Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson for April 21, 2010

Bargaining with God…

Go ahead, yell at God. He can take it.

Great howl!

Patience doesn’t apply to Calvin, does it?

Poor Calvin…

and he was praying SO hard.

He’s going ‘postal.’

Oh Calvin! That’s not a good idea. You’ll get it eventually.

Please God, get me out of this and I’ll never steal from the collection plate again.Well at least I’ll leave something in it.

WWJD….?

Always in a rush to get what you want.

God, give me patience, but do it immediately!

Pray a little more harder Calvin may be once every hour…..It will help

It’s a good thing Calvin will never have to live through Saturday’s w/no mail delivery. It would’ve have made him mental. Er, more mental…

Please, please, please, please, please……… pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeesssssssssssseeeeeeeeeeeeee…

let the beanie come fasssst…

not fast enough for some of use who are use to the internet. you’ll miss the mail when when the post office is gone.

Morning Marg! Morning Fran! Morning shepherd mix mitt!

And the no pounce amnesty program continues.

Uh Uh, don’t makke promises you can’t keep Calvin. I’m 50+ and even I can’t keep a promise like that.

Born of the atheist

Calvin, remember that sometimes God’s greatest gifts are unanswered prayers. Like this you get to enjoy one more day of anticipation which is often better than the real thing. You should THANK Him!

Calvin is learning at a young age that getting anything from the post office on time takes an act of God.

This never works. God really isn’t interested in how fast you get your mail.

Poor little Calvin…talk to Hobbes, honey, he can’t help but at least he’ll listen…

grazer said, about 5 hours ago WWJD….?

We Want Jack Daniels?

At least he is dealing with God and not the devil.

what is this religious stuff all about. this is a comic strip and a good one. it is about a little kid doing little kid things. to quote archie talking to mahitabel ’ wot the ‘ell, wot the ‘ell”. lets have all the religious nuts go somewhere else.

eglazier can go someplace else.

Morning Mike Firesmith.

rac0308 .. YES. you broke the code.

Wow. A humble Calvin. Well, for a few seconds. It is after all Calvin.

You can’t always get what you want! Jagger said it best! lol

Not like Bugs Bunny, who can mail an order, stand at the Mailbox and have it delivered within a few breaths. I guess Calvin lacks “Star Power”

What’s it take?

Jesus answered: ” ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’ ; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ ” Luke 10:27

Since the religious posters are advising Calvin on how to relate to God and the true meaning of prayer, I hope no one minds if I add my atheist point of view: Sorry, Calvin, praying to a non-existant supreme being won’t get the beanie to your house any faster.

And no, this is not a putdown of those who believe. You are as entitled to your view of the universe as I am to mine.

I am like Calvin in that I don’t have the patience to learn patience.

I’ve noticed that most atheist evidence for no God revolves around all the evil in the world, and how could a good God let this happen. The deeper question seems to be not, “Is there a God?”, but “Is God good?”

eglazier said, about a dozen inspired and one not-so inspired posts ago,

“to quote archie talking to mahitabel ’ wot the ‘ell, wot the ‘ell”. lets have all the religious nuts go somewhere else.”

Who is archie and mahitabel?

This whole string of strips brings back a lot memories.

Patience.

C’MON GOD – GET YOUR ACT TOGETHER!

somebody shoot zippy

Well I wonder how Calvin’s plan b is going to turn out now…

And God says….”No.”

Stuart, some atheists may use that question to support their arguments, but there’s no more evidence (objective, scientific proof) for God’s non-existence than for His existence. That’s why belief in God relies on faith. As an atheist I choose to view the universe as being naturally explainable by science, and I feel no need to invoke the supernatural.

morning everyone. poor cal is still at it today.

He’s praying in SCHOOL!!!! That should get him sent to the principal’s office any minute now.

Actions speak louder than words, Calvin.

What ? answer his prayer and change him, no way

What ? answer his prayer and change him, no way

Susan001 said, about 8 Hours ago

“Most people are like Calvin. “They only pray to G-d when they want something, and never thank Him for what they already have.”

If only it were that simple. There is not only prayer of petition and of thanks, but also of repentance, of praise, of sharing self, of seeking advice. If you limit yourself to the divine Santa, no wonder your life is so impoverished.

One woman wondered why we monks pray publicly two hours a day: “How do you find so many things to ask for?” The answer is that our petitions are only about ten or fifteen minutes at most of that two hours.

Hang on, Calvin… One of God’s answers to prayer is “WAIT”!!!!

He’s is going to be so disappointed when it get there and doesn’t make him fly like a helicopter. Will be another “drink more Ovaltine” moment.

I don’t know why Calvin is praying to God. He sold his soul many times over! ;)

“PATIENCE” does not belong in a Calvin and Hobbes cartoon, except as an unreachable goal..

I hope that Zippy will live up to his name and dodge the bullet(s). I believe true science proclaims the existence of God, and so does the universe itself. Evolution is a vain hope for the atheist. It’s his ONLY hope.

Another one of God’s answers to prayers is “NO!”

eglazier said,

“what is this religious stuff all about. this is a comic strip and a good one. it is about a little kid doing little kid things. to quote archie talking to mahitabel ’ wot the ‘ell, wot the ‘ell”. lets have all the religious nuts go somewhere else.”

Since the “little kid” in the strip is praying, religious comments are appropriate.

I’m sorry if you are bothered by religious views that are different from yours.

Back when I was in seminary school, there ws a notion that you could petition the lord with prayer…petition the lord with prayer…petition the lord with prayer…………………………….. YOU CAN NOT PETITION THE LORD WITH PRAYER! (well said Jim)

I think I’m still better off believing in God and going into nothingness, than dying as an atheist and waking up on God’s front porch.

So much anticipation for a future event….

This cannot end well for Calvin.

Paulip you and I do agree on a lot of things but I find Calvins behaver so cute that I have to chuckle. He will do any thing even be nice to susie or roz if he thought it would bring that beany faster.

Since God loves all of us it doesn’t matter if you’re an atheist. If for instance God is Buddhist and you’re a devout Christian do you believe that God would banish you to hell because you’re of the wrong religion? Could you still be faithful to God if all your good and kind friends of a different religion were banished to hell?

Why do so many readers think that Calvin is praying? More likely he is “wishing”. Just folding one’s hands doesn’t make a wish a prayer. A great majority of what people say are prayers are really wishes.

Starfollower777===I was being sarcastic. When I went to school way back when we started the day with Flag Salute and Lord’s Prayer. That’s not allowed anymore. One local school yesterday had a Meet at the Flagpole event (outside the building walls) to pray for a teacher who was in surgery.

Hang in there Calvin!!! Wheres Hobbes? He should be at the door waiting to pounce.

Susan001 said: Most people are like Calvin. They only pray to G-d when they want something, and never thank Him for what they already have.

jump4joy said: I think I’m still better off believing in God and going into nothingness, than dying as an atheist and waking up on God’s front porch.

seanachie said: Why do so many readers think that Calvin is praying? More likely he is “wishing”. Just folding one’s hands doesn’t make a wish a prayer. A great majority of what people say are prayers are really wishes.

Susan and jump4joy: I so totally agree with you both! I’m so thankful every day for my many blessings that I whole-heartedly believe God is responsible for!

seanachie: Of course Calvin is praying to God! Look at the expression on his face and his tightly folded hands. And if he weren’t praying to God, why else would he say “Please, please, please! I’ll never ask another favor … ” (can you also hear the unspoken words “as long as I live”, because I do!) if only his beanie would be delivered today?! Who else would he be striking a bargain with if not God? I certainly don’t think it’s with himself.

Prayer … unfortunately it’s the last act of a desperate man (or, in this case, a desperate 6-year-old boy!).

Zippy007 - I was reminded of still another Scripture from Psalm 37 verse 4: “Take delight in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart”. What He desires and what you desire too, presumably….

Musicnut

If you’ve waded thru all the “God” stuff to get to this –

I know Archie & Mahitabel from a Rosalie Sorrels song. Mahitabel is a female cat who has “one d@mn litter after another” and Archie is a cockroach who is typing her life story in all lower case because he can’t hold down the “caps” bar on the typewriter. The earlier post on here sounds like it might have been taken from a poem by someone else. We named a cat Mahitabel because she showed up at our door preggly – but we changed it to Mahissabel because she had a somewhat adverse reaction to our old tomcat (and any other male cat she has ever come into contact with or anyone else who doesn’t see things her way).

@jump4joy~Pascal’s Wager (or Pascal’s Gambit) is a suggestion posed by the French philosopher Blaise Pascal that even though the existence of God cannot be determined through reason, a person should wager as though God exists, because living life accordingly has everything to gain, and nothing to lose.

Thanks lindz.coop. I’ll have to look up that song.

Too bad they didn’t have online tracking back then.

“Bargaining” occurs in a lot of contexts in life. It’s a classic stage in the grief process, for example. Those valuable truths have nothing to do with religion.

I’m religious, but I don’t think that means bargaining is any more or less effective. In my case, it’s easy: I don’t believe in a God who has marionette strings on his fingers, attached to every propeller beanie and other object of prayer mere mortals may choose; God has no hands but ours. And I don’t believe in a God who rewards people for “laying up treasures in heaven” for purely selfish reasons (such as an eternity of free haloes and harp lessons), but rather knows them by their fruits and blesses them accordingly - no matter what erroneous beliefs they might hold at the moment they show up on whatever God uses for a front porch.

Obviously, God thinks it’s just as funny to watch Calvin rant at heaven as we do. Made in his image, indeed.

I promise I won’t ever be bad again!

Jump4joy, if I’m wrong and God exists, I assume he’ll be fully forgiving of me when I reach his front porch.

Ratlum, I agree with what you said about Calvin. Calvin & Hobbes is one of my all-time favorite strips and only recently, to my delight, did I find it here, available on a daily basis (I have many of the books but it just isn’t the same as a daily dose). And with lots of fellow fans!

It will take an act of God….ironic isn’t it….LOL

I flagged ‘em too. Friggin’ pain in Uranus is what they be. By the by just to throw in my 2 coppers in this religious back and forth: As Calvin IS praying, this is one time when religion IS relevant to the comments and just one more thing.Why do people love to put down evolution? Who is to say honestly that evolution is not God’s tool for bringing man into the world. Time doesn’t exist for God. 1 day or 1 raised to the millionth power days, its all the same to Him. He is timeless and infinite after all, isn’t He? Or are we going to place limits on what he can do? Think about it and I sure hope Calvin gets his beanie tomorrow! G’night

Why does everyone assume it is God that Calvin is bargaining with? It could easily be the postal service or postal person.

Actually it’s GoComics mail.

I felt that way waiting for my 3DS to be shipped. (Six weeks? Six weeks is nothing!)