Non Sequitur by Wiley Miller for January 01, 2011

Boy if that isn’t the case!

Smug lot, aren’t we?

HAPPY NEW YEAR Stay well.Be happy And Yes Clark There is a Santa claus

This also work at the Young Republicans Conventions.

That cartoon is pretty accurate…………and then the subject of interpretation came up and the fighting began…and is still going on.

As a former Catholic, I can believe it (I’ve been taught to).

I’m sorry, as one who has studied religion a good deal and find it to actually be the most logical choice, I feel that to truly have faith, one must question their faith. One must ask questions, and decide to believe after studying it out in his/her mind. The authoritative text of most religions will tell you to go to God directly for knowledge, and confirm what you are told with Him personally. It’s very sad to me to so many feel religion is like this comic. It shouldn’t be.

I believe in questioning religion.

How ironic. Superman’s alter ego is calling Santa Clause and the Easter Bunny works of fiction. ; )

Now, there’s something Bill Maher can believe in….

the correct tagline should be….the invention of the “soros religion”….to bad those that follow his religion blindly are as ignorant as the ones that follow any religion blindly….

Second, I’m going to need large amounts of your money.

Clark Kent – Wowsers. What do you have against Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny?

As I think I’ve said before (when you said the same thing before – you need some new material, man), the difference is that we grow out of believing in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny, and we grow into believing in God. I’m truly sorry you got stuck somewhere in the middle.

If there is no God, devil, heaven, or hell, that just leaves you, and if that’s all you think you’ll ever need…thy will be done.

Hey fellow earthlings (and others) This is a “man-concept” not “religion.” Check the Baha’i teaching to question all things…’a continuous, unfettered search’ for truth is what is enjoined on a believer. Refreshing, eh? And there’s MORE;o) Happy New Year!

Hey fellow earthlings (and others) This is a “man-concept” not “religion.” Check the Baha’i teaching to question all things…’a continuous, unfettered search’ for truth is what is enjoined on a believer. Refreshing, eh? And there’s MORE;o) Happy New Year!

Modern Science Evolved from religious people seeking to understand the workings of an ordelry universe

fiddlestix fishsticks, flat earthers , you have a nice new year too and if you can’t see it, fear it ! or if it doesn’t smell good DON’T EAT IT !

I think Wiley’s caught the essence of institutional religion, the huge organized money-machines that seem to devolve from authentic religion. But real religion is about Mystery, about those things which cannot be known fully (if at all) from our current position as living beings on planet earth. See James Carse’s book, The Religious Case Against Belief for a good discussion of this problem.

Re science: as a member of the technological community (21 years at Bell Labs, for one thing), I value the scientific method. It has led to great gains in our ability to understand and manipulate the world around us. BUT… it is foolishness to say the method is not based upon an unproven and unprovable assumption that is every bit as big as the ones underlying religion. Every time we undertake an experiment, we assume (without any way to prove this belief) that the universe operates according to consistent laws which apply exactly the same way everywhere in space and time … even though our direct observational experience is limited to less than ten thousand years on one small planet. This is a breathtaking leap of faith, but we make it because it’s useful. And it doesn’t particularly bother me to know this is an act of belief, because Godel’s Incompleteness Theorem says the method must have at least one unprovable assumption (if it is not to be trivial).

Hmm… that’s pretty heavy for New Year’s morning. I guess I didn’t have enough champagne last night!

Clearly many of you don’t know the difference between religions and cults of personality.

I heard this from a Tibetan Lama, When the Buddhat taught the Dharma the world moved forward 3 steps, when they formed the Sangha (community) it moved back 2. Seems like that for all religions.

way to go Wiley! You have set the bar for 2012 pretty bleeep high. Keep it up for the rest of the year

George Carlin hits the bullseye about religion in this clip.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeSSwKffj9o

If the leader (Minister) is educated in the faith, then no need to ask questions. If not, the leader won’t let you ask questions.

In my humble opinion, the two great follies of mankind are war and religion.

I think the real lesson to be learned here is “Just shut up an do as I say.”

One of the excuses people like Wiley, who want to be their own god, use for not beleiving in a power bigger than themselves.

wow wiley, great way to start the new year!

now let the flame-wars begin!

booyah!

Well, as far as the Bible is concerned, there are accounts of people having doubts and questioning God throughout the scriptures. I can think of at least 50 examples off the top of my head….some of them were in good faith, and some of them were not. Abraham, Moses, Elijah….the Bible is full of heroes of the faith who had doubts at one time or another.

Sounds like Obama talking

Gone with the wind is a good book too

That’s about the stupidest cartoon I’ve ever seen! This poor guy is totally clueless!

Hey superman,Clark, I believe in all of those. I just don’t believe in you!

He should have a beard, to look more like Moses.

A simple graphic of “Moses” and his laws, followed by so many others with the exact same rule-“give me the best of what you’ve got”. Just like Bernie Madoff and others running the cult of the buck- profit is the one goal of prophets.

Wiley:

I LOVE the statue’s self satisfied grin!

BUT

Oh Clark!!

Not the EASTER BUNNY!

Really!

He was my last hope!

Re: Marxism’s failures, of which there are many many many!

Has anybody heard of a MIXED economy?

This is a good explanation of why I’m a non-theist.

As soon as I read today’s strip, I had to read the comments. I haven’t been disappointed.

And that is exactly how reason gets subverted to faith which is the dumbest method a person can use to obtain knowledge. The Dark Ages is testimony to that .

I remember bursting out with laughter, age 4, at Catholic Church! 12 years of strict Catholic school was mighty hilarious.

Hey RCMinor, Catholics did a pretty good job on the Americas, yes?

“first rule of being a skeptic… never question that skeptics have their fingers in their ears when the believers are talking”

so sad. You’re right no-one has ever questioned their faith and decided it to be true and reasonable. No one has applied their intellect to the question of Christianity. No one, that is, except for some of the best minds in Western Civilization: augustine aquinas pascal Blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman Chesterton CS Lewis Ratzinger etc, etc,

gimme a break. Anyone who finds truth in this comic is a complete hypocrite.

Fear, gotta have fear to get people to stop questioning. The Roman’s and the church provided that ingredient. Jesus never once made reference to hell.

Seems like there’s a few here who can’t distinguish “religion” from “Religion”…which is I think more to the point of this strip.

Personal faith is one thing…blindly following an organization which claims a monopoly on faith is another.

The supernatural test always fails the science test.

Life Is Not An Eternity Test. = linaet

god explained = The Single Strand - Joseph Atwill

Excellent Poiint Rrrnay. I agree completely.

Happy New Year everybody!

Well … if there IS no God, no Heaven, no h@ll … we’re all gonna look pretty silly laying there all dressed up and no place to go.

RED- so just who will be diggin you up to look?

Once in the hole always in the hole…

no peeking…

Strange. I’m a fundamentalist Christian and I question everything all the time. However, the only time I ever get people mad at me is when I dare to question atheism and evolutionism. Go figure.

Wiley == if you had put a towel on the tree head. the Talaband would be putting a bomb up your bu tt.

Wonder if you thought about that?

if you put a draped cloth on it, the Catholics would cry and call it mother miracle .

its amazing what a rag can do.

Many early religions were created by leaders who equated themselves with the gods to be followed unquestioningly. There are still leaders today who claim to know the will of god.

The most important thing I ever learned in school was to always question authority. I grew up during the Vietnam war. Most of my generation are terrible followers. We listen and learn from authority, but we always think for ourselves.

And now we know why there are Agnostics! =)

Ha Wiley great way to start a new year - as always love your work.’ @Timbob - I think you mean 2011

The Firesign Theatre on Creation Myths

From The Firesign Theatre’s I Think We’re All Bozos On This Bus, as transcribed from The Firesign Theatre’s Big Book of Plays…

Sounds: The [previous] line merges with a rolling of thunder. Wolves howl.

Voice Of God: Before the Beginning there was this Turtle. And the Turtle was alone. And he looked around, and he saw his neighbor, which was his Mother. And he lay down on top of his neighbor, and behold, she bore him in tears, an oak tree. Which grew all day, and then fell over, like a bridge. And lo, under the bridge there came a Catfish, and he was very big, and he was walking, and he was the biggest he had seen. [Fading] And so were the fiery [sic] balls of this fish, one of which is the Sun, and the other, they called the Moon…

Expert Voice: Yes, some uncomplicated peoples still believe this myth. But here, in the technical vastness of the Future, we can guess that surely the Past was very different. We can surmise, for instance, that these two great balls… [Cross fading]

Dr. Technical [fading up]: We know for certain, for instance, that for some reason, for some time in the beginning, there were hot lumps. Cold and lonely, they whirled noiselessly through the black holes of space. Those insignificant lumps came together to form the first union—our Sun, the heating system. And about this glowing gasbag rotated the Earth, a cat’s-eye among aggies, blinking in astonishment across the Face of Time…

It looks more to me like the invention of the personality cult, and they abound. Nazism was a cult of personality, Bolshevism was a cult of personality, Maoist socialism was a cult of personality, North Korea’s political system is a cult of personality, and, unfortunately, those in the United States who endlessly defend their partisan leaders are mindless minions for their own cults of personality. So, for all of its effort to crush faith in an almighty deity, this cartoon actually smashes everyone else’s dim-witted faith in the failed political and societal myths which will be the death of us all.

What’s the difference between a religion and a cult?

Three words.

Tax. Exempt. Status.

aslan3693 said, about 7 hours ago

That’s about the stupidest cartoon I’ve ever seen! This poor guy is totally clueless!

—

I would say the same about you.

Go Wiley!

Someone please explain how People of Faith differ from People of Gullibility.

Thanks in advance.

Next, you obey everything I tell you, and after that you make everybody else in the entire world do likewise.

Wiley, Happy New Year!

Read it through, chuckled and said “Oh, oh, Wiley’s done it again, there’s gonna be trouble in Mudville (the commens” and I wasn’t wrong. Open warfare again.

Billdog you’re a genius. Love the battle in the comments today.

Almost forgot–Wiley, thank you for your 2011 desk calendar! Waited very impatiently for today and was rewarded with not just Danae, but Lucy as well, hilarious, can’t wait ‘til tomorrow.

Loudmouth Bass, I think you mean Limbaughists…

i think this was great ..clark was just stating his beliefs..why can’t people just accept that..why do you start the name calling..more and more people are becoming free thinkers today..so what does that tell you ?

HAHAHA!

All of you “enlightened” souls here who say that God is merely perpetuated by mere mortals, will (if you do not already) find yourself following the same idea put forth by this comic, when you put your faith in the oligarchs who you have chosen to rule you.

There isn’t a person alive who doesn’t suppose divine properties upon either someone you can see, or one who you cannot see. If one is idiotic for doing so with regard to the almighty who dwells in a spiritual realm, then how idiotic are those who do so with regard to those who are no different than the least of us? You seriously believe that the people who you see on a ballot are our betters, and that is as ridiculous as any belief out there.

I get so much amusement from those of you who berate the faithful in God, because more often than not they defend the indefensible–putting their all into parties which have created a nation of mindless partisans, and presume the worst upon those who believe in Constitutional Federalism, rather than the failed ideas of 19th century Europeans.

thats it…crowd control. sheep. we like to be cared for. we like to let someone else keep it all together. we elect people to do that. then they take over. its religion or politics…its all the same. they know better than we do.

What burr got under Wiley’s saddle? Question religion all you want!! True religion can answer all the questions.

Sounds more like the invention of patriotism.

As a recovering Southern Baptist, it took me 40 years to figure out that there is a difference between Christianity as a relationship with the only man who proved he was the incarnation of the only Living One God who proved all the claims he made about himself and furthermore, came back to prove it before 500 honest eye-witness reporters who testified in a 2,000 year-old document called the New Testament that does not contradict the Old Testament of the Bible, but, rather, reveals it and unfolds its prophecies, and the relationship of the credo of the conservative fundamentalists-evangelicals who espouse the principles of the American conservative Republican party or the English Conservative Party, but, in fact, mimic the attitudes of modern-day Pharisseeism that Jesus Christ would repudiate in practice.

If Wiley is a god, he surely must be a trickster. Look at all the lively discussion he’s wrought among us foolish mortals.

Even as a devout member of a religion I hold to be the “truest” one, I can plainly see the validity of the comic. From the moment early hominids acquired the complexity of thought to interpret their agency detection instincts and imagine otherworldly beings, there were also others smart and selfish enough to take advantage of those beliefs and use them for their own gain.

This continues in even the most well-intentioned organizations, be they religious or secular. With so many would-be shepherds abusing their flocks, and so many willing to be led blindly rather than have to think for themselves, I don’t blame anyone who can’t see any good use for religion.

Frankly, I think it is the greatest testament to God’s faith in mankind that he bothers to speak to us at all.

Buzz kill