Original artwork, not a still
Life, the Universe and Everything · 1982
He hoped and prayed that there wasn’t an afterlife. Then he realized there was a contradiction involved here and merely hoped that there wasn’t an afterlife.
Behind the line
What it means
Our interpretation.
His hope and prayer that there is no afterlife undermines itself: praying assumes someone might hear, which implies the very thing he hopes is absent. Realizing this, he settles for simply hoping. The joke lies in a tidy piece of logic catching a wish in its own contradiction.
Context reviewed
