I’m predestined to believe in free will. I can’t help it.

@Richard, Matt & Haggis: He might not be omnipotent and un-responsible… but He can bloody well be omnipotent and ir-responsible. Which would actually be a pretty good explanation for 9/11… or the banking crisis… or wars… homophobia… tsunamis… plagues… crabs… the human race… brussel sprouts… and most of the whole mess. ^_^

God cannot be both omnipotent and unresponsible.

Epicurus had the right idea when it came to god’s omnipotence.

Now that we have gotten stupidly to this point, let us remember that we are in the nano-age, and we will soon realize that our choices are made by all these tiny nano-boogers working in unison to make us act or react. If this analysis hasn’t convinced you, I warn you it only gets worse. I conclude that my “will” arises from all those living nanobots that make up “me.” No matter what, “I” will still be forever responsible for what those bits force “me” to do (lol).

After 9/11 I heard several preachers (at memorials for a close family member killed in tower one), when asked why God lets these things happen (thank God I am an atheist), appealed to the “God gave us free will” argument. Sad as I was, I nearly laughed out loud every time I heard this. No wonder the tragedy reawakened the myth of an actual satan walking the world.

God cannot be both omnipotent and unresponsible. So I guess 9/11 is one of his mysterious works. Poor Richard says keep your eyes and ears open and be ready to duck. Read the last lines of “Huckleberry Finn” for good advice on using your feet.

“Yet, before the twins were born or had done anything good or bad—in order that God’s purpose in election might stand: not by works but by him who calls—she was told, ‘The older will serve the younger.’ Just as it is written: ‘Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.’ What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all! For he says to Moses, ‘I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.’ It does not, therefore, depend on human desire or effort, but on God’s mercy. For Scripture says to Pharaoh: ‘I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.’ Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden. One of you will say to me: ‘Then why does God still blame us? For who is able to resist his will?’ But who are you, a human being, to talk back to God? Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’ Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for special purposes and some for common use? What if God, although choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath—prepared for destruction?’

A lot of Christians don’t take that passage very seriously, but John Calvin was a big fan. Personally, I think the free-will question has little to do with theism in general. A specific religion might make a proclamation about free will, much as religions make proclamations about all sorts of things, but the question in and of itself doesn’t demand any stance on gods.

Author, this one took your cartooning to the next level: philosophical hilarity + TWO sight gags. Super!
May I humbly suggest some “roof burst” detail to clarify Moses’ method of attaining a higher plane…
Cheers!