clay2
March 29th, 2017
Weird, and a bit scary.
And the LORD said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them. (Genesis 6:7)
Looks like I get the first comment. Do I get a gold star or anything?
Actually, this strip has a familiar ring to it. Is it a repeat/revamp of an old strip?
Son of Glenner – Yes, I occasionally resurrect old strips in the new art style. The titles have a 2 in them.
That can’t be good for the toilet.
Mo would have done for him – he’s still on his old testament.
Roses are red
Tories are blue
Us naughty bad sinners
Is straight down the loo
@Tim: Actually just as for Christians the Jewish Tanakh (the “old testament”) is still sort of valid as this backup OG beta version, so are the Tanakh and the New Testament both valid theological texts for Muslims. Mo would even recognize J as a fellow prophet of Allah. So really, Mo is on the newest Testament. (But his, of course, is not just God’s final word, it’s also His direct word, dictated through the Archangel Gabriel, and not the vague memories of people written down years, decades, or even centuries after they happened, as is the case with the older Testaments. Well, that or Mo snacked on a lot of the mushrooms in that cave.)
FreeFox : that brings forth some really odd pictures in my naughty warped noggin. Mo on mushrooms running round like a drab version of super mario, bashing djinn, converting pagans and winning battles. Preferably speaking in the squeaky mario voice and jumping round the levels of the koran, with shaiten as the end boss. At last a halal video game.
Deimos, I don’t think it would be halal if you had Mo running around in the game. I think many would have an issue if you even had a stand in double of Mo in the game.
Possibly one of the best J&Ms ever
The hero of the game would obviously be al-Buraq (or Barak), the prophet’s winged horse that carried him in only one night from Mecca to Jerusalem and back and also to various heavens. It’s usually shown with a human face and would make for a great video game character, with unlockable speed-powers and divine kicks.
“So I make these little clay people…. and then I judge them harshly”
Beautiful. Sadly beyond the wit and ironyometer of most Christians, otherwise I’d share this with them. If I knew any.
Thanks, Author, for the clarification.
This strip is well worthy of repetition. As DS says, it’s one of the best ever.
FreeFox: That winged horse – is his last name “Obama” by any chance?
This aspect of divine retribution
Causes a bit of confusion
When evolution spoils it
Flush it down the toilet
Next time create a better one
It never ceases to amuse me that the supposedly perfect being produced imperfect creations, but kudos to him for admitting his mistakes. I wonder if Trump will ever show such humility? There’s a damn good chance he’ll destroyeth all living things upon the earth, even unto the creeping things that creepeth, but I’ll bet he’ll go down insisting he was right – and that his war was the best ever; top ratings, most casualties, greatest reviews, lock, stock, the fucking lot.
Mark Twain said:
“The old testament shows god when he was young. THe new testament shows him later, after he ‘got religion'”.
He had a lot of nasty and funny things to say about all religions.
http://www.twainquotes.com
Don’t mean nothing
Sorry forgot to say thanks.
Good old one.
“I make these little clay people and then I judge them harshly”. That’s a weird attitude towards one’s own mistakes.
It reminds me of another annoying habit God has: in an episode of the Simpsons they go on a trip to Jerusalem and Bart starts picking up some of those little notes people stick in the Wailing Wall and throwing them away. When Homer asks him what is he doing, he says: “I read people’s prayers and then ignore them, just like God does”.
Remove ‘clay’ and that’s every parent ever.
@FriendlyExtremist: That’s because people do prayer wrong. Intercessory prayer is rubbish. Think about it, for it to work, you need an omniscient, omnipotent God. Otherwise he wouldn’t be able to hear all those prayers and fulfil all those wishes anyway. But an omniscient, omnipotent God would already know what you’re asking for. In fact, He’d have known from the beginning. Had He ever intended to spare you whatever lack or need you’re experiencing that makes you ask in the first place, He’d have set up the world so your need had been answered even before you asked. But consider the incredible arrogance of intercessory prayists. They imagine an all-knowing, all-powerful, unopposed deity with a grand plan for all humanity, all history, indeed, the entire world… but because they would like a raise, or score with some chick, or delay someone’s inevitable death for a couple of years more, they want that deity to take a detour from that perfect plan.
The other possibility, of course, is that they imagine, God just likes to play hard to get. He wants to be asked. He knows what you want and need already, before you do, but He likes to see you get to your knees and beg. Now, I’m not averse to some hot kink in the bedroom, but if THAT’S your idea of God, I mean, seriously, do you need any other reason to side with Lucifer?
@Acolyte: Can confirm. Source – greatest disappointment of my mum.
@FreeFox: I’d go for the second option. God is kind of needy in a sense, if you read the Old Testament he’s obsessed with obedience, and specially with the fact that everybody must worship no one but him, and that they love him above all. That’s along the same lines with wanting you to get on your knees and beg him. He enjoys being at the top.
*Deimos* – I thought for a moment that Nassar had miraculously learned scansion, then I realised the poem was by somebody else.
What fascinates me is that God apparently was pretty happy with the way fish turned out. And mollusks, and jelly fish, wales, shrimp, sea horses, anemones, etc. Shouldn’t Jesus have an aquarium at his place and dote on those perfect little darlings? And take up snorkeling?
Now I want author to draw Jesus snorkeling… At least in the bathtub. (Maybe Jesus and Mo could play hide the fishie…) ^_^
He had good reason to be happy with Wales, FreeFox, it’s a beautiful country. The whales aren’t bad, either. 🙂
Nice Allegory of T’ Dum porn lad’s USA with the final panel about the risks of climate change and global warming
FreeFox is on fire this week. Great thread.
@AoS: That it is. I have quite fond memories of Wales. I have family in Gloucestershire, and we used to bike into South Wales. I gave my first bj in the ruins at Three Cliff Bay on Gower. Oh, and I remember scones with cream and strawberry jam in some hotel in Llandudno. That wasn’t a bike tour, though, but with my aunt… Damn, it’s been years and years since I had scones.
I think I prefer Wales to whales. But then God and I often don’t see quite eye to eye. ^_^
Whenever I think about some strange cultural belief or practice, such as the story of Noah and his Ark, or circumcision, I always wonder about the first person to come up with the idea.
What kind of sick puppy first came up with the idea that his god wanted him to snip a bit off his dick? Was he consciously creating a unifying mark for his tribe, socially engineering a dissonance theory bit of investment and bonding to distinguish his people from the other. Or was he simply a mad pervert with a very strange fetish? One who happened to be in a position of power and influence.
And what kind of mind thinks that humanity is so fundamentally fucked up that his god would have wiped the slate almost clean, killing men, women, and children just to teach a few survivors to show him some respect?
Or is that the same kind of mind that invents horror movie plots, just for the shock and entertainment value.
Somebody in the dark distant past tried out this story, watched his fellow apes get all wide eyed and impressed in the flickering fire light, and decided he had a hit on his hands. All this so Ken Ham could fleece his state government and the Kentucky tax payers with his absurd theme park.
Wonderful stuff to contemplate. Once again, Author, thanks for getting me thinking.
An interesting thought comes from this strip, that just about everyone (myself included) who plays with dolls, toys, clay or whatever takes a kind of joy in destroying the worlds they create, being a monster or kind of all-powerful creator/destructor.
Who doesn’t enjoy building a sandcastle and then trampling it down when playtime is over? Maybe making clay or play dough figures just to rip them apart?
Does this desire to create and destroy come from religion or is this inherent in all of us? I’d say the latter, which would explain why elements of the old testament appear to have been written by a petulant child or an adult who seemed to resent never getting their way, and once they got a taste of power went crazy with megalomania.
One thing I know for sure, I have never heard the phrase “I’m your God now” associated with benevolence. Replace those clay figures with vulnerable victims and Jesus with a psychopath (wait…) and you have that mentality.
Calvin sure thinks along those lines, too.
https://goo.gl/images/6ME5ld
FreeFox: I thought your link referred to John Calvin, 1509 – 1564 until I followed it! In fact, it could equally well apply to him!
Someone, the only things I create to destroy are wholly gastronomic. In fact, in this strip Jesus would enjoy himself so much more if his people were made from ginger biscuit dough and lightly baked. Mmmmm.
Freefox – for an answer over on quora, I did a rough calculation of the volume and mass (therefore weight) that would be added to the Earth with the addition of a shell of water nearly 30,000 feet deep (to cover the tallest mountain).
In addition to the weight crushing all land plants that managed to live without sun for (what was it?) a year or more, it would make all those near-surface fish and things into deep-deep-deepest-sea critters. Crunch.
And all that rain, not to mention “wellsprings” that are always fresh water… would have enormously diluted the seas, killing all the critters that needed salinity to live.
So, basically god killed everything except some bacteria and such.
Mean.
Kevinmcl, much as I (cough-cough) hate to be a pedant; in order to cover the world’s tallest mountain the water would only need to exceed 4,205m/13,796ft. The base of Mauna Kea -a free-standing island rather than part of an adjoined range – lies approx. 6,000m below the Pacific, with an additional 4,205m above sea level, making it the tallest in the world; at 8,850m Mt. Everest is the highest above sea level, or the greatest altitude.
However, just to further complicate things, because the Earth bulges at the equator then despite having an altitude of only 6300m, the peak of Mt. Chimborazo is the farthest from the centre of the Earth.
Far easier, methinks, just to accept that the Biblical global flood was just a conflation of many local flood stories from the Middle-East dating from the last great melting of the glaciers c10,000 years ago.
Kevin & AoS:
Another big problem was WHERE to get all that water from, and where to dispose of it afterwards.
A much “simpler” solution would have been to temporarily move the center of mass of the planet about 5 km towards the Middle-East.
Of course that had severely drained Polynesia and surroundings, but then, at the time, “known earth” only encompassed Middle-East, (part of) Europe and Africa, and India and surroundings.
Then again “simply” may not be all that simple to accomplish,,,,
dr John, imaginary mass strangely charmed quark star passage through the core of the planet, perhaps?
J-Psi planet intersection with the Earth?
Plus and negative mass black holes or domain walls travelling from the Pacific through the Eden lands?
There are many “simple” ways to accomplish a tidal effect.
None are realistically likely. Most would leave traces that would be globally evident, such as a soda straw discontinuity.
That last also eliminates Joshua’s big trick but that’s an incidental.
dr John, the water came from God weeping for His failed creation. It’s now stored in a secret underground reservoir beneath Area 51, and is used to make the brains of believers and conspiracy theorists.
@AoS: That’s nonsense. Of course the tears of God from the flood are used by Them to drown the Messiah whenever he tries to return to usher in the end times.
Mr. of Sagan, the tears of all supernatural critters, along with every other fragment off their beings like fingernails, dandruff and sweaty fingerprint stains are of course kept in “Warehouse 15” where they are completely safe. They can never be used offensively as the Warehouse staff are completely trustworthy and incorruptible.
Mr. Fox, the Anointed one could, according to reputation, survive an attempted drowning simply by walking on the upper surface of the fluids. Should the magical properties of the liquids cancel out the magical properties of the Anointed’s feet and sandals, he could survive by engaging his “Captain Scarlet” retro-metabolism superpower and return after a weekend’s rest.
This being so, even should the Warehouse staff and their security systems be circumvented Mr. Carpenter would simply return. His superpower workes very much slower than the good Captain’s but it is said to work well enough.
@helperone: Not sure I managed to cut through your weirdly fancy way of talking but if I understood your objection right, there’s an easy enough way to drown Jesus in spite of his walking-on-water power — just turn him upside down. But anyway, that’s why the Powers That Be need the special “God’s Tears” Deluge waters to fend off the apocalypse. Since God used those waters especially to kill all critters and beasts and not to forgive them their trespasses, it trumps J’s redemption and recovery powers. He needs a full 1000 years to come back each time, leaving the world safely in the hands of ol’ Lou Cypher.
As for your Warehouse 15 myth, that’s clearly Illuminati propaganda. Anyone who claims to be trustworthy cannot be trusted and anyone who claims to be incorruptible is obviously corrupt. Trust me.
@Kevinmcl: Firstly, why would the Deluge crush surface fish? Couldn’t they just keep floating along with the rising waters? Also, God’s Tears of course are salty as sea water. It was the sweetwater fish that had to suffer.
Fun fact: Did you guys and gals know that since sweetwater fish are more salty than the surrounding water don’t need to drink (osmosis just sucks water into their cells through the skin) but they do need to pee, while saltwater fish don’t need to pee (the higher salinity of the surrounding water sucks the excess liquid right out of their cells) but they do need to drink (and then filter the salt out). So there are drink-fish and pee-fish. And some, like Salmon, cam switch from being drink-fish to being pee-fish and back… ^_^
I didn’t know that about the fish, but I know that dolphins, being mammals, cannot drink seawater and get all of their fluids from the fish they eat.
Ain’t nature grand?
Also, even the largest of the whales, the blue whale, can’t swallow anything larger than a grapefruit (not that they actually eat grapefruits, it’s just a size comparison), so Jonah could not have been swallowed by a whale, and even if he had been, the gastric acids would have stripped him to a skellywag in short order!
Ain’t the Bible bollocks?
Well, Acolyte of Sagan, if you take it as a natural science or history textbook, of course it’s utter rubbish. But so would be a lot of great stories. One of my absolute favourite stories is the fable of the fox and the scorpion.
The fox and the scorpion come to a river. The scorpion asks the fox to carry him across. At first the fox refuses, afraid the scorpion might sting him. The scorpion points out, if he did, he would drown as well, which convinces the fox. So the fox lets the scorpion climb onto his head and starts swimming across the river. When they reach the middle, the scorpion stings the fox. With his dying breath, the fox asks ‘Why?’ – ‘It’s my nature,’ the scorpion says and drowns together with the fox.
Obviously foxes and scorpions cannot communicate with each other, nor can they reason in this fashion at all. A fox would never give a scorpion a lift. None of this makes any scientific sense. But that doesn’t make it a lie, or bollocks, or anything of the sort. I have both been the fox and the scorpion and I can vouch that this is as true a story as there ever was one.
Now, I’m not saying that the bible is necessarily filled with nothing but ancient wisdom and fluffy rabbits. It’s often filled with hatred, stupidity, tedium, nonsense, prejudices, ignorance, and silliness. But there is a reason it is one of the few texts that are several millennia old (in the case of the Tanakh) that are still widely read. Amidst all the bollocks there are great bits. The stories of Jacob, Moses, or David, of the garden of eden, of Cain and Abel, of Isaac, of Job are all powerful and great stories, on par with those of Gilgamesh, Achilles or Lear. How many lyrics of contemporary songs do you think they will still sing in 3000 years, the way the psalms are still sung today?
No matter what you think of religious people and practices, you cannot deny that these stories and poems must touch thoughts, themes, and feelings in people in very important and deep ways for them to remain so influential for so long and across so many cultures.
Hehe, here and here are two other cartoons on this subject. ^_^
Hey Author, I know you don’t get involved in our bar chats, but I would love to know what you think about cartoonists like Gary Larson or Bill Waterson, or what your idols in the craft are. Or are you like those crime story writers that never read crime stories themselves but only read, like, non-fiction or so?
A wee bit OT, but this is hilarious! I have just been in a pub, where a TV Sports channel was showing, and saw the caption: “Jesus to return after recovery from metatarsal injury”! No mention of the metacarpal injuries!
FreeFox, I can’t argue about the literary quality of parts of the Bible, it’s when it’s taken as literal fact that I have a problem with it. For example, are you aware that there are quite a few Christians, mainly from the U.S.A, up in arms about the gayz appropriating the rainbow as a symbol of their ickyness because it’s a sign of God’s covenant with his people that he won’t go all Old Testament Crazy on them again? It’s got to be true, they say, because the Bible tells them so.
I blame the book-sellers and libraries; if only they’d stock the damn things in the fiction section under Myths and Legends.
Son of Glenner; that reminds me of a church billboard I saw way back in the ’70s. Writ large was “JESUS SAVES”. Some wag had scrawled beneath it “but Keegan scores on the rebound”!
re. the rainbow; http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2017/04/02/bryan-fischer-lgbts-stole-the-rainbow-from-god-its-his-he-invented-it-give-it-back/
Enjoy!
Acolyte: Another version I heard was “Jesus Saves – Moses Invests!”
FreeFox, I also meant to say that your ‘there’s an easy enough way to drown Jesus in spite of his walking-on-water power — just turn him upside down’ made me laugh so hard and suddenly I actually made Mrs. o’S jump.
@FreeFox, I also submit another of Gary Larson’s gems:
http://i.imgur.com/kGaww.jpg
@FreeFox, have you looked up the definition of Tanakh? The way you use the term suggests a range of assumptions that don’t come from Jewish sources.