{"id":27330,"date":"2024-05-07T11:36:42","date_gmt":"2024-05-07T18:36:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=27330"},"modified":"2024-05-09T15:56:14","modified_gmt":"2024-05-09T22:56:14","slug":"cartoon-deux-ex-machina-suckers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=27330","title":{"rendered":"Cartoon: Deux Ex Machina, Suckers!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

This cartoon is another collaboration with awesome cartoonist Nadine Scholtes.<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

One odd thing about being an atheist, as many atheists have pointed out, is that although we disbelieve in all gods, many of us extra<\/em>\u00a0disbelieve in a particular<\/em>\u00a0God – whichever God was dominant where we grew up.<\/p>\n

In my case, even though I’m Jewish, the God I extra <\/em>disbelieve in isn’t the Old Testament God – although I disbelieve in him too – but the mainstream American Christian God, the God of sending people to Hell if they haven’t gotten the good word and repented and sent in money and voted pro-life.<\/p>\n

(And as I wrote the above paragraph I wondered if this would have been a better cartoon if I’d asked Nadine to draw Jesus instead of God. Aaargh. Too late now.)<\/p>\n

There are other versions of Christianity, of course, many far kinder; and other religions than Christianity, as well. But mainline and evangelical Christianity has a power in American culture and politics that no other religion here can claim.<\/p>\n

The mainstream Christian notion of Hell is simply incompatible with anything I can view as good. I’ve read many apologetics for it, none of which I’ve found persuasive, but the most common and the least convincing is what I think of as the “Job argument.” In the Book of Job, God has a bet on with the Devil, and as part of the bet God lets the Devil destroy Job’s life and kill Job’s family. When Job suggests this is unfair, God replies “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell me, if you know so much.” The implication being that because God is so much bigger and smarter than us, we can’t possibly judge if what God does is just or not.<\/p>\n

But this amounts to “might is right,” or perhaps “might and incomprehensible is right.” It suggests that we should worship and obey not because God is good, but just because God is God and has incomprehensible reasons for whatever God does. I can’t accept that.<\/p>\n

\n

Although I’ve thought these things for decades, the immediate inspiration for this cartoon was hearing a fascinating episode of This American Life<\/em>\u00a0called “Heretics<\/a>,” which tells “the story of Reverend Carlton Pearson. Pearson, who died last year, was a rising star in the evangelical movement\u00a0when he cast aside the idea of hell and, with it, everything he’d worked for over his entire life.”<\/p>\n

Pearson\u00a0was expelled from his church in 2004 because he just couldn’t reconcile his understanding of God with the existence of hell. And for a while, it seemed he’d lose everything. But he eventually joined the Unitarians and as far as anyone can tell had no regrets.<\/p>\n

I’m an atheist and Pearson wasn’t, but I still have to admire his fortitude. Anyhow, if you enjoy listening to podcasts, I recommend this one.<\/p>\n

\n

If you prefer more political cartoons than this, don’t worry – the next couple I’ve got lined up are more overtly political! :-)<\/p>\n

In the last couple of weeks, trying to find new outlets now that Xwitter has arbitrarily decided my cartoons are porn<\/a>, I’ve been posting cartoons on Reddit and Dailykos. Reddit is organized into millions of sub-forums, called subreddits, each of which has its own editorial standards. And so I’ve been experiencing rejection – often for what seems to me to be arbitrary reasons (like the “politicalhumor” subreddit deciding that a cartoon about racism wasn’t sufficiently political).<\/p>\n

It’s reminded me of how much I appreciate what my Patreon does for me – it gives me the freedom to to make cartoons about all sorts of subjects, without being subject to the whims and tastes of editors if I want to make a living. So those of you who support the Patreon, thank you all so much for that! You’re giving me a freedom that few political cartoonists have ever had.<\/p>\n

\n

TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON<\/strong><\/p>\n

This cartoon has six panels. All of the panels take place in a blue sky with fluffy white clouds.<\/p>\n

PANEL 1<\/strong><\/p>\n

A human man, with a beard and a flannel shirt, is standing on a cloud, looking up at God, who is on another, higher cloud. (And is also much larger physically than the human guy). God is drawn in the traditional way: He has a thick white beard and is wearing white robes, and there’s a halo behind His head.<\/p>\n

God is grinning and spreading His hands wide in a welcoming manner.<\/p>\n

GOD: Hi there, I’m God! Good news! Because I’m so infinitely loving, good and merciful, you get to go to Heaven!<\/p>\n

MAN: Okay!<\/p>\n

PANEL 2<\/strong><\/p>\n

A close up of God, who as Nadine draws Him has very pretty eyes. He is smiling and pressing his palms together and looking in the direction of the off-panel human.<\/p>\n

GOD: But if you don’t love me, I’ll throw you into a lake of burning sulfur where you’ll be tormented day and night forever!<\/p>\n

PANEL 3<\/strong><\/p>\n

God smiles down beatifically at the human, who has raised a finger to make a point.<\/p>\n

MAN: But… That’s horrible! And it doesn’t make sense! A good god wouldn’t torture people forever!<\/p>\n

PANEL 4<\/strong><\/p>\n

A close up of God, with a wailing expression, as He presses the back of His hand to His forehead. He is dissolving into ash, and has already disappeared from the upper chest down.<\/p>\n

GOD: Gasp! By pointing out a paradox you’ve defeated me! Now I must turn into ash and die like in that Marvel movie!<\/p>\n

PANEL 5<\/strong><\/p>\n

Nothing is left of God but a pyramid-shaped pile of black ash (the ash pile has a halo behind it). In the foreground, the human has mildly surprised body language, and is rubbing the back of his neck with one hand.<\/p>\n

MAN: Um…<\/p>\n

PANEL 6<\/strong><\/p>\n

God, a merry expression on his face, has reappeared whole on His cloud. He’s crouching down and pointing at the human. Lightning shoots out of God’s finger, engulfing the human and instantly turning the human into a black, charred, and surprised looking skeleton.<\/p>\n

GOD: I’m kidding!<\/strong>\u00a0Have fun suffering in the abyss forever, loser! Hah hah!<\/p>\n

CHICKEN FAT WATCH<\/strong><\/p>\n

Chicken fat is an obsolete cartoonists’ expression for unimportant but entertaining details the cartoonist slips into the cartoon.<\/p>\n

In this cartoon, in panel one, on the lower left, we can see a little dog sniffing at the cloud it’s standing on. The dog is wearing white robs and has a halo and white feathery wings.<\/p>\n

We can’t see the cloud the dog is standing on again until panel five. In this panel, the dog is gone, but there’s a yellow puddle on the cloud where the dog was.<\/p>\n

\n

Deus Ex Machina, Suckers! | Patreon<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This cartoon is another collaboration with awesome cartoonist Nadine Scholtes. One odd thing about being an atheist, as many atheists have pointed out, is that although we disbelieve in all gods, many of us extra\u00a0disbelieve in a particular\u00a0God – whichever … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,276,150],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27330","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cartooning-comics","category-dogs","category-religion-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27330","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27330"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27330\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27336,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27330\/revisions\/27336"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27330"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27330"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27330"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}