Red fish: ? !
Noise: POP POP POP POP POP POP FOOM KA-BOOM
Red fish with mouth open: Not yet. They're still deciding which one of their peaceful, compassionate religions is the most lethal...
@Bruno Zeitgerts People kill anyway, usually over possessions of one kind or another. To justify themselves they claim they are acting out of higher motives – be it religion, nationality or on the side of good vs. evil. Don’t blame what they (mis)use to justify their actions – blame them alone.
Islam, the religion of peace [G Bush, 9-11-01]: “Allah or the sword!” “Kill the unbeliever near you.”
Christianity, the religion of love: “Love Jesus, or we will kill you.” “Love Jesus our way, or we will kill you.”
Judaism, religion of the jealous God: “This is our land, givenus by God, so bugger off back to Arabia whence you came, andleave us alone.” “An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.” And alife for a life. Just so you know.
Maybe, but it has been the underlying reason used by people for a good chunk wars, cleansing and general violence for the last 1200 years (see crusades, salem witch hunts, KKK, middle east today)
That might work! :-)I was just comparing the violence in the name of other religions with the heinous act of waking us up on our days off.Don’t they accept imprisonment over conscription?
I have a relative who is a Jehovah’s Witness who talked about her training on how to deal with people who come to the door naked and how to report such people for the do not bother list.
I asked her why it took having people go to such extreme measures before her church stopped knocking on people’s doors and she ignored the question.
Religion – all of it – IS an insanity.Talk to God all you want but if God starts talking to you your medication needs some adjusting.Usually it’s just another excuse for people to be crappy to each other.“My imaginary friend is better than your imaginary friend”.
@ Anon4242There are no atheists in the foxhole. A recent poll states the 6% of atheists believe in God. What’s this world coming to? When you end draws near, you suddenly begin relying on what you think is your superior knowledge and realize every gift you have has been given to you,,,most especially your free will – the gift to choose God or no choose God. God gave you this gift. He gave you the ability to accept or deny His presence. It is in choosing Him, because He is Love, that you are choosing ultimately for yourself. Choose wisely. TO help you choose, He became incarnate through His Son. He is not asking you to do anything He was not willing to do for you, even to sacrifice Himself for love of you. Thinking as men think, this seems as you say “insane”, but when you think eternally, remembering what you already know by nature, that our time on earth is an eye blink, then you realize it is how men think that is insanity.Don’t be blinded with your own pride, thinking YOU are smarter than God by fooling yourself into thinking He doesn’t exist – because others are saying the same foolish thing – God loves you more than you can possibly fathom. That is why you are here. He also put you here with a pose in mind. Yours is to find that purpose. He has given you many clues. The Bible will open these to you as will the guidance of the Church.
War (We Are Right) is about the acquisition of power, wealth, land, resources… Religion is one of the excuses used to make murdering others alright. Attila the Hun was told by his gods to conquer the world.When the Jews left Egypt they conquered the inhabitants of Israel because they were the chosen ones.Christians waged the Crusades to protect the holy land.etc., etc., etc.!!!
I believe in free speech and your right to your opinion but I will exercise my right to ignore your opinion. Your anti-religion piece is no less bigotry than white racism when you essentially condemn all religion in your strip.
So it’s another hundreds of millions until swim fins have evolved. But, of course,by that time another few religions will have killed each other off and …….
Genesis 2:4-7 = one paragraph or complete thought. Man is the final thing created.-Genesis 2:8-15 = one paragraph or complete thought. Once again man is the last thing brought into the picture.-Genesis 2:19 – with the semicolon after the creation of the beasts and the fowls this verse simply states that all those things God had already created He brought before man to name.-No contradiction, unless of course you just want to wrest the scriptures to say what you want them to say.-Most contradictions people hold to can usually be explained away by a decent understanding of the English language. Some need to go back to the original languages and their various syntaxes
Thank you all…again. If you will notice the year on the copyright, this cartoon originally ran in 2010. It’s last of the vacation reprints, by the way.
What so many of you have ironically proved here today is that, sadly, this cartoon could run EVERY year and would remain relevant for as long as human beings inhabit the Earth.
Actually, you are the mistaken one. As I commented earlier, at least the western monotheistic religions all coddle, and not infrequently command, their adherents to kill people who practice other religions.
I can’t make a comment on a situation like that as I don’t know you or your predicament. I don’t even know what religion you’re referencing. If everything you were speaking of was exactly as you stated, and you were talking of my church, the church (I don’t mean the particular church – I mean the Church) does a thorough investigation to determine a number of factors about your and your husband’s maturity state and the understandings you each had about what a valid marriage is about. It’s very involved.
Again, I have no idea about anything your referencing and even if I did, this forum is no place to conduct such an inquiry. Making broad accusatory posts about this just acts as fodder for everyone’s wild uninformed opinions.
For those that say the Bible contradicts itself, they do so out of pure ignorance of what the Bible is and what its intended purposes are. It’s NOT a HISTORY book, thought there is history in it.
Briefly, basically, the purpose of the was not to recount historical fact, but rather spiritual truth. They used various means to achieve this, part fact, and part allegory. One example:
Adam & Eve: The Church has not made a declarative statement about the literal historical truth of this account, so we are free to believe that it is allegory or fact. The purpose of the Genesis account is to relate a few things: #1: God created everything. Whether he did this it eh blink of an eye, or over the course of thirteen billion years is inconsequential. Everything that exists is through the will of God. #2: Through his will, he chose to create humanity, and give it sovereignty over his creation. Originally, humanity was clean, it knew no sin, and was in full communion with God. #3: The first humans (Adam and Eve) made a chose to reject God. We are not sure of the concrete form this choice took, it could have been eating the fruit, or it could have been something less tangible. The important thing is that a choice was made, and through that choice sin and spiritual death entered the world.
The Church has put in a great deal of time studying the Scriptures, and have written extensively on the subject. My advice to you is to remember, “fact” is not the most important thing, it is Truth that you should be seeking.
In simplest terms, think about your own intimate relationships, though you know facts about the significant people in your life, is the intimacy of your relationship with them based on their history, for example, or whether you know ALL the facts about some one (guess what there’s LOTS of things you have no idea about the special person in your life. There’s always more to learn and things you’ll never learn. But isn’t what is MOST important about you relationship that you have truth and love in it? Well, the Bible’s main concern is to teach the Truth and Love that God has for His creation throughout Salvation History.
It’s really as simple and as complicated as that. Though it is the greatest love story of all time.
I say what I say not to convince you (this is obviously the intent you imbue on me). I can only point out the Truth, not convince you of it. I can tell you drinking water is good for your thirst, but if you don’t want to drink it, that is your decision. And it is not MY Truth. I claim no special gift. God gives any individual what needs to be said if they are open to it and they are aligned with His will. To blame God for sins committed by man, whether he be an individual or group in or outside of the Church is to blame YOUR failings from choices YOU made on your parent. Ultimately, this kind of logic – justifying your distaste for anything having to do with God – is in truth just a way of not taking responsibility for anything you have done that is wrong or choice you may make in the future. Do you know what that is? That’s called making YOU your own God. When you hear people say, “I’ll do what’s right for me, and you can do what’s right for you…”, do you know what they’re saying? The are saying there is no such thing as objective truth. Well, sorry, but there is…not because I say, think it, or believe it….there IS simply objective truth independent of me or you. The most simply explanation of this I can give here is this…let’s say two people are staying on the edge of a cliff. One man is convinced that gravity will not effect him when he takes one step forward. The other man is sure that one step ahead will send him in a free fall. Guess what – it doesn’t matter what EITHER man thinks in terms of the REALITY of the situation…the Law of Gravity will take over if one or both test their theory.
There’s some great books out there of atheist who set out to logically, empirically prove the NON-existence of God. Guess what happened? They converted. Now, don’t get me wrong, if you did every test possible for a million years, you could always get to one hair’s length away from “proving” God’s existence. but you can never go all the way because God designed man to always have to take a “leap” of Faith. Think about it…if God is Love and that’s what CHristians believe…part of Love is faith. When you get married, you don’t know 100% that you’re marriage will last or that you or your wife won’t die. You do what you do in love based on Faith. If you thought about the pure logic of having kids…bills, sickness, chance of death, etc., why would a sane person have kids? Why? Because you LOVE them, and you DO have faith that, despite all life’s troubles, it will be worth it in the end.
This is what we’re talking about when we speak of God. Not some distant, non-feeling being who spun the planets into order and sits idly by and watches the fallout. God is Love. He is not responsible for all the bad choices people make themselves (like testing gravity), but He is there to lovingly pick up the pieces after we fall.
As long as a person does not view God as Love, they will despise or ignore Him, and rightfully so because they are not evaluating THE God (who is Love), they are making a judgement on something other than God who, in their minds, represents God – but incorrectly so.
Think about it. I can’t imagine someone saying or believing they don’t want love in their life. If they do (because it is a part of our very DNA – Divine Nature Activated – then they reveal their heart of hearts – they long for God. Awakening to this reality is life-changing.
Tell me when you read a book, and someone asks you to explain what it’s about, do you just state a single line? Because if you do you could make any book mean whatever you want – including the Bible
This is what you’ve doneLuke 19:27 does not stand alone. It is part of a parable that starts at verse 11. One has to read the whole parable (Lk. 19:11-28) to understand the message Jesus wants to transmit in the final verse (vs. 27).
1) The parable uses the example of two earthly classes- nobleman and servants. It shows the wealth and authority of the nobleman over the servants. That relationship is to be compared to the relationship between God/Jesus and men.
2) The parable includes the earthly situation of the nobleman entrusting his servant with earthly wealth.We are meant to see this as a worldly example of what takes place spiritually when God bestows graces and talent on each of us.
3) The parable concludes with the nobleman returning to judge the servant according to how he used the earthly wealth given to him. The ruler condemns him to earthly death for not even attempting to use it, to increase it; especially since he knew what his nobleman was like and would desire.Jesus will return to judge us on how we have put to use the graces bestowed on us. If one has “buried” them, not used them (equivalent to rejecting them), they will be sentenced to eternal death — hell (exclusion from eternal life with God in heaven)..
Dtroutma over 10 years ago
Some chose NOT to evolve, and stay more sophisticated.
wrwallaceii over 10 years ago
Religion, race, nationality, philosophy, politics… If it ain’t one thing it’s something else.
sartre over 10 years ago
@Bruno Zeitgerts People kill anyway, usually over possessions of one kind or another. To justify themselves they claim they are acting out of higher motives – be it religion, nationality or on the side of good vs. evil. Don’t blame what they (mis)use to justify their actions – blame them alone.
watmiwori over 10 years ago
Islam, the religion of peace [G Bush, 9-11-01]: “Allah or the sword!” “Kill the unbeliever near you.”
Christianity, the religion of love: “Love Jesus, or we will kill you.” “Love Jesus our way, or we will kill you.”
Judaism, religion of the jealous God: “This is our land, givenus by God, so bugger off back to Arabia whence you came, andleave us alone.” “An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.” And alife for a life. Just so you know.
Ragtime78rpm over 10 years ago
Yes, it looks like the secular nuts got in the first word.
Space_cat over 10 years ago
An eye for an eyeA tooth for a toothVote for me and I’ll set you freeRap on Bruta rap on…
Meh~tdology, fka Pepelaputr over 10 years ago
“I was only following orders….…from above.”
Bilan over 10 years ago
Blaming religion for the stupid things people do is like blaming soccer for hooliganism.
Scorpio Premium Member over 10 years ago
Maybe, but it has been the underlying reason used by people for a good chunk wars, cleansing and general violence for the last 1200 years (see crusades, salem witch hunts, KKK, middle east today)
unnormal over 10 years ago
That might work! :-)I was just comparing the violence in the name of other religions with the heinous act of waking us up on our days off.Don’t they accept imprisonment over conscription?
Zero-Gabriel over 10 years ago
“Answer the door naked. They’ll put you on the “Do Not Bother” list.”
In the words of the (from The Hobbit) Goblin King… “That will do it…”
Aaberon over 10 years ago
“Answer the door naked." We just had a perv move into the ‘hood. Thinking he doesn’t need to be encouraged… But I LIKE the idea! Got any others??
IQTech61 over 10 years ago
I have a relative who is a Jehovah’s Witness who talked about her training on how to deal with people who come to the door naked and how to report such people for the do not bother list.
I asked her why it took having people go to such extreme measures before her church stopped knocking on people’s doors and she ignored the question.
Anon4242 over 10 years ago
Religion – all of it – IS an insanity.Talk to God all you want but if God starts talking to you your medication needs some adjusting.Usually it’s just another excuse for people to be crappy to each other.“My imaginary friend is better than your imaginary friend”.
Mugens Premium Member over 10 years ago
Wasn’t it Karl Marx who said, “Religion is the opiate of the people”? He may have been off on other things, but he had this one pegged for sure.
DanReynolds over 10 years ago
@ Anon4242There are no atheists in the foxhole. A recent poll states the 6% of atheists believe in God. What’s this world coming to? When you end draws near, you suddenly begin relying on what you think is your superior knowledge and realize every gift you have has been given to you,,,most especially your free will – the gift to choose God or no choose God. God gave you this gift. He gave you the ability to accept or deny His presence. It is in choosing Him, because He is Love, that you are choosing ultimately for yourself. Choose wisely. TO help you choose, He became incarnate through His Son. He is not asking you to do anything He was not willing to do for you, even to sacrifice Himself for love of you. Thinking as men think, this seems as you say “insane”, but when you think eternally, remembering what you already know by nature, that our time on earth is an eye blink, then you realize it is how men think that is insanity.Don’t be blinded with your own pride, thinking YOU are smarter than God by fooling yourself into thinking He doesn’t exist – because others are saying the same foolish thing – God loves you more than you can possibly fathom. That is why you are here. He also put you here with a pose in mind. Yours is to find that purpose. He has given you many clues. The Bible will open these to you as will the guidance of the Church.
tripwire45 over 10 years ago
I thought that “fish-learning-to-walk-on-land” thing is how we got here in the first place.
PerkandCindy Premium Member over 10 years ago
Nailed it !
nosirrom over 10 years ago
War (We Are Right) is about the acquisition of power, wealth, land, resources… Religion is one of the excuses used to make murdering others alright. Attila the Hun was told by his gods to conquer the world.When the Jews left Egypt they conquered the inhabitants of Israel because they were the chosen ones.Christians waged the Crusades to protect the holy land.etc., etc., etc.!!!
puddlesplatt over 10 years ago
and the first alian from outer space will say…Yes! there are no Gods…just man…
Religious Nut over 10 years ago
I believe in free speech and your right to your opinion but I will exercise my right to ignore your opinion. Your anti-religion piece is no less bigotry than white racism when you essentially condemn all religion in your strip.
dabugger over 10 years ago
So it’s another hundreds of millions until swim fins have evolved. But, of course,by that time another few religions will have killed each other off and …….
57-Don over 10 years ago
wonder if the fish would let some of us back in
vwdualnomand over 10 years ago
religion ruins everything.
Caddy57 over 10 years ago
Reminds me of a line from a song on Doctor DeMento….."We come in peace….shoot to kill, shoot to kill.We come in peace , shoot to kill.
luvdafuneez over 10 years ago
Your artistry is KILLERI love you, Wiley.
MrsSnape over 10 years ago
Well done Wiley!
Ernest Lemmingway over 10 years ago
No institution has been responsible for more deaths, wars, and genocides than religion.
doris sloan over 10 years ago
Didn’t Hitler gas priests? Jews? He was sort of a secular kind of guy. It’s power folks, simple raw power.
Reppr Premium Member over 10 years ago
Sunni or Shiite?
rnapiera over 10 years ago
Read Galatians. They preach another Gospel.
rnapiera over 10 years ago
Genesis 2:4-7 = one paragraph or complete thought. Man is the final thing created.-Genesis 2:8-15 = one paragraph or complete thought. Once again man is the last thing brought into the picture.-Genesis 2:19 – with the semicolon after the creation of the beasts and the fowls this verse simply states that all those things God had already created He brought before man to name.-No contradiction, unless of course you just want to wrest the scriptures to say what you want them to say.-Most contradictions people hold to can usually be explained away by a decent understanding of the English language. Some need to go back to the original languages and their various syntaxes
susan.e.a.c over 10 years ago
Yawn. Trolls are out in force.
neverenoughgold over 10 years ago
“Answer the door naked…”And you tried this? And they never came back? I wonder if my wife….Naaaaahhhhh…
neverenoughgold over 10 years ago
Holy Moly! Pandora’s box is open, and rapidly draining of all its contents…
Wiley creator over 10 years ago
Thank you all…again. If you will notice the year on the copyright, this cartoon originally ran in 2010. It’s last of the vacation reprints, by the way.
What so many of you have ironically proved here today is that, sadly, this cartoon could run EVERY year and would remain relevant for as long as human beings inhabit the Earth.
markjoseph125 over 10 years ago
Actually, you are the mistaken one. As I commented earlier, at least the western monotheistic religions all coddle, and not infrequently command, their adherents to kill people who practice other religions.
Meh~tdology, fka Pepelaputr over 10 years ago
DanReynolds over 10 years ago
felinefan55
I can’t make a comment on a situation like that as I don’t know you or your predicament. I don’t even know what religion you’re referencing. If everything you were speaking of was exactly as you stated, and you were talking of my church, the church (I don’t mean the particular church – I mean the Church) does a thorough investigation to determine a number of factors about your and your husband’s maturity state and the understandings you each had about what a valid marriage is about. It’s very involved.
Again, I have no idea about anything your referencing and even if I did, this forum is no place to conduct such an inquiry. Making broad accusatory posts about this just acts as fodder for everyone’s wild uninformed opinions.
For those that say the Bible contradicts itself, they do so out of pure ignorance of what the Bible is and what its intended purposes are. It’s NOT a HISTORY book, thought there is history in it.
Briefly, basically, the purpose of the was not to recount historical fact, but rather spiritual truth. They used various means to achieve this, part fact, and part allegory. One example:
Adam & Eve: The Church has not made a declarative statement about the literal historical truth of this account, so we are free to believe that it is allegory or fact. The purpose of the Genesis account is to relate a few things: #1: God created everything. Whether he did this it eh blink of an eye, or over the course of thirteen billion years is inconsequential. Everything that exists is through the will of God. #2: Through his will, he chose to create humanity, and give it sovereignty over his creation. Originally, humanity was clean, it knew no sin, and was in full communion with God. #3: The first humans (Adam and Eve) made a chose to reject God. We are not sure of the concrete form this choice took, it could have been eating the fruit, or it could have been something less tangible. The important thing is that a choice was made, and through that choice sin and spiritual death entered the world.
The Church has put in a great deal of time studying the Scriptures, and have written extensively on the subject. My advice to you is to remember, “fact” is not the most important thing, it is Truth that you should be seeking.
In simplest terms, think about your own intimate relationships, though you know facts about the significant people in your life, is the intimacy of your relationship with them based on their history, for example, or whether you know ALL the facts about some one (guess what there’s LOTS of things you have no idea about the special person in your life. There’s always more to learn and things you’ll never learn. But isn’t what is MOST important about you relationship that you have truth and love in it? Well, the Bible’s main concern is to teach the Truth and Love that God has for His creation throughout Salvation History.
It’s really as simple and as complicated as that. Though it is the greatest love story of all time.
DanReynolds over 10 years ago
I say what I say not to convince you (this is obviously the intent you imbue on me). I can only point out the Truth, not convince you of it. I can tell you drinking water is good for your thirst, but if you don’t want to drink it, that is your decision. And it is not MY Truth. I claim no special gift. God gives any individual what needs to be said if they are open to it and they are aligned with His will. To blame God for sins committed by man, whether he be an individual or group in or outside of the Church is to blame YOUR failings from choices YOU made on your parent. Ultimately, this kind of logic – justifying your distaste for anything having to do with God – is in truth just a way of not taking responsibility for anything you have done that is wrong or choice you may make in the future. Do you know what that is? That’s called making YOU your own God. When you hear people say, “I’ll do what’s right for me, and you can do what’s right for you…”, do you know what they’re saying? The are saying there is no such thing as objective truth. Well, sorry, but there is…not because I say, think it, or believe it….there IS simply objective truth independent of me or you. The most simply explanation of this I can give here is this…let’s say two people are staying on the edge of a cliff. One man is convinced that gravity will not effect him when he takes one step forward. The other man is sure that one step ahead will send him in a free fall. Guess what – it doesn’t matter what EITHER man thinks in terms of the REALITY of the situation…the Law of Gravity will take over if one or both test their theory.
There’s some great books out there of atheist who set out to logically, empirically prove the NON-existence of God. Guess what happened? They converted. Now, don’t get me wrong, if you did every test possible for a million years, you could always get to one hair’s length away from “proving” God’s existence. but you can never go all the way because God designed man to always have to take a “leap” of Faith. Think about it…if God is Love and that’s what CHristians believe…part of Love is faith. When you get married, you don’t know 100% that you’re marriage will last or that you or your wife won’t die. You do what you do in love based on Faith. If you thought about the pure logic of having kids…bills, sickness, chance of death, etc., why would a sane person have kids? Why? Because you LOVE them, and you DO have faith that, despite all life’s troubles, it will be worth it in the end.
This is what we’re talking about when we speak of God. Not some distant, non-feeling being who spun the planets into order and sits idly by and watches the fallout. God is Love. He is not responsible for all the bad choices people make themselves (like testing gravity), but He is there to lovingly pick up the pieces after we fall.
As long as a person does not view God as Love, they will despise or ignore Him, and rightfully so because they are not evaluating THE God (who is Love), they are making a judgement on something other than God who, in their minds, represents God – but incorrectly so.
Think about it. I can’t imagine someone saying or believing they don’t want love in their life. If they do (because it is a part of our very DNA – Divine Nature Activated – then they reveal their heart of hearts – they long for God. Awakening to this reality is life-changing.
DanReynolds over 10 years ago
@markjoseph (2 good Biblical names I might add)
Tell me when you read a book, and someone asks you to explain what it’s about, do you just state a single line? Because if you do you could make any book mean whatever you want – including the Bible
This is what you’ve doneLuke 19:27 does not stand alone. It is part of a parable that starts at verse 11. One has to read the whole parable (Lk. 19:11-28) to understand the message Jesus wants to transmit in the final verse (vs. 27).
1) The parable uses the example of two earthly classes- nobleman and servants. It shows the wealth and authority of the nobleman over the servants. That relationship is to be compared to the relationship between God/Jesus and men.
2) The parable includes the earthly situation of the nobleman entrusting his servant with earthly wealth.We are meant to see this as a worldly example of what takes place spiritually when God bestows graces and talent on each of us.
3) The parable concludes with the nobleman returning to judge the servant according to how he used the earthly wealth given to him. The ruler condemns him to earthly death for not even attempting to use it, to increase it; especially since he knew what his nobleman was like and would desire.Jesus will return to judge us on how we have put to use the graces bestowed on us. If one has “buried” them, not used them (equivalent to rejecting them), they will be sentenced to eternal death — hell (exclusion from eternal life with God in heaven)..
DanReynolds over 10 years ago
@exoticdoc2 Don’t let them get you down. It’s not like they’re not going to find out there is a God. Everyone does eventually.
Did you know 6% of atheists actually believe in God?
aspiringcartoonist over 10 years ago
Our local papers canned BC that time some dozen or so years back —-glad this comic is left standing in our local daily!
DanReynolds over 10 years ago
Good point. We are all made in the image and likeness of God. That comes with a free will to choose HIm or not.
Mark Joseph might do well to learn about his own name. I pray he will let go his hate.