| | Since I can't sleep, I thought I'd share this hopefully funny thought.
Have you ever heard of Garfield minus Garfield? It's basically like it sounds: the daily Garfield comic strip, stripped of its famous striped cat. To quote its inventor/author, Dan Walsh, the strip shows
"the existential angst of a certain young Mr. Jon Arbuckle. It is a journey deep into the mind of an isolated young everyman as he fights a losing battle against loneliness and depression in a quiet American suburb."
I think it's absolutely hilarious. I don't read it every day, but every couple months I think of it and go and catch up on some ones I've missed. I find it a lot more entertaining than the original strip, and even Jim Davis (Garfield's cartoonist) apparently likes it.
Well, I just had a thought, which unless it's already been done, I hereby copyright (just as I've copyrighted "the-patriarch-intermittently-known-as-Israel" ©). What about a version of the Bible with God taken out of it? I think this would be a fabulous idea since, as you may know, it would reflect reality. It could either be called "God minus God", or "The Bible minus God", can't decide which is better.
Here's an example (proof of concept, if you will) of what this would be like, taking Exodus 3. You can (re)read it first to get an idea of what the scene is like if you want, it's the Moses and the burning bush story. (All quotes are paraphrases put in quotes for comic effect.)
Moses sees a bush burning and suddenly shouts out "Hey, here I am!" No response.
Then Moses suddenly ducks and hides his eyes for no apparently reason. Prolonged silence.
Then, he suddenly says "Who am I to go tell Pharaoh that I have to free the Israelites?!" Silence.
Then out of the blue, Moses says "I'll tell the Israelites the God of their fathers sent me! But what should I tell him is his name?" No reply.
Moses then says "Yeah, I'll tell them "I am" has sent me!!" Moses just stands there in silence.
The end.
Okay, maybe it's only funny to me. Kind of like a Brick Testament rendering of the Bible, except without the God. If nothing else, the absence of God would make it closer to reality!!
One final note, and I don't remember if I've mentioned this before — part of the reason I chose "I Am" for the title of the blog, in addition to the story I tell in my first post about my eventual coming out as an atheist, was because God refers to himself as "I Am", which even when I was a believer sounded weird to me. So instead of "I Am the LORD" or "I Am I Am" (or Popeye's "I am what I am, and that's all that I am"), we have "I Am the BLOG" (or Blog, take your pick).
Okay, time to try to get to sleep!
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| | Posted 6/16/2009 1:47 AM - 19 Views - 0 eProps - 0 comments
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