An odd thing, isn’t it, to see “Merry Christmas” on a page so devoted to the fictional nature of a redeemer Christ.
My belief is that divisions of time, such as holidays, are mostly arbitrary. (Not entirely, but mostly.) So in that spirit, I wish you all a “Happy Arbitrary Division of Time Day”.
May you never be plagued by illnesses or psychological discomforts, and may all your dreams come true.
But Santa Claus is another name for Saint Nicholas, surely. And without christianity you wouldn’t have any saints would you? So there’s a very tenuous connection.
Been mostly lurking lately, but it’s time to let you all know that I’m still riding around the sun on this amazing ball of rock. Merry whatever it is you find joy in everybody. For myself, I love Christmas.
(Probably haven’t signed in for so long that I’ve lost my avatar through use of the wrong credentials. Oh well, eh.)
Thanks Author!
Right back at ya!
I have looked forward to the email notification and enjoyed them throughout the year
Have a great festive season and a happy and prosperous New Year
But then Clive P., why shouldn’t we agnosts, heathens, atheists heretics and others just appropriate xmas and daddy xmas? Take the feast and strip it of religious delusions – just as we did with names of the days. Who cares that they are named after some norse or celtic or whatever gods.
Lovely to hear from Darwin Harmless; I reciprocate his good wishes to all of us in the Cock & Bull pub tribe, especially the hard-working, yet perennially tolerant and patient Barmaid.
M27Holts: My claymore is none of your business! And I hope you understood that my tongue was in my cheek in that ejaculation! My good wishes to DH and the rest of our tribe were meant sincerely.
I reiterate my admiration for the Barmaid; she has to put up with so much arrogance and stupidity from J and M (and occasionally Moses). I wish we could see what she looks like now and then. I visualise her as a mix of Serena Williams and the young Jane Fonda.
Jane Fonda? Showing your age there. The barmaid (in my minds eye) would speak with a welsh lilt, have a cleavage you couldn’t easily miss with a casually tossed peanut and look like the young Jenny Hanley did in 1976….
No accounting for taste, as they say. She’s obviously the spit of Shirley Mclaine in The Apartment.
I still find it hard to resist a Carol, their being so redolent of lost youth, although my cassock, surplice and ruff are long gone to the moths.
Recent news that church attendance is now below 1%, with ‘hatch, match and dispatch’ being the only causes to turn up purely as a tradition, means that for most it’s a secular festival.
Good to see old DH still in the corner of the old Cock n Bull and season’s greetings to all enlightened customers. (An old mate not long gone used to insist on ‘A merry syphilis and a happy gonorrhoea’’ which I include mainly for M27!)
Aye, the shadow of friends who have been taken by DEATH can only be dispersed by the light cast by a fuck off fire and a shed load of beer and whiskey…and a winter solstice surrounded by friends and family. Eating themselves into a coma…
I say that it’s completely rational to base holidays on astronomical events. Solstices, equinoxes, full and new moons. Those events are objective, predictable, and communal. So light those lights and throw those parties, you’ll feel better.
I don’t even mind the commercialism and the religiosity. You do you, dears. Besides, Santa is a triumph of skepticism. He’s a myth that you’re expected to grow out of. His healing miracle is that he does not exist. Santa is the Saint of the Secular.
To Rrr: your point is valid. To people on the Southern Hemisphere, this is Summer Solstice, when the light tops out. They’ll bottom out next solstice, when we top out. Both deserve to be holiday seasons. I’m as useless on summer solstices as I am on winter solstices.
I say that the barmaid’s name is Sidiru. We see her in the Epic of Gilgamesh, as underworld barmaid advising the culture hero. Give up on immortality, she told Gilgamesh. She said, live your life, work and play, eat and drink, kiss your wife, hug your kids.
Dear cartoonist, may we see Gilgamesh visiting the Cock and Bull? And get the same advice?
Here’s another visitor I’d love to see at the Cock and Bull:
Santa!
On December 26, the day after he does all that work, and needs to unwind.
How would Jesus react?
Son of Glenner & Choirboy, I think that, if ever Author (peace be upon him) let Barmaid look into a mirror, we’d see ourselves. Doesn’t Author (hallowed be his name) make us look through her eyes? Aren’t all her remarks, questions, witticisms also ours or the ‘Gee, I wish I’d said that’ kind of things? That’s what makes us love Barmaid, isn’t it?
Love Barmaid as thyself and Author above all – and merry whatever you celebrate!
Santa at the pub would be weird, because his thing is not beer, but toadstools. Amanita muscaria, fly agaric. Distinctive red and white color scheme, flying shamans, reindeer, entering huts via smoke hole, etc.
I generally celebrate the Feast of the Undying Sun about now. For those of us in the North, it is now that the days start getting longer, the sun returns to the sky for longer and longer intervals, and we have the promise of Spring after Winter.
Not an arbitrary event, but a very real part of the campaign against Seasonally Adjusted Depression,
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
September 21, 2022
Merry Xmas to Author and y’all of our little tribe in the C&B!
‘tWas me, the anonymous first (?) post…
Happy Christmas to everyone, and especially to Author. Thanks for all the delightful challenges throughout the year
🙂
An odd thing, isn’t it, to see “Merry Christmas” on a page so devoted to the fictional nature of a redeemer Christ.
My belief is that divisions of time, such as holidays, are mostly arbitrary. (Not entirely, but mostly.) So in that spirit, I wish you all a “Happy Arbitrary Division of Time Day”.
May you never be plagued by illnesses or psychological discomforts, and may all your dreams come true.
Season’s greetings to all who celebrate a holiday near the solstice!
Odd, how so, Laripu? Xmas is devoted to Father Xmas, aka Santa Claus, isn’t it? Nothing to do with redemption. O:-)
But Santa Claus is another name for Saint Nicholas, surely. And without christianity you wouldn’t have any saints would you? So there’s a very tenuous connection.
Wishing everyone a super solstice.
Been mostly lurking lately, but it’s time to let you all know that I’m still riding around the sun on this amazing ball of rock. Merry whatever it is you find joy in everybody. For myself, I love Christmas.
(Probably haven’t signed in for so long that I’ve lost my avatar through use of the wrong credentials. Oh well, eh.)
Happy solstice season! May this be the darkest time of your year!
Happy solstice everbody. May the seed of your loins be fruitful in the belly of your woman….Peace…
para: Thats a bit discriminatory against Antipodeans, innit?
Apart from that, yeah!
absolutely! Tribalists must be exterminated
I, as a proud member of the Peoples front of Judea must cast scorn on the Judean popular front….SPLITTERS!
Thanks Author!
Right back at ya!
I have looked forward to the email notification and enjoyed them throughout the year
Have a great festive season and a happy and prosperous New Year
Happy solstice to all, looking forward to the equinox next.
Wishing “Gott Yul, and Good Health for the next solar revolution of Gaia” to everyone!
But then Clive P., why shouldn’t we agnosts, heathens, atheists heretics and others just appropriate xmas and daddy xmas? Take the feast and strip it of religious delusions – just as we did with names of the days. Who cares that they are named after some norse or celtic or whatever gods.
Merry whatever-you-wish-to-call-it and a Happy New Year to all.
Enjoy, take it easy and see you all next year 👍
Lovely to hear from Darwin Harmless; I reciprocate his good wishes to all of us in the Cock & Bull pub tribe, especially the hard-working, yet perennially tolerant and patient Barmaid.
And death to all other tribes!
Bury grizbus.
SOG. Did you shout that last line waving your weapon? 🙂
M27Holts: My claymore is none of your business! And I hope you understood that my tongue was in my cheek in that ejaculation! My good wishes to DH and the rest of our tribe were meant sincerely.
I reiterate my admiration for the Barmaid; she has to put up with so much arrogance and stupidity from J and M (and occasionally Moses). I wish we could see what she looks like now and then. I visualise her as a mix of Serena Williams and the young Jane Fonda.
Jane Fonda? Showing your age there. The barmaid (in my minds eye) would speak with a welsh lilt, have a cleavage you couldn’t easily miss with a casually tossed peanut and look like the young Jenny Hanley did in 1976….
No accounting for taste, as they say. She’s obviously the spit of Shirley Mclaine in The Apartment.
I still find it hard to resist a Carol, their being so redolent of lost youth, although my cassock, surplice and ruff are long gone to the moths.
Recent news that church attendance is now below 1%, with ‘hatch, match and dispatch’ being the only causes to turn up purely as a tradition, means that for most it’s a secular festival.
Good to see old DH still in the corner of the old Cock n Bull and season’s greetings to all enlightened customers. (An old mate not long gone used to insist on ‘A merry syphilis and a happy gonorrhoea’’ which I include mainly for M27!)
Aye, the shadow of friends who have been taken by DEATH can only be dispersed by the light cast by a fuck off fire and a shed load of beer and whiskey…and a winter solstice surrounded by friends and family. Eating themselves into a coma…
I say that it’s completely rational to base holidays on astronomical events. Solstices, equinoxes, full and new moons. Those events are objective, predictable, and communal. So light those lights and throw those parties, you’ll feel better.
I don’t even mind the commercialism and the religiosity. You do you, dears. Besides, Santa is a triumph of skepticism. He’s a myth that you’re expected to grow out of. His healing miracle is that he does not exist. Santa is the Saint of the Secular.
To Rrr: your point is valid. To people on the Southern Hemisphere, this is Summer Solstice, when the light tops out. They’ll bottom out next solstice, when we top out. Both deserve to be holiday seasons. I’m as useless on summer solstices as I am on winter solstices.
I say that the barmaid’s name is Sidiru. We see her in the Epic of Gilgamesh, as underworld barmaid advising the culture hero. Give up on immortality, she told Gilgamesh. She said, live your life, work and play, eat and drink, kiss your wife, hug your kids.
Dear cartoonist, may we see Gilgamesh visiting the Cock and Bull? And get the same advice?
Here’s another visitor I’d love to see at the Cock and Bull:
Santa!
On December 26, the day after he does all that work, and needs to unwind.
How would Jesus react?
Santa? What about Satan….
Son of Glenner & Choirboy, I think that, if ever Author (peace be upon him) let Barmaid look into a mirror, we’d see ourselves. Doesn’t Author (hallowed be his name) make us look through her eyes? Aren’t all her remarks, questions, witticisms also ours or the ‘Gee, I wish I’d said that’ kind of things? That’s what makes us love Barmaid, isn’t it?
Love Barmaid as thyself and Author above all – and merry whatever you celebrate!
Shaughn,
Well put, that!
I’m happy to see Darwin Harmless-and several others of the Old Crowd-are still among us.
Lapiru, chag sameach.
Never mind. New year soon and then only 40 odd days for *DARWIN DAY* A proper day to celebrate.
Santa at the pub would be weird, because his thing is not beer, but toadstools. Amanita muscaria, fly agaric. Distinctive red and white color scheme, flying shamans, reindeer, entering huts via smoke hole, etc.
Merry Yuletide one and all.
Haha. Santa got a mince pie and a glass of 25yo Irish whiskey. And he enjoyed every last drop… 🙂
I generally celebrate the Feast of the Undying Sun about now. For those of us in the North, it is now that the days start getting longer, the sun returns to the sky for longer and longer intervals, and we have the promise of Spring after Winter.
Not an arbitrary event, but a very real part of the campaign against Seasonally Adjusted Depression,