Today’s Jesus and Mo strip, called “police,” came with the note, “Maybe it’s time for Jesus & Mo to no-platform the barmaid?” I suspect those words, and the strip, refers to Richard Dawkins’s no-platforming by the Berkeley radio station KPFA.
It can’t be said too often that criticizing ideas is not the same thing as being a bigot towards adherents to those ideas.
Bullseye. Love that one.
Yes, call the police and have them arrested. Have the barmaid promoted to owner.
I have a small collection of comic strips which I treasure. They cover many topics but they all seem to capture fundamental insights in just a few words and images.
It’s my suspicion that many religious, political and philosophical beliefs are bolstered by long documents and sophisticated arguments which bedazzle the brain – but a comic strip is just large enough for you to encompass a whole insight at once.
So is the Jesus in the strip not intended to be the “actual” Jesus (i.e. literally the Son of God who came back from the dead, could perform miracles, etc – don’t pick on me for the “actual”, I just couldn’t think of a better way of phrasing that).
Because the strip doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense if he is…
Why not?
Jesus in the Bible certainly believed in the divine authority of scripture (not one jot or tittle and all that jazz).If he really was the Son of God, he would have been well aware of the Bible’s human origins which would make his belief even less excusable.
It’s the attributing divine authority to his scripture “for no good reason” that rankled. Either he (He) doesn’t assign divine authority to it because he knows, as a divine authority himself, that its no warranted or he attributes divine authority to it for incredibly good reason.
That one is way too close to reality to be funny.
Intelligence is discernment. Can it be learned or does any given mind just have the capacity it does? And does the lightbulb have to want to change?
My cat’s are quite intelligent. Just the other one of them managed to evade a coyote…and coyotes can be quite clever.
Some capacities are intrinsically hardwired. Building an autonomous drone with sensors that help it navigate obstacles and pursue a task is an example. To some level, discernment requires no learning, only proper algorithms and sensitive hardware.
I saw a stray cat mysteriously vanish once, so I agree. Babies know to avoid ledges, crows can count, instinctual discernment is powerful… but perhaps for human it did require learning, on an evolutionary scale. Have you heard that fears of grandfather mice are epigenetically passed on?
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.newscientist.com/article/dn24677-fear-of-a-smell-can-be-passed-down-several-generations/amp/
That was a very good one. Here’s an appropriate metaphor:
“Belief is the path to the dark side…belief leads to emotions…emotions leads to action…action leads to everyone’s suffering”
The barmaid makes a claim which is quantifiably true: it would be better if everyone stopped justifying not only their beliefs but also their actions on irrational claims.
Original (speaker is obvious):
“Fear is the path to the dark side…fear leads to anger…anger leads to hate…hate leads to suffering”
Hit’s the proverbial nail on the head.