Now we all know that it will take a unified theology to truly understand everything. Someone much smarter than me must unite all of the religious tenants, the Intelligent Design theory, and evolution into a one size fits all belief structure so that we can come together as a whole. I thought that was what our beloved “Obama” would do in the first 100 days or as it will be in the new “BOOK” the Biogenisology. In the big inning “Obama” said let there be peace …etc.
I was musing on the same thing the other day, much less elegantly and amusingly –
“…theologians have nothing to offer on the subject. Neither does anyone else, really – no one can offer a definitive answer to those why questions; but theologians actually muddy the water by offering pseudo-answers based on fantasies and wishes.”
Please help me out here. Isn’t the answer to the question posed by Jesus and child molester Mo (PBUH) that such questions (“why are we here”, etc.) are ill-formed to begin with – that they are meaningless in a natural universe? Was it Wittgenstein who said that or what?
Tony, Sorry, you had to be there. It was about a priest who claimed he was changing curtains in the kitchen, while in the nude, slipped on the chair upon which he was standing and fell on his buttocks onto the kitchen table which just happened to have a potato on it and this poor spud then became irretreivably jammed into his rectum. At least that was the story he told to the Emergency Room Staff. It’s a little funnier after a few glasses of ink.
Hamidreza — some of the questions (Why are we here? What is the purpose of beauty?) are ill-formed according to Wittgenstein. But some of these kinds of questions (Why should we be compassionate?) are not — they aren’t scientific questions either.
But then again, they’re not theological questions. They are aesthetic questions. That’s the underlying crime of theology – treating aesthetic questions as if they were empirical questions, and thereby making it impossible to actually answer them. That’s what leads to the physical destruction from religion — thinking that poetry is a yes/no question.
“That’s the underlying crime of theology – treating aesthetic questions as if they were empirical questions, and thereby making it impossible to actually answer them.”
joe, i think i love you. i’ve been having this conversation/argument for years with a friend & either the intention is to not understand my point or to not understand period. ^_^
Joe – Thanks. If you can add more to the issue of (quite often dastardly) ill-composed language, I am all ears.
On the question of aesthetics – I need some clarification. Lets remove/reduce out of aesthetics the following: 1- brain pleasure centers as evolved for survival (probably the largest component) – and I include in here “higher pleasures” like seeing an offspring succeed, anti-depression mechanisms so that the organism does not commit suicide, etc., 2- composition of arbitrary value systems (e.g. it is “good” to be compassionate to the poor) – IOW making up rules for the game, based on some non-empirical/ideological motive that tickles the intellectual center of the mind.
Question is: If you factor out of aesthetics the pleasue center and essentially arbitrary value system composition activity — what is left of aesthetics? Anything left there?
If there is nothing left, then why do we have aesthetics?
I don’t actually think they’re aesthetic questions at all.
These are all personal opinion, or *potential* answers. I’m not saying here that I have the answers. So, in Joe’s order:
We may be here, as a recent study suggested, as “energy conduits”. Redistributing energy from the Sun, with the intent to bring energy transfer to equilibrium. We could simply be the agents of entropy.
Many species use visual attractants like birds, flowers, etc. Perhaps if beauty can be explained as the human response to these same traits in “lower” animals, then it’s easy to explain the purpose of beauty in evolutionary terms.
Compassion results in a higher level of genetic diversity, since each act of compassion increases the chances of an individual’s survival. Diversity in the gene pool allows greater adaptability to adverse conditions (when considers from the perspective of the human race as a super-organism) and contributes to the continuing success of the species.
I find it very hard to believe that we won’t be able to explain everything in our observable universe, given enough time, in natural terms.
Omigod, Ophelia, you got it all started again. However, everybody already knows you are the barmaid. Since I’ve seen your picture and read some of your excellent stuff, I think you fill the role perfectly.
I am in agreement by the bucketful
about theology. When I was in college, we read all those popular new theologians
who worked SOOO hard to avoid the issue of Christ’s divinity. I should have gone into it–I’d never have to be wrong in the classroom.
Now to the issue: the tap handle just might be a finger unto the world. But, yes, of course, it is also a member of the phallic set. In which case I supppose the wide, copious, invitiing, dark glass of stout (never cold!) is yonic.
The very question of “why” betrays a mindset that things happen for a reason which has a function in a rational, predictive mind. Should “we,” or “beauty” have a purpose? Might they not simply exist, without having been preconceived or judged?
Seemingly that thought never occurred to anyone who commented so far. Quite possibly it did, however, to the cartoonist. Perhaps that’s what the cartoon’s “purpose” was: to make us think about purpose!
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
Jesus and Mo make the world a better place, bless their little hearts. Ophelia Benson
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
The liveliest depictions of Muhammad currently available... Malise Ruthven
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
Jesus & Mo is one of the most wonderful things on the internet.. JT Eberhard
Wittily captures much of the absurdity of religious apologetics. Mano Singham
I love jesusandmo.net cartoons - witty and sharp! Katha Pollitt
Often hilarious, frequently wry, these cartoons do what all the best cartoons do: they tell the truth through humour. Terry Sanderson, NSS President
...a wonderfully acid British cartoonist... Nick Cohen
I love the scrappy mockery of Jesus and Mo. Freedom of speech
includes the freedom to mock any person, any thing, any activity, and
any belief -- and J&M stands up for this unflinchingly Richard Stallman
...empowering, important and deeply progressive, not to mention hilarious... Council of Ex-Muslims
August 17, 2007
That beer handle becomes more phallic each time it’s drawn XD
The handle also seems a bit larger every time Barmaid pulls on it.
I guess she’s been priming it.
Now we all know that it will take a unified theology to truly understand everything. Someone much smarter than me must unite all of the religious tenants, the Intelligent Design theory, and evolution into a one size fits all belief structure so that we can come together as a whole. I thought that was what our beloved “Obama” would do in the first 100 days or as it will be in the new “BOOK” the Biogenisology. In the big inning “Obama” said let there be peace …etc.
JMo,
Did you mean “tenets”? If not, “tenants” works too, on a somewhat different level.
I just had a debate on this very subject with a Christian minister…excellent as alway author
Hey, there’s my gravatar again. That’s a Mongolian Death Worm, in case anyone wondered.
If the barmaid ever stands for parliament, she’s got my vote.
Jesus is right. This is what we have philosophy for, to deal with the questions science can’t. (And art).
Thanks Dick, on another level thats also funny…..
did you just depict mohammed? bad-ass.
I was musing on the same thing the other day, much less elegantly and amusingly –
“…theologians have nothing to offer on the subject. Neither does anyone else, really – no one can offer a definitive answer to those why questions; but theologians actually muddy the water by offering pseudo-answers based on fantasies and wishes.”
Ah, yes, well – that’s probably where I got the idea from, Ophelia. I remember reading that.
Aw, author, you flatter me. You probably know I just want the world to think I am the barmaid.
Colonel? What do you mean? It looks nothing like a potato?
I am smitten by the barmaid.
Why are they drinking ink?
It’s Guinness beer – almost ink!
Somtimes it can be worse if served not too cold! ARGH!
Potato? What are you talking about, person with URL for a name? “Phallic” does not mean what you think it means.
Please help me out here. Isn’t the answer to the question posed by Jesus and child molester Mo (PBUH) that such questions (“why are we here”, etc.) are ill-formed to begin with – that they are meaningless in a natural universe? Was it Wittgenstein who said that or what?
Tony, Sorry, you had to be there. It was about a priest who claimed he was changing curtains in the kitchen, while in the nude, slipped on the chair upon which he was standing and fell on his buttocks onto the kitchen table which just happened to have a potato on it and this poor spud then became irretreivably jammed into his rectum. At least that was the story he told to the Emergency Room Staff. It’s a little funnier after a few glasses of ink.
Hamidreza — some of the questions (Why are we here? What is the purpose of beauty?) are ill-formed according to Wittgenstein. But some of these kinds of questions (Why should we be compassionate?) are not — they aren’t scientific questions either.
But then again, they’re not theological questions. They are aesthetic questions. That’s the underlying crime of theology – treating aesthetic questions as if they were empirical questions, and thereby making it impossible to actually answer them. That’s what leads to the physical destruction from religion — thinking that poetry is a yes/no question.
“That’s the underlying crime of theology – treating aesthetic questions as if they were empirical questions, and thereby making it impossible to actually answer them.”
Great point!
joe, i think i love you. i’ve been having this conversation/argument for years with a friend & either the intention is to not understand my point or to not understand period. ^_^
Joe – Thanks. If you can add more to the issue of (quite often dastardly) ill-composed language, I am all ears.
On the question of aesthetics – I need some clarification. Lets remove/reduce out of aesthetics the following: 1- brain pleasure centers as evolved for survival (probably the largest component) – and I include in here “higher pleasures” like seeing an offspring succeed, anti-depression mechanisms so that the organism does not commit suicide, etc., 2- composition of arbitrary value systems (e.g. it is “good” to be compassionate to the poor) – IOW making up rules for the game, based on some non-empirical/ideological motive that tickles the intellectual center of the mind.
Question is: If you factor out of aesthetics the pleasue center and essentially arbitrary value system composition activity — what is left of aesthetics? Anything left there?
If there is nothing left, then why do we have aesthetics?
Thanks for each and all answers.
I don’t actually think they’re aesthetic questions at all.
These are all personal opinion, or *potential* answers. I’m not saying here that I have the answers. So, in Joe’s order:
We may be here, as a recent study suggested, as “energy conduits”. Redistributing energy from the Sun, with the intent to bring energy transfer to equilibrium. We could simply be the agents of entropy.
Many species use visual attractants like birds, flowers, etc. Perhaps if beauty can be explained as the human response to these same traits in “lower” animals, then it’s easy to explain the purpose of beauty in evolutionary terms.
Compassion results in a higher level of genetic diversity, since each act of compassion increases the chances of an individual’s survival. Diversity in the gene pool allows greater adaptability to adverse conditions (when considers from the perspective of the human race as a super-organism) and contributes to the continuing success of the species.
I find it very hard to believe that we won’t be able to explain everything in our observable universe, given enough time, in natural terms.
To um…
You need to see the very first Jesus and Mo publication. It explains how it isn’t Mo being depicted but a body double.
Dubbie
Guinness isn’t beer it’s stout, and it could be mild that they are drinking that’s often black.
Jobrag
Omigod, Ophelia, you got it all started again. However, everybody already knows you are the barmaid. Since I’ve seen your picture and read some of your excellent stuff, I think you fill the role perfectly.
I am in agreement by the bucketful
about theology. When I was in college, we read all those popular new theologians
who worked SOOO hard to avoid the issue of Christ’s divinity. I should have gone into it–I’d never have to be wrong in the classroom.
Now to the issue: the tap handle just might be a finger unto the world. But, yes, of course, it is also a member of the phallic set. In which case I supppose the wide, copious, invitiing, dark glass of stout (never cold!) is yonic.
The very question of “why” betrays a mindset that things happen for a reason which has a function in a rational, predictive mind. Should “we,” or “beauty” have a purpose? Might they not simply exist, without having been preconceived or judged?
Seemingly that thought never occurred to anyone who commented so far. Quite possibly it did, however, to the cartoonist. Perhaps that’s what the cartoon’s “purpose” was: to make us think about purpose!
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WideAwake, your statement that they might simply exist is on the order of the 6 year old, when asked the reason for his actions, says “becau
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JMo ” Re Tenants
Christians and others cannot agree, because they are arguing from different premisses.