Today’s Jesus and Mo strip, called “create”, came with this caption:
In which the boys return to the devilishly tricky P of E.
I assume the artist means “problem of evil”, which of course clever theologians have found a way to rationalize (there’s nothing these people can’t explain). But Mo is unable to come up with his own theodicy.
OMG that is good… I mean … uh-oh …
Maybe some apophatic theology will help – I’ll try :
That is not good.
There – that settled it.
[ dusts off hands ]
I’ll repeat the well known and very simple question, one I’ve never heard any Christian apologist ever provide a coherent answer to: so “God” has given humans free will so that they can choose either to worship Jesus and obey “Him”, or to not do so, in which case they will be doomed to suffer torture in hell for eternity. Since the provision of free will is meaningless unless some outcomes differ, and since it is claimed that “God” is omnipotent and omniscient, it necessarily follows that “He” must know, before “He” ever creates a given individual, whether that person will burn in hell forever.
And this god is also “infinitely good”? Rubbish. None of this makes any sense. Why would anyone ever believe in this horrid construct? All you ever get in answer are silly obfuscations and gibberish, ending with remonstrations insisting that the ways of “God” are beyond human comprehension and that “He” wants you to “have faith”. Or a denial that this is what Christianity really says, which is merely an attempt to move away from long established doctrine toward a more recently concocted and socially acceptable formula. Yeah, the “true Word of God”, right…
Yup, everything you said is correct. Having grown up in a Catholic family, going to Catholic schools, I was indoctrinated into all of this rubbish. When I got older and tried to reason it out, it made no sense to me whatever. Starting with the “virgin birth”. That really stuck in my craw, as a female: Oh, so an ordinary woman wasn’t good enough? She had to be a virgin? When I threw out that bit of nonsense, the rest came tumbling after. Especially the part where Jesus said we are to love others and forgive our enemies, as he loves and forgives us all. But if we don’t love Him, we will burn in hell forever. Say what?
It’s all so ridiculous. And I absolutely love Jesus and Mo for pointing out how ridiculous every time.
As a grateful apostate myself who became one from actually studying what the bible says Jesus said, the gospels do not have him consigning nonbelievers to eternal torment. In Matthew 23-25 he does enthusiastically promise hypocritical religious leaders such a fate. This is seldom emphasised in sermons 🙂, although it does come up when railing against other religions — Christians vs others, Protestants vs Catholics, etc. etc. Self-reflection is clearly not considered a cardinal virtue.
Here is a sample (KJV):
[c 300 words]
While the Bible does go on about choice quite a bit, do you know how many times the Bible mentions “free will”?
Yep the third (or is that the 3st) frame is a killer… 😁
Spoken like a true WEIT reader – I got a kick out of “3st” also!