Today’s Jesus and Mo strip, called “Hear,” came with this email note:
Reddit was the first place I’ve seen this comparison so well expressed, but it may have been made before.
OMG, if any J&M strip can offend Muslims (and of course they all do), this one will surely succeed. But it’s a good one on several levels.
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Can I pray until I need glasses?
It was EP Thompson in The English Working Class, who called Methodist rituals in the Wesleyan period I think, as “a ritualized form of psychic masturbation”.
I haven’t heard that analogy before. It was kind of the author to credit Reddit.
In regards to the last panel, is there a difference in the accomplishments of masturbation and prayer?
Well, only one of them involves a real bishop.
Or, one can cause blindness and one can cure it…
Are you sure about that “only one..”?
I don’t know…let’s ask the writer of Oh Come All Ye Faithful or the Holy Spirit himself.
Well, those who masturbate don’t have a prayer of conceiving.
While if you pray with a priest you have to pray that is all what happens.
Or, as Kurt Vonnegut put it:
Tiger got to hunt, bird got to fly;
Man got to sit and wonder ‘why, why, why?’
Tiger got to sleep, bird got to land;
Man got to tell himself he understand.
I remember that! I cannot remember which book it was, perhaps the one with ‘ice-9’?
That’s correct — Cat’s Cradle it is.
Yes, it may be the closest anyone will get to heaven
Well, the real thing is a tad better.
Now we know what the Muslim man’s right hand should possess. À la main akhbar. x
That is a brilliant Jesus&Mo however I am not sure that the need to want to reproduce is the main aim of masturbation. It just feels good is probably the main reason.
Sex satisfies the need to reproduce, and masturbation mimics sex. Without the need to reproduce mastubation wouldn’t exist.
Maybe sex just satisfies. Really who thinks about reproducing to inspire sex?
After two kids, whom I love dearly, I can tell you reproduction is the antithesis of sex. Thank God for polymer protection.
Turkeys don’t need much to get stimulated…
http://blog.chron.com/sciguy/2007/11/on-the-sexual-predilections-of-turkeys/
At the end, the author’s taking a few days off – it makes it sound like the post has led him to need to disappear to the bathroom. 🙂
It is a question of ultimate vs. proximate causation.
But the reason it “just feels good” is that the pleasure encourages reproduction, which natural selection is very keen to do.
Ah, yes. Natural selection is very keen to do what Kevin confirms we want to prevent, although sarcastically giving some credit to g*d.
We contravene our instincts all the time. Just because we have figured out that we might dislike the consequences of rampant reproduction doesn’t mean reproduction isn’t the goal of our evolutionarily instilled sex-drive.
I have an evolutionarily instilled craving for high-energy foods like fats and sugars, but I often veto my inner-caveman’s directive to eat cookies until I feel ill.
The master of Kennin temple was Mokurai, Silent Thunder. He had a little protege named Toyo who was only twelve years old. Toyo saw the older disciples visit the master’s room each morning and evening to receive instruction in sanzen or personal guidance in which they were given koans to stop mind-wandering.
Toyo wished to do sanzen also. “Wait a while,” said Mokurai. “You are too young.” But the child insisted, so the teacher finally consented.
In the evening little Toyo went at the proper time to the threshold of Mokurai’s sanzen room. He struck the gong to announce his presence, bowed respectfully three times outside the door, and went to sit before the master in respectful silence.
“You can hear the sound of two hands when they clap together,” said Mokurai. “Now show me the sound of one hand.”
Toyo bowed and went to his room to consider this problem…
Ahhh, now it makes sense…
Love it!
Prayer is a form of mental masturbation, so …
I don’t really see any problem with masturbation so prayer must be all right too, eh? I wouldn’t want to turn into a moralist!
I’ve always thought the sexual component of worship, particularly Xtian worship, was screamingly obvious. I find it childishly amusing to reply to the more homophobic online posts by pointing out that the aforementioned posters spend a lot of their time on their knees in front of the figure of a muscly, long-haired, half-naked man while they whisper their love for him.
Cheap tactic, but hey.
Or, in the heterosexual direction, read any stuff from “mystical experiences” by medieval nuns?
Comparing religion to masturbation is offensive to masturbation.
This analogy also throws some light on why theists are generally so uncomfortable giving any real details — either on the exact nature of the encounter or on the specific nature of the knowledge. It all goes on in private for a reason.
I recall the South Park episode in which Eric Cartman realized all the “Christian” pop music is nothing more than a bunch of love songs, where the male singer replaces the female love object with Jesus — and wins an award for it, LOL!
Don’t forget that Joe there, as opposed to Mo I think, represents one of the religions where they claim their deity was conceived by himself. (Usually stated as “Father, Son and … Holy Shit!?”)
I don’t know what to call that theology, but “masturbation” seems apt.
Oooh, good one! Actually, good two!
Over here “masturbate” is used as a euphemism for “vote conservative”, as in
“What were you doing in the voting booth?”
“Oh, er, (shuffles feet) I was just masturbating”
hahahaha