Hey, while on my boat, I was on Paul and Storm’s podcast along with my fellow webcartoonists and Paul F. Tompkins. They’ve put that podcast up on the Internet now for you to enjoy! So enjoy it.
Or else.
Also I guess I’m in Joel’s comic again.
Shortpacked! by David Willis
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Me too, Robin. Me too.
same, poor Robin
It wouldn’t be surprising if a historical Jesus (that accounts greatly exaggerated the abilities of) existed, however =/
2000-year-old hyperpowerful cult movements rarely spawn from a person who didn’t exist at all
And claiming to be the Messiah wasn’t exactly an unpopular schtick back in the day.
Whether you believe he’s the savior or not, there was almost certainly dude from Nazareth named Jeshua who claimed to be the son of God, and the Romans probably nailed him up for defying them.
That wasn’t unpopular with the Romans, either. They nailed EVERYBODY up.
As far as I’m aware, he never even claimed to be the son of God. Not any more than any other person, in any case…
Really, who hasn’t claimed they were the son of God at some point?
isn’t all of mankind God’s children, when you think about it…
Yeah, I worded that poorly. Jesus seemed to go along the lines Abrogate is talking about really. What he did say, as the last comic attests, is that he was the son of -man-.
when people talk about genealogical traits (you have your mother’s eyes, etc), I like to say “I got my beard from my oldest living relative: GOD”
This is amazing.
We had a discussion of this in my theology class… Jesus did all the “I’m the Messiah” stuff without actually saying he was the Messiah.
My theology professor explained it thus: “Plausible deniability. The Messiah was a revolutionary figure. The Romans killed people claiming to be the Messiah regularly.”
Anyway, Jesus doesn’t need to claim he’s the son of God. God claimed he was everyone’s father.
I thought that Jesus’ refrain of ‘Father’ was rather unusual in that Jews of the period saw god as completely immortal and beyond the comprehension of men rather than a father-figure.
To illustrate this point I might point out that they weren’t allowed to speak his name, they weren’t allowed to look at him without years of training, very specific clothes, and no contact with menstruating women. They weren’t allowed to hear from him except through a rabbi or works written down by godly men of the past, and they weren’t allowed to be with him except through a lifetime of devotion and wishing they had a temple to sacrifice small animals to.
It’s also noteworthy in that the word Jesus used to refer to God was ‘Abba’ which does translate as father, but it has a far more personal connotation. The nearest modern English equivalent would be ‘Daddy’ as opposed to ‘Father’. Same meaning, different context implied.
The image of Jesus going around Jerusalem saying “Who’s your daddy?” has inexplicably jumped to the forefront of my mind.
in my european history class, we learned that he just started the religion and the Romans were pissed because christians stopped coming to festivals and it undermined their way of life. it wasn’t until after he died that his followers, mainly paul, started telling people he was the son of god and whatnot. even then, there were arian christians who didn’t believe jesus was divine, and then the other christians who said he was.
Jesus described God as everyone’s father. So of course according to that, he was “a” son of God. Doesn’t mean anything about him personally.
The documentation does show that Jesus claimed deity. We have manuscripts of Matthew dating to the time when Jesus and Matthew, the author, were alive (specifically the Magdalen manuscript, for those who want to check my primary sources) and we have copy manuscripts of John dating to the lifetime of John himself (you could look at the Ryland MS). It’s significant that we’ve found manuscripts of John that early, mostly because most historical documents end up dating to nearly centuries after the historical event in question. Even if you place certain copy ms at 200 AD, you’re doing better than many other documents we already consider ‘accurate.’ If you study the historicity of Socrates or Kongfuzhi (Confucius), you can find much fewer original documents for their existence than for the veracity of the so-called ‘gospel’ accounts. (East Asian history is especially difficult because of the lack of early manuscripts–we accept our sources, more or less)
Within those manuscripts, from these early references, one quick example of Jesus claiming deity is Matthew 26:63-66. Later, in the Gospel of John, he says “I and the father are one”–I and God are one. Pretty explicitly, he also says that “No one enters into the kingdom of heaven” except through him; that he is the only way to heaven (this debunks any idea that he thought the rest of us were somehow equal to him). John 8:48-58 has by far the most interesting claim, for those into Hebrew literature. In the original Hebrew, Yeshua uses the name of God, the one never to be said, YHWH, of himself. “Before Abraham was, I am,” he says, instead of “I was.” This was so offensive to his religious countrymen that they threatened to stone him on the spot.
Honestly, I hope you will look at some of these references. If you skip to the middle of the giant book “Evidence that Demans a Verdict”–admittedly a Christian apologetics books–you can find some good bibliography (I find that books meant to make a point are really most useful for their bibliographies.) You might also try asking a few university professors in Middle Eastern ancient history–it has to be middle eastern, because many historians will comment outside of their field with little evidence, based on rumors in the history department (I had an East Asian and European history teacher tell me for certain things I knew from Middle Eastern primary sources to be incorrect–it’s not that they were stupid, just that they were speaking outside of their field). You’ll be surprised how many things you assume about history, and how much is assumed in historical fields–for example, that Socrates existed.
So since Yeshua Ben-Joseph claimed to be God, the question remains whether or not the man was a lunatic, a liar, or in all honesty, God.
“Lunatic, Liar, or Lord” is a false choice. There are certainly other possibilities, like “somebody wrote a bunch of stuff he didn’t say and attributed it to him.”
The Rylands Library Papyrus P52, which you claim dates to within John’s probable lifetime, is actually dated within the mid-to-late second century for a number of reasons. If the Disciple John wrote that, he’d be over a hundred years old when he wrote it. He’d also be literate in Greek, which as a first-century Jewish fisherman he definitely would not have been. He wouldn’t have been literate at all.
None of the names ascribed to the four Gospels are accurate. Scholarly consensus has agreed on this for a very long time.
Well, he never said it himself, calling himself a “son of man” to show that he himself was a human (or as trinitarians believe, God in a human body), but God did the whole holy spirit dove thing during his baptism saying “This is my son, of whom I am proud.” Mind the misquote.
“Whether you believe he’s the savior or not, there was almost certainly dude from Nazareth named Jeshua who claimed to be the son of God, and the Romans probably nailed him up for defying them.
That wasn’t unpopular with the Romans, either. They nailed EVERYBODY up.”
You are partially correct. While the Romans did crucify political enemies, they ONLY crucified those attempting to subvert Roman authority. Crucifixion is a gruesome means of execution and no one really liked doing it and traders would often avoid any sort of crucifixion site because they were pretty bad. More often than not, you died from blood loss due to birds gouging your eyes or dehydration. A person would hang for days, naked and soiling themselves. It was a humiliating way to die and reserved only for enemies of the state.
However, every one of the four gospels state that Jesus died via crucifixion (one of the very few things all four agree on). The problem is that none of the gospels really portray Jesus as deserving a crucifixion.
Also, to your first comment: the gospels were most likely written after the destruction of the Jewish temple around 70 CE. It is quite possible that Jesus comes from a need to explain how Jewish people are to continue their faith without a temple (Something literally required for Ancient Judaism). That’s the short and simple of it, anyway.
The Gospels do suggest, though, that he was executed by Romans at the urging of the Jews, essentially hoping to placate an angry mob. I’m not discussing the reality of it, just what the books say.
Let’s not forget that there are Roman accounts of the Jewish leader Jesus being executed by crucifiction. Just saying it’s not just in the bible.
Ta Da!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_Jesus
There are no such accounts. The Wikipedia link you provided doesn’t even mention any!
Though ever so often, someone comes up with a fake one.
To be fair, “a book written by some guys 70 years later” is actually more of a written history then we have about most things of this time period.
You should see the debates historians have over the meanings of one line someone carved into a rock about Alexander the Great.
The Roman historian Tacitus, Flavius Josephus, Pliny the Younger, and the Talmud all mention Jesus, with Tacitus, the Talmud, and Flavius having the most time-concurrent access to primary witnesses. Please read the original sources.
Is it arrogant if I say “take it from a history graduate…” Perhaps so.
I’m well aware of all of those sources. The person I was responding to was putting forward an urban legend, one that says that there is Roman paperwork for all the folks they crucified, including Jesus.
You have a very different definition of “time-concurrent access to primary witnesses” than leading scholars do.
Believe me. I have read dozens of books on this topic from leading New Testament scholars. I’m not pulling this out of my ass or Wikipedia.
While the punishment was rare, it was also applied to pirates and slaves and not just revolutionaries. After all, there were two thieves nailed up beside Jesus according to all four gospels.
So, the two thieves who were, ya know, NEXT to him, crucified that day, were overthrowing the Roman state?
Yea-no. Crucifying was a brutal, but common, Roman method of execution, primarily used in the outlying territories to mind the uppity locals who the hell was in charge.
Actually Jetstream…
The Romans kept meticulous records and there is no mention by Pontius Pilate of any rabble rouser named Yeshua who was ever crucified.
Oh, and the story of Moses is a retelling of a much older myth cycle.
Eh, I’m just speculating wildly anyway. And yeah I know about the fact that Moses almost certainly never existed… Hell, there’s not even a record of the Jews ever having been enslaved by Egypt at ALL.
That said, I figure it’s far more likely that they just lost a record or two of some dude who (at the time) wasn’t even all that popular in the long run.
I base this all on one primary notion: Even if the early Christians were shysters making the whole thing up, why would they make a guy up? There were PLENTY of people back then who were ACTUALLY executed by the Romans, so they might as well pick a real one.
“Whether you believe he’s the savior or not, there was almost certainly dude from Nazareth named Jeshua who claimed to be the son of God, and the Romans probably nailed him up for defying them.”
If someone was able to bring the guy back I’d say we have evidence but there is a DEAFING silence for the amount of followers he had and people that knew him.
I’m not saying there weren’t rebels because there always were.
I’m not saying the romans didn’t like to nail people to a cross now and then because it is well documented unlike historical jesus who completely lacks first party accounts outside of the bible. People had writtens in this days someone would of written this stuff down but they didn’t so in real reality there is no reason to believe that specific nutty existed at all.
It’s just like exodus. Some of the oldest written stuff we know is Egyptian and they didn’t keep any record of a time they kept the Jewish people as slaves of a mass exodus and the only records you find of it are biblical. Someone would of written this kind of stuff down.
You mean like how Mike nailed your mom?
I dunno. I as an agnostic can believe a Jesus existed, though perhaps independently of [but parallel to] the Biblical version.
It’s my understanding that Jesus (and several variations thereof) was a very common name for Galilean Jews at the time.
Indeed. Barabbas’ real name was Jesus and he too was trying to bring about a Kingdom of God. Healers and Messiah claimants were also quite common during the Roman occupation.
That’s kinda my point. From 63 BCE to ~70CE there were probably dozens of guys named something like Jesus who started pseudo-judaic apocalypse cults.
Most historical accounts of Jesus/Yeshua speak more of someone who was about ending the cycle of Jewish oppression by the Jewish elites, (a lot of the rituals tended to require specific, controlled items, which my brother JUST happens to have a monopoly of, my good man; money changers in the temple were the people you paid for the sacrifices you were required to make IN the temple; quite a crippling racket to the lower classes…) Not so much apocalyptic as reformative…
Heck, Biblically, I don’t think he said anything apocalyptic, (unless you count “we need to add a chapter here with a Bay-esque battle”- which, yeah, I don’t)
Yeah but tha’ts like saying robert or bob existed in america at this current time. I’m pretty sure we have a whole bunch but if you start adding technicalities to his life then I’d say maybe not I’ll need to confirm it with some records of his existence. This is where jesus falls short.
I’m not sure how I feel about Leslie’s reaction. And I totally feel for Robin right now.
I know what you mean. Intolerance of any kind grates on a person. But an intolerance that springs from a person who has had biblical teachings used against them to demean who they are is at least, well, tolerable.
We know that Leslie’s family is not accepting of her sexuality — I don’t remember if it was stated they were religious, but the two could well be linked and provide a strong emotional reason for her to reject the idea of Jesus.
I remember Leslie saying something like “my family disowned me because their favourite book said I was an abomination”, or something like that.
I would figure that there being no Jesus whatsoever helps Leslie feel that her parents (and maybe any other intolerant person) is wrong not supporting her.
But have no fear, Leslie. Jesus isn’t down with any hate, no matter what the pseudo-Christians seem to think. And even if someone disagree with that, I would think our resident cartoonist will make your Jesus feel that way.
Ooo… I’m picturing Robin:Ronald::Leslie:Jesus now.
Leslie ends up getting some much-needed life-changing advice from Jeshua sitting on a park bench?
Theirs a story I once heard where an implied homosexual youth wanted to know if the lord cared about him, and Jesus said he’ll speak with him later.
When they finaly met up, he basicly said yep god loves you no matter
what (while young man was aparently trying to flert with him or some such). Even though the Gospels where written by at least 4 differnt people 40 years after his apparent death, they all seem to agree that
he was very welcoming to everyone as long as they had love, charity and peace in their hearts. So I really doubt he him self would say “God loves all his children, except gays.. That’s nasty”. But 2000 years later all we hear is “God hates you more then he hates Satan”. :/
Seriously, Robin is the Pinkie Pie of this comic.
Yes. Very much so. They even have approximately the same sugar intake.
The best evidence for a historical Jesus is that the Gospels’ incongruences have the appearance of a set of documents both built on myth and shacked to reality – any real evidence for the existence of Jesus, in the way any other historical figure might be verified, is as much evidence against his divinity as for his historicity. His historicity is exactly as certain as his mundane nature, the Gospels themselves the evidence.
Relevant:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_Jesus#Scholarly_methods
But of cause he exists, I saw it on the History Channel.
And my middle-school history book had him listed as born year 2 B.C.
I always thought it was like 20 A.D.
Most biblical scholars agree that it was either 4 or 5 B.C. based on astral phenomena & convergences that would be the “star of the magi” and depending upon whether their calculations include a “year zero” despite the Gregorian calendar not having one (It goes from 1 B.C. to 1 A.D. because no normal person starts counting at zero unless told to do so).
Maybe they’ll make a reality show of him “Historical Jesus” 7pm on the History Chanel
Or maybe someone could make an Adult Swim hit out of animating those felt-board biblical characters.
i’m hoping for giorgio tsoukalos to make a show called “jesus was an alien”.
History channel got bought out and went a little fundie jesus crazy a couple years back.
“An absence of proof is not proof of absence.”
If someone was able to find and bring a guy back and he walked around and he had some bonafides for how he didn’t we wouldn’t be looking at an absence of proof.
He generally doesn’t say how he brings people back so if Leslie is a reasonable person of our world mentally she’ll probably assume it’s some kind of impersonation hiring act.
It’s generally bad practice to just believe in things completely lacking in evidence because if you accept that as reasonable you’ll have to believe in everything that lacks in evidence from wizards, to vampire, to the boogieman, to god, to hell, to Krishna, to Zeus.
I’d probably be half in leslie’s position but less pissed off because some actor messing around with someone like glassalo is just how the world works sometimes.
We as readers assume he also ressed mike though so it’s cannon possible in shortpacked lore and we assume he brought back regan and he isn’t and actor and he brought back Jesus here.
No, but Occam’s Razor is an extremely persuasive argument for absence.
I can’t remember if Leslie has ever shown any reaction to religion one way or the other. If not, why is she so upset? or mad?
Religion is the reason Leslie’s parents disowned her.
It’s not so much the religion aspect as it is the complete defiance of logic in the act of resurrecting someone who, from Leslie’s point of view, probably didn’t even exist.
Galasso might as well have resurrected Santa Claus for her to have this reaction. (Santa’s dead, by the way)
It was a heart attack or a clogged artery, or diabetes, wasn’t it? Poor bastard. I tried to warn him. He should’ve listened.
Though if he died in the vacuum of space, I take it all back.
I watch that every Christmas. I still hope one day for “Patrick Swayze Christmas” to become a holiday standard.
We seriously need some new ones. I can’t stand hearing the same five songs on repeat whenever I walk into a mall between Halloween and New Years.
That sounds like an odd place to put a mall, but if you have a Tardis I suppose you can get to places like that without too much fuss.
Try working in a place like that.
Totally relevant: http://xkcd.com/988/
If santa was resserected it would probbably be horror.
I mean old Galasso would probbably try to Eaton it up.
Galasso would NEVER put Santa to work in his store. Dude gives away toys for FREE.
I wouldn’t be surprised if he had a Santa on each level of the store. Just imagine all the people Two Santa Clauses could piss off all at once! It would be diabolical – everyone from mothers and fathers having to explain why if Santa’s really real he looks like two differen places and if you find the right spot at the top of the escalator you can see both of them at once, and also the liberals who assume Galasso is a Winiski disciple rubbing San Fran libs noses in it.
They might even look like two different PEOPLE rather than places. Trying to visualize that mall located between two holidays geographically has bent my head.
He’d just hire a Black Santa.
Or hire a Black Santa and a White Santa, put them in completely different areas of the store and declare them separate-but-equal.
And then Mr. Macy comes along and all of a sudden Galasso’s keeping up with the Joneses.
The real Santa was a Turkish saint, and a part time boxer, who belonged to a rich family and would often use his own funds or church funds to donate in secret (though eveyrone knew it was him) to poor
families especaly those with very young children.
So both exsist based on real people that where good but are long dead. :/
I don’t know about Santa Claus, but St. Nicholas on whom a lot of him was based was real, a bishop of Myra, and was kicked out of the Council of Nicaea for slapping some dude in the face for denying that Jesus (the son) and God (the father) were together as the Triune God.
When Ethan was making fun of the customer who tried to make him say “Merry Christmas,” he pointed out that Leslie was an atheist.
I’m loving Leslie’s ragefaces in this strip. If you took away the dialogue of Panel 3 Leslie in particular, you’d still be able to read the ‘That’s illogical!’ in her face.
I like to think of Jesus in the terms of the great Douglas Adams: “A man who got nailed to a tree for talking about how nice it would be if people were kind to each other for a change.”
He was a prophet first and a philosopher second. His ideas that “it would be nice if people would be nice to each other” was nice, but it wasn’t new. He just thought that was a good attitude to take in the nonexistent end times, 2000 years ago.
The character also repeated time and time again that you should abandon your family and follow his poor ass. I’m not a fan of jesus.
But it wasn’t a tree, it was two boards of wood.
Which strikes me as odd because Adams seems like he does his research, most of the time. In fact if I remember correctly the only reason Adams made Ford and Zaphod from Betelgeuse is so he could have it deliberately mispronounced over the radio.
That’s been contested. The Jehova’s witnesses, for example, say it’s a tree, as do others.
Fair enough.
Half of what I know of Christianity comes from deconstructing Life of Brian and Meaning of Life, so perhaps I’m not the best source for these things.
The term “tree” for “cross” shows up in a lot of songs and whatnot. It’s more poetic than anything, sort of a kenning, if that makes sense. Wood comes from trees, etc.
Does it really matter how much research he did? He wasn’t going for accuracy, he was going for humor. Sometimes you have to sacrifice one for the other.
“…A tree” scans better in context, though. Short and pithy.
My understanding was that we are pretty sure there was, at one point, a dude named Jesus who wandered around the Middle East in the right century. More than that is open to speculation and debate.
There were doubtlessly lots of guys named Joshua wandering around the middle east back then. One of them probably even was claiming to be the messiah. (Or more than one; it wasn’t all that uncommon back then.)
I thought it was proven that Jesus existed?
Pretty much impossible to actually PROVE it. That said, disproving it is even harder.
Yep, Leslie’s first clue to run a self-diagnostic here is her own words “insufficient proof.”
There’s only proof that Christianity existed and started around the right time, and that they claimed some guy named Jesus existed. No existing records (aside from the bible) directly assert his existence.
And even one showed that he did exist, it would be impossible to show that any particular story about him actually happened as written – or that *any* of the stories happened as written. You know how easy it is for exaggerations, allegories, and fictions to be heard by others and passed on as fact; it’s where email chain letters come from, but has been going on much, much, much longer.
Honestly, if you were going to make up Jesus the Gospels would be a lot less messy. None of this “never claimed to be the son of God” shit, less clever quips about taxing Caesar’s ugly face.
The messiness has the ring of truth in there. …somewhere. There was almost certainly a dude named Yeshuva who had some cool ideas. …just don’t mistake that for the mythological Jesus who’s ritually consumed on Sundays and has terrible taste in movies.
Depending on what you mean by ‘make up Jesus’, of course it could be messy. The thing to remember is that most of these guys telling and changing the stories weren’t out to deliberately deceive; however they were all writing after the guy was dead by at least a few decades without any sort of fact-checking or even much chance they’d be called on anything they changed. So some stuff would be misremembered, and a lot of other stuff would be ‘adjusted’ to fit the particular author’s opinions and message. It’s patently obvious that while the gospels are based off of one another as one might expect of a story that’s being passed down and recorded at various points in its evolution, it’s also obvious that different gospels are written with different audiences in mind (between Jewish or Roman, mainly). So I’d expect there to be all kinds of messy stuff in there pretty much regardless of Jesus’s reality or nature, because the messiness is a result of the evolution of the fables after the fact which happened in any case.
not at all. In fact the silence of his life outside the bible is close to proof someone of the caliber the bible talks about didn’t exist. They wrote about lots of stuff that happened then but he skipped the books for which reason?
Leslie is the kind of atheist who believes in a theistic fervor – what shockofgod thinks of when he hears the word “atheist,” and considers the true definition of the word, and no one else but theists. She is a fool.
Naturally, though, you’re above all that.
Leslie does not understand what atheism is, as shock does not. Randall does.
Be that as it may, the tendency to proselytize is something I’ve seen in many atheists, not just religious folk. Which isn’t saying “atheism is a religion” so much as it says “some atheists are religious [read: overzealous] about atheism.” tl;dr – people like to be right.
Proselytizing for atheism is good, as long as it appears that what you’re saying is true. Confronted with evidence of a historical Jesus, evidence that, if anything, puts the lie further to mainstream Christianity, Leslie is insisting on denying what’s right in front of her face because it goes against her prior convictions on the matter.
If there is insufficient proof of a historical Jesus, there is also insufficient proof that the new employee is Jesus. The only evidence we have is that he seems to fit the profile, acts like he thinks he is, and Galasso said so.
And given Galasso’s powers, that really ought to be sufficient.
Dammit, can they get back to sexy times already?!
Maybe they can rope Jesus into a threesome, with Robin in the middle, and he can heal the rift that has grown between them.
You win! Tell him what (s)he’s won!
(Besides paid tickets to the “not so best ending”.)
Thanks for the chuckle.
I know exactly how it’ll happen, too. He’ll get them drunk on water by turning it into wine when it hits their bloodstream.
I have never wanted a webcomic panel more than today’s last one. Make it happen Mr. Willis!
Poor robin, one of the few times she has a point and she is given the cold shoulder…
In both cases in fact. Not only is the fact that Galasso brought jesus pretty clear evidence that he was a thing but more importantly Robin is the one who will have to deal with the broken pedastel issues that will no doubt emerge from meeting ANYONE you thought was god.
Actually since we don’t know how Galasso does it, the fact that he can create people ex nihilo doesn’t necessarily mean they ever did so prior to him doing it. Sure, Mike did, but Reagan may or may not have been just how Galasso imagined him to be (with rippling abs and patriot powers!), and maybe he made this Jesus fellow up out of whole cloth.
Not that I think he did – if he had, ‘Jeshua’ would probably have been a closer match to his expectations. But we can’t rule it out.
It has never been established that Galasso had anything to do with Mike’s surection. And that fact acually makes your theory more plausible.
Mike was resurected in “It’s Walky” through technology.
Alien technology.
Does that make Galasso “Mr. Cheese-head”?
Hrmmm?…
No, he wasn’t. We’ve been down this road before–the resurrection chamber needs nine months, and it’s one at a time. Walky came out of the tube in late Nov. 2004, Mike shows up in early Feb. 2005. Even if Mike was put in immeadiately after Walky, that’s only three months…
…but he couldn’t have been, because he was eaten by the Martians and they’re very thorough with their prey. His fellow SEMME members even explicitly named him as being amongst those who’s remains could never been found, and they need DNA for the machine to work.
So no, Mike was not resurrected by the Martian chamber, though his response to Amber’s inquiry about how to get the hamster back imply that it’s certainly what he thinks happened, as he knows no other way of resurrecting the dead.
I thought it was specified that he couldn’t be brought back through alien tech, due to the fact that he had no DNA left behind.
Which was the setup to the joke that he was alive in Shortpacked! in the first place.
Actually, there’s a valid case for Leslie being thrown offbalance by a living Jesus too. It seems likely that she’s been psychologically licking her wounds from fundamentalist Christianity rejecting her by assuring herself that Jesus never really existed in the first place. If there was a historical Jesus, she has to worry, at least subconsciously, about what merit her religious rejection might have.
I think Mike would be far more concrete evidence. Everyone knows who Reagan is and what his public persona was like, and it’s not hard to read his biographies if you want to fool the smarter folks. All you need to do then is hire a down-on-his-luck/insane Reagan lookalike and give him a crash course in the man’s life.
Mike, however, is fairly obscure, which is why he gets to live a normal life and not concern himself with running into important political figures, so it’d take an obscene amount of effort to actually find out he exists, let alone enough detail to get a convincing poser in, and even if you did what would you get for your efforts? Reagan’s famous, it’s half the reason he got brought back. Plus, Robin knew him in his first life, so she can personally vouch for his resurrection. Much better example.
Leslie isn’t questioning that Galasso (somehow) has the ability to bring the dead back to life. She’s questioning that there WAS a Jesus to bring back at all.
But Robin doesn’t know this in panel two, when she offers Reagan as an explination.
That’s an odd jump of logic there Leslie.
Insufficient evidence suddenly means they don’t exist.
So when are you and Joel Watson going to get married?
Wait since when was Jesus’ existence arguable? I thought it was agreed that he existed, but that all the other stuff (son of God and all that) was the stuff that was argued
Only among religious people, as far as I know.
I feel it for Robin, I really do…
I know Leslie isn’t a big fan of Christianity (or religion in general) and stuff because of her parents, but I really didn’t expect her to get so angry about this.
I think she’s mentally grappling with what she thinks is true and what’s standing right in front of her, and in the middle of all that, super-scared of the possibility her parents might have been right.
See, what’s making me raise an eyebrow about this is that maybe Leslie isn’t ENTIRELY atheistic and that causes more concern for her considering her relationship with her family.
It seems to me her more extreme atheism moment (in what way does historical Jesus’ Existence = God) is somewhat grounded in her parental issues.
Doesn’t mean it’s the only reason, but her reaction to the concept of a historical Jesus – [cough] Jeshua – is somewhat silly and uncalled for given where she works. I mean – the myth had to start SOMEWHERE and I wouldn’t dismiss the idea that there wasn’t a Jesus.
So yeah – I think Leslie’s just taking her family issues out on Jesus and Robin in this case; come on Leslie – I like you; don’t be one of those types…
Which is sad because he’s got a bitchin’ beard and is kinda cute (even if he’s short – I normally like tall guys), although – I suppose none of that would matter to Leslie…
In case your wondering – yes I’m an atheist myself and I’m even one of those people who thinks religion causes more harm than good – hell – I even have parents who treat me like shit (with a mother who uses religion to make herself feel like she’s a good person when she’s not) – and I totally think Leslie’s overreacting about this Jesus thing…
Very few atheists are so atheistic that they wouldn’t believe evidence that’s right in front of them. That would require an almost theistic denial of reality, which most atheists don’t bother with because they don’t need it; it doesn’t take much effort or any ‘faith’ to disbelieve in unicorns either.
That said, it just occurred to me that whether he’s got divine powers or not (and I’m betting ‘not’), this guy is the one responsible for kickstarting the religion that has made her and many other gays’ lives miserable. Given that, if I were here, I might just feel justified in grabbing the nearest popcorn and carrying out a little retribution. You can’t be charged with murder for killing somebody who’s already dead, right?
If I were her, and the nearest popcorn popper, that is. Wow, I actually *am* getting agitated on her behalf, to mess up my typing. I wonder of that’s actually what’s going through her mind.
All of the rationalisation among fundies for “gay=bad” comes from the old testament, not the new. Which means that the historical Jesus, assuming such a person existed, had nothing to do with it. In fact, in several places in the Gospels Jesus argues against the laws in Leviticus.
No no no.
See yes christianity was not that nice to those not on it’s linear path but you’re mistaken if you think any of the other faiths or doctrine at the time would have been any better.
Homosexuality was banned from church not because a innate evil, more from humanities fear of the unknown and what they can’t understand.
Such feelings for the same sex will still be considered bizarre no matter what faith is in charge even if their ISN’T a faith.
Not saying the church wasn’t wrong for what it did, just saying that taking it out on Jeshua is pointless.
You should probbably blame the world instead.
To be fair, when Jesus speaks in the 4 gospels (minister at church says Mark is the most accurate, John is the least, btw) he never mentions homosexuality. Paul does briefly but most anti-gay Christians quote Leviticus, which could just as easily means Jews hate gays, although they don’t seem to. Hard to blame Jesus for it.
To both you guys, don’t be assuming that Leslie’s response is rational here. It’s emotional. It matters little what Joshua might *actually* have said (and honestly, Joshua’s written opinions have historically had little impact on the behavior of Christianity as a collective), and it matters little that any other religion could as easily been the one to rise and oppress her instead. As things happened Christianity was the religion that chose to embrace the hatred and oppression of gays in the country she lived in, and if Christianity had a face to punch, it’d be this guy’s.
Tommorow, Lesbian vs Jesus! Round 1, FIGHT!
Leslie this is blasphemy, to doubt the abilities of the Galasso is to risk getting nailed on the shelves…in a bad way.
As an atheist, I’m not sure what Leslie’s problem is. There was a historical George Washington. He didn’t throw a quarter across the potomac, but even in his own time people were passing around the tall tale that he had. And then we find that in the even-more uneducated and superstitious-riddled first century, one of the dozens of would-be messiahs managed to scrape together enough of a fanatic cult that they were willing to ignore his blatant failure at messiah-hood and instead elevated him to some sort of deity by attributing various tall tales and legends of previous messiah-wannabes to him instead? And in desperation at his critical existence failure managed to convince themselves that his abrupt execution was all some part of some sort of crazy, psychotically blood-soaked divine plan? Given that the majority of that’s a historical fact, we should be bothered by the notion that the seed of the madness really lived?
There are some atheists who dispute that Joshua really existed, yes. But even if he did, so what? This Joshua in the toy store hasn’t done a single miraculous thing yet, and unless and until he does so I see no reason for Leslie to be bothered by his existence. Well, aside from the sheer insanity of Galasso bringing *anyone* back from the dead, but really, shouldn’t she have gotten used to that already?
To quote Johann from above, “I think she’s mentally grappling with what she thinks is true and what’s standing right in front of her, and in the middle of all that, super-scared of the possibility her parents might have been right.”
And to paraphrase myself from above (it was posted just after, in a belated realization) – maybe she just realized that divine or not, Jesus is responsible for starting Christianity which made her and many other gays’ lives a living hell. She has ample reason to be pissed at the guy.
And, no atheist has a reason to be bothered by the mere existence of a historical Jesus, unless and until he starts doing miracles. There was a historical Joseph Smith, and that doesn’t make Mormonism true; a historical Jesus doesn’t make Christianity true unless he demonstrates himself to actually be divine.
Personally, I doubt he will.
Leslie (currently) has very little reason to be angry with a historical Jesus. Even if he really did exist and could be credited with the creation of the Christian faith, there’s no evidence he ever intended or could have expected for his teachings to promote any kind of hatred or abuse of homosexuals.
Unless he actually is divine and possessed some measure of omniscience, of course. I couldn’t blame Leslie for being less than absolutely reasonable about it, though.
Right. I consider myself a Christian, but I think if you call yourself a Christian and you’ve made a sign that starts with “God Hates…” and ends with pretty much anything, you have really missed the point and should take another look at those four books starring that guy you claim to follow.
+ roughly a googolplex and a half internets, each with complimentary cookie. Right on.
God hates hate?
Actually, an atheist shouldn’t even be too bothered if they are presented with proof that God exists. It would just mean that they are wrong.
Well now, that depends. If one is presented with evidence that some random god exists, the expected response would be, “Wow, really? STUDY IT!!!” (Typically followed by “Damn, another fake. The supernatural is such a tease,” but I digress.) However, if one is presented with evidence that there’s a god, and it’s an oppressive evil mofo that toys with humanity for its own mysterious and twisted pleasure, well, that could be rather troubling.
And in all seriousness, the Christian god doesn’t look like all that nice a guy from here on the outside. It seems that his central plan involves torturing and killing a guy, among various other problems. I don’t care how ineffable you are, that’s not really a good sign.
It doesn’t help that the usual explanation is “you wouldn’t understand if I tried to tell you”, which usually sets skeptic alarms off like an air raid siren.
Personally, I was always fine with it from a “can’t fit the ocean in a bucket” type sinerio. Of course, if we should go with that, it is easily testable if we can get God to explain it. We get him to wisper his whole plan to someone else, and if their brain explodes, we drop the issue forever. XD
Or, you know, have someone write down a small part that we can’t grasp, ut won’t make our heads explode either. Just enough to show that there is a logic there beyond us. Have an angel write it if you can’t get a human to stop gibbering to stop gibbering before the memory of the words leaves his short-term memory.
Yeah, but I didn’t say evidence. I said PROOF.
But I see your point.
By the way, the “torturing and killing a guy” comment that I assume refers to the Crucifixion… This was one thing people seemed to miss the point of — a fact I remember from Mel Gibson’s Jesus movie — kind of saying that the story is all focused on pain and violence. Part of the big deal about the suffering and dying is supposed to be that a God became a man and experienced pain and death like a regular person would. Even if looking at it only as a story, for ancient people, the idea of a God who can understand what it means to be human was a unique concept when much of the world at the time saw gods as aloof being far above knowing humanity.
I’m not too sore on the idea of historical Jesus existing myself though I could understand why Leslie might be.
For me, I’d actually be exceedingly upset if christianity was 100% true and for Leslie it might upset her to have if even have the barest chance of being true if only through the fact there was a physical guy to base the miracle claims around. I mean it probably seems more likely to her.
I mean let’s face it in general the bible does have a lot of Values Dissonance. There’s lots of things being pulled that are sometimes okay or even praised which would rightfully get looks of disgust or be illegal today in many societies.
OTOH, the fact that Jesus was supposed to have ASCENDED, body and all after raising from the dead, the fact there was really any DNA could in fact mean that at least one of the major claims in terms of divine intervention are false. Which actually draws the rest of them into question. (Unless I’m mis-remembering how the whole resurrection thing works- didn’t Walky resurrect because Joyce and he had sex? I guess the real question is the DNA source- if it was from a body/body part then no ascension for Jesus).
As has been noted, one shouldn’t assume that Galasso uses martian technology to resurrect people – there are strong arguments suggesting that Mike could not possibly have been resurrected that way, and besides which, where would he have gotten that tech? In fact there’s pretty good reason to doubt that he needs any part of the deceased at all to resurrect somebody – it seems unlikely he robbed Reagan’s grave. Plus it seems like he can pull off these resurrections in a matter of days, if not hours, given that him getting the inspiration to do it and producing the result tend to be shown in the same comic.
He probably does it by sheer force of will – and/or not realizing it’s impossible, like how gravity works in looney tunes.
There was a mosquito who drank Jesus’ blood and was trapped in amber.
Wait… trapped in amber… Amber…
It would be pretty ironic if Mike were the one to spawn the second coming of Christ.
Except that blood cells don’t contain DNA, do they?
CLEARLY Galasso is related to The Cheese. Or IS The Cheese.
I don’t know why everyone is ignoring this and going on theological rants.
I mean…. what ever happened to The Cheese when Walky finished borrowing him? I bet Galasso has a Cheese suit in his closet at home.
I think last Halloween is certainly evidence he has a cheese suit at home.
If I remember correctly the real thing is sitting in a government warehouse somewhere.
True, but if you look at the costume….it’s pretty crappy. lol.
He’s probably got the real one locked up somewhere safe. If Cheese IS in a government warehouse, Galasso clearly has access.
(but of course, Willis has said in the past he’ll never tell us. The jerk.)
As far as I’m concerned though, Galasso has gone all Buffalo Bill on the Cheese.
The real question here is how did Glasso get hold of intact 2000-year-old DNA?
Frankly I’m not certain Galasso has a functional knowledge of what DNA is and how it works, let alone if he needs it to resurrect people.
Preserved in amber, duh. Unless Hollywood has led me wrong all these years.
…
…wait …Amber…?
O.O
faz wishes to extract this DNA.
Hollywood led you wrong all these years. The insect bodies preserved in amber are nothing but dry husks–no blood.
I know you’re joking, but since this is an arc about historical Jesus I thought it was necessary to come in and crush any peripheral dreams as well. <3
*shrugs*
I dunno, Shroud of Turin?
I’m an atheist and nonetheless I’d estimate over 90% probability that a historical Jesus existed.
Wait, someone made up an arbitrary percentage on the internet? I’m convinced!
Um, poor application of that kneejerk rebuttal – it was explicitly stated to be a personal estimate.
And it was still utterly arbitrary and inherently meaningless. A thoughtless, fabricated probability based on nothing isn’t worth typing, never mind sharing with others.
At least it has something in common with your comment, though.
I’m going to not read every other comment here which likely already says this, BUT I’ve heard various accounts that there is some sparse, possibly-questionable, evidence of the man existing. This of course is no proof of his divinity, but I would think that at the very least, Jesus could be considered and influential philosopher.
I love it when people attempt to apply any sort of logic to comic strips. He was able to bring these people back because Mr. Willis drew it that way. He could suddenly make every single character have three giant penises growing out of their forehead if he wanted to, just because. Giant. Penises. Forehead. Three of them. Yup.
Want to hear something even funnier? Sometimes comic strip authors themselves fall into the trap of trying to make their strips logical and internally consistent. Weird, I know; it’s like some of them are trying to make narratives or something. Freaky.
It IS internally consistant. Galasso has been shown to be able to revive dead people to work for him. No limitations or laws were applied to it before, why start now?
Wow, she got pretty mad pretty quick, didn’t she?
“Hey, who’s that?”
“Jesus.”
“BUT JESUS DID NOT EXIIIIIIIIIST!“
And Robin almost manages to touch on a key point here. Reagan had a body, so he could be revived by Martian technology. Jesus was crucified, so the odds of finding enough of him to resurrect would be…
Oh, hi there, Mike.
(For the non-Walky-verse fans, there wasn’t enough left of Mike to resurrect him at the end of It’s Walky. Hence Robin’s surprise when she found him working at Shortpacked!. Clearly, Galasso holds true power over life and death.)
So if Glasso brought Jesus back from death… then Glasso is GOD!!!!!!
Well, there was some dried blood on the Shroud of Turin and the Sudarium of Oviedo, both of which share the same blood type and have some link to the historical Jesus (although the Sudarium has a more provable link than the Turin Shroud)…
Especially since the ‘blood’ on the Turin shroud has been tested and proven to be paint.
I wonder what that says about Jesus’s blood type…
There is no consensus as to those being paint or blood. Several researchers maintain that it’s dried hemoglobin, and there’s several who even argue it’s AB blood group. “Dr. Andrew Merriwether at SUNY stated that no blood typing could be confirmed, and the DNA was badly fragmented. He stated that it is almost certain that the blood spots are blood, but no definitive statements can be made about its nature or provenience, i.e., whether it is male and from the Near East.”
Paint doesn’t have DNA unless it’s paint made from biological fluids. The argument continues, no one’s proved anything conclusively yet.
Suuuuuure it’s blood. Riiiight.
Regardless, the shroud itself has been carbon dated as having been made between the years 1260 and 1390. The thing is a fake, people. F. A. K. E. These things happen; deal with it.
So… it might still be blood. Just not Jesus’s.
It could very well be the blood of someone who created it in 1200. Almost all saints icons and relics of Jesus were created much, much later than the actual intertestimental period.
That doesn’t change the fact that you stated uncategorically that it was conclusively proved to be paint when nothing of the kind is the case. It’s blanket inaccuracies like that which give people the impression that real science is not a valid form of inquiry into the origins of these kinds of items.
For the record, if Jesus had the body proportions on the Shroud, he’d look like a monster. That analysis of it alone proves its likely inauthentic nature, much less the carbon dating (which has been argued to be tainted from the medieval patching work done on the shroud) or the paint vs blood debate. A Jesus who looked anything like the image on the Shroud would be comfortable playing Frankenstein’s Monster.
Poor Robin.
I don’t get this. How is there no proof that Jesus exsisted exactly?
I mean The Bible was written by people seeing him do thing’s so I’m pretty sure that would count.
The parts of the bible about Jesus were probably not written by people who knew him personally, but yeah, some itinerant preacher named Joshua very likely existed, gathered a small following, and then got summarily executed for disturbing the peace during the politically sensitive passover. (Jews had a tendency to riot against the Roman during religious holidays, and both the Jewish and Roman authorities had in interest in keeping the peace.)
And most of the things Jesus supposedly did very likely didn’t happen that way – excepting the ones we *know* didn’t happen that way, like a people-moving census at his birth or Pilate being a wishy-washy pantywaist. The stories were written by believers with the intent of promoting belief in new and old followers alike; accuracy came a distant, distant second to encouraging belief, assuming that they weren’t working from rumors to start with. The stories about him in the bible have about as much historical credibility as the tales about Robin Hood and King Arthur.
Uhm, if he did exist as the bible says, then the first four books of the new testament were written by people who followed him for years and hung on his every word.
And disagreed about numerous major points of fact when they weren’t copying off of each other – and claiming that Romans conducted the most moronic censuses EVER, and quoting precise dialogue from places that were unobserved by any of them like Mary’s conversation with the angel and the trial of Jesus. (With the quotations not agreeing with one another, naturally.) Heck, even the stuff they were there for was written down 30-70 years after the fact; how good were these guys’ memories supposed to be again?
No. At *best*, the guy existed, preached, and did miracles (yeah right). However it’s literally not possible that the accounts are all accurate accounts of the events that occurred. And if they were willing to make up all the crap we *know* is false, what does that say about their credibility about all the other things that read like tall tales and parables?
How can Robin even suggest something that abstruse. SO ARROGANT!
Poor Robin. Leslie is being a little difficult, though I do understand why she is probably feeling antagonistic towards the idea of there being an actual Jesus. I mean, her parents used him against her. I hope he’s nice to her and she ends up liking him as a person.
If we are now using the likelihood of there being evidence of your existence 2000+ years in the future, I’m afraid I probably don’t exist.
That’s a shame.
Cognito ergo sum.
I always preferred Coito Ergo Sum.
All that proves is that my groin exists. It could hypothetically just be floating there and hallucinating the torso and up.
Hey Paul and Storm!
@BillCorbett @Kwmurphy say hi!
This is a metaphor, isn’t it?
Yeah… that’s actually a pretty retarded stream of logic from Leslie, there. That’s essentially like the creationists’ view that the world is far younger than science claims because man wasn’t always around to record it.
Not even close. There is MASSIVE evidence that the earth is old; it requires either ignorance or denial to pretend otherwise. The proof of Jesus’s literal existence is sparse and it’s all second or third-hand at best. Personally I think there’s enough evidence to suggest that some dude named Joshua probably actually existed, but it’s not quite a slam dunk.
All those bumper stickers can’t be wrong.
By the way does this Jesus have a cool Zanpakuto?
I have a problem with the fact that Willis was apparently left in the ocean yet continues to write new comics. Waterproof tablet and wifi fashioned from starfish and electric eels?
I’m genuinely amazed by the amount of people who are stating that there was a historical Jesus even though there’s really no historical evidence outside of the Bible. But then I remembered 70% of Americans are Christian.
The Bible can be used as a historical source (as can anything that was written in ages past).
Anyway, the claim that Jesus did not exist is pretty weak as well. Occam’s razor. Is it more likely that Christianity grew out of a cult founded by a Jewish minister “Jesus,” or that he and the religion based on him is completely fabricated?