Comments

  1. One Eyed Jack says

    The great thing is that a faith head would look at that and think it’s funny for a different reason.

    “How silly. Magic 8 balls are just superstition and nonsense. God won’t waste his time with that rubbish!”

    -OEJ

  2. says

    When I posted the cartoon on my blog this morning, I asked the question whether people will get the whole joke or if they’ll stop at the point where they laugh at the thought of the Magic Eight Ball‘s powers being imaginary.

  3. Mongoose says

    And why exactly is there a little space alien in the top left corner? Obviously after the pie under his bed…

  4. says

    My magic 8-ball has been accurate approximately 1 in 20 times. That’s pretty good!!

    So what? My prayers are answered every time. They go like this: “God, please don’t lift a finger or otherwise do anything tomorrow, thanks. Zeus, please don’t life a finger or otherwise do anything tomorrow, thanks. Triglav….”

    Of course, by the time I’m done praying, it’s 8:45 AM and I’ve been up all night, but it’s a small price to pay to know that the gods are obviously hanging on every word.

  5. severalspeciesof says

    The sad part is that there are some people who believe the magic 8-Ball to be an actual device for the supernatural, a.k.a. the occult. They may actually get mad at this cartoon!

  6. TheWireMonkey says

    I had a profound moment of woo self-awareness during a campy, mockery-filled trip to the Roswell UFO museum several years ago. My companion asked me if I believed in UFOs and I said, with all seriousness “No, I’m a Sagittarius, we’re a little more intellectual. My brother, on the other hand, does believe in UFOs–he’s an Aquarius, they belive in this sort of thing.”

  7. SteveM says

    I can only find 5 “symbols”, where is the sixth?
    alien
    pie
    eyebal
    dynamite
    other eyeball (?)

    is it:

    “k2” ?

  8. Daniel R says

    I don’t believe in astrology. It’s because I am a Cancer and Cancers don’t believe in astrology, it is well known.

  9. SteveM says

    Speaking of predicting the future, South Park this week (I don’t know if it was new this week, but it was on this week) had the boys trying to steal the girls’ “future telling device” (a “cootie catcher”).

  10. Nentuaby says

    #8

    And why exactly is there a little space alien in the top left corner? Obviously after the pie under his bed…

    Posted by: Mongoose | May 16, 2008 11:59 AM

    Bizarro comics contain lots of little tiny symbols. The space alien is one, as are the disembodied eyeballs and the pie…

    See post #12 for a good rundown of ’em.

  11. says

    #13
    Daniel, I have a similar comment in my blog’s about me page… “I don’t believe in horoscopes, I’m a Sagittarius, we’re skeptical.”

  12. says

    He knows both his prayer & his Magic-8 Ball are going to work because he took the Leap Of Faith first:

    (1) Face away from prayer area (bed),

    (2) Jump in the air out of your slippers,

    (3) Spin 180 degrees clockwise,

    (4) Land on your knees (as in any Real religion, kneepads are required),

    (5) Now, pray your brain away.

    If it doesn’t work for you, it’s because You are doing it wrong!

  13. says

    #12 I know that is some martial arts disciplines, the students are expected to kneel/sit before their intructor with their feet crossed in the proper way. The big toe of one foot rests on the “palm” of the other, much like in the cartoon. For boys and girls the proper foot to be on top is opposite (though I can’t remember what is correct for a boy). Maybe this is the missing symbol.

  14. SteveM says

    #22, the missing symbol is indeed “k2”, follow the link in #17. Thanks, Emmet!

  15. says

    I count six symbols (the alien, the pie, the eye below the table, the eye on the window sill, the dynamite on the bed leg, and the “k2” on the bed sheet). I was under the impression that usually only one eye was used to focus on the subject – which would make the second one in this image be a seperate symbol.

    But of course I could be wrong.

  16. says

    The Bizzaro explanation says that one eye is watching the action and one eye is watching you, the reader. The pie is opportunity. The alien is limitless possibilities. There are others, absent from this picture. There’s no explanation for dynamite.

  17. Kenny says

    I believe in the power of prayer without the magic 8-ball.

    It is not superstition or whatever, it is real.

    However, I can’t convince anyone here of that. They can’t open their minds for a second. In fact they don’t even believe in anything that Dawkins doesn’t believe in. The Membrane theory in quantum mechanics is ignored here. There is a lot out there but atheists choose to ignore it.

    I wonder if I can be so closed minded and so arrogant as some people in here are. No, I don’t think I would want that much of a self centered life.

    Atheists in here ignore the obvious and then tell me I am stupid because I believe in the obvious. So much for common sense.

    Common sense, objectivity, and any form of science that dawkins doesn’t believe in–all for the loss.

  18. JohnnieCanuck, FCD says

    So, as a Pisces, Astrology claims this skeptic to be “malleable / impressionable” and “gullible / naive”. I doubt that very much.

    Does this mean that I must be proof that Astrology is a foolish superstition?

    When men first sought to explain the motions of the sun, moon and planets, it was too easy to claim that it was the doing of gods instead of admitting ignorance. Next thing you know, the complicated patterns of planetary motion are messages from the gods for humans, that only the priests can reveal.

    It reveals something of human nature, how often successful superstitions are constructed so as to appeal to the vanity of the believers.

  19. phantomreader42 says

    Kenny @ #27:

    I believe in the power of prayer without the magic 8-ball.
    It is not superstition or whatever, it is real.

    I don’t suppose you have the slightest shred of evidence of that, do you? No, evidence is against your religion, isn’t it?

    However, I can’t convince anyone here of that. They can’t open their minds for a second. In fact they don’t even believe in anything that Dawkins doesn’t believe in. The Membrane theory in quantum mechanics is ignored here. There is a lot out there but atheists choose to ignore it.

    Okay, now just flat-out admitting you have no evidence in support of your idiotic claims. Your psychotic obsession with Dawkins is noted, as is your boundless capacity for projection. But nope, not a speck of evidence. Why am I not surprised?

    I wonder if I can be so closed minded and so arrogant as some people in here are. No, I don’t think I would want that much of a self centered life

    Oh, this from the nutcase who said that treating gay people like people would lead to the firey destruction of the country? The FBI should be by soon to ask about your plans for nuclear terrorism. Hope they bring along the nice young men in the clean white coats, because you’re in desperate need of psychiatric help.

    Atheists in here ignore the obvious and then tell me I am stupid because I believe in the obvious

    Oh, poor, poor, persecuted kenny! People dare call him stupid just because he babbles about a vast gay conspiracy to exterminate christians.

    It’s sad and a bit frightening that there are people who actually believe the kind of bullshit this nutcase is spewing.

  20. MAJeff, OM says

    Posted by: Kenny | May 16, 2008 4:47 PM

    Pretty good parody Kenny, but membrane theory in quantum mechanics? C’mon now.

  21. says

    I don’t know about the rest of the country, but if gay marriage somehow results in the firey destruction of Kenny, then it’s all been worth it.

    What a disgusting little mouthful of felch he is.

  22. says

    @#27 Kenny (?) —

    Atheists in here ignore the obvious and then tell me I am stupid because I believe in the obvious. So much for common sense.

    I can’t even tell whether this is the real Kenny or not anymore, but in any case, anyone appealing to “common sense” and what is “obvious” should read this article.

  23. MAJeff, OM says

    What a disgusting little mouthful of felch he is

    Felching is the act. Santorum is the substance.

  24. says

    anyone appealing to “common sense” and what is “obvious” should read this article.

    Yay! An article to read on the bus ride home! Thanks Etha! Happy Birthday to me!

  25. says

    Felching is the act. Santorum is the substance.

    Oh, I know, but lube and fecal matter alone, frothy or not, don’t convey the potentiality for biohazard that is Kenny.

  26. Ichthyic says

    I can’t even tell whether this is the real Kenny or not anymore

    I’m thinking the best approach, in either case, would be to act as if it isn’t real. Especially given that no sane person would post what it does.

    The Membrane theory in quantum mechanics is ignored here.

    HOHO, that’s some good parody right there!

    Tell us about the uncertainty principle, oh parody of a human being!

  27. Ichthyic says

    Etha, at least give it the abstract:

    http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/316/5827/996

    Childhood Origins of Adult Resistance to Science
    Paul Bloom and Deena Skolnick Weisberg

    Resistance to certain scientific ideas derives in large part from assumptions and biases that can be demonstrated experimentally in young children and that may persist into adulthood. In particular, both adults and children resist acquiring scientific information that clashes with common-sense intuitions about the physical and psychological domains. Additionally, when learning information from other people, both adults and children are sensitive to the trustworthiness of the source of that information. Resistance to science, then, is particularly exaggerated in societies where nonscientific ideologies have the advantages of being both grounded in common sense and transmitted by trustworthy sources.

    Department of Psychology, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06520, USA.

  28. Ichthyic says

    I mean, we have to include the actual text of the abstract because you know how bad it is at actually going to places we try to send it.

    which supports the idea that it was just parody to begin with.

    I mean, if it were really interested in learning anything, it would actually indicate an ability to process the information we give it.

    btw, “it” is the correct pronoun to use when referring to a parody, yes?

  29. WRMartin says

    Yaay Kenny! [In your best Crank Yankers voice].
    All this boring science stuff and calls for Etha to get a Molly – finally something fun[ny] to read.

  30. JJR says

    Until I have solid proof otherwise, I think it’s safe to assume Kenny is a hoax. Also, probably a cheeky reference to the South Park Character (i.e. “oh my Gawd they killed…”) of the same name.

  31. David Marjanović, OM says

    I believe in the power of prayer without the magic 8-ball.

    It is not superstition or whatever, it is real.

    However, I can’t convince anyone here of that.

    You could, if you simply showed that it is real.

    You’d have to disprove several studies that have found the contrary on the way, though.

    BTW, Kenny, have you been to the thread on “the subtly different squid eye”?

    (And what’s so bad about the M-brane theory? And what has Dawkins ever said about it? He’s not a physicist.)

  32. Ichthyic says

    *psst* David – we’re all going with the “Kenny is a hoax” meme now.

    seriously, do you think logical argument has any effect on a parody?

  33. WRMartin says

    I believe in the power of the magic 8-ball.
    It is not superstition or whatever, it is real.
    However, I can’t convince Kenny of that.

    A wager, if you will, my dear Kenny – you pray, I’ll use my magic 8-ball. First one to reality wins. No cheating. Ready. Set. Go.

    Oh mighty and powerful (don’t forget magical) Magic 8-ball is Kenny a hoax?
    [All signs point to Yes]

    Aw dang, I lose!

  34. Kseniya says

    Kenny has become a veritable gumbo of hot, steaming blog-o-tainment. Has he passed a Tureen test yet?

    However, I dunno if that was the real Kenny. Isn’t he supposed to be at work by this hour?

    Real or not, the Dawkins obsession is right-on, and we’ve seen it time and time again. The Jesus Nuts always project their own need for authority figures, prophets, and dogma onto everyone else, and the significance of this – like a real jesus nut – hovers right over their blissfully unware little heads.

  35. says

    “it” is the correct pronoun to use when referring to a parody, yes?

    In some circumstances, some editors might insist on “them.”

  36. JeffreyD says

    Kseniya, re your #46, a wonderful play on words on Tureen/Turing test, you made my night. (smile)

  37. says

    @#46 Kseniya —

    Has he passed a Tureen test yet?

    Not sure about the Tureen test (or the Turing test, for that matter), but he’s certainly passed the Turin test.

  38. Kseniya says

    Turin? LMAO!

    You mean he’s certified hoax, shrouded in satire? Or, that by proving himself a beliver in the SoT, he’s passed some sort of Terminal Credulity threshold, where density is so great, no logic can escape?

  39. malcolm says

    However, I dunno if that was the real Kenny. Isn’t he supposed to be at work by this hour?

    If it is real, it certainly isn’t old enough to be going to work.

  40. David Marjanović, OM says

    I just checked. Kenny has at least not commented on the squid eye thread.

    At present, I think he’s too ignorant to be a parody. Really.

    (And what is Tureen? Is that something to eat?)

  41. Ichthyic says

    At present, I think he’s too ignorant to be a parody. Really.

    the idea is to treat it as one, regardless.

    get it?

  42. Kenny says

    >This is why near-death experiences always include a bright
    >light. When the retina runs out of oxygen, cGMP, which
    >requires energy to make, cannot be resupplied. Seeing dark
    >is an effort.

    LOL, nice try. Look there are people seeing real things. I will give you an example and I will try to find the video for you. Here are a few to keep you busy though.

    A girl said that she had an NDE and her body lifted through the ceiling and through the roof of the hospital. She said that on the roof was a tennis shoe. When a nurse ran up to the roof, she found the tennis shoe.

    Another lady, Vicky who was blind from birth has never seen anything at all in life. When she died she saw everything and was greatly disturbed because she had never seen anything before and she saw her ring and that is how she knew it was her body.

    Another guy who had an NDE who went through the TUNNEL of light and met relatives and one of them he did not know. He later came back and asked his mom and she gave him an old picture of an uncle of hers and he past away before he was born.

    Some of the people in these videos are Atheists.


    Vicky one (The ring info was from another video of her)


    A young woman from L.A.


    This guy shows the evidence on his face.

    There are millions of more people that say there is something out there. You can’t discount all of those people. There are people seeing more than just a simple light. I mean this does not sound like science too me it sounds like atheist damage control. We are not talking about something with as much light as a light bulb. We are talking about light that would consume you (more light than the Sun can provide).

    Millions of people seeing something real and then seeing things that they could not make up (I.E. the relatives that they do not know) VS. a scientist who has an agenda and thinks that we can explain it by using simple logic.

    I am not against science. However, trying to force things to fit in an agenda that is what I have a problem with.

    You can say anything and try to force anything to work, but that does not mean that it is the truth.

    You might see a light for a few seconds, but this light people talk about isn’t going to be the tunnel of light that is filled with love and joy and all that and it is not going to be filled with relatives with some you know and some you do not know.

    Eyewitness evidence is something and it is real. If it were a delusion people would all see something different.

    After reading a lot of Dawkins’ book and reading all of these forums, you would think that I would be an Atheist by now or at least agnostic. The reason I am not is that I don’t think that biology can get us there alone. I don’t have the faith in biology to give us the answer of God. Many people here say there is no God because we have proven that he doesn’t exist. That we are more intelligent and we don’t have a need for God.

    That couldn’t be further from the truth. We need him more now because the world isn’t going to stay like it is and science is not going to save us. This is not a delusion. I see a ton of arrogance in the scientific communty and we can see in the past where arrogance has lead us. Remember that ship that was impossible to sink, well it sunk alright.

    On one hand we are reverse engineering what God made and that excites me more than ever. I am more excited about Quantum physics and where that could lead us instead of Biology. Biology is not useless at all, but I don’t see it as high of a quality of science as physics and engineering. There is some quality work being done there.

    On the other hand, science gets a few things right and all of a sudden we don’t need God anymore because we found out what the Sun is made out of. Well that’s great, now go create sun, moon, stars, and planets out of nothing.

    Yeah, thats what I thought. None of what was posted in that thread was any evidence of anything. It was just more junk being thrown in for damage control.

    That is exactly why God will never be proven by Atheists, because the proof that is there is totally ignored or covered up with some fubared theory that someone made up so that someone could explain it without God.

    “People are not having any spiritual experience with NDEs it’s all just brain waves still kicking in to try to fight death.” – If you can’t explain it, make something up.

  43. Kenny says

    >HOHO, nice parody.
    >Feaux Kenny is getting better.

    Well, I really think it is more than just a parody.

  44. JohnnieCanuck, FCD says

    The parody said

    If you can’t explain it, make something up.

    What is it with the religious apologists and projection? It makes me shake my head every time I see them using an argument that is only a valid criticism of believers as an attack on non-believers.

  45. Kenny says

    >What is it with the religious apologists and projection?
    >It makes me shake my head every time I see them using an
    >argument that is only a valid criticism of believers as an
    >attack on non-believers.

    It’s not an attack, it is what it is. That is why I really seriously doubt that a person who doesn’t want to believe will change their minds.

    I read all the information and then I just shake my head too, because they can’t explain it so they have to make something up. If they can’t explain it, they should say that. Well of course they can’t do that, they have too much pride and arrogance for that. Admitting there is a God or even that there is something that science cannot explain is like being a heretic. I think we have seen the same thing 500 years ago with the Catholic church when it was against science.

    We have not progressed in a lot of ways. The table is now turned. Instead of the Catholic church saying everyone is ignorant if they don’t believe it is now the same with certain flavors of science.

    If you question science you are a moron. Questioning science is what has improved it.

    Science knows that the world is not flat and has moved on. However, to me saying that there is no God or that there are no dimensions that could have something that could be considered supernatural seems a bit “flat Earth”.

    Science changes as we get more information and that is why it isn’t always right. Galileo made mistakes and so will the rest of the scientific community. Yet if anyone even questions anything they are thought to be stupid and illitterate.

    I mean look at the String Theory in quantum physics in the 1970’s. Everyone laughed at people who even thought it was possible and they thought they were stupid too.

    You have to understand that just because you can’t see things now that you may change your mind in the future and what you thought was stupid was actually true, but you were too closed minded to see what the real truth really was.

  46. Ichthyic says

    That is why I really seriously doubt that a person who doesn’t want to believe will change their minds

    LOL hilarious!

    man, you are in good form tonight, feaux kenny!

  47. Ichthyic says

    That is exactly why God will never be proven by Atheists

    ROFLMAO!!!

    damn, that’s a keeper.

  48. Charlie Foxtrot says

    Kenny – thou art a supporating sore on the arse of reason! Lance and begone, yon oozing cretin!

  49. Dennis N says

    That’s the real kenny. He’s still struggling, to take this faint notion of a God, at least an unkown, and somehow expand that in an impossible way to be Jesus and the Gospels and all this other stuff. If somehow you proved NDEs or Godly creation, you still have no shot of proving Jesus. You might turn me Muslim.

  50. CosmicTeapot says

    @Kenny
    “I read all the information and then I just shake my head too, because they can’t explain it so they have to make something up. If they can’t explain it, they should say that.”

    Scientists do admit they have gaps in their knowledge. It is the religious who say there is a gap in our knowledge, therefore it must be god. No logic, just making it up as they go along.

    @The intelligent people here, Emo Phillips understands how prayer works.

    “When I was a kid, every night I used to pray for a new bike. Then I realised the lord did not work that way. So I stole a bike, and prayed for his forgiveness.”

  51. Rob says

    Science knows that the world is not flat and has moved on. However, to me saying that there is no God or that there are no dimensions that could have something that could be considered supernatural seems a bit “flat Earth”.

    Kenny, Kenny, Kenny. Please stop claiming things about what you don’t understand. Science does not make the claim of no god, it makes the claim one isn’t necessary, and then, not even directly.

    Science says if you make the claim “There is a god”, that you make predictions from that statement and make experiments to verify those predictions. All it is is simply “put up or shut up”. You and all other religions have steadfastly refused to put up, and also refuse the shut up portion. That is why religion and science don’t get along.

  52. John Scanlon, FCD says

    The tennis shoe!
    Connie Willis took on the science of NDEs in one of her novels, Passage. The central character in the story asserts that the tennis shoe story is apocryphal. A fictional character created by an entertaining writer has, ipso facto, more credibility than a raving nutjob of a parody Christian.
    If you could prove the tennis shoe, the story would have value as evidence of something (not necessarily something ‘obvious’). But you can’t prove it, can you?

    I also strongly recommend Doomsday Book and To Say Nothing of the Dog.

  53. Nick Gotts says

    A girl said that she had an NDE and her body lifted through the ceiling and through the roof of the hospital. She said that on the roof was a tennis shoe. When a nurse ran up to the roof, she found the tennis shoe. – Kenny

    Wow! A tennis shoe stuck on a roof! Kenny presents final proof of the reality of the supernatural!

  54. khan says

    A girl said that she had an NDE and her body lifted through the ceiling and through the roof of the hospital. She said that on the roof was a tennis shoe. When a nurse ran up to the roof, she found the tennis shoe. – Kenny

    Wow! A tennis shoe stuck on a roof! Kenny presents final proof of the reality of the supernatural!

    Blasphemers!

    You shall not mock the Frisbeterians.

  55. Rey Fox says

    “That couldn’t be further from the truth. We need him more now because the world isn’t going to stay like it is and science is not going to save us. This is not a delusion.”

    Okay. We’ve heard plenty of doomsday speak from you. But how, exactly, is God going to save us? And when?* There are millions upon billions of people exhorting God for help every day. Hell, if you consider that all the people of Abrahamic faiths are worshiping the same deity, that puts the total at well over half the human population. Which is growing all the time. So I guess my question is, what do we have to do to get God off his divine ass and actually help us in a tangible way? No, I think we’re better off helping ourselves.