Plenty of people like Joyce, I’m sure. Granted, she has her foolish and/or misguided moments, but then, don’t we all? I imagine we’re just less vocal than the haters.
She had various worldview assumptions. She’s recently started adjusting to the reality that not everyone feels the same way, and that’s actually ok.
Now her parents come in with “no, it’s not,” and she not only sees their comments partially the way others do, but I’m sure there’s a healthy handful of “was that how I came/come across?”
This is pretty much why I like Joyce. You get to watch her worldview change as she realizes that, for example, atheists aren’t bad influences. Speaking as someone who , through a similair situation (though I was actually worse than Joyce I’m sad to say) and came out of it a well-rounded invidual, I’m looking forward to where this goes.
Course I went from conservative Christian bordering on right-wing nut job to an atheist who would be an anarchist if he had more faith in humanity, perhaps I’m not the best example.
I’d date me the hell outta some joyce, first I’d respect her as a person, then I’d get her the complete dexter and monkey master series, then I’d get her the comics, then we’d talk about jesus, then we’d talk about the great athiesmo
Joyce hits close to home for me, which is why I like her so much. During high school, I sort of was Joyce, as were a lot of my friends. Once I got to college, my de-Joyce-ing happened pretty quickly, but it was still an incredibly difficult process for me.
And I still have very Joyce-like friends. For example, about a month ago, a friend and I were watching Cloud Atlas (he’d read the book but hadn’t seen the movie). I’d forgotten that there were a few shots of characters having sex in the middle of the film intercut with other things. When we got to that part, all he said was, “Well, that’s obscene.”
I once watched The Princess Bride with two VERY sheltered Orthodox boys. One of them had seen it before, the other had not. The looks on their faces when Westley got to the “perfect breasts” line were PRICELESS.
to tyren —
The marriage ceremony is over and she is in her chamber. She has vowed to commit suicide rather than be married to Prince Humberdinck. She has taken a dagger from a case and is holding it, pointy-side in, against her breast when Westley (whom she had not noticed lying on her bed) delivers the line about how “There is a shortage of perfect breasts in this world. ‘Twould be a pity to damage yours.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XegOczOvfXY
It might be a split between people who’ve read It’s Walky and people who haven’t. I can easily see why a new reader would hate Joyce. I’m just excited to see her character development from a new perspective, because I know how great she can turn out.
Funny you say that, because the Joyce in IW was actually not NEARLY as open to other world views as this version of her is, even in college. Remember when she kept yapping during that movie and criticized a couple for sleeping together unmarried? The DoA version of Joyce doesn’t seem the type to do that. I think this one is much more mellow.
yes, but now it’s scream then her freezing up. and it’s mostly just that she can’t accept.
The roomies version would scream, then break into a long tirade, completely obliterate what the person was doing to lecture them, stalking them back to their homes if need be. also, she did it on a lot more subjects.
I imagine that’s partly because the original Joyce was exaggerated by Willis “for comic effect”, but over the years he’s matured and realizes that funny is funnier if it’s not so damn funny. In other words, subtlety is key.
Joyce is friggin’ adorable. I can’t understand how people can hate her for the bloopers that she makes because of her upbringing, when she is the one who suffers most because of them: the poor girl’s constantly bumping against reality and struggling to adjust and she just doesn’t get a break, and readers hate her for it. Sheesh.
I don’t think she’s intentionally been racist, and when she does goof up she seems to genuinely feel bad for it. She’s trying to learn from her mistakes and become a better person than what her upbringing has taught her.
She’d hardly know about those “valid reasons” with her ultra-sheltered upbringing (remember, homeschooling) All the harm she’s done was unintentional, she’s felt really bad about it and it’s been forcing her to reevaluate a lot of things in her worldview, which is now falling into pieces. The girl’s basically gone from one “earth-swallow-me” moment to another since the comic started. I can’t understand how anyone that’s been paying attention to the strips could hate her.
What? I’m not saying that she knows about the valid reasons- that’s not really the point? They’re still valid. My point is that as much as going through a change like this can be upsetting and confusing it’s shitty and dismissive to pretend Joyce’s mistakes are victimless. Racism, intentional or not, is, in fact, a shittier thing to experience than embarrassment over saying something racist. It’s totally cool to sympathize with what Joyce is going through, but make her out to be some woobie who’s ignorance only hurts herself…that’s gross.
Well -you’re right, of course, but nobody said that her mistakes were victimless (or did they? I know I didn’t) I said I can’t understand why some people hate on Joyce so much, but not because “she isn’t hurting anyone”; in fact, part of my argument is that she herself is one of the people getting hurt by her mistakes.
No. What you said is that she herself IS THE ONE WHO SUFFERS THE MOST. That statement completely invalidated the pain she causes; don’t try to pretend otherwise.
1 -Yes. I did say that she’s the one who’s suffered the most. Other characters -e.g. Jacob- have been annoyed and offended at her comments, but that hasn’t driven them to anxiety or shattered their worldview.
2 -Nope. That doesn’t “invalidate” in any way the fact that she has annoyed or offended other people, and there was nothing in my comments to suggest that I meant it that way. Don’t try to pretend otherwise.
One of my best friends in residence was a male cardboard cut out of Joyce… kindest heart you’d ever meet with the WORST opinions on everything… Just gotta learn to accept people for their faults…
Its good to remember that Good people can have ignorant views. I’m sure there were many “haters” but most of em were probably just people voicing their continued dismay at the real willful ignorance and prejudice exemplified by her character.
*squints at background* I guess those are supposed to be multiple individual posters, but seeing some of the stuff Willis reblogs on Tumblr, I prefer to think that Joyce has found (or made) Christian fanart of Dexter & Monkey Master. I expect this to show up on fucknoreligiousfanart any day now.
Here’s a hint, if you want something to not be adorable, don’t dress it like that.
Seriously, in panel two she looks like a grumpy cartoon villain who wants to spoil the Care Bears’ picnic, but will be won over once they offer her cookies and friendship.
I couldn’t help but flip that around in my head to Dorothy being the “evil” atheist villain and Joyce’s family trying to win her over with cookies and friendship. Even intolerant, the Browns are kind of adorable, like Care Bears.
I don’t know enough about the newer Care Bears cartoons to speak with any authority, but in the classic cartoons at least, their villains weren’t into spoiling picnics so much as freezing innocent people in ice, taking over small countries, and brainwashing all of mankind to make sociopathy the new norm. 😛
High functioning sociopaths would create a society to indulge their less savory tendencies.
“Hey, Ted.”
“Hey, Bob.”
“How’s the corkscrews working out?”
“Eh, they work on the new pain posts, but suck at holding my shed together.”
“Hahahahahaha.”
Wait, wouldn’t Amber or Dina be Blue? I thought Blue was the nerdy one. (I only watched like 2 episodes, and read one book, of the original Power Rangers. My parents wouldn’t let me watch it because it was needlessly violent).
Joe would be Red Ranger
Danny would be Blue Ranger
Billie would be Yellow Ranger
Joyce would be Pink Ranger
Jacob would be Black Ranger
Drunk Mike would be Green Ranger.
No I wasn’t exaggerating, colouring the background and shirt, changing the mouth and cropping the image doesn’t take that long, to be fair I didn’t include the time it takes to load up my photoshop and having Gravatar to upload it but 6-7 mins isn’t far-fetched.
Our chief weapon is surprise…
surprise and fear…
fear and surprise….
our two weapons are fear and surprise…
and ruthless efficiency….
Our three weapons are fear, surprise, and ruthless efficiency…
and an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope….
Our four…no… amongst our weapons….
amongst our weaponry…are such elements as fear, surprise….
I’ll come in again.
Oh geeze, I saw the word club and thought you were making a pun on card suits. I think punsontheinternet.tumblr.com broke my damn brain. Or maybe that was just the internet in general that did that.
Thank you very much for that, my entire worldview has been struck down and I now wish to go join those who apparently cannot appreciate that someone has different beliefs than they and therefore feel the need to belittle them.
I was referring to you, in case you didn’t get that.
I’m all for fighting over the internet with strangers. Sure, you’ll both prove nothing to the other really, but we’ll get a nice view of all the frustration you’re going to put yourselves through. So, plus for us.
Yeah, personally I think she’d eventually decide to be Christian… but I doubt she’d choose to be this brand of fundamentalist Christian, which to her parents would probably mean her eternal damnation anyway so it’s just as bad.
2nd Panel Face makes me think of Damien from The Omen. Angelic-looking until pissed off, and then . . . beautiful blue eyes make the hate painful for everyone!!
Considering it’s been about three years since a regular update happened, it’s depressing but with the Chaps doing other works and more people creating more original content, I can see why it’s forgotten by most.
Damn, this storyline has given me so many different people to hate… So many flavors of asshole.
…That sounds so wrong, but I can’t figure out another way of wording it.
When I try to argue that “love thy neighbor” means “don’t be a racist,” I usually get the counter-argument of, “Oh, yeah? Well, WHO’S my neighbor, huh?” So I point out that the Good Samaritan was about how filthy half-breen racially-inferior samaritans were just as good as everybody else. Then the racists get mad at me and say stupid things like, “Well, Jesus didn’t really MEAN it!”
So I tell them that since they choose not to believe a word Jesus says, they obviously don’t follow him, and are not Christians.
It’s kind of similar to this one. “Well, Jesus hung out with sinners, but nobody should do the same or evangelize!” Yeah, you say that, and you’re a crappy Christian. or not one at all.
Or how basically the whole Sexual preference thing can be combated with “He who is without sin cast the first stone”
I don’t read the bible but…hey…I know this thing.
Even if you think being gay is a sin. So is coveting, lieing, cheating, stealing, worshiping anything not god, Basically being rich in and of itself, so you can’t pretend like you don’t do ANY of these regurally. I’ve done at least 2 today! Probably multiple times.
Before the late middle ages (XIVth century), public baths were popular but then they got accused of spreading the plague and were gradually closed. Also, the Church saw them as places of depravity (naked people together ?! prostitutes ?!).
And then people got the idea that it was the bathing itself and not the whole, you know, close proximity and get all up in one’s crevasses while already infected and likely not showing symptoms yet that probably did it.
And by the looks of a map that was going around Tumblr, Poland and Milan and this little splotch of land above Spain never saw the plague. According to someone posting in that thread Poland had welcomed the Jews into their country, and the Jews bathed regularly and brought the concept to Poland as well.
Meanwhile Milan burned down the houses of anyone who showed symptoms of the plague while the diseased were still inside. Yeah.
Never found out about that splotch above Spain though.
Regardless, that does not make what he said any less valid. If a kid is hitting a boy for picking his nose and I say “Don’t hit people”, that doesn’t specifically mean “Don’t hit people that are picking their nose”. It means “Don’t hit people ever (unless there is just cause)”
Hmmm…I’ll give you that. I haven’t read the bible, so I guess i’m ignorant.
Although I’m pretty sure noone has ever stopped sinning of their on volition.
None of the passages that are supposedly “against” gay peeps are very convincing anyway. I do not think it is really a sin even by the Bible’s standards.
For once I decided to look around Google and see why, exactly, our clean homeboy Jesus was hanging around prostitutes, and according to the internet Mary Magdalene wasn’t actually a prostitute, and any mention of one before hand wasn’t her, like in Luke 7:36-50.
…But my source is a random thread on a site called “Godlike Productions” and there’s a lot of snarkiness going around that thread anyway, so I don’t really know how trustworthy this is, but nothing else that came up was equally helpful.
The adultress is never actually named, and the next prominent woman to show up is Mary M. Now, whether you believe the conspiracy theories or think that it’s just centuries of lazy thinking, the fact remains that the belief that Mary M. is the adultress is esentially fanon that many people believe to be canon.
His first recorded miracle was turning water into wine at a wedding celebration. I’ve used that one for years to counter fundamentalists when they find out my hobby is *gasp* brewing beer.
Geezus christ, look, there’s straight edge, there’s hardline, and then there’s this. I’ll gladly take with the straight edgers, they seem to give the least fucks.
…thinking about it now, that comment didn’t make sense, did it?
Also thinking about it, who the heck doesn’t know about Jesus turning water into wine? I remember hearing about that long before I saw South Park talk about it in that Super Best Friends episode.
Uh, are you claimining to be Jesus? At any rate, I consider Eliah to be the first noted expert regarding distillery. He lives with a widow who has wheat in hiding, and when he comes out in a time of utter draught, he lets a steer be consumed by fire “even” after pouring plenty of “water” on it (which would have to be “conveniently” available in pitchers since it won’t be present otherwise in a draught) and the “fire from heaven” consumes the steer and “even” all the “water” around it in a big puddle.
According to certain teetotalers I’ve talked with, he turned the water into “Non-Alcoholic Wine” AKA Grape Juice. Not what the actual scripture says, but whatever helps them sleep at night I guess.
John 2:10 – “Everyone brings out the choice wineGRAPE JUICE first and then the cheaper wineGRAPE JUICE after the guests have had too much wineGRAPE JUICE to drink; but you have saved the best wineGRAPE JUICE till now.”
My understanding of the matter is that wine was significantly less alchoholic back then, and as such cannot be compared to the wine of today. But then again, I have done no research on the subject, so take everything I say with a grain of salt.
Well, drinking water was not terribly safe, but people did not really get the whole micro organisms thing yet. As a result people got sick less often from beers and wines because the alcohol killed germs, so they drank the stuff a lot. Like instead of water, pretty much. So logically it would sort of have to be pretty weak or else everyone would have died from dehydration, I would imagine.
Either way though the people who say that booze is sin are just making shit up. Gluttony is a sin, so alcohol *abuse* is a sin, but alcohol itself is just a regular indulgence.
“My understanding of the matter is that wine was significantly less alchoholic back then, and as such cannot be compared to the wine of today. But then again, I have done no research on the subject, so take everything I say with a grain of salt.”
Wine was plenty alcoholic in ancient times, but some cultures (the classical Greeks, for instance) would cut their wine with water. At a symposium (drinking together) the symposiarch would decide the ratio of wine to water, basically establishing whether the symposium would be a sober affair where people only got a bit mellow, a raging kegger, or something in between.
Here’s what I’ve never understood about people who make claims that people with different beliefs are bad influences, doesn’t that imply that their dedication and actual belief in their religion is so shallow that exposure to any differing opinion will cause a total abandonment of their faith? Which would also mean the only reason their children even share their beliefs is due to ignorance of other options?
I can’t find the comic, but it reminds me of a Dilbert strip where Dogbert’s sitting on a bench listening to some idiot say that he tells his kids this is right, this is wrong, end of story, basically.
Dogbert then asks (to paraphrase) that if he teaches his kids this, doesn’t that take away their ability to think freely. The guy says he hadn’t thought about that, to which Dogbert says “duh”.
Uh, have you actually read the Bible? People are willing to abandon their faith at the drop of a hat. Including the chosen people. Even right after being led out of egypt, their enemies slain, and them being fed with mannah. There is a stream of prophets who have to keep reminding people that it’s for their best interest if they don’t forget who’s their spiritual boss.
I mean, that’s the reason that the ark of the covenant did not contain the original God-given tablets of law (those were broken by Moses in ire over the Golden Calf) but rather a copy made by Moses. At least according to the Bible, if not Indiana Jones.
So you need prophets, fire and brimstone to keep reminding people of their faith, and even then you fail often enough and need to kill a whole lot (starting with the great flood).
They had a particular way of phrasing it at church when I attended. It went something like this.
“Sometimes kids will want to hang out with bad sorts thinking they can convert them.”
They would gesture with their hands. One is the delinquent. One is the good Christian kid. Show the delinquent coming over to where the good christian kid is.
“Sometimes it works out, but usually when you make yourself a part of their peer circle, they influence you as much as you influence them, so the two of you end up meeting eachother in the middle.”
Again with the hand gesture. This time the two hands come together in front of the guy talking.
“Which isn’t necessarily the worst thing, but then when you meet another misguided soul you’re already all the way over here, and you meet eachother in the middle again”
Gesture, bad hand back where it started, they move together and meet at the 3/4 marker.
“And then that happens again and again until finally you’re right there with all of them”
The idea seemed to be that there was too much of a back and forth in a friendship relationship. If you want to save them you can push your beliefs without opening yourself up to theirs.
No idea if that’s what Joyce’s parents subscribe to or not.
Wow, sick. Of course, the simple answer is “we’re the chosen people, not the choosing people”. Well, except that Israel is the chosen people, but let’s not get hung on details or we’ll run out of stones for stoning. James was fuzzy about details and if he had prevailed, Christianity would have been based on the teachings of Christ rather than those of Paul and it would have remained a fringe Jewish sect.
Of course Jesus hung out with prostitutes. It was the easiest way to bring the harlots to Jesus. All it took was a “Yo, Mary! C’mon over here!” and BAM they were saved, just like that.
More seriously, how does Pa Brown expect Joyce to be able to save atheists if she doesn’t get to know them? It’s a lot easier to convince a mark that what you are selling is the solution if you can tailor your sales pitch specifically for their problems. Any good hustler, salesperson, or missionary can tell you that.
Children who are expected to bring others to Jesus should be thoroughly versed in all forms of marketing and propaganda, if for no other reason than to keep them from falling for the seduction of the adversary.
The problem is that using that approach tends to have you lose a certain percentage of your flock to said marketing and propaganda.
“Ok this is the argument that the godless heathens are going to use to try and disprove our religion”
“Wait… that actually kind of makes sense!”
“D’oh!”
Instead, evangelical Christians tend to teach “This is how you convince someone with the Bible.” Which really only works if the person you’re trying to convince believes the Bible to begin with.
You can change your mind about some things without becoming atheist or converting to another religion. Fundamentalism is NOT a requirement for being Christian. Also…if you don’t look at opposing arguments, then you’ll never be prepared.
He turned water to wine FOR parties. As in literally, that was the reason he did it. His first recorded miracle, if you don’t count being born or talking coherently in public.
There might be people out there who haven’t met a coherent eight year old. As flimsy as an internet assertion of ability might be, I felt that half-hearted support of the assumption at hand was better than none.
A fool will ask more questions than a wise man can answer. Religion helps to provide answers. “Because you’ll burn in hell for it.” is more convincing than “Because you just don’t do this.”
And the concept of an irate and just God is much more accessible than Kantian ethics.
Once you get to “Because it hurts him if you do that.” – “That would explain why he would not like me to do that. I was asking why I should not want to do that.” it’s a real thin line to walk on without reverting to religion or what amounts to it.
Being a responsible atheist is hell because there is no grace and no absolution. Everything you do sticks with you for eternity. Being an irresponsible atheist is hell to others (but not really all that different from being an irresponsible theist).
The only thing you need to access a secular moral system is empathy. It’s practically instinctive. Kant and others just codified it. Hell, -religious- people access a secular moral system, which is why they don’t stone people for working on sunday, kill people for being gay or for not being virgins, or keep slaves anymore. If religious people exhibited moral behavior strictly because they thought hell was waiting for them, they would exhibit a completely different set of behavior than they do.
Ask yourself, if “You’ll burn in hell” is more convincing than “because it’s bad for society if that’s allowed”, then why do secular nations generally seem to be -better places to live- then religious nations?
No, Kant actually specifically rejects using empathy as a moral tool — he thought that ethics based in any kind of emotion were kind of doomed. (What happens if you ever fail to empathize with another human being? Since your moral decisions are based on empathy, you might wind up treating that human being like shit. Your moral system is now inconsistent and it has failed you.)
Instead, he gives out some basic principles which he believed can be applied logically to always choose the correct action. For example, the principle of universalization, where you can only do something if you can say it should (or even could) be applied by everyone, everywhere.
The most famous example is lying. You can’t universalize lying because it will literally cease to work: if everyone lied all the time, no one would ever believe anything anyone ever said, so lying would become meaningless. As such, you know that lying is a thing you must not do.
Note that your empathy for fellow human beings is irrelevant here. Kant never asks you to think about how you would feel of someone lied to you — all that matters is that lying doesn’t work.
Personally though I subscribe to Utilitarianism, as codified by Mills. And in that philosophy, empathy is very much a factor.
If it’s all based on logic alone, then you don’t care about the person. The If it’s all based on logic alone, then you don’t care about the person. The fact that you don’t empathize doesn’t instantly mean cruelty; you could simply ignore them. Empathy also doesn’t mean extending it equally to everyone. Would you feel bad for someone if they get punished for murder?
I also see too many flaws to fully support utilitarianism.
1) Kant doesn’t ask you to care about the person. He requires that you treat the person as an end in themselves rather than a means to your end, but that’s it. And this requirement too follows logical principles. So I don’t know why you think this is an objection that proves anything?
Is it because I have argued that Christianity doesn’t make people good, it just scares them into pointing their worst traits at other the “right” people? Because I find Kant’s rules to be a much tighter leash than Christianity for restraining people who suck, plus — unlike most but not all forms of Christianity — philosophy encourages critical thinking and self-evaluation, both of which are more likely to lead to the improvement of moral character than blind obedience.
2) “Punished” is a very nonspecific word. Provided that punishments are proportional and not viciously cruel, they are good for everyone, not just the victim — in which case there is no need to “feel bad” for the murderer. If you’re asking if I completely lose my ability to empathize with someone just because they did something wrong, then no, I don’t. But your question is very vague, so it’s difficult to answer it with any precision.
Do I think they are still a human being with rights? Yes, I do. I’m not Lockeian, I don’t think violating the social contract means you sacrifice ALL the rights it endowed you with, but you did lose some of them (like the right to freedom and privacy). I also think that taxes are part of our social contract and that people who don’t want to pay them should have to leave.
3) Do you really? I’m afraid that the rest of your comment I don’t really think you understand what you’re talking about either, so I’m not surprised. Things we don’t understand often appear to be full of obvious holes.
The important thing is to treat people ethically even if you don’t care about them. If a minority is being treated unfairly, then people in the majority tend to ignore their plight, not necessarily doing anything that they think of as cruel, and getting upset when the minority makes a fuss about changing a situation that, from the majority’s perspective, was working fine with no problems.
Even if you hate someone’s guts, let them have their say.
Even if you hate someone’s guts, let that person have the same freedom and safety you do.
Even if you hate someone’s guts, let them have a fair trial if accused of murder.
To look at the flip side of the coin, you generally shouldn’t give people an unfair advantage (e.g. nepotism) because you like them more than others, or for other emotional reasons.
Acting ethically according to logic doesn’t make you like people less, it makes how you treat people more applaudable whether you like them or not.
Actually, I’ve always thought that if you needed to believe in Hell in order to behave like a good person, you aren’t a very good person to begin with.
Take your example of the sociopath who thinks no one’s feelings matter except his own. Fear of an angry God doesn’t make that person empathize with anyone — it doesn’t make him or her believe that other people are human beings with rights. And, since he/she isn’t made to accept that fact, it’s really no surprise that so many religious people feel perfectly entitled to spit on anyone without God’s personal seal of “no seriously I’ll send you to Hell for being mean to them” approval. Because it’s NOT like there’s anything wrong with being vile human beings — all you have to do is worry about not being vile in the few very specific ways God mentioned by name.
And even there, you get folks insisting that God and Jesus didn’t really mean their explicit instructions for not spitting on people. “Oh no it’s totally cool to be rich and step on poor people, I’m so going to Heaven! Because when Jesus said it was impossible for rich people to do that, he was speaking in metaphorical code and anyway he just meant BOB, the one dude he was talking directly to, not ME.”
And if you admit that fear of God only affects behavior, rather than creating goodness inside crappy people, you must acknowledge that the consequences of jail time and societal exile and so on are pretty much just as good for affecting the behavior of crappy people. Better in some ways, since there are fewer loopholes for asshattery.
Meanwhile, when it comes to actually helping people to BE better, philosophy has you beat in every conceivable way.
Actually, I’ve always thought that if you needed to believe in Hell in order to behave like a good person, you aren’t a very good person to begin with.
Well, that’s the whole point. Religion maintains a working society without requiring very good persons as building blocks. There are a few of those around, but not enough to provide more than cornerstones.
We try to build secular systems of law, but they are inherently built on ethical systems that are ultimately abstracted from religious laws.
Religion is quite good for bootstrapping societies: “you’ll go to hell if you break the law” is a working threat in a tribe. “You’ll go to prison if you break the law” requires a police, a justice system, prisons and so on.
Now in the U.S.A., it’s more like “you’ll go to prison if policemen and/or prosecutors decide to break the law to your disadvantage” which is a bit too non-deterministic to serve as a moral guideline. So in the U.S. “you’ll go to hell” leads to better results since most religions regard their variant of God as less corrupt than the current executive.
Strongly disagree, for the reasons I already stated which you have ignored rather than refuted or even responded to.
Ethical systems are NOT “ultimately abstracted from religious law”, and that you think so shows you are more familiar with what has been said about philosophers by religious people than you are with what has actually been said by philosophers. Please take my lying example from above, where I discussed Kant: there is nothing remotely like “lying is bad” or “lying is a sin” anywhere in there, just a simple chain of logic.
Religion is a poor tool for bootstrapping any level of society, because it is woefully unreliable. It makes good things and it makes terrible things, depending on the people involved, so no, it doesn’t actually let you make good citizens out of less than ideal people.
It’s also pretty hilarious to hear anyone claim that secular government is more susceptible to corruption than religious organizations. How are those child rape scandals coming along? What about the Westboro Baptist Church? Or how about all the tiny cults with their child brides and their brainwashing and their horror stories?
The difference between a prophet and a police officer is that we are at least capable of judging that officer and stripping him of his authority without fear. With corrupt people in positions of religious authority, they can tell their followers that asking questions is a sin, and use the same fear of God you’re espousing for evil purposes.
Both systems are really, REALLY susceptible to corruption, and both are really really dependent on people within them choosing to be good.
Ethical systems are NOT “ultimately abstracted from religious law”, and that you think so shows you are more familiar with what has been said about philosophers by religious people than you are with what has actually been said by philosophers. Please take my lying example from above, where I discussed Kant: there is nothing remotely like “lying is bad” or “lying is a sin” anywhere in there, just a simple chain of logic.
Look, if we take Kantian ethics we have “behave in a manner that would work as universal behavior”. The problem is that there is a lot of possible variation here including social Darwinism. “White lies” are perfectly covered by Kantian eithics as well. Things like private property don’t make much sense. Humans are animals with animal urges, capable of suffering. That’s not something that has inherent valuation in Kantian ethics.
Religions are usually grown organically, thus catering to the human raw material they have to work with. Paul turned Christianity into a rather malleable variant of Judaism. It’s quite ridiculous just what laws are heeded and which laws are glossed over.
At the current point of time, there is a lot of fluctuation regarding the views regarding homosexuality that is embittering traditionalists. But it’s been quite some time since somebody wanted to put gynecologists and their patients to death since they uncovered her flow of blood. Even among jews.
Kant is not really prescriptive. He provides metrics for judging belief systems and behavorial choices but that does not actually create them. And he has no recipe for solace.
Religion may be fake and catering to phantom pain in a limb that does not exist, but amputees will tell you that phantom pains are quite real.
Look, if we take Kantian ethics we have “behave in a manner that would work as universal behavior”. The problem is that there is a lot of possible variation here including social Darwinism.
You realize that Kantean ethics involve more than just the one principle I listed as an extremely simplified example, right?
“White lies” are perfectly covered by Kantian eithics as well.
I don’t know what you’re trying to say here — that they’d be allowed by it (they wouldn’t) or that they wouldn’t be (and in that case, what’s the problem? do you feel that white lies are necessary or good?).
Things like private property don’t make much sense. Humans are animals with animal urges, capable of suffering. That’s not something that has inherent valuation in Kantian ethics.
I don’t think you understand enough about Kantean ethics, or philosophy in general, for this conversation to be productive. You are encouraged to turn to Google or get thee to a class on the subject; I don’t have the energy or the time to give you the equivalent of months of study.
Religions are usually grown organically, thus catering to the human raw material they have to work with.
More indication that you don’t actually understand ethics. There are many, many, MANY systems of ethics. Lots of them work perfectly fine with this “raw animal” you speak of.
Paul turned Christianity into a rather malleable variant of Judaism. It’s quite ridiculous just what laws are heeded and which laws are glossed over.
So, Christianity is easily manipulated and people follow its rules arbitrarily… but it’s somehow a good system of imposing morality on people? Yeah, not sure I follow here.
At the current point of time, there is a lot of fluctuation regarding the views regarding homosexuality that is embittering traditionalists. But it’s been quite some time since somebody wanted to put gynecologists and their patients to death since they uncovered her flow of blood. Even among jews.
1.) I’ve read pretty good arguments that the “traditional” view of homosexuality was not caring about it, and that correctly translated there’s nothing in the Bible that condemns gay people or gay acts. Here’s one of them.
2.) What even is that latter part. “Even jews”? Are you… are you saying religious people should get a cookie for no longer murdering women for having periods? I’m genuinely baffled.
Kant is not really prescriptive. He provides metrics for judging belief systems and behavorial choices but that does not actually create them. And he has no recipe for solace.
Again, don’t think you really understand what you’re talking about here. Are you complaining that Kant expects too much of people when he gives them the tools for creating their own moral choices rather than just telling them what to do? Yikes.
The “and he has no recipe for solace” thing is an extremely… religious complaint.
Which is to say that I don’t actually feel a need for solace in my daily life, and I don’t turn to philosophy for solace. I’m not empty inside. I’m not sad when I think that there might be nothing after I die — I’m rationally unconcerned, because after I die, I’ll be dead, so I won’t be capable of minding the nothingness.
I think that a lot of atheists and a lot of agnostics feel similarly about this: our lack of faith in any particular god is not a crushing burden. We don’t require solace.
Religion may be fake and catering to phantom pain in a limb that does not exist, but amputees will tell you that phantom pains are quite real.
Yeah, but if you’re gonna argue for the placebo effect value of religion, you have to acknowledge that religion is not a sugar pill. It has a LOT of really nasty side effects. And a sugar pill that occasionally causes someone to lose fingers would probably not be prescribed for an amputee’s phantom pain.
I apologize to anyone reading the above who is a genuinely nice religious person and who has never pushed his or her faith on anyone else, because this person brought out the snark monster in me. Man, and I feel like I’ve been mostly pretty good at being polite about this stuff…
Really, I just contributed to today’s comments because Kant got me all excited. Philosophy and ethics were my FAVORITE classes.
I don’t know that I buy that completely, but even if you define it that way, it’s still not a sugar pill. It’s morphine. And they don’t prescribe THAT for phantom limb pain, either.
Continueing from Li’s thought, people use religion to make themselves feel safe, but instead of conforming to the rules of that religion, we have become content as a general population to do whatever we want and just twist and skew the meanings of things until we can manage to find a way that we still go to heaven. Basically Religion isn’t the cause of anything. Regardless of if a religion is true, if it’s based on an actual god, No matter any of that, people must remember that religion is almost 100% made by people. And people aren’t inherently good. And unfortunately we’ve decided we don’t need to be good. We just need to be OUR individual definition of good. There are policemen who have choked out children carrying puppies and feeding it from the bottle by slapping down the puppy and pinning the 14 year old to the ground until they pee themselves. But you can be sure as shit, that man isn’t going to look in the mirror that night and think that they’re the bad guy for pressing charges against aforementioned child. (Which makes me wonder if they ever watched a kids movie as a child because you’re clearly the bad guy…). While I’m not saying we’re doomed to be evil or some jazz, too too many of us try to fit our own definition of being good and the bible could say damn near anything and it wouldn’t change how these people act.
I’ve met plenty of pretty decent people, irrespective of religion or atheism, but I have yet to meet an atheist so egregiously compassionate and concerned with morality 100% of the time that I feel like I’m on candid camera. I mean, your average “religious person” is moraly equivalent to your average atheist, morally, but as far as I can tell, to be a person conumed by goodness, it seems like you have to be some kind of religious.
That being said, I’ve met very few of these people to begin with so in fairness there could be some selection bias.
Oh, sure, and I’m not claiming that atheism is an obstacle to decency. Just that I have yet to meet any atheists so [i]wholly consumed[/i] by devotion to goodness as I have among zealots.
I mean, you can get the same fire going towards the most unspeakable depravity, as well, that’s not in argument either. Just that as far as I can tell, you have to have that zealous fire to go to either extreme.
I’m a life long Atheist, and instinctively live morally. It’s not hell for us, it’s just being a decent person. We don’t need a sky fairy to tell us right and wrong, we’re perfectly capable of figuring it out ourselves. In fact, I would argue that I’m a better person than most supposedly moral Christians I’ve ever met, since I don’t hate without reason, I don’t judge based on descriptors, and I have never even once tried to shame someone for their private choices.
I don’t know for Kant, but empathy isn’t necessary either. (Though it doesn’t hurt.) When the rubber meets the road, the *actual* answer to, “That would explain why he would not like me to do that. I was asking why I should not want to do that,” is “Because you don’t want him to kick your ass.” Going around pissing people off is a good (but not perfectly reliable) way to get your own quality of life ruined. This goes double if the mean things you’re considering doing are also illegal. Having their family out get you is bad enough, but having an entire police force after you too is a pretty good reason not to go and kill Fred. Even if he does have that really annoying laugh.
And the answer to “If “You’ll burn in hell” is more convincing than “because it’s bad for society if that’s allowed”, then why do secular nations generally seem to be -better places to live- then religious nations?” is usually “Because they have nicer legal systems.” It’s not about the ethics of the populace, it’s about the ethics of those who codify the laws. Which is why even a secular maniacal dictator is a bad thing.
“the *actual* answer to, “That would explain why he would not like me to do that. I was asking why I should not want to do that,” is “Because you don’t want him to kick your ass.”
God, I hope not. That is just depressing and terrible.
Well, we were talking about people who rejected empathy as a reason to be nice, so we were already in somewhat sad territory to start with. Some people respond to the carrot of the satisfaction of being nice or of making other people happy; for others we have the stick of “Being mean to others can come back to haunt you – sometimes in a ripping hurry.”
Not sure what you mean by saying there’s no such thing as grace or absolution for atheists…are you saying we can’t be good people because we don’t follow a religion?
Funny, I don’t recall there being any indication whatsoever that Jesus intended or required any of the prostitutes, lepers, taxmen, or anybody else he hung out with to change their behaviors. I got the impression that he hung out with them because he was being totally awesome and judgmental holier-than-thou people are complete assholes.
My understanding is that he went where people needed his help most. I can see how someone would interpret that as “where people needed his help to get into Heaven” if you thought that getting into Heaven was the only thing in the world that mattered.
Well, in the famous “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone” episode, I’m pretty sure he told the chick he’d saved from stoning to “Go, and sin no more.” Which implies that he was offering forgiveness for sins, but not a license to continue them. While he may not have offered an explicit quid pro quo, he certainly was trying to change their behavior, if only by example.
Yes, there is a lot of that in the Good News. He did not judge people on their current religious or other “standing”, but he incessantly told them where they should be going. It’s what made him particularly unpopular with the Phariseans.
Of course he’d try to change their behavior. If someone behaves destructively, to help them you’d need to change their behavior. In that example, he tries to get the lady to stop cheating on her SO, and get the crowd to stop killing people for making mistakes and forgive them instead; both worthwhile efforts if you ask me.
But the question is if he would do that only to save people – to help them get into Heaven – or help them make a finer world here and now? I’m fairly sure Jesus specifically says that the only thing that matters for your afterlife is if you love God or not, but then he spends an awful lot of time telling people to love their neighbors and other such worldly concerns, almost the direct opposite of what Mr. Brown seems to be telling Joyce.
I think it’s both. If you treat everyone around you with respect, not only does the world around you improve, you also begin to love God more because you’re serving Him. It’s a twofold thing.
Ah, but how nice can we make Earth without turning it into Heaven and making life more important than the afterlife? Why would you choose to love God if the people you can see in front of you are already worth loving more than anything? I don’t know if you can have it both ways and still promise an afterlife that matters.
Well, we could make earth pretty damn nice, but it’ll never match up to heaven according to Christian doctrine. Reason being that while we are alive, we are disconnected from God by the sinful flesh, whereas in heaven all sin has been purged and we can properly be in his presence. The other reason is that humans will screw up no matter how we try. But in heaven, where there is no sin, there is no screwing up and hurting each other.
Ah, but wouldn’t the good Christian thing then be to make sure as many people as possible are as miserable and hateful and distrusting of humanity as possible, so they can more easily turn to God? The less life in this world has to offer, the more hope we’ll have for the next; it makes no sense to make things better here if they can never be as good as there.
Yes, of course that would be the good Christian thing to do. That’s why Christ, God incarnate, spent his 33 years on earth not comforting anyone, not healing anyone, not forgiving anyone, and generally making sure that no one was happy.
I mean it’s mathematically impossible for a person to think both “Wow, life is great and will stay that way forever” and “Oh boy, imagine one day I get to die and go to Heaven and have it even better than this forever” both at the same time. That’s not even what religion is for. I’ve never met anyone more desperately religious than people at a homeless shelter I slept in once; people who honestly have nothing to hope for in this world do, as a rule, turn their hopes to the next.
Helping people and telling them “Love in Jesus” doesn’t make most people turn to God nearly as much as ruining their life whilst shouting “Hail Satan” does. So that seems inconsistent to me.
That rant was just in response to myself. To answer your post, Andy, that’s just my point: That Jesus’ actions are inconsistent with the supposed message that Heaven is better than Earth can ever be.
But then you would run the risk of people turning away from God because he clearly doesn’t care about them if he’s going to let their lives be this shitty.
Personally, I think it’s better to show a glimpse of what heaven will be like. Better the carrot than the stick, so to speak.
It is true, as Jesse Custer tells us, at that point when your life turns to shit you either turn to Jesus or put a pistol in your mouth. But suicide statistics among the homeless would suggest it’s not a very popular solution. The stick works, but it seems the most well-to-do in society are the least likely to find any need for God.
Leaving aside the question of how any mortal can show another even a glimpse of Heaven. . .
Honestly, that argument doesn’t make much sense, and pushing a concept to absurdity by adding some things no one claimed. It is mostly self contained to posit that “heaven” is the perfect realization of loving each other. Any efforts to create in on earth are only approaches to heaven but still honor it, and appreciation for those efforts is to appreciate heaven itself. It’s the asymptotic state. The mainstream of Christian thought has rarely held (though admittedly during the middle ages this was prevalent) that making life miserable to maximize our anticipation of heaven is the goal. It has honored sacrifice as an uncompromising stand for heaven (perhaps too much at times).
What greater sacrifice than giving up Heaven to give other people a better chance to get there? To approach and honor and appreciate Heaven may be good for your own soul, but there will always be more you can do to help others at your own cost. Yes, it’s absurd, and I can certainly see why the church would say that it doesn’t work that way, but doing stuff that’s actually conducive to life on Earth just so happens to be the perfect way to help yourself as well as everyone else to go to Heaven because of reasons. What else could they say?
I’d bet real money that there’s at least a couple of sadistic serial killers who honestly think they’re doing the Lord’s work, though.
If the goal is to save as many people as possible, the obvious approach would be to forgive/cleanse/baptize them, and then immediately kill them before they have the chance to sin again. Duh.
An important thing to note when researching the stories of Jesus that I honestly have never seen addressed:
I spent some time in Iraq like many-a soldier but unlike many I spent a deal of time learning heavily about the culture of the Middle East. The thing I noticed is that it’s considered an extremely powerful insult to expose the sole of your feet to someone (i.e. putting your feet up on a table in view of them, etc.) It’s like saying “you’re beneath me, you’re like the ground I walk on.”.
Now, apply that to the story of Jesus washing the prostitute’s feet. Turns from a story the church uses as a reason to “help the poor” into something far, far deeper, don’t it?
But, you know, it wouldn’t fly with the church to teach that Jesus put himself beneath a whore, would it?
I’m glad she took off that silly hat. Now if we can just get rid of the rest of this strange wardrobe and continue on with the show as normal I might be able to take her seriously again.
Yay Joyce! But boo whatever conversation this is going to result in, as I’m pretty certain there is only one party on Joyce’s mind, and if she explains that…
That look — Dad KNOWS the hos are “awesome” at parties…
But yeah, they’d prefer she just be preaching and scolding at Dorothy. AND they were especially disturbed that D’s parents are actually proud of giving her a freethinker upbringing.
I didn’t like roomies Joyce. This Joyce is developing so much she’s growing on me a bit. Though I still and crossing my fingers hoping she has a devastating crisis of faith and leaves religion.
I imagine flashing forward 40 years and Dorothy is the Republican nominee for President who was nominated for her ultra religious platform. Joyce is her top adviser.
They are positing an absurdity, and hopefully not one they think will actually happen. (I say “hopefully” because that b.s. about young people being natural liberals who then naturally turn into conservatives (unless they’re idiots, the saying goes”) is obnoxiously prevelant.)
I thought it was supposed to be more of an overcompensation thing. Got to get that sweet sweet Christian vote so she’s hamming it up to weird extremes in order to ward off accusations from any reporters digging into her background.
Abraham Lincoln was a moderate Republican who was accused of being an atheist, and yet still became President. He wasn’t actually an atheist, though he was religiously skeptical and didn’t go to church, so in some ways he did come close.
However, what Republicans stand for (outwardly and in actual policies) has changed in many ways, so I agree that the current modern Republican party would never put forth an atheist candidate.
The current Republican party would make Abraham Lincoln slit his wrists if he were to raise from his grave, I’m pretty sure. He wasn’t known as “Spotty Lincoln” for nothing.
And her running mate is Mike, who is making a surprisingly successful campaign for legalizing (equal oppurtunity) slavery, giving cancer fist AIDS, deciding the Geneva Conventions are un-American, creating the position of dictator in the United States government, launching an invasion of Canada, making Cthulhuism the state religion, and fucking the moms of all of America’s enemies.
I’m sort of tempted to say this is Sarah/Billie’s assertiveness rubbing off on Joyce, but maybe that’d be dismissive of Joyce’s own personal strength? I sort of doubt she’d stand up against her parents in defense of an atheist before, though, but it may have less to do with “observing more assertive people” and more to do with “learning that these people are okay people”. The most important thing Indiana can teach her is that people are often decent people, regardless of religious persuasion, and that being a decent person is more important than agreeing with you specifically.
While there’s no question that college is widening Joyce’s horizons–I’m sure it would never have occurred to her before that she’d have a friendship with an atheist to fight with her parents about–a lot of it is Joyce’s own character. When people are friendly to her, she’s usually friendly back even if they’re not the kind of people her parents would approve of; she’s saidsaidrepeatedly that she thinks that’s the right way to behave.
Yeah, I think if she’s not stood up to her parents before (in all likelihood, I’d guess her parents were like mine in that regard, and viewed outbursts as something being “wrong” and in need of “curing”, no matter where they came from), I’d guess it’s because she mostly went along with what they said. If they told her not to talk to someone because they were an atheist, well, what did she have to lose if she hadn’t spoken to them yet? But without them there to tell her not to speak to Dorothy, she’s finally in a position where she has something (someone) to fight back about.
Oh God, Mr. Brown is a pitch perfect representation of a certain kind of conservative father; the kind who has no respect for young people because he thinks he knows everything they do and more; who talks to and about them in a condescending way that he imagines is understanding and indulgent (“Well, you know how teenagers like to rebel…”; “…not because they were awesome at parties…”); but who without much provocation shows his authoritarian bent (“Joyce, you have an attitude.”).
Probably it will eventually be revealed that there’s more to him than that. Regardless, excellent writing.
And of course they’d never believe he was gay, he cares more about Transformers then about men, and he doesn’t dress or act flamboyantly at all. He’s obviously 100% kosher beef.
And now I’m wondering, would they be more fine with Joyce ending up with a Jewish man or a fundamentalist Christian woman. O.o
Go Joyce! Prove that you can hang out with people who are not your religion! Heh, my mom was a conservative republican Catholic, but came out of college a liberal agnostic. My grandma now hates the man she was (and is) best friends with because she believes it was all his fault. Parents.
Of course, according to Joyce’s father, Dorothy is being proven to be a bad influence on Joyce! She’s already influenced Joyce not to honor him, her own father. QED
I have a friend that has what we call “Angry Bunny Syndrome” no matter how pissed off she is, you can only think about how cute/adorable she is at the moment. Total “but she’s so cute when she is mad.” Needless to say she hates it, and hates being called an Angry Bunny. But in this case I think Joyce also earns the title of an Angry Bunny.
I’m still baffled by Joyce’s parents reaction to Dorothy. I mean, they KNOW she is going to church every week with Joyce. I would think their first thought would be that Joyce is evangelizing Dorothy and that the option that she would convert is still there, even if she still admits she’s an atheist. Not, “She didn’t immediately convert, we must shun her and make sure she isn’t a bad influence on our obviously weak willed daughter!” I know Fundamentalists in real life do this all the time but it’s still just…odd to me.
Dorothy isn’t going to church with Joyce every week; Sierra is. Joyce’s parents just assumed that this must be the girl, and Dorothy’s parents then corrected them.
I wonder if her parents are going to pull the “honor thy father and mother” card — which, in hyperreligious nutjob families, means “you are never allowed to disagree with your parents, even after you’re grown up and have moved out.”
Of course, presumably Joyce is having her way paid by her parents, so they have blackmail material there even if Joyce manages to get a spine.
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Good one Joyce!
This is why I love Joyce. I’d say we, but I’ve only heard people say that they hate her
Plenty of people like Joyce, I’m sure. Granted, she has her foolish and/or misguided moments, but then, don’t we all? I imagine we’re just less vocal than the haters.
And that’s how it often is… Sadly hating gets more attention than loving.
She had various worldview assumptions. She’s recently started adjusting to the reality that not everyone feels the same way, and that’s actually ok.
Now her parents come in with “no, it’s not,” and she not only sees their comments partially the way others do, but I’m sure there’s a healthy handful of “was that how I came/come across?”
I think that look in the last panel was Joyce changing her thoughts from “RAGERAGERAGERAGERAAAAAAGE” to “My dad sure is a bumhole”
This is pretty much why I like Joyce. You get to watch her worldview change as she realizes that, for example, atheists aren’t bad influences. Speaking as someone who , through a similair situation (though I was actually worse than Joyce I’m sad to say) and came out of it a well-rounded invidual, I’m looking forward to where this goes.
Course I went from conservative Christian bordering on right-wing nut job to an atheist who would be an anarchist if he had more faith in humanity, perhaps I’m not the best example.
I’d date me the hell outta some joyce, first I’d respect her as a person, then I’d get her the complete dexter and monkey master series, then I’d get her the comics, then we’d talk about jesus, then we’d talk about the great athiesmo
Icon fits xD
Joyce hits close to home for me, which is why I like her so much. During high school, I sort of was Joyce, as were a lot of my friends. Once I got to college, my de-Joyce-ing happened pretty quickly, but it was still an incredibly difficult process for me.
And I still have very Joyce-like friends. For example, about a month ago, a friend and I were watching Cloud Atlas (he’d read the book but hadn’t seen the movie). I’d forgotten that there were a few shots of characters having sex in the middle of the film intercut with other things. When we got to that part, all he said was, “Well, that’s obscene.”
Icon fits, also. DAFUQ.
The icon. It fits for everything.
I once watched The Princess Bride with two VERY sheltered Orthodox boys. One of them had seen it before, the other had not. The looks on their faces when Westley got to the “perfect breasts” line were PRICELESS.
I’m trying to remember the line you’re talking about and darn if it didn’t go clean out of my brain.
Clearly this means I need to watch the movie again.
You should ALWAYS watch The Princess Bride again.
What if one has yet to see it for the first time?
to tyren —
The marriage ceremony is over and she is in her chamber. She has vowed to commit suicide rather than be married to Prince Humberdinck. She has taken a dagger from a case and is holding it, pointy-side in, against her breast when Westley (whom she had not noticed lying on her bed) delivers the line about how “There is a shortage of perfect breasts in this world. ‘Twould be a pity to damage yours.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XegOczOvfXY
It might be a split between people who’ve read It’s Walky and people who haven’t. I can easily see why a new reader would hate Joyce. I’m just excited to see her character development from a new perspective, because I know how great she can turn out.
Funny you say that, because the Joyce in IW was actually not NEARLY as open to other world views as this version of her is, even in college. Remember when she kept yapping during that movie and criticized a couple for sleeping together unmarried? The DoA version of Joyce doesn’t seem the type to do that. I think this one is much more mellow.
Have you forgotten how many times she’s screamed “PRE-MARITAL HANKY PANKY!”
in all fairness, pre-marital hanky panky did save Walky’s life.
yes, but now it’s scream then her freezing up. and it’s mostly just that she can’t accept.
The roomies version would scream, then break into a long tirade, completely obliterate what the person was doing to lecture them, stalking them back to their homes if need be. also, she did it on a lot more subjects.
But she grew past that. As this Joyce seems to be in the process of doing as well. But… the IW Joyce already did.
I imagine that’s partly because the original Joyce was exaggerated by Willis “for comic effect”, but over the years he’s matured and realizes that funny is funnier if it’s not so damn funny. In other words, subtlety is key.
I am talking about Joyce towards the end of It’s Walky, not the beginning of Roomies. You know, after all that character development I mentioned?
I’ve read very little of “It’s Walky”, and Joyce is probably my favourite character in DoA. (She is pretty annoying in Roomies, but isn’t everyone?)
Joyce is friggin’ adorable. I can’t understand how people can hate her for the bloopers that she makes because of her upbringing, when she is the one who suffers most because of them: the poor girl’s constantly bumping against reality and struggling to adjust and she just doesn’t get a break, and readers hate her for it. Sheesh.
What? Joyce is not the one who suffers the most when she says something something racist. I love her and all, but there are valid reasons not to.
I don’t think she’s intentionally been racist, and when she does goof up she seems to genuinely feel bad for it. She’s trying to learn from her mistakes and become a better person than what her upbringing has taught her.
I don’t think only intentional racism hurts other people.
yes, thank you.
She’d hardly know about those “valid reasons” with her ultra-sheltered upbringing (remember, homeschooling) All the harm she’s done was unintentional, she’s felt really bad about it and it’s been forcing her to reevaluate a lot of things in her worldview, which is now falling into pieces. The girl’s basically gone from one “earth-swallow-me” moment to another since the comic started. I can’t understand how anyone that’s been paying attention to the strips could hate her.
What? I’m not saying that she knows about the valid reasons- that’s not really the point? They’re still valid. My point is that as much as going through a change like this can be upsetting and confusing it’s shitty and dismissive to pretend Joyce’s mistakes are victimless. Racism, intentional or not, is, in fact, a shittier thing to experience than embarrassment over saying something racist. It’s totally cool to sympathize with what Joyce is going through, but make her out to be some woobie who’s ignorance only hurts herself…that’s gross.
Well -you’re right, of course, but nobody said that her mistakes were victimless (or did they? I know I didn’t) I said I can’t understand why some people hate on Joyce so much, but not because “she isn’t hurting anyone”; in fact, part of my argument is that she herself is one of the people getting hurt by her mistakes.
There, I hope that clears it ^^
No. What you said is that she herself IS THE ONE WHO SUFFERS THE MOST. That statement completely invalidated the pain she causes; don’t try to pretend otherwise.
1 -Yes. I did say that she’s the one who’s suffered the most. Other characters -e.g. Jacob- have been annoyed and offended at her comments, but that hasn’t driven them to anxiety or shattered their worldview.
2 -Nope. That doesn’t “invalidate” in any way the fact that she has annoyed or offended other people, and there was nothing in my comments to suggest that I meant it that way. Don’t try to pretend otherwise.
I adore Joyce. This strip might be one of my favorites. It really shows how her character’s developed over the course of the comic.
Willis why are you so good at writing these character arcs it makes me have a lot of feelings
“This is why I love Joyce”
That’s kind of an odd raisin given that she’s never exhibited behavior like this before now
hm, you’re right, but I guess I meant her wanting to learn and expand her point of view, if that makes sense.
One of my best friends in residence was a male cardboard cut out of Joyce… kindest heart you’d ever meet with the WORST opinions on everything… Just gotta learn to accept people for their faults…
Its good to remember that Good people can have ignorant views. I’m sure there were many “haters” but most of em were probably just people voicing their continued dismay at the real willful ignorance and prejudice exemplified by her character.
*squints at background* I guess those are supposed to be multiple individual posters, but seeing some of the stuff Willis reblogs on Tumblr, I prefer to think that Joyce has found (or made) Christian fanart of Dexter & Monkey Master. I expect this to show up on fucknoreligiousfanart any day now.
Couldn’t both be true? Those are separate posters, but Joyce has also made D&MM religious fan art.
No.
Here’s a hint, if you want something to not be adorable, don’t dress it like that.
Seriously, in panel two she looks like a grumpy cartoon villain who wants to spoil the Care Bears’ picnic, but will be won over once they offer her cookies and friendship.
I couldn’t help but flip that around in my head to Dorothy being the “evil” atheist villain and Joyce’s family trying to win her over with cookies and friendship. Even intolerant, the Browns are kind of adorable, like Care Bears.
I don’t know enough about the newer Care Bears cartoons to speak with any authority, but in the classic cartoons at least, their villains weren’t into spoiling picnics so much as freezing innocent people in ice, taking over small countries, and brainwashing all of mankind to make sociopathy the new norm. 😛
How would that be a NEW norm? Oh… must be a Care Bear universe thing.
If sociopaths were normal, society wouldn’t exist.
High functioning sociopaths would create a society to indulge their less savory tendencies.
“Hey, Ted.”
“Hey, Bob.”
“How’s the corkscrews working out?”
“Eh, they work on the new pain posts, but suck at holding my shed together.”
“Hahahahahaha.”
Joyce’s dad thought he had her with that last one.
That smirk says Joyce just reminded him of his nineteen-year-old self scouting the local red light district.
How do you think he met her mom?
I’m sorry, that’s mean.
Not as mean as Joyce’s Parents
SICK BURN!
(I apologize for above comment, I am drunk)
Of course you are, Mike would only apologize if drunk.
She was *also* scouting the local red light district?
Joyce has an attitude. I knew it. That athiest converted her to POWER RANGERism.
Has the Shitnado begun?
More like Shintonado. XD
Since I never watched PR I am tempted to ask what colour she would have.
Joyce’d be Pink, Billie would be Blue, Dina would be Green, Sarah would be Red, Dorothy would be Yellow, Ruth would be Black.
Actually, knowing that show, they’d probably put Sarah in Black and Dina in Yellow just to make everyone uncomfortable.
Seriously, how in the hell did the producers not notice that? It still baffles me after 20 years.
Wait, wouldn’t Amber or Dina be Blue? I thought Blue was the nerdy one. (I only watched like 2 episodes, and read one book, of the original Power Rangers. My parents wouldn’t let me watch it because it was needlessly violent).
I think what Doctor_Who is alluding to is how the original series mapped ranger color to skin color. It was… more than a little messed up.
The important question to ask is “What color would Amazigirl be?”
She’s way too cool to be on Power Rangers.
So white?
In the original Japanese series it’s based on, the “white ranger” is actually a different character. The green one actually dies and gets replaced.
Joe would be Red Ranger
Danny would be Blue Ranger
Billie would be Yellow Ranger
Joyce would be Pink Ranger
Jacob would be Black Ranger
Drunk Mike would be Green Ranger.
Walky would be Alpha V
I wish somebody would draw this. It’s that or wishing for world peace.
I wanna see a picture of Mike calling DeagonZord
Danny can’t be Blue. Blue is the cool one.
You know, that last line could have different meaning by Joyce’s family.
“Could have”? I can already hear the record needle in my head.
*thinks about it*
*gets it*
I love you now.
Seriously, Joyce’s dad in that last panel. I think he knows that the prostitutes were awesome at parties.
Um, have you tried having a party without a prostitute? I sure haven’t!
I have. Plenty of times.
A balanced party must have fighter, cleric, wizard, thief, and prostitute.
Unless they are packing SMGs, it’s important to be very sure that your hos are hos.
If the hos aren’t hos, that’s what the Shepard is for.
I love you for that Gravatar.
Thanks, it only took me about 6 minutes to edit it.
I want to smother it with hugs!
Me too!
Wait… I don,t think that’s true.
(I think you’re exaggerating.)
No I wasn’t exaggerating, colouring the background and shirt, changing the mouth and cropping the image doesn’t take that long, to be fair I didn’t include the time it takes to load up my photoshop and having Gravatar to upload it but 6-7 mins isn’t far-fetched.
Okay, I know this is an old comment, but how did no one recognize the Saint’s Row 3 reference?
(Thumbs up Plas, fun game.)
They make everything awesome. Especially funerals. They really put the fun into funeral.
I don’t even know what to say. This is a strange feeling for me!
Oh wait, Joyce is (almost) always adorable. There, that’s something.
Just wait until tomorrow when she’ll adorable again!
Seems to me like Joyce is picking her battles correctly.
Yes, she is.
I agree.
Joyce’s face in the second panel.
HHNNNNGGGGG
I know she’s supposed to be pissed off but that just made her so adorable.
I blame the hat for that effect.
Hats are the secret to Dina’s power as well.
The right kind of hat adds moe points to any character.
Mikuru agrees.
When I saw that, I literally went “GHGHFGLLLGHLLL”.
I’m not even much of a Mikuru fan, but DAMN that’s cute.
Moe is a powerful side of the force.
Come to the moe side!
We have cute girls!
And a bartender!
Hooray for Joyce standing up for her friends!
I FIGHT FOR MY FRIENDS!
IF YOU HURT MY FRIENDS, THEN YOU HURT MY PRIDE!
THEN WHAT AM I FIGHTING FORRRRRRRRRR
My little Joycy: friendship is heresy!
“No one expects the parental inquisition!”
Our chief weapon is surprise…
surprise and fear…
fear and surprise….
our two weapons are fear and surprise…
and ruthless efficiency….
Our three weapons are fear, surprise, and ruthless efficiency…
and an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope….
Our four…no… amongst our weapons….
amongst our weaponry…are such elements as fear, surprise….
I’ll come in again.
oops …. replace Pope with Dr Spock ….. >_< … I hit the post button too soon.
I also do coke and heroin. 8D
Diet or Zero?
I misread that as Zoro
Zoro Cola. Saving Mexico. One sip at a time.
Diet Heroin Cola. Sponsored by Zoro
And friendship is magic!
But magic is of the Devil, so friendship must be….
error…
Don’t mind me. I’m just here for the prostitutes and the awesome parties.
Hey, anyone have a deck of cards? I’m feelin’ some blackjack and Texas Hold ‘Em comin’ on.
oh I see how it is! Well I’ll make my own club! With blackjack, and hookers. IN FACT, FORGET THE CLUB.
Dude, we’re already aiming for that here. Don’t get your underwear in such a BEND and help me get this started!
Well, I’d love to help you both out…
…But I’m already in my pajamas.
Actually, that just means you’ve already hit the party’s sweet spot, old man.
Not sure if this reference is funny anymore
Or if it’s just a tired meme.
Gambling and companionship-for-hire are timeless, my friend.
I got the reference. Off to watch that episode now. I’ve always admired you from afar, Yotomoe.
“I hope Yotomoe-senpai notices me…”
Need a new meme? Why not Zoidberg?
Shut up and take my meme!
You may have lost your meme, but you still have Zoidberg. YOU ALL STILL HAVE ZOIDBERG!
Nah, I sold my Zoidberg a while back. Video games are expensive.
Oh geeze, I saw the word club and thought you were making a pun on card suits. I think punsontheinternet.tumblr.com broke my damn brain. Or maybe that was just the internet in general that did that.
Also, the third panel makes it seem like Joyce is taking off a Dexter *mask.*
“That’s right, *I* was Dexter ALL ALONG!”
They fear that Dotty’s atheism will overcome Joyce’s christianity, also 2nd Panel face is best face.
Wobuffett.
Wynaut?
Well, once she starts looking at the world rationally, their fears will be well-founded.
Not that that’s something to fear, mind you, but that’s a problem with their perspective, not ours.
Or she might look at the world, and decide she still wants to be Christian. That does happen, y’know.
Anyone who elects to go back into the caves after viewing the beauty of the world is woefully in denial of reality.
Thank you very much for that, my entire worldview has been struck down and I now wish to go join those who apparently cannot appreciate that someone has different beliefs than they and therefore feel the need to belittle them.
I was referring to you, in case you didn’t get that.
I’m all for fighting over the internet with strangers. Sure, you’ll both prove nothing to the other really, but we’ll get a nice view of all the frustration you’re going to put yourselves through. So, plus for us.
Yeah, personally I think she’d eventually decide to be Christian… but I doubt she’d choose to be this brand of fundamentalist Christian, which to her parents would probably mean her eternal damnation anyway so it’s just as bad.
2nd Panel Face makes me think of Damien from The Omen. Angelic-looking until pissed off, and then . . . beautiful blue eyes make the hate painful for everyone!!
I’m absolutely entranced by that squishy cat-thing in the second poster.
What is that squishy cat-thing i want one.
I NEED one.
It is a hamster!
From the thumbnail on Tumblr I thought it was Strong Sad. But no way you’d know who that is.
Is strong sad not a thing people know about anymore? Am I that old?
I remember Strong Sad, Strong Mad, and Strong Bad. Strong Sad’s dragon sucks!
Considering it’s been about three years since a regular update happened, it’s depressing but with the Chaps doing other works and more people creating more original content, I can see why it’s forgotten by most.
A very, very, biiiiiiiiiiig hamster.
Miniature giant space hamster?
Well, so long as it’s not a bear.
Remember, go for the eyes!
And get some healing, lest your hamster become an orphan.
Ultra Peepi!
…Grudge, actually, from Making Fiends, but eh, I’ll take it.
It’s actually a large photograph of a very small hamster.
It’s a Ham!
Now you reminded me of Snkr. Now I am sad.
It’s Myoopi.
Have some candy for that reference.
It’s fresh.
I thought it was the sushi cat.
Looks like a hamster to me, or at least a willis hamster
But aint hamsters supposed to have rocket launchers, like nature intended?
That particular hamster is, I guess, saving up for the quad-rocket turret. It’s the only way to be sure.
It’s a hamster.
When you assume you make an ass of you and me.
When you assume you make an ass out of Uma Thurman.
You assume I want to make it with Uma Thurman’s ass.
Sarah however is awesome at parties. She should show Joyce’s parents her impression of the Lord.
Repeatedly.
With a barb-wired baseball bat.
sssmmmMMMMMMAAAAAAAAAAAASSSSSSHHHHhhh*
(what game did I just beat? Winner gets a half-assed doodle of their DOA otp)
Earthbound?
Mother?
Winner winner chicken dinner
claim your prize?
Hmmm, I should think this through very carefully…
…screw it. BILLIE AND RUTH!!!!!
http://sadpanda.us/images/1777473-ETXYQ8R.png
Half half assed
This is like, QUARTER-ASSED
Saved Hard with a Vengeance.
Any wrestling game involving Mick Foley?
By assuming this, WWF Wrestlemania for the NES!
Holy Hera I messed that comment up
Maybe they(the ‘rents) will feel better when they find out Joyce is rooming with the Old Testament God herself(Sarah).
Yeah, if Sarah said Dorothy is okay, I don’t see how anyone could object.
They’ll be all like, ‘ohh nooo, Jesus came to earth, we don’t NEED the old testament anymore.’ Lame!
And then Sarah will hit them with the bat a few times then stomp on them a bit.
Damn, this storyline has given me so many different people to hate… So many flavors of asshole.
…That sounds so wrong, but I can’t figure out another way of wording it.
And here we thought Mike was the biggest asshole.
“So many flavors of asshole”
That’s great news if you are a dog, they love sniffing butts.
Sounds like a commercial for Assholes Inc.
Mike started up a business?
Sure, why not?
Taste the rainbow…
That is, a “rainbow” composed entirely of shades of brown.
I seen corn come out more or less intact.
Candy corn included if they forget to chew ……. >_< ….. my mind … what has happened to you … oh right , long weekend.
Now you’ve got me wondering…
What should one eat in order to shit rainbows? Doesn’t have to be Roy G. Biv-ordered colors.
Skittles and a unicorn. (Plus then you turn into Voldemort.)
I don’t know, but I can tell you what you need to eat to shit purple! A cookie cake with green frosting and sprinkles.
Additionally, I know a sour string-type candy that turns your shit blue-green. And who hasn’t heard of beets turning someone’s shit red?
That’s the new spinoff.
Dumbing of Age: Flavors of Asshole.
Now you’re making me think about “asshole connoisseurs” and it’s quite mortifying. Thank you for that.
Wait, Monkey Master’s eyes…it moved.
“You tell them, little blonde girl”
No no, it needs to rhyme like Roadblock.
Your parents make me hurl, thanks for telling them off little blonde girl.
Munkey not Trukk
Joyce is so adorable in panel 2.
When I try to argue that “love thy neighbor” means “don’t be a racist,” I usually get the counter-argument of, “Oh, yeah? Well, WHO’S my neighbor, huh?” So I point out that the Good Samaritan was about how filthy half-breen racially-inferior samaritans were just as good as everybody else. Then the racists get mad at me and say stupid things like, “Well, Jesus didn’t really MEAN it!”
So I tell them that since they choose not to believe a word Jesus says, they obviously don’t follow him, and are not Christians.
It’s kind of similar to this one. “Well, Jesus hung out with sinners, but nobody should do the same or evangelize!” Yeah, you say that, and you’re a crappy Christian. or not one at all.
It’s always the same, regardless of race or religion: Some people just want to hate.
And these people would use race or religion as a justification to hate.
Or how basically the whole Sexual preference thing can be combated with “He who is without sin cast the first stone”
I don’t read the bible but…hey…I know this thing.
Even if you think being gay is a sin. So is coveting, lieing, cheating, stealing, worshiping anything not god, Basically being rich in and of itself, so you can’t pretend like you don’t do ANY of these regurally. I’ve done at least 2 today! Probably multiple times.
Also prior to the black plague, they apparently pushed bathing as a sin, or at least bathing amongst company in bath houses.
It really amazes me to read these comment threads/Tumblr and discover what is and isn’t good for the “bible-thumpers”.
Actually it’s the other way around.
Before the late middle ages (XIVth century), public baths were popular but then they got accused of spreading the plague and were gradually closed. Also, the Church saw them as places of depravity (naked people together ?! prostitutes ?!).
And then people got the idea that it was the bathing itself and not the whole, you know, close proximity and get all up in one’s crevasses while already infected and likely not showing symptoms yet that probably did it.
And by the looks of a map that was going around Tumblr, Poland and Milan and this little splotch of land above Spain never saw the plague. According to someone posting in that thread Poland had welcomed the Jews into their country, and the Jews bathed regularly and brought the concept to Poland as well.
Meanwhile Milan burned down the houses of anyone who showed symptoms of the plague while the diseased were still inside. Yeah.
Never found out about that splotch above Spain though.
He was talking about greed.
Regardless, that does not make what he said any less valid. If a kid is hitting a boy for picking his nose and I say “Don’t hit people”, that doesn’t specifically mean “Don’t hit people that are picking their nose”. It means “Don’t hit people ever (unless there is just cause)”
Point of order, he then told the prostitute to “go forth and sin no more.”
There are passages in th bible that can be used to support tolerance, but…that’s not one of them.
Hmmm…I’ll give you that. I haven’t read the bible, so I guess i’m ignorant.
Although I’m pretty sure noone has ever stopped sinning of their on volition.
None of the passages that are supposedly “against” gay peeps are very convincing anyway. I do not think it is really a sin even by the Bible’s standards.
It was tolerant for the time.
My personal favorite for that is John 3:16.
“for God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that WHOSOEVER believes in him…”
“Christianity might be a pretty good thing, if anyone would ever put it into practice.” – Mark Twain
related, possibly apocryphal:
[b]Reporter:[/b] What do you think of western civilization?
[b]Ghandi:[/b] I think it would be a good idea.
(one of these days I’ll remember that fraggin’ BBcode doesn’t work here, nor does the system convert from square brackets to angles.)
For the full quote (paraphrased):
Gandhi: I like your Christ, but I do not like your Christians. They are so unlike your Christ.
You need to use the ‘greater than’ and ‘less than’ symbols not [ and ] to maker things like *b*WORD*/b* to work.
Say, can some one flip Joyce’s mouth around in panel 2, it’d make a pretty good cat mouth I’d think.
http://24.media.tumblr.com/6da92fee1e4d7901f5501c0c10a9912a/tumblr_mr3fsb0GKr1rb4sv1o1_250.png
Oh my god, she looks like the most adorable schemer.
You’ve brought adorable DOOM on us all!
May I use that as a LiveJournal avatar? It’s perfect!
For once I decided to look around Google and see why, exactly, our clean homeboy Jesus was hanging around prostitutes, and according to the internet Mary Magdalene wasn’t actually a prostitute, and any mention of one before hand wasn’t her, like in Luke 7:36-50.
…But my source is a random thread on a site called “Godlike Productions” and there’s a lot of snarkiness going around that thread anyway, so I don’t really know how trustworthy this is, but nothing else that came up was equally helpful.
…Yeah, Godlike Productions is a conspiracy theory site. Don’t try to cite it as a legitimate source.
I wasn’t even trying, I even said I was skeptical about it myself.
Not that conspiracy site! I think she was falsely labeled a prostitute, but even a stopped clock is right sometimes.
Mary Magdalene was an adulterer, hence why they were going to stone her.
The adultress is never actually named, and the next prominent woman to show up is Mary M. Now, whether you believe the conspiracy theories or think that it’s just centuries of lazy thinking, the fact remains that the belief that Mary M. is the adultress is esentially fanon that many people believe to be canon.
His first recorded miracle was turning water into wine at a wedding celebration. I’ve used that one for years to counter fundamentalists when they find out my hobby is *gasp* brewing beer.
Brewing beer is a “sin”?
Geezus christ, look, there’s straight edge, there’s hardline, and then there’s this. I’ll gladly take with the straight edgers, they seem to give the least fucks.
…thinking about it now, that comment didn’t make sense, did it?
Also thinking about it, who the heck doesn’t know about Jesus turning water into wine? I remember hearing about that long before I saw South Park talk about it in that Super Best Friends episode.
I just resigned myself to believing that one was common knowlege. So much so that it’s parodied…a lot.
Some of the best brewers around for centuries have been monks.
But monks weren’t Christian. (In the view of these sorts of people.)
Uh, are you claimining to be Jesus? At any rate, I consider Eliah to be the first noted expert regarding distillery. He lives with a widow who has wheat in hiding, and when he comes out in a time of utter draught, he lets a steer be consumed by fire “even” after pouring plenty of “water” on it (which would have to be “conveniently” available in pitchers since it won’t be present otherwise in a draught) and the “fire from heaven” consumes the steer and “even” all the “water” around it in a big puddle.
Claymining can turn you into Jesus? *starts searching for clay mines* 😛
He can’t be Jesus; I’m Jesus.
Prove I’m not. Go ahead, I’m waiting.
You can’t prove a negative 😛
According to certain teetotalers I’ve talked with, he turned the water into “Non-Alcoholic Wine” AKA Grape Juice. Not what the actual scripture says, but whatever helps them sleep at night I guess.
John 2:10 – “Everyone brings out the choice
wineGRAPE JUICE first and then the cheaperwineGRAPE JUICE after the guests have had too muchwineGRAPE JUICE to drink; but you have saved the bestwineGRAPE JUICE till now.”My understanding of the matter is that wine was significantly less alchoholic back then, and as such cannot be compared to the wine of today. But then again, I have done no research on the subject, so take everything I say with a grain of salt.
Ewwww ….. salt does not help bad wine taste any better, just saltier.
Well, drinking water was not terribly safe, but people did not really get the whole micro organisms thing yet. As a result people got sick less often from beers and wines because the alcohol killed germs, so they drank the stuff a lot. Like instead of water, pretty much. So logically it would sort of have to be pretty weak or else everyone would have died from dehydration, I would imagine.
Either way though the people who say that booze is sin are just making shit up. Gluttony is a sin, so alcohol *abuse* is a sin, but alcohol itself is just a regular indulgence.
“My understanding of the matter is that wine was significantly less alchoholic back then, and as such cannot be compared to the wine of today. But then again, I have done no research on the subject, so take everything I say with a grain of salt.”
Wine was plenty alcoholic in ancient times, but some cultures (the classical Greeks, for instance) would cut their wine with water. At a symposium (drinking together) the symposiarch would decide the ratio of wine to water, basically establishing whether the symposium would be a sober affair where people only got a bit mellow, a raging kegger, or something in between.
And then Joyce’s parents stopped funding her college tuition and made her come back home for more brainwa- er ‘homeschooling’.
I imagine a sort of Clockwork Orange setup, with the screen showing the 700 Club.
It will also have the side-effect of ruining Beethoven for her forever.
Joyce that is possibly the worst possible wording for that right now.
I have to admit, this thought did cross my mind.
She’s angry because you’re being an intolerant jerk. And you’re a bad influence on intelligence, so there.
I think panel 3 is my new favorite Joyce. Panel 2 is a Joyce-ier Joyce, but panel 3 just looks awesome.
Here’s what I’ve never understood about people who make claims that people with different beliefs are bad influences, doesn’t that imply that their dedication and actual belief in their religion is so shallow that exposure to any differing opinion will cause a total abandonment of their faith? Which would also mean the only reason their children even share their beliefs is due to ignorance of other options?
I can’t find the comic, but it reminds me of a Dilbert strip where Dogbert’s sitting on a bench listening to some idiot say that he tells his kids this is right, this is wrong, end of story, basically.
Dogbert then asks (to paraphrase) that if he teaches his kids this, doesn’t that take away their ability to think freely. The guy says he hadn’t thought about that, to which Dogbert says “duh”.
So to answer your questions, yes.
Well it sounds like you’re doing them a kindness when you replace “Ignorance” with “Purity”.
Uh, have you actually read the Bible? People are willing to abandon their faith at the drop of a hat. Including the chosen people. Even right after being led out of egypt, their enemies slain, and them being fed with mannah. There is a stream of prophets who have to keep reminding people that it’s for their best interest if they don’t forget who’s their spiritual boss.
I mean, that’s the reason that the ark of the covenant did not contain the original God-given tablets of law (those were broken by Moses in ire over the Golden Calf) but rather a copy made by Moses. At least according to the Bible, if not Indiana Jones.
So you need prophets, fire and brimstone to keep reminding people of their faith, and even then you fail often enough and need to kill a whole lot (starting with the great flood).
They had a particular way of phrasing it at church when I attended. It went something like this.
“Sometimes kids will want to hang out with bad sorts thinking they can convert them.”
They would gesture with their hands. One is the delinquent. One is the good Christian kid. Show the delinquent coming over to where the good christian kid is.
“Sometimes it works out, but usually when you make yourself a part of their peer circle, they influence you as much as you influence them, so the two of you end up meeting eachother in the middle.”
Again with the hand gesture. This time the two hands come together in front of the guy talking.
“Which isn’t necessarily the worst thing, but then when you meet another misguided soul you’re already all the way over here, and you meet eachother in the middle again”
Gesture, bad hand back where it started, they move together and meet at the 3/4 marker.
“And then that happens again and again until finally you’re right there with all of them”
The idea seemed to be that there was too much of a back and forth in a friendship relationship. If you want to save them you can push your beliefs without opening yourself up to theirs.
No idea if that’s what Joyce’s parents subscribe to or not.
Wow, sick. Of course, the simple answer is “we’re the chosen people, not the choosing people”. Well, except that Israel is the chosen people, but let’s not get hung on details or we’ll run out of stones for stoning. James was fuzzy about details and if he had prevailed, Christianity would have been based on the teachings of Christ rather than those of Paul and it would have remained a fringe Jewish sect.
The true mind can whether all the lies and illusions without being lost The true heart can tough the poison of hatred without being harmed.
They wouldn’t like that quote, but oh well.
Of course Jesus hung out with prostitutes. It was the easiest way to bring the harlots to Jesus. All it took was a “Yo, Mary! C’mon over here!” and BAM they were saved, just like that.
More seriously, how does Pa Brown expect Joyce to be able to save atheists if she doesn’t get to know them? It’s a lot easier to convince a mark that what you are selling is the solution if you can tailor your sales pitch specifically for their problems. Any good hustler, salesperson, or missionary can tell you that.
Children who are expected to bring others to Jesus should be thoroughly versed in all forms of marketing and propaganda, if for no other reason than to keep them from falling for the seduction of the adversary.
The problem is that using that approach tends to have you lose a certain percentage of your flock to said marketing and propaganda.
“Ok this is the argument that the godless heathens are going to use to try and disprove our religion”
“Wait… that actually kind of makes sense!”
“D’oh!”
Instead, evangelical Christians tend to teach “This is how you convince someone with the Bible.” Which really only works if the person you’re trying to convince believes the Bible to begin with.
You can change your mind about some things without becoming atheist or converting to another religion. Fundamentalism is NOT a requirement for being Christian. Also…if you don’t look at opposing arguments, then you’ll never be prepared.
Jesus turned water into wine, he probably was awesome at parties XD
He turned water to wine FOR parties. As in literally, that was the reason he did it. His first recorded miracle, if you don’t count being born or talking coherently in public.
“talking coherently in public” meaning debating scripture scholars at age twelve or so.
Right – precocious, but not breaking the laws of physics. (I might be more impressed, but I was dismantling adult arguments by eight at least.)
way to slide that brag in there, man
There might be people out there who haven’t met a coherent eight year old. As flimsy as an internet assertion of ability might be, I felt that half-hearted support of the assumption at hand was better than none.
Grrrg, the look of CONTEMPT on her dad’s fa(AAAAAA)ce in that last panel is just infuriating!
To me it just looks like smugness.
I’m super proud of Joyce right now
I can’t decide wether liking someone for being terrible at parties is worst or best reason to like someone …
Yep, us atheists are such horrible people and bad influences, what with our willingness to ask questions and not blindly submit to authority and all.
A fool will ask more questions than a wise man can answer. Religion helps to provide answers. “Because you’ll burn in hell for it.” is more convincing than “Because you just don’t do this.”
And the concept of an irate and just God is much more accessible than Kantian ethics.
Once you get to “Because it hurts him if you do that.” – “That would explain why he would not like me to do that. I was asking why I should not want to do that.” it’s a real thin line to walk on without reverting to religion or what amounts to it.
Being a responsible atheist is hell because there is no grace and no absolution. Everything you do sticks with you for eternity. Being an irresponsible atheist is hell to others (but not really all that different from being an irresponsible theist).
The only thing you need to access a secular moral system is empathy. It’s practically instinctive. Kant and others just codified it. Hell, -religious- people access a secular moral system, which is why they don’t stone people for working on sunday, kill people for being gay or for not being virgins, or keep slaves anymore. If religious people exhibited moral behavior strictly because they thought hell was waiting for them, they would exhibit a completely different set of behavior than they do.
Ask yourself, if “You’ll burn in hell” is more convincing than “because it’s bad for society if that’s allowed”, then why do secular nations generally seem to be -better places to live- then religious nations?
No, Kant actually specifically rejects using empathy as a moral tool — he thought that ethics based in any kind of emotion were kind of doomed. (What happens if you ever fail to empathize with another human being? Since your moral decisions are based on empathy, you might wind up treating that human being like shit. Your moral system is now inconsistent and it has failed you.)
Instead, he gives out some basic principles which he believed can be applied logically to always choose the correct action. For example, the principle of universalization, where you can only do something if you can say it should (or even could) be applied by everyone, everywhere.
The most famous example is lying. You can’t universalize lying because it will literally cease to work: if everyone lied all the time, no one would ever believe anything anyone ever said, so lying would become meaningless. As such, you know that lying is a thing you must not do.
Note that your empathy for fellow human beings is irrelevant here. Kant never asks you to think about how you would feel of someone lied to you — all that matters is that lying doesn’t work.
Personally though I subscribe to Utilitarianism, as codified by Mills. And in that philosophy, empathy is very much a factor.
If it’s all based on logic alone, then you don’t care about the person. The If it’s all based on logic alone, then you don’t care about the person. The fact that you don’t empathize doesn’t instantly mean cruelty; you could simply ignore them. Empathy also doesn’t mean extending it equally to everyone. Would you feel bad for someone if they get punished for murder?
I also see too many flaws to fully support utilitarianism.
1) Kant doesn’t ask you to care about the person. He requires that you treat the person as an end in themselves rather than a means to your end, but that’s it. And this requirement too follows logical principles. So I don’t know why you think this is an objection that proves anything?
Is it because I have argued that Christianity doesn’t make people good, it just scares them into pointing their worst traits at other the “right” people? Because I find Kant’s rules to be a much tighter leash than Christianity for restraining people who suck, plus — unlike most but not all forms of Christianity — philosophy encourages critical thinking and self-evaluation, both of which are more likely to lead to the improvement of moral character than blind obedience.
2) “Punished” is a very nonspecific word. Provided that punishments are proportional and not viciously cruel, they are good for everyone, not just the victim — in which case there is no need to “feel bad” for the murderer. If you’re asking if I completely lose my ability to empathize with someone just because they did something wrong, then no, I don’t. But your question is very vague, so it’s difficult to answer it with any precision.
Do I think they are still a human being with rights? Yes, I do. I’m not Lockeian, I don’t think violating the social contract means you sacrifice ALL the rights it endowed you with, but you did lose some of them (like the right to freedom and privacy). I also think that taxes are part of our social contract and that people who don’t want to pay them should have to leave.
3) Do you really? I’m afraid that the rest of your comment I don’t really think you understand what you’re talking about either, so I’m not surprised. Things we don’t understand often appear to be full of obvious holes.
The important thing is to treat people ethically even if you don’t care about them. If a minority is being treated unfairly, then people in the majority tend to ignore their plight, not necessarily doing anything that they think of as cruel, and getting upset when the minority makes a fuss about changing a situation that, from the majority’s perspective, was working fine with no problems.
Even if you hate someone’s guts, let them have their say.
Even if you hate someone’s guts, let that person have the same freedom and safety you do.
Even if you hate someone’s guts, let them have a fair trial if accused of murder.
To look at the flip side of the coin, you generally shouldn’t give people an unfair advantage (e.g. nepotism) because you like them more than others, or for other emotional reasons.
Acting ethically according to logic doesn’t make you like people less, it makes how you treat people more applaudable whether you like them or not.
Actually, I’ve always thought that if you needed to believe in Hell in order to behave like a good person, you aren’t a very good person to begin with.
Take your example of the sociopath who thinks no one’s feelings matter except his own. Fear of an angry God doesn’t make that person empathize with anyone — it doesn’t make him or her believe that other people are human beings with rights. And, since he/she isn’t made to accept that fact, it’s really no surprise that so many religious people feel perfectly entitled to spit on anyone without God’s personal seal of “no seriously I’ll send you to Hell for being mean to them” approval. Because it’s NOT like there’s anything wrong with being vile human beings — all you have to do is worry about not being vile in the few very specific ways God mentioned by name.
And even there, you get folks insisting that God and Jesus didn’t really mean their explicit instructions for not spitting on people. “Oh no it’s totally cool to be rich and step on poor people, I’m so going to Heaven! Because when Jesus said it was impossible for rich people to do that, he was speaking in metaphorical code and anyway he just meant BOB, the one dude he was talking directly to, not ME.”
And if you admit that fear of God only affects behavior, rather than creating goodness inside crappy people, you must acknowledge that the consequences of jail time and societal exile and so on are pretty much just as good for affecting the behavior of crappy people. Better in some ways, since there are fewer loopholes for asshattery.
Meanwhile, when it comes to actually helping people to BE better, philosophy has you beat in every conceivable way.
Well, that’s the whole point. Religion maintains a working society without requiring very good persons as building blocks. There are a few of those around, but not enough to provide more than cornerstones.
We try to build secular systems of law, but they are inherently built on ethical systems that are ultimately abstracted from religious laws.
Religion is quite good for bootstrapping societies: “you’ll go to hell if you break the law” is a working threat in a tribe. “You’ll go to prison if you break the law” requires a police, a justice system, prisons and so on.
Now in the U.S.A., it’s more like “you’ll go to prison if policemen and/or prosecutors decide to break the law to your disadvantage” which is a bit too non-deterministic to serve as a moral guideline. So in the U.S. “you’ll go to hell” leads to better results since most religions regard their variant of God as less corrupt than the current executive.
Strongly disagree, for the reasons I already stated which you have ignored rather than refuted or even responded to.
Ethical systems are NOT “ultimately abstracted from religious law”, and that you think so shows you are more familiar with what has been said about philosophers by religious people than you are with what has actually been said by philosophers. Please take my lying example from above, where I discussed Kant: there is nothing remotely like “lying is bad” or “lying is a sin” anywhere in there, just a simple chain of logic.
Religion is a poor tool for bootstrapping any level of society, because it is woefully unreliable. It makes good things and it makes terrible things, depending on the people involved, so no, it doesn’t actually let you make good citizens out of less than ideal people.
It’s also pretty hilarious to hear anyone claim that secular government is more susceptible to corruption than religious organizations. How are those child rape scandals coming along? What about the Westboro Baptist Church? Or how about all the tiny cults with their child brides and their brainwashing and their horror stories?
The difference between a prophet and a police officer is that we are at least capable of judging that officer and stripping him of his authority without fear. With corrupt people in positions of religious authority, they can tell their followers that asking questions is a sin, and use the same fear of God you’re espousing for evil purposes.
Both systems are really, REALLY susceptible to corruption, and both are really really dependent on people within them choosing to be good.
Ethical systems are NOT “ultimately abstracted from religious law”, and that you think so shows you are more familiar with what has been said about philosophers by religious people than you are with what has actually been said by philosophers. Please take my lying example from above, where I discussed Kant: there is nothing remotely like “lying is bad” or “lying is a sin” anywhere in there, just a simple chain of logic.
Look, if we take Kantian ethics we have “behave in a manner that would work as universal behavior”. The problem is that there is a lot of possible variation here including social Darwinism. “White lies” are perfectly covered by Kantian eithics as well. Things like private property don’t make much sense. Humans are animals with animal urges, capable of suffering. That’s not something that has inherent valuation in Kantian ethics.
Religions are usually grown organically, thus catering to the human raw material they have to work with. Paul turned Christianity into a rather malleable variant of Judaism. It’s quite ridiculous just what laws are heeded and which laws are glossed over.
At the current point of time, there is a lot of fluctuation regarding the views regarding homosexuality that is embittering traditionalists. But it’s been quite some time since somebody wanted to put gynecologists and their patients to death since they uncovered her flow of blood. Even among jews.
Kant is not really prescriptive. He provides metrics for judging belief systems and behavorial choices but that does not actually create them. And he has no recipe for solace.
Religion may be fake and catering to phantom pain in a limb that does not exist, but amputees will tell you that phantom pains are quite real.
Look, if we take Kantian ethics we have “behave in a manner that would work as universal behavior”. The problem is that there is a lot of possible variation here including social Darwinism.
You realize that Kantean ethics involve more than just the one principle I listed as an extremely simplified example, right?
“White lies” are perfectly covered by Kantian eithics as well.
I don’t know what you’re trying to say here — that they’d be allowed by it (they wouldn’t) or that they wouldn’t be (and in that case, what’s the problem? do you feel that white lies are necessary or good?).
Things like private property don’t make much sense. Humans are animals with animal urges, capable of suffering. That’s not something that has inherent valuation in Kantian ethics.
I don’t think you understand enough about Kantean ethics, or philosophy in general, for this conversation to be productive. You are encouraged to turn to Google or get thee to a class on the subject; I don’t have the energy or the time to give you the equivalent of months of study.
Religions are usually grown organically, thus catering to the human raw material they have to work with.
More indication that you don’t actually understand ethics. There are many, many, MANY systems of ethics. Lots of them work perfectly fine with this “raw animal” you speak of.
Paul turned Christianity into a rather malleable variant of Judaism. It’s quite ridiculous just what laws are heeded and which laws are glossed over.
So, Christianity is easily manipulated and people follow its rules arbitrarily… but it’s somehow a good system of imposing morality on people? Yeah, not sure I follow here.
At the current point of time, there is a lot of fluctuation regarding the views regarding homosexuality that is embittering traditionalists. But it’s been quite some time since somebody wanted to put gynecologists and their patients to death since they uncovered her flow of blood. Even among jews.
1.) I’ve read pretty good arguments that the “traditional” view of homosexuality was not caring about it, and that correctly translated there’s nothing in the Bible that condemns gay people or gay acts. Here’s one of them.
2.) What even is that latter part. “Even jews”? Are you… are you saying religious people should get a cookie for no longer murdering women for having periods? I’m genuinely baffled.
Kant is not really prescriptive. He provides metrics for judging belief systems and behavorial choices but that does not actually create them. And he has no recipe for solace.
Again, don’t think you really understand what you’re talking about here. Are you complaining that Kant expects too much of people when he gives them the tools for creating their own moral choices rather than just telling them what to do? Yikes.
The “and he has no recipe for solace” thing is an extremely… religious complaint.
Which is to say that I don’t actually feel a need for solace in my daily life, and I don’t turn to philosophy for solace. I’m not empty inside. I’m not sad when I think that there might be nothing after I die — I’m rationally unconcerned, because after I die, I’ll be dead, so I won’t be capable of minding the nothingness.
I think that a lot of atheists and a lot of agnostics feel similarly about this: our lack of faith in any particular god is not a crushing burden. We don’t require solace.
Religion may be fake and catering to phantom pain in a limb that does not exist, but amputees will tell you that phantom pains are quite real.
Yeah, but if you’re gonna argue for the placebo effect value of religion, you have to acknowledge that religion is not a sugar pill. It has a LOT of really nasty side effects. And a sugar pill that occasionally causes someone to lose fingers would probably not be prescribed for an amputee’s phantom pain.
Wow, that was all REALLY mean.
I apologize to anyone reading the above who is a genuinely nice religious person and who has never pushed his or her faith on anyone else, because this person brought out the snark monster in me. Man, and I feel like I’ve been mostly pretty good at being polite about this stuff…
Really, I just contributed to today’s comments because Kant got me all excited. Philosophy and ethics were my FAVORITE classes.
There’s no inherent harm, people just abuse it.
I don’t know that I buy that completely, but even if you define it that way, it’s still not a sugar pill. It’s morphine. And they don’t prescribe THAT for phantom limb pain, either.
Continueing from Li’s thought, people use religion to make themselves feel safe, but instead of conforming to the rules of that religion, we have become content as a general population to do whatever we want and just twist and skew the meanings of things until we can manage to find a way that we still go to heaven. Basically Religion isn’t the cause of anything. Regardless of if a religion is true, if it’s based on an actual god, No matter any of that, people must remember that religion is almost 100% made by people. And people aren’t inherently good. And unfortunately we’ve decided we don’t need to be good. We just need to be OUR individual definition of good. There are policemen who have choked out children carrying puppies and feeding it from the bottle by slapping down the puppy and pinning the 14 year old to the ground until they pee themselves. But you can be sure as shit, that man isn’t going to look in the mirror that night and think that they’re the bad guy for pressing charges against aforementioned child. (Which makes me wonder if they ever watched a kids movie as a child because you’re clearly the bad guy…). While I’m not saying we’re doomed to be evil or some jazz, too too many of us try to fit our own definition of being good and the bible could say damn near anything and it wouldn’t change how these people act.
I’ve met plenty of pretty decent people, irrespective of religion or atheism, but I have yet to meet an atheist so egregiously compassionate and concerned with morality 100% of the time that I feel like I’m on candid camera. I mean, your average “religious person” is moraly equivalent to your average atheist, morally, but as far as I can tell, to be a person conumed by goodness, it seems like you have to be some kind of religious.
That being said, I’ve met very few of these people to begin with so in fairness there could be some selection bias.
Naw, anyone can be good, and anyone can be evil. Religion can help or hurt both cases. It’s kind of a catch 22.
Oh, sure, and I’m not claiming that atheism is an obstacle to decency. Just that I have yet to meet any atheists so [i]wholly consumed[/i] by devotion to goodness as I have among zealots.
I mean, you can get the same fire going towards the most unspeakable depravity, as well, that’s not in argument either. Just that as far as I can tell, you have to have that zealous fire to go to either extreme.
Some people enjoy causing harm.
I’m a life long Atheist, and instinctively live morally. It’s not hell for us, it’s just being a decent person. We don’t need a sky fairy to tell us right and wrong, we’re perfectly capable of figuring it out ourselves. In fact, I would argue that I’m a better person than most supposedly moral Christians I’ve ever met, since I don’t hate without reason, I don’t judge based on descriptors, and I have never even once tried to shame someone for their private choices.
I feel like you’re kind of shaming people behind their backs with that statement…
I don’t know for Kant, but empathy isn’t necessary either. (Though it doesn’t hurt.) When the rubber meets the road, the *actual* answer to, “That would explain why he would not like me to do that. I was asking why I should not want to do that,” is “Because you don’t want him to kick your ass.” Going around pissing people off is a good (but not perfectly reliable) way to get your own quality of life ruined. This goes double if the mean things you’re considering doing are also illegal. Having their family out get you is bad enough, but having an entire police force after you too is a pretty good reason not to go and kill Fred. Even if he does have that really annoying laugh.
And the answer to “If “You’ll burn in hell” is more convincing than “because it’s bad for society if that’s allowed”, then why do secular nations generally seem to be -better places to live- then religious nations?” is usually “Because they have nicer legal systems.” It’s not about the ethics of the populace, it’s about the ethics of those who codify the laws. Which is why even a secular maniacal dictator is a bad thing.
“the *actual* answer to, “That would explain why he would not like me to do that. I was asking why I should not want to do that,” is “Because you don’t want him to kick your ass.”
God, I hope not. That is just depressing and terrible.
Well, we were talking about people who rejected empathy as a reason to be nice, so we were already in somewhat sad territory to start with. Some people respond to the carrot of the satisfaction of being nice or of making other people happy; for others we have the stick of “Being mean to others can come back to haunt you – sometimes in a ripping hurry.”
Not sure what you mean by saying there’s no such thing as grace or absolution for atheists…are you saying we can’t be good people because we don’t follow a religion?
Grace and absolution (at least in this context) are religious concepts, so I would agree that there’s no such thing for Atheists.
(The dirty secret being that theists don’t have those either, because they’re made up.)
Exactly! Damn you atheists for leading the youth away from God and down the heathen’s path, WHY CAN’T YOU ACCEPT JESUS YOU MONSTERS!?!
Haha, I kid, I kid.
Funny, I don’t recall there being any indication whatsoever that Jesus intended or required any of the prostitutes, lepers, taxmen, or anybody else he hung out with to change their behaviors. I got the impression that he hung out with them because he was being totally awesome and judgmental holier-than-thou people are complete assholes.
My understanding is that he went where people needed his help most. I can see how someone would interpret that as “where people needed his help to get into Heaven” if you thought that getting into Heaven was the only thing in the world that mattered.
Well, in the famous “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone” episode, I’m pretty sure he told the chick he’d saved from stoning to “Go, and sin no more.” Which implies that he was offering forgiveness for sins, but not a license to continue them. While he may not have offered an explicit quid pro quo, he certainly was trying to change their behavior, if only by example.
Yes, there is a lot of that in the Good News. He did not judge people on their current religious or other “standing”, but he incessantly told them where they should be going. It’s what made him particularly unpopular with the Phariseans.
Of course he’d try to change their behavior. If someone behaves destructively, to help them you’d need to change their behavior. In that example, he tries to get the lady to stop cheating on her SO, and get the crowd to stop killing people for making mistakes and forgive them instead; both worthwhile efforts if you ask me.
But the question is if he would do that only to save people – to help them get into Heaven – or help them make a finer world here and now? I’m fairly sure Jesus specifically says that the only thing that matters for your afterlife is if you love God or not, but then he spends an awful lot of time telling people to love their neighbors and other such worldly concerns, almost the direct opposite of what Mr. Brown seems to be telling Joyce.
I think it’s both. If you treat everyone around you with respect, not only does the world around you improve, you also begin to love God more because you’re serving Him. It’s a twofold thing.
Ah, but how nice can we make Earth without turning it into Heaven and making life more important than the afterlife? Why would you choose to love God if the people you can see in front of you are already worth loving more than anything? I don’t know if you can have it both ways and still promise an afterlife that matters.
Well, we could make earth pretty damn nice, but it’ll never match up to heaven according to Christian doctrine. Reason being that while we are alive, we are disconnected from God by the sinful flesh, whereas in heaven all sin has been purged and we can properly be in his presence. The other reason is that humans will screw up no matter how we try. But in heaven, where there is no sin, there is no screwing up and hurting each other.
Ah, but wouldn’t the good Christian thing then be to make sure as many people as possible are as miserable and hateful and distrusting of humanity as possible, so they can more easily turn to God? The less life in this world has to offer, the more hope we’ll have for the next; it makes no sense to make things better here if they can never be as good as there.
Yes, of course that would be the good Christian thing to do. That’s why Christ, God incarnate, spent his 33 years on earth not comforting anyone, not healing anyone, not forgiving anyone, and generally making sure that no one was happy.
I mean it’s mathematically impossible for a person to think both “Wow, life is great and will stay that way forever” and “Oh boy, imagine one day I get to die and go to Heaven and have it even better than this forever” both at the same time. That’s not even what religion is for. I’ve never met anyone more desperately religious than people at a homeless shelter I slept in once; people who honestly have nothing to hope for in this world do, as a rule, turn their hopes to the next.
Helping people and telling them “Love in Jesus” doesn’t make most people turn to God nearly as much as ruining their life whilst shouting “Hail Satan” does. So that seems inconsistent to me.
That rant was just in response to myself. To answer your post, Andy, that’s just my point: That Jesus’ actions are inconsistent with the supposed message that Heaven is better than Earth can ever be.
But then you would run the risk of people turning away from God because he clearly doesn’t care about them if he’s going to let their lives be this shitty.
Personally, I think it’s better to show a glimpse of what heaven will be like. Better the carrot than the stick, so to speak.
It is true, as Jesse Custer tells us, at that point when your life turns to shit you either turn to Jesus or put a pistol in your mouth. But suicide statistics among the homeless would suggest it’s not a very popular solution. The stick works, but it seems the most well-to-do in society are the least likely to find any need for God.
Leaving aside the question of how any mortal can show another even a glimpse of Heaven. . .
Honestly, that argument doesn’t make much sense, and pushing a concept to absurdity by adding some things no one claimed. It is mostly self contained to posit that “heaven” is the perfect realization of loving each other. Any efforts to create in on earth are only approaches to heaven but still honor it, and appreciation for those efforts is to appreciate heaven itself. It’s the asymptotic state. The mainstream of Christian thought has rarely held (though admittedly during the middle ages this was prevalent) that making life miserable to maximize our anticipation of heaven is the goal. It has honored sacrifice as an uncompromising stand for heaven (perhaps too much at times).
What greater sacrifice than giving up Heaven to give other people a better chance to get there? To approach and honor and appreciate Heaven may be good for your own soul, but there will always be more you can do to help others at your own cost. Yes, it’s absurd, and I can certainly see why the church would say that it doesn’t work that way, but doing stuff that’s actually conducive to life on Earth just so happens to be the perfect way to help yourself as well as everyone else to go to Heaven because of reasons. What else could they say?
I’d bet real money that there’s at least a couple of sadistic serial killers who honestly think they’re doing the Lord’s work, though.
If the goal is to save as many people as possible, the obvious approach would be to forgive/cleanse/baptize them, and then immediately kill them before they have the chance to sin again. Duh.
An important thing to note when researching the stories of Jesus that I honestly have never seen addressed:
I spent some time in Iraq like many-a soldier but unlike many I spent a deal of time learning heavily about the culture of the Middle East. The thing I noticed is that it’s considered an extremely powerful insult to expose the sole of your feet to someone (i.e. putting your feet up on a table in view of them, etc.) It’s like saying “you’re beneath me, you’re like the ground I walk on.”.
Now, apply that to the story of Jesus washing the prostitute’s feet. Turns from a story the church uses as a reason to “help the poor” into something far, far deeper, don’t it?
But, you know, it wouldn’t fly with the church to teach that Jesus put himself beneath a whore, would it?
…the church does teach that.
In fact, I’ve not heard a church teach that jesus’s life was anything but god humbling and sacrificing himself to how how muched he love us.
I man, it’s even in the nicene creed.
The only problem is that few people are very dead set in actually following his example.
Way to try and distract everyone from the argument Joshua
Yeah, he’s there pretty much exclusively to run interference between Joyce’s life and their parents judgements.
“Jesus hung out with prostitutes” is my new go-to excuse for anything.
Points to Joyce for standing up for herself! That third panel’s truly epic.
I’m glad she took off that silly hat. Now if we can just get rid of the rest of this strange wardrobe and continue on with the show as normal I might be able to take her seriously again.
Wait, you took her seriously before the hat?
You want her to strip? In front of her family?
WHAT KIND OF SICK PUPPY ARE YOU? :p
Yay Joyce! But boo whatever conversation this is going to result in, as I’m pretty certain there is only one party on Joyce’s mind, and if she explains that…
Also that poster of the crosses looks less religious and more goth to me. I have a hard time seeing it as anything other than a cemetery hill.
That look — Dad KNOWS the hos are “awesome” at parties…
But yeah, they’d prefer she just be preaching and scolding at Dorothy. AND they were especially disturbed that D’s parents are actually proud of giving her a freethinker upbringing.
Great, now I can’t the picture of Mr. Brown with ray ban’s and gold chains bumping and grinding on the dance floor with ho’s.
And I do agree, Dorothy’s parents are third on my list of most likable, right below Dina’s and Joe’s.
I didn’t like roomies Joyce. This Joyce is developing so much she’s growing on me a bit. Though I still and crossing my fingers hoping she has a devastating crisis of faith and leaves religion.
Yeah, DoA Joyce has evolved a lot faster than Roomies/Walky Joyce (and has more plausible parents)
(Holy crud, angry Joyce IS adorable!)
Oh damn Joyce is about to go old testament
I think this is the first time I’ve seen Joyce’s angry face. It’s cute.
I imagine flashing forward 40 years and Dorothy is the Republican nominee for President who was nominated for her ultra religious platform. Joyce is her top adviser.
An Atheist Republican? That’s funny.
It could happen in 40 years. 40 years ago, the south voted Democratic. Political parties evolve and change as they feel they need to.
A fair point.
“for her ULTRA RELIGIOUS platform”.
They are positing an absurdity, and hopefully not one they think will actually happen. (I say “hopefully” because that b.s. about young people being natural liberals who then naturally turn into conservatives (unless they’re idiots, the saying goes”) is obnoxiously prevelant.)
I thought it was supposed to be more of an overcompensation thing. Got to get that sweet sweet Christian vote so she’s hamming it up to weird extremes in order to ward off accusations from any reporters digging into her background.
Either/or. The point is that she’s not actually a Republican atheist in this example. Or at least not openly.
Abraham Lincoln was a moderate Republican who was accused of being an atheist, and yet still became President. He wasn’t actually an atheist, though he was religiously skeptical and didn’t go to church, so in some ways he did come close.
However, what Republicans stand for (outwardly and in actual policies) has changed in many ways, so I agree that the current modern Republican party would never put forth an atheist candidate.
The current Republican party would make Abraham Lincoln slit his wrists if he were to raise from his grave, I’m pretty sure. He wasn’t known as “Spotty Lincoln” for nothing.
And her running mate is Mike, who is making a surprisingly successful campaign for legalizing (equal oppurtunity) slavery, giving cancer fist AIDS, deciding the Geneva Conventions are un-American, creating the position of dictator in the United States government, launching an invasion of Canada, making Cthulhuism the state religion, and fucking the moms of all of America’s enemies.
“In a completely platonic way!”
Speaking of parties Joyce, when we’re you planning on telling your parents about getting roofied?
That might actually help her case, since Dorothy is definitely on Team Not-Getting-Roofied-At-Crazy-Parties.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but wasen’t it Dorothy’s idea to go to the party, I could see how that backfires in Joyce’s face.
Ahhh wowee wowee wow
I’m sort of tempted to say this is Sarah/Billie’s assertiveness rubbing off on Joyce, but maybe that’d be dismissive of Joyce’s own personal strength? I sort of doubt she’d stand up against her parents in defense of an atheist before, though, but it may have less to do with “observing more assertive people” and more to do with “learning that these people are okay people”. The most important thing Indiana can teach her is that people are often decent people, regardless of religious persuasion, and that being a decent person is more important than agreeing with you specifically.
While there’s no question that college is widening Joyce’s horizons–I’m sure it would never have occurred to her before that she’d have a friendship with an atheist to fight with her parents about–a lot of it is Joyce’s own character. When people are friendly to her, she’s usually friendly back even if they’re not the kind of people her parents would approve of; she’s said said repeatedly that she thinks that’s the right way to behave.
Yeah, I think if she’s not stood up to her parents before (in all likelihood, I’d guess her parents were like mine in that regard, and viewed outbursts as something being “wrong” and in need of “curing”, no matter where they came from), I’d guess it’s because she mostly went along with what they said. If they told her not to talk to someone because they were an atheist, well, what did she have to lose if she hadn’t spoken to them yet? But without them there to tell her not to speak to Dorothy, she’s finally in a position where she has something (someone) to fight back about.
Oh God, Mr. Brown is a pitch perfect representation of a certain kind of conservative father; the kind who has no respect for young people because he thinks he knows everything they do and more; who talks to and about them in a condescending way that he imagines is understanding and indulgent (“Well, you know how teenagers like to rebel…”; “…not because they were awesome at parties…”); but who without much provocation shows his authoritarian bent (“Joyce, you have an attitude.”).
Probably it will eventually be revealed that there’s more to him than that. Regardless, excellent writing.
Great final line for Joyce, too.
FIVE DOLLARS THE PARENTS ARE GONNA GO NUTS OVER THE “I LOVE HER” COMMENT
EASY MONEY EASY MONEY
“YOU’RE A LESBIAN NOW? NO JOYCE NOOOOOOOOOO.”
“DAD love can be platon–oh god am I a lesbian was Bilie right oh my gosh oh my gosh oh my gosh.”
It’d be a bad time to mention her boyfriend was gay, wouldn’t it?
Oh holy shit, what if through some misunderstanding they leave thinking Ethan is her beard?
I can seeing that happen way too easily.
And of course they’d never believe he was gay, he cares more about Transformers then about men, and he doesn’t dress or act flamboyantly at all. He’s obviously 100% kosher beef.
And now I’m wondering, would they be more fine with Joyce ending up with a Jewish man or a fundamentalist Christian woman. O.o
…if she ended up with a woman, presumably, she wouldn’t be a fundamentalist…
That is the funniest thing I’ve heard in like ever.
Go Joyce! Prove that you can hang out with people who are not your religion! Heh, my mom was a conservative republican Catholic, but came out of college a liberal agnostic. My grandma now hates the man she was (and is) best friends with because she believes it was all his fault. Parents.
Of course, according to Joyce’s father, Dorothy is being proven to be a bad influence on Joyce! She’s already influenced Joyce not to honor him, her own father. QED
You know how teenagers like to rebel!
ENTRANCED… BY… BREAKING POINT OF GLOWING BLUE EYES
I have a friend that has what we call “Angry Bunny Syndrome” no matter how pissed off she is, you can only think about how cute/adorable she is at the moment. Total “but she’s so cute when she is mad.” Needless to say she hates it, and hates being called an Angry Bunny. But in this case I think Joyce also earns the title of an Angry Bunny.
I’m still baffled by Joyce’s parents reaction to Dorothy. I mean, they KNOW she is going to church every week with Joyce. I would think their first thought would be that Joyce is evangelizing Dorothy and that the option that she would convert is still there, even if she still admits she’s an atheist. Not, “She didn’t immediately convert, we must shun her and make sure she isn’t a bad influence on our obviously weak willed daughter!” I know Fundamentalists in real life do this all the time but it’s still just…odd to me.
Dorothy isn’t going to church with Joyce every week; Sierra is. Joyce’s parents just assumed that this must be the girl, and Dorothy’s parents then corrected them.
she’s building her case proprely.
I wonder if her parents are going to pull the “honor thy father and mother” card — which, in hyperreligious nutjob families, means “you are never allowed to disagree with your parents, even after you’re grown up and have moved out.”
Of course, presumably Joyce is having her way paid by her parents, so they have blackmail material there even if Joyce manages to get a spine.
To be fair to hyperreligious nutjob families, that’s exactly what “Honor thy father and mother” originally meant.
It’s times like these that it helps to remember that the root word of “fundamentalist” means “asshole”.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/fundament?r=75
… and I posted this on the wrong day’s comments. Whoops.
I know this is kinda off topic, but man, your drawing style is so much more detailed now than it was at the beginning of DOA. Looks awesome!
Daddy’s trying to be snarky~
Ummm. not exactly, Jesus hung out with them because they were his friends… I’m correcting an imaginary religious nutter… lol
Oh, cool, another new-ish person.
Let the correcting flow through you.
I keep on making these late-ass comments as I reread, but does anybody else feel like Joyce’s dad was smiling at the thought of partying prostitutes?