morality
Original: morality on Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
Transcript
Panel 1
Man with blue hair (white speech bubble): God, how is it that you're all-good and all-powerful but the world is bad.?
God (orange caption box): Because human morality is a house built on sand, made of chewing gum and twine.
Panel 2
God (orange caption box): Here, watch. I'll make you a deal. You go kill somebody and I'll save the lives of 100 people in the distant past in such a way that it has no bearing on the present.
Panel 3
God (orange caption box): What's that? Too complex? Your 3 pounds of brain not up to the task? Oh! That's right, humans can't even hold more than 4 objects in short-term memory at a time, but they think they have legitimate complaints about the management of the cosmos.
Panel 4
God (orange caption box): You can't even solve the Collatz conjecture, which is a problem about ADDITION, and you're complaining about the rules governing the behavior of living systems!
Panel 5
Man with blue hair (white speech bubble): I'm starting to think the "all-good" concept is more of an assumption than an axiom.
God (orange caption box): Sounds like SOMEONE's askin' for infinite punishment for finite sins.
Votey:
Man with blue hair (white speech bubble): I don't understand.
God (orange caption box): You're making my point for me!
Man with blue hair (white speech bubble): God, how is it that you're all-good and all-powerful but the world is bad.?
God (orange caption box): Because human morality is a house built on sand, made of chewing gum and twine.
Panel 2
God (orange caption box): Here, watch. I'll make you a deal. You go kill somebody and I'll save the lives of 100 people in the distant past in such a way that it has no bearing on the present.
Panel 3
God (orange caption box): What's that? Too complex? Your 3 pounds of brain not up to the task? Oh! That's right, humans can't even hold more than 4 objects in short-term memory at a time, but they think they have legitimate complaints about the management of the cosmos.
Panel 4
God (orange caption box): You can't even solve the Collatz conjecture, which is a problem about ADDITION, and you're complaining about the rules governing the behavior of living systems!
Panel 5
Man with blue hair (white speech bubble): I'm starting to think the "all-good" concept is more of an assumption than an axiom.
God (orange caption box): Sounds like SOMEONE's askin' for infinite punishment for finite sins.
Votey:
Man with blue hair (white speech bubble): I don't understand.
God (orange caption box): You're making my point for me!
Alt text
A six-panel SMBC comic. A man with blue hair stands looking up, talking to an unseen God whose lines appear in orange caption boxes. The man asks, "God, how is it that you're all-good and all-powerful but the world is bad?" God replies that human morality is "a house built on sand, made of chewing gum and twine," then offers a deal: kill somebody and God will save 100 lives in the distant past in a way that has no bearing on the present. When the man hesitates, God mocks the limits of the human brain, noting humans can't hold more than four objects in short-term memory yet complain about the cosmos, and can't even solve the Collatz conjecture ("a problem about ADDITION") yet criticize the rules of living systems. The man, now looking skeptical, says, "I'm starting to think the 'all-good' concept is more of an assumption than an axiom." God snaps back, "Sounds like SOMEONE's askin' for infinite punishment for finite sins." In the votey aftercomic, the panel is mostly empty dark space; the man says "I don't understand," and God answers, "You're making my point for me!"
Transcribed by Claude Opus 4.8.