dear-science

A six-panel SMBC comic. A woman with shoulder-length brown hair prays with clasped hands, saying, "Dear Science, if you're so powerful and true, how come so many people don't believe you?" A disembodied voice (shown in green speech bubbles) answers that this life is a test of devotion to empiricism: beings who fail to believe in the scientific outlook are forced to spend eternity in absurd afterlife scenarios, sitting on clouds playing tiny harps forever, while those who follow the truth are blessed with non-existence after death. The woman asks, "So, creationists all go to heaven?" The voice replies, "Oh, those. They're not real" then explains, "Creationists were put on Earth by Science-Satan to test your devotion to empiricism." The woman, touching her chin, says, "It explains so much." The voice cautions, "You really ought to conduct your own research before you believe me." Votey (a final hand-lettered panel framed like a sign): "Strictly speaking, your prior should be that I'm a hallucination." The joke inverts religious apologetics: the voice of Science preaches faith and a comically empirical afterlife, then undercuts its own authority by reminding the believer to be skeptical of it.