holds your views in contempt. Good. Me too. If your beliefs were those of a child being comforted because they had lost a parent then they would not be risible. To hold beliefs in a hereafter when such are so transparently wish-fulfiling and infantile is despicable. Grow up.
Actually, I particularly like the last frame, in which it appears that Jeeber’s omnisciosity (…) is not there at all, since he failed to wait the two thousand years to knock himself off in Zurich.
I also find it hilarious that The Chrisitian has disappeared in the face of criticism. “I’ll be damned if I’m going to involve myself in any more of this ignorance!”, says (s)he.
Hey JohnnyCanuck, et al, thanks for getting me out of my GOD delusion. I never would have seen how deluded I was unless I read your intelligent posts and recently heard a scientist say and read some writings that life began with aliens…and another scientist said life “began on the backs of crystals. Thank Darwin I’m no longer deluded!!! Whew.
Daoloth, I’ve discovered that atheists and agnostics are like little children. I remember being a child and wanting to do whatever I wanted to do, and didn’t care for my parents giving me any structure. Now that I’m grown and mature, I understand I can’t do any and everything that I want to do, but that there are things that I must do. For example, if I’m going to feed my family, I have to work. To keep my electrical service, I have to pay the bill, and not spend that money on the latest electronic gadget. That’s where maturity kicks in. I am grown up…unlike you, who wants to put all rule aside and live life how you want. But I guess you know for a certainty, Daoloth, that there is no hereafter…so I stand corrected.
In reference to the above comic’s “assisted suicide” theme…I guess I see the author’s point. So, instead of a “sacrifice fly,” let’s call it a “coach-assisted suicide fly.” Soldiers, police and firemen should lose any honor in dying in the line of duty, because they become soldiers, police and firemen knowing they can and may lose their life. Therefore, they are committing government assisted suicide.
Hey Tie–I close my eyes and go to sleep. Just like that.
Okay Ed, yes…the whole growing up thing is quite obnoxious. It is sad, I agree. So why in the world am I paying my electric bill when I could have an iPhone? Hey, it’s the weekend after Thanksgiving…I’ll just let my family sit in the dark later while I call you on my iPhone that I’m going to buy on sale, and ask you for a loan to cover me. Oh, and then I can call the electric company and whine that having to go to work to pay the bills is obnoxious…and they’ll probably agree.
And Matt…I guess you watched “Expelled” too. Shame on me for watching it.
the approach didnt appall me as much as i thought it would…I am looking more into some of the claims made before i blog about it or anything….the scientific community should be open to any real science or hypothesis and elitism is mirroring the religious enemies we abhor.
Eddie Janssen
In the Canton of Zurich where Zurich is located in Switzerland, Assisted Suicide is legal!
So Jesus would have suffered much less dying in the clinic! LOLZ
Hang on.. Since when did you have to be a Christain in order to ghet your electricity supplied? NPower don’t answer prayers any more than God.. Trust me on that.
JayBee, I’m ROTFL! Yes, Jesus should have taken the easy way. In fact, let’s all find and take the easy way…avoid all the hard things of life. So, as I finish my bachelor’s degree, I think I’ll plagiarize everything going forward rather than truly applying myself to write quality papers. All that matters is that I get it done, right? Who cares how I do it?
Right. Normally I’d just take the piss, because a waste of bandwidth like A Christain just isn’t worth the effort, but I just spotted the crack about firemen and the police. For FUCK’S sake it is spelt out above WITH PICTURES. Firemen et al don’t join up with the certain anticipation of death. They would really like to avoid it. But the yjoin up knowing the risk because they want to help their fellow man. That’s the honour and heroism. Some of them are athiests. They are even more heroic because they go in risking everything. Government assisted suicide. Tit. This is why religious people should NOT have any say in how others lead their lives. Even when the obvious is pointed out. I can honestly imaging A Christian bashing his head against a wall directly under a sign that reads ‘Only Pricks bash their heads against this wall.’
I’m really not following this. What has atheism got to do with paying or not paying electricity bills? What is Furry Porn? And what is the story about the Atheist and the Bear?
Dear A Christian. I finished my bachelor’s degree a few years back. I wrote quality papers and didn’t plagiarize anything. I have also been an atheist for 50 years. Where am I going wrong?
Your analogies are awful, and seem to be based on the old “without God there is no morality” line. Which is completely false. If anything, I’d say atheists are more moral than Christians or other religionists, because we don’t expect divine punishment or reward, but rather, our morality is based on thoughtful consideration of the consequences of our actions upon not only ourselves but others.
Jesus’ so-called “sacrifice” would make more sense if A) it were a real sacrifice (if the death was the important part, wouldn’t the resurrection cancel that?), and B) if the whole thing weren’t set up by God in the first place, who, according to most sects of Christianity, is the same person as God. So, God had to sacrifice himself to himself in order to allow himself to make an exception to a rule that he himself had established, in order to save us from himself sending us to Hell … where’s the sense there? That obvious irrationality is what first set me on the road to atheism. Reading the Bible, in the naive expectation that it would answer my question, pushed me even further along the road to atheism.
Ophelia: I assumed you were 35+, since most of our illusions leak profously by then. When were your parents born? I was born in 1936. So you see, I’ve pretty much had to work my way through all the standard American bigotisms (My father was quite a case.) I have a hunch you and I would see most things in quite similar ways, so I’d be surprised if we weren’t on the same team.
@Jude: I think it was Daoloth that told me to grow up because Christians believe in a hereafter. The point I was trying to make is that growing up causes me to follow “the rules” and live with responsibility, because I know there are repercussions if I don’t.
@Paper Hand: So I guess Hitler was moral to exterminate the Jews, since he carefully thought about the consequences of his actions. And he should have been allowed to continue, since his morality was carefully thought out. You tell the families of the millions of holocaust victims that Hitler was moral. I’ll bet if someone in your family is killed you’re going to want justice. Where do you think that model of justice comes from? Or, since morals don’t come from God, what class of Neanderthals got together and started a tradition that killing, stealing, raping, etc, is immoral? So, since God didn’t or doesn’t determine what is ethical and what is not, tell me who did or does.
Furthermore, I’m not sure how Jesus’ sacrifice was not real. If Jesus was the scapegoat upon which our penalty was laid (as Old Testament Israel’s tradition was, to sacrifice a lamb for a sin offering, and to send the scapegoat off, symbolizing the carrying away of sin), wouldn’t that make it a sacrifice? How much more real do you want? He paid a penalty that wasn’t His. The death was important because it paid the penalty. The resurrection was important because it proved that Jesus was God. If Jesus isn’t God, but rather was just a mere man, then 1.) anyone could have paid the penalty, 2.) the penalty didn’t really get paid, because the debt was a debt that man couldn’t pay. That’s why God paid it Himself, because of His love for mankind and desire to be in relationship with us.
@ A Christian
Hitler was christian……just so you know…..
Also, Atheists follow rules, we follow the law, and most of us are productive citizens. Just because we choose not to follow a fairy-tale doesn’t make us immoral. If anything your beliefs make you less moral. I know many christians, and none of them would ever do anything they do if they didn’t think they’d be rewarded for it in the afterlife. I don’t believe in the afterlife, so I’m good for the sake of being good. Why are you good?
A Christian, a quick search on the net will show that playing the “Hitler” card in an argument like this is is a mistake… to quote digg.com “both (Hitler and Stalin) were brought up in religious circumstances and held religious beliefs”. Like another well known leader Hitler believed he was doing God’s work – hardly the description of an atheist. And to use immoral atheists as examples you must also be prepared to defend the inquisition, the crusades and the Salem witch hunts to name but a few religious persecutions.
“Furthermore,” your description of Jesus as a scapegoat only serves to highlight the childish nature of religion. The idea that we can commit sins and then find something or someone to offer up to God in our place does not strike me as very moral. Not to mention that the original sin for which Jesus died was not ours anyway even if it were real – unless you subscribe to the notion that you can inherit sin from your parents.
I find it funny that people go on talking like Jesus was a real person that actually existed, and was somehow this one person was followed around by people taking in depth notes on what he said and did, and somehow most of these notes survived.
The only Jesus I know that exists is the one that cleans the pool at my apartment, and for the record, he pronounces his name “Hey-Zeus”.
@Robyn and Grouchy-one: Touche on the Hitler being a Christian thing. A quick research on the web verifies that he was a Christian and believed he was doing God’s work. What is sad is when people do things in the name of God, that God didn’t give them to do. But you can’t “throw the baby out with the bath water,” because Hitler was immoral along with the Crusaders and every other so-called religious zealot that you all love to quote and use as an example against Christianity. They have made a bad example of Christianity. There are a whole lot of others that are making a bad name for Christianity as well. So-called tele-evangelists are killing me with their money-grubbing ways. They will have to give an account to God for that. But Christianity, the belief in Jesus Christ, was never about creating morals. Morals existed before Christianity (which I’m still trying to figure out since God didn’t determine what is moral or not, who did). Christianity is about having the penalty of immorality paid and, Jude, stopping the immorality. If lying for the sake of lying is wrong, and all of us have lied before in our lives, then are you really good? No, because original sin shows us that Adam’s failure in the garden of Eden caused separation from the Source of Life…which means death. Man is not capable of living moral because of our fallen, corrupt nature. Jesus said not only is adultery wrong, but looking at a woman to lust after her is wrong. All humans have done that, including atheists. But in order for us to be in right standing with God, despite the deep condition of sin/immorality, we trust in the righteousness that Jesus secured through His death. Someone asked me why do I do good. First of all, what is good? How can we who are bad, define what is good? Well, I try to do what’s “right” because of love for fellow man. In order for us to be able to get along in this world, we have to live with love toward one another. If I love you, I won’t steal from you, I won’t kill you, lie on you, etc. I don’t do good for the anticipation of a reward, I do good because that’s what I am supposed to do in order to get along with others in this world.
@Jude: Dude, apparently you misunderstood me. I’m trying to figure out from YOU and your atheist/agnostic/skeptical friends what group of Cro-Magnon men determined that lying, stealing, killing, etc. is wrong, since in your estimation, God didn’t do it. Are you and your friends saying that some Neanderthal, Og, stood up and said…”Ug, steal wrong. Lie wrong. Kill wrong. We punish for,”? Or did the aliens that started life pass that along to us some kind of way? Oh…I know, when you hold the crystals that started life a certain way in the light, you can find the answers to life, and that’s how early man figured out that there are morals!
A Christian:
Your arguement doesn’t make much sense. Morals have obviously changed even over the relatively short span of time since the foundation of christianity (or judaism), despite all the mono-theistic religions saying that the moral code reported in their respective holy books is perfect. Since we no longer follow all the precepts set out in fundamentalist religions surely it is obvious that humans have had to figure out what is moral, based on what works and what satisfies our traits of empathy and altruism… not what is told to us by some outside source?
Also, you have it slightly wrong. I and many other atheists are not going to hold a religion accountable for the actions taken by any member of the faith. We do not blame christianity for hitler. We will however hold a religion accountable for whenever its doctrines have been the direct cause of, or have enabled, greater suffering. Hitler, for example, often used god’s will as a ‘justification’ for the atrocities he caused and the spirit of dogmatism that christianity emphasizes which enabled this must be criticized. Or when a suicide bomber detonates himself on a bus we MUST criticize the religious indoctrination that allowed this to happen, not just the patently dangerous specific belief set instilled in this individual but the wider process of acceptance of dogma and aversion to reason which allowed the belief to take hold.
Mono-theistic religions have repeatedly enabled power hungry and ignorant men to subjugate and harm others and will continue to do so until dogmatism and superstition are thrown out.
@Pikeamus: Have the morals changed, or have people moved the markers to fit society, such as in the abortion debate? We know the taking of an innocent life is murder. But rather than acknowledging the unborn as a life, we’ve moved the marker and now say that life doesn’t begin at conception, not that I’m trying to get into the abortion debate here…I’m only drawing an analogy, so please, understand my point. Moving the marker fits our needs. I say, morals have never changed. You said “morals have obviously changed…” Can you give me an example? I’m not quite clear.
I appreciate you not holding my faith accountable for the actions of another in the faith. I agree with you there. I admitted this earlier, that it is a problem when a member of the Christian faith (and I speak about Christianity since I adhere to it) does not find the real principles and does not understand the word of God to follow it appropriately. It is grieving when Christians do things in the name of God that God really does not approve of. I will criticize them, too. I’m assuming you have read the bible, and if so, then you will know how Jesus repeatedly criticized the religious establishment for their power grab and failure to uphold “righteous” principles. I absolutely agree that the doctrine must be criticized, IF it is teaching subjugation, terrorism or compels its adherents to commit atrocities; but the fundamentals of Christianity have never taught subjugation or even political power. I hate to hear about the “religious right” when it comes to politics, because I don’t think politics should be the church’s focus. If you’ve read the bible, you will also know how God held Old Testament Israel accountable for atrocities they committed. God spares no one, including His own.
Strange. I tried to comment, but my comment was lost.
Your analogy with Hitler fails because the consequences of Hitler’s actions were death and suffering for millions. THAT is what makes it immoral.
The Bible is not a good source of morality. It is pro-slavery. It is anti-woman. It commands killing disobedient sons. It requires a woman to marry her rapist. That’s just a few of the evils of the Bible. Most Christians ignore those passages, or find some way of rationalizing them away. But where do they get their moral perspective from? How do they know which passages should be paid attention to and which should be ignored? Obviously from an external source of morality. We atheists simply cut out the middle step of “find something in the Bible to support your views”
As for Jesus’ “sacrifice”, tell me this: if God is the Ruler of the Universe, if he sets the rules for what behavior is “good” and what is “bad”, then A) why’d he create us to be so bad, and B) why’d he set the bar for heaven so impossibly high? And having set that, he changes his mind. So, why was Jesus’ sacrifice “necessary”? The concept of blood atonement only makes sense if you take sin to be a physical substance, which can be “washed away” by blood, or can be transferred to another individual. A concept which might’ve made sense to Bronze age herders, but it’s pretty absurd today.
@A Christian
Do have any proof that genesis happened??? Like seriously, every christian i know admits that it’s crap, and you can too. The bible was not written by ‘God’ after all, it was written by people.
And also, no we don’t blame christianity for hitler, just like we don’t blame muslims for 9/11. Anyone who knows anything about Islam knows that it’s a peaceful religion. And yes, I have looked at people with lust, not women as you would assume, but men as I’m a straight woman. But the difference is that I don’t care if some guy from thousands of years ago declared it a sin. It is not immoral to acknowledge when you find someone attractive. It would immoral to act on it if you’re already seriously involved with someone, because then you are violating their trust, you understand?
As for morals….well, they are really nothing more than conditioning based on what our society depends on to survive. The first people who decided it was bad to rape and pillage, didn’t have a moral epiphany, they just realized that if they didn’t pillage and rape, they would be more productive as a whole. This happened so long ago, that we now recognize these things as wrong, because we are all biologically inclined to advance our race. Also your argument that morals can;t have existed before God because he invented them…is flawed, in a lot of ways but I’m just going to point out that your argument should have gone differently. As a christian you should have said that morals could not have existed before God, because nothing existed before God…just throwing that out there, you know because you have no logical leg to stand on, i figured you could use the help.
And yes, morals have changed. As society evolves, our views of what is right or wrong shifts to allow for maximum productiveness. Also, Paper Hand is right, the bible is hardly an example of what we would find moral in todays society. now there are nice examples that you like to throw at us, the good samaritan being a popular one. The story or Ruth, is another one, but nonetheless, according to the bible, I shouldn’t be allowed to own land, marry whom I choose, or even speak my mind. If I were to live by the bible I would be “morally” unable to even reply to your post.
I asked you why you do good, the answers you gave were why the atheist does good. The christian does good to please his god, and to avoid hellfire.
Morals towards discrimination; it wasn’t so long ago that slavery, sexual inequality and shunning the disabled or deformed was considered the norm.
Religious tolerance; once upon a time it was considered right to cleanse the world of people following the “wrong” religions – now we have mosques, synagogues, churches and so on operating more or less peacefully together.
Sexual morals; these morals have changed considerably especially in the last 100 years. For example homosexuality was legalised in the UK in 1967, sexual promiscuity was very immoral 100 years ago but considered the norm now as sexual equality allows women to have control over their own lives.
Even “Thou shalt not kill” has been refined somewhat. Consider a police officer’s position as he approaches a suicide bomber about to blow himself up in a crowd.
As we grow in awareness and understanding of what morals are we can discard the ones that no longer have relevance and refine the ones that still do. As we have evolved from simpler creatures, so have our morals.
And as Grouchy and I were discussing over toast and a shower… A Christian is right in that morality HASN’T evolved (for religious people, that is) but it has evolved a lot without the help of religion to make a more comfortable and prosperous life for most of the rest of us.
I am glad you stand corrected “A Christian”. It would be almost a first for religious believers, and about time too. You see, grown-ups can describe the transition states from belief to non-belief and back again. It’s called evidence. Can you do this for your belief in an afterlife? Or, indeed, any of your beleifs in this area? “Reading an old book” doesn’t count for much with the rest of us. This would not be too much of a problem if you didn’t try to impose your assinine and ill-informed nonsense upon the rest. This counts for a great deal when the chatter of relgion is held to matter when substantive issues of morality and fact are at issue. Abortion, euthanasia, stem-cell research. The list of things which only grown-ups ought to be allowed to talk about grows and grows. All opinions are not of equal value and those of the psychotically deluded should be ignored. And take your magic sky fairy friend with you.
@Paper-hand: There were slavery situations in the bible, but slavery, in and of itself is not wrong. Slavery in biblical times was a way of repaying a debt. What makes slavery wrong is the dehumanization of the slave, which is what God was against. So before you go there, yes, the slavery my African ancestors experienced in America was immoral due to the dehumanization of the Africans. But despite the dehumanization, God expected the slave to honor the master, which Jesus actually taught and exemplified by submitting Himself to authority, unless it was ungodly authority, then He did not. In order for society to function properly, we must submit to godly authority. There is structure and order. But God would deal with the dehumanizing slave owner. Justice is in His hand, the bible teaches. The bible is not anti-woman. It illustrates the roles each gender is best suited to play in society. Because of the Fall, man has decided that “women are worthless,” or whatever term you want to use, not God. You’ve read the Genesis account, and you know what God told Eve as a result of her disobedience to the command, that “he will rule over you.” God didn’t make that happen, that was the consequence of Adam and Eve’s action in the garden of Eden. Sin twisted all of nature. God never said women are worthless or second rate. In reference to the rape victim marrying the rapist, that was said for 2 reasons. One, because of the sex involved, and for two, because of the submission involved. Since you’ve read the bible, you know that sex is an intimacy designed to be shared between a male and female in a covenant relationship (marriage). Therefore, when a man has sex with a woman, she is technically his wife, and the wife is to submit to her husband, as other passages of scripture dictate. Now, again, before you go there…if my daughter is raped, do I want her marrying the rapist? Absolutely not, but as another scripture you have undoubtedly read states, “the human mind is not subject to the things of God, and cannot be.”
@Robyn: You said the first people that came up with morals didn’t have an epiphany, but then you describe them as having an epiphany when they “just decided” that society would be better without raping and pillaging. Curious. You also apparently didn’t read what I wrote. I never wrote that morals existed before God. I said Christianity was not about creating morals, because morals existed before Christianity, which was the purpose of the Mosaic law, to establish a nation that lived according to what is moral. Morals don’t change, because they’re founded in truth…and truth doesn’t change. If morals can change, then that means truth changes, and furthermore then, truth is relative, which doesn’t make sense. Situations and applications may change, but truth doesn’t. Two plus two will always be four. If a majority of people say it is 5, does that make two plus two five?
@A Christian
Actually i didn’t say we had a had an epiphany and decided what was right and what was wrong, I said that as we evolved as a people, we gradually realized what was good and what was detrimental to the community. You said the bible is not anti-woman, but rather illustrates the role we’re best suited to play. It is clear evidence that the bible was written by men. Being subservient is hardly what women were intended to do. There are many great world leaders that are women, doctors, teachers, lawyers are all professionals and deserve to be treated as such. To undermine their achievements by saying that what they ought to be doing is standing in the kitchen barefoot and pregnant is an insult to my gender. Now before you call me a crazy feminist, I will say that I am not, and I disagree with the western feminists of my generation, but only because they look to achieve something greater than equality which is wrong. The submission of any gender based solely on whether they dangle or not is absurd.
Also as for the second reason that you defended a rape victim being forced to marry her attacker, you defend the idea that she has already been dominated against her will, and now she must continue to submit to him for the rest of her life. You honestly don’t see a problem with that? Now when you said that you wouldn’t want your daughter to marry her rapist, does that mean you disagree with it? Or would you have her marry him anyway just because it’s in the bible?
Now as for your Orwellian analogy, you’ve made a small error. Morals so not equal truth. Morals are subjective. The morals of our culture differ greatly from those of different origin. An example of a truth would be, “people sometimes kill” that is fact. A moral would be, “it is wrong that people sometimes kill” that is subjective. Now it is widely recognized as moral to not kill, because it is detrimental to most societies. However one from the bible, leviticus 18:22, “Do not lay with a man as one lies with a woman…” is subjective. In many parts of Europe as well as in Canada, gay marriage is perfectly legal and accepted as moral by a vast majority. This is an example of how our morals are evolving with us, as we evolve as a people. “There are gay people” is a fact, “They should be allowed to wed” is a subjective moral.
Robyn: Good reply, I think I just fell in love with you a little.
A Christian: Do you not see that when you say things like “Since you’ve read the bible, you know that sex is an intimacy…” you’ve already accepted the bible as being true and are using that premise to justify the bible. This is pretty horribly circular logic and as it happens doesn’t even seem to be self consistent.
Your comparison of rape and marriage I found I found actually horrifying. You seem to be saying rape and marriage are basically the same thing. You already admit (or rather I infer from what you said) that the idea of your daughter being raped is abhorrent to you, does that not suggest to you that the role of the submissive wife suggested demanded by the bible is also morally wrong?
@Robyn: You’re right. The bible was written by men, but not with the intent of subjugating women. In the essence of being human, women are absolutely equal to men, but the roles that each are designed to play are not. You’ve read the bible, so you know that God used women in certain situations, especially where there was no man standing in the role he was supposed to be in. I am saying that women are the nurturers of the family, and the power they possess, based on the qualities God designed, helps develop better families. You obviously have a problem with hearing that women are to submit to their husbands. But don’t forget, the husband has to love his wife, as Christ loved the church, which you have read in scripture. My requirement is to love my wife despite her shortcomings, faults, failures, etc. It would be very easy to walk out on my wife when things get tough, but I am exhorted to love her and to provide for her, to not abuse her since I have been designated as the head. No organization of any type can work well without organizational structure.
You’ve read the bible, so you know also that the Christian faith teaches that we no longer hold to the customs of the old testament law. Since Christ completely lived out the law, His righteousness has been imputed to us. This is why I as a Believer do not have to perform sacrifices, etc, because Christ’s death took care of that for me. Again, you’ve read the bible so you know that righteousness could not be obtained by keeping the Mosaic law. If so, then Christ would not have had to die. The law was only designed to show what is sin. Therefore, just like I no longer have to perform animal sacrifices, I do not have to have my daughter marry her attacker. I’m sure if I lived in Old Testament Israel when the command was given, I probably would have went along with it. I will admit, I do not understand that part of the law, but thanks be to God, my righteousness is fulfilled in Christ and not in keeping the law perfectly.
On morals, if an erroneous trend in society began that 2+2=5, should we as a society decide that 5 is correct? Regardless of the error of many people that may say it is 5, the truth is that it is always 4. We must conform to the truth, not conform the truth to us. I didn’t say morals equal truth. I said morals come from truth. You said morals are subjective. That is precisely what got us in the mess we’re in in the first place. This is what the Genesis account (chapter 3) describes, man deciding what is right in his own eyes, and we see the consequences of it now. War, death, sickness, disease, poverty, etc.
I also did a search online and found an article where an atheist suggested that morals are biological and innate. It was a good read, but the biggest bunch of crock I’ve ever read. If you follow that to it’s logical conclusion, then really, you don’t need to teach anybody right from wrong, they know it innately. So then please tell me why my children (and others) innately take stuff from other children? They see what they want and they take it, regardless of who it hurts. They lie at early ages, disrespect authority, etc.
@Pikeamus: I am saying things like “Since you’ve read the bible, you know that…” because whether you believe it or not, or understand it or not, you at least know what the bible says. Most Christians think atheists don’t or haven’t read the bible, and that used to be my assumption. The fact that Robyn (and others) were able to quote scriptures have certainly changed my mind on that. Look, on the rape-marriage law, I do not fully comprehend it. I gave my best stab at what I thought it meant, but I don’t know completely. You can read my answer to Robyn above regarding the wife’s submissive role. You’re right also, that it is a circular argument to use the bible to prove the bible to an atheist. I guess I’m only explaining from scripture why I believe what I believe.
I really cannot be arsed wading through all the drivel he types on here.
Don’t christian keyboards have full stops or carriage return buttons on them ?
Where’s todays toon Mr Author. No excuses will be tolerated. Us atheists are so uncaring that we are not in the least bit concerned about your troubled life.
Just get jesus’n’mo online.
Anyway, who wrote the bullshit about the first few days of creation when man wasn’t created until dog had been out on the piss on Friday night. Only excuse I can think of for FUD (the alternative to ID – Fucking Unintelligent Design because anyone who thinks we were designed by some clever bastard has clearly never tried to scratch his/her own back or had toothache).
In the beginning there was darkness and nothing. God said let there be light and there was light (or was that AC/DC ?). There was still fuck all but you could see it better.
Upon further reading of the rape-marriage law, I noticed that the scripture first said that if a man raped a woman that was engaged (or married), the rapist was to be killed and the victim is not held accountable for the sexual intercourse–it was beyond her will. If the woman was not engaged or married, the rapist was punished to a lifetime sentence of supporting her and providing for her, and could not divorce her. Perhaps this was a way of his retribution to her, probably like if a company’s defective product hurt a consumer, and the consumer sued and won, the company would have to pay retribution.
Would it be possible for A Christian to get over the fact that he will NOT convert anyone who REALLY likes Jesus and Mo’! I am sure that there are people from every sect of every religion who could take up space here trying to tell us all how their religion is THE religion, etc. It’s a cartoon for Christs’ sake (hehehe)
My purpose was not to convert…I thought the cartoon was stupid, it is badly drawn, I took offense, I thought I’d say something, and here we are. By all means, enjoy.
@A Christian
First of all I’m quite glad you took the time to read what an atheist wrote on biological morals. I have never read it, and think it would be unwise for you to assume that just because an atheist wrote it we all take it as fact. To answer your questions, children will inately take things from each other becase of a bioligical inclination to survival, unless of course you’ve read augustine, then it’s because you assume babies are evil…because apparently that’s what saints teach…
anyways, the idea of evolving morals is quite contrary to the idea that we are born with them. It seems like I’ve said this more than enough times now, but I will repeat it once more. As a race humans develop morals that compliment our current needs. To keep the same morals as people followed 300 years ago would be absurd. This would have us doing such archaic things as marrying our cousins in order to preserve some imagined state of purity in our bloodlines. Nowadays we know that marrying our cousins is not such a hot idea, and so we’ve moved paced and now most of society would frown on such a practice.
Now about the rape law that seems to have confused you, the punishment of marrying her without eer being allowed to divorce her os not about repaying a debt to her, but rather the one that he owes her father. The bible states that the single woman who has been rpaed against her will, the rapist has dishonored her father. This is why he is forced to marry her, in order to repay he who he has wronged, in this case most sane people would assume it would be the woman he assaulted, however in the bible we lear that it is apparently her father that has been wronged.
And what mess has our allowance of morals to evolve gotten us into? The world is dying, but it is not because of changing morals. If anything it is due to an unwilingness to allow change. The irrational attempts to apply obsolete morals and restrictions on a growing society is absurd and only breeds division and hate. This is also due to the assumption that all societies follow the same set of moral guidelines. An often debated example of this is the requirement of some Arab theocracies that women cover their faces and hair. To the uneducated this is viewed as a form of female submission. However to the person who has bothered to learn anything about Islam, the veils that women wear are a form of protection. In Islam women are viewed as closer to God or Allah than men and therefore men view it as their duty to protect them and keep them pure. Now there will always be stories of people taking things too far, and who end up going against the moral guidelines their society has been conditioned to follow, but that is true of every culture. In fact originally the veil was a status symbol, that a man could afford to keep his wife idle, and protect her.
Now as for the role of a woman. I have one question for you. As a single woman, is my life meaningless because I don’t have a husband to serve? I don’t think so. I think a person’s purpose is for them to define for themselves.
@John
If you’re tired of refuting his claims, then don’t. And also, it is just too fun to see what kind of justifications he has for his views on morals and the bible. So while we’re waiting for the next comic, you might as well sit back and enjoy 😉
“I thought the cartoon was stupid, it is badly drawn”
I think you’re missing the point (there is only one drawing of each character); the way the cartoon is drawn is fairly irrelevant and in fact makes it all the more appealing as it is the deeper meaning that makes it so attractive.
Robyn said: “An often debated example of this is the requirement of some Arab theocracies that women cover their faces and hair. To the uneducated this is viewed as a form of female submission. However to the person who has bothered to learn anything about Islam, the veils that women wear are a form of protection. In Islam women are viewed as closer to God or Allah than men and therefore men view it as their duty to protect them and keep them pure.”
Ok, what the hell? You are suggesting that somehow this is not an extra level of control? “No no, you women are far too pure, you should just stay at home. And do what I tell you because, believe me, I’m just trying to keep you pure.” I actually haven’t come across this apologetic line before (that islam views women as closer to god), but then I’m only up to chapter 5 of the quran (reading a couple of different analyses of it, don’t have the patience for the text itself) so maybe it comes up later.
This does however beg the question, what the bloody hell does a hijab protect you from? The only thing that springs to mind is that its supposed to somehow make you an unappealing rape target and for that its clearly not working. The laws on rape in islam (presumably from the hadith) are disgusting, even in the more moderate versions of Sharia.
It doesn’t matter if the stated reason for a certain practice is in some way holy (a claim, by the way, which is completely without evidence or reason), if all it does in practice is to give rise to huge inequality, suffering and subjugation then it is an evil practice.
@pikeamus
Unfortunately it is impossible to understand from the Quran alone why they feel that the hijab protects them, and I’m atheist remember, so I don’t really get in either. But after having lived in a muslim theocracy for a year I’m starting to get the jist of it.
The point I was trying to make was that here in the west, (I’m assuming you’re from western europe or north america, if not then I do apologize) we find that kind of behavior strange and pointless, where as it’s an integral part of their culture. I’m not sure how familiar you are with the history, but the veil was original a status symbol. Women could not of course wear this while laboring on farms, or what have you, so it was a sign that their husband was wealthy enough to keep them idle.
Now I would also like to point out that according to the Quran, i wish i was familiar enough to direct you to the exact chapter, but I’m unfortunately not, the wearing of the veil is totally optional. Now this does get skewed of course, but that’s true of every religious guideline to every religion so there’s nothing we can do about that 😉
Now whether it is “holy” or not has no bearing on my original point, but your argument, “…if all it does in practice is to give rise to huge inequality, suffering and subjugation then it is an evil practice.” illustrates that while those of us not familiar with their customs are abhorred by them, it is a perfectly normal practice for them.
I would also like to point out that the evolution of morals that I was talking about earlier with A Christian has been stunted in that particular region due to the isolation it endured before the discovery of fossil fuels made them all, forgive me, richer than god. So now if we wait for it to adept to a new globalized environment the fundamentalists will cling to their ideals while the progressives attempt to move forward. As the progressives begin to outnumber the fundamentalists I’m sure we will see an entirely altered set of moral guidelines that they follow.
God is simply irrelevant to morality. Plato showed this in the Euthyphro over 2000 years ago. Is what makes an action good that God willed it so or did she will it so because it is good? If the first then goodness is arbitrary, if the second then God is unnecessary.
You said “…so it was a sign that their husband was wealthy enough to keep them idle.” I’d like to emphasise the KEEP part. Does the suggestion that women are kept by their husbands not offend you immediately?
I am familiar with the historical root of this custom. I especially like to that note that darker colours became most prominent because darker dyes were more expensive so as a status symbol were more effective. In any case it doesn’t really matter why a custom originated, it’s the affect it has now that is important. It also seems to me irrelevant as to weather of not wearing a hijab or burka is mandated by the quran the problem is that it is mandated throught the islamic world. In many area you are harshly punished for not following this rule while in others you may just find people are just a little colder toward you. I’m sure there are even regions in islamic countries where no one would bat an eye if you went out uncovered.
Neglecting to criticize something because it is “an integral part of their culture” is, if you ask me, cowardly. The best line of arguement to get me to chill about this issue would be something along the lines of: “There are more important battles for equality to be waged, by taking a stance on this subject you are just making it harder because muslims feel that you are just attacking their culture because it’s different.” I don’t really buy this either but its worth some consideration.
I’m not doing a great job of articulating my thoughts today (because, of course, I’m usually great at it ) my apologies for that. I hope you are right that progressives within the islamic world will win out over the fundamentalists, I struggle to find much optimism on that line. Progressives don’t seem to have won the battle with fundamentalists within christianity yet and it seems much easier to interpret the bible in a more moderate way than it is the quran.
(btw, you are correct, I am in western europe. I’m also too hungover to proofread this so apologies for any hideous mistyping or gramatical errors.)
Just so we’re clear, A Christian actually said that slavery itself is not wrong. wowzers. Debate over. Credibility shot.
Also, A Christian, since you no longer live by the old testament, why can’t gays marry? By my recollection of the new testament, Jesus said nothing of that.
Christians like to cherry pick from the bible but they don’t like it when outsiders do it in reverse. Within a couple of pages of Moses revealing the ten commandments, the bible sets out guidelines for selling a slave, and very specific instructions about under which circumstances and how an owner could beat his slave. The bible also sets a price for the sale of a daughter. And this book is supposedly the source of morality???
@pikeamus
The historical beginnings of any custom is always relevant. In fact you could say that without knowing the histpry behind it, any custom bcaome irrelevant. Now I could criticize the wearing of the hijab based on the level of control it does allow over women. However i will not because after speaking to many a muslim woman I’ve found that they do not mind the hijab at all. Like I said earlier, the idea is that it protects the woman. Now if they are the ones who wear it, and they don;t mind it, then why should I bother criticizing it? I’ll note that I absolutely do not agree with their idea that it will keep them out hell, but only because I don’t believe in hell, you understand? As for the argument you suggested to me, it is absolutely relevant, but I also feel that is a cop out for what we were discussing originally.
Now as for the question about the ownership of his wife, I can assure you that it absolutely does offend, but in a current context. Back in the day when the veil was a status symbol, it was common for women to be viewed as the property of her husband. While I don’t condone it, there is little that can be done about it now. And as a woman who has stood by and listened to a man inquire about her price to her father, (it’s a loong story, but it involves camels…) I can promise you that the idea of a woman being treated as property disgusts me.
And I had a feeeling you were from there, you didn’t seem american, and I doubt there are that many of us canadians on here 🙂
Also I’m using a demo browser, so there is no spell check, so I ask you for equal consideration when wading through what i’m sure is a fountain of grammatical errors.
@Robyn
You are right, many Muslim women don’t mind wearing a hijab but to me this sounds rather like Stockholm syndrome (and I feel that’s only a mild exaggeration). The proles in 1984 didn’t seem to mind being at the bottom of the social ladder, nor did the epsilon’s in Brave New World (not perfect comparisons but hopefully you get the idea). You are also right that there is this idea that it protects the women but that idea is simply wrong. It does not protect the women. The requirement to wear the hijab appears to either do nothing and not be a problem or to be a tool to allow greater control over women.
This entire discussion seems to me to be a microcosm of the point made by quite well be Sam Harris that religious moderation protects harmful religious fundamentalism from criticism. Some disagree with him on this but I think he’s spot on.
“Now if they are the ones who wear it, and they don;t mind it, then why should I bother criticizing it?” Well I’m not going to criticize someone who makes a choice that is truly their own, free from coercion and in doing so doesn’t make life harder for others. If Muslim women want to wear a hijab (ignoring the fact, I guess, that they’ve almost certainly been subject to some brainwashing, indoctrination or deception simply to end up as a Muslim) but will defend the right of others to not be forced wear it then I’ll happily support them. I’m still going to challenge unfounded and irrational belief when it raises its head.
I’d repeat the same disclaimer from last time but I think we are both happy to forgive one another for some sloppy spelling and suchlike by now 🙂
Haha, it seems we’re in agreement that the whole thing is a pointless show of religious devotion but, barring that, I think you’re comparison of the hijab to stockholm syndrome is quite more than a mild exaggeration. Now I love the fact that you brought up 1984, because it is actually one of my all time favorite books, and if you’ll remember correctly, the proles were actually allowed many more freedoms than the party members. So it was really only the party that viewed them as lower class. Personally I think I’d have preferred to be a prole and retain my right to divorce, free thought, etc.
Now your Sam Harris argument is something I can only agree with. However, I can only say that I think religion is lunacy, and people who follow it are crazy brainwashed people who were clearly lied to as children. However now I not only sound uneducated, hostile as well, and the more hostile we are, the more we’ll push them away from the truth, and the more they’ll hold on to their precious rituals and beliefs. Now as far as the hijab is concerned, if it has been stated previously that I do not support any religious action, then the only thing left about the hijab is inherently cultural, because I’ve already condemned it as a religious act. Now when it comes to a secular criticism of culture, I’m generally hesitant, because I am sympathetic to the differences in our culture. And so the only thing I can say is that of every muslim woman I’ve ever talked to, they’ve never had an issue with the hijab. When walking through the streets of Qatar, I observed a group of veiled girls giggling together. As I walked by with a friend of the family, they looked at him, giggled at each other and then proceeded to lift their veils for a few seconds, and then let them fall again before taking off. This is them playing, like for example if I got drunk with a few friends and we decided to flash some guys walking by. Same principle. Now I understand that this might never happen in our neighboring country of Saudi Arabia, but what is happening there is an example of the fundamentalist resistance that I told you would have to happen before the progressives won out. You showed some uncertainty earlier that this would ever happen given the state of christianity in America. However you must concede that liberalism has come a long way since its puritan beginnings. Also in Europe where scientists were once condemned, we have an LHC that could theoretically prove the big bang theory, and while there are still those who protest this saying it goes against god or what have you, the fact that the experiment is allowed to go ahead with no disruption from these people is a testament to how the progressives in that area now outnumber the fundamentalists, and so I have every reason to believe that this will hold true for the middle eastern part of the world as well.
I will however say again that hostility towards their customs is not the way to encourage this, instead patience is needed. We cannot force them to think like us, we have to wait for it to happen on its own.
Apologies for the delayed reply. I’ve had a death in the family and haven’t much been (and still, truthfully, am not) in the mood for contemplating this topic. It doesn’t sound as though we are at odds quite as much as it initially seemed. Perhaps we can resume the discussion if (or perhaps when) it becomes relevent again in a future comic.
A Christian started by saying the strip mocks what its author does not understand – and then came back to mock non-theistic morality, showing a shallow understanding of it. Perhaps AC grew up believing that the only reason to behave morally is divine punishment; but then why does every society, including those that never got tablets at Sinai, have rules against murder and theft (at least between men of equal rank within the tribe)? Because societies with such rules thrive, and those without them die out.
As for the divine sacrifice: to whom was it offered? (Forgive me if this was answered somewhere above – all those long paragraphs in tiny type …)
Jesus Christ, it’s about time a Poe/xian wandered into the comments– they were getting stale from all the preaching-to-the-atheist-choir circle jerking that was going on. 😉
Bless AC with His Noodliness’s noodly appendage, and let’s give ’em a big hand for coming out to play!
While obviously this conversation happened quite some time ago now (only just recently found Jesus and Mo) Thankyou Robyn, for this: “However, I can only say that I think religion is lunacy, and people who follow it are crazy brainwashed people who were clearly lied to as children. However now I not only sound uneducated, hostile as well, and the more hostile we are, the more we’ll push them away from the truth, and the more they’ll hold on to their precious rituals and beliefs.”
If our goal as nice happy athiests is to help people realise our perspective on truth, then we don’t help that goal by appearing hostile, angry and unwilling to engage in conversation in respecting ways.
Don’t get me wrong – the reason I’m an athiest is I don’t really respect theistic views, but I respect the people who hold them for their humanity. This is why I wish to kindly show them how I and many other athiests think about life.
Seen as how A Christian has not commented here again, I feel it is hardly fair to throw out responses which I doubt they will see…
…but…
the ‘grown-up’ analogy: surely it is children who are told what to do, while adults are able to use wisdom to decide for themselves which is the best course of action?
Empathy is how we generally decide what is right: “how would I feel if I were that person? what would I want to see happen?”
I have problems with the other arguments presented, what with the rape, the slavery and the biblical perspectives on these immoral acts – but as I dare say A Christian will not see them I’ll not bother – unless I see a reply I suppose.
Jesus & Mo (the characters) are absurd, blinkered, and oddly very sweet. J&M (the cartoon) is brilliant: sharp, delicious, irresistible. Salman Rushdie
Jesus and Mo cartoons are wonderfully funny and true. Richard Dawkins
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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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August 26, 2010
This strip was stupid. Are you making fun of Christianity…something you obviously only have a superficial knowledge about?
i just couldnt settle for a savior that hadn’t been beaten real good before being put to death.
Hello Mr. Christian,
Presumably you would never make fun of belief in zeus, wotan and a race of people living inside a hollow earth (Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes believed the latter), with out thorough and complete knowledge of these belief systems. Some ideas, such as the one so skillfully and playfully portrayed above, expose themselves as irrational with just the smallest amount of exposure to critical thinking.
Give it a try, you will be pleased with the results, and perhaps saddened when you look back and consider how much of your life you have already wasted.
But it’s not too late, save yourself.
Looks to me like his handle is “Chrisitian.”
Our joke when we were young and foolish was “Cross your ankles–I have only one nail left.” Chrisitian needs to read and ponder Barmaid’s wonderful analysis from last week.
“Are you making fun of Christianity….?” Doh. Chris, old Buddy, Author is deeply educated in religion. Why don’t you start at the beginning of this comic’s run? Author just happens to recognize a superstition when she/he sees one.
Author, how do you continue to do it? This is superb. I see one clue to your genius: you keep up with the news. I’ve long realized that human behavior needs no embellishment to be hilarious–just take it straight. Chris here is a good example.
I’m not sayind us heathens aren’t funny, mind you. Don’t forget the atheist and the bear!
Special to Ophelia: I was twitting you. In context, of course, you are right–you know men think with that littler brain of theirs. But if you knew, you’d soften up–I’ve been on the front lines of the movement since your parents were children, and I could tell you some stories. My partner (called “wife” in ancient times) and I have paid more than our share; you’ll have to take our word for it.
Dear A Christian
You really are as dim as your superstitious beliefs behind your alias suggest you are.
And the sublime author is making fun of Islam as well (but that probably doesn’t bother you as Mr Oberski rightly alludes to).
I would hazard a guess that the Authors scriptural, biblical and comparative religious knowledge far exceeds you own.
Still on the upside, at least Jesus wasn’t a kiddy fiddler.
wow, this one is terrific. hahahaah
i read you in my feeds regularly.
don’t mind the religious people 😀
keep on like this
🙂
great one, It’s impressive how you can keep the quality and the fast rate up there all the time.
and to “A Christian”, are you an expert on Islam or Hinduism to dismiss their religions? I’m pretty sure you know they are the wrong choice of religion but do you have anything more than a superficial knowledge of them to make that decision?
how do you sleep at night ?
@ a Christian
Off course I’m not sure, but it could well be, and it probably is, that the auteur has more knowledge about christianity than you do.
So what? Jesus is in to Euthanasia. Mo is in to Youth in Asia..
…
..
I’ll get my coat..
My choices were being driven to drink or driven to Google News and do a “assisted suicide zurich” search. I chose the latter and now I get it. I’ve not had the same luck in finding out why christian and his ilk have co-opted the “persecution” gene, I thought we jews were the rightful inheritors of that trait. No?
Oh, and dear Jo-Jo;
Jesus is into stigmata, not alma mata or mata hari.
Be sure to tip your waiter,
and do try the veal.
No hurry, I’ll be here all week.
Cracking pun Jo Jo.
The Jesuits (Gods Waffen SS) say “give me a boy for the first seven years and he’s mine for life”.
Mo probably said “give me a girl for the first seven years and she’s my wife”
Jerry W
Mr (or Ms) A Christian is probably pissed of that you and your lot strung up the baby jesus.
Chris, the argument is that, since JC knew exactly how it would play out, his participation in allowing the Romans to string him up was nothing more than assisted suicide. I’m not sure that’s totally accurate — it seems to me to be more of an unfortunate but necessary part of the plan (and not really that big a deal since he knew he could come back to life). Kinda like Jeebs’ head in Men In Black.
Of course, that doesn’t make it any less ludicrous.
What I find more interesting is that, since he did know exactly what was going on, the whole “why have you forsaken me?” bit (Matthew 27:46) was all an act for the rubes. Basically, Christianity is nothing more than a Big Con. (Perhaps the biggest of big cons.)
Anyway, smashing comic, as always.
I suppose JC had to say “father, why hast thou forsaken me” when they were nailing him to a plank of wood.
The rest of us would have screamed “jeeeeeeeezuz crrrrrrriiiiiiiist””
When you think about it – nothing’s changed.
JC gets crucified on the say-so of religious bigwigs for suggesting folk might like to be nice to each other.
These days people get crucified in the media by religious bigwigs just for suggesting folk might be nice enough to let others end their lives instead of suffering.
We have no evidence that Jesus was a pedophile but his ‘suffer the little children to come unto me’ shows the writers of those scriptures understood the value of starting early with the religious programming. A thousand years later, the Jesuits were clear on the concept and it is still happening today.
Chrisitian is one of the latest in a chain of serial child victim/abusers. It was a shock to hear Dawkins put it this way, but the more I think of it, the more apt it seems.
On topic, if Jesus is God, how could he forsake himself? What clinical diagnosis are we talking about here? Dissociative identity disorder? Bipolar disorder? He must have been deeply depressed with his Creation abilities if he couldn’t do better than this.
“A Chrisitian”
I love how semi-literacy and religiosity always seem indelibly linked (unless I’m missing something subtle).
You’re in luck, Big J and Mo: apparently, traditional 3rd anniversary presents have a theme of Leather.
:naughty:
Lovely to see this spiritual commentary keeping relevant by involving contemporary themes. We must remain mindful, though, that when one obtains God’s “assistance” with one’s willful self-destruction, it’s quite a different kettle of fish from getting another human to do the same thing. God is a jealous god; He wills that we all must die, just in His own good time. Isn’t it fortunate, A Christian, that one can synchronize that time with Him now in Switzerland if one chooses? God gave us free choice and presumably had a hand in ensuring that Swiss timepieces have a worldclass reputation.
Guys, you are just trolled, you know that? The tub of lard that typed this is just happily jerking off in a corner to Furry porn and laughing his ass off.
Poe’s law being what it is, who can be sure? I hope you aren’t projecting, TB.
I have often wondered what was taking the deluded so long to grace us with their presence.
Very good Jo Jo! Fab strip too. Is A Christian for real?
I hope that “A Christian” comes back. You think THIS strip made fun of you and yours? Sheesh! Check out some of the others. You have no idea how much author holds your views in contempt. Good. Me too. If your beliefs were those of a child being comforted because they had lost a parent then they would not be risible. To hold beliefs in a hereafter when such are so transparently wish-fulfiling and infantile is despicable. Grow up.
Actually, I particularly like the last frame, in which it appears that Jeeber’s omnisciosity (…) is not there at all, since he failed to wait the two thousand years to knock himself off in Zurich.
I also find it hilarious that The Chrisitian has disappeared in the face of criticism. “I’ll be damned if I’m going to involve myself in any more of this ignorance!”, says (s)he.
Glad to see that I stirred up a hornet’s nest.
Hey JohnnyCanuck, et al, thanks for getting me out of my GOD delusion. I never would have seen how deluded I was unless I read your intelligent posts and recently heard a scientist say and read some writings that life began with aliens…and another scientist said life “began on the backs of crystals. Thank Darwin I’m no longer deluded!!! Whew.
Daoloth, I’ve discovered that atheists and agnostics are like little children. I remember being a child and wanting to do whatever I wanted to do, and didn’t care for my parents giving me any structure. Now that I’m grown and mature, I understand I can’t do any and everything that I want to do, but that there are things that I must do. For example, if I’m going to feed my family, I have to work. To keep my electrical service, I have to pay the bill, and not spend that money on the latest electronic gadget. That’s where maturity kicks in. I am grown up…unlike you, who wants to put all rule aside and live life how you want. But I guess you know for a certainty, Daoloth, that there is no hereafter…so I stand corrected.
In reference to the above comic’s “assisted suicide” theme…I guess I see the author’s point. So, instead of a “sacrifice fly,” let’s call it a “coach-assisted suicide fly.” Soldiers, police and firemen should lose any honor in dying in the line of duty, because they become soldiers, police and firemen knowing they can and may lose their life. Therefore, they are committing government assisted suicide.
Hey Tie–I close my eyes and go to sleep. Just like that.
“To keep my electrical service, I have to pay the bill, and not spend that money on the latest electronic gadget. That’s where maturity kicks in.”
Or as another, somewhat obnoxious man once said:
“When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.”
Sad.
Someones been watching “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed”!
Okay Ed, yes…the whole growing up thing is quite obnoxious. It is sad, I agree. So why in the world am I paying my electric bill when I could have an iPhone? Hey, it’s the weekend after Thanksgiving…I’ll just let my family sit in the dark later while I call you on my iPhone that I’m going to buy on sale, and ask you for a loan to cover me. Oh, and then I can call the electric company and whine that having to go to work to pay the bills is obnoxious…and they’ll probably agree.
And Matt…I guess you watched “Expelled” too. Shame on me for watching it.
I may have missed something, obviously, but could someone explain the Zürich bit to me?
i did watch it
the approach didnt appall me as much as i thought it would…I am looking more into some of the claims made before i blog about it or anything….the scientific community should be open to any real science or hypothesis and elitism is mirroring the religious enemies we abhor.
Eddie Janssen
In the Canton of Zurich where Zurich is located in Switzerland, Assisted Suicide is legal!
So Jesus would have suffered much less dying in the clinic! LOLZ
Hang on.. Since when did you have to be a Christain in order to ghet your electricity supplied? NPower don’t answer prayers any more than God.. Trust me on that.
JayBee, I’m ROTFL! Yes, Jesus should have taken the easy way. In fact, let’s all find and take the easy way…avoid all the hard things of life. So, as I finish my bachelor’s degree, I think I’ll plagiarize everything going forward rather than truly applying myself to write quality papers. All that matters is that I get it done, right? Who cares how I do it?
JoJo, you missed the whole point, so go back to sleep.
Right. Normally I’d just take the piss, because a waste of bandwidth like A Christain just isn’t worth the effort, but I just spotted the crack about firemen and the police. For FUCK’S sake it is spelt out above WITH PICTURES. Firemen et al don’t join up with the certain anticipation of death. They would really like to avoid it. But the yjoin up knowing the risk because they want to help their fellow man. That’s the honour and heroism. Some of them are athiests. They are even more heroic because they go in risking everything. Government assisted suicide. Tit. This is why religious people should NOT have any say in how others lead their lives. Even when the obvious is pointed out. I can honestly imaging A Christian bashing his head against a wall directly under a sign that reads ‘Only Pricks bash their heads against this wall.’
I’m really not following this. What has atheism got to do with paying or not paying electricity bills? What is Furry Porn? And what is the story about the Atheist and the Bear?
Sorry for being so thick 🙁
Dear A Christian. I finished my bachelor’s degree a few years back. I wrote quality papers and didn’t plagiarize anything. I have also been an atheist for 50 years. Where am I going wrong?
Special to Richard:
“But if you knew, you’d soften up–I’ve been on the front lines of the movement since your parents were children”
You seem to be assuming I’m about 12 (just as all the locker room denizens the other day assumed about the barmaid). I’m not.
A Christian:
Your analogies are awful, and seem to be based on the old “without God there is no morality” line. Which is completely false. If anything, I’d say atheists are more moral than Christians or other religionists, because we don’t expect divine punishment or reward, but rather, our morality is based on thoughtful consideration of the consequences of our actions upon not only ourselves but others.
Jesus’ so-called “sacrifice” would make more sense if A) it were a real sacrifice (if the death was the important part, wouldn’t the resurrection cancel that?), and B) if the whole thing weren’t set up by God in the first place, who, according to most sects of Christianity, is the same person as God. So, God had to sacrifice himself to himself in order to allow himself to make an exception to a rule that he himself had established, in order to save us from himself sending us to Hell … where’s the sense there? That obvious irrationality is what first set me on the road to atheism. Reading the Bible, in the naive expectation that it would answer my question, pushed me even further along the road to atheism.
Ophelia: I assumed you were 35+, since most of our illusions leak profously by then. When were your parents born? I was born in 1936. So you see, I’ve pretty much had to work my way through all the standard American bigotisms (My father was quite a case.) I have a hunch you and I would see most things in quite similar ways, so I’d be surprised if we weren’t on the same team.
@Jude: I think it was Daoloth that told me to grow up because Christians believe in a hereafter. The point I was trying to make is that growing up causes me to follow “the rules” and live with responsibility, because I know there are repercussions if I don’t.
@Paper Hand: So I guess Hitler was moral to exterminate the Jews, since he carefully thought about the consequences of his actions. And he should have been allowed to continue, since his morality was carefully thought out. You tell the families of the millions of holocaust victims that Hitler was moral. I’ll bet if someone in your family is killed you’re going to want justice. Where do you think that model of justice comes from? Or, since morals don’t come from God, what class of Neanderthals got together and started a tradition that killing, stealing, raping, etc, is immoral? So, since God didn’t or doesn’t determine what is ethical and what is not, tell me who did or does.
Furthermore, I’m not sure how Jesus’ sacrifice was not real. If Jesus was the scapegoat upon which our penalty was laid (as Old Testament Israel’s tradition was, to sacrifice a lamb for a sin offering, and to send the scapegoat off, symbolizing the carrying away of sin), wouldn’t that make it a sacrifice? How much more real do you want? He paid a penalty that wasn’t His. The death was important because it paid the penalty. The resurrection was important because it proved that Jesus was God. If Jesus isn’t God, but rather was just a mere man, then 1.) anyone could have paid the penalty, 2.) the penalty didn’t really get paid, because the debt was a debt that man couldn’t pay. That’s why God paid it Himself, because of His love for mankind and desire to be in relationship with us.
@ A Christian
Hitler was christian……just so you know…..
Also, Atheists follow rules, we follow the law, and most of us are productive citizens. Just because we choose not to follow a fairy-tale doesn’t make us immoral. If anything your beliefs make you less moral. I know many christians, and none of them would ever do anything they do if they didn’t think they’d be rewarded for it in the afterlife. I don’t believe in the afterlife, so I’m good for the sake of being good. Why are you good?
A Christian, a quick search on the net will show that playing the “Hitler” card in an argument like this is is a mistake… to quote digg.com “both (Hitler and Stalin) were brought up in religious circumstances and held religious beliefs”. Like another well known leader Hitler believed he was doing God’s work – hardly the description of an atheist. And to use immoral atheists as examples you must also be prepared to defend the inquisition, the crusades and the Salem witch hunts to name but a few religious persecutions.
“Furthermore,” your description of Jesus as a scapegoat only serves to highlight the childish nature of religion. The idea that we can commit sins and then find something or someone to offer up to God in our place does not strike me as very moral. Not to mention that the original sin for which Jesus died was not ours anyway even if it were real – unless you subscribe to the notion that you can inherit sin from your parents.
Also not to mention the fact that Catholics can ‘confess’ to their latest batch of sins and walk away scot-free to sin again.
Wouldn’t that be euthanasia, too?
I find it funny that people go on talking like Jesus was a real person that actually existed, and was somehow this one person was followed around by people taking in depth notes on what he said and did, and somehow most of these notes survived.
The only Jesus I know that exists is the one that cleans the pool at my apartment, and for the record, he pronounces his name “Hey-Zeus”.
Jerry w
@Robyn and Grouchy-one: Touche on the Hitler being a Christian thing. A quick research on the web verifies that he was a Christian and believed he was doing God’s work. What is sad is when people do things in the name of God, that God didn’t give them to do. But you can’t “throw the baby out with the bath water,” because Hitler was immoral along with the Crusaders and every other so-called religious zealot that you all love to quote and use as an example against Christianity. They have made a bad example of Christianity. There are a whole lot of others that are making a bad name for Christianity as well. So-called tele-evangelists are killing me with their money-grubbing ways. They will have to give an account to God for that. But Christianity, the belief in Jesus Christ, was never about creating morals. Morals existed before Christianity (which I’m still trying to figure out since God didn’t determine what is moral or not, who did). Christianity is about having the penalty of immorality paid and, Jude, stopping the immorality. If lying for the sake of lying is wrong, and all of us have lied before in our lives, then are you really good? No, because original sin shows us that Adam’s failure in the garden of Eden caused separation from the Source of Life…which means death. Man is not capable of living moral because of our fallen, corrupt nature. Jesus said not only is adultery wrong, but looking at a woman to lust after her is wrong. All humans have done that, including atheists. But in order for us to be in right standing with God, despite the deep condition of sin/immorality, we trust in the righteousness that Jesus secured through His death. Someone asked me why do I do good. First of all, what is good? How can we who are bad, define what is good? Well, I try to do what’s “right” because of love for fellow man. In order for us to be able to get along in this world, we have to live with love toward one another. If I love you, I won’t steal from you, I won’t kill you, lie on you, etc. I don’t do good for the anticipation of a reward, I do good because that’s what I am supposed to do in order to get along with others in this world.
‘Morals existed before Christianity (which I’m still trying to figure out since if God didn’t determine what is moral or not, who did)’
If you’re not careful, when you do finally figure it out, you’ll be joining us atheists.
@Jude: Dude, apparently you misunderstood me. I’m trying to figure out from YOU and your atheist/agnostic/skeptical friends what group of Cro-Magnon men determined that lying, stealing, killing, etc. is wrong, since in your estimation, God didn’t do it. Are you and your friends saying that some Neanderthal, Og, stood up and said…”Ug, steal wrong. Lie wrong. Kill wrong. We punish for,”? Or did the aliens that started life pass that along to us some kind of way? Oh…I know, when you hold the crystals that started life a certain way in the light, you can find the answers to life, and that’s how early man figured out that there are morals!
A Christian:
Your arguement doesn’t make much sense. Morals have obviously changed even over the relatively short span of time since the foundation of christianity (or judaism), despite all the mono-theistic religions saying that the moral code reported in their respective holy books is perfect. Since we no longer follow all the precepts set out in fundamentalist religions surely it is obvious that humans have had to figure out what is moral, based on what works and what satisfies our traits of empathy and altruism… not what is told to us by some outside source?
Also, you have it slightly wrong. I and many other atheists are not going to hold a religion accountable for the actions taken by any member of the faith. We do not blame christianity for hitler. We will however hold a religion accountable for whenever its doctrines have been the direct cause of, or have enabled, greater suffering. Hitler, for example, often used god’s will as a ‘justification’ for the atrocities he caused and the spirit of dogmatism that christianity emphasizes which enabled this must be criticized. Or when a suicide bomber detonates himself on a bus we MUST criticize the religious indoctrination that allowed this to happen, not just the patently dangerous specific belief set instilled in this individual but the wider process of acceptance of dogma and aversion to reason which allowed the belief to take hold.
Mono-theistic religions have repeatedly enabled power hungry and ignorant men to subjugate and harm others and will continue to do so until dogmatism and superstition are thrown out.
(Sorry for feeding the troll)
@Pikeamus: Have the morals changed, or have people moved the markers to fit society, such as in the abortion debate? We know the taking of an innocent life is murder. But rather than acknowledging the unborn as a life, we’ve moved the marker and now say that life doesn’t begin at conception, not that I’m trying to get into the abortion debate here…I’m only drawing an analogy, so please, understand my point. Moving the marker fits our needs. I say, morals have never changed. You said “morals have obviously changed…” Can you give me an example? I’m not quite clear.
I appreciate you not holding my faith accountable for the actions of another in the faith. I agree with you there. I admitted this earlier, that it is a problem when a member of the Christian faith (and I speak about Christianity since I adhere to it) does not find the real principles and does not understand the word of God to follow it appropriately. It is grieving when Christians do things in the name of God that God really does not approve of. I will criticize them, too. I’m assuming you have read the bible, and if so, then you will know how Jesus repeatedly criticized the religious establishment for their power grab and failure to uphold “righteous” principles. I absolutely agree that the doctrine must be criticized, IF it is teaching subjugation, terrorism or compels its adherents to commit atrocities; but the fundamentals of Christianity have never taught subjugation or even political power. I hate to hear about the “religious right” when it comes to politics, because I don’t think politics should be the church’s focus. If you’ve read the bible, you will also know how God held Old Testament Israel accountable for atrocities they committed. God spares no one, including His own.
Strange. I tried to comment, but my comment was lost.
Your analogy with Hitler fails because the consequences of Hitler’s actions were death and suffering for millions. THAT is what makes it immoral.
The Bible is not a good source of morality. It is pro-slavery. It is anti-woman. It commands killing disobedient sons. It requires a woman to marry her rapist. That’s just a few of the evils of the Bible. Most Christians ignore those passages, or find some way of rationalizing them away. But where do they get their moral perspective from? How do they know which passages should be paid attention to and which should be ignored? Obviously from an external source of morality. We atheists simply cut out the middle step of “find something in the Bible to support your views”
As for Jesus’ “sacrifice”, tell me this: if God is the Ruler of the Universe, if he sets the rules for what behavior is “good” and what is “bad”, then A) why’d he create us to be so bad, and B) why’d he set the bar for heaven so impossibly high? And having set that, he changes his mind. So, why was Jesus’ sacrifice “necessary”? The concept of blood atonement only makes sense if you take sin to be a physical substance, which can be “washed away” by blood, or can be transferred to another individual. A concept which might’ve made sense to Bronze age herders, but it’s pretty absurd today.
@A Christian
Do have any proof that genesis happened??? Like seriously, every christian i know admits that it’s crap, and you can too. The bible was not written by ‘God’ after all, it was written by people.
And also, no we don’t blame christianity for hitler, just like we don’t blame muslims for 9/11. Anyone who knows anything about Islam knows that it’s a peaceful religion. And yes, I have looked at people with lust, not women as you would assume, but men as I’m a straight woman. But the difference is that I don’t care if some guy from thousands of years ago declared it a sin. It is not immoral to acknowledge when you find someone attractive. It would immoral to act on it if you’re already seriously involved with someone, because then you are violating their trust, you understand?
As for morals….well, they are really nothing more than conditioning based on what our society depends on to survive. The first people who decided it was bad to rape and pillage, didn’t have a moral epiphany, they just realized that if they didn’t pillage and rape, they would be more productive as a whole. This happened so long ago, that we now recognize these things as wrong, because we are all biologically inclined to advance our race. Also your argument that morals can;t have existed before God because he invented them…is flawed, in a lot of ways but I’m just going to point out that your argument should have gone differently. As a christian you should have said that morals could not have existed before God, because nothing existed before God…just throwing that out there, you know because you have no logical leg to stand on, i figured you could use the help.
And yes, morals have changed. As society evolves, our views of what is right or wrong shifts to allow for maximum productiveness. Also, Paper Hand is right, the bible is hardly an example of what we would find moral in todays society. now there are nice examples that you like to throw at us, the good samaritan being a popular one. The story or Ruth, is another one, but nonetheless, according to the bible, I shouldn’t be allowed to own land, marry whom I choose, or even speak my mind. If I were to live by the bible I would be “morally” unable to even reply to your post.
I asked you why you do good, the answers you gave were why the atheist does good. The christian does good to please his god, and to avoid hellfire.
We all know Zeus and the dinosaurs teamed up to create morals. It’s common sense.
Here are a few examples of morals evolving…
Morals towards discrimination; it wasn’t so long ago that slavery, sexual inequality and shunning the disabled or deformed was considered the norm.
Religious tolerance; once upon a time it was considered right to cleanse the world of people following the “wrong” religions – now we have mosques, synagogues, churches and so on operating more or less peacefully together.
Sexual morals; these morals have changed considerably especially in the last 100 years. For example homosexuality was legalised in the UK in 1967, sexual promiscuity was very immoral 100 years ago but considered the norm now as sexual equality allows women to have control over their own lives.
Even “Thou shalt not kill” has been refined somewhat. Consider a police officer’s position as he approaches a suicide bomber about to blow himself up in a crowd.
As we grow in awareness and understanding of what morals are we can discard the ones that no longer have relevance and refine the ones that still do. As we have evolved from simpler creatures, so have our morals.
And as Grouchy and I were discussing over toast and a shower… A Christian is right in that morality HASN’T evolved (for religious people, that is) but it has evolved a lot without the help of religion to make a more comfortable and prosperous life for most of the rest of us.
Yay! I read every issue! Is there an RSS feed so I can keep up-to-date?
I am glad you stand corrected “A Christian”. It would be almost a first for religious believers, and about time too. You see, grown-ups can describe the transition states from belief to non-belief and back again. It’s called evidence. Can you do this for your belief in an afterlife? Or, indeed, any of your beleifs in this area? “Reading an old book” doesn’t count for much with the rest of us. This would not be too much of a problem if you didn’t try to impose your assinine and ill-informed nonsense upon the rest. This counts for a great deal when the chatter of relgion is held to matter when substantive issues of morality and fact are at issue. Abortion, euthanasia, stem-cell research. The list of things which only grown-ups ought to be allowed to talk about grows and grows. All opinions are not of equal value and those of the psychotically deluded should be ignored. And take your magic sky fairy friend with you.
@Paper-hand: There were slavery situations in the bible, but slavery, in and of itself is not wrong. Slavery in biblical times was a way of repaying a debt. What makes slavery wrong is the dehumanization of the slave, which is what God was against. So before you go there, yes, the slavery my African ancestors experienced in America was immoral due to the dehumanization of the Africans. But despite the dehumanization, God expected the slave to honor the master, which Jesus actually taught and exemplified by submitting Himself to authority, unless it was ungodly authority, then He did not. In order for society to function properly, we must submit to godly authority. There is structure and order. But God would deal with the dehumanizing slave owner. Justice is in His hand, the bible teaches. The bible is not anti-woman. It illustrates the roles each gender is best suited to play in society. Because of the Fall, man has decided that “women are worthless,” or whatever term you want to use, not God. You’ve read the Genesis account, and you know what God told Eve as a result of her disobedience to the command, that “he will rule over you.” God didn’t make that happen, that was the consequence of Adam and Eve’s action in the garden of Eden. Sin twisted all of nature. God never said women are worthless or second rate. In reference to the rape victim marrying the rapist, that was said for 2 reasons. One, because of the sex involved, and for two, because of the submission involved. Since you’ve read the bible, you know that sex is an intimacy designed to be shared between a male and female in a covenant relationship (marriage). Therefore, when a man has sex with a woman, she is technically his wife, and the wife is to submit to her husband, as other passages of scripture dictate. Now, again, before you go there…if my daughter is raped, do I want her marrying the rapist? Absolutely not, but as another scripture you have undoubtedly read states, “the human mind is not subject to the things of God, and cannot be.”
@Robyn: You said the first people that came up with morals didn’t have an epiphany, but then you describe them as having an epiphany when they “just decided” that society would be better without raping and pillaging. Curious. You also apparently didn’t read what I wrote. I never wrote that morals existed before God. I said Christianity was not about creating morals, because morals existed before Christianity, which was the purpose of the Mosaic law, to establish a nation that lived according to what is moral. Morals don’t change, because they’re founded in truth…and truth doesn’t change. If morals can change, then that means truth changes, and furthermore then, truth is relative, which doesn’t make sense. Situations and applications may change, but truth doesn’t. Two plus two will always be four. If a majority of people say it is 5, does that make two plus two five?
@A Christian
Actually i didn’t say we had a had an epiphany and decided what was right and what was wrong, I said that as we evolved as a people, we gradually realized what was good and what was detrimental to the community. You said the bible is not anti-woman, but rather illustrates the role we’re best suited to play. It is clear evidence that the bible was written by men. Being subservient is hardly what women were intended to do. There are many great world leaders that are women, doctors, teachers, lawyers are all professionals and deserve to be treated as such. To undermine their achievements by saying that what they ought to be doing is standing in the kitchen barefoot and pregnant is an insult to my gender. Now before you call me a crazy feminist, I will say that I am not, and I disagree with the western feminists of my generation, but only because they look to achieve something greater than equality which is wrong. The submission of any gender based solely on whether they dangle or not is absurd.
Also as for the second reason that you defended a rape victim being forced to marry her attacker, you defend the idea that she has already been dominated against her will, and now she must continue to submit to him for the rest of her life. You honestly don’t see a problem with that? Now when you said that you wouldn’t want your daughter to marry her rapist, does that mean you disagree with it? Or would you have her marry him anyway just because it’s in the bible?
Now as for your Orwellian analogy, you’ve made a small error. Morals so not equal truth. Morals are subjective. The morals of our culture differ greatly from those of different origin. An example of a truth would be, “people sometimes kill” that is fact. A moral would be, “it is wrong that people sometimes kill” that is subjective. Now it is widely recognized as moral to not kill, because it is detrimental to most societies. However one from the bible, leviticus 18:22, “Do not lay with a man as one lies with a woman…” is subjective. In many parts of Europe as well as in Canada, gay marriage is perfectly legal and accepted as moral by a vast majority. This is an example of how our morals are evolving with us, as we evolve as a people. “There are gay people” is a fact, “They should be allowed to wed” is a subjective moral.
Robyn: Good reply, I think I just fell in love with you a little.
A Christian: Do you not see that when you say things like “Since you’ve read the bible, you know that sex is an intimacy…” you’ve already accepted the bible as being true and are using that premise to justify the bible. This is pretty horribly circular logic and as it happens doesn’t even seem to be self consistent.
Your comparison of rape and marriage I found I found actually horrifying. You seem to be saying rape and marriage are basically the same thing. You already admit (or rather I infer from what you said) that the idea of your daughter being raped is abhorrent to you, does that not suggest to you that the role of the submissive wife
suggesteddemanded by the bible is also morally wrong?@Robyn: You’re right. The bible was written by men, but not with the intent of subjugating women. In the essence of being human, women are absolutely equal to men, but the roles that each are designed to play are not. You’ve read the bible, so you know that God used women in certain situations, especially where there was no man standing in the role he was supposed to be in. I am saying that women are the nurturers of the family, and the power they possess, based on the qualities God designed, helps develop better families. You obviously have a problem with hearing that women are to submit to their husbands. But don’t forget, the husband has to love his wife, as Christ loved the church, which you have read in scripture. My requirement is to love my wife despite her shortcomings, faults, failures, etc. It would be very easy to walk out on my wife when things get tough, but I am exhorted to love her and to provide for her, to not abuse her since I have been designated as the head. No organization of any type can work well without organizational structure.
You’ve read the bible, so you know also that the Christian faith teaches that we no longer hold to the customs of the old testament law. Since Christ completely lived out the law, His righteousness has been imputed to us. This is why I as a Believer do not have to perform sacrifices, etc, because Christ’s death took care of that for me. Again, you’ve read the bible so you know that righteousness could not be obtained by keeping the Mosaic law. If so, then Christ would not have had to die. The law was only designed to show what is sin. Therefore, just like I no longer have to perform animal sacrifices, I do not have to have my daughter marry her attacker. I’m sure if I lived in Old Testament Israel when the command was given, I probably would have went along with it. I will admit, I do not understand that part of the law, but thanks be to God, my righteousness is fulfilled in Christ and not in keeping the law perfectly.
On morals, if an erroneous trend in society began that 2+2=5, should we as a society decide that 5 is correct? Regardless of the error of many people that may say it is 5, the truth is that it is always 4. We must conform to the truth, not conform the truth to us. I didn’t say morals equal truth. I said morals come from truth. You said morals are subjective. That is precisely what got us in the mess we’re in in the first place. This is what the Genesis account (chapter 3) describes, man deciding what is right in his own eyes, and we see the consequences of it now. War, death, sickness, disease, poverty, etc.
I also did a search online and found an article where an atheist suggested that morals are biological and innate. It was a good read, but the biggest bunch of crock I’ve ever read. If you follow that to it’s logical conclusion, then really, you don’t need to teach anybody right from wrong, they know it innately. So then please tell me why my children (and others) innately take stuff from other children? They see what they want and they take it, regardless of who it hurts. They lie at early ages, disrespect authority, etc.
@Pikeamus: I am saying things like “Since you’ve read the bible, you know that…” because whether you believe it or not, or understand it or not, you at least know what the bible says. Most Christians think atheists don’t or haven’t read the bible, and that used to be my assumption. The fact that Robyn (and others) were able to quote scriptures have certainly changed my mind on that. Look, on the rape-marriage law, I do not fully comprehend it. I gave my best stab at what I thought it meant, but I don’t know completely. You can read my answer to Robyn above regarding the wife’s submissive role. You’re right also, that it is a circular argument to use the bible to prove the bible to an atheist. I guess I’m only explaining from scripture why I believe what I believe.
Can we all desist from winding A Christian up.
I really cannot be arsed wading through all the drivel he types on here.
Don’t christian keyboards have full stops or carriage return buttons on them ?
Where’s todays toon Mr Author. No excuses will be tolerated. Us atheists are so uncaring that we are not in the least bit concerned about your troubled life.
Just get jesus’n’mo online.
Anyway, who wrote the bullshit about the first few days of creation when man wasn’t created until dog had been out on the piss on Friday night. Only excuse I can think of for FUD (the alternative to ID – Fucking Unintelligent Design because anyone who thinks we were designed by some clever bastard has clearly never tried to scratch his/her own back or had toothache).
In the beginning there was darkness and nothing. God said let there be light and there was light (or was that AC/DC ?). There was still fuck all but you could see it better.
Upon further reading of the rape-marriage law, I noticed that the scripture first said that if a man raped a woman that was engaged (or married), the rapist was to be killed and the victim is not held accountable for the sexual intercourse–it was beyond her will. If the woman was not engaged or married, the rapist was punished to a lifetime sentence of supporting her and providing for her, and could not divorce her. Perhaps this was a way of his retribution to her, probably like if a company’s defective product hurt a consumer, and the consumer sued and won, the company would have to pay retribution.
Next…
Would it be possible for A Christian to get over the fact that he will NOT convert anyone who REALLY likes Jesus and Mo’! I am sure that there are people from every sect of every religion who could take up space here trying to tell us all how their religion is THE religion, etc. It’s a cartoon for Christs’ sake (hehehe)
My purpose was not to convert…I thought the cartoon was stupid, it is badly drawn, I took offense, I thought I’d say something, and here we are. By all means, enjoy.
@A Christian
First of all I’m quite glad you took the time to read what an atheist wrote on biological morals. I have never read it, and think it would be unwise for you to assume that just because an atheist wrote it we all take it as fact. To answer your questions, children will inately take things from each other becase of a bioligical inclination to survival, unless of course you’ve read augustine, then it’s because you assume babies are evil…because apparently that’s what saints teach…
anyways, the idea of evolving morals is quite contrary to the idea that we are born with them. It seems like I’ve said this more than enough times now, but I will repeat it once more. As a race humans develop morals that compliment our current needs. To keep the same morals as people followed 300 years ago would be absurd. This would have us doing such archaic things as marrying our cousins in order to preserve some imagined state of purity in our bloodlines. Nowadays we know that marrying our cousins is not such a hot idea, and so we’ve moved paced and now most of society would frown on such a practice.
Now about the rape law that seems to have confused you, the punishment of marrying her without eer being allowed to divorce her os not about repaying a debt to her, but rather the one that he owes her father. The bible states that the single woman who has been rpaed against her will, the rapist has dishonored her father. This is why he is forced to marry her, in order to repay he who he has wronged, in this case most sane people would assume it would be the woman he assaulted, however in the bible we lear that it is apparently her father that has been wronged.
And what mess has our allowance of morals to evolve gotten us into? The world is dying, but it is not because of changing morals. If anything it is due to an unwilingness to allow change. The irrational attempts to apply obsolete morals and restrictions on a growing society is absurd and only breeds division and hate. This is also due to the assumption that all societies follow the same set of moral guidelines. An often debated example of this is the requirement of some Arab theocracies that women cover their faces and hair. To the uneducated this is viewed as a form of female submission. However to the person who has bothered to learn anything about Islam, the veils that women wear are a form of protection. In Islam women are viewed as closer to God or Allah than men and therefore men view it as their duty to protect them and keep them pure. Now there will always be stories of people taking things too far, and who end up going against the moral guidelines their society has been conditioned to follow, but that is true of every culture. In fact originally the veil was a status symbol, that a man could afford to keep his wife idle, and protect her.
Now as for the role of a woman. I have one question for you. As a single woman, is my life meaningless because I don’t have a husband to serve? I don’t think so. I think a person’s purpose is for them to define for themselves.
@John
If you’re tired of refuting his claims, then don’t. And also, it is just too fun to see what kind of justifications he has for his views on morals and the bible. So while we’re waiting for the next comic, you might as well sit back and enjoy 😉
“I thought the cartoon was stupid, it is badly drawn”
I think you’re missing the point (there is only one drawing of each character); the way the cartoon is drawn is fairly irrelevant and in fact makes it all the more appealing as it is the deeper meaning that makes it so attractive.
A Christian: Successful troll is successful. +1
Robyn said: “An often debated example of this is the requirement of some Arab theocracies that women cover their faces and hair. To the uneducated this is viewed as a form of female submission. However to the person who has bothered to learn anything about Islam, the veils that women wear are a form of protection. In Islam women are viewed as closer to God or Allah than men and therefore men view it as their duty to protect them and keep them pure.”
Ok, what the hell? You are suggesting that somehow this is not an extra level of control? “No no, you women are far too pure, you should just stay at home. And do what I tell you because, believe me, I’m just trying to keep you pure.” I actually haven’t come across this apologetic line before (that islam views women as closer to god), but then I’m only up to chapter 5 of the quran (reading a couple of different analyses of it, don’t have the patience for the text itself) so maybe it comes up later.
This does however beg the question, what the bloody hell does a hijab protect you from? The only thing that springs to mind is that its supposed to somehow make you an unappealing rape target and for that its clearly not working. The laws on rape in islam (presumably from the hadith) are disgusting, even in the more moderate versions of Sharia.
It doesn’t matter if the stated reason for a certain practice is in some way holy (a claim, by the way, which is completely without evidence or reason), if all it does in practice is to give rise to huge inequality, suffering and subjugation then it is an evil practice.
@pikeamus
Unfortunately it is impossible to understand from the Quran alone why they feel that the hijab protects them, and I’m atheist remember, so I don’t really get in either. But after having lived in a muslim theocracy for a year I’m starting to get the jist of it.
The point I was trying to make was that here in the west, (I’m assuming you’re from western europe or north america, if not then I do apologize) we find that kind of behavior strange and pointless, where as it’s an integral part of their culture. I’m not sure how familiar you are with the history, but the veil was original a status symbol. Women could not of course wear this while laboring on farms, or what have you, so it was a sign that their husband was wealthy enough to keep them idle.
Now I would also like to point out that according to the Quran, i wish i was familiar enough to direct you to the exact chapter, but I’m unfortunately not, the wearing of the veil is totally optional. Now this does get skewed of course, but that’s true of every religious guideline to every religion so there’s nothing we can do about that 😉
Now whether it is “holy” or not has no bearing on my original point, but your argument, “…if all it does in practice is to give rise to huge inequality, suffering and subjugation then it is an evil practice.” illustrates that while those of us not familiar with their customs are abhorred by them, it is a perfectly normal practice for them.
I would also like to point out that the evolution of morals that I was talking about earlier with A Christian has been stunted in that particular region due to the isolation it endured before the discovery of fossil fuels made them all, forgive me, richer than god. So now if we wait for it to adept to a new globalized environment the fundamentalists will cling to their ideals while the progressives attempt to move forward. As the progressives begin to outnumber the fundamentalists I’m sure we will see an entirely altered set of moral guidelines that they follow.
God is simply irrelevant to morality. Plato showed this in the Euthyphro over 2000 years ago. Is what makes an action good that God willed it so or did she will it so because it is good? If the first then goodness is arbitrary, if the second then God is unnecessary.
Having said this, I submit that beliefs in a magic sky fairy compromise ones claim to be taken seriously in any case.
Someone up there asked whether there’s a feed of the comic. There is: http://www.jesusandmo.net/feed/.
TRiG.:)
@Robyn
You said “…so it was a sign that their husband was wealthy enough to keep them idle.” I’d like to emphasise the KEEP part. Does the suggestion that women are kept by their husbands not offend you immediately?
I am familiar with the historical root of this custom. I especially like to that note that darker colours became most prominent because darker dyes were more expensive so as a status symbol were more effective. In any case it doesn’t really matter why a custom originated, it’s the affect it has now that is important. It also seems to me irrelevant as to weather of not wearing a hijab or burka is mandated by the quran the problem is that it is mandated throught the islamic world. In many area you are harshly punished for not following this rule while in others you may just find people are just a little colder toward you. I’m sure there are even regions in islamic countries where no one would bat an eye if you went out uncovered.
Neglecting to criticize something because it is “an integral part of their culture” is, if you ask me, cowardly. The best line of arguement to get me to chill about this issue would be something along the lines of: “There are more important battles for equality to be waged, by taking a stance on this subject you are just making it harder because muslims feel that you are just attacking their culture because it’s different.” I don’t really buy this either but its worth some consideration.
I’m not doing a great job of articulating my thoughts today (because, of course, I’m usually great at it ) my apologies for that. I hope you are right that progressives within the islamic world will win out over the fundamentalists, I struggle to find much optimism on that line. Progressives don’t seem to have won the battle with fundamentalists within christianity yet and it seems much easier to interpret the bible in a more moderate way than it is the quran.
(btw, you are correct, I am in western europe. I’m also too hungover to proofread this so apologies for any hideous mistyping or gramatical errors.)
Just so we’re clear, A Christian actually said that slavery itself is not wrong. wowzers. Debate over. Credibility shot.
Also, A Christian, since you no longer live by the old testament, why can’t gays marry? By my recollection of the new testament, Jesus said nothing of that.
Christians like to cherry pick from the bible but they don’t like it when outsiders do it in reverse. Within a couple of pages of Moses revealing the ten commandments, the bible sets out guidelines for selling a slave, and very specific instructions about under which circumstances and how an owner could beat his slave. The bible also sets a price for the sale of a daughter. And this book is supposedly the source of morality???
@pikeamus
The historical beginnings of any custom is always relevant. In fact you could say that without knowing the histpry behind it, any custom bcaome irrelevant. Now I could criticize the wearing of the hijab based on the level of control it does allow over women. However i will not because after speaking to many a muslim woman I’ve found that they do not mind the hijab at all. Like I said earlier, the idea is that it protects the woman. Now if they are the ones who wear it, and they don;t mind it, then why should I bother criticizing it? I’ll note that I absolutely do not agree with their idea that it will keep them out hell, but only because I don’t believe in hell, you understand? As for the argument you suggested to me, it is absolutely relevant, but I also feel that is a cop out for what we were discussing originally.
Now as for the question about the ownership of his wife, I can assure you that it absolutely does offend, but in a current context. Back in the day when the veil was a status symbol, it was common for women to be viewed as the property of her husband. While I don’t condone it, there is little that can be done about it now. And as a woman who has stood by and listened to a man inquire about her price to her father, (it’s a loong story, but it involves camels…) I can promise you that the idea of a woman being treated as property disgusts me.
And I had a feeeling you were from there, you didn’t seem american, and I doubt there are that many of us canadians on here 🙂
Also I’m using a demo browser, so there is no spell check, so I ask you for equal consideration when wading through what i’m sure is a fountain of grammatical errors.
@Robyn
You are right, many Muslim women don’t mind wearing a hijab but to me this sounds rather like Stockholm syndrome (and I feel that’s only a mild exaggeration). The proles in 1984 didn’t seem to mind being at the bottom of the social ladder, nor did the epsilon’s in Brave New World (not perfect comparisons but hopefully you get the idea). You are also right that there is this idea that it protects the women but that idea is simply wrong. It does not protect the women. The requirement to wear the hijab appears to either do nothing and not be a problem or to be a tool to allow greater control over women.
This entire discussion seems to me to be a microcosm of the point made by quite well be Sam Harris that religious moderation protects harmful religious fundamentalism from criticism. Some disagree with him on this but I think he’s spot on.
“Now if they are the ones who wear it, and they don;t mind it, then why should I bother criticizing it?” Well I’m not going to criticize someone who makes a choice that is truly their own, free from coercion and in doing so doesn’t make life harder for others. If Muslim women want to wear a hijab (ignoring the fact, I guess, that they’ve almost certainly been subject to some brainwashing, indoctrination or deception simply to end up as a Muslim) but will defend the right of others to not be forced wear it then I’ll happily support them. I’m still going to challenge unfounded and irrational belief when it raises its head.
I’d repeat the same disclaimer from last time but I think we are both happy to forgive one another for some sloppy spelling and suchlike by now 🙂
Haha, it seems we’re in agreement that the whole thing is a pointless show of religious devotion but, barring that, I think you’re comparison of the hijab to stockholm syndrome is quite more than a mild exaggeration. Now I love the fact that you brought up 1984, because it is actually one of my all time favorite books, and if you’ll remember correctly, the proles were actually allowed many more freedoms than the party members. So it was really only the party that viewed them as lower class. Personally I think I’d have preferred to be a prole and retain my right to divorce, free thought, etc.
Now your Sam Harris argument is something I can only agree with. However, I can only say that I think religion is lunacy, and people who follow it are crazy brainwashed people who were clearly lied to as children. However now I not only sound uneducated, hostile as well, and the more hostile we are, the more we’ll push them away from the truth, and the more they’ll hold on to their precious rituals and beliefs. Now as far as the hijab is concerned, if it has been stated previously that I do not support any religious action, then the only thing left about the hijab is inherently cultural, because I’ve already condemned it as a religious act. Now when it comes to a secular criticism of culture, I’m generally hesitant, because I am sympathetic to the differences in our culture. And so the only thing I can say is that of every muslim woman I’ve ever talked to, they’ve never had an issue with the hijab. When walking through the streets of Qatar, I observed a group of veiled girls giggling together. As I walked by with a friend of the family, they looked at him, giggled at each other and then proceeded to lift their veils for a few seconds, and then let them fall again before taking off. This is them playing, like for example if I got drunk with a few friends and we decided to flash some guys walking by. Same principle. Now I understand that this might never happen in our neighboring country of Saudi Arabia, but what is happening there is an example of the fundamentalist resistance that I told you would have to happen before the progressives won out. You showed some uncertainty earlier that this would ever happen given the state of christianity in America. However you must concede that liberalism has come a long way since its puritan beginnings. Also in Europe where scientists were once condemned, we have an LHC that could theoretically prove the big bang theory, and while there are still those who protest this saying it goes against god or what have you, the fact that the experiment is allowed to go ahead with no disruption from these people is a testament to how the progressives in that area now outnumber the fundamentalists, and so I have every reason to believe that this will hold true for the middle eastern part of the world as well.
I will however say again that hostility towards their customs is not the way to encourage this, instead patience is needed. We cannot force them to think like us, we have to wait for it to happen on its own.
the thought of being on my knees for jesus gives me a boner
@Robyn
Apologies for the delayed reply. I’ve had a death in the family and haven’t much been (and still, truthfully, am not) in the mood for contemplating this topic. It doesn’t sound as though we are at odds quite as much as it initially seemed. Perhaps we can resume the discussion if (or perhaps when) it becomes relevent again in a future comic.
Take care.
It’s funny (and sad!) because it’s true.
I love your comics! This is super!
You, sir, have a great mind.
Dear christian, get the fuck out of here. 🙂
A Christian started by saying the strip mocks what its author does not understand – and then came back to mock non-theistic morality, showing a shallow understanding of it. Perhaps AC grew up believing that the only reason to behave morally is divine punishment; but then why does every society, including those that never got tablets at Sinai, have rules against murder and theft (at least between men of equal rank within the tribe)? Because societies with such rules thrive, and those without them die out.
As for the divine sacrifice: to whom was it offered? (Forgive me if this was answered somewhere above – all those long paragraphs in tiny type …)
Jesus Christ, it’s about time a Poe/xian wandered into the comments– they were getting stale from all the preaching-to-the-atheist-choir circle jerking that was going on. 😉
Bless AC with His Noodliness’s noodly appendage, and let’s give ’em a big hand for coming out to play!
While obviously this conversation happened quite some time ago now (only just recently found Jesus and Mo) Thankyou Robyn, for this: “However, I can only say that I think religion is lunacy, and people who follow it are crazy brainwashed people who were clearly lied to as children. However now I not only sound uneducated, hostile as well, and the more hostile we are, the more we’ll push them away from the truth, and the more they’ll hold on to their precious rituals and beliefs.”
If our goal as nice happy athiests is to help people realise our perspective on truth, then we don’t help that goal by appearing hostile, angry and unwilling to engage in conversation in respecting ways.
Don’t get me wrong – the reason I’m an athiest is I don’t really respect theistic views, but I respect the people who hold them for their humanity. This is why I wish to kindly show them how I and many other athiests think about life.
Seen as how A Christian has not commented here again, I feel it is hardly fair to throw out responses which I doubt they will see…
…but…
the ‘grown-up’ analogy: surely it is children who are told what to do, while adults are able to use wisdom to decide for themselves which is the best course of action?
Empathy is how we generally decide what is right: “how would I feel if I were that person? what would I want to see happen?”
I have problems with the other arguments presented, what with the rape, the slavery and the biblical perspectives on these immoral acts – but as I dare say A Christian will not see them I’ll not bother – unless I see a reply I suppose.
veils are a method of control and subjection of woman, anyone believing otherwise is full of ****