MythTickle by Justin Thompson for September 15, 2023

I agree with Boody the dragon. How can anyone who really reads religious books belief let alone follow the religion in question.

Now he has a Thor head……

That’s why all the good stories involve multiple gods. There’s always somegod happy to leak the dirt on another. Then they spend so much time fighting among each other, they hardly notice what mortals are up to.

Actually, though, those stories explain why the gods are hard to please and don’t seem to answer prayers. They aren’t “divine” but they are in control. It’s clearer than “god works in mysterious ways”.

I wonder how the first notion of divinity (not the candy my mom used to make) was conjured. You can’t say someone saw lightning, or some other extraordinary phenomenon, and declared a god was responsible, because that presumes the idea of deity was present before the “miracle.”

Boody, trying to cancel the myths? Egad!

I just noticed that Thor’s eyebrows look like lightning bolts. Makes sense.

Socrates (at least according to Plato) said the silly myths were all the fault of poets, which is why poets were to be excluded from his ideal Republic.

Poor Thor has to play the part of “Clumsy Stooge” in today’s strip.

The issue, however, is that mythologies differ on what they understand a god to be. For example, in Greek mythology (with which I am most familiar), it is often said that the gods are just like mortals, with all our failings, except that they are 1. powerful and 2. immortal.