genesis
October 27th, 2021
Still on holiday, hence another resurrection. This one is over 15 years old.
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Jesus & Mo (the characters) are absurd, blinkered, and oddly very sweet. J&M (the cartoon) is brilliant: sharp, delicious, irresistible.
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...a philosophical confrère.
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The brilliant, celebrated, freaking hilarious atheist comic strip ...
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...rays of sanity in a befuddled world.
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The liveliest depictions of Muhammad currently available...
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J & Mo is the funniest and most consistently thought-provoking cartoon strip on the Net. In a saner world, it would run in a major newspaper.
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Wittily captures much of the absurdity of religious apologetics.
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“Cut the guy some slack!” The best quote about “god” I’ve ever seen!
And – how could we expect an ALL-KNOWING being to know what Adam and Eve would do?
a sailor whose name was McPhee
would spoonerize to a degree
instead of weigh anchor
he yelled out “a wanker”
and said that his name was Phc Mee
If God were really omniscient, he’d know Adam and Eve would eat the fruit on the tree. And to all those who say he’s forgiving, he couldn’t even manage that when the first opportunity arose. He’s a cruel father, and wouldn’t deserve worship if he were real.
I’d rather play “snakes and ladders” with my four year old grandson than have another pointless argument with a religious fook-wit. I like the way he has already developed cheating strategies abd asks questions about everything…you can learn a lot more about life playing kids games tban you can by reading holy books of pure knob-headery…
Right. Anyone here, in J&M, knows that the Adam and Eve story is not fact. It’s a myth. So it ought to be read the way Aesop’s fables are read, as an allegory designed to teach us something.
The simple explanation we all know is that there was disobedience and punishment; so a simple reading is that this is what it is meant to teach us.
As pointed out by Doug and Heather above, the god character is omniscient, so he would know the outcome. Why would he then create temptation? Especially temptation that a newly created naive person, who is only a few days old, could not possibly resist? The predestined outcome must have been intended.
My answer: the story reads better if we take it as an allegory that is meant to teach husbands about loyalty, in the face of impossible odds, despite any negative consequences. Below, the name Havah is the Hebrew version of the name Eve.
————-
Havah
The generations will wonder why I would take it
don’t say Adam was stupid
don’t say Adam was weak
It was simply cruel to have Created temptation,
to Create silly rules that He knew we would break.
Don’t say the woman was corrupted or foolish.
Don’t invent a tale of a snake.
She did what she did, transgressed, was supposed to.
And the Plan was cruel: the prohibition was fake.
There’s a reason I gladly did the forbidden
when I knew we’d be punished,
cast out from our home.
I took what was offered so my only companion
would not be condemned to suffer alone.
I did what I did. I don’t regret it one bit:
I’d have followed my Havah down into the Pit.
—————
In the 1998 movie “What Dreams May Come”, a similar theme is explored, when Robin Williams decides to stay with his wife, even though they’re in hell. The outcome there is more “Hollywood” than “reality”, but the allegory is more obvious.
I never thought about it before but in this myth God and the Devil operate exactly the same way. God gives you Paradise but sets it up so you’ll fail. So then you sell your soul to the Devil maybe for $1 million, and when you get it you end up on a desert island with a pile of unwrapped paper money and a strong wind because you didn’t rule that out in your contract. …so the moral is “trust nobody?”
I won’t claim to have deep knowledge of the Bible, but my sense is that the Old Testament God was clearly not omniscient, at least not in the sense of knowing in detail everything that would happen — in particular every choice that every person would make — from the beginning to the end of time. The story just makes a lot more sense if you read it that way. I think true omniscience was added later by Christian theologians, despite the fact that it makes nonsense of the idea of free will, because they couldn’t control their impulse to keep pumping up their god to make him as huge and impressive as possible.
Laripu. Did you really have to state that the first book of the bible isn’t true? Eh. Really?
The first thing the top universities should do is close all “Theology” courses down and replace with a bachelors degree in “History of religious fook-wittery”…
I’m with jb – the early stories, where Jehovah visits his priests and has to be talked out of smiting everyone, portray a god that probably wasn’t even universal. I wonder if that god was sort of sewn into an existing creation myth, to work their tribal god into the big time.
Laripu at 12 noon:
“Right. Anyone here, in J&M, knows that the Adam and Eve story is not fact. It’s a myth. So it ought to be read the way Aesop’s fables are read, as an allegory designed to teach us something.”
So, you mean Jhvh in actuality gave them a long spoon to eat the forbidden fruit but they handed it to the stork? Or fox.
I may have gotten my fables mixed up. No big deal, as they all contain a kernel. (Colonel?) Well, boss.
God: Why not put a Tree of Forbidden Fruit in the Garden of Eden?
And I’ll put in a serpent to temp Adam and Eve to eat the fruit.
And I’ll make Adam and Eve imperfect, so they’ll give in to temptation.
And since I’m all-knowing, I know they’ll eat the fruit.
God: ADAM AND EVE – THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT!!!
Lets face it. The bible reads like a bad script for a long running soap…
Doug: Love the concept;
God’s mum: Where are you going dear?
God: I think I’ll go and make a world.
God’s mum: That’ll be nice dear. Nothing too big, be back in six days.
So God goes upstairs and starts in . . . but it doesn’t go that well:
https://americasbestpics.com/picture/god-as-a-kid-tries-to-make-a-chicken-in-Cnag8ozb8
Rrr, I have a personal belief that the tetragrammaton is incorrectly written and spoken. Whether Jhvh, Jehovah, or Yahweh, I think all these are wrong.
The problem is that Hebrew words, when written for adult Hebrew speakers, lack vowels. Children and learners do get them, and they’re diacritical marks. So the tetragrammaton, which is יהוה can be read in any number of ways, depending on what diacritical marks you think it ought to have had.
The first letter (the one on the right, because Hebrew is right to left) is almost always read as either a y or an i. Never a j. The next letter and the last one, is an h. It can be voiced or silent. In the middle, usually voiced. At the end, usually silent.
The third from the right is the problem. With one diacritical mark it’s a v. With another it’s makes the sound that oo makes in English. (It can also be a kind of o. It’s slippery.)
Here’s a clue. The word for “Jew” in Hebrew, with the diacritical marks, is יְהוּדִי pronounced “Yehudi” or “Yehoodi”. I take the etymology there to mean “person of Yehu”. If you take only the first three letters of that (remove the “di” at the end) and add the silent h (ה) at the end instead, you get the tetragrammaton, but pronounced Yehu or Yehoo: יְהוּה
So I think the tetragrammaton should be written and pronounced as “Yehu”. Since we’re talking about a work of fiction, this isn’t theology, it’s lit-crit.
Yahoo!! 😉
Fantastic learning!
Also a beautiful versed interpretation. Thank you!
RE:Anoy Mouse
Need the Divine Drilling Equipment Salesman for slack.
Whats Hebrew for Greasy Bacon Butty?
I say that Eve did nothing wrong. She showed initiative and curiosity. “Knowledge of good and evil” = moral choice = liberty. She partook of that most American of vegetation, the Liberty Tree! Blame all vice on her if you wish, but she is equally creditable with all virtue. Sure, she and Adam got lectured by Yahweh right away; I say that was part of the teaching. “The bad news, kids, is that you, Adam, have to work, and you, Eve, have to control sex, and you both are going to die. The good news is, you’re free now.”
Yahweh was OK too. The breeding pair had reached sexual and mental maturity, so it was time to release them into the wild. Yahweh was acting as a competent wildlife manager.
paradoctor, that’s a really interesting idea; you’re suggesting taking from the tree would be considered a graduation ceremony almost? They were kept coddled as children in a haven, but when when they proved maturity they were released to adulthood and allowed to found their species.
The thing I always thought made no sense (ok “the thing” is stretching a point:) ) until they ate from the knowlege of good and evil they wouldn’t know disobeying god was a bad thing either…
Good god peeps, can we bring this esoteric discussion back to the Pub please?
Maybe Barmaid can offer some cider to wet whistles?
M27Holtz, surely you could have availed yourself if Google translate to find that great bacon butty is כריך בייקון שמנוני.
Only, you have to eat it from right to left. So go ahead. Eat it
That should have been “greasy” not great.
Aye. My wife cuts the rind off the bacon, so I have to retrieve it from the food-bin and chuck it in the frying-pan…oh and she likes her eggs turned-over…I prefer sunny-side up with a runny yolk..mhmmmm
According to the Ophite Gnostics, the snake was from Sophia, to clue them to the setup, run by unpleasant character Ialdabaoth who apparently is Yahweh. Sophia is Ialdabaoth’s mom. The name Ophite comes from the Greek word for snake.
Anyone else had an email saying Patreon couldn’t process this month’s pledge?
There was a ‘click here’ but I didn’t. Is it a scam?
Author, if it’s really a problem I’ll re-pledge.
The name is “YaHuWaHu” better to chant when you are sacking a city and killing everyone, sometimes including the cattle. Some times you let the virgin girls live. Sometimes you rape the men and kill the women and sometime kill the men and rape the women.
I don’t know how apparently decent people can worship such a character.
Lets face it. Biblical studies is precisely in the same ballpark with those people who study Lord of the Rings, although the LOTR trilogy is a lit more entertaining and not as far fetched…
botanist, I got my PayPal receipt yesterday as usual.
Virgin Birth
https://crasch.livejournal.com/35827.html
or
<https://crasch.livejournal.com/35827.html?/
Oral conception. Impregnation via the proximal gastrointestinal tract in a patient with an aplastic distal vagina. Case repor
samhuff96: Very interesting story. I calculate that the baby boy in that case is now in his middle thirties if still alive (we can’t take “still alive” for granted, as there is a lot of child mortality in Lesotho). I wonder if he has been told about the weird circumstances of his conception!
I would expect many a “virgin” has been impregnated by careless introduction of semen in or even near the vagina during “heavy petting”…
As a child, the story I was told was that the “virgin birth” of Jesus was the result of rape by brutal Roman soldiers. That the story of virgin birth was concocted to avoid the shame of pregnancy outside marriage. And that Mary married the elderly Joseph because no-one else would have her.
No way to know, but at least that story is more plausible than the one that asserts Mary’s continuing virginity.
Or the the whole virgin thing could have been made up decades later, retroactively.
Whatever. The ideas in early Christianity, that the spirit of the law was more important than the letter if the law, did represent a slight advance over the legalistic Judaism of the time; but it came out of the culture, and the Judaism of that time was moving in that direction anyway. (e.g. Hillel, who lived decades before Jesus, if that is to be believed, because “hoo the f*¢k nose”.)
M27Holts, since you like bacon, here’s a use you may not have encountered on your side of the pond: mofongo. I’ve eaten this dish four times in a restaurant, made with pork rind. At home, I made it once with bacon.
Mofongo is a Puerto Rican dish that I learned about a few years ago. My version uses three plantains, a whole garlic, 🙂 a whole onion, a pound of bacon, some pepper and other spices to taste but no extra salt because the bacon and drippings have enough.
There are many on-line recipes. Mine used considerably more bacon and garlic than those.
I will try that..thanks…
Thanks Haggis. I realised my card had expired.
All reinstated, so the next round is on me.
Hitchens sites the victory of the messianic Jews over the Hellenistic Jews was the turning point that took europe eventually into the dark ages…
All you guys do give me a laugh, discussing all the bullshit fairy tales from the bible as if it were all real. If you read back though, you sound like believers. 🙂
Soooo ~ Having said that, will you all please say a little prayer to your god and ask him not to give me a different avatar every fucking time I post here.
Botanist ~ Cheers! Strongbow, please. 🙂
Some good news: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/doc-gallagher-christian-radio-host-3-life-prison-terms-ponzi-scheme/
Mockingbird: “… different avatar every ******* time …” Surely nothing could be more appropriate for a mocking bird!
Oy Mockingbird, I hope you aren’t including moi in that little dig? I cited Hitchens to try and get some historical context in all the kerfuffle about the mythical Garden of Eden nonsense…
Laripu, interestingly one victims statement states thst he/she still trusts in a god that didn’t warn them that they were about to get fleeced? Either he didn’t care or he doesn’t in fact exist…silly people will always get fleeced, as they are the “flock”…
It’s like when I get phone calls asking me if I want to invest in a high-yeilding investment opportunity? I ask them what is the first step? They glibley ask me to send them the deeds for my house…Such cold calls are done by calculating conmen as they must have a list of persons who have no mortgage….and they must succeed in getting deeds…I just laugh and then start asking them very personal questions and, by their reaction to those questions it gives me an idea of their potential location and age…I then relate that information to a relevant scam-call reporting body…
Barmaid suffers from a common misconception. Gen 2:9 documents two different sensitive trees planted in Eden, neither poisonous, but only one, knowledge of good & evil, forbidden. God said the knowledge fruit would kill Adam if he ate, but the story suggests that he made that up, or perhaps didn’t know either way. The serpent tempted Adam and Eve to eat the forbidden fruit, which they did. Hence that business with the fig leaves once they twigged that nudity is evil.
The tree of life is different. God kicked A&E out of Eden after they ate the fruit of knowledge because he feared that they might eat the fruit of life as well, and become immortal.