A “Tom the Dancing Bug” strip at The Nib, by Ruben Bolling. Its title is “Is God-Man Good?” and the answer is clear. Now this is Sophisticated Cartooning™.
As always, click twice, waiting between clicks, to enlarge it without overlapping the books on the right.
It was just a metaphor!
(From Ruben Bolling on Twi**er, via Jesus & Mo author on Twi**er via Matthew Cobb)
Captain Equivocator – That would make a better title name than g*d-man. The kids would like it better since they are becoming less religious.
You can’t have Captain Equivocator without God-Man around to create obvious contradictions.
But why can’t Captain Equivocator state vague and obvious contradictions himself. We want to ween the kiddies off of the g*d thing.
It’s God-Man’s job to make the contradictions. It’s the Captain’s job to equivocate. These are distinct super hero roles!
so here we go again. Someone who just can’t give up on g*d.
Come on, Randy! Get a grip!
Thank you both.
You guys made me LOL this morning. L
I think Captain Equivocator is the real hero of the comic.
I think he’s not so much the hero as somebody who might have some admirable qualities, or possibly did something not entirely unnoteworthy.
b&
GOD-MAN’S TEN COMMANDMENTS:
1) I am the Thy Comic “God-Man”
2) Thou shalt buy no other comics before Mine
3) Thou shalt not steal My Comic
4) Thou shalt not make or buy any unauthorized copies
5) Thou shalt not infringe My Trademark
6) Thou shall covet thy neighbor’s collection
7) Thou shalt not fold, spindle or mutilate My Comic
8) Honor thy Artist and Publisher
9) Remember each Release Date, keep it Holy
10) Remember each Convention Date, keep it Holy
LOL! 🙂
Another point would be this:
Godman: “Listen, I can’t be held responsible for any bad things that happen in my name!”
Critic: “But aren’t you omnipotent?”
Godman: “Yes.”
Critic: “So why not just whisk the victims out of danger, or persuade your fans not to be dangerous in the first place?”
Godman: What?? And prevent people the opportunity to choose the righteous path? How can there be salvation if there is no sin? Silly humans!
“Because then they wouldn’t have free-will. Ha! QED.”
“But what about natural disasters? Why couldn’t you stop them from happening?”
“Oh my! Look behind you! Something amazing is happening right behind you.”
“No, no – I’ll turn away and then you’ll disappear, like you always do. If it’s so amazing describe it to me.”
“I can’t – it’s too amazing for words. You have to see it to believe it.”
“What is it? Just give me the gist. I don’t trust you you see.”
“How can you not trust me? That’s really hurtful. I’ve always trusted you lot.”
“Get on with it.”
“Well, it’s a miraculous, indescribable event, and it’s taking place right now, behind your back – and…wow, someone’s also giving away free money to onlookers at the same time. You have to turn around, for your own sake. I’d hate myself for ever if you missed out because I didn’t manage to persuade you to turn around and look at it, and get the free money.”
“You promise not to disappear as soon as my back is turned? I still want an answer to my original question.”
“Of course. Who d’you take me for?”
“Well, you do have a habit of disappearing for extended periods of time.”
“That’s just militant secularists smearing me because they want an excuse to keep sinning. You can’t trust them. Just turn around or else you’ll miss it.”
“And you won’t disappear?”
“You can trust me. Look at my lovely face and crinkly, warm eyes. You’d be a fool not to. I swear I won’t disappear.”
“Alright. Here goes… Right. There’s nothing there. You promised… Ah. Okay. You’ve disappeared… Uh. I never learn. Never trust junkies, politicians or God.”
Not to derail…but your first sentence is why it’s never going to be a good idea to attempt to salvage “free will” for secular purposes, even if we could come to agreement on a real-world phenomenon which could reasonably be described as freedom of the will itself.
“Free will” is the theological construct that attempts to excuse the gods for their incompetence. It makes as much sense to secularize “free will” as it does “omnipotence,” the theological construct that attempts to establish the significance of the gods in the first place.
b&
I always find it painful to watch brilliant secular thinkers like Dan Dennett and Sean Carroll struggle with the bad PR implications of determinism – they contort and contradict themselves on the subject of free-will in a similar way to those atheists who try and salvage objective values from a godless universe. It’d save a lot of time and effort if they stopped trying to cram philosophical concepts like free will and absolute morality into a materialistic framework that has no room for them.
Besides, I don’t think it’s worth crowbarring 2500 year old metaphysics into a very spare, precise, scientific worldview just so that people aren’t scared off by the consequences of taking science and atheism seriously.
To me, the attraction of scientific atheism is its refusal to compromise on the truth even when the truth is scary, austere, weird, even amoral.
sub
Can God-Man create a Wonder Warthog who can drink more beer than He can in one night without barfing?
Curse that Captain Equivocator!
I can’t decide whether to curse him or praise him. Sometimes you gotta do both.