He Doesn’t Exist
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Angry Josh isn’t afraid to challenge irrational beliefs, even those which comfort small children.
Today’s comic is also available on Christmas cards. Click here to order some.
30 Comments »
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Comment by ihavehadenough
November 24, 2009 @ 7:01 am
So, now you are attacking world wide belief systems and traditions that in some form or other date back over a thousand years? From a 4th century greek holy man to the brits father christmas, the culture behind this season extends far beyond any modern interpretation or criticism. I never knew FK was out to change the world, I thought they were just going to fix NH!
Comment by Puke
November 24, 2009 @ 7:16 am
Hah! I love this.
Christmas is a ridiculous holiday.
Let’s all buy a bunch of cheap crap for people we don’t really like b/c we feel obligated. Also, we’ll lie to our kids in a stupid attempt to guilt them into behaving.
Happy Festivus!
Comment by Vesuvius
November 24, 2009 @ 7:56 am
Yup. Ripping on non-existent figments that are usually the first big lie and disappointment in a child’s life is too much.
The cartoon also describes this “God” person so many have been taught to irrationally fear for well over two thousand years. Children cry when told Santa is not real. People have been slowly tortured to death for saying the same of someone’s God. When it comes to invisible wizards in the sky, the burden of proof is on the “believer”. And a simple act of faith does not magically bring such a being into existence.
By and large, Christmas has become a secular commercial holiday. So integral to the consumer culture that the shopping season begins right after Thanksgiving, itself a holiday of dubious origins. There were many “thanksgiving festivals” in colonial times, and many of them were to celebrate the slaughter of the local indigenous people. Look it up.
Thanksgiving is a great time to be thankful for friends, family, abundant food, and a warm place to doze off. Christmas as its essence of giving and caring is fantastic, but I think it would do better without the whole Santa thing. Personally, I’d rather my children (should I ever have them) understand they aren’t being rewarded by a corpulent, home invading voyeur but by their parents love for them.
Unless you’re a little brat. Sure it was sad, but little eight year old me knew there wasn’t much under the tree because there wasn’t much period. I learned to enjoy the things I had.
“Don’t kids ever just go outside and play with a stick anymore?” – George Carlin (paraphrased)
Comment by bil
November 24, 2009 @ 8:07 am
Boy,somebody is going to get coal in their stocking this year! Remember to take it out before to put the sock on.The coal can be burned in the stove,or traded for carbon credits. —bil
Comment by dj
November 24, 2009 @ 9:06 am
I just get so disappointed…. at…. over…. with….oh, nevermind 
Cool gray sweatshirt he’s got on
Comment by dalebert
November 24, 2009 @ 11:07 am
After looking at the comments so far, both here and on the other site, I am amazed by how much the God analogy was lost on people. Was it that subtle? I thought I was hitting people over the head with it.
Meanwhile, I see so much being read into my motives. This happens a LOT. This comic is for the most part just an honest characterization of Angry Josh. I live with the guy and am often inspired by his rants. Sometimes he gets into these modes where he’s shouting discussions that he would like to have with people but has managed to restrain himself. Other times he is repeating things where he failed to restrain himself or simply had no desire to.
Comment by dj
November 24, 2009 @ 12:28 pm
Dutch kids are visited by Sinterklaas during the holidays and brought gifts, unless they were bold, then Sinterklaas kidnaps them and takes them away to Spain. Sort of mean like the old testament God was or something.
Some of the kids get anxious with the stories and want to hang around at the unbelievers cafe hoping the Sinterklaas stories are a hoax, Angry Josh could make some headway there.
God is a concept by which we measure ourselves, sang John Lennon. A guy who was a friend once told me that he’d become a born again Christian because Jesus Christ came into church one day and sat in a chair on the alter right in front of him. I ain’t a sayin’ neither one of ‘ems wrong. What constitutes truth?
Comment by theKINGofKEENE
November 24, 2009 @ 3:40 pm
God thing? I missed *THAT*, entirely, until I read your post above, Dale. I can sorta’ see it now that you mention it/him/her…So if Santa Claus isn’t really real, what, you saying the *REINDEER* eat the milk & cookies???…
Comment by Scott
November 24, 2009 @ 5:21 pm
Don’t you think you have better things to occupy your time, that being bigger issues to deal with? Seems trivial and inane to me. A suggestion would be more Agorist themed comics. Have FSP and FK ever thought about contacting the Mises Institute and other people (Like CATO, libertarian minded affluent people (Penn, Peter Schiff, for instance), etc.), to try and pool together to start a bank and issue your own currency backed by Gold and Silver and to propagate it? Of course you would need at least 1,000,000 to start it up and primarily denoted in silver with some gold. You can fluctuate the currency based on Hayekian principle.
Start conducting and opening businesses using the currency, etc. Sometimes it seems there are a lot of libertines and not enough libertarians…maybe I’m wrong, but continue on !
Comment by Vix
November 24, 2009 @ 5:52 pm
Scott: Look up what happened to the Liberty Dollar and its founders.
You’ll see why thats not a great right now.
Comment by Paul
November 24, 2009 @ 7:22 pm
I like Dale’s comics a lot, and am glad that he creates simple humor sometimes, without always trying to make a point.
As far as the banking goes — I think the best approach is for people simply to use silver and gold to trade with each other. No centralized approach is necessary. Ask your local restaurateur, shopkeeper, or even landlord if they’d be willing to take silver, and use it for trade between friends. There is a lot of trade in silver already happening in NH.
Comment by theKINGofKEENE
November 24, 2009 @ 7:58 pm
…MISES.who???…*GESHUNDHITE*!…OK, kids, back to the topic!: See, Dale, your verbal description of “heaven”, is almost the same as how one would describe the North Pole, where Santa Claus lives. I think, in the word bubble, you should / could have made a more obvious distinction between “God”, & Santa Claus. The way you worded it makes it too easy for simple-minded folks like me to get confused. I used to have an image in my mind of God as a very, very old man in a long white robe & beard, sitting in a golden throne in heaven, looking down on me with a scowl on his face, holding a big stick ready to smack me with it when I ran out from cover to get to where I was going next. I kept looking up, not over my shoulder.Still, paranoia is paranoia, regardless of the specific manifestation. I think the red.circle.lined out sweatshirt was what you were counting on to clue the reader / viewer that you were talking about God, not Santa, right? Well, for me,it had the opposite effect. This is an excellent “teaching moment” for us all, here. No matter how clearly you *THINK* you’re explained something, if enough people see it, somebody will get an idea about it that you could not have anticipated. A good explanation of this can be found in “The Third Mind”, by William S. Burroughs, & painter Bryon Geisen(sp? on B.G….) Simply, when any 2 people “put their minds together”, what results can be, and usually is, greater than the sum of the 2 minds would seem to indicate. Colaboration is also an excellent source/cause of serendipity, synchrony, & synchronicity. (HINT: “Little brats” rarely, if ever *WANT* to be little brats. I believe it’s up to us to help them see, understand, & change their brattiness. ) &, I’d like to see at least 2 or 3 a week from you, if ya’ got it in ya’!…Thanks again,Dalebert, great cartoon…
Comment by EddiE
November 25, 2009 @ 12:20 am
Came for a Krampus reference.
Leaving dissapointed 
Comment by Vesuvius
November 25, 2009 @ 12:39 pm
The initial description of Santa Claus (the entirety of the first bubble) is an ambiguous characterization of the activities of the “father archetype.” Santa Claus, in my opinion, is God with training wheels.
Santa, intentionally or not, conditions children to accept the irrational and fantastical and the promise of reward (Heaven becomes presents) or threat of punishment (Hell becomes coal) as behavior modification. It also tells them that their own hard work will not yield them their desires, but rather obedience and favor of the overlord will. (see “good citizenship” in early elementary school.)
I think children would be much better off if treated like small adults in training. By their nature, children are irrational little monsters, and the bulk of parenting is guiding them into being rational, productive, and just adults.
Comment by Vesuvius
November 25, 2009 @ 2:35 pm
I do not have kids. I would like to be able to provide for them adequately before I do. I have experienced many children in my lifetime however. I even was one once!
Not all children are “irrational little monsters” but many of them are. They don’t understand the concepts and realities about the world that drive it forward. They learn not to stick things in the electrical outlets by education or by the consequence of the shock. I just don’t feel something as integral to early development as moral development should be short-handed with the Santa crutch. Explain to your children about money, work, and that it is good to give gifts to people you love. Tell them the real idea of Christmas is to help those who are less fortunate rather than waiting to be showered with gifts simply for existing (and being good.)
IHaveHad, do you think telling children that babies are delivered by a lanky bird does them any good when they ask where babies come from? Or that when it rains it means that God is crying? Or thunder is an angry man in the sky? If you tell them the truth about the sun, why stop there?
Comment by ihavehadenough
November 25, 2009 @ 3:10 pm
Forget the santa thing for a moment…
You do realize that raising kids ( I have 2 that are adults now) is all about teaching obedience and behavior modification thru reward/punishment is exactly how its accomplished. The electrical outlet and/or touching the hot stove are excellent examples of self learning that is also crucial.
We never used any of the inane examples about storks, rain and thunder you mentioned, but we did educate them about the history of christmas and its origins when they could comprehend. They did realize that the gifts came from our pockets but threats of rewards or withholding same was used.
Just for the record…both of them have grown to be anti-establishment and very independent free thinkers. Not keeniacs…but not far off either.
Comment by Vesuvius
November 25, 2009 @ 4:06 pm
My critique was in using lies, illusions and falsehoods to accomplish that end. Absolutely operant conditioning is clearly a practical, i would even say necessary, parenting tactic. But if it is detached from reason I feel it is counterproductive and only fuels disagreements and tensions in the family unit.
When children start demanding reasons for the rules you set and are not satisfied with a “because I said so”, that is their emergent rational faculties. Setting and enforcing rules and consequences are necessary, but do your children the courtesy of having a rational basis for said structure.
I’m glad you’ve continued to participate in the blogs and muse with us. Well wishes to you and yours this Thanksgiving.
Comment by ihavehadenough
November 25, 2009 @ 5:00 pm
Thank you very much Vesuvius, the same good wishes to you and yours. I appreciate your approach and “tone”. Both sides of this blog often degenerate very quickly into nastiness and self righteusness (sp?).
Hope to continue and find common ground to agree on and debate the differences with civility.
Comment by Puke
November 26, 2009 @ 8:02 am
Love your first comment Vesuvious.
I have never done the X’mas thing. My family didn’t do it. I’m so glad to not be a part of the holiday nonsense.
Comment by theKINGofKEENE
November 28, 2009 @ 12:00 pm
I HEREBY RESERVE THE RIGHT TO CONTINUE TO PRETEND TO BE AS NASTY AND IRRATIONAL AS I ALWAYS PRETEND TO BE,w/in the bounds of legal parody & satire, of course, ………..Of course your kids are “anti-establishment”, IHAVEHADENOUGH…it’s the INEVITABLE result of childhood punishment! What crimes*CRIMES* did you punish your kids for???…Maybe if you’d *DISCIPLINED* them more better, they would have enlisted and joined *ME* in supporting the imminent military coup…Kids need CORRECTION, when they make mistakes, & REDIRECTION when they start to go wrong, and SANTA CLAUS would be a harmless childhood fantasy, if you idiots wouldn’t take things so seriously…Me, I LOVE SANTA CLAUS!…(my ex-wife is an elf, what can i say?…
Comment by ihavehadenough
November 29, 2009 @ 6:59 pm
Hey King….go fuck yourself…your idiotic posts and bizarre use of punctuation and writing style add nothing to these subjects and only serve to confuse things.
Comment by theKINGofKEENE
November 29, 2009 @ 10:20 pm
…you’re such a petulant little sociopath, FRED…i’ll be glad to teach you how to be happy, again, if that’s an ability you’ve *EVER HAD*…///…FROM: IHAVEHADENOUGH: POST#85411, above:… “Hey King….go fuck yourself…your idiotic posts and bizarre use of punctuation and writing style add nothing to these subjects and only serve to confuse things.”…look, *FRED*, just because *YOU* don’t understand them…& What makes *YOU* think that you’re in my *TARGET AUDIENCE* AT ALL*???…freakin’ *NARCISSIST* – EVERYTHING’s about *YOU*, isn’t it, FRED???…(I really think that your wife, Karen, should give that $100,000. back to Marlborough School Taxpayers, don’t you???…
Comment by ihavehadenough
November 30, 2009 @ 6:33 am
Who are Fred and Karen…..Either you are trying out some kind of bizarre satire comparing me to people I never heard of..or you have truly lost your mind.
Comment by theKINGofKING
November 30, 2009 @ 10:59 am
Comment by ihavehadenough
November 30, 2009 @ 6:33 am
“Who are Fred and Karen…..Either you are trying out some kind of bizarre satire comparing me to people I never heard of..or you have truly lost your mind.”////…………Like I said, Fred, what makes you think that I’m talking about *YOU*???…—>”revenge is a dish best served cold” & “narcissistic personality disorder” is sweetest when it is correctly self-diagnosed, Dr. Freddie…//////…………………… Comment by ihavehadenough
November 29, 2009 @ 6:59 pm
Hey King….go fuck yourself…your idiotic posts and bizarre use of punctuation and writing style add nothing to these subjects and only serve to confuse things.
…”confuse *THINGS*”, or confuse *YOU*, fred???…
BWAHAHAHAhahahahah-ho-hum.^.>.}.>.O. ;>}
Comment by ihavehadenough
November 30, 2009 @ 3:23 pm
My guess is that at some point King tried to use HTML coding and screwed it up, it printed in his comment, someone called him on it and he said it was intentional and thus was spawned a new form of babbling….
Comment by theKINGofKEENE
November 30, 2009 @ 11:34 pm
Comment by ihavehadenough
November 30, 2009 @ 3:23 pm
My guess is that at some point King tried to use HTML coding and screwed it up, it printed in his comment, someone called him on it and he said it was intentional and thus was spawned a new form of babbling….
My guess is that at some point fred tried to smoke lawn grass, and it screwed him up, it imprinted on his eye-magic-nation, nobody called him and he said it was groovy grass, and thus was pawned a crap, sorry, just can’t do it, just can’t talk down that low to you/is HTML “hey, that’s my line”???…”Brooks tone merrily, racing through their courses, while i, i sit on banks of green, laughing, soaking wet.”
Comment by theKINGofKEENE
November 30, 2009 @ 11:38 pm
anybody else notice that all the above posts appear under the heading, “He Doesn’t Exist”?…(RE-LAaaaa-X, I’m just a fig newton of your mind, fred…>grin<.
Comment by Anton Lee
December 7, 2009 @ 8:30 am
It’s okay Hadenough, I’m pretty sure the celebration over the historical birth of the man known as Jesus of Nazareth isn’t going to go out of style anytime soon. People get their information from the blinking box in their living rooms, and that has Christ-centered commercials since before Thanksgiving.
So some crazy anarchists on the internet are making a point about the holiday. It’s okay, really, most of us are saying what others believe. Christmas has turned into a commercial holiday, I’m not sure it was ever really a celebration of the birth of Jesus. I watched a “Biography” of Santa Claus, and the majority of the time it was companies who were making up the storyline of Santa, he is the overwhelming figurehead of “Christmas”. . .go figure.
I hold dear my friends’ celebrations of the birthday of Jesus. Same as I do when some friends of mine celebrate the birthday of John Lennon. Both of them seemed like they were nice guys who didn’t really hurt others. I would, in return, expect my friends to condone and support my alternate beliefs and my ability to celebrate the beginnings of winter and the times of remembrance over those I’ve lost this year, and the great memories I’ve had over the year. I celebrate my holiday by spending time with friends and I even participate in giving gifts in their tradition. I hang pretty balsam firs on my door and a snowflake made of bells on my porch. I’m welcoming winter, an adversary and a forever companion on my trip of life.
I hope you and your children get the most out of the season in whatever fashion you choose to spend it. Merry Christmas.
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