Because humans are inherently irrational and illogical beings. And evil exists in the world, so some people find that hard to reconcile with the idea of an all-knowing, all-powerful, and all-good god. Seriously, try explaining to a little kid the answer to the question “If God loves everyone why do bad things happen?” You can’t answer that question without going deep into philosophy and theology and quite a bit of Thomas Aquinas. Signed, a hippie pinko Jesuit Catholic.
the way to answer said question in a manner that is (somewhat) satisfactory to a little kid, is to frame the situation like the human race is collectively a child and God is the parent. And sometimes being a good parent means letting your child slip and fall, and then learn to pick themselves up, and not always being there to fix everything. Just being there to listen and offer encouragement is sometimes what is best, and all that is needed.
As someone who was that kid, I always found that infantilization of the human race absolutely unsatisfactory and insulting. It was preposterous to sub-10 year old me. The God described in the Bible is clearly crueler and more narcissistic than any decent parent.
If a parent acted like Bible-God, we’d all be telling the kid to get the hell emancipated ASAP.
yeah, I kind of vehemently disagree with the classical depiction/example of the Christian God, it’s one of the reasons I refuse to identify with any organized religion. That being said, a lot of the more basic lessons in the bible and other similar holy books do still ring true even today, they just have to be taken with a grain of salt and the understanding that the culture and world when they were written is vastly different than today and that most of the more specific lessons/teachings need to be adapted for the modern world if they are salvageable at all. Granted, most of the stuff that survives from the teachings of historical J.C. is still good advice in an applicable situation, but one of the things that the religious folk like to gloss over, (though every decent world history class that covers the subject, makes a point to say that This Did Happen And We Have Recorded Proof) is that many of the clergy between the death of J.C. and even as late as the industrial revolution, would regularly deliberately mis-interpret scripture to fit the agenda of the current local status quo.
In my experience, a lot of people are looking for a parental figure who they will never outgrow, who will never leave them, and who will always love and protect them while giving them simple rules to follow to be “good”. For many, such a deity fills that role/need.
Yeah, that only works if you accept the idea that God is a worse parent than Toedad. “Slip and fall” is one thing. “Let your kids rape, torture and kill the weakest ones, while shouting ‘Dad said I could’,” and not so much as telling the abusive siblings that they’re wrong about that, is another thing entirely.
What are you talking about, Rukduk? Just avoid the false, meaningless question so you don’t have to justify an answer. What are “bad things” anyway? What is evil? Different people are offended and hurt and pleased and amused and permanently scarred and made happy by different things. Good and evil are far from absolutes, and therefore there’s no reason to assume there’s a reason. There is always cause, and effect though.
There are some things people will generally consider wrong – murder (as in, ‘I am killing this person unlawfully because I want to”, not talking about things like self defence), rape, etc.
And, considering he’s talking with the assumption there’s a God (and specifically the Christian version of God) there’s definitely a version of good and evil we’re dealing with here, so I think it was a valid question.
Vamps & Zombies are just the result of diseases, and superheroes are just genetic manipulation or technological creations. But a Sky Daddy who rewards or punishes you for all eternity based on a small handful of years on Earth, without any proof that he actually exists? Might as well believe that Trump is the Second Coming.
Someday, Obama will return from vacation and run again, and He will be the Second Coming. 😀
(I am tempted to draw a picture of this, Obama standing on the steps of the White House in Jesus robes, with a halo, saying to cheering crowds, “I have returned, my children.” Heh.)
Yeah, I was going to ask that… Like, what? Since when? We just do temporary suspension of disbelief for the sake of entertaining fiction. Seriously, please tell us who actually believes in these?
I’m pretty sure more people in the world today believe in the existence of a god over vampires, superheroes, and zombies. Which is odd, because I think it’d be a lot easier to provide evidence for those three things than for a god. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and the claim that a god exists is a lot more extraordinary than the claim that vampires, superheroes, or zombies exist. I haven’t seen any evidence that anything supernatural exists so far.
Maybe that’s exactly the point, people feel more comfortable believing in something that cannot be rather easily DISproven.
I once went to a meditation class that turned out to be a recruitment thing for some relatively crazy buddhist sect (and yep, apparently those exist), and they did SUCH a good job building up a theory that “feels logical”, but has no way whatsoever to be proven or disproven.
(I was out of there fast.)
Why do people believe in God… when they don’t believe in Santa Claus?
The tropes are similar. White man, white beard, in the sky, knowing who sins and who’s good, delivering goodies or burnables as appropriate.
In fact, kids do believe in Santa – because they’re told He exists. They believe in God – because they’re told He exists. They have more evidence for the existence of Santa than of God – the presents show up every year!
Then, they’re told Santa doesn’t exist, and after some emotional distress, they stop believing in Him. You’d think they’d extrapolate… but they’re still surrounded by people who keep telling them that God exists.
Surround them with people who tell them that zombies exist, or angels exist, or a flying saucer will come pick them up on March 26, 1997… and they will believe that too.
That’s actually exactly how I stopped believing in god. Well, via the Easter Bunny rather than Santa. When I was about four I went downstairs to use the bathroom the night before Easter and caught my parents filling our baskets, and with that stopped believing in every magical figure they told us was real without our actually ever seeing them. I had no idea adults thought god was a thing that actually existed instead of just being on the same level as Santa or The Tooth Fairy.
Because the gifts do show up: “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.” When someone goes to church and does feel uplifted and strengthened, it confirms what they’ve been told.
Sounds like you’re saying Christians have a special advantage in those areas. I have not noticed that, on average.
Christianity often seems to encourage people to amplify the way they already are. If they’re kind, they may be kinder. If they are self-righteous, they will likely be more so. Even cruelty (“spare the rod and spoil the child”) and murder have often been justified by Christianity – especially by the people who act that way.
I do not have such a high opinion of people that I think amplifying one’s natural tendencies is, on balance, a major point in Christianity’s favor.
I find it impossible to believe in any of those others either, so no conflict. I don’t seem capable of faith, at least in the sense of belief in the unprovable.
Honestly, each of those creatures does seem a lot more plausible than God. Ignoring their myriad of random (and often inconsistent) magical qualities and focus only on their basic attributes, none of them are that much of a stretch compared to what already exists.
-There plenty of blood drinking animals, why couldn’t some humans do the same?.
-Undeath in general is merely an unusual form of life. We still don’t know exactly what constitutes life, so it’s not that hard to believe there could be some variations of semi-life.
-There’s plenty of people with odd mutations/talents/abilities, superheroes are just that taken a step further.
Not saying any of them is real or even believable, but they are a lot easier to fit into a worldview than God is.
“Why do people find it so hard to believe in God ….. but they will believe in vampires, superheroes, and a zombie apocalypse?”
If by that you mean that some people genuinely believe they exist without objective proof or indeed despite proof such things do no exist or are hoaxes, you will find it is largely the same group of people because the mindset needed to believe in things without proof allows a pretty wide range of beliefs.
I doubt very many rational people “believe” superheroes actually exist so you are using a bit of a straw man argument here as well or using “belief” in different ways for different things.
Do you believe that devils and demons are genuinely real and truly exist and are hanging round looking for opportunities to harass you and destroy your relationship with this god I suspect you believe in?
“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?” – Epicurus
Um… I know of very few people who believe in those things. They regard them as fictional scenarios which are fun to discuss–kind of like how Dorothy is treating the idea of “God” in this strip, actually.
AND IT SHALL COME TO PASS, WHEN COMMENTERS TYPE IN ALL-CAPS, THAT THE FLOODGATES SHALL OPEN AND UNLIMITED WI-FI WILL BE AVAILABLE TO ALL, SHOULD THEY CHOOSE TO SAVE 20% OR MORE ON VERIZON.
The “Verizon guy” wasn’t an actual employee that they chose at random some day and said “C’mere; we’re gonna use you in a TV commercial”. He was an actor who *PLAYED* a Verizon tech — and his only connection to Verizon was the check he collected for doing so.
Or do you think that “Flo” is a real Progressive agent too?
Okay, that last panel is adorable. It suggests that Joyce is starting to feel more comfortable engaging in joking banter about God and her beliefs and this doesn’t mean that she is being made fun of. Friends are laughing with her, not at her and for her to relax about this is a very healthy sign.
The places where I’ve noticed a difference is actually in mostly rural western states like Montana (my parents live here). I have zero data or cell coverage in the entire state with T mobile. Only Verizon and AT&T have coverage there.
that said, when I was in Puerto Rico, I had flawless coverage and all of my friends with other carriers didn’t.
“The story so far: In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.”–Douglas Adams
“There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable.
There is another theory which states that this has already happened.” … more from Mr. Adams
Between Billie, tutoring Walky, and being part of Joyce’s crew, Dorothy should feel busy. Maybe she’s a bit too much so. She is immensely capable but I hope she doesn’t run right thru her guardrail.
Robin: Yeah and get this, there duke happens to look exactly like one of the kids in Leslie’s gender studies class! Apparently he tripped over some girls on a secret mission to your school once.
Joyce: do you think he has any leads?
Robin: I’ll talk to him
Narrator: later
Robin and Joyce meet by the fountain. A boy who looks exactly like Walky is standing next to Robin.
Joyce: Hey Robin…and Walky?
Reginald: actually my name is Reginald
Narrator: Reginald kisses Joyce’s hand
Joyce: and you’re a duke?
Reginald: Indeed, let me tell you the story of my country
100 years ago my family bought a strip of land and created their own micro nation. We try to keep to ourselves, but have some ties to nearly ever major country.
Joyce: One of my old enemies had your knife.
Reginald: ah, that must have been Ryan…he was most unpleasant.
Joyce: so why give him the knife?
Reginald: I didn’t he must have stolen it.
Joyce: do you want it back?
Reginald: I would perfer not to touch something held by that man. But I will help your investigation.
Let’s see, Ruth opened the case, the first clue (the letter “R”) pointed us to Roz, who pointed us to Robin, who pointed us to Ryan, who pointed us to Reginald Duke of Thingley. It seems this series is brought to us by the letter R. Are Riley, Rachel and other Rachel going to make an appearance?
I’m impressed that Joyce was willing to make a joke about God being limited. I think that’s a very healthy sign that she has a properly loving relationship with her deity — the sort of family relationship that allows for a bit of gentle kidding. It feels very much like my own Ashkenazi Jewish traditions about interacting with God.
A question to all US readers: do you guys really never take off your shoes when indoors?
The last panel (apart from being awesomely cute) just made me cringe, seeing boots on the sofa…
Many US readers do not, in fact, take off shoes indoors. I hadn’t even heard of taking off shoes indoors until I learned that they do it in Japan. Now, a fairly large fraction of my acquaintances (in the Bay Area, CA) have “shoeless” houses, but it’s still rare enough that they have to ask visitors to take off their shoes.
I think it’s quite rare for public spaces to be shoeless. Martial arts studios, of course, are shoeless. But a church, school, store… people wouldn’t think of taking off their shoes to go inside.
On the other hand, I think it’s still true that Americans bathe more often than Europeans. Generally we take a bath or shower every day. And in some ways, we’re overly paranoid about germs – e.g. antibacterial soap has been very popular.
Now that I think about it, if you took off your shoes in a very public area, then your feet would pick up germs from everyone else’s feet. Or if the place provided slippers, you’d have to wear slippers that other people had worn. Better to let the floor be germy, and wrap your feet in your own personal clothing. And I guess the habit just persists right into our own houses.
I’m going to comment on several parts, it might get incoherent 😀 I don’t get it, how would a germaphobe let their floor be yucky? How are you going to let your children play on the floor then? We had this city carpet, you know. How would you lie down on the carpet to read a book? Or sit in a circle to play spin the bottle? And how would you clean the carpet?? And I don’t know where this comes from, all the people I know takes a shower daily, but I do live in a capital, so I might not be aware of many people’s habits. In the dorms and in primary school we had indoor sandals or slippers to walk around, nurses and teachers have their workplace sandals as well. And the point is not only to be cleaner, but I was told that being in closed top shoes all day is unhealthy and facilitates every kind of skin disease. My boyfriend and some other friends take their socks off too, but I don’t my feet would freeze.
Which makes it seems like taking off ones shoes in public is obscene. Which is not usually the case. It’s more like improper. You might not need a shirt indoors, but you wouldn’t take it off if a guest was present, and you certainly wouldn’t ask your guest to take their shirt off when they came into your house.
Kids run around in good weather without shoes and it isn’t a problem. But when an adult does it it’s kind of infantizing.
I live far enough south in Texas where informal clothing is perfectly feasible and all my life I’ve seen signs in restaurants that say:
No Shirt
No Shoes
No Service.
well of course you don’t take off shoes in public spaces??? an apartment is a private space. even in the colder / less clean spaces you usually at least change into slippers…
I’m in Canada and it’s not common for people to go past the doorway with shoes on. You might if you are in a hurry run to the kitchen to pick up something before heading out the door with your shoes on but overall it’s just not done. I’ve never met anyone who does that. Everyone I’ve ever known takes their shoes off at the door.
Most Americans think it’s rude to take your shoes off in public (a common area in a dorm would be considered “in public”.
In Canada, shoeless houses are the norm except in rural region where farms are the norm. There, going shoeless would mean getting manure on your socks (trust me, on a busy farm, you have farm dogs and cats and they will go anywhere they damn well please and they track it with them). Most people in rural areas think you’re being stuck up if they come to your place and you ask them to remove their shoes.
That said, in dorms, the rules are different: You can remove your shoes in your bedroom, but everywhere else is considered “public,” culturally, and in public spaces, you wear shoes. So you would still wear shoes in a common area like that.
Some regions in Canada are starting to adopt the use of “indoor shoes” and “outdoor shoes” (elementary schools especially – but also some work places. My work has an unspoken rule of you leave your messy winter shoes at the door and pull on some clean indoor shoes for walking around. Mind you, about half of our employees are Chinese or Korean immigrants so it probably is at least partly the impact of their cultures – I am given to understand that indoor shoes and outdoor shoes is a common cultural practice in China and South Korea). Indoor shoes, as the name implies, never go outside so they don’t have dirt and grime on them. This in turn keeps the place a lot cleaner (building cleaners love us because unless we have a guest over, our floors are never muddy, and we always tidy our countertops ourselves so we’re a fast office to clean for). But in Canada, you wouldn’t go around in sock feet or barefoot in an office – that’s not scandalous like going around in your underwear, but more just too casual, like rolling into a fancy party wearing a ballcap and a beat-up flannel with cut-off shorts. It’d be rude but not shocking, if that makes sense.
US, in my experience, tends to be even more conservative about wearing shoes than Canada does. So I’m not surprised Joyce has her shoes on.
Onnn the other hand: Get the hell off that sofa, Joyce. :p
Well indoor shoes make sense in the winter because your feet get so hot in winter boots. Besides who wants to walk around on hard floors like a school without shoes on. But yeah public spaces tend to be shoes on affairs but homes not in Canada. Our dentist office and doctor’s office have you take off your shoes in the winter so there isn’t a sloppy mess all over which makes sense. With farmers it depends on where you are I guess. My dad was one and he’d never go through the house with shoes or boots on. Most farmers I know have a mud room to take off the dirty boots and put on slippers or something for in the house or sometimes go in sock feet. If they didn’t their wives would kill them I think 😉 Anyway that’s my experience, yours may be different.
Also grew up on a farm. Also had to take off our normal shoes in the outer hallway. And farming boots would first be sprayed off with a hose, then. taken off outside and carried to their spot.
Thus, the inside would be safe for socks and bare feet.
True, we didn’t have cats and the one dog was mainly kept outside. We’d probably have inside shoes with that situation, though.
I grew up on a farm with farm dogs and cats and we had indoor shoes bc without there would be manure on your socks because the dogs were indoor dogs before farm dogs and went anywhere they wanted.
I’m American and always take my shoes off indoors. Personally I have no problem being shoeless in public spaces when it seems appropriate/non-offensive enough (walking from yoga class across gym floor to water fountain, outdoors in grassy area, always went barefoot in my dorm, etc.)
That said, my dad frequently wears shoes indoors, and I find myself barefoot/socked more often than most people I know. My dad wears his shoes in the house frequently. Though, funny – no one ever seems to wear shoes upstairs. And never on the furniture. I don’t think Joyce’s boots on the sofa situation is really normal anywhere here. Nice to see her joking about God, anyway!
Back to shoes – I really like the outdoor/indoor shoes idea in the winter when it’s cold. I think to some extent my barefoot tendencies come from being a child in the hot South where shoes just got sweaty and it felt good to press your toes into the cool green grass and red clay.
In case you missed it, my dad wears shoes indoors.
Seriously though, I’ve been trying to brainstorm if there’s any significant demographic difference between the people I know who tend to wear their shoes inside and those who don’t, and I can’t really say that I can think of one.
Sure, we do, at home, on nice carpet. But most places don’t do the “take your shoes off before you go inside” bit. It’s also a kinda intimate thing to do, for lack of a better word. What I mean is, you don’t do it unless it’s some place you consider kinda home-like. Your own home, a close friend’s house.
We also just don’t bother taking them off if we already have them on and they aren’t uncomfortable. I know I sometimes forget to take them off when I even go to bed. Don’t worry–my feet hang off my bed anyways.
I (American) wouldn’t take off my shoes in a public area like a dorm lobby… too many people tracking in dirt from outside. But I also wouldn’t put my shoes on a public sofa like that.
And Joyce, with her bit of germophobia, definitely wouldn’t.
Personally, I sometimes did when I was lazy. Well, until I got some slip on house shoes, which I wore all the time–even sometimes to class. Learned the hard way they aren’t too compatible with stairs.
Bad coverage joke using Verizon instead of Sprint? That’s… odd. I had Sprint for years and our coverage BARELY covered our own freaking house. Like… there were specific rooms that it was safer to make calls from without the threat of bad signal or dropping the call. I switched to Verizon and have had a reasonable signal ever since.
The “safer to make calls in certain rooms” is pretty much my experience with all US carriers so far. It was certainly one of the things that felt like going backward in time when I moved here.
I think we sorta were–in like a “funny way to describe a spiritual concept” way.
This really isn’t that. She’s just kinda making fun of a practice. It’s a slight different, but it is a difference.
It’s also a little strange, since I’ve never heard of actually going higher to get closer. Sure, raising your hands up high and looking up, just like in worship services. But never getting on top of something.
So she’s not only making a bit of fun of a practice, but adding physical comedy to the mix.
Sure, it’s still something a Youth Pastor could say, but it’s a bit different.
Just because you take something seriously, doesn’t mean you can’t joke about it. I think CS Lewis once said that God gave you the ability to joke and the idea that you need to be very solemn about His majesty all the time is something the Devil came up with to convince everyone that being religious isn’t fun.
Well, yeah. But C.S. Lewis was hardly a fundamentalist. Heck, he actually believed that atheists and Muslims could go to heaven! (See his Narnia book “The Last Battle.”) He believed the Bible was true in a way that wasn’t necessarily literal, but in the same way a story is true.
That said, there are some forms of “respectful comedy” about God that fundamentalists seem to be okay with, but it’s a crapshoot unless you’re part of the culture. You won’t know what is taboo and what isn’t.
Based on my Pentecostal upbringing, I’d put this slightly more than her previous joke about “two-ply,” which was describing the idea that God’s presence is more easily felt in church when you’re worshiping him in a group.
I’m growing seriously fond of Upside Down Joyce. Now 20% more adorable than ordinary Joyce.
It’s so wonderful to see how wrong Dorothy was about Joyce reaction to her bringing up the photo. “Why are you crying, am I the concept of suffering made flesh…. No, actually you are laughing and joking around and I seem to be a good friend. Who could have guessed.”
Heh, Joyce has taken a page from Becky’s and Walky’s playbook. “Sad Dorothy is sad… WACK IT UP!”
Today Dorothy has
– helped Billie (at her lowest point) feel better and demonstrated that people care about her
– made sure to enlist Joyce’s support network to make an informed decision about how to best help her, and done so
– taken steps to help Walky, and more importantly, made him feel accepted
She is becoming the “RA in practice” she wants to be, and that she’s feeling bad just reinforces how awesome she is that keeps going. Now she can be rewarded with some sweet, sweet upside down Joyce-time, and hopefully in time realize that everything will feel better when the rocket fuel has left her system.
Yup, and it’s one of the reasons I’ve been like “drop all the affectations” cause it obscures what are her best qualities and how suited she actually is for the job.
Honestly, what she needs to work at as far as political skills is how to showcase her actual skills instead of trying to shadow them in favor of what she thinks will make her look appealing to important authorities.
Very much so. And in most cases she already does. She does the hard work and it speaks for itself (just look at her journalism, for example… her “journalism” too, come to think of it).
Another skill she need to work on is how to loose. A “win some, lose some” attitude would be more healthy, and help her not to link her self esteem directly to her score card.
In that respect, she’s actually a lot like Hillary in my opinion. Hillary is a clever and compassionate, and a strong and active advocate of civil rights, but she never promotes herself as such. She tries to tone herself down — especially leading up to and during Bill’s presidency, where she becomes practically docile, especially after she takes his last name — but she’s really an excellent politician when she gets past that.
I feel like she’s held back by a different set of forces than Dorothy — in Hillary’s case, a lot of it came from societal pressures put on her by the media when her husband was governor of Arkansas and she was still Hillary Rodham — but it adds up to the same thing, and really comes from the same source.
Yeah, a lot of folks have told me Hillary is excellent when it comes to constituency services and supporting good policy making, but her main struggles were getting over the way our society despises ambitious women and getting people to see all the good work she was doing because a lot of it was unsexy grunt work and her more conservative votes to seem less “scary” got more press.
I’m sorry, the idea that the campus would select Roz over Dorothy just seems laughable. Roz caused something of a mess for the campus with her little sex tape incident, the sort of thing that got an actual college student actually kicked out not long ago (Kendra Sunderland, I think she’s in porn now).
Bottom line, I don’t see the campus hiring someone with that kind of publicity.
I was really into it because Joyce was open to joking about her religion (because honestly, it’s okay to believe and joke about something) but then Verizon diss got me laughin.
All religions, not just Christianity, arise from our desire to know the answers to the unanswerable questions in life, such as: “Why are we born?” “What happens to our consciousness when we die?” “How should I live my life?” “Why do bad things happen to good people?” Some religions develop philosophies (e.g. Buddhism); some posit a single all-powerful personal God (e.g. Christianity, Islam); some posit an immanent divine life force (e.g. Pantheism). They, and their concepts, are all created by mankind to provide the answers/comfort that mankind desires.
Weird. Out west Verizon has far better coverage than anyone else. out in the woods AT&T drops miles before Verizon, and much as I like T-Mo, with them you need to stick to heavily populated areas.
Panel One: Awwwww, these two hanging out are so cute! And yeah, Roz really got to Dorothy with her points on her day to day social skills. Considering that being the RA is a social position, it’s a fair concern, especially since Dorothy’s leg up is in her grades and her clean record, since she and Roz otherwise have the same credentials (live there already, work for the paper, volunteer, etc.) and grades and clean records aren’t actual skills for the job.
Panel Two: Awwwww, Dorothy with a highlighter in her mouth is cute! And yeah, today was a long, rough one for Dorothy. First the RA stuff, then Billie, then Joyce, then Walky, etc. It’s not been a pleasant day and when you’re a fixer like Dorothy it’s tricky not to feel like you need to plug up all the trouble spots. That’s overwhelming though and she was never going to be able to do it all.
Panel Three: Joyce is so cute trying to make Dorothy feel better. And she genuinely means it – knowing they’ve done something about Ryan feels good. And Dorothy’s perspective is fair too. She doesn’t have any good ideas on how to get this going further – the best she could do was warn folks, and that doesn’t feel like a victory.
Panel Four: Awwww. This is genuinely sweet. Sure, Dorothy doesn’t believe, but like Joyce says, it can’t hurt. As long as she’s not uncomfortable with Joyce bringing her into her religion this way, it doesn’t hurt. And it’s SO CUTE seeing them getting some down time together.
Panel Five: Awwww, Dorothy is so cute here, making very gentle jokes and engaging with what Joyce is offering. And yeah, Joyce is cool with it – she’s made similar jokes regarding faith before. It’s nice she’s comfortable enough to do so again.
Panel Six: *snorts* Ohhhh, Verizon. Such different coverage levels all over the place. But yeah, Joyce is comfortable and happy again and it’s so good to see. She’s so happy! And she makes her own jokes. And yeah, church-y rules like standing up high sounds about right.
But yeah, my Canadian ass just winced at shoes on the couch.
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in that case, no WAY I could believe in God, because Verizon
“Maybe if you switched to a better network, you could get my prayers, but until then I will stick with the AT&T setup the Olympians have going.”
Pagans use Consumer Cellular. It’s the same network, just without all the ludicrous fees and contracts.
Why do people find it so hard to believe in God ….. but they will believe in vampires, superheroes, and a zombie apocalypse?
Because humans are inherently irrational and illogical beings. And evil exists in the world, so some people find that hard to reconcile with the idea of an all-knowing, all-powerful, and all-good god. Seriously, try explaining to a little kid the answer to the question “If God loves everyone why do bad things happen?” You can’t answer that question without going deep into philosophy and theology and quite a bit of Thomas Aquinas. Signed, a hippie pinko Jesuit Catholic.
the way to answer said question in a manner that is (somewhat) satisfactory to a little kid, is to frame the situation like the human race is collectively a child and God is the parent. And sometimes being a good parent means letting your child slip and fall, and then learn to pick themselves up, and not always being there to fix everything. Just being there to listen and offer encouragement is sometimes what is best, and all that is needed.
*edit* signed, a tolerant liberal non-denominational Deist.
As someone who was that kid, I always found that infantilization of the human race absolutely unsatisfactory and insulting. It was preposterous to sub-10 year old me. The God described in the Bible is clearly crueler and more narcissistic than any decent parent.
If a parent acted like Bible-God, we’d all be telling the kid to get the hell emancipated ASAP.
yeah, I kind of vehemently disagree with the classical depiction/example of the Christian God, it’s one of the reasons I refuse to identify with any organized religion. That being said, a lot of the more basic lessons in the bible and other similar holy books do still ring true even today, they just have to be taken with a grain of salt and the understanding that the culture and world when they were written is vastly different than today and that most of the more specific lessons/teachings need to be adapted for the modern world if they are salvageable at all. Granted, most of the stuff that survives from the teachings of historical J.C. is still good advice in an applicable situation, but one of the things that the religious folk like to gloss over, (though every decent world history class that covers the subject, makes a point to say that This Did Happen And We Have Recorded Proof) is that many of the clergy between the death of J.C. and even as late as the industrial revolution, would regularly deliberately mis-interpret scripture to fit the agenda of the current local status quo.
In my experience, a lot of people are looking for a parental figure who they will never outgrow, who will never leave them, and who will always love and protect them while giving them simple rules to follow to be “good”. For many, such a deity fills that role/need.
Yeah, that only works if you accept the idea that God is a worse parent than Toedad. “Slip and fall” is one thing. “Let your kids rape, torture and kill the weakest ones, while shouting ‘Dad said I could’,” and not so much as telling the abusive siblings that they’re wrong about that, is another thing entirely.
What are you talking about, Rukduk? Just avoid the false, meaningless question so you don’t have to justify an answer. What are “bad things” anyway? What is evil? Different people are offended and hurt and pleased and amused and permanently scarred and made happy by different things. Good and evil are far from absolutes, and therefore there’s no reason to assume there’s a reason. There is always cause, and effect though.
There are some things people will generally consider wrong – murder (as in, ‘I am killing this person unlawfully because I want to”, not talking about things like self defence), rape, etc.
And, considering he’s talking with the assumption there’s a God (and specifically the Christian version of God) there’s definitely a version of good and evil we’re dealing with here, so I think it was a valid question.
Vamps & Zombies are just the result of diseases, and superheroes are just genetic manipulation or technological creations. But a Sky Daddy who rewards or punishes you for all eternity based on a small handful of years on Earth, without any proof that he actually exists? Might as well believe that Trump is the Second Coming.
Someday, Obama will return from vacation and run again, and He will be the Second Coming. 😀
(I am tempted to draw a picture of this, Obama standing on the steps of the White House in Jesus robes, with a halo, saying to cheering crowds, “I have returned, my children.” Heh.)
As rad as that would be, you and I both know that’s not how the system works.
Just wait until the constitutional crisis.
Wait, who do you know that believes in literal vampires, superheroes, and zombies? o_o
Yeah, I was going to ask that… Like, what? Since when? We just do temporary suspension of disbelief for the sake of entertaining fiction. Seriously, please tell us who actually believes in these?
“These” being all the non-god things that Bicycle Bill mentioned
I’m pretty sure more people in the world today believe in the existence of a god over vampires, superheroes, and zombies. Which is odd, because I think it’d be a lot easier to provide evidence for those three things than for a god. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and the claim that a god exists is a lot more extraordinary than the claim that vampires, superheroes, or zombies exist. I haven’t seen any evidence that anything supernatural exists so far.
Maybe that’s exactly the point, people feel more comfortable believing in something that cannot be rather easily DISproven.
I once went to a meditation class that turned out to be a recruitment thing for some relatively crazy buddhist sect (and yep, apparently those exist), and they did SUCH a good job building up a theory that “feels logical”, but has no way whatsoever to be proven or disproven.
(I was out of there fast.)
Why do people believe in God… when they don’t believe in Santa Claus?
The tropes are similar. White man, white beard, in the sky, knowing who sins and who’s good, delivering goodies or burnables as appropriate.
In fact, kids do believe in Santa – because they’re told He exists. They believe in God – because they’re told He exists. They have more evidence for the existence of Santa than of God – the presents show up every year!
Then, they’re told Santa doesn’t exist, and after some emotional distress, they stop believing in Him. You’d think they’d extrapolate… but they’re still surrounded by people who keep telling them that God exists.
Surround them with people who tell them that zombies exist, or angels exist, or a flying saucer will come pick them up on March 26, 1997… and they will believe that too.
That’s actually exactly how I stopped believing in god. Well, via the Easter Bunny rather than Santa. When I was about four I went downstairs to use the bathroom the night before Easter and caught my parents filling our baskets, and with that stopped believing in every magical figure they told us was real without our actually ever seeing them. I had no idea adults thought god was a thing that actually existed instead of just being on the same level as Santa or The Tooth Fairy.
Because the gifts do show up: “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.” When someone goes to church and does feel uplifted and strengthened, it confirms what they’ve been told.
Sounds like you’re saying Christians have a special advantage in those areas. I have not noticed that, on average.
Christianity often seems to encourage people to amplify the way they already are. If they’re kind, they may be kinder. If they are self-righteous, they will likely be more so. Even cruelty (“spare the rod and spoil the child”) and murder have often been justified by Christianity – especially by the people who act that way.
I do not have such a high opinion of people that I think amplifying one’s natural tendencies is, on balance, a major point in Christianity’s favor.
Uh? Who actually believes in those things?
Zombies do exist, just not human ones (yet).
I don’t believe, but it helps to be prepared amirite 😉
I’ve got my 40pack stash of beans somewhere ~.~
I find it impossible to believe in any of those others either, so no conflict. I don’t seem capable of faith, at least in the sense of belief in the unprovable.
Honestly, each of those creatures does seem a lot more plausible than God. Ignoring their myriad of random (and often inconsistent) magical qualities and focus only on their basic attributes, none of them are that much of a stretch compared to what already exists.
-There plenty of blood drinking animals, why couldn’t some humans do the same?.
-Undeath in general is merely an unusual form of life. We still don’t know exactly what constitutes life, so it’s not that hard to believe there could be some variations of semi-life.
-There’s plenty of people with odd mutations/talents/abilities, superheroes are just that taken a step further.
Not saying any of them is real or even believable, but they are a lot easier to fit into a worldview than God is.
Correction: They’re easier to fit into YOUR worldview than God is.
What reality is it where more people believe in vampires and zombies than God?
“Why do people find it so hard to believe in God ….. but they will believe in vampires, superheroes, and a zombie apocalypse?”
If by that you mean that some people genuinely believe they exist without objective proof or indeed despite proof such things do no exist or are hoaxes, you will find it is largely the same group of people because the mindset needed to believe in things without proof allows a pretty wide range of beliefs.
I doubt very many rational people “believe” superheroes actually exist so you are using a bit of a straw man argument here as well or using “belief” in different ways for different things.
Do you believe that devils and demons are genuinely real and truly exist and are hanging round looking for opportunities to harass you and destroy your relationship with this god I suspect you believe in?
“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?” – Epicurus
If he’s any of these things, why worship him?
Um… I know of very few people who believe in those things. They regard them as fictional scenarios which are fun to discuss–kind of like how Dorothy is treating the idea of “God” in this strip, actually.
I used to complain about Verizon. And then they sold my region to FairPoint.
I really, desperately, want Verizon back.
That’s the deal with being God: INFINITE COSMIC POWER!! itty-bitty coverage map.
I believe God uses Virgin Mobile
AND VERILY, I SAY UNTO THEE, FOR I AM THY LORD: CAN THOU HEAR ME NOW?
AND THE LORD WAS SILENT, FOR HE HAD ZERO BARS.
AND LO, THE ISRAELITES DID WANDER FOR FORTY YEARS, TRYING TO FIND A SIGNAL.
AND IT SHALL COME TO PASS, WHEN COMMENTERS TYPE IN ALL-CAPS, THAT THE FLOODGATES SHALL OPEN AND UNLIMITED WI-FI WILL BE AVAILABLE TO ALL, SHOULD THEY CHOOSE TO SAVE 20% OR MORE ON VERIZON.
Thou art holding it wrong.
Book of Job 6/10
Why do you think churches have steaples?
BUT THE LORD DID PROVIDE FOR THEM, WITH UNLIMITED MOBILE DATA FROM HEAVEN
Maybe Paul was trying to fix the no-bars problem when he recommended “a little wine, for the sake of your stomach.”
That makes the Verizon guy even more of a Judas now.
The “Verizon guy” wasn’t an actual employee that they chose at random some day and said “C’mere; we’re gonna use you in a TV commercial”. He was an actor who *PLAYED* a Verizon tech — and his only connection to Verizon was the check he collected for doing so.
Or do you think that “Flo” is a real Progressive agent too?
Yes, and I’m convinced that Geico taught a lizard to walk upright and speak with an Australian accent too.
at least the Geico gecko understands LOYALTY >:C
When those ads are still running, I always wanted to make a parody video that would go “Can you hear me now? Shit.” in a bunch of different locations.
can you hear me now? no i’ll read a few more verses then try again.
Joyce, get off your high horse. There’s nothing wrong with paying respects for the Champ, Hercule.
he did defeat majin buu and cell.
Not to mention the God of Destruction!
Prayer works better the higher up you are, therefore Jesus lives in space
or it fights gravity maybe. i dunno.
*plays The Pretenders’ “Talk of the Town” on the hacked Muzak, because it’s what I think of when anybody mentions “More Bars In More Places”*
Maybe Tomorrow…Maybe Someday…
*And for the Encore, R.E.M. and “The Great Beyond”*
So, if you hold your prayer up to your chin like a key fob, do you get a wider range of coverage?
Aww that’s wonderful that she’s making jokes XD
And committing to the bit! Lookit her standin’ on that common room sofa.
Yeah, the concerned look on Joyce’s face in panel 5 really set up the punchlines in the final panel well.
Are you there God, It’s me A—
What? No, hold up. Can you hear me now? No? What? Dropped prayer?
Damn Verizon.
Joyce and Dorothy’s friendship is so nice. I love when these moments happen.
I know, aren’t they cute? <3 Christians and Atheists can be awesome friends when neither is mean to the other.
ANYBODY can be awesome friends when they’re not mean to each other.
Okay, that last panel is adorable. It suggests that Joyce is starting to feel more comfortable engaging in joking banter about God and her beliefs and this doesn’t mean that she is being made fun of. Friends are laughing with her, not at her and for her to relax about this is a very healthy sign.
That makes a good point. It’s not that she’s never made jokes like this before. It’s that she’s once again comfortable making them.
Is that why God never heard my prayers? Shitty cell phone coverage?
So…should he switch to Sprint?
I thought Verizon had the best coverage?
Did all those commercials LIE to me??
I’m also in an easy coast city so they all work of of the same here
East* coast
Same here, and it’s also the only network that gets coverage while I’m camping.
Same, down to the east coast city part. Is there a major difference in coverage in the Midwest or something?
The places where I’ve noticed a difference is actually in mostly rural western states like Montana (my parents live here). I have zero data or cell coverage in the entire state with T mobile. Only Verizon and AT&T have coverage there.
that said, when I was in Puerto Rico, I had flawless coverage and all of my friends with other carriers didn’t.
Can you hear me now?
SMITE!
I’ve had enough of SMITE. Re-route me to PULL FIRMAMENT FROM VOID.
“The story so far: In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.”–Douglas Adams
“There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable.
There is another theory which states that this has already happened.” … more from Mr. Adams
And then this guy got nailed to a tree for just saying “why don’t we just try being nice to each other for a while.”
(Not a direct quote).
Heheh… where I live, Verizon has the best coverage of any provider. Hands down. (Hands up for everyone else, because, y’know, coverage issues…)
Verizon’s coverage is too good. I’ve butt dialed in the middle of nowhere while hiking because I can’t escape their darned coverage.
Where I live,Verizon has amazing coverage. It’s the only provider that does.
Ditto. Other than being too darn expensive Verizon is great, here. Visitors sitting in my house on AT&T get one bar on a good day.
Same. Maybe God lives in NYC. We do have the best bagels and lox.
As someone who lives outside the US I thought that overall Verizon had the best (or at least right up there) coverage…
What’s his ISP then? Comcast? Time Warner?
Anyways, nice to see Joyce is now at least comfortable enough to joke about her religion.
He obviously uses DishTV; no copper cables or fiber optics between Midgard & Asgard.
Atheists dismiss the idea of cell phones entirely – they only use VOIP over the Internet.
THAT explains why God always needed his temples in the high places throughout the Old Testament. VERIZON SUCKED EVEN WORSE BACK THEN!
For a moment there I was wondering when Dorothy started smoking, then I realized that was a pen in her mouth.
I thought it was one of those powder candies
Looked like a yellow highlighter to me.
Same.
You know, how it goes. The RA is gone for a day, then A+-students start drinking in the dorms, smoking and climbing on furniture.
“Dad, that’s a rotary phone! Those things won’t work on a digital network.”
“Jesus, I don’t care what Steve Jobs told you, I don’t need an iPhone 7.”
My god Joyce, shoes off the sofa.
she is a rebellious teenager now. beware her naughty times
It’s the damn common room/lounge. Those sofas have had worse than shoes on them.
“other people break windows, so I’m allowed, too”
All I’m saying is they’re designed to become durable as heck.
Between Billie, tutoring Walky, and being part of Joyce’s crew, Dorothy should feel busy. Maybe she’s a bit too much so. She is immensely capable but I hope she doesn’t run right thru her guardrail.
Dorothy looks like she’s smoking a cigarette she looks so cool
Cigarettes are not cool. People thinking they are cool kills people. (A family member of mine died of lung cancer.)
Bogie forgives you as he epitomises cool, that freshly lit Lucky Strike dangling from his lips.
Either that or Ivy was being ironic, your choice.
I love the character development on Joyce, I mean yeah she had the whole flip with becky, but she is really grown as a character.
Noir Dumbing of Age
Joyce: Thingley?
Robin: Yeah and get this, there duke happens to look exactly like one of the kids in Leslie’s gender studies class! Apparently he tripped over some girls on a secret mission to your school once.
Joyce: do you think he has any leads?
Robin: I’ll talk to him
Narrator: later
Robin and Joyce meet by the fountain. A boy who looks exactly like Walky is standing next to Robin.
Joyce: Hey Robin…and Walky?
Reginald: actually my name is Reginald
Narrator: Reginald kisses Joyce’s hand
Joyce: and you’re a duke?
Reginald: Indeed, let me tell you the story of my country
100 years ago my family bought a strip of land and created their own micro nation. We try to keep to ourselves, but have some ties to nearly ever major country.
Joyce: One of my old enemies had your knife.
Reginald: ah, that must have been Ryan…he was most unpleasant.
Joyce: so why give him the knife?
Reginald: I didn’t he must have stolen it.
Joyce: do you want it back?
Reginald: I would perfer not to touch something held by that man. But I will help your investigation.
Told you, told you, I called it several pages ago!
The Duke has arrived!
Aww <3 I was worried he'd be a baddie ^^
Let’s see, Ruth opened the case, the first clue (the letter “R”) pointed us to Roz, who pointed us to Robin, who pointed us to Ryan, who pointed us to Reginald Duke of Thingley. It seems this series is brought to us by the letter R. Are Riley, Rachel and other Rachel going to make an appearance?
Heck, is Rachel Riley (from UK show Countdown) gonna make a guest appearance?
I love this. The gentle teasing. They care about each other a lot.
This was such a nice friendship moment, and Joyce made a God joke. Today has been a good day.
Well, that explains Christianity’s high drop out rate.
I love these guys right here right now look at them being straight up adorbs
I’m impressed that Joyce was willing to make a joke about God being limited. I think that’s a very healthy sign that she has a properly loving relationship with her deity — the sort of family relationship that allows for a bit of gentle kidding. It feels very much like my own Ashkenazi Jewish traditions about interacting with God.
Also, mocking Verizon’s always a plus.
Actually as much as I use Sprint, Verizon’s coverage is pretty amazing in places where no one has coverage.
Totally the evilest though.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW
A question to all US readers: do you guys really never take off your shoes when indoors?
The last panel (apart from being awesomely cute) just made me cringe, seeing boots on the sofa…
Many US readers do not, in fact, take off shoes indoors. I hadn’t even heard of taking off shoes indoors until I learned that they do it in Japan. Now, a fairly large fraction of my acquaintances (in the Bay Area, CA) have “shoeless” houses, but it’s still rare enough that they have to ask visitors to take off their shoes.
I think it’s quite rare for public spaces to be shoeless. Martial arts studios, of course, are shoeless. But a church, school, store… people wouldn’t think of taking off their shoes to go inside.
On the other hand, I think it’s still true that Americans bathe more often than Europeans. Generally we take a bath or shower every day. And in some ways, we’re overly paranoid about germs – e.g. antibacterial soap has been very popular.
Now that I think about it, if you took off your shoes in a very public area, then your feet would pick up germs from everyone else’s feet. Or if the place provided slippers, you’d have to wear slippers that other people had worn. Better to let the floor be germy, and wrap your feet in your own personal clothing. And I guess the habit just persists right into our own houses.
I’m going to comment on several parts, it might get incoherent 😀 I don’t get it, how would a germaphobe let their floor be yucky? How are you going to let your children play on the floor then? We had this city carpet, you know. How would you lie down on the carpet to read a book? Or sit in a circle to play spin the bottle? And how would you clean the carpet?? And I don’t know where this comes from, all the people I know takes a shower daily, but I do live in a capital, so I might not be aware of many people’s habits. In the dorms and in primary school we had indoor sandals or slippers to walk around, nurses and teachers have their workplace sandals as well. And the point is not only to be cleaner, but I was told that being in closed top shoes all day is unhealthy and facilitates every kind of skin disease. My boyfriend and some other friends take their socks off too, but I don’t my feet would freeze.
You shoes are part of your clothing. You might take them off In your own home, but not if anyone was around.
Which makes it seems like taking off ones shoes in public is obscene. Which is not usually the case. It’s more like improper. You might not need a shirt indoors, but you wouldn’t take it off if a guest was present, and you certainly wouldn’t ask your guest to take their shirt off when they came into your house.
Kids run around in good weather without shoes and it isn’t a problem. But when an adult does it it’s kind of infantizing.
I live far enough south in Texas where informal clothing is perfectly feasible and all my life I’ve seen signs in restaurants that say:
No Shirt
No Shoes
No Service.
So yeah. Improper.
well of course you don’t take off shoes in public spaces??? an apartment is a private space. even in the colder / less clean spaces you usually at least change into slippers…
I’m in Canada and it’s not common for people to go past the doorway with shoes on. You might if you are in a hurry run to the kitchen to pick up something before heading out the door with your shoes on but overall it’s just not done. I’ve never met anyone who does that. Everyone I’ve ever known takes their shoes off at the door.
Must be fungus heaven. Is athlete’s foot as common as I suspect it is? Very, in other words?
I don’t really understand this whole thread about the culture of wearing shoes… In what culture is it okay to step on a sofa with your boots on?
Like even if it’s expected to wear shoes all the time, you still don’t step on the sofa with them
Most Americans think it’s rude to take your shoes off in public (a common area in a dorm would be considered “in public”.
In Canada, shoeless houses are the norm except in rural region where farms are the norm. There, going shoeless would mean getting manure on your socks (trust me, on a busy farm, you have farm dogs and cats and they will go anywhere they damn well please and they track it with them). Most people in rural areas think you’re being stuck up if they come to your place and you ask them to remove their shoes.
That said, in dorms, the rules are different: You can remove your shoes in your bedroom, but everywhere else is considered “public,” culturally, and in public spaces, you wear shoes. So you would still wear shoes in a common area like that.
Some regions in Canada are starting to adopt the use of “indoor shoes” and “outdoor shoes” (elementary schools especially – but also some work places. My work has an unspoken rule of you leave your messy winter shoes at the door and pull on some clean indoor shoes for walking around. Mind you, about half of our employees are Chinese or Korean immigrants so it probably is at least partly the impact of their cultures – I am given to understand that indoor shoes and outdoor shoes is a common cultural practice in China and South Korea). Indoor shoes, as the name implies, never go outside so they don’t have dirt and grime on them. This in turn keeps the place a lot cleaner (building cleaners love us because unless we have a guest over, our floors are never muddy, and we always tidy our countertops ourselves so we’re a fast office to clean for). But in Canada, you wouldn’t go around in sock feet or barefoot in an office – that’s not scandalous like going around in your underwear, but more just too casual, like rolling into a fancy party wearing a ballcap and a beat-up flannel with cut-off shorts. It’d be rude but not shocking, if that makes sense.
US, in my experience, tends to be even more conservative about wearing shoes than Canada does. So I’m not surprised Joyce has her shoes on.
Onnn the other hand: Get the hell off that sofa, Joyce. :p
Well indoor shoes make sense in the winter because your feet get so hot in winter boots. Besides who wants to walk around on hard floors like a school without shoes on. But yeah public spaces tend to be shoes on affairs but homes not in Canada. Our dentist office and doctor’s office have you take off your shoes in the winter so there isn’t a sloppy mess all over which makes sense. With farmers it depends on where you are I guess. My dad was one and he’d never go through the house with shoes or boots on. Most farmers I know have a mud room to take off the dirty boots and put on slippers or something for in the house or sometimes go in sock feet. If they didn’t their wives would kill them I think 😉 Anyway that’s my experience, yours may be different.
Also grew up on a farm. Also had to take off our normal shoes in the outer hallway. And farming boots would first be sprayed off with a hose, then. taken off outside and carried to their spot.
Thus, the inside would be safe for socks and bare feet.
True, we didn’t have cats and the one dog was mainly kept outside. We’d probably have inside shoes with that situation, though.
I grew up on a farm with farm dogs and cats and we had indoor shoes bc without there would be manure on your socks because the dogs were indoor dogs before farm dogs and went anywhere they wanted.
Never is an exaggeration, but we normally do not, especially in public spaces like this.
I’m American and always take my shoes off indoors. Personally I have no problem being shoeless in public spaces when it seems appropriate/non-offensive enough (walking from yoga class across gym floor to water fountain, outdoors in grassy area, always went barefoot in my dorm, etc.)
That said, my dad frequently wears shoes indoors, and I find myself barefoot/socked more often than most people I know. My dad wears his shoes in the house frequently. Though, funny – no one ever seems to wear shoes upstairs. And never on the furniture. I don’t think Joyce’s boots on the sofa situation is really normal anywhere here. Nice to see her joking about God, anyway!
Back to shoes – I really like the outdoor/indoor shoes idea in the winter when it’s cold. I think to some extent my barefoot tendencies come from being a child in the hot South where shoes just got sweaty and it felt good to press your toes into the cool green grass and red clay.
In case you missed it, my dad wears shoes indoors.
Seriously though, I’ve been trying to brainstorm if there’s any significant demographic difference between the people I know who tend to wear their shoes inside and those who don’t, and I can’t really say that I can think of one.
Sure, we do, at home, on nice carpet. But most places don’t do the “take your shoes off before you go inside” bit. It’s also a kinda intimate thing to do, for lack of a better word. What I mean is, you don’t do it unless it’s some place you consider kinda home-like. Your own home, a close friend’s house.
We also just don’t bother taking them off if we already have them on and they aren’t uncomfortable. I know I sometimes forget to take them off when I even go to bed. Don’t worry–my feet hang off my bed anyways.
I love Joyce’s character development in the last panel.
I (American) wouldn’t take off my shoes in a public area like a dorm lobby… too many people tracking in dirt from outside. But I also wouldn’t put my shoes on a public sofa like that.
You probably wouldn’t lay where people sit either. You know. Trapped farts and all.
And Joyce, with her bit of germophobia, definitely wouldn’t.
Personally, I sometimes did when I was lazy. Well, until I got some slip on house shoes, which I wore all the time–even sometimes to class. Learned the hard way they aren’t too compatible with stairs.
Bad coverage joke using Verizon instead of Sprint? That’s… odd. I had Sprint for years and our coverage BARELY covered our own freaking house. Like… there were specific rooms that it was safer to make calls from without the threat of bad signal or dropping the call. I switched to Verizon and have had a reasonable signal ever since.
The “safer to make calls in certain rooms” is pretty much my experience with all US carriers so far. It was certainly one of the things that felt like going backward in time when I moved here.
Shots fired at Verizon.
“I Only Have So Many Fingers To Plug Holes”
Will this be the next Slipshine comic? 😉
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2012/comic/book-2/02-choosing-my-religion/holes-2/
Me, for a very split second: “Why does Dorothy have a tampon in her mouth?”
Why don’t YOU?
Did Joyce just make a frivolous joking remark about God? Whoah, she *has* changed a lot.
Not that much. Unless we were meant to take her “double-ply” remark seriously.
I think we sorta were–in like a “funny way to describe a spiritual concept” way.
This really isn’t that. She’s just kinda making fun of a practice. It’s a slight different, but it is a difference.
It’s also a little strange, since I’ve never heard of actually going higher to get closer. Sure, raising your hands up high and looking up, just like in worship services. But never getting on top of something.
So she’s not only making a bit of fun of a practice, but adding physical comedy to the mix.
Sure, it’s still something a Youth Pastor could say, but it’s a bit different.
Just because you take something seriously, doesn’t mean you can’t joke about it. I think CS Lewis once said that God gave you the ability to joke and the idea that you need to be very solemn about His majesty all the time is something the Devil came up with to convince everyone that being religious isn’t fun.
Or something. I’m an atheist, so I dunno.
Well, yeah. But C.S. Lewis was hardly a fundamentalist. Heck, he actually believed that atheists and Muslims could go to heaven! (See his Narnia book “The Last Battle.”) He believed the Bible was true in a way that wasn’t necessarily literal, but in the same way a story is true.
That said, there are some forms of “respectful comedy” about God that fundamentalists seem to be okay with, but it’s a crapshoot unless you’re part of the culture. You won’t know what is taboo and what isn’t.
Based on my Pentecostal upbringing, I’d put this slightly more than her previous joke about “two-ply,” which was describing the idea that God’s presence is more easily felt in church when you’re worshiping him in a group.
“Jesus taken serious by the many
Jesus taken joyous by the few” — Leonard Cohen
I’m growing seriously fond of Upside Down Joyce. Now 20% more adorable than ordinary Joyce.
It’s so wonderful to see how wrong Dorothy was about Joyce reaction to her bringing up the photo. “Why are you crying, am I the concept of suffering made flesh…. No, actually you are laughing and joking around and I seem to be a good friend. Who could have guessed.”
Heh, Joyce has taken a page from Becky’s and Walky’s playbook. “Sad Dorothy is sad… WACK IT UP!”
And to think there are people out there who don’t like Joyce. Jesus Christ.
She seems pretty confident that he likes her.
Today Dorothy has
– helped Billie (at her lowest point) feel better and demonstrated that people care about her
– made sure to enlist Joyce’s support network to make an informed decision about how to best help her, and done so
– taken steps to help Walky, and more importantly, made him feel accepted
She is becoming the “RA in practice” she wants to be, and that she’s feeling bad just reinforces how awesome she is that keeps going. Now she can be rewarded with some sweet, sweet upside down Joyce-time, and hopefully in time realize that everything will feel better when the rocket fuel has left her system.
I also find it adorable how she starts with one of her usual deflections but then takes time to explore and explain her feelings.
This friendship is so healthy for both of them.
Yup, and it’s one of the reasons I’ve been like “drop all the affectations” cause it obscures what are her best qualities and how suited she actually is for the job.
Honestly, what she needs to work at as far as political skills is how to showcase her actual skills instead of trying to shadow them in favor of what she thinks will make her look appealing to important authorities.
Very much so. And in most cases she already does. She does the hard work and it speaks for itself (just look at her journalism, for example… her “journalism” too, come to think of it).
Another skill she need to work on is how to loose. A “win some, lose some” attitude would be more healthy, and help her not to link her self esteem directly to her score card.
In that respect, she’s actually a lot like Hillary in my opinion. Hillary is a clever and compassionate, and a strong and active advocate of civil rights, but she never promotes herself as such. She tries to tone herself down — especially leading up to and during Bill’s presidency, where she becomes practically docile, especially after she takes his last name — but she’s really an excellent politician when she gets past that.
I feel like she’s held back by a different set of forces than Dorothy — in Hillary’s case, a lot of it came from societal pressures put on her by the media when her husband was governor of Arkansas and she was still Hillary Rodham — but it adds up to the same thing, and really comes from the same source.
Yeah, a lot of folks have told me Hillary is excellent when it comes to constituency services and supporting good policy making, but her main struggles were getting over the way our society despises ambitious women and getting people to see all the good work she was doing because a lot of it was unsexy grunt work and her more conservative votes to seem less “scary” got more press.
Joyce is precious cinnamon roll.
She is, she truly is.
They both are omrg :3
I’m sorry, the idea that the campus would select Roz over Dorothy just seems laughable. Roz caused something of a mess for the campus with her little sex tape incident, the sort of thing that got an actual college student actually kicked out not long ago (Kendra Sunderland, I think she’s in porn now).
Bottom line, I don’t see the campus hiring someone with that kind of publicity.
It’s nice to see Joyce able to joke about her religion. I don’t think she’d have been able to do so at the beginning of the comic.
Woah, I go into the freaking mountains and forest with my Verizon Android.
Teach me your ways, O sorcerer.
This strip contains some really archetypal Joyce. Happy, faithful and friendly who really doesn’t feel at all defensive about her beliefs.
I love Joyce. So so much.
I was really into it because Joyce was open to joking about her religion (because honestly, it’s okay to believe and joke about something) but then Verizon diss got me laughin.
I’d say she could get way to help plug some of her holes, but I’m pretty sure that’d just lead to more spurting
* get Walky. Joke ruined by autocorrect 🙁
Pretty sure the guy can only plug so many holes before he winds up tangled.
It looks like Joyce is go go dancing haha
Counterpoint, from a (fairly badass) preacher in something I read once:
“God listens better when you’re on your knees!”
(smiting in His name commences)
Yip. Gotta send that knee-mail.
All religions, not just Christianity, arise from our desire to know the answers to the unanswerable questions in life, such as: “Why are we born?” “What happens to our consciousness when we die?” “How should I live my life?” “Why do bad things happen to good people?” Some religions develop philosophies (e.g. Buddhism); some posit a single all-powerful personal God (e.g. Christianity, Islam); some posit an immanent divine life force (e.g. Pantheism). They, and their concepts, are all created by mankind to provide the answers/comfort that mankind desires.
“If you hold your hands upside down, you get the opposite of what you pray for!”
L. Van Pelt.
I sold my soul to Sprint years ago and never looked back.
Hey! Verizon isn’t that bad!
…It’s better than ATnT and Cricket, at least, in my experience.
Weird. Out west Verizon has far better coverage than anyone else. out in the woods AT&T drops miles before Verizon, and much as I like T-Mo, with them you need to stick to heavily populated areas.
Dorothy! You troll!
*falls over laughing*
Panel One: Awwwww, these two hanging out are so cute! And yeah, Roz really got to Dorothy with her points on her day to day social skills. Considering that being the RA is a social position, it’s a fair concern, especially since Dorothy’s leg up is in her grades and her clean record, since she and Roz otherwise have the same credentials (live there already, work for the paper, volunteer, etc.) and grades and clean records aren’t actual skills for the job.
Panel Two: Awwwww, Dorothy with a highlighter in her mouth is cute! And yeah, today was a long, rough one for Dorothy. First the RA stuff, then Billie, then Joyce, then Walky, etc. It’s not been a pleasant day and when you’re a fixer like Dorothy it’s tricky not to feel like you need to plug up all the trouble spots. That’s overwhelming though and she was never going to be able to do it all.
Panel Three: Joyce is so cute trying to make Dorothy feel better. And she genuinely means it – knowing they’ve done something about Ryan feels good. And Dorothy’s perspective is fair too. She doesn’t have any good ideas on how to get this going further – the best she could do was warn folks, and that doesn’t feel like a victory.
Panel Four: Awwww. This is genuinely sweet. Sure, Dorothy doesn’t believe, but like Joyce says, it can’t hurt. As long as she’s not uncomfortable with Joyce bringing her into her religion this way, it doesn’t hurt. And it’s SO CUTE seeing them getting some down time together.
Panel Five: Awwww, Dorothy is so cute here, making very gentle jokes and engaging with what Joyce is offering. And yeah, Joyce is cool with it – she’s made similar jokes regarding faith before. It’s nice she’s comfortable enough to do so again.
Panel Six: *snorts* Ohhhh, Verizon. Such different coverage levels all over the place. But yeah, Joyce is comfortable and happy again and it’s so good to see. She’s so happy! And she makes her own jokes. And yeah, church-y rules like standing up high sounds about right.
But yeah, my Canadian ass just winced at shoes on the couch.