Sidewalk Bubblegum Political Comic Cartoon Strip

Discussion (2)¬

1. Steve M says:

   July 5, 2010 at 5:50 pm

   Actually the spiritual but not religious stance is logical. There is a huge difference between the two. One involves forced dogma, a destructive influence in politics and world events, institutional racism and persecution against gay people, and so on and so forth. The other is merely a belief in universal love and connectedness, and a feeling that there is something in existence that is greater than ourselves.

   Of all of your cartoons this is the only one that didn’t seem to make sense, given your apparent world view. Regardless, keep us the good work.

2. Clay Butler (The Sidewalk Bubblegum Guy) says:

   July 5, 2010 at 6:16 pm

   Fair enough but I’m sticking to my guns on this one. The strip of course is about wanting to have it both ways. In Santa Cruz and really all of the Bay Area, the “I’m spiritual but not religious” mantra is the norm. To an atheist or human secularist it is a nonsensical distinction. They still have a belief system based upon unsubstantiated claims which is never a good thing regardless of how you frame it. So to me, spiritual people want all of the fun stuff of having religion beliefs without any of the sacrifice, work, standards or dogma. It also allows them to distance themselves from the more distasteful aspects of formal religion. So , as a non-believer, the “I’m spiritual but not religious” stance is a cognitive dissonance technique and a big cop out similar to the “I’m a vegetarian but I eat fish and chicken” statement.

   Thanks for writing though. I always enjoy other people’s interpretations of my strips as they are written in isolation to please myself. The reader then reads it isolation without the benefit of being in my brain so the strip will have different meanings to them….and sometimes even the opposite of my intended meaning.