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June 10th, 2010

Special thanks to today’s co-scriptwriter, Bill Donohue.

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Discussion (40)¬

  1. Gelfling says:
    June 10, 2010 at 4:34 pm

    Yep, that says it all. Case closed. I’m a believer.

  2. vuurklip says:
    June 10, 2010 at 4:49 pm

    Well, actually, if the Universe is infinite, whether bounded or unbounded, anywhere will be “the centre” of the universe …

    The cartoon’s still funny though!

  3. doob says:
    June 10, 2010 at 5:17 pm

    Just because I can’t comment directly on the linked article:

    “… science without faith also leads to disaster—the genocidal regimes in Germany, the Soviet Union, China and Cambodia being Exhibits A, B, C and D”

    hrrrrnnnnnnggg! This makes me angry, faith != morality.

  4. kiyaroru says:
    June 10, 2010 at 5:37 pm

    I, myself, as a teenager, conducted this same experiment. I obtained the same results. That is independent confirmation, therefore it is true. I, too, am a believer(TM).

    Do HTML tags work here?

  5. Stephen Turner says:
    June 10, 2010 at 5:56 pm

    Well, the Universe could in principle be unbounded in only some directions.

    The Earth was obviously specially created for humanity, because 50% of it is under at least 4km of water.

  6. Bahamut says:
    June 10, 2010 at 6:01 pm

    Dear author,
    Please share with us the joy of having so much material to work with. It seems that lately the news are getting sillier by the day. But don’t worry, I still prefer to laugh at reality behind the mask of the J&M comics. That way I can pretend these are not the people that decide about our future.

  7. archbish says:
    June 10, 2010 at 6:21 pm

    I think it’s more a case of Columbus finding the Americas causing the world to curve. 🙂

  8. Reverender RavenBlack says:
    June 10, 2010 at 6:38 pm

    From the linked article: “science without faith also leads to disaster—the genocidal regimes in Germany, the Soviet Union, China and Cambodia being Exhibits A, B, C and D.”

    That’s very true – as someone who likes science and doesn’t have a religion, I am simultanously creating several communist and one strongly-opposed-to-communism fascist regime, at least one of which has a self-professed and raised Catholic at its head and none of which have any special connection with science.

  9. Fuckerless says:
    June 10, 2010 at 6:45 pm

    Curious about the “pivotal role in the universe”. What could it possibly be? Make god happy? Seems like an excessive amount of real estate for just that. Surely one sun, one planet and maybe a moon would be plenty. I guess omnipotent doesn’t mean thrifty. The only role (to date) I can think of in terms of the big picture is “Destroyer of Worlds”. Hmmm, doesn’t seem so pivotal.

  10. author says:
    June 10, 2010 at 7:18 pm

    @kiyaroru Yes, HTML works

  11. nina says:
    June 10, 2010 at 7:46 pm

    excellent, wonderful demonstration of the low bar that beleivers set for evidence and the complete ignoring of reality

  12. Unruly Simian says:
    June 10, 2010 at 8:07 pm

    When you are the “newest” icon of your chosen religion of course where ever they find themselves is the center of the universe. Egocentrists’ rule….!!!! Sorry Author (bowing, genuflecting, retreating…..)

  13. Stonyground says:
    June 10, 2010 at 8:27 pm

    I would be willing to bet that Bill has so little knowledge of cosmology that he simply does not have any idea of the actual size of the universe and our insignificant place in it.

    His presumption in pitting his miniscule brain against someone like Hawkin is simply laughable.

  14. bk says:
    June 10, 2010 at 9:04 pm

    it seems a bit out of character for the duo to go to such great lengths to test their theory. They walked all the way to the other side of a lake and up a mountain (a distance of several hundred pixels). Few zealots will test their dogma even that little.

  15. kiyaroru says:
    June 10, 2010 at 9:47 pm

    great&trade

  16. kiyaroru says:
    June 10, 2010 at 9:48 pm

    oops
    maybe it’s me

  17. James says:
    June 10, 2010 at 10:14 pm

    For religious figures, one of whom is a god, these two are very parochial. Would humans still be at the center of the universe if J&M went to edge of the visible universe?

  18. keeyop says:
    June 10, 2010 at 10:30 pm

    @Rev.Ravenblak- Bravo, sir. A real stroke of EvilScience genius… traveling time to alter history; Replacing the leaders of “genocidal regimes” with IDENTICAL COPIES, so that their genesis was indeed “science”! Thereby making Donohue’s spurious, delusional statement factual… *mwahahahahaa*

    Seriously… as if the argument “StalinPolPotMaoHitler = proof of evil atheism” wasn’t ignorant/trite enough, now they’re trotted out as examples of evil [godless] science!?! puhlleeeze
    Maybe Bill has a wire crossed in his apologist programming.

  19. keeyop says:
    June 10, 2010 at 11:01 pm

    WOW. the link is a real rabbit hole of insanity. Saddening, angering, amusing. (the “Annual Reports” are a great resource)
    Among the trespasses against catholicism:

    “A World History course was rejected because it presupposed a Christian God created and governed the world.” w o a h . . . yikes

    “The Chuck Jones Gallery displayed a painting in its front window that replaces Jesus and the apostles of Leonardo Da Vinci’s “The Last Supper” with Looney Tunes cartoon characters…” Bugs Bunny FTW!

    pic of BD & KK (also from link)
    http://www.catholicleague.org/images/upload/image_200905293235.jpg
    ok, i’m done. sorry for all the bits. thanks for your attention.

  20. Darwin Harmless says:
    June 11, 2010 at 12:23 am

    Here’s a little noticed factoid. The Romans called their part of the world the Mediterranean, the middle of the earth. The Chinese called theirs Zhong Guo, the middle kingdom. It seems being at the center has always been a human assumption.
    Donahue needs to take a look at Catholicism, and ask himself whether a culture devoted to reason is likely to burn a Giordano Bruno alive for making use of reason. Yes, it was a while ago. But they haven’t changed a bit. And they’ve managed to sweep that crime out of our consciousness by putting the light on Galileo, whom they spared but just barely. Very reasonable of them.

  21. JakeS says:
    June 11, 2010 at 12:27 am

    Humans are, in fact, in the centre of the observable universe. But that has more to do with the fact that the observable universe is symmetric and (so far) unbounded, and that light moves equally fast in all directions in vacuum. So each observer is, in fact, always at the precise centre of the universe that he is theoretically able to observe.

    – Jake

  22. Darwin Harmless says:
    June 11, 2010 at 12:34 am

    Stephen Hawking vs. Bill Donahue. Now there’s a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent.
    “It was the Catholic Church that created the first universities, and it was the Catholic Church that played a central role in the Scientific Revolution; these two historical contributions made possible Mr. Hawking’s career.” Too true. And then it was the Catholic universities in Spain, Portugal and Italy that shut down their science and refused to allow scholars to go to Protestant universities where science flourished. It was the Catholics who burned books that disagreed with their dogma, and burned their authors if they could get their hands on them. Such reasonable people. Such models of rationality. Hawkins should be so grateful to them.
    Not that I think Protestants are any better. But please, don’t ask me to thank the Catholics for science. That’s like thanking Islamics for feminism.

  23. Nassar Beh Houdja says:
    June 11, 2010 at 5:36 am

    The center of something definable is somewhere, the center of the undefinable is.

  24. daoloth says:
    June 11, 2010 at 7:10 am

    @ doob. This is a repost but, just in case, you might check out this site next time someone says that Nazis were godless:
    http://www.nobeliefs.com/nazis.htm

  25. tony b says:
    June 11, 2010 at 10:16 am

    ha ha – I only just got the “other side of the lake” reference. well done keep it up author 🙂

  26. defending religion…not very well | Sim-O says:
    June 11, 2010 at 2:16 pm

    […] Jesus & Mo I happen across this… HAWKING POSITS FALSE CONFLICT June 8, […]

  27. Poor Richard says:
    June 11, 2010 at 2:45 pm

    Poor Dickie says, “How could it be otherwise?”

    Vuurklip: I think that may be part of the joke. Profound, huh?

    Jorge Luis Borges spins in his grave, at the center of the library.

  28. Jerry w says:
    June 11, 2010 at 3:04 pm

    Don’t try to fog up the discussion with mere facts, I’ve got my mind made up.

    @Stephen Turner… Your math seems to indicate that the planet might equally have been made up for fish.

  29. Bodach says:
    June 11, 2010 at 3:37 pm

    Darwin Harmless, “don’t ask me to thank the Catholics for science. That’s like thanking Islamics for feminism”. Now I need a new keyboard; well done.

    After checking your blog, I am happy you are feeling better.

  30. Exzanian says:
    June 11, 2010 at 8:16 pm

    In a sense, it is perfectly true. The anthropic principle is the ultimate, unarguable point of view, because WE can think about it right here in the middle, Cyril…However, it makes mush of the doG principle…

  31. nina says:
    June 13, 2010 at 5:47 pm

    humans are the centre of the worldview because it’s a human worldview

    other than being scary predators, we aren’t much in the worldview of any other living creatures – we are beside the point for most life on earth

  32. foundationist says:
    June 15, 2010 at 9:13 am

    Just discovered this webcomic and read through your whole archive in the last few days. Amazing stuff. In a strong field my favorite quote was “bigots are the new jews!” That’s T-shirt material.

    keep up the good work!

  33. Bahamut says:
    June 15, 2010 at 12:35 pm

    Just read this in the news: 25 school girls in a small town in northeastern Brazil needed medical assistance after they started to kick and flounder. They claim they saw a kid that died drowned in that school 7 years ago. Now the punch line: The local catholic priest dismissed the claims saying these girls in small towns are too superticious and believe too much. Then he tried to treat them using hypnosis. Here’s a link (sorry, it’s in portuguese):
    http://oglobo.globo.com/cidades/mat/2010/06/14/igreja-diz-que-transe-coletivo-em-escola-no-ceara-fenomeno-psicologico-916879492.asp

  34. AchillesAndTortoise says:
    June 15, 2010 at 1:33 pm

    @foundationist: Yes, I did that just a few months ago. Now you have to content yourself with only two a week.

  35. Bob B Bobberson says:
    June 18, 2010 at 2:21 am

    There is no god. Get over it. EVOLVE. Please. You’re embarrassing us intelligent folk with your asshattery.

  36. Dan says:
    June 19, 2010 at 5:20 am

    Anyone heard of Godwin’s Law?
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law

  37. dysamoria says:
    December 6, 2011 at 6:10 pm

    Pointing to a few crazies that may have been atheists, from the last hundred (?) years doesn’t come close to excusing the thousands of years of religious evils.

  38. Tomas the Doubter says:
    March 19, 2012 at 9:07 pm

    A working link to the article in question: http://www.catholicleague.org/hawking-posits-false-conflict/

  39. Keith Graham says:
    October 15, 2013 at 6:23 pm

    Oddly enough we ARE at the center of the universe. If the universe is infinite then anywhere is equidistant from the end, so wherever you are IS the center.

  40. Voice+of+Saison says:
    February 9, 2014 at 5:49 pm

    Donahue IS a loudmouth, as Hitchens said during one of their debates.

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