Non Sequitur by Wiley Miller for October 19, 2012

THAT’S what she forgot —the loyal unthinking minions.

Any resemblance between Danae and John Piper is purely coincidental.

Oh no, here comes Glenn Beck!

I bet Kate has a better religion…..

She does look a little like Glen Beck in the second frame!

You need to have a minyan of minions first.

The power of Danae compels you!!!

i think poor Danae is on the way to a nervous breakdown …

I would say here something that was heard from an ecclesiastic of the most eminent degree: “The intention of the Holy Spirit is to teach us how one goes to heaven, not how the heavens go.” — GalileoReligion is SUPPOSED to tell people how to get along together, not to explain everything in perfect detail.

[skateboards into gocomics through the window, kicks board into a spinning one-handed grab, plops down on couch, looks into chip bag on table nearby…]Cool! Another interminable discussion about religion, science, and their supposed conflicts.Expect God to defy the laws of physics; He invented them and surely knows the loopholes. If anyone studies physics, they soon realize that the effects of physics sometimes defy all logic. Isn’t it a grand mysterious universe we live in?[shakes bag labeled Yoo-Q-Rist Wafers by Nabisco]Do you dip these in salsa or hummus? What?!?

Whether it goes by the name of Communism, Christianity, Islam, Hindu, Judaism, Fascism is of no matter. The means of transmission of these belief systems is not through logic or reason but by the indoctrination of innocent youth who have no choice but to accept what they are told as the truth, even if that “truth” is just myths or fantasies, under threat of loss of parental/grown-up approval, imprisonment and torture, and/or the threat of eternal hell and punishment. “Give me the child for seven years, and I will give you the man.” is a quote attributed to the Jesuits but it applies equally to all authoritarian systems and is the basis for their attempts to stifle the questioning of authority, which is how they retain their power. For those of us who grew up in religious homes and saw the silliness of the beliefs as well as the evil of centuries of witch burnings, inquisitions, intolerance, holy wars, the denial of science, and the like, we have had to face being shunned and the loss of familial ties, but so be it, for who can live a lie? My non-believer friends live good, honest, decent, lives and have no need of mind control for our morality.

Danae’s just a tad short on minions at the moment. Rather hard to believe in this economy.

With a little research I’ll bet Danae could come up with binders full of minions.

Just call on the 47%.

I like Jeffrey. It’s a pity that boy is probably going to end up married to Danae someday.

Actually, her logic resembles that of the POTUS.

I fed a troll on Facebook the other day. One of my cousins asked a question about the latest debate, and Ms. X answered, “Only if you’re a ___ [mildly pejorative nickname for a political viewpoint] b******d!”Most of these things don’t get to me, but this one did, and I replied, “Hold on. I’m a___ b*****d!” I did it, I’m glad I did it, and I’d do it again! Haven’t seen any fallout yet.

“I knew as soon as I started reading the comments there’s be a clueless troll spewing ignorance, and I see who it is”

Found a mirror, did you?

I guess you didn’t notice the jabs at Glenn Beck and John Piper before the one you decided was the troll. Frankly, your constant, recurring, long-winded rants against “republican’ts”, et al, are as tiresome, if not more so, than most of the unnecessary comments by right-wingers.

Are there not enough political and news blogs for all of you agenda-toters on both sides to muck around in?

Vonne Anton Said:Expect God to defy the laws of physics; He invented them and surely knows the loopholes. If anyone studies physics, they soon realize that the effects of physics sometimes defy all logic. Isn’t it a grand mysterious universe we live in?

>>It most certainly is.

@CATHAMMERI was about to say much the same thing. Thank you for beating me to it.

All fundamentalism in a nutshell!

She’s scary in the second panel. Maybe i could dress like her for Halloween.

DING-DING-DING-DING! We have an instant classic!(You can tell Wiley’s right by the number of people he upsets.)

StCleve: You left out atheism, which also has dogma based solely on a faith without recourse to reason. Check Thomas Huxley’s “On Agnosticism”. He coined the term and he didn’t mean “Duh I don’t know whether God exists or not”, but stop trying to use the scientific method to verify or falsify the existence of God (which it cannot do either) and use it to advance science.

Don’t forget that it’s not just US residents who read these pages. To the rest of the world it seems like a lot of pointless spite and back-stabbing. Where ever you live in the world and no matter who you vote for – the rich get richer and the rest of us pay for it.

An extraordinary claim requires extraordinary proof.— Marcello Truzzi, On the Extraordinary: An Attempt at Clarification, Zetetic Scholar, Vol. 1, No. 1, p. 11, 1978

The scriptures from the other day say Danae was born from a rose. More like poison sumac, I think..This really puts the Adam-Without-Eve strips in context.

If you could plop Danae and Kate side-by-side for comparison, I think Danae is by far the more interesting character. There is zest in her creativity. Of course there is zest in logic, but Danae wins the contest.

Naw she just needs better branding. Temple of Danae could rake in $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

And her sucker patronizing knows every fact in the universe friend will come crawling to her to spare her old buddy a grant for his pet project. Worked for generations for Phillip Morris.

Gimme Kirk vs. Mr Scott any day.

ps Danae: You need to incorporate to get out of the sect vs a church status. 501C benefits are worth the paperwork.

“For example, you shouldn’t build your house on a foundation of sand…”

Speaking as a San Franciscan, I’ll add that a big enough earthquake will knock you down even if you build on solid rock. The best thing to do is build on a flexible foundation, particularly if you’re building to any great height.

LOVE Danae’s face in panel 2!!! so funny.

You said: “For example, you shouldn’t build your house on a foundation of sand, but if you do, take active measures to reduce your risk. Science and engineering provide the knowledge to do so, not prayer.”-Just for fun, want to point out that Jesus used the very same illustration at Matthew 7:24-27 to conclude his Sermon on the Mount…and he was making a VERY different point than you just did. Did you do that on purpose?-Smiling at the irony.-;-)

(rimshot) Sss-Bang! The atheist has a bible and looked it up! Impressive…but you missed the point. In both cases rain came (stuff happens to everyone), but the one listening and acting on divine counsel succeeds better in weathering those storms.-No threat implied. But I’m still impressed. You, my friend, may be more open to discourse than your strong opinions suggest. I like it.

She really does sound like some of these politicians.

Baslim, I needed to look up “May you live in interesting times.” It’s a Chinese curse, maybe, if you use Wikipedia. For better and for worse, we do live in interesting times. There is duality in the meaning. Here in the Rockies I am reminded of wolves. In the darkness of the night how sweet is their music.

I think Danae is finally going over the edge.

“All men are, at times, influenced by inexplicable sentiments. Ideas haunt them in spite of all their efforts to discard them. Prepossessions are entertained, for which their reason is unable to discover any adequate cause. The strength of a belief, when it is destitute of any rational foundation, seems, of itself, to furnish a new ground for credulity. We first admit a powerful persuasion, and then, from reflecting on the insufficiency of the ground on which it is built, instead of being prompted to dismiss it, we become more forcibly attached to it.” ― Charles Brockden Brown, Somnambulism And Other Stories

Lucy is not a minion. She is the voice of reason hidden in the cloak of fellow cohort.

Baslim: Your evidence is precisely Huxley’s point. Your conclusion is totally against what he wrote. Yeah, you can dismiss the “watchmaker evidence” by conceding that even a googolplex to one odds still leaves that one chance – but it does not prove the opposite. Both sides are still faith statements and scientific evidence can’t verify or falsify the existence of God. One can only live on the basis of that faith. Growing up in a parsonage with a father who discovered three Upper Cretaceous species kept me from having an either/or view of science and religion. A study of history shows me that until the late 19th century, there was no occupation called “scientist” and most of the important discoveries before that were made by clergy (Roger Bacon, Nicolaus Copernicus, Nicolas Steno, Francis Bacon, Johannes Kepler, Isaac Newton, John Mitchell, Joseph Priestly, Michael Faraday, Gregor Mendel, Charles Darwin (in seminary when signed on to HMS Beagle)) and even after (Max Planck, Georges Lemaitre, Robert Bakker). Are all those deluded, but you aren’t? I don’t demand you follow my faith, kindly reciprocate.