Dumbing of Age Book 10: No Boozahol, No Worries
Dumbing of Age Book 10: A Sober Off-Campus Party Contradicts Itself So Hard It Winks Out of Existence
Dumbing of Age Book 10: Perhaps Edgin’ a Paradox is a Passable Substitute for Inebriation
Dumbing of Age Book 10: Wow It Feels Anxious in Here
Yep, there are way more options than that. Unless each option counts as ~0.5 titles and the end result is 3.5 when you add all of them up. It might be clearer to say there are 7/2 titles in this strip.
Atheism is difficult to accept since it means you have to accept bad things are only made by humans, and natural disasters just happen without anyone causing them. An indifferent universe is a painful reality.
The idea that there are about 100,000,000,000 stars in the Milky Way, (lots with plants it turns out) is incomprehensible wnough. The fact that there are apparently hundreds of millions or more of GALAXIES isn’t a concept I can meaningfully measure the scope of.
But yes the idea that all of that somehow revolves around a few plains apes on a little continental mudball on one of those grillions of worlds is.. Optimistic at best. But that thought helped some people make some sort of sense of it all.
Funny thing is, I can accept those just fine. I’m still agnostic, I just have a feeling that 1) There may be something after death, and 2) God/s probably don’t give a fuck about us, like how humans don’t give a fuck about microbes
We give a fuck about microbes when they might infect us or make us sick somehow, or when they might help is (like probiotics). It is really thought provoking to imagine deities that have that kind of relationship to us 🙂
Er – that’s the thinking behind Cthulhu mythos. Its deities are so far beyond us as to be incomprehensible, and if they think of us at all, it’s in that sense.
Which i too am fine with, btw; it’s just that a lot of people find the idea that humanity isn’t special or even significant in the cosmic scheme of things to be horrifying. Religions are what we came up with to shield us from this thought.
If Atheism means accepting bad things are only made by humans, and natural disasters just happen without anyone causing them and that an indifferent universe is a painful reality, then what would you call the belief that bad things happen without anyone causing them, that natural disasters are only made by humans and that far from being indifferent, the universe is out to get you. (I mean, just look at entropy and everything that follows from that.)
These are contradictory points – natural disasters are generally not made by humans (though we’re doing a bangup job intensifying them recently, thanks petrochemical companies), and are a bad thing. See also: diseases, where yes, human screwups can intensify things (e.g. antivaccers, the CIA torpedoing polio eradication by embedding agents in a WHO group), but fundamentally it’s a bad thing happened caused by non-human sources.
Those are contradictory points, the point being that the original formulation of things abbysswatcher felt made atheism difficult for people to accept were contradictory as well. Unless you believe natural disasters are not bad things.
A lot of people also don’t want the responsibility that no powerful being is coming to Rapture us away to save us from the consequences of climate change and war. We either solve our human problems or we don’t, and the uncaring stars won’t notice or have any opinion on which we choose.
The other side of this is, we (sometimes) appreciate the own tiny little sparks of out lives and those around us and appreciate them for existing in the great big void.
You don’t need to be an atheist to assume that natural disaster just happen and people acting like assholes is their choice and worst of all “there is no big plan in which everything that happens to me makes sense.”
It just needs to assume that deities are not there to make us (or humanity in general) the center of their existence.
It doesn’t help that atheism still has a reputation of arrogance and elitism attached to it. Of the 9 atheists I’ve personally met, 7 were snobby intellectual elitists who believed that anyone who didn’t agree 100% with their world view were beneath them. The other 2 are some of the best people I’ve ever met, so I assume I just have bad luck and have met a disproportionate amount of the assholish ones. But that reputation is unfortunately hard to shake it seems.
Funny, my experience has been pretty much the exact opposite, anytime I meet a religious person, they come off as arrogant and conceited, and the more religious they are, the more of an asshole they are. And the atheists are welcoming, tolerant and friendly
There was a thing in the 2000s mostly, of arrogant obnoxious atheists. Tied to the “New Atheism” movement, though not everyone attached to it fit that stereotype of course. All so proud of their rational skepticism and determined to show it to everyone.
A lot of them turned into misogynist edgelords (or even full on alt-right racists) when bashing SJWs became popular.
Well, also, the arrogant people in any bunch are also the ones more likely to announce themselves and thus be noticed. I doubt you know the religious beliefs of everyone you’ve met, so you’ve probably people who were perfectly nice, but you didn’t know they were atheists.
can vary with the place. I mean in a place with 40% atheist, it’s quite clear all can’t be snobby intellectual elitists. Some will also be insufferable proletarian absolutists
My experience around the Southern US is that Athiests who are former Christians are mostly unbearable. They haven’t left what I call the “Burden to Evangelize” behind with Christianity, they still feel a need to convert people to their religion. Their religion is just Atheism now. Effectively they’re just fanatics with a different cause. They’re still fanatics, and still annoying.
On the other hand, those laid back enough to simply go Agnostic tend to have the more gentle “eh, who knows and with all the stuff going on here, who cares?” attitude that I myself share. But, that could all be totally biased by my sample size and location. To each their own.
You’re all making quite a lot of assumptions that “evolution = atheism”. There’s a huge gap between “not taking the Creation story literally” and “There is no God”.
Science recruits people as hard as it can because more scientists means more discoveries means more inventions means the existing scientists can live to be two hundred and have hovercars.
Atheism recruits not to make more atheists, but to make less of everything else.
Joyce, why not consider Terry Pratchett’s worldview? That everything that occurs is a natural event, but we use imagination to change the world and give it meaning? Magical thinking is for religious fanatics and compulsive gamblers.
The science of the discworld (where the wizards have a magical mishap and create a roundworld universe which works, to the great shock of all wizards, without any narrativum present) is a mind-boggeling read for anyone. It would probably break Joyce.
1) Renounce Magical Thinking and Embrace Empirical Evidence
1.5) Right Across the Street From Blowjob Cat
2) No Boozahol, No Worries
3) Edgin’ a Paradox is a Passable Substitute for Inebriation
It might refer to black holes. They can go anywhere, eat anything and will last for practically forever (trillions of trillions of years, at least – not and, of).
It’s almost like this universe was designed for them!
Also, having faith doesn’t always equal magical thinking. You can believe in a creator god and follow the morality of your religious group, but you can still accept facts. Many medical doctors are religious, but they would still follow ethical procedures instead of dumb religious superstitions.
Dina seems to equate any belief in a higher power to be “magical thinking”.
I am well aware of the fact that you can be religious and still accept facts. My brother is Jewish. He’s literally discussed the existence of Elohim directly to his Rabbi.
Becky very much still believes in God, but she’s willing to listen to Dina about scientific facts like evolution and dinosaurs. Becky even argued to Joyce it didn’t contradict anything important, in front of Dina.
Previous Joyce has specifically proclaimed belief in magical Creationist beliefs like humans and dinosaurs being alive in the Garden of Eden and such that are anethema to a dinosaur scientist. You’re probably right that Dina would see belief in any spirits as magical and beyond the facts, but we don’t know much about her stated beliefs on the matter.
True, but they don’t suffer from magical thinking. They use science to figure out how god did it, rather than using god as an excuse to stop thinking.
There are exceptions – I believe I heard about a virologist who doesn’t believe in evolution from this very commentariat – but if they aren’t the exception, I’ve got some serious worldview to reevaluate.
Not every religion requires belief in a magical being from which causal reality flows, either. All a religion actually has to do, to be amenable to a scientist, is not claim explanatory power over every minute facet of reality.
Christianity, and in particular American evangelical Christianity, goes very far out of its way to claim dominion over every last shred of possible disloyalty. (Other systems and countries also have some of this, but I know too little to comment.) Which is the thing. It isn’t actually about belief; it’s about loyalty to the tribe. Magical thinking is required specifically because honest thought is hostile to blind obedience.
Scientists come up through the academy, which is firstly somewhere that’s recognized as exactly the kind of environment that can break tribal loyalty, so most aren’t sent at all. But the academy tends to also be the kind of place where you can learn to distinguish between loyalty to the tribe and belief in religious tenets. And for these people, sometimes that loyalty bends, and sometimes that loyalty breaks. There’s room for many, many kinds within that.
Believing in a higher power, but not religion would make them agnostic. There are plenty of scientists who believe there are entities beyond our comprehension, but don’t think they have anything to do with us so praying and sacrificing is pointless to them.
You know, most people in middle-European countries don’t see a problem with religion and science. They don’t try to apply religious thinking to science and they don’t expect the Bible to answer questions about science.
What grinds my grits is Christians thinking science is just another book of opinions. They have no concept of the work that goes into writing those books.
Joyce will have to accept evolution as the final step of her growth. She has defied her parents, questioned her faith and became assertive of what she believes is right. If she doesn’t accept evolution even after she stopped believing in god, she would be like the creators of south park that arent religious but dislike the big bang theory. I hope she becomes better than them.
Book Ten: Wow It Feels Anxious in Here
Book Ten: Right Across the Street From Blowjob Cat!
Book Ten: No Boozahol, No Worries
Book Ten: Edgin’ a Paradox is a Passable Substitute for Inebriation
I guess I was kind of hoping against hope that no one would mention it, despite it being far and away the most obvious, because my magical-thinking self really wanted it to actually be the title.
I assume that any time someone suggests a book title in the comments, that means Willis automatically cannot use that as a book title — otherwise it would open up the possibility of someone suing him for a share of the profits from that book. And yes, shit like that happens — follow comics/creatives twitter and be prepared for your blood pressure to spike.
Fortunately — or perhaps by design — DoA is so heavily laced with potential book titles that DYW has never so far had any problem picking out a title that is both apt and unencumbered.
I’ve got to get to bed right now because tomorrow is the first of two days of ten-hour drives, but at least for the first three books, the title wasn’t mentioned in the comments before it was mentioned in the accompanying blog post — at least, as far as I could tell in the google search ‘site:dumbingofage.com “[meaningful part of book title]”‘.
But guessing book titles didn’t really become a thing here until after those books.
I’m not sure suing would be possible (or at least even potentially successfull): It’s not like plot suggestions or such, it’s literally quotes of his words. I’d guess there’s more potential liability in reading our guesses as to where the story is going to go.
Also, I love Joyce’s expression in panel 3. And the fact that in panel 4, Becky totally ignores her pique – rather like a sister. She knows it is of no significance.
Naw, Dina, you can’t just ASK her to do that. She’s gotta accidentally stumble her way into it and then have multiple breakdowns over multiple years before inevitably accepting it like the rest of us! (That… IS a thing other people have also done, right??)
Not all of us. I went from Catholic to agnostic to atheist in a week. It was 21 years later, though, when I finally stopped having nightmares about hell.
I feel like this exchange is a perfect opportunity to exposit about the pro vs non-pro creation debate. I’ll admit I’m no scientists, especially since I Iike to look at the world in a revers engineered sense when it comes to this. conversation.
I look at the evidence I think that there is a god because everything that exist has a blueprint, from the DNA code of every organic being to the placement of every star. Generations and generations of researching the human body has taught us what? That every human being has if not the same but a completely similar build made up of organs that all serve some type of function and all those functions work together to keep the body alive much like a machine.
You can also in the same way say that about an echo system. Each living organism from animals, bugs, even the plants that breath in and out new air and give vitamins does something to benefit the each other.
Everything is placed where it needs to be, everything has a function, and everything works together. There’s so much detail that existence itself almost feels like clockwork, maybe I can’t convince someone without a shadow of a doubt what the one true religion is, but one thing I can say for myself and my beliefs is that there is a God because the idea of a Clock that made itself is just absurd.
Well we know that Stars are hot balls of fire made up hydrogen and helium or more so one being covered into the other. Admittedly it sounds more like a concoction about elements then something designed, also I think I would haft to touch up on my astronomy and probably consult a table of elements to get back to you on that.
But I don’t know how much I could tell you, try an expert.
Stars are just what happens when you put enough hydrogen together. There’s nothing that complicated about them. Then they make all the rest of the elements.
We can set up things to evolve in the computer. We can even set things up to evolve software in the computer. (Google genetic programming). Look at the differences in things that evolved vs. things that were designed. Then look at enough biology to see how living things actually work. Then reach your own informed conclusions.
Didn’t say anything about this being objection against evolution did I? This was more about me making case about everything organic having a design. Not an expert on advance programming but you yourself just admitted that to it being possible about the possibility of evolution being a designed and intended outcome.
The existence of vestigial organs and the fact that mammals void toxic waste with the same structure as reproduction (in males) and we give birth using a structure right between our urethra and anus negates intelligent design on its own. No competent intelligent designer would set up that recipe for infection.
I’ve never understood why this isn’t immediately obvious to proponents of intelligent design.
Their argument is that the world as it is, is too complicated to have formed without a Designer. But the Designer is surely more complicated than what they design — after all, humans are more complicated than the clocks they make. So by the original argument there must be a super-Designer who designed the Designer. And soon enough you get to the question of who designed the being who designed the being who designed the being who designed the Designer. And after that…
Flushing out a sticky bio-hazard in a sensitive to infection area or your body with less sticky less bio-hazardy liquid regularely. Being able to cover all the icky areas of the body with one cloth. Not having to kneel to dispose of waste while not having long waste chains exposed in your extremities.
A bit of studying anatomy will illustrate the fact that the human body is definitely not designed, and is a textbook example of how evolution works, with many things being good enough to function, but would be poor design.
For real! My now-spouse almost passed out on multiple occasions after those hell shifts… and I know that’s *good* compared to what happened to some people. :/
Unless everyone who edited, marketed, printed, and sold the books all made a living wage, that’s them. Also whoever made the parts that went into filming the movies and the often hellish reality that being on a film crew entails, working conditions wise. That’s not JKR’s FAULT necessarily, but she still would have benefitted from this via the money the books and movies made.
Why is booze so damn important for parties, I thought normies at least knew how to interact with strangers in an informal setting without requiring booze.
I think that a lot of the booze fixation comes from pro-alcoholism propaganda in college party movies. There’s a lot of stuff in That Sort of movie that young people internalise and then bring with them to university.
Personally, I’ve been to more parties where people get mad at me for drinking the booze they put in my glass, than I’ve been to parties where the drinking enhanced the experience.
Things I thought I knew but have now confirmed (TITIKBHNC): Becky doesn’t always use super casual language. “Passable substitute for inebriation,” indeed.
The Gift Card. The Gift that just keeps on giving.
Or maybe it is just me that forgets to use them until I need to buy something for someone at which point I use the gift card to buy a gift. Though you can’t usually buy a gift card with them. . . which some would say is a good thing. Oh and only a dick would pass on a gift card. Those things do eventually expire you know. And if you get one near its expiration date it is kind of a dead giveaway what is going on there.
I refuse to give up my magical thinking. How could I go on living while knowing I can’t one day cast Fireball and “accidentally” blow up all my friends along with a demon from the abyssal plane?
Dinosaurs don’t equal atheism, people in the comments. The sheer amount of coincidences that happened to produce humans is too big not to maybe think someone might be affecting things from outside the universe. 13 billion years is a long time, but with the amount of times Earth has been hit by asteroids, nothing as complex as us should have arisen only 3 billion years after life began, especially considering all the mass extinctions, and ultra-especially considering that the Oxygen Catastrophe is the only reason we exist.
Can’t be ruled out, but it’s not at all clear how unlikely it is or what would have happened under slightly different circumstances. One could also argue that there are trillions of planets out there so even very unlikely things might happen on a few of them.
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I tried to resist doing this, but the Dark Side won out.
The internet is yours.
Beautiful. I’m fuckin’ sobbing.
Why can’t I like or upvote this.
You Sir, are a genius. *Applauds*
I am replying to this after years of lurking just to bring you your well earned interwebz.
You are the master.
Only the master of evil
RichardDarth.Well done – both Robin and Aide approve heartily.
So beautiful (tear rolls down)
“Wholesome?? PASS”
ALL HAIL DINA
Hail, yes!
As Ben Jonson didn’t write:
Drink to me only with thine eyes,
And I will pledge with mine;
Or leave an paradox edged in the cup,
And I’ll not look for wine.
And as Emily Dickinson didn’t write:
I taste a liquor never brewed –
From Tankards scooped in Pearl –
Not all the Paradoxes edged
Yield such an Alcohol!
They didn’t? I’m sure it was an oversight.
Nobody’s perfect.
Dumbing of Age Book IX: You’re Getting a $5 Amazon Gift Card
Dumbing of Age Book IX: Renounce Magical Thinking and Embrace Empirical Evidence.
Dumbing of Age Book 10: No Boozahol, No Worries
Dumbing of Age Book 10: A Sober Off-Campus Party Contradicts Itself So Hard It Winks Out of Existence
Dumbing of Age Book 10: Perhaps Edgin’ a Paradox is a Passable Substitute for Inebriation
Dumbing of Age Book 10: Wow It Feels Anxious in Here
Let’s be honest, “Wow It Feels Anxious In Here” could realistically be the title of ANY DoA book.
I’m pretty sure that could be the title for the entire Walkyverse.
If today’s alt text was an effort to end that meme once and for all, it only made it stronger.
Or was that the plan all along?
Willis, you fell a bit short. We’re measuring at least six potential book titles in this comic.
DoA Book 10: Right Across The Street From Blowjob Cat
I think we’ve broken the 3.5 barrier.
Yep, there are way more options than that. Unless each option counts as ~0.5 titles and the end result is 3.5 when you add all of them up. It might be clearer to say there are 7/2 titles in this strip.
What if its an average titles per panel measurement?
If no 5$ Amazon gift card is included, such a title might be false advertising.
Ride the edge of oblivion Ruth! And Dina may have gotten her wish, but Joyce just isn’t ready to admit it to the world. Maybe.
Atheism is difficult to accept since it means you have to accept bad things are only made by humans, and natural disasters just happen without anyone causing them. An indifferent universe is a painful reality.
Yes, well . . . the idea that the creator of the universe did so to make us the most important part of it is hubris.
Hubris is addictive to many, like booze and political power.
The idea that there are about 100,000,000,000 stars in the Milky Way, (lots with plants it turns out) is incomprehensible wnough. The fact that there are apparently hundreds of millions or more of GALAXIES isn’t a concept I can meaningfully measure the scope of.
But yes the idea that all of that somehow revolves around a few plains apes on a little continental mudball on one of those grillions of worlds is.. Optimistic at best. But that thought helped some people make some sort of sense of it all.
Funny thing is, I can accept those just fine. I’m still agnostic, I just have a feeling that 1) There may be something after death, and 2) God/s probably don’t give a fuck about us, like how humans don’t give a fuck about microbes
We give a fuck about microbes when they might infect us or make us sick somehow, or when they might help is (like probiotics). It is really thought provoking to imagine deities that have that kind of relationship to us 🙂
Er – that’s the thinking behind Cthulhu mythos. Its deities are so far beyond us as to be incomprehensible, and if they think of us at all, it’s in that sense.
Which i too am fine with, btw; it’s just that a lot of people find the idea that humanity isn’t special or even significant in the cosmic scheme of things to be horrifying. Religions are what we came up with to shield us from this thought.
“Its deities are so far beyond us as to be incomprehensible, and if they think of us at all, it’s in that sense”
That’s also the thinking behind grad school in math.
Point.
If Atheism means accepting bad things are only made by humans, and natural disasters just happen without anyone causing them and that an indifferent universe is a painful reality, then what would you call the belief that bad things happen without anyone causing them, that natural disasters are only made by humans and that far from being indifferent, the universe is out to get you. (I mean, just look at entropy and everything that follows from that.)
These are contradictory points – natural disasters are generally not made by humans (though we’re doing a bangup job intensifying them recently, thanks petrochemical companies), and are a bad thing. See also: diseases, where yes, human screwups can intensify things (e.g. antivaccers, the CIA torpedoing polio eradication by embedding agents in a WHO group), but fundamentally it’s a bad thing happened caused by non-human sources.
Those are contradictory points, the point being that the original formulation of things abbysswatcher felt made atheism difficult for people to accept were contradictory as well. Unless you believe natural disasters are not bad things.
A lot of people also don’t want the responsibility that no powerful being is coming to Rapture us away to save us from the consequences of climate change and war. We either solve our human problems or we don’t, and the uncaring stars won’t notice or have any opinion on which we choose.
The other side of this is, we (sometimes) appreciate the own tiny little sparks of out lives and those around us and appreciate them for existing in the great big void.
Not sure why it’s better that children dying of tsunamis and malaria is a deliberate act of God.
You don’t need to be an atheist to assume that natural disaster just happen and people acting like assholes is their choice and worst of all “there is no big plan in which everything that happens to me makes sense.”
It just needs to assume that deities are not there to make us (or humanity in general) the center of their existence.
It doesn’t help that atheism still has a reputation of arrogance and elitism attached to it. Of the 9 atheists I’ve personally met, 7 were snobby intellectual elitists who believed that anyone who didn’t agree 100% with their world view were beneath them. The other 2 are some of the best people I’ve ever met, so I assume I just have bad luck and have met a disproportionate amount of the assholish ones. But that reputation is unfortunately hard to shake it seems.
Funny, my experience has been pretty much the exact opposite, anytime I meet a religious person, they come off as arrogant and conceited, and the more religious they are, the more of an asshole they are. And the atheists are welcoming, tolerant and friendly
There was a thing in the 2000s mostly, of arrogant obnoxious atheists. Tied to the “New Atheism” movement, though not everyone attached to it fit that stereotype of course. All so proud of their rational skepticism and determined to show it to everyone.
A lot of them turned into misogynist edgelords (or even full on alt-right racists) when bashing SJWs became popular.
Well, also, the arrogant people in any bunch are also the ones more likely to announce themselves and thus be noticed. I doubt you know the religious beliefs of everyone you’ve met, so you’ve probably people who were perfectly nice, but you didn’t know they were atheists.
can vary with the place. I mean in a place with 40% atheist, it’s quite clear all can’t be snobby intellectual elitists. Some will also be insufferable proletarian absolutists
My experience around the Southern US is that Athiests who are former Christians are mostly unbearable. They haven’t left what I call the “Burden to Evangelize” behind with Christianity, they still feel a need to convert people to their religion. Their religion is just Atheism now. Effectively they’re just fanatics with a different cause. They’re still fanatics, and still annoying.
On the other hand, those laid back enough to simply go Agnostic tend to have the more gentle “eh, who knows and with all the stuff going on here, who cares?” attitude that I myself share. But, that could all be totally biased by my sample size and location. To each their own.
Dumbing of Age IX title: Ride the Edge of Oblivion, Ruth!
I fully support this title!
You’re all making quite a lot of assumptions that “evolution = atheism”. There’s a huge gap between “not taking the Creation story literally” and “There is no God”.
To Joyce there isn’t. It’s all tied together and either evolution is false or everything she’s been taught is a lie.
Yeah, even Pat Robertson doesn’t buy young earth creationism.
Well, the party is technically at Robin’s, so there’s always the contact high from Skittles vapor.
And peel-and-eat Cadbury Cream Eggs.
“Officer, I got high off the wrappers when I was bagging the trash.”
What does science have in common with religion in the modern era?
Relentless attempts at recruitment.
I, for one, welcome our new dino-hybrid overlords… and ladies.
Science recruits people as hard as it can because more scientists means more discoveries means more inventions means the existing scientists can live to be two hundred and have hovercars.
Atheism recruits not to make more atheists, but to make less of everything else.
this might almost be my new favorite strip
LOVE Panel Two! 😀
Joyce refuses to renouce magical thinking and embrace empirical evidence but is juuust fiiiiine with giving that lizard man Bezos a fiver!
It’s probably Carla’s fiver. Someone needed a hug.
Joyce, why not consider Terry Pratchett’s worldview? That everything that occurs is a natural event, but we use imagination to change the world and give it meaning? Magical thinking is for religious fanatics and compulsive gamblers.
Well, it’s true that she wasn’t raised in a community of compulsive gamblers…
The science of the discworld (where the wizards have a magical mishap and create a roundworld universe which works, to the great shock of all wizards, without any narrativum present) is a mind-boggeling read for anyone. It would probably break Joyce.
3.5 book titles, eh?
1) Renounce Magical Thinking and Embrace Empirical Evidence
1.5) Right Across the Street From Blowjob Cat
2) No Boozahol, No Worries
3) Edgin’ a Paradox is a Passable Substitute for Inebriation
Anyone get a different list?
“Wow, it feels anxious in here.”
Wow, it feels anxious in here.
A sober off-campus party contradicts itself so hard it winks itself out of existence.
“Renounce magical thinking and embrace empirical evidence”
Eh. Get a transcript and a cleaver.
There’s way more than 3.5 book titles in this strip.
Agreed.
Perhaps he meant good book titles?
Im not seeing a book title, but I *am* hearing a Stray Cats-style Rockabilly song:
Right A-cross the Street From
Blow-Job Cat!
Time to plug in my Gretsch and start writing!
I want a poster image of Dina in panel 2 for my personal use.
That would be a good motivational poster for schools.
That would be a good motivational poster for my room.
That would be a good motivational poster for my mom.
….I’m in this post and I don’t like it.
honestly it really feels like a poster, it realllllyyyy does!!!
I was partial to making a split action panel with Joyce in the bottom left corner, looking up to Dina in the top right corner.
I want a Gravatar of Dina from panel tw- oh hey look at that.
Okay but I would just like to take a moment and point out that smile on Billie’s face when Ruth enters the room. LOVE <3 😀
Sheeeit that was subtle. Thanks for pointing it out!
I love that second panel.
I wonder if Dina knows that there are a large number of religious scientists?
Not that large. Scientists in America run something like 60% atheist. The National Academy of Sciences is 93% atheist.
Last survey I saw said 51% believed in a higher power.
Where’d you get that survey? Discovery Institute?
Ah, I found it. Pew Research. 33% of scientists believe in God. What “higher power” means I don’t know.
It might refer to black holes. They can go anywhere, eat anything and will last for practically forever (trillions of trillions of years, at least – not and, of).
It’s almost like this universe was designed for them!
Higher power means a deity-like entity.
It is a catch-all term for any deity that is the focus of a belief structure.
Also, that survey in particular only focuses on the United States, so who knows about the rest of the world?
Probably another survey, dunno.
“Higher power” is explicitly more general than “deity” in the sense of “personal god”.
I believe in Azathoth, blind idiot suzerain of the cosmos.
Also, having faith doesn’t always equal magical thinking. You can believe in a creator god and follow the morality of your religious group, but you can still accept facts. Many medical doctors are religious, but they would still follow ethical procedures instead of dumb religious superstitions.
Dina seems to equate any belief in a higher power to be “magical thinking”.
I am well aware of the fact that you can be religious and still accept facts. My brother is Jewish. He’s literally discussed the existence of Elohim directly to his Rabbi.
She’s never raised any objections to Becky continuing to believe. She objects to Joyce rejecting scientific facts like evolution.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but Becky has never actually had that kind of discussion with Dina, far as I remember.
Could be lovers-bias on Dina’s part.
Becky very much still believes in God, but she’s willing to listen to Dina about scientific facts like evolution and dinosaurs. Becky even argued to Joyce it didn’t contradict anything important, in front of Dina.
Previous Joyce has specifically proclaimed belief in magical Creationist beliefs like humans and dinosaurs being alive in the Garden of Eden and such that are anethema to a dinosaur scientist. You’re probably right that Dina would see belief in any spirits as magical and beyond the facts, but we don’t know much about her stated beliefs on the matter.
True, but they don’t suffer from magical thinking. They use science to figure out how god did it, rather than using god as an excuse to stop thinking.
There are exceptions – I believe I heard about a virologist who doesn’t believe in evolution from this very commentariat – but if they aren’t the exception, I’ve got some serious worldview to reevaluate.
Not every religion requires belief in a magical being from which causal reality flows, either. All a religion actually has to do, to be amenable to a scientist, is not claim explanatory power over every minute facet of reality.
Christianity, and in particular American evangelical Christianity, goes very far out of its way to claim dominion over every last shred of possible disloyalty. (Other systems and countries also have some of this, but I know too little to comment.) Which is the thing. It isn’t actually about belief; it’s about loyalty to the tribe. Magical thinking is required specifically because honest thought is hostile to blind obedience.
Scientists come up through the academy, which is firstly somewhere that’s recognized as exactly the kind of environment that can break tribal loyalty, so most aren’t sent at all. But the academy tends to also be the kind of place where you can learn to distinguish between loyalty to the tribe and belief in religious tenets. And for these people, sometimes that loyalty bends, and sometimes that loyalty breaks. There’s room for many, many kinds within that.
Well, that’s some blind loyalty right there.
I have no idea what you see as “blind loyalty” in what Jamie wrote.
“the academy”?
It’s why Suvi is one of my favorite characters from Mass Effect Andromeda.
Believing in a higher power, but not religion would make them agnostic. There are plenty of scientists who believe there are entities beyond our comprehension, but don’t think they have anything to do with us so praying and sacrificing is pointless to them.
You know, most people in middle-European countries don’t see a problem with religion and science. They don’t try to apply religious thinking to science and they don’t expect the Bible to answer questions about science.
Dina looks like an evil sorceress. Or maybe that’s just how Joyce sees her.
Science is seen as sorcery by many fools. It also happens in Dr. Stone.
What grinds my grits is Christians thinking science is just another book of opinions. They have no concept of the work that goes into writing those books.
Try comparing it to detective work. Might not work, since police procedurals have poisoned that well, but it might.
I love that Becky and Ruth are so comfortably straightforward with each other.
Well, Becky and Ruth don’t have a power relationship. There’s no dom or sub.
Godamnit Robin is going to show up with alcohol isn’t she.
Becky sent her to DC to vote on things.
… this only causes me to further suspect she will show up with booze.
Robin isn’t too smart, but I imagine she’s too smart to contribute to the delinquency of a whole bunch of minors.
You tried, Dina. Not that easy to get her to accept evolution.
Joyce will have to accept evolution as the final step of her growth. She has defied her parents, questioned her faith and became assertive of what she believes is right. If she doesn’t accept evolution even after she stopped believing in god, she would be like the creators of south park that arent religious but dislike the big bang theory. I hope she becomes better than them.
I mean the theory, not the show.
Hopefully she won’t stop believing in Elohim…
Ah, what am I saying? This is Willis.
Joyce is semi-autobiographical, so she very well might. On the other hand, Walkyverse Joyce still believes, so who knows?
I want an amazon giftcard
I would be happy with an amazon. Someone like Zeetha would do quite nicely.
Dina has not mastered “the voice”. I’m not sure whether I should be disappointed or relieved.
Book Ten: Wow It Feels Anxious in Here
Book Ten: Right Across the Street From Blowjob Cat!
Book Ten: No Boozahol, No Worries
Book Ten: Edgin’ a Paradox is a Passable Substitute for Inebriation
Don’t forget “Renounce Magical Thinking and Embrace Empirical Evidence”!
I guess I was kind of hoping against hope that no one would mention it, despite it being far and away the most obvious, because my magical-thinking self really wanted it to actually be the title.
I assume that any time someone suggests a book title in the comments, that means Willis automatically cannot use that as a book title — otherwise it would open up the possibility of someone suing him for a share of the profits from that book. And yes, shit like that happens — follow comics/creatives twitter and be prepared for your blood pressure to spike.
Fortunately — or perhaps by design — DoA is so heavily laced with potential book titles that DYW has never so far had any problem picking out a title that is both apt and unencumbered.
No book title has ever been prementioned in the comments? That’s a little hard to believe but I’m not motivated to search through and check.
I’ve got to get to bed right now because tomorrow is the first of two days of ten-hour drives, but at least for the first three books, the title wasn’t mentioned in the comments before it was mentioned in the accompanying blog post — at least, as far as I could tell in the google search ‘site:dumbingofage.com “[meaningful part of book title]”‘.
But guessing book titles didn’t really become a thing here until after those books.
I’m not sure suing would be possible (or at least even potentially successfull): It’s not like plot suggestions or such, it’s literally quotes of his words. I’d guess there’s more potential liability in reading our guesses as to where the story is going to go.
Titles are not protected by copyright.
I seem to recall once when Willis confirmed someone guessed correctly. It MIGHT have been on Patreon?
RMT & EEE!
You already got one, Dina, don’t get greedy.
(I mean, granted, Becky is still a Christian, but she doesn’t reject evolution, so that’s plenty for Dina, I guess.)
Speaking of Becky, I love her vocabulary. It’s one of the funnest aspects of her. She’s a lot smarter than people give her credit for.
Pretty sure “wow it feels anxious in here” could just be the new comic title, let alone book title.
Dumbing of Anxiety
…Wait, no, that sounded better in my head. Probably bc my head has been thoroughly dumbed by anxiety, haha.
Anxiety of Age
Angsting of Age
Also, I love Joyce’s expression in panel 3. And the fact that in panel 4, Becky totally ignores her pique – rather like a sister. She knows it is of no significance.
Man like the first three panels could’ve been all we got this week and I would’ve been beyond satisfied.
Naw, Dina, you can’t just ASK her to do that. She’s gotta accidentally stumble her way into it and then have multiple breakdowns over multiple years before inevitably accepting it like the rest of us! (That… IS a thing other people have also done, right??)
Not all of us. I went from Catholic to agnostic to atheist in a week. It was 21 years later, though, when I finally stopped having nightmares about hell.
I feel like this exchange is a perfect opportunity to exposit about the pro vs non-pro creation debate. I’ll admit I’m no scientists, especially since I Iike to look at the world in a revers engineered sense when it comes to this. conversation.
I look at the evidence I think that there is a god because everything that exist has a blueprint, from the DNA code of every organic being to the placement of every star. Generations and generations of researching the human body has taught us what? That every human being has if not the same but a completely similar build made up of organs that all serve some type of function and all those functions work together to keep the body alive much like a machine.
You can also in the same way say that about an echo system. Each living organism from animals, bugs, even the plants that breath in and out new air and give vitamins does something to benefit the each other.
Everything is placed where it needs to be, everything has a function, and everything works together. There’s so much detail that existence itself almost feels like clockwork, maybe I can’t convince someone without a shadow of a doubt what the one true religion is, but one thing I can say for myself and my beliefs is that there is a God because the idea of a Clock that made itself is just absurd.
Where can I get a look at that blueprint for the stars? Because I’ve never heard of it before.
Well Science has gotten that far, but astronomers and scientists will tell they’ll figure it out one day….if humanity last that long.
But you said the placement of every star has a blueprint. If science hasn’t gotten that far, how do you know about it?
Well we know that Stars are hot balls of fire made up hydrogen and helium or more so one being covered into the other. Admittedly it sounds more like a concoction about elements then something designed, also I think I would haft to touch up on my astronomy and probably consult a table of elements to get back to you on that.
But I don’t know how much I could tell you, try an expert.
Meteor impacts and annular eclipses are how the experts know your conclusions are faulty.
Stars are just what happens when you put enough hydrogen together. There’s nothing that complicated about them. Then they make all the rest of the elements.
I wouldn’t go with “put.” Stars happen when hydrogen gravitationally coalesces over hundreds of millions of years.
“Enough hydrogen in close proximity”? Close enough for gravity to do its thing.
We can set up things to evolve in the computer. We can even set things up to evolve software in the computer. (Google genetic programming). Look at the differences in things that evolved vs. things that were designed. Then look at enough biology to see how living things actually work. Then reach your own informed conclusions.
Didn’t say anything about this being objection against evolution did I? This was more about me making case about everything organic having a design. Not an expert on advance programming but you yourself just admitted that to it being possible about the possibility of evolution being a designed and intended outcome.
As far as computers are concerned I guess.
The existence of vestigial organs and the fact that mammals void toxic waste with the same structure as reproduction (in males) and we give birth using a structure right between our urethra and anus negates intelligent design on its own. No competent intelligent designer would set up that recipe for infection.
Please read Scienec of the diskworld, I can’t make the point why that is circular thinking as clear and as funny to read.
Where does the appendix fit into all this
🤔….. touche
I hate to spoil an atheist argument, but the appendix is now believed to serve a number of functions. I refer you to Wikipedia.
Your group of perfect clockwork machines has a RIDICULOUSLY high defect and malfunction rate.
Yes, Paley’s invisible watchmaker argument has been debunked many times. If you read Paley’s original argument, it’s kind of silly on its face.
Design doesn’t need an intelligent designer, just a design process like natural selection.
But a Clockmaker that made itself is reasonable?
I’ve never understood why this isn’t immediately obvious to proponents of intelligent design.
Their argument is that the world as it is, is too complicated to have formed without a Designer. But the Designer is surely more complicated than what they design — after all, humans are more complicated than the clocks they make. So by the original argument there must be a super-Designer who designed the Designer. And soon enough you get to the question of who designed the being who designed the being who designed the being who designed the Designer. And after that…
It’s Designers all the way down.
Flushing out a sticky bio-hazard in a sensitive to infection area or your body with less sticky less bio-hazardy liquid regularely. Being able to cover all the icky areas of the body with one cloth. Not having to kneel to dispose of waste while not having long waste chains exposed in your extremities.
A bit of studying anatomy will illustrate the fact that the human body is definitely not designed, and is a textbook example of how evolution works, with many things being good enough to function, but would be poor design.
The second panel is an ideal poster for protesting against climate change deniers.
Amazon, Joyce?! Try a gift card tied to a business with more humane working conditions.
For real! My now-spouse almost passed out on multiple occasions after those hell shifts… and I know that’s *good* compared to what happened to some people. :/
Yeah, the stories I’ve read – it’s horrifying. I swore off Amazon since last year.
Is your spouse still there or have they moved on to a better job?
The unfortunate ugly truth about capitalism: if somebody is getting MEGA RICH, it’s always, ALWAYS off the suffering of somebody/something else.
J. K. Rowling?
Unless everyone who edited, marketed, printed, and sold the books all made a living wage, that’s them. Also whoever made the parts that went into filming the movies and the often hellish reality that being on a film crew entails, working conditions wise. That’s not JKR’s FAULT necessarily, but she still would have benefitted from this via the money the books and movies made.
The resident busybody doesn’t know everything about everyone. That gotta hurt
Why is booze so damn important for parties, I thought normies at least knew how to interact with strangers in an informal setting without requiring booze.
I think that a lot of the booze fixation comes from pro-alcoholism propaganda in college party movies. There’s a lot of stuff in That Sort of movie that young people internalise and then bring with them to university.
Personally, I’ve been to more parties where people get mad at me for drinking the booze they put in my glass, than I’ve been to parties where the drinking enhanced the experience.
Becky, don’t have sex with paradoxes, no matter whether you’re going to deny them orgasm or not.
Paradoxes are supermassively kinky, is that what you’re saying?
Becky’s the one who suggested edging one!
Perhaps you’re thinking of “rimming.” Not the same thing.
No, I’m thinking of edging.
That’s why I mentioned orgasm denial (edging) and not analingus (rimming).
But what if you just engage in mutual masturbation with a paradox? 😉
I’ve never heard that usage of “edging” before.
What’s the likelihood that Becky doesn’t really know what that phrase means?
Her statement doesn’t make much sense if she doesn’t know what it means.
Not really. ‘Lurking around the edges of a paradox’ than ‘bringing a paradox to the point of climax and then backing off’.
+makes more sense than
When I read that line, that meaning of “edging” did occur to me too.
Yes, thank you Ruth, we needed someone to explain that. Such a pity that Becky’s overconfidence is so clearly her weakness!
Let me guess Dina. Your Sith name is Darth Tyranus… Rex.
“So what did you get me for my birthday?”
“You’re getting You’re Getting a $5 Amazon Giftcard.”
I’m at that age that instead of drinking, I can just stand up really fast, get a letter from the IRS, or have my wife text me “we need.to talk”.
Oh Dina, you cheeeky bugger XD
Dat star wars ref
It seems to be Sober Teenager Party season in Webcomic Land.
http://egscomics.com/comic/party-045
Did Dina sneak in a thesaurus among all the dinosaur study dates with Becky?
I like Becky’s idea of party. No alcohol, few people and all friends you know pretty well.
I don’t have any problem with some alcohol, but the rest I approve of.
Can I get a t-shirt with Becky’s last sentence?
Please!!!!!😍
“No boozahol, no worries.”
Everyone who believes that, please stand on your head.
great, now I need to find a way to work “contradicts itself so hard it winks out of existence” into a conversation. Thanks, Willis.
TIL: Dina has a supervillain voice.
Things I thought I knew but have now confirmed (TITIKBHNC): Becky doesn’t always use super casual language. “Passable substitute for inebriation,” indeed.
The Gift Card. The Gift that just keeps on giving.
Or maybe it is just me that forgets to use them until I need to buy something for someone at which point I use the gift card to buy a gift. Though you can’t usually buy a gift card with them. . . which some would say is a good thing. Oh and only a dick would pass on a gift card. Those things do eventually expire you know. And if you get one near its expiration date it is kind of a dead giveaway what is going on there.
Shit, do I need to replace my gravatar with panel 2? I might.
I love that not getting a birthday present is not even an option for Joyce.
I think the book title is just fine as “Edgin'” and I also think that should have been the page title.
I refuse to give up my magical thinking. How could I go on living while knowing I can’t one day cast Fireball and “accidentally” blow up all my friends along with a demon from the abyssal plane?
Apologies, new gravatar test.
Test two…
Goddamn it, I need help – how do I set a new gravatar? I’m pretty sure I set it up at the gravatar page, but it’s now showing the new one here 8(
Ah, there it is! Nevermind, and sorry for the comment spam, Willis.
Dinosaurs don’t equal atheism, people in the comments. The sheer amount of coincidences that happened to produce humans is too big not to maybe think someone might be affecting things from outside the universe. 13 billion years is a long time, but with the amount of times Earth has been hit by asteroids, nothing as complex as us should have arisen only 3 billion years after life began, especially considering all the mass extinctions, and ultra-especially considering that the Oxygen Catastrophe is the only reason we exist.
Can’t be ruled out, but it’s not at all clear how unlikely it is or what would have happened under slightly different circumstances. One could also argue that there are trillions of planets out there so even very unlikely things might happen on a few of them.
Panel 1 Ruth shows us that her RA abilities have not diminished.