Some of the best bad comics are created by people who think they know better because they get their information from a higher, infallible authority. Today’s Not Ha Ha Funny continues looking at Ray Comfort’s ‘The Primates’. The site itself says, “Please send these around the world”.

Don’t mind if I do Ray, don’t mind if I do.

Today’s Comic

The Deconstruction

So… the joke is that atheists don’t like to entertain hypotheticals? Or that atheists are afraid of hell? Maybe the joke is that some people can’t think or express their thoughts very well and should be stopped from making fools of themselves? I’m not sure what the joke is supposed to be, though considering that Ray Comfort and his ilke believe that atheists actually do believe in god and are actually hypocrites, then my guess is that this comic is trying to poke fun at the fact that atheists know there is a hell, but would rather pretend it doesn’t exist just as they pretend that god doesn’t exist.

Which makes no sense, but the punchline isn’t the dumbest thing in this comic.

The argument from the hypotheticals does not compute. Let’s look.

Premise 1: God made everything

Premise 2: God believes in justice

Conclusion: Hell exists

In this context, I’m assuming hell to be as defined in Matthew 25:46, ‘eternal punishment’. I’ll not go into the issue of who gets sent there (namely the unbeliever) at this time.

When most people use the word just, they tend to use it in the sense of ‘fair’ or ‘reasonable’. Is eternal punishment reasonable? Depends.

It isn’t just to condemn a person to a life sentence for shop lifting. The punishment does not fit the crime, it does not help the store that was stolen from and it does not address the root cause of the initial theft. Yet we are asked to believe that such a crime is punishable with eternal torture by a loving god. This is baffling. The judge being the creator and being all-powerful does not change anything about wether something is fair or reasonable. In any other case we would be morally outraged at the powerful meeting out excessive punishments on those weaker.

The Revision

If god exists and he believes in justice, then he would not let people die randomly. Neither would he punish eternally, but would alleviate the conditions that lead us to hurt others the most. If god were just, he would not punish all of creation for an indiscretion, nor punish the children for the sins of the father and he would not curse any child for any reason, but would help build us all up in knowledge, love and truth.

But… maybe thinking isn’t all it’s made out to be.