I mean, I was always an atheist(ic-agnostic), but I knew for certain bc Slip ‘n Slide
that sounds like an interesting lead-up, but basically I knocked the wind out of myself when I was impatient and didn’t let it get slick enough, and had my mother not seen and revived me, I’d have been dead for certain at the ripe old age of eight
no magic lights or any of that, just the realisation of how stupid a death that would’ve been
I’ve heard lots of stories about people getting religion after a near death experience, but this may be the first time I’ve heard of it working the other way.
I love deconversion stories because of how unique they all are. I recently heard of a JW who deconverted because his couch broke while moving it, ffs! You never can tell what will reveal the man behind the curtain.
I stopped enthusiastically believing because of all the horrible stuff in the bible. I remember reading about Lot’s wife being turned into a pillar of salt because she turned to look at her home and I thought to myself, “That’s just terrible… why would anyone do that to somebody?” and the rest of my class was laughing at the teacher’s joke that followed, “Guess she got a-salted!”
Tower of Babel, Sodom, the genocides, killing the men who got circumcised… all of it. It was terrible, unethical and just wrong on so many levels. I never understood how anybody could support that behavior from… well… anybody.
My personal favorites are the ones who deconverted because of Narnia. Evangelicals’ minds blow all over the place when they hear about those. (Generally, it’s because Narnia is so much cooler than the religion they were brought up in, and/or Narnia was their refuge from evangelicism and when they realized it was all Christian allegory, they felt incredibly betrayed and told all of it to go fuck itself.)
read that to my kid a few months ago. i love the part how there are about two paragraphs after aslan gets it about how terrible, how simply awful it is, and… oh never mind, he’s alive again.
I’ve never quite understood the hatred of Narnia as Christian allegory. It seems to require a pre-existing hatred of Christianity to be angry at it since it’s just the “cool version of Christianity.” It’s like being upset that Thor is based on Norse mythology.
Thor – assuming you mean the Marvel version, doesn’t have anything to doing with “sharing what is good about your faith” or an attempt to “convert children on the sly”. It’s just appropriating some old myths for an adventure story.
That’s a really weird line of argument.
You can also share what is good about your faith openly. It might be the “on the sly” part people don’t like about Narnia.
He wasn’t, though. I can’t track down the quote, but he wrote somewhere that he felt that the story of the crucifixion, and other aspects of Christian faith, were so familiar to *Christians* that they needed to be refreshed by being expressed in different terms, so that they had the same impact on modern believers as they did on the people who first heard about it.
I also don’t think he expected children *not* to recognise the analogies when they saw them. I grew up in an atheist household, and I certainly realised that this was about Jesus when I first read “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe”. I was surprised when I found out that anyone thought it was sneaky or meant not to be noticed, because it was clear to me just from general cultural exposure – scripture classes at school, etc.
So yeah, the expected audience for the allegory was children who were Christians or Christianity-acculturated. It wasn’t a way to trick non-believers.
Most atheist’ households dont teach their children Christian scripture in grade school.
I ( like many young children ) were first exposed to narnia through mass media. it was almost a decade before i had enough unwanted exposure to Christian Theology to see this was a surreptitious conversion.
Well, for me–a young agnostic kid reading the Narnia books for the first time–the whole death and resurrection of Aslan just seemed like a weird plot tumor that made no sense. When I discovered it was there for religious reasons, my reaction was basically: “ah, religion leads to bad writing. Got it.” 🙂
It’s strange to me that *Christians* could read Narnia and not realize what it’s about. I mean, when my parents read the books to me as a kid, it was almost presented “Bible story time”. Not *quite* to the level of the Bible, but damn near close enough for kids. But I mean, I guess I can’t know how much of the allegory I would’ve missed had the adults in my life not spelled it out for me.
Well you should have religion because it encourages you to be a better person and because you believe it to be true. Not because you are rewarded for it. Indeed, what I always felt was the heart of the Job story (tacked on happy ending or not) is that “good is not rewarded in this life. Do it because it’s right.”
I dunno, if I thought magic worked I’d take it a lot more seriously, better person or not. I mean, I get other Christians being offended by that take. But as an atheist who doesn’t think any religions are true, as long as you’re not hurting anyone with your beliefs, I’m not really sure some reasons are *morally* better or worse than others for believing in something. If it’s just like anything else you always thought was true and could be harnessed for real effects in the world: I believe gravity exists, which in no way makes me a better person. If anything, falsifiable evidence (e.g. magical effects) is a pretty commendable reason to believe (or lose belief) in something.
Reminds me of how I once heard an acquaintance from Texas complain how people thought Texans treated high-school football like a religion. He maintained vehemently that it was much more important than that.
I fully deconverted when I nearly died from uterine hemorrhaging and realized I was completely alone. For me, it is nothing but void waiting for us. It weirdly makes life more worth living IMO. No heavenly reward – the rewards are in a life well-lived.
In no way do I mean to bum anyone out by bringing it up, but I had a similar experience when I was at my lowest and had planned to commit suicide.
My wishy-washy brand of non committal agnosticism took a sharp left into full atheism when I was dead set on ending my own life, and then just decided not to because it would have been stupid. God had nothing to do with that. No unearthly voices or divine intervention. Just me, and enough hatred for the universe to stick around out of spite.
(that was a long time ago, I promise I’m a little better adjusted these days, haha)
I am someone who can’t even commit to being an atheist, so agnosticism is
my term also, yet I thought that “wishy-washy” and “non-committal” were part and parcel.
I was always an Atheist, but was raised from a young age by parents who used to be Church of England (until they had to leave because apparently all the other young parents in the congregation whose kids were being total nightmares, couldn’t stand the two newest parents whose babies wouldn’t stop crying! I shit you not) and became Methodists.
I also went to primary and secondary school that were both CofE, but by age 12 declared that I didn’t believe any of it and was actually an Atheist. My family were pretty cool about it and I was allowed to stop going to church at that age. My sister stopped too, deciding she was a non-religious spiritualist iirc.
WOW, well done, Osopescado, we’re glad you’re still here! Also, congratulations for your brain going ‘no, this is stupid’ through the depressive thoughts. That’s impressive!
As for you ValdVin, you can be both an atheist and and agnostic. Atheism covers what you believe, and agnosticism covers what you know. I’m an agnostic atheist myself because I don’t know if god exists or not, but i don’t believe that one does. (Note that i don’t believe that one does NOT exist because that’s a claim that requires evidence i don’t have)
For the most part, in the everyday living of one’s life, these fine distinctions don’t really matter. Other than when I’m arguing atheism online, it’s enough to know that I don’t believe in God.
No need to worry more about how I can’t prove God doesn’t exist than about how I can’t prove the infinite number of other things I don’t believe in don’t exist.
Haha thanks! I am also a nihilist, but I’m the brand of nihilist that believes that life doesn’t have any meaning unless you give a meaning to it yourself. That stated, I decided that my continued existence continues to have a meaning because video game developers continue to have cool ideas that are worth investing in. Right now I’m playing Valheim (very original I know).
Also, love is a real thing, and I’m trying to find someone who can stand my brand of bullshit and all that jazz too, lol.
I’ve had a similar experience. Not the religious part, but the suicidal bit. When I was younger, I was very depressed and was seriously considering ending it. Religion didn’t really play any role in it. I was full-on agnost by this time, believing that if there was a God, he really didn’t care. I had a plan, had gotten what I needed. I was trying to decide whether to actually go through with it when it occurred to me that if I did, “they” would win. And I wasn’t going to let them defeat me. It wasn’t quite spite, but stubborn pride. Oddly, it was this lowest part of my life that told me the most about who I am at my core.
I feel this for sure. I’m not totally sure whether it was my intelligent decision to not go through with my plan or my own narcissistic value of myself that stopped me. There was definitely a “them” that I defied though. I kind of feel that “they” were my peers who were neuro-typical and didn’t struggle the same way I did. In retrospect, I don’t think that that’s a fair assessment, of them or of me. That period of life taught me a lot about myself, and also about “them”.
I feel that. My own reason for turning back from suicide (with means in hand) was anger. Killing myself would have meant that _they_ had beat me, and Fuck That.
Sexuality, in case you were wondering. I was 17. I, too, am better now.
To clarify. because jokes are only funny if people can understand them: There is no Xbox Series Xbox One X 360 Special Edition X.
At the time of posting: The most highest-spec Xbox console is the Xbox Series X. Microsoft released a console called the Xbox Series S at the same time. The Series S lacks an optical drive and is somewhat lower-spec, only delivering 1440p60fps to Series X’s 8000p60fps(or 4000p120fps if you don’t have a display that’s wider than the tallest person ever is tall.).
Besides that, I mean. 😛 I checked the tags, and literally the only time Joe and Mike appear together on-panel after that was in the similarly-early chapter where Mike entered Leslie’s class so he could harass Walky.
And that was posted nine years ago. Joe’s not likely affected much by Mike’s death, ‘s what I’m saying.
As opposed to when, exactly? We still take for granted that there are supervillain parents, opposed by one girl with multiple personae and another who’s assumed to be able to fight because she hyperfixates on dinosaurs a lot. (Though the first one is being subbed in for by her costumed ex-bf, whose powers seem to derive from not applying himself.) Their friend recently discovered she converts their anger into her joy through some process.
I mean, given how he runs away from being anything that would make him likeable or understandable, he HAS to overcompensate by being extra Joe
Otherwise he would be just an empty husk
I don’t think Joyce has the right parents to guilt into getting videogames. I mean she couldn’t watch certain tv shows. Video games seem like a total non starter in the Brown household beyond anything you could download on your computer. Her parents might not even know what an Xbox or a Playstation even is.
It sort of sounds like her dad is so burned out and ruined by regrets that she can guilt him into pretty much anything a normal kid/teen could have now if it would just normalise their relationship and get her talking to him as a daughter again.
I expect that her mother is going the opposite direction.
Anyway this should leave me hardcore tilted after about five days of page long posts to the effect of “and that’s why Joe and Joyce are getting married”, but I’m down with it.
Joe never dealt with this his hangups, he just pursued abstinence as a substitute for character development after realizing how badly he fucked up and decided he had backslid because had a casual sexual encounter with Malaya. Ignoring his journey to grow as a person to instead get Joyce all up in his grill faster wouldn’t just be a bad plot development, it’d be one that’s untenable with a series that is meant to run for as long as it can, and character growth is as important if not moreso than where it ends up leading us.
Though I guess Danny/Ethan shippers would know all about that kchow! lmao gottem
I’m personally partial to the idea of a plotline where Joe realizes on some level that he is developing Feelings for Joyce or that he is otherwise getting ‘too attached’ to her emotionally or just ‘too close’, maybe because something he does or says inadvertently hurts her, and instead of trying to own up to it he decides in his usual fashion that this is a sign that he must distance himself from her “for her own good”.
Except that just hurts Joyce MORE and Joyce doesn’t let it happen because fuck that.
And then….MAYBE they kiss???!?!!?
Then they go “god fuck nope we’re not going to acknowledge that that happened and go back to just being friends all the while knowing in the back of our minds that we have chemistry but are Not Ready Yet” so they can have agonizing UST for at least three more storylines, if not the rest of time.
But seriously, Joe was SO CLOSE to a serious moment here. Even though I never really liked my dad (He was never abusive or anything – we just didn’t get along after I turned 3 or so. Now that I’m older, I can say that dad and I were basically two people who had a mutual friend whom we both loved dearly (my mom) but that was the only point of connexion between us so it was awkward when we were “supposed” to do things without mom. When he and my mom got divorced when I was a teen-ager, even though I knew mom was doing the right thing (he had been cheating on her for a long time), it DID have a profound effect on my life and my my perception about a lot of things. (Religion not included in my case – I can most generously be described as a skeptical pagan with gothy inclinations and fashion sense.) But if you have grown up in a family with two or more parents, which I was very privileged to have done, it destabilizes your sense of the world of your life if they get divorced.
I’m not totally sure if I ship Joe and Joyce but I think if they sat down together and had a serious conversation about their respective families, it could be very good and cathartic for both of them.
Speaking as a religious person, I appreciate Joe taking the pisstake out of the, “Bad things happened to me so I lost my faith.” Which is a very Hollywood take on it.
Joyce lost her faith because she stopped believing in the logic of her religion, not because of her trauma. Some people do lose because of bad things, other people gain religion because of bad things.
I admit to having a fondness for Hinduism and some sects of Buddhism who look at the question of, “There’s multiple religions, so how do you take any religion seriously?”
And go, “Why bother choosing? It’s a big multiverse.”
I remember seeing the DVD at a store, once. My first impulse was to try finding whoever named it that and scream “Nobody cares!” in their ear. It’s an obnoxious title. My second impulse was to go on with my shopping.
Exactly. Existence is a prerequisite to having attributes.
That said, have you heard the ontological argument for god? That’s the “a maximally powerful being that exists is more powerful than one that doesn’t; therefore god exists.” WELL, the inversion of that argument uses the analogy of being handicapped. For example, ‘a weightlifter who can win a weightlifting competition with one hand tied behind their back is stronger than any of the ones who use both.’ But the greatest handicap of all is not existing, so: “a god that can create the universe without ever having existed in the first place is more powerful than one that does; therefore god does not exist.”
It’s the same logic, and because it can be used to come to opposite conclusions means the ontological argument has no use beyond being a tool to teach logic.
It also suffers from the same problem in that logical arguments are no substitute for evidence; but this is philosophy. Everyone knows that. Or should.
I’ve got a blank check for all the gang bangs I want. The only problem is that I have a lot of trouble finding ONE person who is attracted to me. God forbid finding like…2 or more. I literally don’t know how anyone pulls it off. Seems like a lotta work!
Gang bangs aren’t that great. There’s too much going on that’s too distracting. No intimacy, no individual attention. I like a lady’s (or gentleman’s) attention to be on me, not everone in the area.
I dunno I like a lot of affection but I also feel intimidated by too much undivided attention. It’d be nice if I could get a breather. Then again I’d probably start getting jealous if my favorite person in the orgy was getting a lot of attention. And I can’t imagine I wouldn’t have a favorite person in an orgy. I can’t think of any interaction with a group of people I’ve had where I haven’t subconsciously picked out a favorite.
Being the center of attention doesn’t get you much attention. Everyone gets his cookies and walks off. They’re the ones getting attention. I like it when I lie back and see a big smile. It’s better than applause. (And yes, as a performer I’ve had standing Os. Good, but not as good.)
Not to say a gang bang doesn’t have its good points. It’s a lot of hot sex. I’d do it again, if the world weren’t “covered in death.”
. . I’m in a odd position where despite having gone to church regularly growing up and done all of the proper rituals and schooling to be seen as an Adult in the Eyes of the Catholic Church that. . . I’ve *never* have had faith.
Which has always kind of bothered me. To the point where I felt slightly jealous of those who had true Faith or felt in awe of them for having that connection that I was apparently missing from birth.
Nowadays I kind of consider myself Roman Catholic by Culture, Raised Catholic, but otherwise flip between full on Fire/Moon reverence and agnosticism at my absolute “best”.
So. . .yeah it’s weird.
Anyone else ever have that experience with just. . . never having faith? Seemingly incapable of having it?
Granted, I’ve never tried especially hard, but I’ve never had faith. I think it’s just a bit [yikes, deep breath, controversy in bound] silly? I’m more than capable of making stupid decisions for stupid reasons without needing any help from centuries old books written by people who thought they’d heard a “voice”/had a “vision”/or whatever.
My Grandma was always into taking me to church and signing me up for bible school week at various churches and having me memorize verses.
She enjoyed it way more than I did, but there were times that I got a full jar of pickles or a bag of candy. I don’t think there was a time when I wasn’t going for ‘this makes Grandma happy so I’ll play along’.
I never really vibed with having faith, so I just assumed it was something you needed a prereq disposition for or something that I just lacked. It just wasn’t for me. It makes other people happy though, which is enough for me.
Point of order: While Super 3D Noah’s Ark was the only commercially-released SNES title that wasn’t approved by Nintendo in America, which DOES make it a ‘bootleg’ SNES game, the publisher, Wisdom Tree, paid licensing fees to id Software to use the Wolfenstein 3D engine.
Also, the game started development as a Hellraiser game. Wisdom Tree then decided that releasing a Hellraiser game would clash with their religious, family-friendly image, so they let theirHellraiser licence lapse and reused the half-formed NES code to make the SNES Super 3D Noah’s Ark, which they also ported to MS-DOS.
See, the sign that Joe cares about Joyce and/or has grown a bit is that that last panel isn’t him proposing a gangbang, even jokingly. He’s saying that she can do that if she wants, without asking her to invite him to it, even if obviously he wouldn’t say no if she did.
God I love the Thunder Cross Split Attack. It is straight up a ten year old’s idea of how martial arts work. “If I hold my arms in front of my head then I’m blocking and hitting you at the same time!”
Oh yeah that’s the one I was thinking about, must have conflated it with the third party figures that were directly based on the MTMTE cast, like Tailgate with the custom parts for Cyclonus and the Swerve that came with the My First Blaster.
Those designs are crazy angular. I kind of dig it.
Hi my name is Tarn Dark’ness Dementia Raven Way and I’m named after Megatron’s hometown and folks tell me I look a lot like him (if you don’t know who he is get da hell out of here!). I’m not related to Megatron but I wish I was and have two fusion cannons which is one more than he does and me and the DJD goffs like to walk around Cybertron where the prep Autobots stare at us. I put my middle finger up at them
For a split second, Joe was acting like a genuine person, when he opened up a little bit about his parent’s divorce. But then he remembered that being honest about yourself does not get the next girl in his bed.
This really comes off as sexual harassment. Maybe it’s supposed to be general banter, but knowing (as we do) that Joe is attracted to Joy, it makes it feel like he’s plainly announcing he’s imagining her being gang-banged. When male ‘friends’ have made ‘jokes’ like this to me, it makes me feel not just uncomfortable, but unsafe.
I can’t tell if this is Joe being shallow, Joe realizing he almost had a moment of emotional honesty with/in front of Joyce and immediately retreating into a shitty attempt at humor to cover it, or some combination of both.
People don’t get Joe and readers are too harsh on him, I think I do, he tried to open up last semester and no one took him seriously not even Joyce not even Danny, so he gave up on even trying to do so cause “what’s the point?”
Someone has to try to reach him honestly without it being thru their problems, either to just hang out or to see whats wrong with him or he wont open up again
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I mean, I was always an atheist(ic-agnostic), but I knew for certain bc Slip ‘n Slide
that sounds like an interesting lead-up, but basically I knocked the wind out of myself when I was impatient and didn’t let it get slick enough, and had my mother not seen and revived me, I’d have been dead for certain at the ripe old age of eight
no magic lights or any of that, just the realisation of how stupid a death that would’ve been
I’ve heard lots of stories about people getting religion after a near death experience, but this may be the first time I’ve heard of it working the other way.
I love deconversion stories because of how unique they all are. I recently heard of a JW who deconverted because his couch broke while moving it, ffs! You never can tell what will reveal the man behind the curtain.
I stopped enthusiastically believing because of all the horrible stuff in the bible. I remember reading about Lot’s wife being turned into a pillar of salt because she turned to look at her home and I thought to myself, “That’s just terrible… why would anyone do that to somebody?” and the rest of my class was laughing at the teacher’s joke that followed, “Guess she got a-salted!”
Tower of Babel, Sodom, the genocides, killing the men who got circumcised… all of it. It was terrible, unethical and just wrong on so many levels. I never understood how anybody could support that behavior from… well… anybody.
My personal favorites are the ones who deconverted because of Narnia. Evangelicals’ minds blow all over the place when they hear about those. (Generally, it’s because Narnia is so much cooler than the religion they were brought up in, and/or Narnia was their refuge from evangelicism and when they realized it was all Christian allegory, they felt incredibly betrayed and told all of it to go fuck itself.)
When I re-read TLTWATW as an adult, I could not believe that I’d missed the significance of the crucifixion scene when I’d read it as a child.
read that to my kid a few months ago. i love the part how there are about two paragraphs after aslan gets it about how terrible, how simply awful it is, and… oh never mind, he’s alive again.
it’s not a sacrifice it’s a fucking party trick.
Lewis does religion right.
I’ve never quite understood the hatred of Narnia as Christian allegory. It seems to require a pre-existing hatred of Christianity to be angry at it since it’s just the “cool version of Christianity.” It’s like being upset that Thor is based on Norse mythology.
It’s the perception that Lewis was trying to convert children on the sly.
Well you either believe that sharing what is good about your faith (Hindu, Norse, or whatever) is good or not.
Thor – assuming you mean the Marvel version, doesn’t have anything to doing with “sharing what is good about your faith” or an attempt to “convert children on the sly”. It’s just appropriating some old myths for an adventure story.
That’s a really weird line of argument.
You can also share what is good about your faith openly. It might be the “on the sly” part people don’t like about Narnia.
He wasn’t, though. I can’t track down the quote, but he wrote somewhere that he felt that the story of the crucifixion, and other aspects of Christian faith, were so familiar to *Christians* that they needed to be refreshed by being expressed in different terms, so that they had the same impact on modern believers as they did on the people who first heard about it.
I also don’t think he expected children *not* to recognise the analogies when they saw them. I grew up in an atheist household, and I certainly realised that this was about Jesus when I first read “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe”. I was surprised when I found out that anyone thought it was sneaky or meant not to be noticed, because it was clear to me just from general cultural exposure – scripture classes at school, etc.
So yeah, the expected audience for the allegory was children who were Christians or Christianity-acculturated. It wasn’t a way to trick non-believers.
Most atheist’ households dont teach their children Christian scripture in grade school.
I ( like many young children ) were first exposed to narnia through mass media. it was almost a decade before i had enough unwanted exposure to Christian Theology to see this was a surreptitious conversion.
Well, for me–a young agnostic kid reading the Narnia books for the first time–the whole death and resurrection of Aslan just seemed like a weird plot tumor that made no sense. When I discovered it was there for religious reasons, my reaction was basically: “ah, religion leads to bad writing. Got it.” 🙂
It’s strange to me that *Christians* could read Narnia and not realize what it’s about. I mean, when my parents read the books to me as a kid, it was almost presented “Bible story time”. Not *quite* to the level of the Bible, but damn near close enough for kids. But I mean, I guess I can’t know how much of the allegory I would’ve missed had the adults in my life not spelled it out for me.
I recall an amusing story about a man who near-instantly lost his faith because the team he supported didn’t win a baseball game despite his prayers.
I’m not certain whether the anecdote taught me more about how seriously some people take religion, or how seriously some people take sports, though.
In many places sports are the major religion.
Does that mean team fandom is the equivalent of religious sects?
Oh, so that explains the weird tax exemptions they get.
I’d argue it proves some people don’t take religion seriously at all if their only use for it is what they get out of it via magic.
so the grifters really *are* the paragons of faith? interesting take
Well you should have religion because it encourages you to be a better person and because you believe it to be true. Not because you are rewarded for it. Indeed, what I always felt was the heart of the Job story (tacked on happy ending or not) is that “good is not rewarded in this life. Do it because it’s right.”
As opposed to the “damn, God is an asshole” literal reading.
I dunno, if I thought magic worked I’d take it a lot more seriously, better person or not. I mean, I get other Christians being offended by that take. But as an atheist who doesn’t think any religions are true, as long as you’re not hurting anyone with your beliefs, I’m not really sure some reasons are *morally* better or worse than others for believing in something. If it’s just like anything else you always thought was true and could be harnessed for real effects in the world: I believe gravity exists, which in no way makes me a better person. If anything, falsifiable evidence (e.g. magical effects) is a pretty commendable reason to believe (or lose belief) in something.
Reminds me of how I once heard an acquaintance from Texas complain how people thought Texans treated high-school football like a religion. He maintained vehemently that it was much more important than that.
I fully deconverted when I nearly died from uterine hemorrhaging and realized I was completely alone. For me, it is nothing but void waiting for us. It weirdly makes life more worth living IMO. No heavenly reward – the rewards are in a life well-lived.
there were quite a few holocaust narratives along those lines.
yeah that’s right, i’m the debbie downer today
In no way do I mean to bum anyone out by bringing it up, but I had a similar experience when I was at my lowest and had planned to commit suicide.
My wishy-washy brand of non committal agnosticism took a sharp left into full atheism when I was dead set on ending my own life, and then just decided not to because it would have been stupid. God had nothing to do with that. No unearthly voices or divine intervention. Just me, and enough hatred for the universe to stick around out of spite.
(that was a long time ago, I promise I’m a little better adjusted these days, haha)
I am someone who can’t even commit to being an atheist, so agnosticism is
my term also, yet I thought that “wishy-washy” and “non-committal” were part and parcel.
(PS Glad that other stuff is in your past.)
I was always an Atheist, but was raised from a young age by parents who used to be Church of England (until they had to leave because apparently all the other young parents in the congregation whose kids were being total nightmares, couldn’t stand the two newest parents whose babies wouldn’t stop crying! I shit you not) and became Methodists.
I also went to primary and secondary school that were both CofE, but by age 12 declared that I didn’t believe any of it and was actually an Atheist. My family were pretty cool about it and I was allowed to stop going to church at that age. My sister stopped too, deciding she was a non-religious spiritualist iirc.
WOW, well done, Osopescado, we’re glad you’re still here! Also, congratulations for your brain going ‘no, this is stupid’ through the depressive thoughts. That’s impressive!
As for you ValdVin, you can be both an atheist and and agnostic. Atheism covers what you believe, and agnosticism covers what you know. I’m an agnostic atheist myself because I don’t know if god exists or not, but i don’t believe that one does. (Note that i don’t believe that one does NOT exist because that’s a claim that requires evidence i don’t have)
I had no idea of the differences. I may reconsider things.
For the most part, in the everyday living of one’s life, these fine distinctions don’t really matter. Other than when I’m arguing atheism online, it’s enough to know that I don’t believe in God.
No need to worry more about how I can’t prove God doesn’t exist than about how I can’t prove the infinite number of other things I don’t believe in don’t exist.
Haha thanks! I am also a nihilist, but I’m the brand of nihilist that believes that life doesn’t have any meaning unless you give a meaning to it yourself. That stated, I decided that my continued existence continues to have a meaning because video game developers continue to have cool ideas that are worth investing in. Right now I’m playing Valheim (very original I know).
Also, love is a real thing, and I’m trying to find someone who can stand my brand of bullshit and all that jazz too, lol.
I’ve had a similar experience. Not the religious part, but the suicidal bit. When I was younger, I was very depressed and was seriously considering ending it. Religion didn’t really play any role in it. I was full-on agnost by this time, believing that if there was a God, he really didn’t care. I had a plan, had gotten what I needed. I was trying to decide whether to actually go through with it when it occurred to me that if I did, “they” would win. And I wasn’t going to let them defeat me. It wasn’t quite spite, but stubborn pride. Oddly, it was this lowest part of my life that told me the most about who I am at my core.
I feel this for sure. I’m not totally sure whether it was my intelligent decision to not go through with my plan or my own narcissistic value of myself that stopped me. There was definitely a “them” that I defied though. I kind of feel that “they” were my peers who were neuro-typical and didn’t struggle the same way I did. In retrospect, I don’t think that that’s a fair assessment, of them or of me. That period of life taught me a lot about myself, and also about “them”.
I’ve died multiple times due to seizures. I admit I tend to think why I’m religious is related to it.
I feel that. My own reason for turning back from suicide (with means in hand) was anger. Killing myself would have meant that _they_ had beat me, and Fuck That.
Sexuality, in case you were wondering. I was 17. I, too, am better now.
For a second I believed Joe was actually gonna be sincere. Nah just kidding. Way to keep it classy Joe!
Gotta keep up their public relationship.
I suspect they’ll keep serious discussion in their text conversation.
Joyce should look into Optimistic Nihilism, I feel like that could work for her.
It’s been great for me, and Joyce is hella relatable to college-aged younger me, so… yeah, I feel like it’d work pretty well. ^_^
This comment makes me laugh because of your picture lolol
I subscribe to Cryptooptimism, expect the worst and be pleasantly surprised when everything turns out better than expected. 🙂
When nothing matters and everything is meaningless, you are free to make your own meaning.
In this foolish universe, the Xbox is still a 360.
And that blank check is nothing but zeros.
re: alt text
Currently we are on the Xbox Series X, following the Xbox One X.
No, it’s the Xbox Series Sbox One X 360 Special Edition X.
This feels like a terrible Abbot and Costello sketch.
or Street Fighter.
(third base!)
Not on the first date.
To clarify. because jokes are only funny if people can understand them: There is no Xbox Series Xbox One X 360 Special Edition X.
At the time of posting: The most highest-spec Xbox console is the Xbox Series X. Microsoft released a console called the Xbox Series S at the same time. The Series S lacks an optical drive and is somewhat lower-spec, only delivering 1440p60fps to Series X’s 8000p60fps(or 4000p120fps if you don’t have a display that’s wider than the tallest person ever is tall.).
It’s really helpful that in real life the Xbox naming scheme is so confusing that people would just say ‘the current Xbox’ anyway.
I just wanna know what went down to make us skip 359 Xbox consoles between the Xbox One and Xbox 360.
This joke sucks but it’s also why marketing specialists exists; so unfunny dorks like me don’t poke holes in your product’s stupid name.
Only 358, I believe.
My kingdom for an edit button.
I still grinned,
I’m still kinda sad we never got the Xbox 360 Delta.
(Because x □ o △ is the PlayStation button layout.)
Cross, Box, Oh, and Diamond. >:(
Unknown quantity, square, circle and an arrow missing its line.
That’s no arrow, it’s a delta.
The only one Joe knows about is the seXbox.
XXXBOX
Jeez, I think this Joe is even Joe-er than the previous reality’s Joe!
Right? Feels like he’s overcompensating. There’s been a lot of issues with people acting flanderized.
I wonder if it’s part of the trauma related to the kidnapping and Mike dying.
Did Joe even know Mike?
. . Joe knew Mike existed at least. He kept punching Joe during Joe and Joyce’s first date.
Because Joyce hired him to.
Things were weird back then.
Besides that, I mean. 😛 I checked the tags, and literally the only time Joe and Mike appear together on-panel after that was in the similarly-early chapter where Mike entered Leslie’s class so he could harass Walky.
And that was posted nine years ago. Joe’s not likely affected much by Mike’s death, ‘s what I’m saying.
C’mon, Leslie is Cool Mom but I already got you yesterday.
As opposed to when, exactly? We still take for granted that there are supervillain parents, opposed by one girl with multiple personae and another who’s assumed to be able to fight because she hyperfixates on dinosaurs a lot. (Though the first one is being subbed in for by her costumed ex-bf, whose powers seem to derive from not applying himself.) Their friend recently discovered she converts their anger into her joy through some process.
I mean, given how he runs away from being anything that would make him likeable or understandable, he HAS to overcompensate by being extra Joe
Otherwise he would be just an empty husk
Did this reality’s Joe teach his XBox to fly, tho?
I don’t think Joyce has the right parents to guilt into getting videogames. I mean she couldn’t watch certain tv shows. Video games seem like a total non starter in the Brown household beyond anything you could download on your computer. Her parents might not even know what an Xbox or a Playstation even is.
It sort of sounds like her dad is so burned out and ruined by regrets that she can guilt him into pretty much anything a normal kid/teen could have now if it would just normalise their relationship and get her talking to him as a daughter again.
I expect that her mother is going the opposite direction.
They could’ve had that “concert the heathens” game that the Flanders kids had.
Perhaps Joyce should consider a spray bottle for circumstances like this.
What would motivate him more, showing off his bod through a wet see-through tshirt or the literally freezing cold of winter?
I’m more interested in the poster behind them. Why does it say Biol-g? Biol-groups? Biol-gspots?
If you go back to yesterday’s strip, it looks like the ‘G’ is the first letter of another four-letter course name …. possibly ‘GEOL’ (for geology).
BIOL-GEE!
(?)
sounds like a weird brand of shampoo
This sounds like a yokel trying out to enunciate the word “bourgeois.”
I guess they must be taking Biol-G instead of biology.
Hope they’re aware of that.
Joe is looking more Faz-like by the day. Shoutout to panel 4
I assume he’s kidding to troll her a little, or else this is a pretty weak sell.
Anyway this should leave me hardcore tilted after about five days of page long posts to the effect of “and that’s why Joe and Joyce are getting married”, but I’m down with it.
Joe never dealt with this his hangups, he just pursued abstinence as a substitute for character development after realizing how badly he fucked up and decided he had backslid because had a casual sexual encounter with Malaya. Ignoring his journey to grow as a person to instead get Joyce all up in his grill faster wouldn’t just be a bad plot development, it’d be one that’s untenable with a series that is meant to run for as long as it can, and character growth is as important if not moreso than where it ends up leading us.
Though I guess Danny/Ethan shippers would know all about that kchow! lmao gottem
(I’m kidding)
Yep. Some ships play the sloooooooooooow game.
You’re right, but I’m still displeased that I put that last panel into my eyeballs today. (The previous five panels were great.)
I’m personally partial to the idea of a plotline where Joe realizes on some level that he is developing Feelings for Joyce or that he is otherwise getting ‘too attached’ to her emotionally or just ‘too close’, maybe because something he does or says inadvertently hurts her, and instead of trying to own up to it he decides in his usual fashion that this is a sign that he must distance himself from her “for her own good”.
Except that just hurts Joyce MORE and Joyce doesn’t let it happen because fuck that.
And then….MAYBE they kiss???!?!!?
Then they go “god fuck nope we’re not going to acknowledge that that happened and go back to just being friends all the while knowing in the back of our minds that we have chemistry but are Not Ready Yet” so they can have agonizing UST for at least three more storylines, if not the rest of time.
goddammit joe
Goddamnit Joe
Line begins here for Goddammit Joe party! Bonus points if your grav is based on Joyce or Joe!
I’m behind RacingTurtle! No cutsies! 😛
But seriously, Joe was SO CLOSE to a serious moment here. Even though I never really liked my dad (He was never abusive or anything – we just didn’t get along after I turned 3 or so. Now that I’m older, I can say that dad and I were basically two people who had a mutual friend whom we both loved dearly (my mom) but that was the only point of connexion between us so it was awkward when we were “supposed” to do things without mom. When he and my mom got divorced when I was a teen-ager, even though I knew mom was doing the right thing (he had been cheating on her for a long time), it DID have a profound effect on my life and my my perception about a lot of things. (Religion not included in my case – I can most generously be described as a skeptical pagan with gothy inclinations and fashion sense.) But if you have grown up in a family with two or more parents, which I was very privileged to have done, it destabilizes your sense of the world of your life if they get divorced.
I’m not totally sure if I ship Joe and Joyce but I think if they sat down together and had a serious conversation about their respective families, it could be very good and cathartic for both of them.
I’ll join the goddammit Joe line here I guess
goddammit joe
Goddammit Joe!
Goddammit Joe.
Speaking as a religious person, I appreciate Joe taking the pisstake out of the, “Bad things happened to me so I lost my faith.” Which is a very Hollywood take on it.
Joyce lost her faith because she stopped believing in the logic of her religion, not because of her trauma. Some people do lose because of bad things, other people gain religion because of bad things.
But the two aren’t really related.
I find Misotheism slightly more comfortable than simple Atheism.
That’s kinda fascinating. But it seems like it still misses the point of atheism AND agnosticism. I mean… how do you know which god(s) to hate?
I think that would depend on whichever Faith they feel more culturally more connected to due to birth or circumstance?
Whoever is responsible for this whole mess I guess
I admit to having a fondness for Hinduism and some sects of Buddhism who look at the question of, “There’s multiple religions, so how do you take any religion seriously?”
And go, “Why bother choosing? It’s a big multiverse.”
Misotheism? Is that the worship of Japanese soup?
“Gods exist, but I don’t like them or worship them.”
Basically what your typical fundie Christian thinks atheists are, misotheists actually are.
Doom Shepherd wrote: “I find Misotheism slightly more comfortable than simple Atheism.”
Then you should watch God’s not Dead. Kevin Costner plays a misotheist, not an atheist. His character believes God exists, he just hates him.
(I’m kidding, no one should watch God’s not Dead. Even by christian propaganda standards, it’s garbage)
I remember seeing the DVD at a store, once. My first impulse was to try finding whoever named it that and scream “Nobody cares!” in their ear. It’s an obnoxious title. My second impulse was to go on with my shopping.
My first thought when I heard of the title was “can’t be dead if he never existed in the first place”.
Exactly. Existence is a prerequisite to having attributes.
That said, have you heard the ontological argument for god? That’s the “a maximally powerful being that exists is more powerful than one that doesn’t; therefore god exists.” WELL, the inversion of that argument uses the analogy of being handicapped. For example, ‘a weightlifter who can win a weightlifting competition with one hand tied behind their back is stronger than any of the ones who use both.’ But the greatest handicap of all is not existing, so: “a god that can create the universe without ever having existed in the first place is more powerful than one that does; therefore god does not exist.”
It’s the same logic, and because it can be used to come to opposite conclusions means the ontological argument has no use beyond being a tool to teach logic.
It also suffers from the same problem in that logical arguments are no substitute for evidence; but this is philosophy. Everyone knows that. Or should.
Have you considered Satanism?
You have to admit, Satan is the better god. He always tells us the truth. He doesn’t murder us en masse. And he saved us from the Garden. Go, Satan.
I’m “miso-” the Catholic church, but hating God is just odd. Might as well hate unicorns.
Hasa diga eebowai!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLb7_UrV3-A (warning that this “Book of Mormon” song has sexual lyrics, which include use of the c-word)
Man I wish my parents csplit up when I was a kid. Never had no stinking Xbox…
Okay I’m giving Joe the benefit of the doubt with that one of him knowingly using his sexscapades to make a poorly timed joke lol
Joyce in that beat panel: I’m pissed at his irreverence, but on the other hand: Master Chief.
Alternately: Sheesh, you think a guy knows you and he says you could get an Xbox. An Xbox! OBVIOUSLY I’m a Sony purist, Joe.
I’ve got a blank check for all the gang bangs I want. The only problem is that I have a lot of trouble finding ONE person who is attracted to me. God forbid finding like…2 or more. I literally don’t know how anyone pulls it off. Seems like a lotta work!
Gang bangs aren’t that great. There’s too much going on that’s too distracting. No intimacy, no individual attention. I like a lady’s (or gentleman’s) attention to be on me, not everone in the area.
I dunno I like a lot of affection but I also feel intimidated by too much undivided attention. It’d be nice if I could get a breather. Then again I’d probably start getting jealous if my favorite person in the orgy was getting a lot of attention. And I can’t imagine I wouldn’t have a favorite person in an orgy. I can’t think of any interaction with a group of people I’ve had where I haven’t subconsciously picked out a favorite.
I’m a natural born performer. I want the attention on me.
I guess it depends on what role you play in the gang bang, if one’s the center of attention.
Being the center of attention doesn’t get you much attention. Everyone gets his cookies and walks off. They’re the ones getting attention. I like it when I lie back and see a big smile. It’s better than applause. (And yes, as a performer I’ve had standing Os. Good, but not as good.)
Not to say a gang bang doesn’t have its good points. It’s a lot of hot sex. I’d do it again, if the world weren’t “covered in death.”
See that’s my problem, my dad left before I was born. I didn’t get shit.
Does Joyce even know what a gang bang is?!
At this point, she’s probably either been told, or could figure it out from context. It’s a little more obvious than “strap-on.”
Guys, I am starting to think Joe doesn’t know when to keep his mouth shut.
Joyce, stop giving him ideas for how to mess with you. XD
. . I’m in a odd position where despite having gone to church regularly growing up and done all of the proper rituals and schooling to be seen as an Adult in the Eyes of the Catholic Church that. . . I’ve *never* have had faith.
Which has always kind of bothered me. To the point where I felt slightly jealous of those who had true Faith or felt in awe of them for having that connection that I was apparently missing from birth.
Nowadays I kind of consider myself Roman Catholic by Culture, Raised Catholic, but otherwise flip between full on Fire/Moon reverence and agnosticism at my absolute “best”.
So. . .yeah it’s weird.
Anyone else ever have that experience with just. . . never having faith? Seemingly incapable of having it?
Granted, I’ve never tried especially hard, but I’ve never had faith. I think it’s just a bit [yikes, deep breath, controversy in bound] silly? I’m more than capable of making stupid decisions for stupid reasons without needing any help from centuries old books written by people who thought they’d heard a “voice”/had a “vision”/or whatever.
Yeah, I get your last line.
My Grandma was always into taking me to church and signing me up for bible school week at various churches and having me memorize verses.
She enjoyed it way more than I did, but there were times that I got a full jar of pickles or a bag of candy. I don’t think there was a time when I wasn’t going for ‘this makes Grandma happy so I’ll play along’.
I never really vibed with having faith, so I just assumed it was something you needed a prereq disposition for or something that I just lacked. It just wasn’t for me. It makes other people happy though, which is enough for me.
Joyce just went full ‘PlayStation 4 Life’ here.
PlayStation has cool games on it, like Sly Cooper and Kingdom Hearts and Shadow of the Colossus and Final Fantasy XIV.
Joyce was only ever allowed to play that bootleg SNES game that was Doom reprogrammed to be about Noah’s Ark.
Point of order: While Super 3D Noah’s Ark was the only commercially-released SNES title that wasn’t approved by Nintendo in America, which DOES make it a ‘bootleg’ SNES game, the publisher, Wisdom Tree, paid licensing fees to id Software to use the Wolfenstein 3D engine.
Also, the game started development as a Hellraiser game. Wisdom Tree then decided that releasing a Hellraiser game would clash with their religious, family-friendly image, so they let theirHellraiser licence lapse and reused the half-formed NES code to make the SNES Super 3D Noah’s Ark, which they also ported to MS-DOS.
…Goddammit Joe
Joe (conspiratorily, to Danny): “Don’t mention the gang-bangs. I did once, but I think I got away with it.”
See, the sign that Joe cares about Joyce and/or has grown a bit is that that last panel isn’t him proposing a gangbang, even jokingly. He’s saying that she can do that if she wants, without asking her to invite him to it, even if obviously he wouldn’t say no if she did.
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2021/comic/book-11/03-see-you-in-the-funny-page/shackles/#comment-1527505
Migrated comment alert
Is Joe gonna start barking up thst tree again…?
Joe you were so close.
If you squint hard enough, you can tell that he means well <_<
I love how they manage to sprinkle in some light constructive support in the middle of all half-antagonistic snark
Re: the alt text, I’ve lost track of all of the current consoles these days. Rarely have time to play video games anymore anyway since I work a lot.
These two *are* going to get married in the end, aren’t they?
Pretty sure Joyce is already doing all the gangbangs she wants.
Um.
That was supposed to go under the main comments.
I have literally no idea how it ended up here.
I had to do a “find in page” to find out if it even posted.
Sorry about that.
I should hope not.
“In the end” implies the series will conclude with their wedding, and I want to see their domestic life!
“Joyce and Joe!”
Oh yeah. Pretty sure they’re the OTP.
Willis has really been giving us some great Joe eyes in this little arc.
Panel 3 Joe is creepiest Joe.
Joe . . .
How is dire terrible. He’s saying what the comments have said many times about Joyce.
I mean, Dire totally betrayed Joseph Joestar to become a vampire. That’s pretty terrible.
You’re thinking of Straizo. Dire died when DIO defeated the Thunder Cross Split Attack.
Damn, how embarrassing of me.
God I love the Thunder Cross Split Attack. It is straight up a ten year old’s idea of how martial arts work. “If I hold my arms in front of my head then I’m blocking and hitting you at the same time!”
Classic. RIP Dire.
It’s a giant check, like those Publishing.Clearing House ones Ed McMahon would give out.
Everyone who believes in this ship… I am a doubter. Because. He just keeps opening his mouth.
He’s challenging her. I’m pretty confident that’s all there is to it.
As much as I hate to admit it; when you’re a kid goin through a messy divorce, a new gaming console is hard to say no to.
Do you think Joe gets that the presents were his parents competing for his affection, and probably had nothing to do with the atheism?
I mean, almost definitely. That’s why he leveraged that by lying to get something he wanted in the first place.
Important announcement, everyone: Tarn from IDW’s Transformers: More Than Meets The Eye is getting his own figure.
Now you too can own a facsimile of everyone’s favourite edgy Deception OC.
*his second figure
Wasn’t that third party? I remember that one at least.
There were some third party ones, but Flame Toys’ figure was licensed
Oh yeah that’s the one I was thinking about, must have conflated it with the third party figures that were directly based on the MTMTE cast, like Tailgate with the custom parts for Cyclonus and the Swerve that came with the My First Blaster.
Those designs are crazy angular. I kind of dig it.
Congratulations to an edgelord so edgelordy Megatron looked at him and said ‘dude.’
Hi my name is Tarn Dark’ness Dementia Raven Way and I’m named after Megatron’s hometown and folks tell me I look a lot like him (if you don’t know who he is get da hell out of here!). I’m not related to Megatron but I wish I was and have two fusion cannons which is one more than he does and me and the DJD goffs like to walk around Cybertron where the prep Autobots stare at us. I put my middle finger up at them
Oh My God, Joe, you sack of rotten potatoes
My parents got divorced and all i got was trauma, deep-rooted abandonment issues and this crappy t-shirt
For a split second, Joe was acting like a genuine person, when he opened up a little bit about his parent’s divorce. But then he remembered that being honest about yourself does not get the next girl in his bed.
This really comes off as sexual harassment. Maybe it’s supposed to be general banter, but knowing (as we do) that Joe is attracted to Joy, it makes it feel like he’s plainly announcing he’s imagining her being gang-banged. When male ‘friends’ have made ‘jokes’ like this to me, it makes me feel not just uncomfortable, but unsafe.
Biol-gy ?
Biol-Ogee
I can’t tell if this is Joe being shallow, Joe realizing he almost had a moment of emotional honesty with/in front of Joyce and immediately retreating into a shitty attempt at humor to cover it, or some combination of both.
I’m hoping Joe didn’t lose his faith (if he ever had any) over his parents separating due to their horrible incompatibility.
Beat me to it.
The day Joe take something seriously the moon will crash in earth and we will all die
Unless Joyce starts doing 100 push-ups, 100 sit-ups, 100 squats and running 10 km a day.
Goddamit Joe learn to talk about your feelings
Joe has completed the full circle in what? three strips?
People don’t get Joe and readers are too harsh on him, I think I do, he tried to open up last semester and no one took him seriously not even Joyce not even Danny, so he gave up on even trying to do so cause “what’s the point?”
Someone has to try to reach him honestly without it being thru their problems, either to just hang out or to see whats wrong with him or he wont open up again
Once Joe sets his mind on something, chances are he will have sex with it.
“whichever xbox is current, I’ve lost track” – alt text
we all have dave
microsoft doesn’t want you to keep track of those ridiculous identical names