here to answer it, please welcome the official chaplain of the colbert nation, father jim martin.j! what's going on? [cheers and applause] now i hope you can help me out here. as the author of the jesuit guide to almost everything you should be able to answer this question. what is god's job? >> sustaining the universe. >> stephen: can we judge him? >> no. [laughter] >> stephen: thank you so much for coming by. [laughter] why can't we judge god? he give us critical faculty, he made us very dissatisfied. why can't we, you know put the sandal on the other foot and say, you no he what let's have a little quality control here. we'll give you feedback and maybe he could change the way he behaves? >> i think we could try to understand the universe and god's ways. ultimately it's mysterious and particularly the things you pointed out, famines, floods, natural disasters, these things have confounded theologians and saints for years. this is probably something we won't be able to answer the question of why he allows these things to happen. >> stephen: why do you think his approval ratings

. >>> plus, stephen colbert reassuring the nation, starts to pack his survival kit after yesterday's selloff. the late-night reaction to the economic mess a bit later in the show. >>> but first, let's get to the news live at 5:30 a.m. in new york city. from asia to europe to here in the united states, standard and poor's historic downgrade of the nation's credit rating is having a ripple effect on the world's financial markets. although that's only a part of this story. the front page of the "wall street journal" reads, downgrade ignite a global selloff. stocks resume free fall on fear over economic and credit woes. when the closing bell rang on wall street yesterday, the dow finished down 634 points, that's the sixth worst point loss in the index's history and the sharpest one-day decline since the 2008 financial crisis. the s&p 500 fell 79 points, while the nasdaq tumbled 174 points. those all big percentage jumps. to plunge followed earlier remarks from president obama, who reaffirmed his belief in the strength of the nation's credit. it added that the ratings cut could be useful

nation, can we talk about colbert super pac for a second? can we do that? [cheering and applause] of course, you know our motto. say it with me, "making a better tomorrow tomorrow." you really didn't say it with me. [laughter] and, folks, we'll get there some day because last week two young children, charlie and grace, asked me what colbert super pac stands for. folks, i was so proved that i immediately passed the buck on to you. i asked you to go to colbert super pac.com and tell me what we believe new york and already over 40,000 of you heros have responded, so it's going to take a few more days for my team of not eight-year-old malaysian child laborers to sort through your meaningful suggestions. suggestions like at barbara c taylor who says, "i stand for making the rich pay their fair share of taxes, protect interests of the rest of us who bear the tax burden and delete." [applause] or at heather mack who stands for smacking slow-walking pedestrians in the back of the head. some of us have things to do. [cheering and applause] yes. pow. thwack. yes. slo

to keep the ads coming because two weeks ago i got asked what the colbert super pac stands for and i wanted to ask you, the super nation, to tell us what we stand for as colbertsuperpac.com. so far, 53,000 of you have responded. now, i plan to read all the submissions... (laughter) ... which i am completely capable of doing because reading is something i definitely know how to do. (laughter) but due to the massive volume, we instead use computers to crunch the data. so let's head over to the persuade-u-lux 6000. (cheers and applause) welcome. welcome to the persuade-u-lux. where eloquent speech becomes good and stuff like that. (laughter) i had my staff generate something called a word cloud, a visual representation of your most frequently used words. the more you use them, the larger they would appear in the cloud. so, nation, i give you what you stand for! (laughter) okay, there it is. (cheers and applause) evidently marijuana very high on your list. (laughter) i have forwarded all your contact information to the d.e.a. so they can find out just how much you care about it. your voices will be heard. (laughter) now, f

colbert super pac and the perry campaign. that would be wrong and illegal. they're as separate as church and state under a perry administration. [laughter] [cheers and applause] nationn once said, "everybody shut up. stephen's talking." this is tip of the hat, wag of the finger. [cheers and applause] nation, i love the story of the garden of eden. it gives me comfort to know that every time i sin, it's really eve's fault. [laughter] boy am i gonna blame some stuff on you this weekend! [laughter] -6- that's why i'm so disturbed by a new movement to break-up the bible's most famous couple. npr's steve inskeep explains. >> for many evangelicals, a historical adam and eve is a critical part of their theology, but now some conservative religious scholars are saying publically that they can no longer believe it. >> stephen: no adam and eve? no apple? no tasteful leaf thongs? and all because these so-called conservative scientists say "there is no way we can be traced back to a single couple...given the genetic variation of people today." oh, the genetic variation needs more than two people? fine, they had a freaky three-way with the snake. [laughter] that would explain th

colbert report." captioning sponsored by comedy central [theme song playing] [cheering and applause] >> stephen: thank you so much. welcome to "the report." good to have you with us. nation, please, we have to... [audience chanting "stephen"] thank you very much. very kind. and in return, let me say, dos vidana. nation, as everyone knows, i am the world's biggest fan of spider-man. what's that, nerds? you're a bigger fan than i am? really? well then here's a spidey trivia question. which issue had you on the cover? i am on amazing spider-man number 573 saving the webbed crusader. [cheering and applause] pretty cool. well, i'm afraid i cannot save him this time because of the latest issue of marvel comics ultimate fallout, peter parker is killed, presumably while appearing in spider-man: turn off the dark. [laughter] worst, now that peter parker is dead, there is a new replacement spider-man. >> billing, big shake-up in the superhero world. >> forget about peter parker, the new spider-man is swinging through the pages of marvel comics, and his name is miles morales. >> that's right. >> a teenager who is half black, half hispanic. >> stephen: half black, half hispanic? wha

colbert report." captioning sponsored by comedy central [theme song playing] [cheering and applause] >> stephen: thank you so much. welcome to "the report." good to have you with us. nation, we have to... [audience chanting "stephen"] thank you very much. very kind. and in return, let me say, dos vidana. nation, as everyone knows, i am the world's biggest fan of spider-man. what's that,