The new Jesus and Mo strip, called “nope”, came with an acknowledgment to Professor Ceiling Cat (Emeritus)!:
Thanks to Jerry at WEIT for the link to the NYT article which presented the opportunity to resurrect an old joke.
The NYT piece is Peter Wehner’s op-ed,”Why is Jesus still wounded after his Resurrection?“, which asked the thorny theological question about why the resurrected Jesus still had stigmata on his hands and feet (and presumably a wound in his side).
The strip is pretty clever!
That Personal Best should be a big fat 0 seconds.
After all, the ontological argument tells us how to prove ‘logically’ the existence of a being with all perfections: “Since existence is a perfection, it follows (as night follows day, or more like, as 2=2 follows from 1=1), that a being with all perfections must have existence”.
And surely a PB strictly greater than 0 seconds is hardly a perfection. (Strictly less than, I’m not so sure—perhaps the PB should be negative infinity—that would be one way to get rid of the almighty for good maybe.
I see a problem here, though.
The first time Jesus does the 100m, he should indeed have a 0 time, yes. Anything > 0, and it’s in principle possible that a mere non-god/human being could beat his time. But what happens when he does the 100m again? If he can’t beat his previous PB, how can he be perfect? Ordinary mortals can and do beat their prior best times all the time; a perfect being not able to do what ordinary Joes can?? Surely not. So he has to be able to beat his PB. But doesn’t that mean that his first time out, his PB of zero wasn’t his best possible time? That he was capable of a better performance but blew it somehow? How perfect is *that*?
I think we’re back in the ‘can God make a stone so heavy that He can’t lift it?’ neck of the woods…
So, bigger numbers equal a better “personal best”?
I don’t think the games master’s cane was terribly effective in beating an interest in sport into me. Odd, that.
No, smaller. And negative infinity would be the smallest possible. It doesn’t really exist as a number. But it does in different ways as a perfectly good mathematical concept,
Actually John Conway’s surreal numbers, if regarded as numbers, makes me wrong on one thing there. Conway regarded that work as his best ever, IIRC.
Wouldn’t he just run across the surface of the water?
Trying – and failing – to remember the name of the lizard that does that. Let’s stick with insects and call him Jesus Water-Boatman.
There are several species in the genus Basiliscus. My wife and I have encountered B. basiliscus and B. plumifrons in Costa Rica, have managed to run down a couple of B. plumifrons. They’re sprinters, not distance runners.
Ah, Basilisks – Ms JK Potter and Mr H Rowling would be reaching for their horcruxes – or something.
I’m wondering if “horcrux” has any connates now. It has a vaguely horticultural feel to it. “Hidden seeds” or something like that – but they’re angiosperms aren’t they (versus gymnosperms).
Jesus ‘n’ Mo are great as always!
The optimal hand configuration for swimming is with fingers slightly separated so a small hole in one’s hands might actually increase efficiency.
That whole Christian thing about a bodily resurrection poses all sorts of problems. Will, for an example, a pair of Siamese twins (what is the PC term for that developmental abnormality? – I forget) ressurrect as conjoined twins, or as two separated people? And what if only one of the conjoinees was actually a Christian (Ohh, there’s going to be a horrible human rights case when that happens. Imagine the harm of being forced to/ prevented from attending the religious indoctrination of your choice? Lawyers will be living off the case for generations. )
At least the Egyptians realised that their concept of ressurection required them to take pains to preserve the body which was to be re-animated. They might have made some technical errors like pulling the brain out of the skull through the nose – but at least they were trying to look after the to-be-resurrected meat. Not just throwing it into a hole in the ground to rot.
A modern religion would, of course, go for reincarnation into a cloned body vaguely similar to the one you lived in, but without the lifetime of wear and tear.
Can anyone remember how many theologians have been burned at the stake over the question of whether people in heaven can have sex?
Without the lifetime of wear and tear? A zygote?
Not many people think carefully about the implications of their beliefs.
I used to enjoy Peter Wehner’s column – a tad right wing maybe but cogently argued. Now he’s gone all god botherer… ehhh. Nup.
Not as bad as Ross Dotard/Dothart – who is NOT EVEN WRONG on pretty much anything his fatty cheeks spit out… Oh last week it was abortion. ggggggggggr – he’s under the impression, evidently, that women should be forced to have as many babies as they don’t want. Interestingly he sends his own children to a school so crunchy they’re anti-vax. Do NOT even start me!
It is that or the wokerati, or the latest in astrology (sigh, moan, vomit) at my hometown newspaper.
Feel my pain, friends.
D.A.
NYC
https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2020/06/10/photos-of-readers-93/