Before humans came along, borders of course did not exist. We made them up. And when we did, the land didn’t change, the air didn’t change… nothing changed except us. We started to believe that our invisible lines were better than anyone else’s. And this lead to many intense rivalries between people on different sides of these silly invisible lines. So with that, today’s word of the day is:

Patriotism (noun): the belief that the invisible boundary surrounding the relative place of your birth is somehow superior to everywhere else. (Similar to the my-dad-can-beat-up-your-dad phenomenon.)

Really, people, can’t we all just be buddies?

Note: this Comicle is presented in fabulous black and white so you can colour outside the lines! Fun!

Additional note: as has been pointed out to me by Eric — a man who changes his web theme more frequently than I change my socks — I actually defined nationalism, not patriotism. Properly, it should read: “Patriotism (noun): the belief that the invisible boundary surrounding the relative place of your birth is FREAKING AWESOME.”

The Bible says a lot of things. I don’t know all of them because I haven’t taken detailed notes, but I do know one thing: it’s a book. No matter what else it symbolizes, it is first, foremost, and physically a book of stories. The stories are myths. Every culture has myths that they pass down through the generations. All of these myths teach a lesson, and it is this lesson that is important. The story may show the lesson’s magnitude, but that’s it. Jesus was a teacher, just like Buddha and Mr. Feeny, and it is these lessons we are meant to learn.

And getting learned ain’t always easy. People have a wide scope of comprehension; some pick up every detail, some pick up none. I think most of us probably fall somewhere in the middle, and we store the information in our brain as best we can, in an automatic way that helps us to relate to it. In a sense, we remember what we want to remember.

Which brings me to the Bible. In this comic, the character of Angry Christian is protesting with his GOD HATES GAYS sign. He even asserts that the message is from God. Well, Mr. Angry Christian is wrong! The Bible doesn’t say that anywhere! Doesn’t even hint at it! And what sense would it make to create gay people just to hate them? And why have an overwhelming number of lessons about peace and love, then sandwich in a few specific little bigoted bits? It don’t make no kinda sense to me.

I think if people treated their sacred texts as metaphorical and allegorical lessons, they would better understand the writing inside. To the best of my awareness, God is not an omniscient man behind the curtain of our existence. I see God as a guiding flow of energy that harmonizes everything. And I see any quotes attributed to God as man’s best effort to explain the unanswerable questions about why we are here. We just want some answers, that’s all.

So don’t believe everything that you read. God doesn’t hate gays. Or people with signs.

Sometimes we make up stories to reinforce our beliefs, sometimes just to make sure there’s someone on our side. One of these stories might be that I have Jedi powers, another might be that animals give us their lives for our consumption. (As if a cow ever nobly sacrificed herself for your hamburger like Obi Wan did to beat the Empire!) Isn’t it odd that somehow we “know” what cows want despite not being able to speak cow at all?

I’ve heard the argument that animals have a better quality of life with us than if they were out in nature. That’s a huge assumption. First, that the corporations in charge of conceiving, growing, and killing these animals to make a profit are at all concerned with the animal’s comfort; and second, that we have a right to control their death when we engineered their birth strictly for that purpose.

I think that giving these animals a better life would include letting them live past their Ideal Kill Weight. Maybe that’s just me.

The cows in this cartoon were compensated fairly based on current Hollywood acting rates… that is, they got a lot of moo-la.

This post could alternately be titled The Whole Tooth and Nothing but the Tooth. But that would be longer.

Back before I did any research into the subject, I was having a discussion with a vegetarian about how humans are natural predators. As most people have probably asserted, I brought up the bit about the canine teeth. Well, as I’ve learned long since then, we’ve got very few sharp predator teeth and many more dull herbivore teeth. It’s not the end-all, be-all physiological proof that we’re not natural predators, but it sure helps debunk the fluff.

I didn’t want to post one of my Hey, Vegan doodles as my second Comicle of all time — (because the V word is still scary to some folks!) — but I know that you’ll all see the humour anyway. We’re just having fun, right? Right?

I finally got some scanning software to work with the shiny multifunction printer on my desk. This image was as much of a hardware test as it is a content test.

I used to doodle wacky stick men cartoons in high school to amuse myself. Soon enough I was amusing other people with them too. Now they’re on the fancy Internets to amuse the entire world. You’re welcome, Entire World. Now get back to work.