Tom the Dancing Bug by Ruben Bolling for February 14, 2014

Forget that joker, kids, and come to Indiana, where Pi equals 3.2.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indiana_Pi_Bill

Faith-based economics, based on God’s math, will save the U.S., wiping out our national debt!

Lower taxes, then lower them even more, increase corporate welfare and defense spending, and have a HUGE surplus to pay down everything!

I think this cartoon makes a lot of sense. We should teach both theories to our children, not just what the atheist mathematicians say. Just as we should teach both evolution and religious creationism* in our science classes.(*And by “creationism” I of course refer only to the Biblical interpretations of young earth fundie christian creationists, not any of the thousands of silly creation fables taught by other cultures.)

GREAT strip today!!!!

This strip makes a good point but please remember that there are followers of Jesus with more sense than this.

Christians are such an easy target. Bolling is just lazy sometimes.

..as a Christian I accuse the cartoonist of fudging the Bible numbers almost as well as the Bible fudges them.For example,history is not current.The writings of thousands of years ago do not exactly translate correctly even when translated correctly.Ancient writings sometimes used larger numbers then real to emphasize importance(not that we ever do anything like that).Also,all didn’t always mean all of everything(just like it depends on what the defination of ‘is’ is).The Bible is a tool.I consider it the living breathing word of God.That being said,I don’t think that Bible should be taught as an alternative to science.The world of science is nothing but the acquisition of knowledge.In my opinion,being Christian doesn’t mean becoming stupidly blind to facts because the religious overlords tell us it is so.Just the opposite.We are supposed to seek knowledge.As things are now,both the scientists and the Christian right seem both to think the same thing:That science will somehow disprove the existence of God.I say,hold on.(This is me speaking,not necessarily you)I say,come on science,bring it on.Be all the science you can be.Be anti-reigion.Be for religion.Do blind taste tests.Show me how it all works.Teach science!Make science better.Make life better via science

Because,in my opinion~as a Christian`maybe not in my lifetime,nor my great grand kid’s,I believe science will have no choice but to prove the existence of God….

Nice thoughtful reply, 3hourtour. However, I don’t think there are many scientists who are wasting their time trying to disprove your god. First, it’s difficult to prove a negative. Second, why bother? Is not like your god is the only one… man has invented thousands of gods, and if yours was disproven, there would be no shortage of others to take his place. Third, given that Christians believe their god is the only source of morality, it would be pretty foolhardy to take that away from them. Would you want to share a planet with all those people who no longer have any reason not to lie, steal, kill? I don’t think you have anything to worry about, even though it’s not for the reason you think.

Science is open to god-theories, if they can be backed up by repeatable observation and reason. However, the god(s) science came up with might not be one’s favorite version. If there is evil in the world, for instance, and we posit an omnipotent creator, the only rational explanation is that the creator is at least partially evil. If, on the other hand, we try to get out of this problem by proposing a capital-G God who is beyond human understanding, as in the Book of Job, then we are by definition off scientific turf.

There’s a book in the Bible called Numbers, but it’s very hard to get through. Harder than math in my opinion.

I think I’d want to be cautious about treating this comic as an attack on Christianity. It attacks Biblical Literalism, of course, but THAT is hardly a mainstream Christian belief. On the other hand, I CAN see Young Earth Creationism as being an attack on the core beliefs of Christianity. The way the media portrays Literalism and Creationism as if they were typical of Christian beliefs does tend to discredit the religion and you would think more believers would be offended…

@olddog1

But passing it would have been the rational thing to do.

Nice try Mr Bolling – this is a classic example of taking scripture out of context. Read verse 5 where it says that they gave many valuable gifts in addition to the voluntary offerings, what you misquoted is a part of the total list.

Regarding that passage from Ezra:FWIW, the Hebrew Masoretic text, the King James Version, and many other translations have that total as 5400, not 5469.So hey, closer to the ballpark.(Ruben went with the Revised Standard Version, based on 3 Esdras in the Vulgate, because he’s a Saint Jerome groupie, I guess.)

I don’t read this strip as at all anti-Christian or even anti-Bible. Sure, based on other strips (certain God-Man ones in particular), I think that Bolling is anti-Christian, or rather just plain anti-religion. But this particular comic is making a much subtler point.

Take the bit from Ezra. Nobody thinks that those numbers add up to anything like 5000, No smooth-tongued theologian, no ignorant religious hick, nobody anywhere thinks that. Not even whoever originally wrote those words into the book of Ezra, not even that guy thinks that those numbers add up like that. We all know better.

So if every Bible-believer in the world, from the original writer down to every one of today’s Jews, Samaritans, and Christians, understands that Ezra 1 cannot be taken at face value but must have left something out; then why not take the same attitude towards Genesis 1? In that case, the original writer may not actually have known better, but today we do.