nostalgia

Those were the days.

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Discussion (48)¬

  1. SpellChecker says:

    Is there an extra “have” in panel 1?

  2. I’ve always thought there were two equally entertaining responses to the argument that Jesus makes, i. e., that without God he would do all sorts of evil & naughty things.

    First, to immediately agree and explain that you don’t want to take the chance that something you say or do might cause them to lose this one bulwark against their immorality. “I wouldn’t be able to live with myself, if you went home & killed your family.”

    and the other, “so, what you’re saying is that a believer needs to be told not to eat babies or go on random crime sprees.”

  3. Author says:

    @SpellChecker – yes, there was. Thanks for spotting!

  4. Keith says:

    The scary part of that joke is that apparently many believers really do believe that they would have trouble telling right from wrong without divine guidance on the subject. (In fact, if I recall correctly, the Bible pretty much says that humans are a hopeless mess on their own, and do need someone or something to tell them what to do.)

  5. Forteatwo says:

    In the last panel Mo does not answer and appears lost in thought. Is he gleefully imagining dining at Red Lobster or chumming with Matt Gaetz?

  6. Troubleshooter says:

    Ummm, J? Exactly how many atheists do you read about in the news media, thieving, raping and killing?

    Give it some thought. I’ll wait…

  7. PrivateFrazer says:

    Troubleshooter – there are some famously not very religious dictators with some mighty scores on the doors. not that i disagree with you on a day to day basis – the religious ‘right’ certainly seem to love a good slaughter

  8. Donn says:

    Never had this discussion with a believer/propagandist? I’m sure it varies, but seems to me the usual is Stalin & Mao representing the typical bloodthirsty atheist. If an atheist isn’t a moral vacuum, he or she probably was raised Christian and just going through a phase.

  9. Donn says:

    Sort of a real thing for Mo, actually. According to the wikipedia story anyway, he grew up in a sort of “every man for himself” culture, where the only respite from this was a holy season where you weren’t supposed to fight. The less violent pilgrim or shopper would wait until the holy season to come into town.

  10. Mo, say something, fast! You’re ruining your reputation just sitting there looking stunned.

  11. Rrr says:

    Well, O, I think this week’s title is meant as kind of a thought-bubble for Mo there? Reminiscing. Lost. Stunned, indeed. (Has been for centuries, nay millennia!)

  12. Mark says:

    There are Christians who loudly and proudly admit that they would go around stealing, raping and killing if they didn’t believe in god, without an iota of self awareness.

  13. Rrr says:

    Mark: “without an iota of self awareness.”
    But with an Omega of godawfulness! Automata, Zombies.

  14. Son of Glenner says:

    Further to Spellchecker: In panel 1, in Jesus’ speech bubble, is the “have” not redundant, intrusive or something? It just doesn’t seem right somehow.

  15. Acolyte of Sagan says:

    Mo is clearly missing his caravan-raiding days.

    Author, as much as I hate pedantry (!) I would be remiss if I failed to suggest that in panel 1, Jesus’ ‘have’ should be ‘had’.

  16. M27Holts says:

    Reads ok to me…you lot pished?

  17. Author says:

    I got rid of that “have” hours ago! I don’t know why it’s taken so long to disappear.

  18. Son of Glenner says:

    M27Holts: Not pissed, alas – pubs in Scotland not open yet, no reopening until 12 days time – 12 days and counting! Drinking the occasional dram at home is just not the same!

    Pubs in Manchester are open now – enjoy until the next lockdown!

  19. Rrr says:

    Ah, the old story of the haves and the not-haves. Cheers 😉

  20. Deimos says:

    I must be having a weird day but I thought Mo was quiet in the last panel because he did all the above atrocities with holy guidance in place. He also had a nasty reputation for breaking the yearly truce to enjoy some quality jihad time.
    In the name of balance I must also mention JC doing some extremely violent furniture throwing in Jerusalem once.

  21. Martin says:

    I have been staring at Mo for the last few minutes, expecting him to blink…

    No?

  22. David says:

    @Deimos – Exactly! Morality – schmorality says Mo; “Let’s thieve/rape/kill us some infidels. ‘Cause Great Allah says so.”
    Like he’s playing a bloody game of Simon Says, FFS.

  23. M27Holts says:

    Aye. Let us see how the “peaceful” religion kills thousands in Afghanistan…

  24. postdoggerel says:

    M27, you know, I thought for a moment there could actually be a loving god when the democrats took back the country, here in the good ole usa. It was certainly worth paying, if not praying for. Your assessment of Afghanistan is dour. if not dour, then dire. Would it were not so. Does this mean atheists are dismal humanists of the realpolitik kind? Sorry if this breaks in to your futbol time. Go (your team)! And please have a cask ale for me. They don’t exist here.

  25. Mark says:

    Classic! Making multiple points at once.

  26. Donn says:

    It’s possible to get “cask conditioned” ale here in Seattle establishments, if that’s the same thing.

    As for whether anyone’s ever going to be able to rescue the Afghans from themselves, no idea on that.

  27. M27Holts says:

    Cask conditioned is when the beer is still “alive” when casked. When the cask is cracked you have a limited time to drink the ale before it sours….thus the prevalence of keg ale which is sterilised before going into the keg and stays fresher for much longer but loses the taste somewhat and laxative effect of live beer….when I started drinking, cask ales were on the way out for the lager boys preference for ice cold pish…but the modern craft ales are good tasting kegged beer which is a boon for those of us thay like to taste a beer, not expecting it to be alcoholic water that the lager boys quaff with their pea sized brains….

  28. Dr John the Wipper says:

    M27:

    I lack your literary qualities in English, but I wholeheartedly agree!

  29. Son of Glenner says:

    Literary qualities? M27Holts? He is obviously knowledgeable about what some Brits call “real ale” (and I agree with his sentiments), but he has previously proclaimed his own distaste for literary pretensions and will no doubt resent what Dr John the Wipper intended as a compliment.

  30. M27Holts says:

    My reading tends to be factual at the moment. I started that Godel, Escher, Bach. Book at xmas, but stopped after a couple of pages…been too busy with work and building my home bar and gym…I have read novels since school but mainly science fiction and science fantasy….Big fan of the late great Terry Pratchett…

  31. Deimos says:

    Actually we may be missing the mark associating Islam to Afghanistan, the country was already insane when Alexander the Great fought through it. It was so tough he placed a city bearing his name (Iskandahar or Alexandria) there.
    I hate to say it but Afghanistan may actually have been slightly helped by the religion of peace.

  32. Donn says:

    At any rate, since the “solid foundation for your morality” argument is clearly specious, I think it follows that this is equally true where the morality in question seems depraved to us.

  33. M27Holts says:

    Afghanistan is a muslim country? Is it not? or are all those bearded nutjobs with AK47s reading the God Delusion and just killing people for giggles and shits….

  34. Donn says:

    If the paint color doesn’t make your car go faster, then very likely it doesn’t make it go slower either.

  35. Laripu says:

    M27Holts, we’d get on well: I’ve been homebrewing live beer since 1990, and read Gödel, Escher, Bach in 1981, and loved it. Unfortunately it was around the same time I was studying for final exams in Galois Theory. I think it took 5% off my final grade. You should finish it. Understanding modern programming, AI, and learning algorithms will give you a slant on it I couldn’t have had in 1981, with the limited walnut sized thing I use to decide what’s for supper.

    Another thing I liked: it contained Jabberwocky, translated into French and German, both of which I speak… in a manner of speaking… after a fashion. That is to say, well enough to get in trouble, and to understand nonsense translated into nonsense.

  36. M27Holts says:

    I will probably start the book If I get abroad later in the year….but the wife has a list of DIY projects that will take most of my time when not drinking, sleeping and working…

  37. Son of Glenner says:

    M27Holts: “… drinking, sleeping and working.” I lke your priorities!

  38. M27Holts says:

    Dawkins has been stripped of his 1996 Humanist of the year award….the objective biological sex v the subjective self identification argument has bitten his arse I believe. Apparently he denied trans-sexuals humanity in a tweet? I read it and didn’t see any content that said that trans-sexuals aren’t human…or is that my natural white northern european unconscious transphobic tendancy?

  39. Donn says:

    Dawkins: In 2015, Rachel Dolezal, a white chapter president of NAACP, was vilified for identifying as Black.
    Some men choose to identify as women, and some women choose to identify as men. You will be vilified if you deny that they literally are what they identify as. Discuss.

    AHA: The evolutionary biologist’s latest comment, the board said, “implies that the identities of transgender individuals are fraudulent, while also simultaneously attacking Black identity as one that can be assumed when convenient”, while his “subsequent attempts at clarification are inadequate and convey neither sensitivity nor sincerity”.

    To me they’re essentially restating his point, but without the apparent awareness of its contradictions. One may not speak publicly of any potential contradiction here.

  40. botanist says:

    Dawkins is 80 now.
    It is likely that he is more belligerent and less coherent than he was 25 years ago.
    I think to withdraw an award is not treating him with the respect he has earned.
    I will try to forgive him in his decline.

  41. jb says:

    One may not speak publicly of any potential contradiction here.

    This is the rule that applies with all puritanical religions. Wokeism is not fundamentally different from its predecessors in this regard.

  42. Donn says:

    Poor man. Well, not really. I have a hunch what he really needs is a Curmudgeon award, something I’d sure be proud to have. It would be taken away when they catch you kowtowing to political correctness or public sentiment.

  43. Son of Glenner says:

    Poor old Dawkins – damned if he does and damned if he doesn’t! Looks like the AHA has become the proverbial asylum run by its inmates! Next thing they’ll be denying evolution or decreeing that the Earth is flat.

  44. Donn says:

    Ideally, we ought to be able raise questions like this, when we encounter contradictions, and as he says: Discuss. In this way we shed light on the meaning of what we’re doing.

    Unfortunately, it may be that the AHA is right (whether they understand it this way or not) – we can’t afford to ask those questions, because we are unable to hold the discussion.

    Oh yeah, plenty of discussion here and ten thousand other places, but of such typically very low quality and shedding so very little light on the matter, that in practice the question may almost be considered disingenuous – one doesn’t ask a question in good faith, if there’s so little likelihood of an illuminating answer.

  45. Rafael Dubois says:

    Brilliant! I haven’t laugh so loud in a long time. Thanks Author! You are a genius

  46. beepboop says:

    Moses really should have made an appearance in this one. I mean, have you read about what that guy did?!

  47. Succubus ov Satan says:

    For some Abrahamics, thieving, raping and killing would appear to be part of their faith based morality

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