Hinting that all believers have the same delusions, the same disease, the same sickness. Something people who don’t support football teams have suspected for ages. 🙂
machigai, there’s no accounting for taste. As long as those loyal to other brands do not prevent you from enjoying the brand you like (or from opting for something other than beer, or for nothing at all), I don’t see a problem. Unfortunately, when it comes to religion, some true believers are unwilling to live and let live.
Yeah, Jez. God sacrificing himself to himself to save us from himself because centuries earlier one of our ancestors ate a piece of fruit at the urging of a talking snake is so much more sensible! ^_^
@Stephen Mynett
Bowmore is the least interesting malt from Islay, though I must profess a fondness for the über smoky Legend. My second favourite is Lagavulin, I depart from the fair shores of Islay and alight on Skye for my favourite single malt. A much more interesting and robust dram than Bowmore.
Re: Maura, “Something people who don’t support football teams have suspected for ages.”
Speaking of football supporters. I was wondering what would had happened if the Charlie Hebdo cartoon saying something like “In the wake of extremism” with Mo saying “It is hard to be loved by idiots”, would instead have been a famous footballer saying the same thing “in the wake of hooliganism”. Should everyone who ever went to a football game be offended?
And all those pictures in the art museums of doG the Father giving his son the Bird. The Father is also pictured giving Mary the Bird.
Surprise you’re pregnant! Today that would be considered, illegal due to the difference of power of the two parties, and in the US Mary was under age and hence it would be considered rape.
It’s easy to spot the obvious nonsense, there’s no pasta in it. If the Flying Spaghetti Monster were nonsense the proof would take much rational questioning and honest answers.
Way back in the 1940’s Superhero comics started becoming relatively popular. These told the stories of the lives of colourful characters and some of their friends who had exciting adventures. The comics outlasted the artists and writers who drew and narrated them so other artists and writers came into the firms to write and draw more monthly stories.
By the 1960’s the stories had twenty-odd years of backstory and character history attached which was restricting the freedoms the creators had to tell new stories each month. So they dropped a lot of the fictional histories, started almost from scratch and were then ble to tell new, exciting tales and to sell more comics.
In the 1990’s or so the interrelated stories of multile characters had become so convoluted and complex that the creators “ret-conned” their universes again.
This is somewhat the same thing as has happened over many millennia with the religion of the books of Abraham and his tribe. In order to keep it exciting and to entertain the rubes audiences the wandering minstrels would change things, swap things around and add and subtract details.
This worked until a monolithic church decided that the comic book canon had to have one final, irrevocable, unalterable retcon after which everything would be written down and would become The One True Truth.
Unfortunately, it was done, like so much in Human history, by committees. So, instead of one creation myth there were a few included in the books. Instead of one story about the flood and the heroic hero who survived there were at least two merged together. Instead of one set of laws and petty regulations there were lots. And there were many, many wandering, meandering totally meaningless genealogies included for no sane reason. Sort of like a list of Kal-El’s relatives only far longer.
And this mish-mash became the book that the religion was supposedly based upon.
Because it had been retconned some of the favurite bits of some people were left out so schisms formed to try to keep some of those. Then schisms formed to try to change some of the bits that made sense into things that made less sense and yet more schisms to drop some of the wierder bits and to replace them with even more wierder bits.
Ans so we now have the Jewish bits which are the slightly less retconned version, the Jesuan/Maryan bits which are heavily retconned, the Muslim bits which were retconned into total inanity and several million Baptists, Adventists, Lutherans and others, including LDS, LSD and Jimmy-Jones’s lot. Together with Satanism and Moonie-ism and a whole parcel of strange cults these are all based on the retconning of a pre-Jewish creation myth.
And on some priest’s attempts to re-ret-con the original retconning to make more money for himself.
It’s DC comics with added vehemence.
Were people to worship The Hulk instead of just enjoying the tales of adventure, the SC comics saga would look like the religion of the books.
It’s just a pity we can’t get the believers to see the similarity, and to laugh at it.
There are at least four typographical errors in the previous message in addition to inconsistent hyphenation of “retcon”. Apologies. I do try to pro-freed but I’m nowhere near perfect at it.
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
June 14, 2011
Hinting that all believers have the same delusions, the same disease, the same sickness. Something people who don’t support football teams have suspected for ages. 🙂
Not to mention brand-loyalty in beer.
machigai, there’s no accounting for taste. As long as those loyal to other brands do not prevent you from enjoying the brand you like (or from opting for something other than beer, or for nothing at all), I don’t see a problem. Unfortunately, when it comes to religion, some true believers are unwilling to live and let live.
Another good one Author. Apologies to all the Beerists here but I am enjoying this with a dram of Bowmore, my favourite single malt 🙂
As usual, the problem is with others
Who if they had their “druthers”
They would be kings
over all ding-a-lings
Who are not seen sisters and brothers.
“The pot calling the kettle black” for sure. Plaudits, author.
Apparently Cruise puts the same passion and zeal into his twin hobbies of wrapping confectionery, and playing hide n seek!
It’s true I saw it it on a kids cartoon show!
NBH, you finally seem to have mastered the limerick style. This one is very good.
Good one, Author. The certainty in the eyes of a true believer is always incomprehensible, to those who are true believers in something else.
Excellent, Author. You get a kudo or ten for this one.
Very much looking forward to the Louis Theroux Scientology film
Yeah, Jez. God sacrificing himself to himself to save us from himself because centuries earlier one of our ancestors ate a piece of fruit at the urging of a talking snake is so much more sensible! ^_^
Uh! Oh!!
You’ve done it now, teasing the Scientologists, those bastards will hunt you down for evah!!
Good work!
@Stephen Mynett
Bowmore is the least interesting malt from Islay, though I must profess a fondness for the über smoky Legend. My second favourite is Lagavulin, I depart from the fair shores of Islay and alight on Skye for my favourite single malt. A much more interesting and robust dram than Bowmore.
Re: Maura, “Something people who don’t support football teams have suspected for ages.”
Speaking of football supporters. I was wondering what would had happened if the Charlie Hebdo cartoon saying something like “In the wake of extremism” with Mo saying “It is hard to be loved by idiots”, would instead have been a famous footballer saying the same thing “in the wake of hooliganism”. Should everyone who ever went to a football game be offended?
Spoing!
@ Muscle,
Lagavulin’s my fave too I first met it at a whisky tasting held at Cornell’s Statler and led by Michael Jackson!!
And all those pictures in the art museums of doG the Father giving his son the Bird. The Father is also pictured giving Mary the Bird.
Surprise you’re pregnant! Today that would be considered, illegal due to the difference of power of the two parties, and in the US Mary was under age and hence it would be considered rape.
‘True beleiver syndrome’
http://www.celebdirtylaundry.com/2014/tom-cruise-katie-holmes-fighting-custody-battle-daughter-suri/
I hope rationalists are not included are not included under the heading of ‘true believers’.
Is scientology the product of intelligent design?
It’s easy to spot the obvious nonsense, there’s no pasta in it. If the Flying Spaghetti Monster were nonsense the proof would take much rational questioning and honest answers.
Way back in the 1940’s Superhero comics started becoming relatively popular. These told the stories of the lives of colourful characters and some of their friends who had exciting adventures. The comics outlasted the artists and writers who drew and narrated them so other artists and writers came into the firms to write and draw more monthly stories.
By the 1960’s the stories had twenty-odd years of backstory and character history attached which was restricting the freedoms the creators had to tell new stories each month. So they dropped a lot of the fictional histories, started almost from scratch and were then ble to tell new, exciting tales and to sell more comics.
In the 1990’s or so the interrelated stories of multile characters had become so convoluted and complex that the creators “ret-conned” their universes again.
This is somewhat the same thing as has happened over many millennia with the religion of the books of Abraham and his tribe. In order to keep it exciting and to entertain the
rubesaudiences the wandering minstrels would change things, swap things around and add and subtract details.This worked until a monolithic church decided that the comic book canon had to have one final, irrevocable, unalterable retcon after which everything would be written down and would become The One True Truth.
Unfortunately, it was done, like so much in Human history, by committees. So, instead of one creation myth there were a few included in the books. Instead of one story about the flood and the heroic hero who survived there were at least two merged together. Instead of one set of laws and petty regulations there were lots. And there were many, many wandering, meandering totally meaningless genealogies included for no sane reason. Sort of like a list of Kal-El’s relatives only far longer.
And this mish-mash became the book that the religion was supposedly based upon.
Because it had been retconned some of the favurite bits of some people were left out so schisms formed to try to keep some of those. Then schisms formed to try to change some of the bits that made sense into things that made less sense and yet more schisms to drop some of the wierder bits and to replace them with even more wierder bits.
Ans so we now have the Jewish bits which are the slightly less retconned version, the Jesuan/Maryan bits which are heavily retconned, the Muslim bits which were retconned into total inanity and several million Baptists, Adventists, Lutherans and others, including LDS, LSD and Jimmy-Jones’s lot. Together with Satanism and Moonie-ism and a whole parcel of strange cults these are all based on the retconning of a pre-Jewish creation myth.
And on some priest’s attempts to re-ret-con the original retconning to make more money for himself.
It’s DC comics with added vehemence.
Were people to worship The Hulk instead of just enjoying the tales of adventure, the SC comics saga would look like the religion of the books.
It’s just a pity we can’t get the believers to see the similarity, and to laugh at it.
There are at least four typographical errors in the previous message in addition to inconsistent hyphenation of “retcon”. Apologies. I do try to pro-freed but I’m nowhere near perfect at it.