Explain SMBC — the wiki for Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

2011-12-16

2011-12-16 View on smbc-comics.com → 1 revision
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2011-12-16
Votey panel for 2011-12-16
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Explanation

This single-panel comic shows a child kneeling beside her bed at night, praying: "Dear Lord, please cure my mommy in a way that is indistinguishable from the results of proper medical treatment."

The joke is a compact piece of theological satire. The child's prayer highlights a core skeptical argument about faith healing and miraculous cures: if a divine intervention produces results that look exactly the same as what medicine would accomplish, there is no way to distinguish it from ordinary medical treatment actually working. The prayer essentially asks God to act in a way that would provide zero evidence of His involvement. It is a gentle but pointed commentary on the unfalsifiability of miracle claims -- when a "miracle" cure is indistinguishable from medical science, one has to ask whether the miracle actually occurred at all.

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