This week’s Jesus and Mo, called “heart”, is based on a BBC show that, sadly, is available only in the UK (link below). Apparently (and UK readers please clarify), two of the Big Questions participants engaged in shameful religious wish-thinking. I suppose the humor in this strip comes from Jesus and Mo pretending to refute the barmaid’s claims while actually supporting them, but I have to admit that my ribs weren’t strongly tickled. Maybe you have to listen to the BBC show.
Many thanks to this week’s guest scriptwriters, Dr Elaine Starkey and Sarah de Nordwall, who provided us with such eloquent explanations of religious belief in last week’s The Big Questions (fun begins about 12.30 minute mark). Note that they are not answering the charge of wishful thinking, as the boys are in this strip – they are just confessing to it shamelessly.
It is spot on for the discussion on Sunday morning (Why do I watch the program?). The third Big Question was “Is atheism the rational position to take?” It was quickly hijacked to give the view that religion answers the ‘longing of the human heart’, which rather suggested that the answer is ‘Yes. Atheism is the rational position.’
Have people nothing better to do on a Sunday morning than watch TV???!!!
Amazing… or depressing.
Drink coffee, walk the d*g, read the papers, wash the car… turn the TV off!
I didn’t lol, either, as the kids say, but I think it’s a good point. Theists often lack self-awareness about these issues to the point that most things they say about their religion are these kinds of Orwellian head-scratchers.
Mental tropisms, self-deception, and collateral damage.
Many, if not most, episodes, past and present, of ‘The Big Question’ are available on YouTube. Often, they’re amusing/annoying disputes between the religious and the secular, the latter, in my view, pretty much always having superior arguments. Can be very entertaining, though occasionally you may want to scream.
I think I agree with Jesus and Mo on this one. Religion is not wishful thinking because that implies there was thinking involved.
+ 1
Wishful wishing?
The punchline is in the pub sign.
I would say the cartoon pretty much covers it and the show just becomes another useless argument between the believers and non. Unless you are just looking for more bits to add to your own reasoning it’s just a rehash.
Thankfully your link works in Boulder County, Colorado. U.S. or not?
The dialogue by Jesus ‘n’ Mo are quotes from two of the participants. Their lead-off guest guest, a theologian, insists that we’re defining “reason” too narrowly. There are several atheists, as well as the moderator, who challenge that view. In her defense another guest comes up with the other quote.
Yay! I get to explain the joke. 🙁
A fairly classic gambit. Rather than argue over what the correct definition should be, I think better responses to this sort of argument are (1) okay fine, redefine it any way you want…as long as you agree that under the old definition, theism isn’t reasoned belief. (2) Once you’re finished with your redefinition, does belief in leprechauns and unicorns now fit under ‘reasoned’ too? IOW, if we were to say that under your new defintion theism is as reasonable as belief in X, what could we put in X? And does that comparison make you rethink your redefinition as being overbroad?
I like your idea, but think it’s way too subtle for this program’s format. Even the attempts to challenge the theologian’s redefinition of reason opened the babble valve all the way.
Very well put eric. Those were exactly the thoughts running through my head as I watched the obfuscation from Elaine Storkey.
It’s like trying to find firm ground in cotton candy.
That show was just agonizing on the brain to watch.
I found myself crying out for the ghost of Hitch.
“Obfuscation” is too kind; meaningless philosophical logic-chopping is more appropriate. I could not stand more than two minutes of it.
Very good!
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Well, there you have it.
For all future performances of Madame Butterfly, Cio-Cio-san will be have to wear blue jeans and a t-shirt. Wait…the t-shirt might get blood soaked. All future performances of any Madame Butterfly cancelled. Wait.
Here we go: All future performances of any opera with rape or murder or infidelity are now banned.
This comment meant for follow post: “Kimono Wednesdays”. Apologies.
That would be a more arational place to put it.
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The issue that always bothers me profusely is that the religious automatically assume that atheism is somehow the default position. In just about any discussion, this is the position they adopt. The case is, they, are the ones on which the burden of proof falls. No matter how much one wants, or feels that something (religion) must be true or the rational position, it doesn’t make it true or logical.
You meant the religious assume *theism* is the default?
I thought it was funny. A “yearning for answers to the longings of the human heart” is just a euphemism for “wishful thinking.”
I thought it funny as well.
Agree. It occurs to me yearning and longings are pretty much interchangeable, and amount to the same as “wishings” (I’ll consider wishings a psuedo coynage). A similar term is “hopings”. So the argument that religion is rational becomes, “Well, I sure hope so”.
The beauty of believing in god is that you can get god to do anything just by imagining it.
God standing on a pinhead with all his angels?
Easy!
God adjusting the spin of every electron in the Universe
No problem!
God operating entirely through the vagaries of chance?
What more can you ask!
God is the easiest and most compliant invisible companion a person can have, just by pulling the right metaphysical strings god like Pinocchio will dance for you.
Which reminds me of the joke about Jesus and “Joseph”…
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