Friday November 17, 2000
Book 1: The Tub of Happiness — The Shopping Trip
Some SF readers will insist that 1000 years from now there will be no organized religion, and hence the Reverend character in this strip is a horrible anachronism. Let's look carefully at the issue, though. We shall assume, for the sake of argument, that religion is adopted by the foolishly optimistic, in an effort to answer the unanswerable questions. A thousand years from now science will have made quantum leaps forward (actually, quanta are quite SMALL... pour THAT over your cheerios and smoke it) discovering unifying principles of matter, energy, time, and space, as well as meta-behavioral principles of advanced sociology, psychology, and several unpronounceableologies. In spite of that, there will probably still be unanswerable questions. Of course, it goes without saying that a band of soldiers, facing death on a regular basis, would long for some sort of religion.

Now, some folks will try to tell us that in 1000 years science and society will have made SO much progress, and will be SO understanding of the human condition, that there will be no need for religion as we know it--even for low-IQ, highly violent types like mercenaries, professional sportspersons, and art critics.

Hmmmm. That sounds "foolishly optimistic" to me.

Original Art

Transcript

Tagon: Reverend, I'm happy to say we are offering you the position as company chaplain.
Reverend: I accept! I'm all over this gig.
Reverend: Ahem. What I mean to say is, I'm glad you saw that I was the right man for the job.
Tagon: Frankly, Reverend, you were the only man for the job.
Reverend: Head and shoulders above the rest. That's me to a tee.
Tagon: It seems that most men of the cloth are a bit too principled to work for a mercenary company.
Reverend: Are you saying I was the only applicant?
Tagon: Hey, you're all over this gig.
Footnote: Some SF readers will insist that 1000 years from now there will be no organized religion, and hence the Reverend character in this strip is a horrible anachronism. Let's look carefully at the issue, though. We shall assume, for the sake of argument, that religion is adopted by the foolishly optimistic, in an effort to answer the unanswerable questions. A thousand years from now science will have made quantum leaps forward (actually, quanta are quite SMALL... pour THAT over your cheerios and smoke it) discovering unifying principles of matter, energy, time, and space, as well as meta-behavioral principles of advanced sociology, psychology, and several unpronounceableologies. In spite of that, there will probably still be unanswerable questions. Of course, it goes without saying that a band of soldiers, facing death on a regular basis, would long for some sort of religion. Now, some folks will try to tell us that in 1000 years science and society will have made SO much progress, and will be SO understanding of the human condition, that there will be no need for religion as we know it--even for low-IQ, highly violent types like mercenaries, professional sportspersons, and art critics. Hmmmm. That sounds "foolishly optimistic" to me.