Well, hello hello. I’ve been drawing comics entirely digitally for like three years by now, but seeing as how the computer hooked up to our Cintiq has been having brainfarts all day and I didn’t have a Shortpacked! in the buffer for tonight, I drew today’s the old-fashioned way. Y’know, on paper, with pencil and ink and a scanner. It wasn’t entirely like the old days, since I have no idea where my big wooden drawing board, my paper, or my rulers are, and so I grabbed some random sketch pad and used an envelope as a straight-edge. Suffice to say, I had to fix a lot of terrible-looking right angles once I scanned stuff in.
This wasn’t going to be today’s strip, either. I’ve been trying to draw a Catwoman comic for a while, but the computer keeps throwing fits as I try to finish it. It’ll let me finish any other strip, but not this damn Catwoman comic. And so as a big middle finger to the universe, I drew this strip about Historical Jesus instead. Ha ha ha, and you thought we might get through this election season without a Shortpacked! strip about politics or religion. Joke’s on everybody!
(Actually, I’m pretty sure the joke’s gonna be on me, if the next 48 hours of comment moderation is likely to have any say in things.)
So, anyway, in other news, apparently Clark Kent quit the Daily Planet and became a blogger. Sounds familiar.
Poor Jesus. Everyone misquoting him all the time =(
Everybody HAAaaaaaaates Chriiiist
Whooaaaaaaa Yeaah.
Yeah. Can we give him a hug, or would that be weird?
it shouldn’t be. We have the same father. He’s basically our brother.
He’s our brother, who is also our father. Awkward!
How very redneck.
suddenly Incendies O_O
The movie based on a play?
I for one would gladly let Willis write Superman and Batman. Sales would probably go up!
Totally. And Joss Wheadon making the movie versions.
Robin probably gave it to him so he could know to always wear his blue sash.
You cant let Jesus read the Bible, who knows what sort of strange ideas he would come up with.
I was expecting them to get a bunch of things wrong. I wonder how often he got misquoted.
“Blessed are the cheesemakers…the Greeks shall inherit the earth.”
Obviously it’s not literal; it can refer to any manufacturers of dairy products.
“You’re all individuals!”
“Yes! We’re all individuals!”
I’m not
Great, now we have to upgrade an extra’s salary to a speaking part’s salary.
Why I always call Jesus a Socialist. (In a good way)
*plays “It Ain’t Necessarily So” on the Muzak*
Wouldn’t you wanna read a book based on your life? Regardless of accuracy?
It’d have to be pretty inaccurate to be worth reading.
Then methinks he would have a blast reading the bible
Yes. I am that vain. I would want it to be a trilogy tho.
Crawl back into your grave, President Johnson, the quintilogy isn’t finished yet! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Caro#The_Years_of_Lyndon_Johnson
Yes. I have a terrible memory, so it would be a good way of reminding myself of things that have happened.
I don’t really now. Could easily be stranger than fiction.
I’m not sure Yotomoe, I mean, I already know the story
But in his case it’s four stories, which only vaguely match up with one another.
Rashomon 2:14
Stop being a communist, Historical Jesus.
Historical Jesus is a friggin’ liberal and just wants to take all the money from hard working god-fearing men like me.
Hey, not *all* the money. He’s cool with expensive foot oil. There will be poor always and all that.
That’s just if you encourage taking his code to the extreme. If everyone did that, that would be just stupid.
Rich Conservative Christians are more likely to give to charity a lot then create a distribution system that is as mind-numbingly shortsighted.
Besides, I don’t think Jesus and Liberals would ever mix. One, he would give a shit about all his people, not just the ones in our borders. Two, many liberals are trying to shut down anything related to Christianity in this country. And three, the whole abortion thing.
Yeah, Historical Jesus would give you the evil eye of the century.
I would rather not start an argument and make Willis right about this 48 hour period. However I don’t really think that those first two are all that true. I will, however, let you have the 3rd thing, although I’ve never read the bible so I’m not sure how explicit it is about that either.
Yeaaaaaaahh…Jesus even has a parable that [i]explicitly denounces[/i] the idea that it’s how much you donate in dollars, rather than how much you sacrifice of yourself.
The closest you’re gonna get to the Conservative view is that Jesus said that tax money was basically meaningless (give to caeser what belongs to caeser) since you’re just giving him back his stuff instead of giving others YOUR stuff, and the whole “free will is absolutely the most important thing none of this means anything unless you do it of your own will.” But the whole “it’s good to be as ruthless and money-seeking as you can be” mindset of your modern conservative or libertarian is right at odds with the gist of Jesus’ message.
He’s ABSOLUTELY not a socialist, because none of his instructions were about building a workable earthly utopia, and actually following them would pretty quickly result in the death of the species…though, in some ways that’s kind of the point, since you’re supposed to be getting ready for heaven and not trying to cling to Earth.
(Saying all of this as a Christian who is social conservative only because of a few key issues…)
Thank the Lord! You explained this far better than I could Kryten. When I try to explain it, my words tend to get jumbled up, even on the internet. Much obliged
What do you expect from a guy who dresses like a hippie?
One of my teachers once called Jesus the first “real” communist in history. It was… interesting, really.
In a certain Final Fantasy Tactics game…
(SPOILER)
its revealed that Jesus was actually a communist spy for a foreign government.
You forgot the part where he used the powers of hell through magic stones and everything went batshit insane.
Oh that game :3
Yeah, I mean, have you seen his sandals?
“So let’s all sing our praises to
That long-haired radical socialist Jew!”
– Hugh Blumenfeld
How could you not have made that a Picture Bible? YOU FOOL
A pop-up picture bible from the Veggitales series even!
If you try to launch the HMS Leslie/Jesus, that sucker would sink like a stone.
Just because Leslie’s gay and hates nearly everything he represents and teaches due to her traumatic childhood experience with over-religious parents? NAAAAAW…
To be fair, most of that stuff is in the Old Testament. Not all of them, though. (I fully admit to have only read part of the book.)
It’s either Old Testament, or Paul. Paul wrote (or, more accurately, “the various authors whose writings were later attributed to Paul wrote”) a lot of stuff. Most of it was designed to make the budding Christian sect more marketable.
So, shrimp cocktail and bacon cheeseburgers are in, circumcision is out. However, in order to support the social order, sex is only allowed within marriage (and then, only if you’re not able to be celibate, like Paul claimed to be), and of course, homosexuality is right out.
This, of course, involves completely ignoring the historical context of the story of the Centurion and the favored servant. (Short form: Centurion’s fave servant gets sick, Centurion asks Jesus to heal him, Jesus does so, telling the others that THAT is what faith is all about, Centurion adopts the servant, making him officially a Roman by law. What gets left out by most Christians is that a Centurion’s ‘most favored servant’ would’ve been his male concubine, brought to the field because women were seen as too fragile for that sort of thing. And when you adopt your concubine, you give them inheritance rights and status–much as if you had married them.)
Also Paul was kind of a dick.
Seems like no one checked his backstory, aka killing people.
I don’t see Doug Funnie fucking Alf in the ass anywhere on that comic.
WHAT HAVE YOU DONE!? MERELY BY SAYING IT HAS BROUGHT IT INTO EXISTENCE!!! (and if it already exists it’s bringing ANOTHER one into existence)
I know. Just more proof that Willis has really let this comic go downhill.
I thought he would be waiting until his computer is working properly, so he can do Alf’s ass justice.
I actually have been wondering for years how somebody could be a Christian and a conservative (not being either, I assumed I was missing something). I mean, I read one part where Jesus tells this story of a guy who got really rich, decided to close his business down and retire and keep all his money to himself, and God basically struck him with lightening. That’s not exactly the values of the Republican party, as I understand them.
According to wiki’s article on Prosperity Theology, it goes something like this:
“God loves His people, God wants you to be happy, successful, untroubled, and have the power to do His works on Earth, which you can best do by being in charge of everything. Because you’ll totally run the country according to His will and moral principles, right?”
It goes back to the Puritans. Who thought that hey, if your life rocked and you were wealthy than that meant you were blessed by god. I mean, it’s a fairly easy to grasp logic.
The rationalization is, I think:
1) I shouldn’t be Forced (taxed) to give money to the poor
2) I’ll do a better job redistributing wealth than the government would
Of course, that assumes Christians are always generous…
I always find it revealing that it the government “forces” us to pay taxes, while doing what God asks us to is a “choice.” Either situation, the “choice” is between doing exactly what someone says and being punished, and God’s punishment is kind of way more severe.
It’s a choice when you’ve already made the decision to do it because you want to, and it’s coercion when you don’t. Either that, or folks know prison is real but don’t really think Hell is.
Well, you’re assuming that the bible is literally what god told a couple of schmucks to write down. If god really does slap the banhammer on people like that and the puritans were right, then yeah, I guess that does sort of count as coercion, but considering that it is equally likely that the bible is just this old-ass self help manual that people have been using against each other, then it’s not really coercion so much as a guideline.
I am pretty sure that *I* am not assuming the Bible is the inerrant Word of God. But many many many many many MANY folks do, and my words are for them.
Generally, when one has a discussion, it helps to argue from an agreed-upon premise, or else there can be no basis for that discussion.
*hugs* Love ya walky.
No qualifiers. This statement is enough for manly, manly platonic hugs.
I don’t think you got my point : /
Because, as Jesus said, “render not unto Caesar, for he hath no hold on thy money. No good works are done save through private enterprise and entrepreneurship.”
I assume that’s what he said, anyway.
Yeah, I think that’s somewhere near the line where Jesus says something like, “For a rich man to get into Heaven it’s as easy as it is for a camel to walk.” (Something about a needle there too. I’m sure it’s not an important detail.)
The traditional translation is “It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to pass through the gates of Heaven”, I believe. Although a few years ago there was a suggestion that “camel” was a mis-translation of a word meaning “Heavy rope” or “anchor rope” as opposed to the normal “sewing thread”, making the needle metaphor a little more appropriate.
I always thought “The Eye of the Needle” was the name of a very difficult pass to go through. Not impossible, just very hard.
Nope, that’s a myth invented so that rich people didn’t have to feel bad about being rich.
*Gasp!* A mistranslation in the Bible? Impossible!
(FYI, I’m being as sarcastic as I was in my previous post, just in case someone missed that.)
That being said, from what I understand there is little support or evidence for the idea that “camel” is a mistranslation of “rope”. Keep in mind that the Jesus of the Bible was fond of metaphor, even when he frequently had to explain what the metaphors meant to the dopes he had for apostles.
It’s the Calvinists, honestly. The Catholics don’t hold with that shit at all (in principle. In practice, people are just people.)
And thus, in one sentence, you summarize the problem with most organized religion. The ones doing the organizing (or MAINTAINING the organizing) are, in the end, human, and after a few millennia of that, things get pretty distorted until things end up at the same place the religion was railing against.
It’s complicated.
Basically, neither party as a lock on being “the Party of God.” Conservatives embrace the so-called “social issues” of what people do in their personal lives. Liberals embrace the so-called “social justice” of what people do in public to/for each other. The mainstream churches have favored one set of issues over the other at different points in time, but neither modern party really hits everything.
If you want to get into why it’s this way today, I suggested you Google for the Wikipedia articles on the Fourth Party System and the modern Fifth Party System of the United States and start wiki-walking. There’s a long, complicated history in how we went from the era of Christian Socialism in the 1930s to the present situation by the 1980s: the Red Scare, Dixiecrats, the radicalism of the 60′s, the Goldwater Revolution and purge of Republican moderates, the Moral Majority, the decline of mainline Protestant churches, etc.
It doesn’t have much to do with actual Christian theology; it has to do with Calvin. Calvin preached predestination, and he preached Election; the idea that God chose who would and would not be saved before the universe was even created. He tried to build among his follows a society upon that foundation, but how can you build anything temporal on Salvation if salvation is an unknowable grace that god hands down secretly and randomly? And so Calvin came up with the idea that worldly success is a sign of god’s grace; that those who have wealth and position have it because god gave it to them as a sign of favor. Thus, the wealthy and powerful are -so long as they follow the True Doctrine- the Elect chosen by god to pass into Heaven, and also the proper social cohort to hand temporal power over to.
Haha. Silly Jesus! People don’t read the Bible! They just assume it says what they want it to and then use that assumption to berate and oppress others.
Hey, that’s precisely how Fred Phelps led his people! (Heyooo!)
Can I just say David Willis’ Traditional style is really good? Personally I can’t ink worth my weight in dimes but I can do digital decently.
whoops…didn’t mean to reply that :C sorry…
Now I’m wondering about how much a person’s weight in dimes would actually add up to.
The mean weight of a dime is 2.256 grams. Say I weighed 180 pounds converted to grams that would be 81646.6. Then when you divide 81646.6 by 2.256 you get 36190.8 which can be rounded up to 36,191 Dimes. That would be aproximately $3,619.08 in dimes.
How did you end up with .08 cents if you’re only using dimes?
By forgetting that he’d just rounded them up, apparently.
Even so, my wonder has been assuaged. Thanks, Yotomoe.
Accurate.
Catholics don’t read the Bible at all — they leave that to the priests. Protestants are encouraged to read and interpret the Bible by themselves without the guidance of the priesthood, which basically leads to them basically just making up whatever interpretations they like.
Pretty much the only ones who actually READ the thing are the Biblical scholars.
Hey I resent that. I read it. Because I wanted to see what it actually said.
Inaccurate.
I’ve known relatively few catholics, but every one that was serious about it would read the bible every day. When I say serious, I mean goes to church and cares about it, rather than simply saying they are one.
I hope I made it clear that those aren’t the sort of people I’m talking about, but rather the sort of person in the first two panels of this comic.
Reply was to mickeyten.
No worries, I didn’t believe your post was about actual people.
People like in the column definitely actually exist. Absolutely.
Like in the COMIC, I meant. Man, I suck at this whole typing/speaking/using words thing.
If you want to know about the bible ask Richard Dawkins.
Atheists are always a good option for an objective reading of scripture.
Actually, in my experience atheists are the least objective of all. The few I do know have an excellent working knowledge of the bible but , like everyone else with an agenda, they manage to turn it toward thier own personal goals. I’m sure that there are well meaning atheists out there just like every other religion but in the same regard people are people no matter what they ascribe themselves to.
I disagree, an Atheist wont sugarcoat or make excuses like “oh it’s a metaphor” for a passage. See Atheists believe the bible is made up so they aren’t inclined to be apologetic, nor are they inclined to lie to try and make it look better or worse. Why would they? It’s just fiction.
I don’t think that there’s such a thing as a purely objective reading of the Bible. Most atheists who do it do so to discredit it, most Judo-Christians who read it do so to reaffirm it. You’re going in with an idea of what you want to take out of it.
I’m not saying that this mindset prevents intelligent analysis, because going in with a critical eye will make the flaws more readily apparent and going in with a pious eye will make the good bits stand out more. But there doesn’t seem to be much middle ground. Even if you can see the good and bad–and many do–you’re still going to be predisposed to think one redeems/damns the other.
Not necessarily.
I read it back in middle school (I went to a Hebrew Day school, 50% of the schoolday on secular learning, 50% on religious learning) with the INTENT of reaffirming it, and was convinced to become atheist instead.
Well, that’s still being subjective about it.
I guess that what I’m trying to say is no one reads the Bible and come out with “eh. It’s alright, I guess.”
I used to be a very religious Jew; even went to a private Hebrew Day School instead of public school.
Then I actually started taking a look at the TaNaCh, which, combined with a total inability to think of things as metaphorical when they don’t look it to me, is why I’m an atheist.
Just have to throw in my objection to the implication that Atheism is a religion. Atheism is as much a religion as “off” is a television channel.
For example, to say atheism has some sort of consistent dogma like theism is to say that there is no difference between the beliefs of Ayn Rand and Vladimir Lenin.
You gotta admit though that there are atheists out there trying to spread their view of the world in a most missionary (and I mean the bad way) manner. All the while acting and arguing in a way that I can’t possibly describe other than with the words “religious fanatic”.
Mind you, not all atheists are like that. Heck, not even close to half of them. It’s a minority. But they do happen to make up a good part of the most loud and vocal ones. (As in most social groups of course. The nutjobs always make up a way higher part of the people getting noticed than they actually represent in society.)
There’s a word for people who have read the Bible: “atheists”.
I grew up Catholic with a grandmother who read the bible daily. What’s more, she made her children and grandchildren read it as well. Sometimes she made us read it out loud. Then she’d ask us questions. We also had to read it in class at my Catholic school.
My husband’s grandmother is Pentecostal, reads the bible every day, and is one of the most “Christ-like” people I’ve ever met. A truly beautiful human being.
Also, generally speaking, generalizations suck.
I love when people claim something is in the Bible when it’s really obvious that it isn’t. Like, I love it when people use it as justification for revenge.
Them: “Like the Bible says, ‘an eye for an eye’.”
Me: “The Bible doesn’t say that. That’s Hammurabi’s code. The Bible says ‘turn the other cheek’. Seriously, did you ever read the damn thing?”
Exodos 21: 22 When men strive together and hit a pregnant woman, so that her children come out, but there is no harm, the one who hit her shall surely be fined, as the woman’s husband shall impose on him, and he shall pay as the judges determine. 23 But if there is harm,[d] then you shall pay life for life, 24 eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, 25 burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.
The moral of the story: the bible says everything. And if it’s not there plainly there’s something in there that someone can and has interpreted as saying it. If you want to justify something, anything, it’s the book for you.
Pretty much. I figured this out when I was a child.
I’m glad to see Historical Jesus back. Even if Trickledowny McEconomicpants in the comic isn’t.
This is why I believe in the general idea of God and follow the ideas of Jesus… namely be kind, be generous and in general don’t be a hypocritical asshole. Jesus hated BS.
I have long harbored a fond fantasy of Historical Jesus knocking over tables covered with cheap “WWJD?” merch and kicking the seller(s) thereof out of the temple.
Hi Jesus, missed you!
Nice you see you’ve got principles you stick by even if I don’t agree with them all. I guess I’m not against redistribution of wealth completely – I was referring to the “kingdom of heaven” and “God” thing.
Still I really like you, you should come around more!
We could be buddies!
Wait – wait. In all seriousness – does Lucy know Jesus is there? Let’s pair Lucy and Jesus… because nobody sees it coming…
Or Leslie and Lucy…
Come now, Jesus, didn’t you learn the first time around that your followers don’t actually get your teachings?
He would probably find Monty Python’s Life of Brian a depressing allegorical commentary…
I think I mentioned before that Jesus’s only problem with Life of Brian would be that Kenneth Colley looks nothing like him.
On a random note before I go hide in the political comment bunker, anyone else think Historical Jesus working at a toy store was probably not the best idea Galasso’s ever had? I mean, this strip pretty much shows why he never had a career in retail.
I thought that was because retail hadn’t been invented yet back then.
That’s only what they WANT you to think!
Pretty sure there was stores back then. Bazaars atleast.
Yeah, but I think of “retail” as a really specific thing for some reason.
Except there were marketplaces… and when they made their way into the temples, Jesus got pissed.
They should have him building things. He was a carpenter, right?
On a different note, I wonder where Jesus sleeps.
in a stone tomb. He awakes every 3 days.
XD That explains why we hardly ever see him.
What’s with Leslie’s mouth in the last panel? I mean, I know what you were aiming for, but it just kinda looks like she has weird white lips.
cut him a little slack. He hasn’t done traditional in a while.
CANNOT UNSEE
I hate to be “that girl”
But the thing Christians dislike is government-based redistribution. Most committed Christians give money to charity at the bare minumum as a tithe.
Part of the dislike of government redistribution is things like the money simply not going where it’s intended, either by corruption or simple mismanagement.
You know, I don’t think Christianity and capitalism are actually the same thing at all.
Or even Christians and Americans.
Well yeah, that’s really the issue with the comic; that Willis assumes that a Christian would react that way to someone telling them to give money to the poor.
Again the specific thing that a Christian would consider “redistribution of wealth” is specifically government redistribution, not giving money to the poor.
This comic was poorly concieved.
Christ said to give the government whatever tax they demand without hesitation. “Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s.”
Yeah, a system of currency exists because the government has created it. It should be a superficial, earthly construct in the eyes of someone who believes in eternal life. If the government asks for more, who cares? Money doesn’t matter! The coming Kingdom of God is what matters.
You know, this is a really insightful comic, and the ensuing discussion is even harder to argue without either trouncing my own logic or arguing against the theology I profess to believe. Which is why I’m incredibly angry and frustrated right now.
Good job, Willis.
“Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s…”
“Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s…”
If elected in 2032, I plomise to convert our currency from greenbacks to those hard candy mints your grandparents always have hundreds of in place of pennies, Jelly Bellies in place of nickels, Swedish Fish in place of dimes, Orange Slices in place of quarters, and bars of Chocolate replacing the bills.
You will no longer have the rich and the poor. You will have the people with their teeth and the rich.
Had a hard day at work? USE those one cent pieces instead of glaring at them, wishing they did something.
My opponent may say that this is a fucking awful piece of legislation because you’d eat it all within a day of getting it, but fuck him, it’s CANDY!
So urrm… You don’t think, perhaps, MABYE, stretch your mind real wide..
This might be based on factual events?
Cause I’ve seen wealthy christians argue that giving money to the poor is unchristian.
In person.
Multiple times.
In the church i was attending.
One of the many reasons why church is no longer for me.
Wow. That’s harsh.
I can understand not giving cash to the people standing at the freeway exit; those guys work shifts and you’re more likely giving out of guilt or paying for street theater than helping the needy.
I can understand someone who says “I don’t want to just give money… I want to give time, emotion, heart. I want to connect with and love the people instead of just pay them off.”
But I really want to hear these wealthy folks’ arguments, because I don’t understand them based on your summary. And church isn’t the place for the perfect people (even if some of them think they are) — it’s the place for imperfect people who recognize their imperfection and want God to fix the things they can’t. Sorry about your bad experience.
Statement by wealthy (and if you want to know how wealthy, google don smallgoods. Don’t worry, I’ll wait while you do it) old fuck:
If i can make money (by exploiting migrants post ww2) Anyone can with effort. Why should I put up with this priest lecturing about wealth?
(petitions church council to fire priest, is successfull becasue of his money)
Or go to a better church because seriously what in the friggin’ hell?
*dies laughing*
THIS WAS the pinko, leftist, church in the country town i grew up in.
Tell ya what. Find me a church that is 100% accepting of gays, straights, interracial couples, people with mental illness, transgender folks, single parents, unmarried parents, modern medicine up to and including abortion and birth control, and last, (but very certainly not least) sends reports of pedo priests straight to the police.
In short a church that is about the celebration of life and the inclusion of people no matter what their differences.
Then we can talk.
Let me be completely clear. The word BUT is not allowed to exist. If you have to use “we’re not anti gay, BUT” you’ve lost. Oh hi Rosalie
If you have to use we’re not pro life, BUT, you’ve lost. Hey Alistair.
If you have “all welcome” on the sign, but you pushed the woman who got pregnant on a contiki tour and decided to keep the baby to the strangers isle, you’ve lost. Double points if you’re her mother. Hi there Ros and Ian
If you force your 16 year old daughter who “made a mistake” to get an abortion, but rail about how all those aborting women are sluts, you’ve lost. Hey there Alan
If you force your 16 year old daughter who made a mistake to leave the church in shame, and carry to term, You lost . Hi there bev and Fred.
And if you rape kids and use those kids to solicit more kids to rape, paying special attention to the special needs kids because nobody will believe them. You’re going to hell Robert.
Yeah. That’s right. I just named names. With the exception of the rapist priest, not ONE of those names was worth less than 100 K a year.
Welcome to the Church of Alcoholism.
Not exactly a Christian church, though. Know plenty of Jewish, Atheist, and even a few Hindu congregants.
“Tell ya what. Find me a church that is 100% accepting of gays, straights, interracial couples, people with mental illness, transgender folks, single parents, unmarried parents, modern medicine up to and including abortion and birth control, and last, (but very certainly not least) sends reports of pedo priests straight to the police.
In short a church that is about the celebration of life and the inclusion of people no matter what their differences.
Then we can talk.”
You’ve just described some (though sadly not all) congregations in The United Church of Christ.
It sounds to me like you lived somewhere where all the churches were batshit right-wing churches, but your church was slightly less batshit than the others so everyone decided it was the liberal commie church even though it was still a batshit right-wing church.
If I showed you a church that accepts modern medicine including abortion, I’ve shown you a church that needs a dictionary.
I think it’s fair to say a good many Christians do react that way. My mom, who’s more or less a Pentecostal, said exactly that while explaining that the Tea Party supports “small government” (and I never understand how that means “government tells people they can’t get married). My uncle, a Catholic, said the same thing. Basically, most of the far, far Right seems to hold this view, or some near variant of it, because the far far Right leans very heavily on the Bible, and often distorts it for the purpose of some spiritual jingoism.
I’m a Christian. The comic doesn’t make me mad. People who whip out the name of Christianity to justify acting like jerks do (and also people who claim that all of our Founding Fathers were Christian. Because…what?).
Y’know… I follow George Takei on facebook and he said something oddly relevant to this once. Not word for word he explained that those often associated with the far left Democrat Party (hardcore socialists and communists) do not really represent the Democrat Party and aren’t really Democrats. I’ve come to agree with hm on that and apply the same principle to the Republican Party. Those people you mentioned from the “far right” are not Republican and do not represent the party at all. Historically they are about as far from the Republican Party as you can get. If I encounter these people in my day I will say the same thing to them that George Takei would say to the people who desire a soviet style communism in the US. “You are not Republican. You do not represent the views of this party in modern times and you certainly do not represent their views accurately from the past. It was the Republicans who continued fighting to finish abolition after the Civil War. While Democrats were trying to get African-Americans counted as part of the population but deny them the civil rights of citizens the Republicans said no (and the moderates compromised on 2/3). Before African-Americans were given the right to vote Republicans voted African-Americans to the House of Representatives in the south. These people don’t represent Republicans anymore than Hitler or Stalin represented the Democrat party in their spirits and they definitely don’t represent Christianity any more than those hijackers represented Islam.
That’s a fair and honest point. I know I grew up Republican (I think that had a lot more to do with Animaniacs than anything else), and it’s only in the past two years that the party name has become synonymous with “bigoted-women-hating jerks” in my mind, even if objectively, I’m aware that it’s not true. But Limbaugh and Anne Coulter and Glenn Beck and other similar human fecal matter are the loudest sort of people identifying themselves as such, so… No different, really, than a lot of people thinking of Christians as being, well, bigoted, women-hating jerks because the loudest folks calling themselves Christian are misrepresenting the whole group.
But. The Republican candidates and many of the Republican politicians? They still stand for things I find reprehensible and wrap themselves up in false doctrine to do it. And they’re the loudest things calling themselves Republicans right now, and they’re the ones who are looking to run the country.
I truly hope in the next few years, the part backs away from the far far Right, and regains its sense of self beyond jingoistic buzz-words and the banter of hate-mongers like Coulter and Beck. Right now, though…they haven’t.
“These people don’t represent the party” doesn’t work when they were going for the presidential nomination.
@Fata Morgana: “Willis assumes that a Christian would react that way to someone telling them to give money to the poor.”
No, he doesn’t. That’s exactly his point. Reacting that way has nothing to do with being Christian, yet Mr. Maroonbeard uses “Christian values” as justification for his position.
“Again the specific thing that a Christian would consider “redistribution of wealth” is specifically government redistribution, not giving money to the poor.”
Christian does not equal Republican.
Oh, good job. All the logic and reason in your response is certain to break the internet beyond repair.
That the Christians who feel the need to remind you that they’re Christians every five minutes do this is a fact.
While I’m not nearly as conservative as I used to be, it still does amuse me that the politicians who campaign on a platform of lining their own pockets are considered “charitable”, while those that campaign on the platform that they really have too much of the poplace’s hard earned money already are “greedy.”
Where by ‘lining their own pockets’ you mean taxation? The idea that tax money was primarily for lining the pockets of the leaders might have been fairly true in Biblical times, but it seems a flawed assumption for a modern country – have you looked at a budget breakdown lately?
Many Christians give some money to charity. But they are called to give everything they own to the poor in order to secure eternal life. This was stated in all three Synoptic Gospels. Tithing is kind of a weak compromise, one born not from what Jesus actually said, but the reality Christians faced once it became obvious the End wasn’t coming imminently like he said it would.
Speaking of Christians and reality, have you read about the celibacy vs marriage argument that took place 1900 years ago? “Everyone should be celibate” had to give way to “sex is okay as long as you say it’s for babies” if Christianity wanted to spread.
http://itself.wordpress.com/2012/02/09/why-is-birth-control-the-catholic-churchs-last-stand/
Or there’s my favorite, how Jesus directly spoke against divorce, and specifically remarriage after divorce, but never once said anything about homosexuality (and in the case of someone being brought before Him for judgement of a sexual sin, He forgave her and told the people screaming for her blood to calm down and not get so judgemental). But the Catholic church grants these handy annulments so people can get remarried after divorce completely guilt-free, but allowing gay marriage to be legalized (in a civil way) is Over The Line.
I’m a pretty lousy Catholic when it comes to dogma, but that’s always the bit that really drives me nuts.
The passage you reference involves one man being told that that’s what’s holding him back. There might be many people who would benefit spiritually from giving up what they own (and a lot of churches that go easy on rich people for whatever reason, and a shameful tendency to equate Christianity with Capitalism), but it’s not a universal command.
Yes, Jesus said that to the one rich young man.
But figure, there are 3 basic responses: “Give everything away? Okay, Now what?”, “Give it away? Isn’t there something else I can do?”, and “You’ve GOT to be kidding!”
In other words, the ones who find it easy to give it all away aren’t the ones Jesus was talking to.
Ehhh…. along with what Phlebas has said, there’s also several passages in the gospels that specifically promote tithing (“a tenth of your mint”) as one form of “good work” that was good but not good enough to get into the Kingdom without Christ. So it’s not a complete invention of the early Christians, though I’m quite willing to admit it’s a rather self-serving interpretation and not one that the earliest church followed (passages from Acts and the Epistles describe the tiny communities of the earliest Christians in VERY communistic terms).
Mother Theresa owned two things, and they were both saris. That’s the example Christians are supposed to be aiming for, and the world would probably be a better place for it. Not a Christian myself anymore but I still have an enormous amount of respect for her. She devoted her life to serving the very poorest of the world’s poor, and despite not having any money or cars or what, seemed to be one of the happiest people on Earth.
If she’s not canonized I will be deeply surprised.
Ummm, no. Have you read what she was really like? She redirected the money she was given to the church, rather than for treating the sick, and refused her sick patients painkillers, because living in pain was apparently what god wanted. And when she, herself, was sick, she went to the best hospital money could buy. She is exactly the wrong person to be canonized.
Ah. Did not know that. Carry on, then.
Yeah, I think Roborat just ruined Mother Theresa for you. But she really is not someone to be praised or looked at as any kind of saint. She was pretty terrible.
In that case, shouldn’t they be glad the government is mandating god’s will? After all, many Christians try and get laws passed outlawing abortion. But rather than a government-based ban, likely to involve corruption and mismanagment, how about a personal choice, like charity apparently should be?
To be pedantic and literal, the government wants to take the money before we’ve spent it, not sell what we have and give the proceeds to the poor. Now, if we were supposed to buy stuff, then sell it, then give the money to the poor, that would have a stimulative effect on the economy by expanding the secondary market and making lightly-used secondhand goods available to the poor. I’m being glib here, don’t mind me.
And now to be deadly serious, and apart from all other issues, a belief that abortion is murder leads to the desire to apply the penalties for murder to every case of abortion. To Christians, especially suburban Christians in America, it is especially repugnant that a mother-to-be would murder her own child to improve her quality of life, and makes us wonder why she would not want to avoid that potentiality at all costs. We don’t know, or easily forget, the pressures on the poor and the young and the naive and the morally untrained.
Note: Just a friendly perspective on it, not a rant.
I’m neither poor nor young nor morally untrained, but I had an abortion.
I am a married, middle-aged woman with two kids already. Both of them were planned pregnancies that took a ridiculous amount of effort to happen. And the second one, who was two at the time of my abortion, was a very difficult birth that almost killed her and wasn’t very good for me either. And so we figured, no more kids. Pfft, I was 40, he was 46; we had both a boy and a girl and didn’t want any more.
And then I somehow got pregnant again.
I’ve had four pregnancies (two were miscarried) and dude, I should not have gotten pregnant. So I don’t know what the hell.
On top of it, the baby would have been due in July; in September my husband was shipping out to the other side of the country for Basic training. We weren’t expecting to be together for more than a few weeks at a time for the next two years. And my closest relatives are twelve hours away, and we lived an isolated rural existence, without many close friends.
So what was I supposed to do? Be a 41-year-old woman in poor health, on my own except for a toddler and a 6-year-old, trying to look after a baby in the middle of the woods by myself? Yeah, right. And what of my husband? Was he really supposed to not be there basically at all (except for video chats, which isn’t the same as a parent actually there) for the first two years?
So I had an abortion. And I’m lucky enough to be Canadian, so it was a very simple, low-stress, free procedure that didn’t involve me having to justify myself to a bunch of placard-waving idiots outside who want me to have every baby I conceive, no matter what risk to my health and regardless of our situation.
I get really fed up when I hear (not that you said it
) things like, “If we have access to free abortions then women will just use them like birth control!” Well, no, no they usually don’t, because who the fuck wants to spend the day in a hospital drugged out of your tree, and then have to take the next few days off work because of the abdominal pain (not to mention the remote, but present, health risks) when she can just take a damned pill? Or get a shot every three months? Or have him wear a condom (which he should be doing anyways for other health risks)? Or, hell, now women can wear a condom too. Plus there’s a myriad of other birth control options.
If I hadn’t had access to a safe, legal (not to mention free) abortion, I’m not sure what would have happened. I don’t think I could give a child up for adoption, and I wouldn’t want to risk my life with a coat hanger. So I probably would have been forced to have an unwanted baby, possibly have died and left my own young kids without a mother; my husband would have had to go on welfare to look after them because we have no baby-sitting options, and right when everything was about to make a huge change for the better in our lives, it would have taken a huge turn for the worse. Because of that kid.
I don’t think you can hide something like that from someone, no matter how good your intentions are, even if you’re an adult. The kid’s life would have sucked.
Yes, he still wouldn’t have been dead, but he hadn’t formed a brain or nervous system yet, was not yet aware in even the slightest capacity, and what I did I did for the good of everyone else involved. It’s not like I took a laughing, aware child and stabbed it in the head.
It had the potential to grow into a self-aware being; I removed that potential. I’d already miscarried two babies that I did want. I feel regret over it (not that I wish I hadn’t done it; I regret the necessity– and the pregnancy), but I don’t feel I murdered an innocent child. And it wasn’t because I was poor or naive or morally untrained.
^Lawyered.
Pretty much all tax increases proposed by the democratics over the last few years would have gone into debt repayment.
Reducing your debt lowers repayment – its pretty must the best investment possible – yet the (mostly claiming to be Christian) republicans still argue fiercely against them (or specifically Bushs tax cuts being ended).
I guess the key word is “claiming” in the above though.
But would the increase in taxes result in an increase in revenue? When small business owners state that tax increases would force them to lay off workers, Republicans listen and Democrats don’t.
The increased revenue from the business owner will almost certainly not compensate for both the loss of the worker’s payroll taxes and the addition of that worker to the unemployment rolls?
Revenue collected through taxation is a dynamic emergent behavior of the tax system, not a simple formula, especially in a free market. That’s why I support the FairTax proposal: it reduces complexity, which reduces the amount of chaos in the system, increases predictability, leads to a more stable environment for business, and supposedly results in a growing economy.
Eh, if either party was ever consistent about their plans, it might work. But to take election-year promises at face value in this era of toe-the-party-line-regardless is folly. No matter what they promise, these days a Republican candidate will try to cut taxes outright and raise spending via the military, while a Democrat candidate will try to raise taxes and cut the military (while raising spending via other areas).
It doesn’t really matter what they say at this point, which is why I vote based on party alone and non-economic issues (in my case, environmentalism).
The problem with this position, Fata Morgana, is that it assumes that the various churches are somehow immune to the corruption that applies to other institutions. (And note: Churches are not charities. They may have charitable arms, but a good portion of the money donated to a church goes to maintenance of the religion’s primary purpose of serving the flock and supporting the faithful–and, in some cases, paying off victims of abuse in an attempt to keep them from going to the press, or illegally channeled into political action committees pushing the passage of homophobic ballot propositions). Organized religious institutions are human affairs, just like the government is, and are no less subject to corrupt behavior–we’ve had too much ample evidence of that over the past few decades to let the counter-claim slide unchallenged.
I’m glad people don’t tend to take the Bible too seriously when it comes to material wealth. Just giving everything away because of imaginary riches up in cloud-land doesn’t drive advancement, rather it gives people a reason to not advance. If enriching one’s life is ultimately futile and counterproductive, then there’s not much reason to find ways to do so. If being poor affords one the charity of the better-off, then there’s less reason to create wealth.
Well, as Willis notes above, there was a strong apocalyptic thread in the early Church. Might as well give all your stuff away, since just by looking around you can tell that this world is so hopelessly @#$%ed that surely God is going to end it any day now.
Yup. Any day now.
God wouldn’t just let things go on like this, right?
There are some theologians who speculate that if the early Church had actually done all that, Jesus might have returned in 70 AD.
How do we know that the Rapture hasn’t already happened, all the good Christians have already been taken up into heaven, and all that we have left down here are the assholes?
I mean, the circumstantial evidence is pretty strong…
Well, outside of political propoganda none of our worldly leaders really fit any sort of “antichrist” description and the Whore of Babylon, if she exists, is probably wearing a burqa, apart from anything else.
What’ll really blow your mind is that America’s involvement in WWII was really close to three and a half years, Germany’s conquest close to seven, and it ended with Israel as a nation.
Spooky.
What do you mean by “You people”, historical Jesus?
Us ridiculous earthly beings.
The recent episode of Red Dwarf (“Lemons”) had an amusing take on Jesus.
You mean he worked with Judas to fake his own death, then moved to the south of France, married Mary Magdalene and invented the wheelbarrow?
Nothing like as good as their explanation for the JFK assassination.
Didn’t they find some payrus where Jesus refers to his wife Mary? Mary Magdalene traveled with him, was at his crucifixion and was there when he rose again. It would make sense.
They recently found a scrap of writing in which a wife of Jesus might be referred to, but that dates to 400 years after his death, so its value in understanding the historical Jesus is kinda negligible.
Though IIRC, none of the gospels were written within any eyewitnesses’ lifetimes.
It’s almost as if any part of the New Testament could be made up then, huh?
At least the first three gospels were written early enough to be concurrent with eyewitnesses, but not early enough to not be written decades after the fact, which isn’t great either.
Yeah, people are questioning the authenticity of that fragment now. The papyrus dates correctly but the text appears to be copy and paste forgery as it includes a known spelling error from an online version of the Gospel of Thomas.
Well, it doesn’t help that “Jesus,” “Joseph,” and “Mary” were such common names in that time and place that when archaeologists come across graves mentioning them they go, “Oh, it’s them again.” It’d be a lot more valid if it mentioned “Christ” rather than “Jesus,” which is like going into certain neighbourhoods in the States and expecting everyone to be speaking about the same “Jose” you knew back when.
I will forever thank Jesus for the his gift of handbags
What does historical Jesus do with his Shortpacked pay? Also, does he pay a rent somewhere?
Of course Walter Peck, of all people, is going to call Jesus non-Christian.
…What? Just me? He looks like Peck, don’t deny it!
Yes, it’s true. This man has no dick.
That’s what I thought!
I thought so, too, after finishing the strip. Ah-heh.
Why isn’t Walter Peck a recurring character in this comic? He should be in it at least once a month, as well as having a dedicated story arc at some point.
Possibly hitting on Leslie. Because he has no dick.
Also a bit of Hans Gruber.
Personally, I thought he looked kinda like a trimmed and dapper White European Jesus, which is also perfectly fitting.
Nah, hair and beard is too light a shade to be Cesare Borgia/White Jesus.
I call straw man! If you count tithing, religious folks (not just Christians) give tons to charities (although, ok, admittedly we’re talking about religious donations and other religious charities): http://www.hoover.org/publications/policy-review/article/6577
But Willis, you’re definitely right – that whole thing about not serving or loving money has gone straight over the heads of too many of us Christians.
And yeah, the interpretation of a tithe as 10% comes from the Old Testament (“tithe” translates as “tenth”). The magic percentage in the NT is 100%. If you check out Acts 2, the early Christians basically practiced communism, selling their stuff and giving it to whoever had any needs.
I don’t count religious donations. So it’s not a straw man. And as noted elsewhere, Christ is quite explicit in the story of the woman who drops her last two coppers in the poor-box.
Shifting this to a bit more of a fan and game theme…
There was an awesome video game series by Origin Systems, “Ultima,” until Electronic Arts destroyed everything… but to sum it up: Ultima I-III had you questing to slay the big bad in standard fashion. Ultima IV had you questing to… become the Avatar of Virtue. Literally, the way to win was to not lie, not steal, be humble, give blood, etc… it’s still pretty unique in that sense.
Ultima V’s premise was that you return to Britannia and find Lord British missing and usurped by a regent who is duped by some really nasty demonic types into making all virtue compulsory. Unfortunately, by making it compulsory the virtues were twisted.
That’s the reason conservatives are against socialism. If you’re being forced to give to charity, it lacks the same moral righteousness (and that’s not even touching on the fact that you can be taxed for causes you don’t support, whether that cause is socialized medicine or funding a war effort). Of course, they tend to forget that the same thing applies to prayers and lifestyles; if you’re being forced to pray and limit yourself sexually, it’s not the same at all. The most important statement of Jesus’ that Christians tend to forget is “let he who is without sin cast the first stone.”
At least, that’s this Jew’s opinion…
Of course being taxed and your taxes paying for welfare is less virtuous than donating to charity of your own free will.
But it’s not supposed to be about giving people a chance to be all good and noble and virtuous. It’s about feeding the poor. A guy who lost his job, lost his home, and is freezing to death in the street during winter isn’t gonna care all that much if the soup kitchen that’s keeping him alive is paid by the government or private charity.
Sun Tzu: And if it stopped there, that’d be great. But it also goes to people like my aunt who was a welfare queen for 10 years, with all the bad connotations that suggests. The government should collect taxes to assist the poor and unfortunate. Unfortunately, what we end up with naturally includes a lot of waste and inefficiency. That is what I consider the problem with governmental redistribution. I’m not an expert at this, but I am employed as a defense contractor, so I think I have something to say about governmental waste.
And finally, taxing the fortunate is appropriate, but anybody who says “leave me alone, but tax the crap out of that rich guy over there!” is an ass. Anybody above the poverty line that wants to raise taxes on the “evil 1%” but isn’t willing to pay more themselves doesn’t have a damn clue what charity is. Yes, the rich should pay more, but so should I.
Amen. I support higher taxes, for myself included.
Every system, be it governmental welfare or private charity, is going to suffer from some abuse (heck, how many private charities are lining their leaders’ pockets with donation money?). But a few parasites profiting from the system is an acceptable loss, IMNSHO, for keeping poverty from ever being as horrible as it used to be in the past.
Everything you said is true, but private charities can be caught out or can have simple fixes. Personally, I like the idea of the CFC reporting and auditing practices. The government rarely moves towards less waste. For example, we have very strict rules on accounting and purchasing… so tight that we had to hire a team that spends hours (at full pay) to process every minor purchase we make. Overall costs increased a lot, all that was passed on to your taxes and it isn’t ever going away.
I’m just pointing out that there is a downside, and people that argue for smaller governments do have a point. It’s not that they hate the poor. The world is rarely that black and white.
I don’t think anybody disputes that government poverty-alleviation programs could use some fixing; the debate emerges from some saying they should be eliminated outright (and turning discussions about improvement into attempts at that elimination) and those that think they’re necessary but simply need some, for your example, more accountability and less waste.
In my experience the “debate” is usually between two reasonable people where one person says “Life is hard for the poor and getting worse, we should increase the amount of welfare spending” and the other person says “We should definately consider that, but we should be careful to make sure it gets to the people that really need it”.
The “argument” occurs between two people who say…
“We need to tax the rich and give make sure there’s a level playing field!”.
“You just want to spread the wealth around and create a permanent voting block!”
“You just want to end welfare as we know it and give more tax cuts to the rich!”
“You’re just a socialist redistributor!”
“Well you’re just RACIST!”
Extremism on either side is bad, almost as bad is throwing around incendiary accusations of extremism at either side. For the record, saying someone wants to end all welfare is a watered down version of that, UNLESS you’ve heard it straight from their mouth. How many times have you heard a politician say they want to slash welfare? How many times have you heard a politician say that an opposing politician wants to slash welfare?
The same is true about most issues, and it comes from both sides (which my example was meant to illustrate). The other side is never as evil as your side would like you to believe.
The problem is, its never phrased like that- or for that matter thought of like that (as with many things, the assumption that make everything better is partially to blame; speaking as a policy major, the problem is that assumption assumes a well-funtioning perfectly competitive market, which more or less does not exist).
THe most common form is presenting a private investment option as an alternative to social security. The thing is, that’s only a reasonable alternative for those who have enough to begin with to invest; growth of money by private investment only works if you have enough to invest. As the social security system operates (or tries to) by using money paid in by more wealthy citizens to pay the social security of less wealthy citizens, a private investment option would cause the more wealthy citizens to opt out, drastically reducing the available pool for those who lack the money for a private investment to produce enough, in effect killing the program. They may not see it like that, but when the program is by its very nature redistributionary, and the proposal is to introduce a way to remove those who the redistribution draws from out of the system…
In case/because the above isn’t phrased very well, the issue is that, as you say, the other side ISN’T evil, its just that their strategy will only make things worse rather than better, being directly contrary to the goal of the policy.
This statement is true regardless of which side you are speaking from.
I don’t feel up to trying to defend the whole “privatization is god” theory. I have several problems with it, just not the one you bring up. I have never read that participation would be become optional, but if that is correct you do have a valid point. My main problem with it is that market slow-downs would eventually happen, retirees would lose their savings, we would not allow them to go destitute (point based mostly off my admittedly questionable faith in humanity), so tax dollars would once again have to be brought in. In effect, we would be privatizing the successful portions of the plan and socializing the bad. That is a recipe for failure in a free market.
As for the phrasing, for me there is a world of difference between a well-reasoned and debatable point (in this case “privatization is unsustainable as an option under the current plan”) and “You just hate the poor and are only trying to make more money for your rich friends!” or “You just want to end welfare and throw Granny off a cliff”. The first leaves room for discussion and the others just bring progress to a screaching halt.
Spoony did a pretty entertaining look at each of the Ultima games. Sounds like they started out really strong, but then kind of took a left turn onto WFT Street somewhere, although I don’t specifically remember about virtue being twisted through being compulsory. Sounds like a valid take on things, though, and it reminds me of this short story I read back in school, the title of which I unfortunately do not remember. It was a community that regarded itself as being extremely virtuous, but how can you tell if that virtue isn’t ever tested? So a cranky old guy left his fortune to an unspecified individual– and the citizens showed their true colours trying to figure out who it was. Good story.
It’s a Mark Twain story – “The Man who Corrupted hadleyburg”.
Yes. They took a nose dive after the second trilogy, when Origin was taken over by Electronic Arts. In Ultima IV-VI the Avatar was a righteous, honorable person who could kill demons with their bare hands and sling magical death everywhere for good measure. In Ultima VII the Virtues themselves were discounted. In Ultima VIII the Avatar had become a craven thief who, even with maxed out stats and a decent magical weapon, would still lose a fight with the local equivalent of a cow. And then came Ultima IX and “What’s a Paladin?”
That’s Electronic Arts for you…
Willis, you should stick to making jokes about toys, because you do seem to know something about that. Christianity? Not so much. Both the comic and and your comments just display your ignorance about not just the content of the Bible, but the reason people follow its teachings.
So Jesus didn’t say ‘I tell you the truth, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.’?
So what did Jesus really mean then?
Um…You are aware that Willis comes from a fundamentalist Christian background, right? I think he knows a thing or two about the content of the Bible.
Yeah, I’ve always thought of myself well-versed enough in the bible to crack a joke, but every time Willis speaks up on the subject I realise how much he really does know about it.
Also, he’s obviously trolling, but I wanted to chime in anyway.
Yes, obviously trolling. Heaven forbid (ha!) someone might actually get their feathers ruffled when something they hold dear is twisted so hard that it becomes unrecognizable, and then gets kicked around and laughed at. Trolling. Obviously.
Man, you’re great! A good troll knows when to stop (that is, before things deteriorate into an endless “Yes it is!” – “No it isn’t!”). A great troll knows how to stop. That part where you, completely out of nowhere, accuse Willis of “throwing civility out the door”, so you won’t have to fight a losing battle? GOLDEN trolling.
I’ve seen a lot of otherwise good trolling attempts fail because the troll comes off as an arrogant know-it-all, but you strike just the right balance between self-certain and humble. The icing on the cake is where you clarify that you like the comic and have nothing against toy collecting, like, “just in case” anyone disagreed because of that, nudge nudge, wink wink.
And like any good troll, you never flat-out deny that you’re trolling. Truth spoken as sarcasm is, after all, the best kind of lie.
Now, please don’t take this as your cue to come clean – that would spoil the fun (not that I think someone of your caliber would do that). I just think that good trolling should be encouraged. I mean, let’s face it, it’s not gonna go away, and I would much rather have an internet where trolling is intelligent and funny, than an internet full of “DURR UR A FAG LOL”.
Both thumbs up!
No, I wasn’t aware of that, and it isn’t readily apparent, either in the comic or in his subsequent comments.
Could you provide reference for what he has misrepresented? Because I’ve met people with this view and I’ve read the Bible and Jesus did advocate humble poverty.
You can disagree about whether or not his interpretation is the one to run with…but you can’t say he made up the content. And the Bible is nothing if not loads of interpretation on most topics.
I personally love this site because he’s managed to attract a diverse audience and the comments below are one of the few places I’ve seen religious debate that doesn’t get more than “heated” very often.
I’m not saying he made up the content. I’m saying he’s taken it completely out of context. To pull some phrases out here and there and interpret them free of the surrounding text is what get most Christians into trouble, let alone those who aren’t. Sure, the content is “legit”, but even if I quote you half a chapter of a physics textbook, if I don’t understand it and can’t explain it, I only “know” that content in a very shallow way. That’s not the kind of in-depth knowledge I was speaking about, which I’d strive to at least scratch before trying to poke fun at (or holes in) someone else’s religion.
Decent trolling effort. You wasted no time in getting to the part where you purposefully offend more than 50% of the comic’s readership, and carefully offered no support for your argument. The “only comics about toys” quip was the cherry on top.
Now go home and play Superman 64 until you die.
Hey, Willis trolled Christians with this one, not the other way around. Other commenters have already clarified the context in which those words were spoken to the rich young man. Willis said in a comment above that all Christians are called to give everything they have in order to secure eternal life. Not only is this a gross decontextualization of the passage he is referring to, it goes against everything else Christ taught about salvation. In fact, the whole point of the rich young man passage was to teach him that he COULDN’T secure eternal life through his works, that no amount of trying would be enough. The balance of wrong we do will always outweigh our attempts to make it right. Christianity is the only religion that recognizes our fundamental inability to “work our way” into heaven, and offers us forgiveness and transformation, not because of what we do but in spite of what we do. The whole concept of redemption is that someone else (Christ) does the redeeming. To miss this point is to completely misunderstand everything that Jesus taught.
I said nothing about 50% of the readership, I don’t know where you pulled that out of. If I wanted to offend a large portion of the readership I’d make snide comments about homosexuality. And no, I’m not gonna.
It’s not that simple.
There’s a large segment of Protestant Christianity that treats it as a matter of course that, by the Bible, you can only go through Heaven by “accepting Christ as your Lord and Savior”. In reality, that’s just one interpretation of the Bible, and it’s not necessarily the most obvious or the most reasonable one.
Take Matthew 25:31-46, which always struck me as Jesus explaining that what really matters is helping others.
No, the point of the rich young man passage is that you need to give up everything and follow Jesus. That you need to see a “larger context” that includes different books written by different people in a different decade to understand what it “really” meant (and conveniently in a way that involves us not forfeiting our comfort) is a post-Jesus invention. You confuse his teachings for Paul’s and Paul’s forgers.
Jesus was surrounded by twelve guys who left their jobs and their families to follow him around because the end of the world was imminent. Jesus was also followed around by a mass of other people who left everything they had as well to hear him speak. (Remember, he had to feed them.) And so when folks say “Oh, when he told that one other guy to sell everything, give it to the poor, and then follow Jesus around everywhere, he was only addressing that one guy,” I can easily dismiss that as the 21st-century-pleasing bunk it is.
Willis, you accuse me of looking at Scripture through a 21st century lens and of trying to dismiss Christ’s “actual” teachings in order not to forfeit comfort. You’re right that I do consider the Epistles as part of Scripture, and that they do come into play when developing an understanding of what it all means. But above I was specifically not referencing any other teachings save those of Christ himself, which I do feel you fundamentally misunderstand and misrepresent. And in fact, I detect much more 21st-century reinterpretation of Christ and his followers in your comments than in mine, albeit from a drastically different slant.
Regarding giving up comfort, I have been working as a missionary for 6 years now, first in Bangladesh, and now in Brazil. If I was really concerned about giving up comfort, I would have never left home. A preoccupation with twisting Scripture to retain comfort is not how I read the Scriptures and is not how I live my life.
I could just as easily, not knowing you or your heart, accuse you of dismissing and twisting Scripture so that you can live the life you want to live, supposedly “free” from dealing with the presence of a God who calls you to repent and devote yourself to Him. But as I said, I don’t know you, and such ad hominem cheap shots are the easy way out of any discussion.
Man, you sure like to tell everyone in detail the horrible things you could have done but you won’t. First the gay thing above and now this! You’re a great guy! Please, tell us more awful things that you could have said!
(You know, instead of continuing to avoid specifying what teachings exactly I’m dismissing or twisting.)
I was simply pointing out that if I had made such an accusation, it would have been as clueless and pointless as the one you directed at me. I thought I was pretty clear, sorry if I wasn’t clear enough.
And I agree with your (sarcastic) assessment. I’m not a great guy. Thankfully, as I said above, my walk with God doesn’t depend on who I am now but happens in spite of who I am now, constantly teaching and stretching me to become better. If I didn’t recognize my need for a Redeemer, we wouldn’t be having this conversation in the first place.
I genuinely hope your missionary work in Brazil and Bangladesh is 100% helping other people out and not telling them the things you tell yourself.
I can see you’ve decided to throw civility out the door. That’s a shame. I won’t be following your lead. Have a good day, sir.
I am glad we have established that this is a conversation where you can say everyone needs to be Redeemed, but I can’t disagree, because the former is civil and the latter is not.
Considering I have spent the larger part of my adult life trying to deprogram myself from “you are worthless without this particular deity’s approval” and all of its related shame politics, I am definitely going to hope (sometimes out loud!) that you are not inflicting this viewpoint on other people. I am sorry that you believe that this is uncivil. You travel to other countries to presumably change the beliefs of other people, but speaking my own mind in pretty damn neutral terms on my own website is apparently being rude!
Re: Specific teachings, see my comment on the conversation with the rich young man, above. You’ve already responded that you don’t agree, and heaped on accusations of comfort-loving and 21st-century reinterpretation, which I also addressed. I don’t think either of us is going to benefit from continuing this discussion, and I’m totally OK with your disagreement, even if I think you’re wrong.
I understand what you disagree with, but you’ve yet to provide evidence against my interpretation.
FYI, just saying “there’s a greater context” plus “others have already explained it” does not equal a convincing argument for “Jesus didn’t mean the words that came out of his own mouth”.
By the way, I do enjoy Shortpacked! very much. I used to love collecting toys, and that’s what drew me to start reading your comic. As it happens, collecting is one of those “comforts” which I gave up. That doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy reading about others’ collections (including yours), or that I fault anyone for pursuing that hobby.
You know, pointing out the foibles of a group of people isn’t the same as trolling, right?
I like to say that there are very few Christians in the US.
A hell of a lot of selectively-Orthodox pseudo-Jews (that think Jesus existed and is the Messiah), though. (As in, they pick and choose the sentences out of the Old Testament that support their existing views, and ignore the rest. Never mind that the New Testament retconned quite a lot of the Old Testament out. (Of course, the New Testament is actually fanfic integrating Pagan characters into the Old Testament’s verse, but ignoring a lot of the Old Testament’s rules, if you will.))
A true Christian would be slightly annoying (the whole, trying to shove being a Christian down your throat part, which is about the only thing most modern Christians read from the New Testament), but otherwise would be a great person.
(Somewhere between agnostic and atheist, myself, and believing based on the evidence that the entire Judeo-Christian-Islamic family of religions has been proven false.)
I like to say this as well. Interestingly, NPR had a story this morning showing research that 45% of Americans SAY they go to church, but only 25% actually DO IT. It seems our society is more interested in the label.
There’s the old joke about a church having trouble with squirrels nesting in the sanctuary. They baptized them, and now they only come in on Christmas and Easter.
Wah-wah-waaah.
“If there is one thing Jesus would be today, its not Christian”.
Anybody who claims to be qualified to declare that some set of people is not a Christian is full of shit. No exceptions.
What’s the definition of Christian? As best anyone can tell the closest thing to a definition it has is “someone that believes in and/or follows the teachings of Christ”. Nothing in that says that they’re good at it, that they understand what they’re following, or that they’re not an idiot. Thus the first and only criteria upon which we can judge their christianity is by whether they *say* they’re a christian.
Are the subset of nice people who call themselves christian miffed by the large subset of self-declared christians who are assholes for one reason or another? Sure. Does this give them the right to redefine the label? No, labels don’t work like that. Too bad for them.
I think the problem is that a lot of people say things like “I’m a Christian!” and then go and cheat on their husbands/wives without remorse. There was actually a man in a church back in the last city I lived in who started bringing his mistress to church (he had been caught and was getting a divorce, if I recall correctly) and he did not care that what he did was wrong and had kept doing it. If he were a Christian, he’d have repented. Yes, he might slip up a hundred times, but he’d repent and try to not do it as it is a sin.
An actual Christian not only says that they are, but do their best to LIVE like they are. Most people I’ve met nowadays do the former, but rarely the latter.
Where did the New Testament retcon anything out? Expanded upon, yes. Some rules were no longer needed, such as eating shellfish, due to Christian’s not needing to be separated from non-Jewish people. However, the New Testament jives quite nicely with the Old Testament. Maybe you should try reading the whole thing?
“A true Christian would be slightly annoying (the whole, trying to shove being a Christian down your throat part, which is about the only thing most modern Christians read from the New Testament), but otherwise would be a great person.”
Leaving aside the whole “No True Scotsman” argument…. A true Christian probably wouldn’t be shoving their religion down someone’s throat. “Go out and make disciples of all nations” was the decree, but seems to me that the way of doing it was a little different to how it’s down these days. Preaching, yes, that was certainly a thing that happened. But IIRC, I think a lot was being said for living a good and grateful life, basically showing your faith, and your joy in your faith, through the life you lived. Basically, being the best example of why someone might want to hear about this Jesus fellow.
I don’t think Jesus was explicitly saying “everyone who follows me must forsake all material wealth and give it to the poor”. I think he was telling that specific dude to abandon his love of money by giving it away.
Exactly, the young rich man came to Jesus and said “I’m already perfect. What do I need to do be more perfect.” So, Jesus said sell everything to one guy more as a put down than anything.
If he was perfect, he’d have gone immediately and sold everything.
Personally, it bothers me that people don’t realize that Luke 22:36 is more applicable since it is a commedent directly to the apostles. “Then said he to them, But now, he that has a purse, let him take it, and likewise his money: and he that has no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one.”
So where is historical Jesus’ katana blade?
http://jamiejeff.deviantart.com/art/Samurai-Jesus-105394349
right here.
And the disciples came to him and said “Here are three swords,” and he said “That’s enough.” Or something like that; I don’t have the verse in front of me at the moment.
Matthew 19:24 – “Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”
I don’t know the text in the original language, so maybe it’s a mis-translation? He doesn’t say “For you to enter the kingdom of God a rich man.” He says “for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”
In other places, he speaks of the meek and the humble inheriting. He personally travels and preaches with very few possessions (or so I understand; I never saw a comprehensive list of his belongings in the text) and he ministered primarily to the poor and those who were willing to come among the poor to hear him.
I think we can safely say Jesus was very “live humble, give greatly.”
Now…whether that means you’ve gotta give away all your possessions, or whether you should simply humble yourself *among* the poor is a more complicated question with a lot more references to be considered and a personal soul search to do. But on this topic, more than almost any other (save “Love God”) Jesus is *very* consistent.
Technically, that was even Jesus’ point though by using the meek you are closer than most. A rich man has wealth, but it is not the wealth that prevents entry. It is the pride of being that rich guy that does it because the whole point of that tale is that you can’t buy your way into heaven. It is only by God’s grace that one can enter into heaven.
In the days of Jesus, someone who was wealthy would have been considered blessed by God. When the disciplines were stunded as usual by Jesus, he explained that meek is someone who obeys the Lord. The young lord disobeyed God when he rejected giving up his stuff due to being proud.
A well-educated friend told me (although I can’t link to anything backing him or me up) that the proverbial “Eye of the Needle” here spoken of was actually the name of one of the side gates in— Constantinople, I think?
The thing is, it was mainly made for foot traffic, and I gather that while a camel would fit, there would be a lot of effort, sweating, and kicking involved, not least because camels don’t like tight places.
So he’s not speaking of the sewing implement and saying it’s completely impossible; just that it can be done but you have to work really hard at it and really, really want for it to happen. Which makes more sense to me, anyways, than saying, “Oh, you’re rich; you have NO HOPE of getting into heaven no matter how good a Christian you are.” That’s just sort of weird.
Actually, the Eye of the Needle was a route into Jerusalem as oppose to Constantinople (Byzantium at the time), but the basic jest of your argument remains the same.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye_of_a_needle#Christianity
It’s basically none of those things. It is, like it was in the Talmud, a reference to the eye of a needle. The sewing instrument. Things passing through the eye of a needle – the sewing instrument – is a metaphor not even remotely restricted to the Biblical Gospels.
So evidence for your claims, I guess? You’re repeating OLD apologetics, but apologetics nonetheless.
I’ve heard this eye of the needle stuff before, and I find it kind of unsatisfying. I think Jesus was just using a ridiculous image to get a point across. Note that immediately after he says this, his disciples ask if anyone can be saved at all, and Jesus reminds them that what is impossible for people is possible for him.
Like someone above said, you can’t buy your way into Heaven. Or salvation, for that matter. The rich man wouldn’t be saved by giving all his money away. However, giving his money away would have demonstrated a changed heart, the kind that comes from salvation and regeneration.
I think that focusing entirely on the guy’s material wealth misses the point. Certainly, there will be times when we are called to give up some, much, or all of our wealth, but aside from those times the most responsible thing we can do is manage it properly and make as much as we can (but without succumbing to sinful methods of doing so).
It’s hard because it’s not so much being wealthy that causes condemnation, but coveting it over God. The young and rich ruler demonstrated that he was cocky and falsely believed he was doing everything right the moment he refused to give up his wealth; love they neighbor means that he should have been helping the poor anyway, and that he loved his wealth more than God was the problem. Essentially, if you’re rich and not helping your neighbor out, you’re not doing the right thing. However, the big point was that most of the time rich people don’t really feel a need to pursue God because, while they may feel empty inside, they have all the material things they want and love their wealth too much to do what’s needed to get into heaven.
And, as others have said, there was no route proven to have any title referred to as an eye of a needle; there were narrow paths that would be hard to get a camel through, but Jesus was going for an extreme example to get people to understand.
I think it’s kind of six of one, half a dozen of the other. In terms of “The Eye of the Needle” being a gate, the metaphor of fitting a camel through it implies a humbling of oneself, an effort made, and presumable, all the extras on top of the camel to be taken off.
At any rate, the next like is something along the lines of the Disciples asking “Then who can be saved?” to which Jesus replies: “For man, it is impossible. But for God, all things are possible.”
Which ties into the Grace factor that many schools of Christianity focus on. Works and charity do not get you into Heaven, because no human being is “good enough” to be completely without sin. Heaven is only achieved through God’s grace. Therefore, works and charity are an expression of that gratitude. Like trying do something to make someone happy after they do something really nice for you.
Of course, it’s impossible to tell who’s being charitable because they think it looks good (unless, say, they walk into a soup kitchen and wash a few pots for a photo op, then leave) and who’s being charitable because they genuinely want to help their fellow man (an impulse that requires no religion, but presumably one that Christians should embrace). Which is why faith is a personal thing.
Anyway.
Given that there seems to be ambiguity about being rich and a follower of Jesus, I would think that the safest approach would be to give-up being rich for being poor. Since, obviously, there’s no risk of being denied entry into heaven for being low on funds.
But hey, maybe people like to gamble that the interpretation most convenient to them is the right one. After all, it’s only eternity.
Considering even believing in a god is a gamble…
I’m of the mindset that God’s a bit more chill than we think. He doesn’t want us going to hell, but he’s not going to put up with us taking him for granted. So if you believe and try not to frak up, you’re good.
I’m an atheist, but it seems to be me that if there are divine beings there is probably more than one.
There are hints in the Old Testament that there was more than one. Look at the wording of the First Commandment. It could have said “Worship no other gods before Me, because there are none.” Instead it said “The LORD your God is a Jealous God.”
Wait… what? No, God was essentially saying “Stop making up things to worship!” There’s one God in three forms, the Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost. There’s no hint in the Bible or anything of the sort that there are any other gods, just things that people decided to try and worship instead.
Well, except the Pharaoh’s priests turning their staves into snakes, albiet weaker snakes than Moses’ staff-snake-pokemon. So, either they had some sort of non-YHVH supernatural backing to make with the snakes, they were incredible snakecharmers to make them act like staves, or YHVH was being a dick and giving them superpowers for the express purpose of failing dramatically against Moses.
You’re right in the sense that God doesn’t want us to go to Hell. It’s why He sent the Son to die for our sins. However, accepting Jesus as Lord and Savior is the rule to get to Heaven. In John 14:6 it goes like this:
Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
God isn’t going to say that you can’t get to Heaven unless you accept Jesus and then let you in when you’ve rejected Him. It’s horrible and sad that people would rather do their thing than accept Jesus, but they get to make their choice and they sow what they reap.
First, nothing I said is in disagreement with anything you’ve said. What I wrote was simplified, but simple is good.
Second, you really don’t need to try teaching me Christian doctrine. I know this stuff. I was taught it for many years in school and in church and at home. I spent some of my free time studying the Bible and thinking about it. And it’s from all of the above that I’ve come up with my beliefs.
Wait, what? If God doesn’t want to send people to hell, then why did he create it in the first place? That makes no sense.
To imprison the angels that rebelled? I dunno, the Bible’s always been kinda vague on some of the metaphysical stuff.
Of course then there’s the question of what exactly he actually means with that “through me”.
Is it that you have to believe in him being the son of God?
Is it that you should follow his example in lifestyle?
Is it both?
Personally I think the second more important than the first. But then there are people claiming it to be completely irrelevant as long as you’ll follow the first. I don’t buy that though.
Nonononono. The whole “sell everything and give it to the poor” verse is a *metaphor*. It’s not *literal*, like the verses about the beast rising out of the sea with seven heads and ten crowns. That’s just obvious.
That’s awfully convenient!
The part where God takes six days to create the Earth, on the other hand, is entirely literal and life in Earth’s early days was totally like The Flintstones.
I’d agree with you if they weren’t in different books. And one of them didn’t come from Jesus’ mouth. (You are joking though right?). But yeah, There are some definitely metaphorical bits. Just not in these books.
I now know why i like facebook, i can just click “LIKE” on something to show my support when I can’t be arsed to write a comment, fortunately I could be arsed this time, Huzzah!
The funny thing is that this was the verse on which my pastor did his sermon Sunday.
No one else took the bait with your Superman comment, but when I read the article, all I could think of was that no one seems to remember that there was a time around the late 70s-early 80s that Clark left the Planet and working in television news.
Increasing the implausibility of his disguise by multiple orders of magnitude, which is probably why that was undone.
And just like that time, regardless of how much sense it makes these days, he’s going to end up going back to the Planet, possibly removing the whole “left it in the first place” concept entirely.
He WILL still be working for a newspaper called the Daily Planet and dressing in public like a ’30s reporter long after newspapers cease to exist.
I do! I totally thought of that!
This is a great article: http://www.comicsalliance.com/2012/10/23/superman-quits-daily-planet-newspaper-blogger-lois-lane-news/
Hey, Dave! @Unvirtuous Abbey shared this one on faaaaacebook! You’ve got some new fans according to their comments!
He isn’t a communist or a socialist. He predates those concepts. Communism and socialism may take what they deem more in tune with their beliefs and point to it but that only means they borrowed from his teachings. I can easily make a case that Jesus was a violent deviant akin to those nutcase rioters who pop up in the news for one reason or another. After all, he did go into a temple and beat up priest because he did not approve then turned it into a stable. Sounds like a rioter to me. And we’re in a rather odd time for the poor in this country. I saw people in line for food stamps carrying the new iphone. Show that to Jesus and he’d probably lose his shit. Yes I know you can get them free with some contracts but that is still spending money on it when you can’t afford food. To reiterate my point he’s just not a socialist or a communist. He can’t be. They didn’t really exist yet. Might have been a Buddhist though.
Your problems with people needing foodstamps while owning iPhones tells me you don’t know much about being poor and/or homeless. You can easily have an iPhone and subsequently find yourself destitute. And even if you’re in need of foodstamps, a cellphone is often a required tool to get back in the workforce. Many places will pass on hiring a person if that person looks at all homeless, and so keeping up appearances is pretty damn important. The idea that someone can’t have an iPhone and be poor is a terrible and unfair misconception.
The poor are already poor — that’s punishment enough. Needing to constantly satisfy others’ kneejerk suspicions of them (whether or not they “look poor”) shouldn’t also be necessary.
(Jesus did not “beat up priest” when he caused the scene at the temple.)
I think this is a point where going too hard in either direction is a bad idea.
It’s easy to end up destitute and have an expensive phone, specifically if your situation has only gone that way recently. Also, have you tried quitting a phone contract? Usually it’s more expensive than staying with it. Also the phone being nessecary thing, and even if you could quit a contact, buying a new, cheaper phone to replace it probably won’t be much cheaper, especially in the short term.
Similarly, I imagine most people have known some idiot(s) who are close to poverty and push themselves into poverty by spending hugely on clothes/technology to keep up with their friends or the more traditional drinking/smoking.
I don’t have an iPhone because I’m not willing to shell out $50 a month for a data plan because I’m near-poor and have my priorities straight. Hell, I’m probably going to get rid of my stupidphone because I’m paying for way more minutes than I use, and go on some prepay phone plan.
I have personally known “poor” people receiving welfare that were still able to buy more toys that I could. It’s self-evident that it’s the exception, but you can’t deny that there’s an unfortunate reason that trope keeps coming up.
Third option: sell the damn Iphone, buy a cheaper one with a minimal plan. Not to prove anything to me or anyone else, but because it’s a reasonable thing to do when you need money.
If you see someone in a poor neighborhood with the top notch cloths, cars, phones, toys, ect., I guarantee they got the money for that selling drugs, not from welfare checks.
Yes, there is an unfortunate reason that trope keeps coming up.
That reason is “people want an excuse to cut welfare.”
No. That reason is the reason you read into other’s motives as a knee-jerk reaction because it’s easier than considering other people’s opinions. If you really must play this “us vs. them” crap, you’ll have to find someone who actually DOES want to cut welfare to play with you.
For me, I just want more money to make it to people that need it instead of some jerk that’s quietly working under the table.
As I mentioned above: One of my teachers called him the first “real” communist – because real communism was never realized in history.
That he wasn’t a communist is clear as glass – but we can compare what he says with this ideology, if we please.
It’s pretty much nonsense unless you create a very pretty definition of ‘communism’ rather than, say, rely on what is actually said in Das Kapital or Marx’s other writings. Not to mention in Das Kapital Marx essentially defines religion and liberation of the workers as mutually exclusive.
But of course, the whole reason you can pillory conservatives like is done in this comic is because they have such a poor understanding of what socialism/communism actually is and such a poor understanding of their Christianity that they cannot distinguish between the two if you take away the labels.
You make a habit of going up to strangers and checking out the model of their phones and what kind of plans they’re on? I don’t think I could tell the difference between various touchscreen phones with just a casual glance while walking or driving by. I know I wouldn’t be able to tell if they got it themselves, from a concerned relative who wants to keep in touch, or from one of those charities that gives people used phones.
I have an IPhone but It was free. I would not have gotten one otherwise. And it’s true without a phone, a place of residence and access to a computer, forget about employment.
Honorable mention goes to having a car.
Same here. Well, not a iPhone, but a smart phone. No data plan, though, because I can find other ways to use $40 a month. (Not gonna lie, though, it would come in stupidly handy during con season. Most people in Artist Alley don’t have to ask people buying sketches if they have reference material anymore because if you’ve got a data plan, you can just google any character in the world. I always wind up borrowing a table-mate’s phone/tablet, and I really can’t keep doing that.)
But the phone itself was a free hand-me-down from my family when my old one broke.
This is incredibly off-topic, but I’ve been re-reading Batman R.I.P. this evening, and I’m wondering if Willis has ever done anything with the Batman of Zur-En-Arrh. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/it/7/7f/Batman_ZUR_EN_ARRH.jpg
I might if I understood a lick of anything that happened in Batman R.I.P.!
Oh, and this, too: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v169/Odowankenobi/batmanunlimitedwave2.jpg
All I know is they just announced a Heroclix figure of the guy and I can’t wait to have a tiny orange-purple alien Batman on my team of other Batmen and Blue Beetles.
Yeah, that’s Grant Morrison for you. And Batman RIP made more sense than Final Crisis did.
Not being a Christian, I don’t have to agree with either of them!
*keeps his money, gets into his religion’s “heaven” anyway*
FTW.
I thought it was interesting that even though the new testament was supposed to be a shift over to a more merciful, forgiving mode for god, the one thing that caused him to revert back to fire and brimstone mode was when that one couple tried to lie and claim they were giving everything they owned while secretly keeping some land or something.
There was that other table-flipping incident (also related to money fwiw), but that was more of a public statement than any sort of real divine punishment
God doesn’t like it when you lie to him, apparently.
Erm… did you actually read the Bible or are you going by hearsay? God has always been constant, but due to Jesus’s death on the cross, a perfectly sinless man, those who believe in Jesus’s part in the Trinity will be saved. it’s not like God woke up and said “Well, I had a son, guess I better start going easy on the little guys down there.” It’s more “I sent my one and only son down into the darkness so that those I love will be redeemed by Him suffering in their place.” Thus, after that happened, things changed. God didn’t change, though.
History forgets that Jesus was a fighter as well. When He went to the temple and saw what had become of it; people charging extravagant prices for sacrifices, money changers taxing heavily for their services, and the religious leaders allowing it so they could get some money and power for themselves. If you walked into someone’s house that you knew and loved and saw it being robbed, wouldn’t you get upset as well? Jesus loves God more than we can understand, so of course He’d get upset that His flock was being stolen from within His Father’s temple.
lol
I have to wonder what Jesus would say if he actually looked at a bible these days. He’d probably have some things to say. Like Jen Aside mentioned, probably about misquotation.
Jesus was a Capricorn, he ate organic foods.
He believed in love and peace and never wore no shoes.
Long hair, beard and sandals and a funky bunch of friends.
Reckon they’d just nail him up if He come down again.
You forgot the sword.
Okay, I hope this isn’t TOO political for people. Charity is when you give your money to the poor. Redistribution of wealth is when the government gives your money to the poor. Superficially it’s not really an important distinction, but rumor has it that community based charity programs do more to help the poor than welfare, et. al, does. YMMV of course.
Eh, better to have an 80% coverage using 60% success of investment than 30% coverage with 90% success of investment.
NOTE: NUMBERS PULLED OUT OF MY A**
Wow, “rumor has it”? I guess that settles it.
Then again, the fact is that private donations end up at attention-seeking but inefficient projects while unassuming but proven ones have to rely on government money. Also, a lot of donations will be used to write off taxes. So in the end “we” as a society still pay for it, only in a roundabout way, and may be used in on an less efficient project.
If we could rely on community programs then they would already be here picking up after the oft-noted efficiencies of the government. But they don’t, which means we can’t rely on them.
“Redistribution of wealth is when the government gives your money to the poor.”
1.) And itself, because we simply must need a bigger government to run all of this redistribution. And raises. NY State is the most taxed state in the US. Guess what the politicians running it into the ground are about to do? Pay raise!
2.) it could also read “Redistribution of wealth is when the government gives China’s money to the poor, and holds your children & grandchildren accountable to pay it back.”
And if China wants us to keep buying the cheaply made tchotchkes they make in their sweatshops, they won’t dare demand we pay it back in full or send debt collectors after us.
International debt don’t quite work like personal debt
I’m confused by your comment. Are you saying $16,203,845,445,635.71 in debt is not that big of a concern?
It is, because we’ll be paying interest, but unlike the debt of individuals, we can take as long as we like to pay it off without worry about the repo man or the like. So, effectively, no, not really that big of a concern.
Heck, back in the day, when the country was being founded, Alexander Hamilton INTENTIONALLY GOT US IN DEBT as much as he could, in order to give other countries an incentive to want us to do well as a nation.
Remember, nothing exists in a vacuum. China’s economy thrives, but that’s almost entirely because their economy depends on selling stuff to us. If they repossess, or start demanding so much interest that it damages our economy, we stop buying their stuff, and their economy crumbles. As a result, them demanding we actually pay them back is directly against their interests; their loans to us are effectively subsidies to their own manufacturing industry.
Welcome, my friend, to international politics, where up is down, black is white, and getting drunk is an absolute necessity to understanding things.
After the War for Independence, Alexander Hamilton convinced the Federal Government to pay off all of its debts & the debts of the States (which it was not remotely responsible for) to build up the credit & respectability of the US. The debt he latter encouraged was always supposed to be reasonable & something that could be payed back.
Owed such a ridiculous amount of money to a hostile, foreign power is not remotely intelligent. Do you think it gives them no influence on us? Do you believe more downgrades to our nation’s credit will not effect the citizens & private enterprise, & taxability of our nation?
Alexander Hamilton paid off those debts through tariffs and new taxes*. So let’s get to it!
*so unpopular that it caused a rebellion that had to be surpressed by the us army
That’s one way, or we could do it the way President Regan did it.
Because Conservative fiscal policies work and Socialist policies of attacking one class have never worked.
President Reagan borrowed money from other countries to cover the Federal deficit, which increased our national debt from $997 billion to $2.85 trillion. (http://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/pd/histdebt/histdebt_histo4.htm) During the course of his administration, we transformed from the world’s largest creditor to the world’s largest debtor. He later said this was the greatest disappointment of his Presidency. Speaking of conservative fiscal policies, Reagan also raised taxes eleven times.
Do you get your stuff from, like, history, or from talk radio?
I don’t think you know what socialism is. The goal of socialism is to get rid of the government.
Remember, definitions are what words are used as.
Under such criteria, socialism is defined as “anything to the left of where I, the speaker, fall on the political spectrum”. Similarly, fascism and nazism are defined as “anything more restrictive of rights than I, personally favor”.
It’s funny when people mention the small tax increases Reagan oversaw as if they overpower the very large tax cuts he oversaw and makes him no better than today’s Democrat Party. (As opposed to the Democrat Party of JFK, who was also a tax cutter.)
Good point Zap.
Ray Kremer: Two things. One, if you’re always cutting taxes, and you find yourself running into deficits, it means you cut it too much and need to bring it back up.
Two, Reagan would be considered “socialist” today simply for raising taxes AT ALL.
Personally, that last seventeen cents is what concerns me the most.
I knew this strip had an “old school” vibe to it! Gotta bring back the pen and paper occasionally…how else are fans going to buy original strips from you?
I’m surprised at the general docile nature of the comments section for this comment. I’ll admit, I came here to read up on some juicy arguments. Now I have to settle for a light serving of lively debate.
Yeah it’s a pretty good fanbase. I think the biggest controversy ever was whether Ethan had a toy collecting problem or not.
Gotta admit I was expecting quite a firestorm in these comments myself. Something to be avoided at all costs. But instead have found the whole comment section to be an enjoyable and worthy read.
As a matter of fact, I think this was the first time I actually read every single comment on the page. And I mean every single one.
I’m a bit confused.
Isn’t there a big difference between an individual’s acts of charity & a governmental body enforcing it?
Depends who you ask, personally I’m just happy people in my country who are sick can get the help they need, this method is far easier and more efficient then me trying to help them with their medical bills directly.
You could get that in the US before Obama Care.
There is a reason very few medical doctors will be voting for the incumbent President this election.
They could get it once it got REALLY BAD, and they qualified for emergency room care, which was paid for by the public. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure; its far cheaper (and more effective( to keep ‘em healthy than it is to wait for ‘em to get deadly sick before curing ‘em on the public’s dime.
Please cite the scientific polling data (*not* a faxed survey with a response rate of barely 3%) that would support your claim of, “very few medical doctors will be voting for the incumbent President this election.” Because in Realityland, which is where I currently reside, the Affordable Care Act was supported by the American Medical Association, the American College of Physicians, the American Academy of Family Physicians, the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the American Psychiatric Association, the American College of Surgeons, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Society of Anesthesiologists, the American Osteopathic Association, and the American College of Cardiology all endorsed the legislation.
And no, you cannot “get that” in the U.S. If you believe you can, try getting treatment from an oncologist without insurance. Even better, try getting treatment from an oncologist after the insurance you’ve been paying for year after year drops your coverage due to your diagnosis. And when I say try these things, I mean try them in Realityland, of course.
So yes, you are definitely confused.
I’m not even American and I know for a fact that’s simply not true. Not to the level we’re talking, there’s a huge difference between critical care and being able afford treatment for say, a currently non-fatal lung infection.
I’d say it’s exactly the same difference as an individual’s personal definition of what a marriage is, and the legal rights that the government can bestow upon two people in love.
Or an individual’s personal belief in a soul and that soul’s creation at the moment of conception, and the government enforcing that belief on other people who may not share it.
Stuff like that.
Hmmm…
OK. So the first part of the comic is a odd rib on Consirvative (I think? It’s a bit confused.)
So, what is Leslie’s comment in the last panel? Is it a jab at stereotypical Liberal dislike for religion?
I think it’s more a point about not giving a guy who is very likely delusional a book that will aggravate that delusion. (I’m assuming that Leslie is an atheist, here, and therefore would pretty much believe that “Historical Jesus” is a complete nutbar.)
Actually an atheist could believe that there was a historical Jesus. He just wouldn’t be divine. Whether he’s a nutbar or not depends on whether you consider all the *other* people who believe in a god nuts. Granted there’s reason to, but you run into the problem of ‘normal’ being normed against the majority.
This is all of course assuming that she accepts Galasso’s ability to produce people out of nowhere and that he’s actually the one and only historical Jesus. If she presumes that he (and Reagan) are just ordinary people who fantasize themselves to be famous people, well, that’s different.
Mildly off-topic, but all this talk about christianity and religion reminded me of this, a text message I received from my sister a few weeks back:
“Religion is like a penis, it’s fine to have one. It’s fine to be proud of it. But please don’t whip it out in public and start waving it around, and PLEASE don’t try to shove it down my children’s throats”
I dunno where she found that quote, but it cracked me up.
Who is trying to force religion on your nieces & nephews?
Door to door religion salespersons (i.e., Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons), the “put the Christ back in Christmas” and “separation of church and state? what’s that?” crowds (like the ones who want to put prayer back in schools)…
Every Pro-Life politician who sees women as tupperware containers you get babies from.
Every “Sanctity of Marriage” group that wants to make sure that homosexuals continue to be treated as second-class citizens.
Every jackass who wants to limit access to contraception because it violates “God’s Plan”.
Do you need more?
In the Pro-Life people’s defense (not the politicians who use things like that as footholds, but people who are Pro-Life); abortions are viewed as murdering a child. I’m pretty sure that most people are not okay with child-murdering. Most people, I’d like to think, would be downright horrified if a baby was killed in front of them. Pro-Life people see abortions the same way those people see a baby being drowned by a mother in her bathtub.
That’s what makes me so mad about the whole thing. Neither side is actually arguing the same issue.
I mean, I was raised Catholic, still go to Mass (less Catholic, more generally Christian these days. Too much unsupported dogma). And I was raised to think of it as child-murdering.
Which is stupid. Because it paints Pro-Choice as “anti-life” saturday morning cartoon villains who murder babies out of convenience. Because it takes away all other very real factors that are involved. Because when I was a kid, and didn’t know much about life, the world, and people who were not like me (white, upper-middle-class, going to a Catholic school, etc), it was very easy to say, “Well, adoption is always an option if you can’t raise a child!” but as I got older and learned about how people work and think and feel, it was difficult, if not impossible to say, “therefore your only option is to give control of your own body for nine months, during which time it will go through some frankly horrific changes, some of which may never go away, and then deal with an excruciating childbirth, because of what my religion is.”
Personally, for me, I’d call myself pro-life. But I am for religious reasons, and those reasons, being based on religion, have no place in government decisions that affect the lives of people other than myself.
And the idea of someone telling me that I had to go through with that is terrifying.
That would only be an adequate defense if there was any scientific validity to the “murdering a child” viewpoint. It’s like saying “in the creationists’ defense,” “in the climate change deniers’ defense,” “in the flat-earthers’ defense,” “in the birthers’ defense,” or “in the truthers’ defense.” There’s no legitimate excuse for willful ignorance.
And when describing someone who endorses wars, supports the death penalty, or eats bacon, the “pro-life” designation is beyond disingenuous. What they really mean is anti-choice.
Heh, she found the quote somewhere and sent it to me. It doesn’t refer to her directly. Neither her nor I have kids of our own… I’m 24, she’s 19 in December
Eh, the joke’s been done. Simpson syndrone is curse on us all Willis. (Motherfragging Sean Murphy razzlesnazzle)
So, is Superman going the way of Peter Parker, then? Poor, destitute guy barely able to make ends eat slaving away at a computer every day?
Hmm, how can I get a Dave Willis reply to this comment. Uhm…
Butts!
No, Butts is Friday’s comic!
We’re going to hold you to that, you know.
Hey Willis! Thanks for showing me how to make my comics on paper! I don’t know why I was overthinking something that should be so simple.