regs
May 27th, 2020
How do they know he’s saying “G-d”? It is a mystery.
If you’re wondering about Moses’ agnosticism, it started here, in 2011.
Latest book…
Random oldie…
February 27, 2019-
- NICE T-SHIRT (Thank you for not provoking my uncontrollable lust). Currently unavailable.
Author: Respectful suggestion – in Panel 3, should “God” not be “G-d”?
… in Mo speech balloon.
SoG – No, Mo means exactly what he says.
The treatment of Moses in the comic seems inconsistent with that of Jesus and Mo (and the other deities who occasionally show up), in that Moses seems to be more of a modern secular Jew, whereas the others are much more traditional in their thinking. (Traditional Judaism is very much into Rules and Regs!) It’s not that I mind. Frustrating expectation can often be a good thing! But it doesn’t entirely seem to fit with the rest.
Hey, have we ever seen a devout Communist here? (Karl Marx would fit in to the cast nicely!) Or an aggressively pious SJW? (Hmm, who would be the avatar for that?) Secular religions can be every bit as closed to reason as those involving the supernatural, so why not?
Now we need a degree in English literary criticism to comprehend the comics?!!?! Jesus F Christ!!!
Mo’s imaginary sky fairy isn’t addressed as “God,” it’s “Allah.” Big Al to its friends.
My apologies to Author and Mr Iscariot. I’ll just get back under my stone and mind my own business.
@JFI: Isn’t “Allah” the Arabic word for “God”? So it wouldn’t be unreasonable for Mo to say “God” when speaking English…
The punch line made me laugh.
And good point too. Jews are a people, who have a religion. Even if you reject the religion, you’re still part of the people.
You don’t stop being Brazilian if you stop being Catholic.
Laripu
Speaking as a very definite Lutheran athiest, I can attest that your point is stronger than you know. You don’t even stop being Catholic when you stop being Catholic.
[…] Today’s Jesus and Mo strip, called “regs”, came with an email note from the author: […]
Laripu: de-catholicization (or any revealed wisdomectomy) is a journey not a destination. I started when I was ten. I am now in my sixties and I am still not completely done.
I wonder to what degree being raised Catholic in my youth has contributed to my current state of neurotic depression.
Blaming it on God doesn’t do shit of course, except for helping with amusement.
Never provoke the im-ginary c-smic ps-cho just for the h-ll of it.
If an agnostic is someone who doesn’t believe in G-d nor disbelieve in him either; what do you call someone who both DOES believe and DOES disbelieve? I am asking for a friend, naturally.
(Blast, no avatar! Try again)
If an agnostic is someone who doesn’t believe in G-d nor disbelieve in him either; what do you call someone who both DOES believe and DOES disbelieve? I am asking for a friend, naturally.
Of course, if you stop believing in the Virgin of Guadalupe, you stop being Mexican.
Paul Seed, according to the strip, that’s Moses.
G-d is pronounced “jeed,” btw. At least that’s how it sounds in my head. I suppose h-m is pronounced “hmm.”
To Paul Seed,
Aren’t you describing the Church of England, where belief in gods is entirely optional these days, it seems, and disbelieving is a convenient possibility?
In panel 2, we see the three fellows sitting there, and all three have beards. So I ask:
– is facial hair necessary in order to be a religious figure?
– if any of the three shaved, would that cause a rift in the structure of space-time? Or would the beard miraculously grow back?
– I have a beard. Am I a religious figure? Does anyone want to worship me? Who wants to write the sacred text of Laripuism?
Laripu: If you fancy founding a new religion, why not give it a try? It worked for Joseph Smith; it worked for Lafayette Ron Hubbard; I don’t know whether either of them had a beard. Mary Baker Eddy founded Christian Science, I don’t think she had facial hair. Buddha is normally represented as beardless.
I have a beard myself, but I am too lazy to set up my own religion.
SoG, the hardest thing about starting a religion is the knowledge from the outset that it is a scam, designed to either make money or gain power, and thus one must be without scruples. All of the folks you mentioned, especially Joseph Smith and L. Ron were aware of that.
It supports the adage that the difference between a cult and a religion is in a cult, the person at the top knows it is a scam. In a religion, that person is dead.
SoG, the hardest thing about starting a religion is the knowledge from the outset that it is a scam, designed to either make money or gain power, and thus one must be without scruples. All of the folks you mentioned, especially Joseph Smith and L. Ron were aware of that.
It supports the adage that the difference between a cult and a religion is in a cult, the person at the top knows it is a scam. In a religion, that person is dead.
Moses was a hero of mine when I was growing up, Ed Moses obviously….
Random thought: if the Great Flood killed off everyone but the Noahs does that mean we’re all Jewish? If so, shouldn’t we all be in on The Great Conspiracy? Not only should the Vatican-Zionists be telling everyone the truth but they should be giving us all wealth and riches and money and power and all those good things.
Sorry, it’s hot here and I’m a little lizardly-feline sluggish.
Now, what were we discussing?
Oh, yes, “The Nine Billion Names Of God” by A, C. Clarke. A slightly scary horror story and why you should never mention that Alannis is one of them.
………….
Ooops.
[Note: the above name is of course spelt incorrectly as a safety feature. A variation on the Pascal Wager theme.] [Not that I believe but there’s little profit in accumulating demerits accidentally. Doing it deliberately is far more fun.]
M27Holts, are you referring to the artist or the athlete? I suspect the athlete, as you British love your futballers. The artist is from Los Angeles, and was a superb abstract painter. In this vein, I think a new version of soccer, with appropriate social distancing, would be a new kink in the fabric of sports. Summat like the idea, in baseball, that your home run could be disqualified if you didn’t say excuse me when sliding into home base. From my homey base in LA county, USA, home to the worst world leader in the whole damn world.
Nope, Abraham was the first Jew, and he came well after Noah.
PD. It was the athlete…Don’t you think that Trump us doing a fine job? He does obviously…
jb – about Abraham:
with apologies to Bob Dylan, his line should have been:
When god said to Abraham “Kill me a son”
Abe should have taken some Risperidone.
It’s an antipsychotic drug. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risperidone
I believe the origin of the three Abraham religions was psychosis. If someone hears voices telling them to kill their son, I’d call that psychosis.
@Laripu: if any one of them shaved, I guess it would grow back overnight, as it did for Lestat (or was it the other one – can’t remember?).
So Moses is an atheist now but still kinda sorta believes there’s someone you shouldn’t provoke. So maybe not quite.
@Tomas, my understanding is that in Arabic, ellah is the generic word for god, whereas allah is the particular abrahamic one. Is that what author is referring to?
Having trump as president is agony. The only respite is seeing Steve Bell’s caricatures of the fat ass whiny little bitch. Yes, he is doing a fine job. A fine job of ruining the country and the presidency. He has his knee on the neck of America. “When the looting starts, the shooting starts”. Excuse me while I take a knee.
Len, some people walk onto the roadway in preference to walking under a step-ladder leaning against a wall. Some people have anti-malware running on a Mac. Some people use “jings, crivens an hep ma boab” as their goto swearing. Some people throw some of the spilt salt over a shoulder to ward off the demons or rap their knuckles against wood to ward off misfortune or respond to a sneeze with “bless you”.
Few, if any of those people believe, they are merely low-key Pascal’s-Wagering when it doesn’t cost them much.
If you have a choice between owning a black cat or a nice orangey one, why not choose the one that isn’t associated with poor luck and witches?
Of course, stepping into the roadway incurs the risk of getting smashed by a poorly-aimed metal missile but that’s just part of the wager and it’s possibly better to risk that than dropped tools and tins of paint.
Life is an endless series of risks of harm, maiming, mutilations and death and someday most humans lose. Meanwhile, we try like fuck to not attract the attention of malevolent Physics, universes, demons or deities whether they exist or not.
I eat pot noodles. I haven’t had flu, nor Winnie’s Flu, in years. Correlation or causation? Neither? Who cares? I’ll continue to eat them. They may not be real food but they don’t seem to be doing me much harm.
Laripu, would the world have been a better place had the inciters of the majorly damaging cults smoked good weed and “Bill & Ted”-ed our cultures? Or if anti-psychotics had been discovered in Antiquity? There’s time-travelling SF novels premised on ideas like those. Some are quite readable.
Postdoggerel, my sympathies on having an immature, childish, fat, grossly obese, bald, badly-tinted baby who throws temper tantrums each time anyone disagrees with, criticises or contradicts him as your esteemed leader. Here in UKland we are blessed with leaders whose only flaws are being law-breaking, hypocritical, self-appointed elitist prigs, pillocks, poltroons and pompous buffoons. We’re lucky.
Still, you should look on the bright side. In 2032 you get the chance to see your wondrous Chancellor amend the rules to allow for his joyous, jubilant, triumphant and glorious return for a record-breaking fifth term. Won’t that be a happy time for everyone?
tinkling think, well said. won’t we have a merry time, drinking whiskey, beer and wine, on decoronation day. And we Americans will point to the crack in the old oak door made by mr. trump’s head upon his timely departure.
30 odd comments and nobody has done the joke ! Okay..
Did you hear about the dyslexic, agnostic, insomniac who sat up all night wondering if there was a dog.
Imagine if Pinhead from Hellraiser spoke like Moses. The line “Do I look like someonewho cares what G-d thinks?” wouldn’t feel as intimidating.
Whoops, missed a space. G-d dammit.
Tinkling tink, yes, I think the world might have been better with a mellower cultures, for whatever reason. We might have avoided the Spanish Inquisition (nobody ever expects … etc) and a couple of world wars.
I think the total amount of suffering might have been comparatively diminished.
Hitchens sites the swing of western culture was when messianic jews defeated the hellenistic jews….