2011-07-04
Explanation
This comic depicts the origin of religion in caveman-era terms. A bald, authoritative figure explains the afterlife to a group: "If good, when die, go to Meatland!" (depicted as a glorious pile of meat) and "If bad, when die, go to No Meatland!" (depicted with the grim label "No Meat!"). When someone asks how to be good and reach Meatland, the leader produces a stone tablet and says "Read stone tablet. Do what say."
The comic then jumps forward "several moons later" to show the inevitable theological complication: someone points out that the stone tablet contains "arbitrary rules and contradictions." The leader''s response -- "Is metaphorical!" -- parodies how religious authorities often dismiss problematic scriptural passages as metaphorical. This leads to the obvious follow-up questions: "Is all metaphorical?" and "Is context dependent?" and "Can specify which is which in advance?" These questions neatly satirize centuries of theological debate compressed into a few panels of caveman dialogue.
The punchline comes when the questioner is condemned: "Him not go to Meatland!" -- showing that questioning the internal consistency of religious texts gets you punished rather than answered. The votey panel adds one more gag: someone announces "Also... Soygatory," a portmanteau of "soy" and "purgatory," extending the meat-based theological framework with a disappointing middle-ground afterlife for those who are neither fully good nor fully bad.