OCTOBER 21, 2002

Okay folks, last friday's comic about The Problem of Evil has created a much bigger response than I expected. I figured it was such a brief, unintellectual overview of the topic that nobody would take notice, but I've gotten a decent # of emails about it, and it's caused a discussion on my message board. I love philosophical debates, so rather than quell this rebellion-of-thought with the iron fist of Stalin, I'm going to add fuel to the fire with my own half-cocked theories on the matter.

But first, an overview for those of you who don't know what I'm talking about. The Problem of Evil is a philosphical debate over the existance of the Christian God (to those of you who seem to think I came up with it, sorry, it's been around for centuries). It states that if God were in fact all knowing, all benevolent, and all powerful, he would not allow evil to exist. However, since evil does exist, this god can not. Why? Because allowing evil in the universe is not all benevolent, and if God can not stop it, he must not be all powerful. This of course requires the belief that an absolute good and evil exist, but they are required for the Christian God to exist anyway, because without them, there can be no eternal judgement.

Now, this was enough for me to shut the book and say, "case closed." However, I have recently had the privilege of hearing the Chrisitian response to the Problem of Evil several times in different emails. It goes as follows: Our all powerful god can eliminate evil, but in doing so, he will eliminate free will. Because god is kind enough to give us free will, we have the ability to do evil. It is because of our poor choices that evil exists, not God's.

In my opinion, if God can't allow free will and stop evil at the same time, he clearly isn't all powerful, because that's an obvious limitation to his power. While it may at first seem that one can not exist without the other, that's not necessarily true.

Let's first explore what "free will" really is. Essentially, it's just the ability to say either "yes" or "no" when choices come up. If we can't think of the choice, and aren't told it, we can't decide to do it. If God didn't give us the specific intellignce that allows us to think of evil things to do, we could have all the free will in the world and not do anything evil ever. That may seem like that's a cop out, but really, it's not as though we have the ability to think of every possible response to problems as it is. We're extremely limited in our thought process; this is just one limitation that would actually do good.

Likewise, what we want and don't want, like and don't like, are also not tied to free will. We can't choose any of them. Rather, they are a product of nature and nurture. Even if God had to allow us the ability to think of evil (and I challenge one of you to prove to me that He did), he could have made it so we dislike nothing more than doing acts of evil, and desire nothing more than to never do one of them. Thereby, no matter what, we would never do anything evil.

This fallacy of "free will" relates to another concept of Christianity that bothers me: God only allowing those who accept Jesus Christ as their savior to go to heaven. I've always had a lot of problems with this, and I think I can finally articulate why in very simple terms:

If there is a choice between A and B, and A is correct, why won't 100% of the population choose A? Free will? Okay. But what is that decision based around? Clearly there must be factors that we take into account when we make a decision. For simplicities sake, I'll take the biggest: our intelligence, our knowledge, our intuition, and our emotions.

Now, in order to choose A, we would need, at the very least, 1) the correct information and 2) the intelligence to extrapolate that A is the right answer from that information. "Free will" is obviously not enough to make us choose the right answer every time; if we did, we wouldn't really have free will, now would we?

So, using that for this theory of "god testing us," what is he really testing? Our luck in finding the right information? Our luck in being born intelligent enough to realize that it is the right information? Either way, it doesn't seem very fair or very intelligent to me.

That's all for today. Continue the discussion here.

Oh, and Happy Halloween! The use of bold and bright orange implies that it will be extra happy, and extra hard to read.

SEPTEMBER 23, 2002

So here I am, almost a month late, finally writing another little diatribe of uninteresting commentary along with interesting links. In fact, the sole reason for this spiel even existing is to inform you readers of some of the high quality entertainment that awaits you at said "links." Okay, so that's not entirely true. I also wanted to use italics a lot for no good reason.

First off, in a scheme that I can only describe as diabolical because I have a terrible vocaublary, rstevens has asked me to join him in some sort of a "link" "exchange," wherein we both link to each other's comics in a mutually beneficial way. Usually, I ignore such propositions because I an old hermit who hates youngings stepping onto my lawn, but the sheer level of high-pollutant quality in Diesel Sweeties has forced me to act in a decidedly different manner this time. So go forth, read, and enjoy.

Second, those of you with the ability to interpret auditory information, possibly with the aid of an "ear," should enjoy this. My friend Brian, also known as the Wavesmith, has reached deep inside his super human brain to create music which is both enjoyable and other synonyms for enjoyable. I recommend getting Snapshot, and also getting all of his songs that are not titled Snapshot. Then I recommend sending me money.

Now, onto the macabre section. Just to show how macabre it is, I'm going to say macabre for a fourth time, only in purple, bolded, and italicized. Macabre. Clearly this is very macabre stuff we're talking about. Also clear, I am a retard. Anyway, what I've been trying to say, Scary Go Round is not only a study in how amazing flash comics can look when in the hands of someone with talent, but also very clever and funny. You should go read it right now so that I feel like I didn't waste my time typing this paragraph up.

And finally, WIGU. This is another very funny comic, and even moreso recently because it now involves rock and roll and monkeys. Possibly Monkees, but I wouldn't count on it. What I would do, however, is go read it right now.

AUGUST 26, 2002

Well, seems I have some more people to thank for links already. You're all really far too kind. The rest of you who haven't linked, however, are most likely not kind enough. Clearly this is a problem that must be remedied.

Anyway, I'm off to college for the first time in my life this Tuesday, which means a couple things. First off, my entire life structure is about to drastically change to a degree that I am neither prepared for, nor even fully understand. Secondly, and much more importantly for you, I won't be connected to the internet for a couple days to fix anything on the site that may go wrong. So if the comics don't show up or something, I'll fix it in a few days. Until then, you can just pray that no more tragedy will befall your fragile lives.

In other news, the open arms with which the webcomic community has welcomed in MiH has caused a sudden wave of generosity to overwhelm my cold, dead heart. As such, I'm going to take some time now to link a few of the higher quality, lesser known strips that I am aware of.

For the first comic, could I list anything other than Arrogance in Simplicity? I think not. While not being the most aesthetically pleasing strip, it's consistently hilarious and articulate. Not many, if any, comics can make me laugh at such a constant pace. Plus, Caph is a great guy. So go read the comic.

Silly Cone V is so under appreciated that it should be on here twice. Actually, here. Now it is. Clearly that is an endorsement of such magnitude that you can not help but feverishly click on one of the links and then read the archives until your eyes crust over. So do it. The comic is quite good.

And finally, there's Basil Flint, the epic story of a man and his booze and women. Okay, maybe epic is the wrong word. Really wrong. But nonetheless, it is a great strip, very funny, and very well drawn/colored. Why you haven't started reading it yet is mostly likely a mystery that will plague both myself and the scientific community for generations to come.

Alright, that's enough for today.

EDIT: Wait, no it's not. HDTC is back. How 'bout them apples