What’s the joke?
My baseline take is that none of that stuff mattered when God was working. Humanity over-analyzed the fuck out of reality and came up with modern science, and God just… never having thought about gravity too deeply? The last panel gave me “DM when they realize their party comes up with an actual Peasant Railgun.” You say later on that it feels like a lame critique of religion. I think you’re closer to the author’s original intent, but I think I’m funnier /j
“We” are focusing on the wrong aspects of creation. God meant you to look at the sky and the trees, by overanalyzing what he built you are missing the point.
It’s meant to make you think in a goofy way, humour is not always meant to have you rolling to the ground in tears.
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How the fuck is looking closer at whatever part of the universe you find most appealing “missing the point”?
I find your interpretation even more offensive than the lack of one.
The joke is that Einstein calls God a genius, for planning all this stuff, when God didn’t plan anything - he did it on a whim. It relies partially on the characterisation, as across Um Sábado Qualquer’s comics, God is often represented as petty, clueless and/or dumb. Like this:
God just threw the universe together, but Einstein took the time to understand it.
Alternatively, the Bible has an extremely naive (and often counterfactual) understanding of natural science. If the world really was created by an all-knowing God and His word revealed in “inerrant” holy scripture, you’d expect it to be a whole lot better at matching the science.
While I do like this interpretation, the comic, Um Sábado Qualquer, depitcs gods as kinda clueless/clumsy, leading me to interpret the comic as: god just kinda did it without noticing what he was doing, than someone came and understood what was happening. (but attributing the complexity and geniousness to god)
BUT, in real life, what you said is a pretty solid argument
Oooh, I like your alternative take a lot. The whole idea of the Bible being written as a result of “hearing the voice of God” or being divinely inspired is always a fun topic because it’s impossible to define.
Evidently when John Nash (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Forbes_Nash_Jr.) was asked how a logical and smart person like him could believe that he was being recruited by aliens from outer space to save the world he replied “Because the ideas I had about supernatural beings came to me in the same way that my mathematical ideas did. So I took them seriously.”
I always thought people who were “hearing the voice of God” were experiencing the same thing. Something irrational happens but you interpret it in a way that just feels true to you as an individual, and it’s so impactful that you choose to believe and test it.
I think the joke is that God is capable of creating something without fully understanding it. But the comic seems to indicate that God wasn’t aware of his ability to do that, which I think is a bit odd. Even humans are aware that we can confuse ourselves by creating complex systems that not even we understand. I assume God would also be aware that he’s smart enough to trick himself, but who knows?
But in what way is it supposed to be funny?
This just seems to comment on religion, but it doesn’t do so in a way that makes any sense.
It seems to poke fun at god… But it does it with literally zero teeth.
There are much more valid paradoxes to point out in the imaginary idea of a god, an “omnipotent all-powerful force for good” cannot exist in a world where evil exists, or that force is either not good, not omnipotent, or not all-powerful.
It’s just my personal speculation. What’s your interpretation of the joke?
