That’ll be the deity
I should start by stating this rather excellent idea for a strip was not my work… credit for that must go to Brandy, reporter extraordinaire for the superb Moue Magazine.
The Secular Society has been making moves recently… they have suggested that the NHS shouldn’t be paying for in-house chaplains, and that the money would be better spent on actually treating people. They believe the church should be paying for that service.
I have no problem, however, with money being spent in this way… whatever makes you feel better and provides you with comfort is fine with me.
I do like the idea of an atheist minister stood on vigil by my deathbed, reassuring me that when I die I’m going absolutely nowhere. That comforts me.
There is a problem though… God doesn’t leave answering machine messages, that would be too easy, however there are people who do genuinely believe they hear messages from him. Some of these people are quite ill and are in mental health facilities. Schizophrenia and the like.
The problem I have here is that religious ministry is at odds with their treatment. Yet it still happens. On one side you have doctors and clinicians trying to help someone deal with some genuinely disturbing effects of mental illness, and on the other you have opportunistic recruiters telling people that God does speak to people, and that’s OK.
What we need is a test, a way to know whether someone does have a serious mental illness or if they are indeed having some sort of chat with God… I’ve been trying to come up with one, but I’m left waiting for divine inspiration.
I only deserve partial credit. You came up with the concept of God leaving an answering machine message. I only supplied the “Deus Ex…” bit.
“What we need is a test…”
We could update the tests used to determine whether someone was a witch but those didn’t seem to go terribly well.
Brandys last post..The Man Who Was Almost President
What, like being given a choice of two doors… behind one is the way out the other is certain doom… God will tell you which one to choose?
And stop being so modest, you supplied the best bit.
Only for every second or third test taker, both doors will lead to certain doom. Keeps everyone on their toes that way.
Brandys last post..The Man Who Was Almost President
LOL man.. what a message to come home to.
artisticDOOMs last post..Del Loco Taco
The second message is from Jesus:
‘Hey, did I lend you my Family Guy box set? I seem to remember that I did, but I’m not sure… any way, you up for going to see the new Pixar film on Sunday?’
Oh man, that answering machina is hillarious! I think you just made an instant classic.
I’m left wondering why no one has thought of putting this on a shirt yet.
The idea of Flowfield T-shirts has popped up periodically. The truth is that I’ve yet to fin a satisfactory way of creating them.
I’d like to do them in the same way as I do my books, that is to make each one for each customer rather than have them mass produced. I just haven’t figured a great way of acheiving this yet that makes them affordable and individual.
That said, if anyone is interested in getting a t-shirt, get in touch and we’ll see if we can work something out between us.
Sharpie markers?
i’ve found a lot of tutorials for cheap screen printing on the instructables website.
http://www.instructables.com/id/Screen-Printing%3a-Cheap%2c-Dirty%2c-and-At-Home/
i’ve been making t-shirts recently, silk screen and stencil with fabric paint. either one of these would work for your drawings, stencil doesn’t look as nice, but its cheaper (no screen or photo emulsion). but silk screen was easier than i thought too, and there are ways to make it cheaper like buying the fabric separately and getting a used frame at a garage sale. I made like 36 shirts in 2 weeks or so, and sold them for $5 each. it was fun.
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Your T-shirt designs are brilliant… (seriously people, check them out).
http://donaldambroziak.com/?page_id=5
The problem I have is that I can’t seem to keep the costs reasonable… I’m working on it though, I promise…
I think part of the problem is that I want to make each shirt a one-off and as such the screen is a bit excessive since it would not be re-used… yet stencils just don’t deliver on the quality, especially for the text.
Maybe I’m being too picky… what do you think?
Oooh, there are great! I love the Thor with Narwhal… brilliant!
Adam, you can do things with a screen to still make them all individual, such as change or mix all your colours by hand. Or modify the screen with sharpie marker, which seems your style, no? Also, really, I don’t think anyone would mind getting one out of a batch of twenty or thirty — call them “rare, limited edition prints.”
Thanks for the kind words,
Also, with the silk screens, at least in my experience, they are all diverse because each time i push a different amount of ink through the screen, not on purpose, but each time some parts are darker and some parts are lighter, but anyway, don’t do something if it doesn’t seem right to you. I guess another way of going about things would be to get the order from someone, make the design, apply it to a single shirt on cafepress.com (or something similar), they buy it on there, then you remove it from the site, and maybe send them the original drawing. It wouldn’t be a hand drawn shirt, but it would be unique. I don’t know, it’s tricky… alright, enough about t-shirts, what else is goin on. I guess i should be working right now.
[...] The Flowfield Unity » Archive » That’ll be the deity (tags: the.flowfield.unity webcomics god deus.ex.machina) [...]
Or:
You talk to God, you’re religious. God talks to you, you’re psychotic.
– Doris Egan
“I have an understanding with God. I don’t understand Him and He doesn’t understand me.”
- George Carlin
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I don’t mind God. It’s his fan club I can’t stand.
-Someone else
Hahha!
I LOL’d, literally. Good one Adam, Brandy. Both. Together.
As to religion and hospitals and NHS — isn’t the Church of England still the official gov’t sponsored church? Kids take R.E. classes, and state money goes to the church, and the King’s still the head of the church, isn’t he? So, until all that changes, is this really an issue? The gov’t money would bet taken away from hospital chaplains, and put into local churches to support the exact same programme. Shouldn’t the bigger issue be: is a state-sponsored church a good idea at all?
I guess I sholud say the Queen’s the head, but any time I think of monarchs as the head of teh Church of England, my brain conjures up Henry the VIII. And now I have a picture of Henry the VIII’s body with Queen Elizabeth’s head on top. *shudders*
Thanks! But again, mostly him.
Brandys last post..Stress Tests Are Easy A’s
You can’t make a test of whether or not God is doing anything. The results will always be the same as if there were no God. The non-religious will say that this is because there is no God, and the religious will say that it’s because God doesn’t like being put to the test, but the fact is you can’t get any information out of it either way.
I’ve always been puzzled by the whole “don’t put God to the test” thing, though. According to the Bible, you’re not supposed to jump off a cliff and expect God to catch you, but you *are* supposed to give away all your possessions and expect God to feed and clothe you like the birds and the lilies. I don’t really see the difference here.
As for whether someone has a mental disease, I say keep following the convention that mental hospitals already use. If someone is hearing the voice of God, treat him for it only if he wants treatment, unless he is becoming dangerous to himself or others; then treat him against his will. I figure the question isn’t whether God is speaking to the person, but whether the person and those around him can live with it all right.
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