Explain SMBC — the wiki for Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

Order

2021-08-21 View on smbc-comics.com → 1 revision
Order
Votey panel for Order
This explanation is incomplete or may contain errors. It was generated by AI and has not yet been reviewed by a human editor.

Explanation

This comic presents a theological argument about the afterlife that cleverly turns a believer's reasoning against itself.

A woman asks another person if they believe in the afterlife. The person says "of course." The woman then constructs a logical argument: "Look around you. Everything physical is organized according to law and reason." The believer agrees.

The woman continues: "If everything is ordered, it follows that the creator of this world is a creator of profound wisdom and perfect knowledge." Again, the believer agrees -- this is a standard argument from design.

Then comes the punchline: "If there is a creator with perfect wisdom and perfect knowledge, it must follow that every last human should be sent to Hell." The believer is stunned.

The final panel shows them in silhouette: "You had me there. You lost me." "Heaven is for kittens and various dogs."

The humor lies in the unexpected logical turn. The argument from design -- that the orderliness of the universe implies a wise creator -- is typically used to argue for a benevolent God and a pleasant afterlife. But the woman subverts this: if God has perfect knowledge of humanity, then God knows exactly how terrible humans are, and a perfectly wise being would logically condemn them all. The joke implies that an omniscient being, upon truly knowing humans, would find them unworthy of paradise -- reserving heaven instead for innocent animals like kittens and dogs.

It's a playful philosophical inversion that satirizes both the argument from design and humanity's self-regard.

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