David Ostow, the com­ic artist behind So Punk Rock (And Oth­er Ways to Dis­ap­point Your Moth­er), and his sis­ter, Micol Ostow, are guest-blog­ging all week with MyJew­ish­Learn­ing and Jew­ish Book Council.

These are the first two pages of a strip I’m cur­rent­ly draw­ing with the work­ing title ​“In Defense of The Irra­tional: A Brief and Not Ter­ri­bly Accu­rate His­to­ry of Faith ver­sus Rea­son.” Beyond my goal of mak­ing peo­ple laugh (the tone of the com­ic is very tongue-in-cheek), I hope that read­ers will find the com­ic strip ‑when com­plete- thought provoking.

Can a good case be made for main­tain­ing reli­gious rit­u­al in our sec­u­lar age? Sure, sci­en­tif­ic research and tech­no­log­i­cal inno­va­tion have brought us far from our prim­i­tive ances­tors (with whom my com­ic begins). However,I think that just as rit­u­al was a reflec­tion of our ances­tors’ bewil­der­ment and won­der in a world full of mys­ter­ies, it can play the same role in our lives. Know­ing that the uni­verse start­ed with a ​‘big bang’ doesn’t make the con­cept of the uni­verse any less inef­fa­ble. Quite to the con­trary, it only adds to the mystery.

Click on each pan­el to read the full page!

David Ostow works at a design firm in New York City, illus­trates on a free­lance basis, and is the co-cre­ator of So Punk Rock (And Oth­er Ways to Dis­ap­point Your Moth­er). Come back all week to see his and his sis­ter Micol’s blogs.