Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson

Tags: truth, versus, Fiction/Myth, god, question, calvin, hobbes, atheism, faith, Santa, questions, philosophy, essential question. Add Tags

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margueritem said, about 1 year ago

This is too deep for me…
Elwoodman said, about 1 year ago

Oh how I love the irony of this.

We’ve only just managed to rid this forum of religious debate when out of the annuls of history, Bill pops up with a question of his own.

Touche Mr Watterson, Touche.
jimeguess said, about 1 year ago

No, Mr. Watterson didn’t believe it when God showed himself 2000 years ago and he wants a personal appearance. Sigh …
wndrwrthg said, about 1 year ago

“Hairy Thunderer or Cosmic Muffin”, you decide.
Gweedo Murray said, about 1 year ago

I want a personal appearance too, Dammit !
JTRaine said, about 1 year ago

oh god, (ha), here comes the religious debate again.
Edcole1961 said, about 1 year ago

Actually, it wasn’t even much of a religious holiday in America until the 19th century. Christians stole most of it from the cult of Mithras, which originated in Persia but had a following in Rome.
Zippy007 said, about 1 year ago

Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

John 20:29
Zippy007 said, about 1 year ago

“To what, then, can I compare the people of this generation? What are they like? They are like children sitting in the marketplace and calling out to each other:
” ‘We played the flute for you,
and you did not dance;
we sang a dirge,
and you did not cry.’
Luke 7:31-32
Zippy007 said, about 1 year ago

Oooh, and for those of you demanding a personal appearance, you will have one, just not on your own terms.

Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus EVERY knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and EVERY tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Philippians 2:9-11
windrunner said, about 1 year ago

Wow Calvin…Somebody woke up on the “Deep” side of the bed this morning!!
LX013 said, about 1 year ago

He makes himself recognizable to some people, not to all, but to some!
si_rat said, about 1 year ago

margueritemPro says:
This is too deep for me…

How old are you. I mean Calvin is supposed to be 6.
si_rat said, about 1 year ago

no debate yet…
Bassa said, about 1 year ago

I am over here!!
wndrwrthg said, about 1 year ago

It is quite inane to quote the sayings of a nonexistant entity.
kiMoi said, about 1 year ago

hahahah, my favourite for a while
K J said, about 1 year ago

“Then some of the Pharisees and teachers of the law said to [Jesus], ‘Teacher, we want to see a miraculous sign from you.’ He answered, ‘A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a miraculous sign! But none will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. The men of Nineveh will stand up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and now one greater than Jonah is here’ ” (Matthew 12:38-41).

Jesus said this to people who had already seen him heal the sick and raise the dead. No proof or sign or appearance will convince someone who doesn’t want to believe. But that’s why it’s called ‘belief,’ b/c one has the option to reject any idea, even one’s -own- existence. Food for thought.
dbeer01 said, about 1 year ago

Why is December strips being shown inFeb?
Calvinator said, about 1 year ago

Sometime seein is believing, sometimes believing is seeing! And then again, I’m told my social security cash is in a lock box somewhere… I’ll believe that when I see it! ;(
Raven1971 said, about 1 year ago

Six-year olds have every right to question; organised religion can be confusing, even to adults. Rejoice, o young man, in thy youth!

Ecc. 11:19, quoted brilliantly by Oliver Stone in “Platoon”
yesyesuk said, about 1 year ago

dbeer01Pro says:
Why is December strips being shown inFeb?

Now this is a much deeper question for me than the question whether god exists (He doesn’t. Period.).
DesultoryPhillipic said, about 1 year ago

wndrwrthgPro says:

It is quite inane to quote the sayings of a nonexistant entity.

Are you saying that Jesus never existed? If that’s so, then you probably believe the holocaust was a myth also!
DesultoryPhillipic said, about 1 year ago

And so Thinker8 passes judgment.
Thinker8 said, about 1 year ago

Judgment, judgment, judgment. I like all the scripture quotations. It’s too bad it’s not okay with the quoters that anyone question God. I thought God was big enough to handle folks who were searching for Truth. After all, he did it for Paul.
Thinker8 said, about 1 year ago

Show me where I passed judgment, DesultoryPhillipic. If I stand in a place in my life where I see Christians who use Scripture more to be mean than to be kind, is that a judgment or an observation?
SamFP said, about 1 year ago

Isn’t most holidays religiously connected and filled with hypocrisy and scripturally interpreted?

Ex.33:20.
t.battey said, about 1 year ago

Me too
DreamScourge said, about 1 year ago

Ahh religeous debate, this stuff cracks me up ;)

This very ‘rational’ argument is a good example of wooly thinking

——————————————–
DesultoryPhillipic says:
Are you saying that Jesus never existed? If that’s so, then you probably believe the holocaust was a myth also!
——————————————–

Come on! If you are going to be mean, you should at least try to base your insults on the facts available. No where do they mention anything about thier views on the Nazi attitude to the Jews and further more there is no connection between the two subjects. Besides it’s not very christian to imply that people you know nothing about are antisemitic, that’s very judgemental, which is as I understand it the domain of your god not his subjects… Looks like you could be on your way to somewhere nice and warm for that attitude (unless you are of the catholic persuasion then you will probably just ask to be forgiven)
iknowtruthismine said, about 1 year ago

God is the end result of a failed search for truth by a very shallow mind.
BirishB said, about 1 year ago

If God is an element unknown to human reason, and one comes to His existence only through a leap of faith, then how can a mortal man judge another for either accepting or rejecting the notion of His existence? One cannot, for that would be the very antithesis of reason.
JonD17 said, about 1 year ago

Elwoodman says:

Oh how I love the irony of this…….. I was thinking the very same thing Elwoodman, especially since there has been the predictable flurry of rhetoric that followed your opening post.
To all those who forget this IS just a comic strip and your comments are just 1’s and 0’s in an electrostatic cloud (something akin to put your hand in a bucket of water, then pull it out and see how much of an impression you have left), here’s a little verse for you: {to be accompanied by a catchy rythym played on tambourine and timbales}
Oh Jesus Jesus
Come and please us
For we are your faithful….. ahhh nevermind.
BirishB said, about 1 year ago

More food for thought:

“Let us weigh the gain and the loss in wagering that God exists… If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager, then, without hesitation, that He exists.” – Blaise Pascal

“God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we, murderers of all murderers, console ourselves?” – Frederich Nietzche
Nairebis said, about 1 year ago

Ah, Calvin, you’ve taken one of your first intellectual steps toward enlightenment. It actually chokes me up a little bit. Our little guy is growing up!

More and more people are having the courage to ask the same questions and not just blindly accept what comes out of books of mythology.

On a serious note, when historians look back on the invention of the Internet, it will be noted that it’s biggest influence was making atheism the dominant worldview. The biggest thing young people need to cast off the shackles of religion are examples of other people who have done it.

To bring this back to C&H, think how remarkable this comic strip. It’s a COMIC STRIP questioning God! Imagine such a thing back in the 1900s or even 1950s. Now it’s amusing, but back then it would have been shocking to the core.

Religion will never be completely dead, of course, but I predict that by 2050, the non-believers will outnumber the believers.
luvfun said, about 1 year ago

OMG!i’m sure our smart li’ll calvin never knew he’s openin a pandoras box here with his “deep” questions!
Char32 said, about 1 year ago

Is it that God is being questioned or more that ‘concepts’ of God are?
jcmarshall2 said, about 1 year ago

Interestingly enough, that is what Christmas is all about. God became a man, lived as a man, died as a man with our sin on Him and rose again from the dead, conquering sin and death so that all who believe in Him and receive Him could be with God for all eternity.The mystery is revealed to all who will believe
Doctor Toon said, about 1 year ago

Christians believe that Jesus will return. The problem is that so many who call themselves Cristian may find themselves quite surprised when they find that judgementalism and hypocrisy are NOT the doctrines he wanted them to be practicing.

I try to practice what I preach, so I don’t preach much.

Peace & Love people.
Nairebis said, about 1 year ago

@jcmarshall2 – Actually, what Christmas was “really” all about was the priests wanting to create a holiday in competition with the Pagan festival of Yule.

The birthday of Jesus is so important to God that the bible never mentions it, except to drop hints that it was in the spring.

So from a strict literal biblical point of view, Christmas is not religious at all, and in fact it might be considered a mockery of God, since we absolutely know it’s the wrong day of Jesus’s birth, and the original motivation for celebration was not even Jesus.

[I know, I know, trying to apply logic and reason to religion is futile, even in support of glorifying God.]
cleokaya said, about 1 year ago

Hear, hear doctortoon.
aerwalt said, about 1 year ago

Afriend said “God does not exist.” I said, “Suppose you are right. Live a good life anyway, then if you are wrong, you may apologise and not be subject to severe penalty.”
halneufmille said, about 1 year ago

Kaye Jeltema: “Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish”

Wow, Jesus smoked good pot.
bmonk said, about 1 year ago
I beg to differ on the origins of Christmas, Nairebis, if I may.

You said, “Actually, what Christmas was “really” all about was the priests wanting to create a holiday in competition with the Pagan festival of Yule….”
1. Yes, perhaps it was assigned to match the time of Saturnalia. What choice did the Christians have but to disguise their holidays under pagan feasts, since they were under threat of death? Another reason for giving Jesus the December birthdate, when the Gospel of Luke (shepherd in the fields during lambing in the spring, not in winter) was what John the Baptist said, “He must increase while I must decrease.” So John’s birthday is celebrated when the sun’s light begins to decrease (June 24) while Jesus is with the increase (Dec. 25), just six months apart, as Luke says.
2. As for taking over the rituals of Mithras, or Saturnalia, it has also been said that today’s feast of Candlemas/the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple is modeled after the Lupercalia (in the Encyclopedia Britannica, no less). Let’s see… a feast that is timed according to the Law of Moses (40 days for purification after giving birth, as this is the 40th day from Christmas), in which the images are given in the Gospel as light and glory (see Simeon’s Canticle), modeled after a group of upper class youths running around Rome with blood on their forehead causing havoc after sacrificing a dog and a goat? Yes, lots of similarity there! Rather, again, it was providential that there was another pagan feast to provide cover, but the Christians who wanted to celebrate and remember their history and the life of their founder did not “create” it in competition with the Lupercalia, any more than Christmas was to compete with the Saturnalia. They wanted more to celebrate Jesus. And, it came about from a demand of the laity. The priests would have preferred to stress Easter with its vigil. At Rome, Christmas was quite low key for several centuries, until into the Dark Ages. In fact, in the early books, it’s the feast of the Martyr and Virgin Anastasia, if I remember correctly.
3. Further, over the centuries, it snowballed. Gifts were given on the Epiphany, since that’s when the coming of the Magi with their gifts was celebrated. St. Nicholas, celebrated December 6th, also gave gifts; he came (through the Dutch) as Sinter Klaus, or Santa, and was added to Chrismas, often for commercial reasons.
So, yes, it was once a religious holiday. In a way, I’m not sad that we anticipate Christmas so much, from Thanksgiving to (maybe, if we are lucky) December 25. Perhaps, having gotten the secular and commercial out of the way, we who believe can properly celebrate again the coming of our Savior, taking on our human nature to be with us and make us divine through him.

I apologize for the length of this monologue, but I have tried to clear up a few historical misconceptions.
Northwoodser said, about 1 year ago

If you don’t believe in God, you’d better hope he’s forgiving.
IGoPogo2 said, about 1 year ago

Wow - seems this strip becomes more complex with reading over the ages. I wonder if this is how religions get started in the first place.

And now, a musical interlude from Todd Rundgren (from his Liars album - buy extras to share with friends)…

God Said

Nearly everyone I know claims to have heard your voice
And every time they do, I know I should rejoice
Because one day I’m sure you’ll break your silence
And speak just to me
But I feel like time’s running out
My heart is, my heart is filling with doubt

And god said…

I don’t dwell upon you, I dwell on something else
I am not really here, so get over yourself

I’ve tried to follow every rule they said you handed down
And spread the sacred testimony all around
But still the others seem to have your ear but never will I
Have I displeased you somehow?
Can’t help, can’t help feeling left out

And god said…

There’s no anger in me, you must mean someone else
Cause it’s not me that you see, you’re looking at yourself
And I won’t give you a prize instead of someone else
Cause I don’t play favorites, so get over yourself

Just get over yourself

Is it my fear, is it my pride, is it my vanity?
Should your name just be denied to save my sanity?
What is the price I need to pay to have what others seem to grasp so easily?
Pity your servant your slave
Who’ll kiss, who’ll kiss your feet to be saved
Save me, save me

God said…

You are not serving me, you’re serving something else
Cause I don’t need to be pleased, just get over yourself
You can’t suck up, up to me, I know you all too well
But I don’t dwell upon you, so get over yourself
Cause you’re not praying to me, you’re praying to yourself
And you’re not worshipping me, you’re worshipping yourself
And you will kill in my name and heaven knows what else
When you can’t prove I exist, so get over yourself

Just get over yourself

Label: SANCTUARY CLASSIC
Copyright: 2004 ALCHEMEDIA PRODUCTIONS INC SUBLICENSED EXCLUSIVELY TO SANCTUARY RECORDS GROUP INC UNDER EXCLUSIVE LICENSE TO SANCTUARY RECORDS GROUP LTD
plus4 said, about 1 year ago

God can handle being questioned by someone who’s honest about it. But too many people “question” him using “logical” tests that are meant to be failed.

What should be questioned more, but too often isn’t, is the supposed “proof” of things that aren’t proven at all but merely assumed to be true – the things that the supposedly “faith-free” take by blind faith.
txmystic said, about 1 year ago

Beer is proof that God exists, and that He loves us…
Nairebis said, about 1 year ago

If the metric of what to believe is fear of being wrong, then the way to bet is with the Egyptian god Ra. He predates the Abrahamic God by thousands of years. And worshipping him didn’t do too bad for the Ancient Egyptians, considering they had one of the most powerful civilizations in history.

Of course, if you like morality, then I would say the Greek Gods would be the better bet. They were (probably) created about the same time as the Abrahamic God, but the ancient Greeks achieved an incredible level of civilization and planted the seeds of moral government that we still study and use today.

Christianity is a relatively “newfangled” religion. It hasn’t really accomplished much, comparatively speaking, to the cultures that worshiped other Gods (though it has created some nice gold-drenched cathedrals).

So if Pascal is right, we’d all better set up our shrine to Ra and Zeus. Hmm, better include Athena as well, she has a notoriously bad temper at being disrespected.
pookid54 said, about 1 year ago

I AM THE LIZARD QUEEN!!!
Char32 said, about 1 year ago

MY question above was:”Is it that God is being questioned or more that ‘Concepts’ of God are?”

I think ya all answered my question. The answer is YES! (:>}

Peace and Love to all! (Drtoon said it first)