Seen over at Le Cafe Witteveen. Original Source is InherittheMirth.com
I thought this was humorous, especially in light of Tim Tebow’s on-going dinkusness. Of course it’s ridiculous, this idea that if there is a God, he would give one good crap about your personal performance on the football field. I mean, what if BOTH teams are praying really, really hard for God’s approval? How is he going to decide who to favor? Or what if he’s too busy making famines in Africa to listen to the football guys prayers at all?
I was originally just going to post this comic and move on, but I liked the title of the website that it came from: “Inherit the Mirth”. Cool – more comics using humor to point out the idiosyncrasies of the bible and belief, perhaps? When I followed the link back I discovered that the site was started by a Christian. Hmm. Well, good on him. I like people who can have a laugh at themselves. After a bit of digging around I found the “About” page (bolding is mine):
Ten years ago, Cuyler Black, a part-time youth minister in Ontario at the time, was often buying resources in local Christian bookstores. He noticed that very few, if any, of the greeting cards in those shops had a humorous bent. Cuyler thought that was a shame. He understood God to have a wonderful sense of humor and believed all Christians should as well. That humorous sensibility was being under-represented in Christian merchandise. The ensuing result has been Inherit The Mirth®,a line of greeting cards, calendars, t-shirts, posters, books and more, emphasizing the light-hearted side of faith.
A “wonderful sense of humor?” Oh, that wacky God – what with the witty drowning of the Earth’s entire population (minus a few), the silly smiting, the jokester plagues and the filicide*. And do you know how else we know that God has a sense of humor? More from Inherit the Mirth:
People with a sense of humor give other people nicknames. Jesus called Peter ‘the Rock” and called the boisterous brothers James and John the “Sons of Thunder”. And speaking of boisterous, Jesus enjoyed the company of kids (“Let the little children come unto me”– Matt. 19:14). How can you enjoy hanging out with ankle-biters and not have a sense of humor?
Some of the Christians I know embrace just the “good parts” of their religion. They brush aside the bad parts as “antiquated” or as “misinterpretations” or as blatant lies written by man after the “original bible” was written (wait, what?). They have these ideas and thus can justify dismissing the parts they don’t like. They can walk away with a rosy picture of Jesus petting a lamb, feeding the poor and healing sick people. God becomes just a stern father figure who might have to take humanity over his knee now and then, but really, don’t all children get out of line and need the occasional physical and psychological torture as a reminder to be good?
I really appreciate a sense of humor, but I have a hard time reconciling the idea of a jokey-pokey, nickname-giving, Dad-on-the-playground-with-the-kiddies God with the same God who would cast anyone into an eternal pit of suffering. Some people may find humor in their faith, but I’ve read the Bible and I sure don’t remember there being much to smile about.
Or, you know, this could just be a silly comic.
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*BTW – This is a fun page if you need to know which prefix to add to “-cide” if you want to be specific about the kind of killing someone is doing.
