It’s extra funny because Hitler was a devoted christian. Just as Mussolini and also as the Spanish and many Latin-American facists. They all made it very clear in their letters, propaganda and public speachs.
Read Hitler’s Table Talk, he expresses more pagan beliefs than Christian. He makes statements to the effect that the RCC should be a powerless church with a weak leader. He claimed Jesus was an Aryan and other lies. He had an Anti-Christian Martin Bormann in his inner-circle & was an admirer of “God is dead” Nietzsche, thus Hitler’s wish for “Übermensch.”
Mussolini came to power on an Anti-Cotholic ticket, and had to deal w/ the RCC after he was in power. See the book “condemned to repeat it” by Allison, Adams & Hambly.
How do you tell when a politician is lying? There lips move.
@Far The “anti-christianity” of the Nazis was because they rightly saw the christian churches as potential nexuses of dictatorial powers in opposition to their own. Aside from Bormann and Rosenberg (who was heavily marginalised for being too nutty), the Nazi hierarchy didn’t want to destroy christianity but to subvert it to their own use (i.e. do to the cult what Constantine did back in the 4th century, and many rulers since), thus the invention of “German christianity” during the Nazi regime, and the attempt to corral all the protestant sects into it.
And you also have to remember, Hitler did believe in the christian god, he thought he had sent him (Hitler) down to earth to lead his (god) favoured Aryan people to dominance over the world. The table talk snippets denouncing christianity all happened either soon after prominent christians questioned the wisdom of Hitlers varied genocide programmes (we all know how well Adolf reacted to criticism) or when the war was obviously lost (and Downfall showed us how babyish he was when things weren’t going his way). He wanted Germany to be christian, just not the kind of christian it then was.
I’m tickled by the presented incredible savvy of distrusting politicians while defending a 2000-year-old story of guys saying they saw a dead guy once after he died, written forty years after it happened.
I think pointing out his pagan beliefs or what not is in danger of being a “True scottsman” fallacy. as in “he doesnt adhere to what i’d call and X so he isnt an X” which is exactly what millions of christians say bout millions of christians. And conveniently ignore their differences when it comes to “Christians vs Y”.
Cus if we are going to talk about people who aren’t “real” christians i’d point out all the ones who for some weird reason celebrate a pagan holiday in winter dedicated to celebrating the rise of the winter court of Faeries and the astrological continuation cycle in which people hang poisonous plants and decorate evergreen trees to be homes for Faeries.
When you’re on a webpage with like 1000 comments, and a good portion of those comments are from people saying “yes, this was my life, this was my life exactly,” and it’s from content created by a guy who lived this for twenty years, clearly the course of action you’ve chosen here is the best one.
C’mon. Keep on calling all of us liars. Remind us why we left.
@Cronomatt Well, I grew up in a situation similar to Joyce’s and I remember hearing the rumor that Hitler was partly Jewish. This rumor was connected to a theory that because the Jews were God’s favored people, they either did awesome things or were mini-antichrist’s.
More like control issues and inability to cope with not being able to make their children’s decisions for them forever using Christianity as a shield happened.
The fuck happened to all that stuff I learned in Catholic school? Love thy neighbor, turn the other cheek, don’t be stupid judgmental dicks (yes, that was an actual lesson I got in sixth grade, exact words), casting stones? Did they stop teaching it?
They Aren’t Catholic, Though That Is A Lesson I Learned Growing Up (Raised Presbyterian If That Makes A Difference) Seems Fundamentalists Thrive On Hypocrisy.
Catholic != Fundimentalist Protestant, and in both cases Actual Doctrine != People’s Interpretation Thereof*, and Interpreted Doctrine != Actual Behavior.
* One of the more infuriating examples I’ve encountered within Catholicism – it’s been said by multiple Popes (notably Pius XII who said it first, and JPII who expanded on it) that evolution is not incompatible with God (basically ‘God gave us souls’ is the important part, and ‘evolution gave us the form we have’ doesn’t contradict that), but I’ve encountered a whole whackload of Catholic creationists, who bust out the idiotic ‘Humans and Dinosaurs coexisted’ and ‘if we evolved from monkeys, why are there still monkeys?’ crap.
Not Hitler. Hitler used vaguely Christian ideas to help his build to power, but ultimately, the Aryan outlook became a cult of its own with him as its leader, based on a mix of Catholic and Teutonic ideals.
Probably. Of course, most of those “Christian one-percenters” are happy to wait for their God to do the bombing and ethnic cleasing for them (I think it’s called ‘the rapture’) That’s an improvement.
@Totz the Plaid
That’s probably because the Nazi party’s official name was “National Socialist German Workers’ Party”. But since they weren’t socialist (by the definition of socialist at any point in time since its creation), a lot of them were not German (Hitler was Austrian)(I mean okay technically Austrians are German it’s just that at the creation of Germany as a country, the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Prussia were NOT friends), etc.
If they did appeal to anyone with socialist ideals, it was only because the mark was worth less than the shit they wiped off their asses at the time. And they only got power because Hitler was really charismatic and the party in power thought “oh he’s just a figurehead, if we get him on our council he’ll just be a charismatic puppet” and then it turned out he was a domineering asshole who also happened to be charismatic.
(… Sorry my History Professor last term has his doctorate in Modern European history so he went way in depth on WWII and how it all happened. You do not want to see how many pages of notes I have from those lectures.)
Chill out, Li. Hitler wasn’t Christian, not really. He paid lip service to Christianity because he knew that was what would get him elected, and no, he never officially left the Catholic church (again, probably because it was a better political move to stay there), but he personally disliked religion and did not consider himself religious.
We like to pretend that no one has ever done anything terrible in “our” camp (whatever camp that may be); we tell ourselves that Nazi Germany was atheist and Communist, even though neither of those things are true. (The Nazi party was capitalist, and in America we thought they’d drive out the awful Communist influence from that country, which had been rising of its own accord). In America, “eugenics” had also taken hold, and when Germany first started segregating its population, some in America complained that they were “beating us at our own game”.
We can’t afford to forget shit like this just because it’s ugly. And in our current climate, we can afford it even less.
I reiterate: it’s comforting to pretend that no one can look like us while being vile, because then we ourselves are protected from being vile. But it’s especially egregious to protect ourselves from the idea of a Christian Hitler while foisting the blame for him off onto other persecuted minorities to help give us more reason to hate them.
I’ve never met anyone who thinks that Nazi Germany was communist; it’s pretty universally known that they were fascists, and anyone who knows the first thing about WWII history knows that they were explicitly out to destroy communism. And it’s also universally acknowledged that the people of Hitler’s Germany were mostly Christians (I can’t speak for Totz the Plaid, but I’m certainly not arguing against that point). So I have no idea where you’re getting “we tell ourselves that Nazi Germany was atheist and communist” from
And nobody’s burying their heads in the sand when it comes to Hitler’s personal anti-religion, that’s just the truth. Again, he may have officially been Catholic, but he was by no means a practicing Christian.
Hitler was as much a Christian as many Americans, who consider themselves to be Christians, despite not being devout. It is stupid to try to disown him simply because you dislike what he did – that just opens the door for some other charismatic madman to pull the same trick.. And regardless of Hitler, many Germans were devout Christians who were perfectly okay with having the Jews shipped off “for the good of the state”. Maybe they wouldn’t have wanted to see all of them massacred, but that doesn’t help the victims of Hitler’s giant organized pogrom that we now call the Holocaust.
For that matter, it doesn’t help the thousands upon thousands of Jews who were killed by Christians in Europe due to other pogroms. Or the millions of Christians, Catholic and Protestant alike, who were killed by other Christians.
What jaimehlers said, with a healthy heaping of “lucky you, you’ve escaped our propaganda machine”. But don’t for a second think that “atheist Communist Nazi Germany” is something I made up. No. It’s a quite popular little lie.
Additionally: fascism is totally unrelated to economic systems. Nazi Germany was both fascist AND capitalist.
I’m not trying to “disown” anyone. I am an atheist. I have no reason to try and sweep Christians who do horrible things under the rug. They disgust me.
But Hiter actually was not a Christian. He may have professed to be so in public, but he made numerous private statements to his associates stating his distrust and his dislike of religion. Yes, he was nominally Catholic, but as someone mentioned below, you have to actually believe in the stuff to be part of it, and it doesn’t appear that Hitler did. That’s what separates him from a “Christmas and Easter Christian.” He actually just didn’t believe it.
And Li, I never said Nazi Germany wasn’t capitalist. I said they weren’t communist. Fascism is opposed to communism. So when I said they were fascist, I meant that that meant the weren’t communist.
Regardless of whether Hitler was Christian or not, he still used Christianity to control others and convince them to perform atrocities. Regardless of whether he actually believed in God, he still used belief in God to rally other believers under the flag of Nazi Germany. It doesn’t matter if he was sincere or not. Religion is culpable either way, for being a tool that has such power over a person that it can convince them that killing hordes of innocent people is for the best.
I was raised Cath & spent a few years in school, and the Chicago region never taught any such Fundie Jesus riding dinosaurs bullshiit. And I paid attention, because I got kicked out for kickng ass by 5th grade.
My entire family back to the early 1930s all went to cath School in Pittsburgh. Never EVER were they taught such shit. They glossed evolution with “we came from the sea” and taught dinos like a science should be, sticking to “periods” without getting into years, but never once teaching the 6 day creation as a 24 hour human day.
I don’t know where you met the Catholics YOU know, but I’ll bet there is moonshine involved.
Not only are Joyce’s parents not Catholic, they almost certainly don’t consider Catholics to be Christian. In fact, if they’re anything like most Fundamentalist Christians I’ve known and read, they consider Catholicism to be a Satanic counterfeit of Christianity, designed to fool people into damning their souls while thinking they’re saving them. Sometimes there are implied connections to ancient Babylon.
I’ve always wondered what those people think of Orthodoxy. Reading those anti-Catholic screeds, I usually get the distinct impression the author doesn’t realize that they exist… the closest is typically mention of “Catholics slaughtering true Christians” in the fourth crusade, but in light of the typical claim that things started downhill with Constantine, that just ends up raising further questions.
Agreed, also because they’re completely wrong. Nazi Germany was (technically) religious, they’re thinking of Soviet Russia, as it was anti-religion due to the communists. I know I sound like a bible-thumping redneck when I say that, but I’m not, and it’s the truth; the USSR grouped capitalists and religious organizations together due to the tendency towards corruption and taking money.
Stalin was an atheist who forged an ego cult for himself, and cut out other religions to keep them from competing with Stalinism… technically Communism isn’t anti-religious.
Depends on what you choose to call “communism”. Lenin was using rather scorching terms for religion in general. But of course, “practiced” communism had only comparatively loose ties to the views and theories of its nominal founders.
Communism is based on an atheistic worldview: Karl Marx stated that a society of non-exploited, non-alienated human beings would have no use for religion. It was his followers who went from “no use” to “must be destroyed”, but that may also have to do with the fact that religious institutions of the era -starting with the Catholic church- were often ultra-conservative and basically preached against social reform and workers’ rights.
This is what I meant. Marx’s creation was close to one of the church’s most heavily abusive eras, and his doctrine was that people would reject all forms of capitalist corruption and greed, let the people control everything, and once people got used to it and relinquished the idea of a person having more stuff than another, government, along with other forms of control over people, would be unneeded and cast aside.
Nazi Germany, on the other hand, was Facist, which is a bad mix of capitalism and totalitarianism. Hitler, in fact, used religion to get people on his side and influence them to come under his regime’s command (the US, also in fact, used this and continues to use this method).
It is not that so much as that religion tends to actively placate people being exploited by systems not built to protect them from exploitation. The idea is that people will keep their heads down and not make waves even if they are being abused by a feudal or a capitalist or a whatever system if they believe they will be reward in the afterlife, while people who do not believe that will fight harder to make things fair in this life. Communism as Marx imagined it was a socially just system where people would be treated fairy and cared for generously by their fellow man, the idea is that when you have that you no longer need God to fill that role.
I do not really think that religion and social revolution are incompatible, personally, but that is the general idea.
Damn right. I take back what I said a couple nights ago: this is why I can’t stand Christians. As if all atheists are automatically heartless, amoral, murdering rapists, and all Christians are good, innocent people who would never, ever do anything bad. Y’know, fear of god isn’t the only reason to be a good person, and I am very disturbed by Christians who think it is.
Actually the bible can be used to justify almost anything. God gives his blessing on incest, murder, genocide and slavery… But of course it’s the atheist moral compass that it’s off. At least atheist don’t try to defend themselves with God told me to do it….
Actually, God was not fine with incest once he made up his mind and dictated Mosaic law. People like Adam’s or Noah’s immediate descendants or Abraham (marrying his half-sister) preceded that.
Problem is, people who use scripture to defend their actions, tend to be selective in their quotes. My point that you can find a quote in the bible to justify almost anything still stands. If you go by the spirit of the teachings of Jesus, he would be mortified by lots of things done in his name, both in the pat and the present.
Anyone who uses scripture has a tendency to be selective in their quotes, whether defending their actions or not. Taking things out of context is an underlying problem with using a book as big as the Bible to create an argument.
If Joyce, Dorothy or Roz were my sisters, I’d have used the bible to convince them incest was just fine! Or hit them over the heads with it! Same if my Sis was Sandra Bullock, Salma, and a host of other chicks!
Unless they were Kardashians… then I’d have used it to encourage human sacrifice of virgins – and with THEM, probably have to start (and finish) before the end of 2nd grade AND live near a volcano.
The scary part is the implication that these people would absolutely rape and murder and steal all the time if they weren’t afraid of God.
Thank goodness for “Murder Simulators” as Jack Thompson calls them, otherwise I might actually have to go out in the real world to get my murder fix. 😛
You know, your use of the word ‘all’ in “all atheists” kind of makes it sound like if most, or at least a good portion of atheists are heartless, amoral, murdering rapists.
I’m Jewish, and I don’t think anyone needs to hate these people. A simple befuddled head shake and a long drawn out sigh should do.
Obviously, I don’t speak for everyone in my particular minority group, and everyone is of course welcome to react how they want, but if I let all the uninformed, preposterous things people say make me hate them, I’d lose myself. I mostly just pity neo-nazis when I come across the insane conspiracy theories I read online, and Joyce’s parents certainly don’t seem actively hateful on that level…just immersed in a framework of ignorance that allows them to perpetuate some recognizably harmful beliefs. I can’t hate them. I can really only feel sorry for them.
In their minds they’re trying to protect a loved one. It just sucks that the bubble they’ve chosen to immerse themselves in causes that behavior to manifest in a really ignorant way.
On a side note, being bi as well, I await Ethan meeting Joyce’s parents with a strange mix of dread and excitement.
Unfortunately logic all-too-often doesn’t work in these case. They just tell themselves that logic and critical thinking are tools of Satan to try to make them doubt their faith and dismiss them out of hand.
There’s no expectation that her parents are any different. In fact, given that they’re older and likely are quite aware that they are wrong (at least on a subconscious level), they probably are downright vicious to anyone that disagrees with them or who can argue against them.
Bonus points: Joyce sees nothing wrong with physically assaulting someone who does something she doesn’t like (Joe), wonder what’s gonna happen when the climax of this storyarc arrives. Will we be seeing some violence from the good parents there?
you did notice the main aim were atheists… The main statement being without God there can be no morality… not that i want to interfere with your right to be offended so you can show off how you rise above it, and feel better…
Forgive me if I’m wrong, but the final panel happens to contain Joyce expressing concern that someone with my heritage is being compared to Nazis, and her own father trying to JUSTIFY said comparison by claiming a genocidal dictator that killed many people with that heritage potentially shared it, correct? That is a thing I am allowed to offer personal perspective in response to, no?
Not trying to disregard that Joyce’s parents have seriously unfortunate attitudes towards Dorothy’s atheism expressed in the comic, and of course people are allowed to respond to that, but I fail to see where I was out of line.
“not that i want to interfere with your right to be offended so you can show off how you rise above it, and feel better”
Also not trying to be impolite, and I truly apologize if I’m misinterpreting, but I get the sense you’re being really condescending here. Again I was just offering my personal perspective. I explicitly said I didn’t speak for anyone, and didn’t put down anyone for feeling differently than myself. That was uncalled for.
you do realize it’s a comic? Nobody is doing anything, it’s all just a drawing on a screen… There are no parents to defend here. If you feel the need the need to either defend to condemn, it should be the author.
Having said that, the true party to be offended would be devout christians, since the author is actually making a joke at their expense. the hitler was a jokes are pretty much done to death, and hardly ever have any true merit. So it is already silly being offended by them.
coming from a country where jewish organizations (well mostly one) have taking offense to a level that most Jews say, give it a rest already, and we are talking a country were a picture of a pig was deemed offensive, i find your offense mildly amusing. It’s a joke, no offense was intended. So lighten up.
Even within the context of the comics there was no offense. Even you argue there was no malice against Judaism within the context of the strip, so there would be no reason to be offended.
But then again if yo feel the need to be offended be my guest. As long as you remember that there is a right to free speech, but there is no right not to be offended.
Basically every comment on every comic on this site is responding to the ideas presented in the comics. That doesn’t mean anybody is actually unaware that the characters aren’t real, but some of the ideas they present ARE real. But there is no reason for anybody to condemn the author for portraying those ideas, as they are not his own ideas. Anyways, and correct me if I’m wrong, but Sgore is not actually offended. The only person who seems offended here is you.
Sgore is (again, correct me if I’m wrong) talking about a real reaction to the real ideas that are presented by these fictional characters, as someone who is hurt by those ideas. Many real people do believe such things about atheists and Jews. I’ve met people who really do believe Hitler was Jewish, and use that as some sort of criticism of Jews. Who are you to say whether she can or cannot be offended by them? She didn’t express any offense at the comic, anyways, but merely expressed her opinion on the ideas contained therein.
And the comic DOES refer to Jews. Joyce’s mom’s comment is about atheists, but her dad’s comment is saying Hitler was possibly Jewish, which is the comment to which you seem to think Sgore is taking offense. But as someone who identifies as both atheist and Jewish, I can tell you both of those ideas are offensive, but that doesn’t mean anybody should blame Willis for representing them here. I don’t think anybody here is offended at the comic’s existence, and an open discussion of the offensive ideas that are represented in it does not indicate oversensitivity to the comic itself. Discussing hateful and hurtful beliefs and why they are hateful and hurtful doesn’t mean anybody feels they have a “right not to be offended.” I, and probably most other people, really wish harmful beliefs about Jews didn’t exist, but that doesn’t mean anyone feels like they have some special right to not see them; discussing these ideas and how they make us feel isn’t demanding special treatment.
Maybe you should lighten up. Again, you’re the one who seems to be offended by Sgore offering her opinion, here.
I can personally confirm this, i have had the conversation in the first three panels verbatim with my extended family. something that is worrying when you are the atheist mentioned.
This isa response to several at once, so not all comments relate directly to the parent post.
First off, I believe very much in free speech, and everybody’s right to express their opinion. Just like others I like to express mine. I don’t mind a discussion, as long as it’s done on the basis of arguments. I try never to take things personal, nor make things personal. Since I don’t know anyone here in person, me responses are always based on (my perception of) their comments, and never intended as personal attacks.
As a former Catholic turned Atheist (yes, actually had my name removed from the baptismal register), i’ve first hand experienced some of the believes expressed in this comic. However I never came across anyone that actually believed Hitler was (part) Jewish. The statement would be considered ridiculous. But then again, I never considered there might be countries (in the western world) were people might actually give any credit to that notion. On that basis I saw little offense in that remark. In fact I see it as a comment on the intelligence of the dad, and the (to put it polite) overly devout in general.
There is a large group that believe Atheism to be the root of all evil. Every day all religions demand their share of respect while offering none in return. Being both gay and Atheist i’m used to being insulted by religion on a regular basis.I have more than once heard the comment about Nazis being Atheist, because God fearing men would not do that. And colored as my judgement might be, i think this comic was more about Joyce’s parents views on Atheists than on Jews.
Of course it’s about atheism more than Judaism, because they’re talking about Dorothy, who’s an atheist more than a Jew. (Is it even true that she’s part Jewish? I don’t remember that being mentioned anywhere else, but that’s really irrelevant anyways.) But their apparent views on Judaism are questionable, too. And comparing someone who is part Jewish to Nazis is kind of not okay, even if the main issue is their atheism. So yeah, I think these views are offensive to both Jews AND atheists AND, in particular, atheistic Jews. And just because the atheism is the focus doesn’t mean you should just dismiss any offense expressed by Jews. I get that you identify with the hatred of atheism shown here, but why must that result in you dismissing anybody identifying with the antisemitism and telling them to “lighten up” just because you think it affects you more? This isn’t a “who-do-the-Browns-offend-more” contest.
And there definitely are people out there who believe Hitler was Jewish. A small minority, to be sure, and of course it’s ridiculous, but the belief does exist.
You’re kidding me right Luggs? “It’s just a comic” and “Lighten up, it’s just a joke.”
It is a very distasteful joke. It seems these past few strips haven’t been about “Haha, look at the funny”, they’re showing how Joyce has grown. In doing so, Willis showed a lesson that she’s learned, and it’s a lesson that most of us have gone through at one point or another.
I feel for Joyce. I grew up in a religious household, and I had my own beliefs shaken by my own research. When I tried to leave that belief system behind, it offended my family. But I digress.
Everyone has a right to their opinion. They also have a right to have opinions on someone else’s opinion. I’m not going to infringe on your right by saying “get off the internet troll.” I don’t have that right, and I wouldn’t want it. I am, however, going to use my right to leave an opinion about your opinion, and question your character as a person for questioning someone else’s character for being offended by you insulting them.
End rant.
Missed the Your heritage part… Hate to break it to you, but Dorothy is depicted as Atheist, not as Jewish. The comment from the mom within the context was aimed at Atheists and not Jews. The she is part Jewish remark would be a statement she’s not a “full” Atheist. So even the simple premise that Joyce feels the need to defend Dorothy by making a claim she’s not a real Atheist could be considered offensive. It’s again referring to a widespread misconception that morality stems from religion. While scripture is filled with things that would now be considered immoral. For example God seems to approve of slavery.
Just to make a point, i’ll use a quote from Leviticus, since bible thumpers like to use Leviticus to point out why Gay people are immoral:
However, you may purchase male or female slaves from among the foreigners who live among you. You may also purchase the children of such resident foreigners, including those who have been born in your land. You may treat them as your property, passing them on to your children as a permanent inheritance. You may treat your slaves like this, but the people of Israel, your relatives, must never be treated this way. (Leviticus 25:44-46 NLT)
Actually despite the lie Joyce told her parents about going to church with Dorothy, I’m pretty sure “she’s part Jewish” is a response to the Hitler comment.
As in, “How dare you compare my friend to Hitler, her family is more closely related to his victims than WE are.”
She didn’t lie, she took Dorothy to church that one time and brought Sierra along. It’s heavily implied that Joyce and Sierra have been going together every week, which is probably the girl she told her parents about. Her parents were the ones that assumed “oh this is Joyce best friend? She must be the religious one that goes to church with her.”
This hadn’t occurred to me. I feel even ponder towards Joyce with that in mind. (Not that I was super resentful about the “lie” before, but I could see why it would be hurtful to Dorothy?)
It implies no such thing. What it implies is that it’s not okay to compare a Jew to Nazis. Saying she’s part Jewish doesn’t take away from her atheism, but it does make the comparison to Nazis particularly distasteful. You can be a Jewish atheist, depending on how you define Jewish. I’m one. Joyce isn’t saying, “Well, she’s Jewish, so she’s not REALLY an atheist, so you can’t compare her to Nazis.” Being Jewish makes the comment particularly terrible, but there’s no implication there that the comparison of atheists to Nazis is any more apt if they aren’t Jewish.
You seem to think that Joyce saying she’s Jewish is taking away from her atheism, but it isn’t. It’s like if Joyce’s mom had said, “Left-handed people like her are what cause the Holocaust,” and Joyce had replied, “Mom, she’s Jewish!” That isn’t saying that under other circumstances, the comparison between left-handed people and Nazis is just fine; it’s just saying that in this case, the comparison is particularly awful because she is Jewish.
Someone obviously doesn’t quite grasp the distinction between practicing and ethnically Jewish. Same goes for the distinction between “devout christians” and fundamentalist flat-earthers.
Yes, Joyce’s parents are fictional. However, you do know that there are millions of Christians just in America who have exactly the same opinion as them, right? The authors are making a point about the attitudes that many Christians hold, not because they’re reasoned out or well-considered, but because of nebulous feelings and things they were taught as children.
Yes, that means that a lot of Christians believe that atheists are morally deficient, capable of doing any evil, simply because they don’t believe in gods. They don’t believe it because atheists actually do evil things, they believe it because they can’t imagine someone being able to be moral without a god telling them how to be moral.
The problem is, when you’re depending on something or someone else to provide you with your moral center, it’s easy to justify doing horrific things if you can convince yourself – or be convinced – that they’re actually moral to the external source of your morality.
Now, I live in Texas, and I’ve been in a lot of different churches from different Protestant traditions, and that’s not how I’ve ever heard this argument presented*. It’s not “atheists can’t be trusted because they have no fear of God and therefore no morality,” it’s “the atheist position is untenable because even they believe some things are inherently morally correct or morally wrong, which implies some kind of authority for morality, which implies God.”
Anyone who makes that first argument is either ignorant and unaware of the Scripture itself, or malicious. For example, in Romans 2:14-16, Paul implied there is that the law (summed up in “Love your neighbor as yourself” and “Love God with all you have”) is written on our hearts by nature. There are other references to unbelievers having consciences elsewhere, as well as our natural consciences being corrupted and therefore unreliable, but if we had no moral center without Christ, we could never see that Christ fulfills the moral center we have and come to know and love Him.
I am aware that posting these sorts of things will most likely make me seem like a raving lunatic, so you don’t have to tell me that I sound like one. 🙂
*I could just be lucky, and I will accept the testimony of witnesses that they have seen such a thing preached in churches.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that, sure, some people who claim Christianity say this, but I’ve never seen it officially taught, and those who say these sorts of things are ignorant of what Christianity actually teaches.
I will agree that anyone who says something like “the fear of Hell is all that keeps me from committing evil” is either a dangerous madman or clinging to an ignorant position through sheer bullheadedness.
I’m a Jewish Atheist, and I immediately saw red after reading the last panel. I’m not sure I would be able to keep myself from screaming at anyone who actually said that to me.
Yeeeeah…I was trying to give them the benefit of the doubt, hoping it’d turn out they were more like Joyce…more set in their ways, but still ultimately well-meaning, just rather ignorant and sheltered from different points of view. Then they just snapped right to Godwin’s Law. Fuck those peeps, fo shizzle. [/Robin]
As for Joshua…I won’t think less of him if he doesn’t help Joyce out here, just because he hasn’t been around long enough for me to think anything of him at all. I’ll definitely think *more* of him if he does help his sister out, though.
Fear not, for I too know the sting of *shudder* being mistaken about a minor point on the Internet! Alas, you’re quite correct about Poe’s Law not applying, however; the Browns are all too accurate to real life.
Wouldn’t that be like Inverted Poe’s Law? I thought Poe’s Law was that no matter how over the top you made a parody of extremism, someone would mistake it as a depiction of the real thing. Or is it? Damn, now I’m not sure!
Poe’s law: If an authors intent on the subject is not clear, then it could easily be seen as both a parody and a real depiction. At least that what I was told it was told.
Poe’s Law: Any ‘fundamentalist’ piece given as satire will be mistaken for the real thing; there is no position so radical that it has not been taken by a fundamentalist of one side or the other at some time.
Corollary: real fundamentalist positions will be derided as satire by defenders/attackers of the position.
Poe’s Law works both ways – basically it can be stated that real fundamentalism (religious or political) is indistinguishable from parody, so you can never know which is which.
Well then, I’d say up till now Poe’s Law actually held…though I’m not currently seeing anyone treat Joyce’s parents as anything other than the genuine article.
Regarding Joshua, I think what’s important is that he is being supportive of Joyce, even if he’s not explicitly defending her. He knows his parents are a lost cause and not worth the struggle, but he still seems sympathetic to what Joyce is going through.
A good point, and despite what I said before, I think that if Joshua doesn’t do *anything* to show Joyce his support, even if it’s literally behind their parents back, I will think a bit less of him. Downgrade in perception from ‘suspiciously neutral’ to ‘suspicious’ anyway.
Yeah. Fuck them. Mr. & Mrs. Brown are hateful scum. They have leapfrogged the Wilcoxes and Siegals in my mind. All three sets of parents are utterly vile, though.
Some people are interpreting Mrs. Wilcox’s attitude towards Danny’s breakup and “new girlfriend” as her being judgy and emotionally abusive. I still think we’ve seen way to little to justify that position, and that her attitude is kinda understandable given the circumstances.
While I’m not thrilled with the Wilcoxes’ attitude in that conversation, the place where Mrs. Wilcox really steps over the line is demanding if Danny’s new girlfriend is as good as Dorothy. Leaving aside the unfair ridiculousness of the question (“Well, on a rating scale of one to ten…”), what, exactly, is she expecting him to say? “No, mom, she’s not. I guess I’ll go break up with her right now and stalk Dorothy until she changes her mind about breaking up with me, or, failing that, remain ever romantically alone because no woman can ever compare to the one who dumped me.”
As much as it does seem like their bugging him, you gotta se it on their side. They spent a hefty amount of money to send their son to a collage he only went to because his girlfriend was going, only to find out that the girl in question dumped him a week into it. Can you see why they might be a little ticked off? (P.s. I wholeheartedly agree that asking if his new girlfriend was as good as the old one is unacceptable)
Well, given that Danny’s father legitimately thought that Danny following Dorothy to college was a good idea, I think it would be safe to say they had a part in it.
That is an interesting theory, the idea that the Wilcoxs hoped that by allowing him to be led by his love of Dotty to go to college and get a college education, but with the break-up, they now fear he might drop out or something.
I know, right? I mean, he clearly doesn’t want to be anywhere near this argument and yet he’s been expressly forbidden to leave. T.T Speaking as one who also hates being around when people are yelling at each other, I feel more for him than I do for Joyce. Heck, I’m more focused on that than the idiotic logic their parents are using! And since the idiotic logic was clearly supposed to be the point (as well as being a bit of a pet peeve for me anyways), this is saying a lot.
Part of me agrees, but another part of me is like “Dude, your the big brother here. You clearly don’t agree with the stupid crap your parents are saying (at least, I assume that ‘pick your battles’ line to Joyce means your on her side). Your little sister could some backup here.”
If he enters this “debate” knowing nothing more than his parents do about Sarah, does that actually help? And the truly stupid stuff happened after he tried to skip town, and he may yet have a response to that stuff. I say give him the benefit of the doubt until the next strip.
Yeah, I can’t say that I hate them either. Probably because I can’t think of them as people. They’re just something that needs to be escaped.
I thought that earlier, based on what we learned about them from Joyce, without remembering their appearance in the first few strips, but I was advised to withhold judgment until we got a clearer picture. Only now I think I was right.
And if you want to play the whole “but his parents-” card, then allow me to introduce you to the next Jesus in the queue, Black Jesus. Logic and genetics quail in the face of wishful thinking!
Modern European Ashkenazim? Sure.
The people living in the Judean sector of Roman-ruled Palestine/Syria in Year Dot? Not so much. Caucasian, sure, like all other Arabs, but not white as we think of the concept today.
I was responding to someone who said that “Blue sash Jesus” is white, therefore can’t be Jewish. I am aware of the fact that at the time of actual Jesus, there would not have been any white Jews.
Black Jesus isn’t particularly impossible. People back then mixed pretty freely, especially in the cosmopolitan areas like Egypt.
Case in point: Socrates was almost CERTAINLY a very brown dude. There’s one historical record which mentions it that I can’t remember right now, sorry, but just look at the original marble head busts. He has almost stereotypically African features.
But like every person of even remote European significance, we pretend he’s totes white when we start writing history books after the fact, including paintings of him, etc. ALL THE GREEKS AND ALL THE ROMANS WERE WHITE, TOTALLY WHITE, WE GAVE YOU PEOPLE CIVILIZATION AND DEMOCRACY WITH THE FORCE OF OUR WHITENESS RRRR
Yeah, that’s actually what’s being referred to when someone (at least on a Willis page) says “Blue sash Jesus”; it’s almost a derogatory term to mean the gentile-ization that white people have put Jesus through.
Well, actually Joyce’s argument highlights the insensitivity of her mom’s one but doesn’t invalidate it.
What invalidates her mom’s argument is its obfsucating, insulting and undeniable stupidity.
What does Jesus have to do with Christianity? Jesus was preaching to the jews. Christianity is Judaism Light (“Go with the flavor, not the laws!”) invented by Paul as a remix popular with heathens.
I think what David is saying is that Jesus was not a christian. Jesus was a Jew. He couldn’t be a christian because his existance is why Christianity exists, so he couldn’t be one until he made it.
Unlucky for you I play theme decks and today was the day for the all artifact deck. Lucky I didn’t pull out my goblin or Thallid deck else it would really be a bad day.
i’m all for religion and stuff, but people who say that they have no moral authority without god terrify me. like, are you telling me that without an all-mighty sky wizard, you’d go around killing people left and right?
scary, man.
When the knife enters my body again and again as my life flashes before my eyes, the knowledge that my murderer believes in the supernatural will make my stabbing pains hurt a little less… 😛
“i’m all for religion and stuff, but people who say that they have no moral authority without god terrify me. like, are you telling me that without an all-mighty sky wizard, you’d go around killing people left and right?”
Oh, now your just being silly! The Crusades, Catholic Inquisition, Salem Witch Trials…we’re totally down with killing! Its just that we do it in the name of the all-mighty sky wizard! I trust you see how that makes it so much better.
He cretainly likes people dying in his name even though it’s established that Earth is kinda like a science project to him and that also we shouldn’t kill.
If this was a science project, he’d say don’t kill, because he knows that people think its okay if they aren’t caught, and he wants to know lots of ways to kill people. But that’s only if we’re a science project.
Well, to be less tongue in cheek, I think the obvious answer is that people like to use the “commit evil for a greater good” excuse to do terrible things. Awful to say, but that just seems like human nature. God, or whatever religion you want to pick, makes for a “good” excuse in this regard.
If humanity was a science project, God would get an F. First, we aren’t even done yet; when the hell is this project due? Second, we’re pretty much destroying everything he’s created, and I’m sure that won’t be looked upon well by his teachers. Third, he probably had his parents help him out on it, too!
I really have to wonder exactly what sect they are. I consider my religion to have a lot of safety guards, and everything I have been taught and asked about has told me that good people are good people, whether or not they find Christ, and WILL in fact go to Heaven. So, I really wonder where these 2 are coming from :/
really? Because everything I have been taught and asked about has told me that to get into heaven, you have to have been a good person AND accepted Jesus as your lord and saviour
And that’s what I’ve been taught my whole life too. Apparently it’s not a common view. It’s weird cause even as a kid the fridge logic came in on the ‘wait, would people like the pre Columbius Indians, who had no way to know who Jesus was, have to go to hell” had been asked at some point at CCD. I’m pretty sure that the answer was ‘doing good was accepting Jesus into your heart’ or something like that. I’m not even some weird off shoot or anything, I’m frickin Roman Catholic.
Likewise here. I had a Religion Teacher waaaay back in the day who used the tale of the Good Samaritan as an example. Guy was a Gentile (Non Jew) but since it was Jesus of Nazareth who was telling the story about how to get into his kingdom, I’d imagine the hypothetical guy qualifies.
You can say that you follow in his footsteps, but he doesn’t want lip service. He wants your actions to reflect that. Love your fellow man and seek to make the world a better place, and it doesn’t matter what religion you follow in my eyes.
I fear for this world every time I see people who think good people go to hell just because they didn’t call the higher power by the right name. Or even if they believed he was up there. One might give more credit to the atheists. Many super religious people I’ve met do the right thing because their religion tells them to, what about atheists? They do it on their own will, and nothing else. Somehow, that seems more worthy then the religious type.
Uh no, Jesus did not tell how to get into his “hypothetical kingdom” with the tale of the Good Samaritan. He was answering the question who in “Love the next one like yourself” was supposed to be the “next one”. The point of the story was not to claim non-jews could get into heaven. The point was shaming the jews into considering non-jews as being eligible to decent treatment as humans in need.
Jesus was quite explicit regarding “nobody gets to my father except through me”. He actually healed quite a few heathens who believed in him personally rather than the whole lot of Judaism. But that’s not what the story of the Good Samaritan is about.
The whole idea that many otherwise decent people will end up being cast into Hell to burn alive forever and ever is one of the less comfortable aspects of mainstream Christianity.
And now I’m wondering what religion you were brought up in, because the viewpoint that good people get into heaven regardless of their faith is not exactly a common one.
Also, doesn’t that mean your own religion is telling you there’s no need to believe it?
The majority of Catholics who actually know what it means to be Catholic (an unfortunately low number, the church is fairly lax teaching what it’s all about and prefers people to come to it instead. Guess how many people do that, actively.) tend to be okay with the idea that good people are not necessarily always Christian people, or even religious people. As for your second point, no, that’s like saying we shouldn’t study chemistry because the reactions will happen in the physical universe whether we observe and actively take part in them or not.
I have faith, but I consider my faith more of a gateway to understanding the sublime than a guideline for my behavior…I think anyone can be a good person, or a bad one, regardless of what they do or do not believe in. And in a similar vein, I certainly don’t think that mine is the only pathway to understanding the sublime in the universe, it’s just the one that appeals most to me.
If just being a decent person is all you needed to get into Heaven, then there would be no special need to be a Christain at all, it’s the fear of going to Hell that puts bums on pews.
doubt you’ll get around to reading this, but Mormon. To make a long story short, basically we believe that everyone gets a chance… There’s a lot that goes into going into Heaven, and yes we believe that Jesus Christ has EVERYTHING to do with it; we as humans are imperfect, and without his atonement, we can’t have hope of justice tempered with mercy.
The part about belief in Christ taking you to God’s Kingdom comes from trying to live as He did: loving everyone, doing right, and generally behaving as though The Son and The Father was in the room with you; trying to do what is right in all times, in all things, in all places. That means NOT being judgemental, or saying you don’t want to be around someone just because of faith. A good person is a good person, and if you want to be like Him, you want to be there for people, to show them happiness, and if they want to change it’s up to them but either way you are an example of what should be good.
That’s what the gospel is about. And if I may be so bold, it is NOT about trying to say who will or who will not go into Heaven… I believe that is God’s call, and ONLY God’s. All we can do is the best we can, and have Him judge our actions at the end. Listen to his words, and live them.
I’m writing this now, because it is my firm belief that sharing a message of peace is right, and also a message of hope, and acceptance, no matter what may have been written, said, or done by any reading in their lives.
And on a lesser not, I am writing this because it is my opinion as a person trying to be good in this century that an atheist has no business being compared to as Hitler simply because they have chosen not to believe in God.
My beef with these nondenominational churches is that they have no overall structure, creed or dogma, so depending on the inclinations and biases of the individual preachers and congregations, they can go down some very strange paths with no mechanism for self correction.
Bias alert: I was raised Presbeteryian (sic) and later gravitated to high church Episcopal.
Yep, that’s the right answer. “Sounds like your belief gives you strength to make good choices. Glad that works for you” style of thing.
Even a staunch atheist should realize that it’s much more important to be healthy and functional than it is to be technically correct about something that, let’s face it, doesn’t exactly matter anyway. Good on your friend.
Pshaw. Without my Lord and Savior the Flying Spaghetti Monster to guide me, I would fall off the path of righteousness and fail to seek bloody vengeance on my enemies, and THEN where would I be morally? In the sauce pits, that’s where!
I’m a Christian and I don’t even believe we need to believe in God to know not to kill. Mostly because of a combination of the fact we as a society usually have no need for killing our fellow man and, well, the whole compassion thing. All of that gives good reason why we’d put ‘no killing’ on our judicial rule book as soon as we started a system of law.
The main appeal of religion wheneber you believe it or not is the idea that when you die, the next life will be so much better than before and all those evil scumbags will get what was coming to them.
I think that Joyce’s parents have a legitimate point. I know this is anecdotal, but I’m an agnostic and I’ve killed about a dozen people, just in the last couple hours here. Seriously, I got them stacking up like cordwood here, and it’s getting hard to type with all the blood on my hands congealing between the keys of my keyboard. Imagine the carnage I would wreak if I was a full atheist or a Hindu or something! The streets would run red.
Yeah, that’s really terrifying to think about, honestly.
Also, completely undermines their own argument because that makes every Atheist _MORE_ moral because we don’t _NEED_ a God to know that doing rape, murder, etc. are utterly abhorrent!
are you telling me that without an all-mighty sky wizard, you’d go around killing people left and right?
Without his magic sky beard, Joyce’s dad would be wearing a human skull as a hat right now.
PR is Proportional Representation while SMP stands for Single Member Plurality its a play on Duverger’s law because SMP electoral systems according to Duverger’s law generally lead towards two party systems well PR leads to multi-party systems. Political Science joke.
Maybe because he didn’t start a freakin’ world war, try to conquer the world or exterminate whole ethic groups. Stalin also stayed in business a lot longer than Hitler did; if H. had succeeded in his ambitions, his final body count would likely have been much higher.
Stalin has killed more people than Hitler, true.
But I’d still call Hitler more evil, due to motive.
Stalin killed people for (potentially) threatening his control. Hitler killed people for existing.
Eddie Izzard once said that Stalin and Mao were not as reviled internationally because they were killing their own people instead of killing people next door. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndhnGPAgecM
I tend to agree with him.
The only thing Stalin really has going for him is that even HE hated Hitler. He was pretty much an even worse person than Hitler in every way shape and form.
Honestly, when you get to that level of evil, it’s almost impossible to quantify who’s technically worse. Hitler, Stalin, Pol. Pot, etc. (and all their top men, of course), they’re all utterly indefensible and evil beyond all measure.
Although the specifics still haven’t made their way into many textbooks yet, historians have learned a lot since the end of the Cold War. Ethnicity was absolutely a reason for mass murder at times in the Soviet Union, far more often than was believed during the twentieth century. The Nazis certainly killed more noncombatants under Hitler than the Soviets under Stalin, though. That’s no longer a matter of debate among those who’ve put in the research. The Soviet famine claimed more lives than any other event under Stalin, including deliberately starving millions of “kulaks” in Soviet Ukraine (thousands upon thousands more were simply executed) and over a million people in Soviet Kazakhstan. Although possibly as many as a million people were shot to death during the Great Terror, the numbers had always been presumed much higher before the collapse of the Soviet Union provided access to Easter European archives.
And contrary to popular, uninformed belief, Stalin actually launched killing campaigns motivated by ethnicity before Hitler. While their larger motivations were different (Stalin saw ethnic killings as a path to modernization; Hitler just wanted to exterminate all European Jews), they were very similar in their policies and actions.
Stalin was horrid, but you could cut a deal with him. Hitler, you couldn’t — not and be sure he’d still honor it once the ink was dry, anyway. It was kill or be killed when dealing with Hitler.
“Hitler: Whoa, whoa, whoa, guys. This is between y’all. Don’t drag me into this! I just want to get my cafeteria tray and find a nice, quiet place to eat before the game.”
Similar-but-different, in this one cold-war comic, Colossus was brainwashed by the KGB, and became PROLETARIAN MAN, Hero of the Soviet Union!! (his first mission: to DESTROY the X-MEN).
Einstien: now hitler, let’s get back to that whole making my people look like assholes thing.
Hitler: Why don’t WE talk about that whole A-bomb thing?
Einstien: I don’t want to be credited with that!!!
Jesus: fellas, fellas.
It isn’t so much that she has control but that he doesn’t want to antagonize her too much, because she’s family.
I’m still nice to/humor my grandma even when she’s being a racist, spiteful bongo.
I do believe in an invisible sky wizard, but I still REALLY hate these people. I like to think that if God didn’t exist, people wouldn’t go and kill everyone left and right.
I honestly think it doesn’t matter. People are gonna use any excuse they can to do what they want. Religion normally acts as a border for people to see as a moral compass. The thing is, some people can still twist it, just like any other construct.
She’ll push back so hard that by the next time they see her she’s going to be smoking, drinking booze, doing drugs, and having wild, unprotected sex with girls.
Or maybe Joyce is just going to be slightly depressed for the foreseeable future. That could happen too.
I know they make condoms for women, but I also know STDs are spread through fluid exchange. So for some reason, my mind is making lesbian balloons. They are pretty colors.
That’s not strictly true. Hitler was whatever served his needs at the time. He was Christian on, like, Tuesdays, on Wednesdays he was Atheist, and all the other days he was just a murderous jerkwad.
Heck I was surprised when an ex-girlfriend and I went to a museum and saw the swastika on some ancient robes from Japan. I think they had a different word for them and they were in another direction, but still, dude, did I learn something.
Similar experience in India: turns out an orange swastika with dots between the arms is a VERY common religious symbol there. People paint it on trucks to avoid bad luck on the road.
I know it’s complicated, but he seemed to affiliate with Christianity a lot. No one knew what was in his head for sure, but he made it clear they weren’t like the godless Communists/Socialists.
“Kitchen, Children, and Church” were Hitler’s roles for German women, although I don’t know if he specified any particular sect. So there was supposed to be a faith involved in Nazi Germany in addition to the cult of personality he fostered around himself.
being from Austria his flavor was Catholic… People tend to ignore the Vaticans questionable role in WWII. Though the Vatican tends to play up the story about the Jewish woman they saved… I guess they could find any evidence of more than one woman saved….
He turned Christianity into something different. Hitler’s “Christianity” was focused on worshipping the German state and revering the Fuhrer. Faithful Christians who stuck to the Bible were treated as political dissidents. Plenty were killed. One pastor, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, even tried to assassinate Hitler over it.
When it comes down to it, Nazism is its own cult. You can argue for hours over what Hitler _might_ have actually believed, but it’s undeniable that he was, in fact, a cult leader when it comes down to it.
People love to say, “Hitler was a Christian/atheist/vegetarian,” when they’re trying to convince others of why one of them is a bad thing to be, despite the fact that none of those claims is historically accurate.
…because even Hitler wasn’t crazy enough to turn on his closest ally to fight his way through to a tiny city-state with some nice statues? Nor was he the only person who got to dictate Nazi policy – “Gott mit uns” is a slogan much older than he was.
Well if I have to worship anything, i find it helps me if i can prove it exists. with the three, its quite doable to prove its existence… and as far as the worshipping goes… I noticed that all deities yield similar results as the three…
I dunno; I’d feel a bit unoriginal. If I was stuck on my own with no deities to worship, I’d find something that no one else was using. Like pants. All hail the glorious pants!
You know who else blames the Jews for everything? Nazis. You know who weren’t atheists? Lots of Nazis. You know who aren’t mostly Nazis? Germans. You know who’re apparently asshats? Joyce’s parents.
Oh boy. The “Hitler Argument” flavor of asshole. This rare flavor is only rarely seen outside of internet forums. But today we have the ‘luck’ of seeing one in person.
I didn’t see it in person, per se, but a former close friend of mine compared me to Hitler for deleting personal insults he made about me on Facebook after I pointed out the scumbag truth about Ron Paul.
He chose to end the friendship by making the insults, then that comparison made me lose all respect I had for him.
It’s not that he called me “Hitler”. I know how stupid that comparison is. It’s that he effectively insulted every single person who suffered as a result of the Holocaust and Nazi ideals.
Fuck you, Joyce’s parents. Atheists didn’t give us Nazi Germany, horrible people who hated Jews gave us Nazi Germany. Atheists don’t live without a moral code, they take their code from their conscience, society, the law, and whatever else they might want to take it from.
Dorothy’s parents were polite to you. You’ve been nothing but jackasses to everyone so far. So please go fuck off and may your overly legalistic interpretation of Christianity find you ironically burning in hell.
As A Fellow Christian I Heartily agree, Joyce’s Parents Need To Be Put In Their Place, Or Maybe Have Some Scripture Quoted At Them, Such As “Love Your Neighbor As Yourself” And “Judge Not Lest Ye Be Judged”
Fuck you, Joyce’s parents. Atheists didn’t give us Nazi Germany, horrible people who hated Jews gave us Nazi Germany.
Actually, those “who gave us Nazi Germany” did not as much “hate Jews” rather than integrating the persecution of Jews into their fascist fantasies of modeling a populace according to their whims.
Last year I spent a few nights in Zürich (Switzerland). The hotel was kept by a family, tidy and friendly, the information in the rooms contained pointers to kosher food outlets and services, the reception lady had a prominent nose, the hotel had been founded by her father who made his money with early music boxes, a smart trader.
This has been an integral part of German history, and it still felt like being an integral part. Nazi Germany won that part of the war: in Germany, this history is dead. The stereotypical role of the “shrewd Jewish businessman” has been taken over by corporations which are unmitigatedly soulless.
I’ve been born 20 years after the war ended, so it did not really affect me personally. But it was then that I realized that the Nazis were successful in bereaving me of an important part of our national and cultural identity and diversity in Germany.
Did you seriously just say this as a way to imply that the place was Jewish?
Also, I’d wager that the explosion of global economy has more to do with the trend towards soulless corporations over small business owners. Additionally, it depends entirely on the area and what you’re more likely to witness. You saw this because you were at the hotel. How many privately owned hotels do you normally see?
Did you seriously just say this as a way to imply that the place was Jewish?
No, I said it to state that the setting including the family running the business met a set of stereotypes that we were taught to avoid at all costs. Things were fitting together harmoniously in a way that political correctness would not consider it nice to see.
I’ve been in quite a number of family-run hotels. That’s not really the point. It was the combination of little details establishing an unobtrusive “we’re Jewish and you are welcome” atmosphere. Other hotels have “we’re Catholic and you are welcome”. But the point is that you don’t really see the former in Germany. People then rather go for “we’re international and you are welcome”. After all, most of their customers will not be Jewish.
Joyce needs to become an orphan. Soon. That way A) we don’t have to see them and B) Amazi-Girl has a new sidekick replete with tragic backstory. Sal’s been looking tired recently anyways.
Actually, Revelations sounds like the name of some dark, gritty, comic book hero from a series that doesn’t actually understand religion, but likes having a vaguely spiritual feeling to it.
I can see two possible outcomes (and I’m sure there’s more): One — faced with this comparison, Joyce backs down and returns to the fold, so to speak.
Two, the seeds of dissent are sown and she starts the process of distancing herself from dogma.
Even if she “comes back to the fold” the seeds are planted. The moment her dogma gets her to act out of accordance with what she feels is right, resentment will begin to grow and fester.
If anything if she just buts heads with her parents over this and they end the weekend on bad terms then that would be better for her continued faith. That’s a clean wound. All that means once she’s done mulling it over in her head is that she’s right and her parents are wrong. She can look through the scriptures and find all the reasons why her interpretation of God’s will is more legitimate than theirs and that will just be that.
Is the next strip about Joyce researching to find the worst nursing home she can send her parents to? I’m thinking one that makes the residents fight for an off-shore gambling website.
No moral foundation without god? Now that’s a load of BS. I practically don’t believe in religion and I follow moral philosophies that always make me think twice about things.
Also, that Hitler comic is probably gonna come back and bite him in the ass.
See? If you were religious you would not need to think twice. Heck, you would not even need to think once as other people already did the thinking for you.
So basically, screw the consequences if it’s for God? Now I may not recall right seeing as I suck at history, but wasn’t kinda what happened with the Crusades? Y’know, the whole any Christian participating gets to indulge without consequences. Correct me if I’m wrong.
So basically, screw the consequences if it’s for God?
I really have a hard time teaching Fundamentalism 101 to you heathens. You embrace the consequences if it’s for God. There is no such thing as a “necessary evil” when doing God’s work. It’s all good. Accept it. Understand it. Cherish it. Only the weak falter.
Abraham was willing to sacrifice his son. Jepthah did sacrifice his daughter. What are the Browns going to do?
Problem is, Joyce is an adult now, she doesn’t have to do anything she doesn’t want to. They can withdraw financial support but Sal can always rob a few more stores to cover the costs.
A lot of you are hating on Joyce’s parents as if you didn’t think this was going to happen. I saw this shit coming a mile away as soon as this chapter began. Have none of you come into contact with strong-willed devout Christian parents before?
We don’t really know that for sure. Maybe god is just an office worker in some building in a bigger Arc-Universe, and we’re his pets, and he goes to church every 23rd day to celebrate Mecha-God Mass. Cuz that could happen.
God isn’t an atheist. He’s a tinkerer with a love for detail. And with all those physicists on the hunt for the fabric of the universe, he’s pretty busy nowadays keeping all those experiments turning out consistent. Ok, he bungles a lot of them but always comes up with plausible explanations.
Actually God does worship god if you believe in the holy trinity. Jesus is God so there you go. Truthfully when your the beginning and the end, the whole personification of needing a deity gets thrown out the window.
I saw on Willis’ twitter, “Today nobody will ever like Joyce’s parents ever again.” I then asked myself, “How far could they possibly go?”
The answer turns out to be…to Godwin.
Now that I think of it, riling Joyce up after she hit a guy in the face with a piece of glass might not be the best plan of action. She wasn’t even entirely lucid when she did that…
Hitler was pretty much every religion. He grabbed bits and pieces of everything from Roman Catholicism to Hinduism for the sake of giving his philosophy some perceived credit. He converted the German Protestant church into a state-run patriotism factory that replaced the cross with the swastika, and he took special care to get rid of any Christians who resisted him, which led to people like Dietrich Bonhoeffer 9the pastor!) trying to assassinate him. Attempting to blame any ONE religion for Hitler is stupid. Blame Hitler for Hitler.
Hitler was Christian? Tell that to the Christians he slaughtered.
Hitler was Atheist? Tell that to the Atheists he slaughtered.
Hitler was an Occultist? Yeah, you get where I’m going here.
The Inquisition clearly targetted people with religious beliefs which they perceived as different (heretic) from their own. If Hitler was religious, he didn’t use persecute anyone because of his religious beliefs.
Wow, Joyce’s parents actually represent the parts of religion that I dislike. Then again, I would guess many people would disapprove of such views as well.
Now I glad I voted to see them in the poll.
(Yes, I know technically we already saw them in the first couple of strips, but we didn’t get to know them.)
I’m a very Catholic person and for everyone who thinks all Catholics are like this, they’re so not. This is the opposite of what it means to be a Catholic. Like I’d like to jump into this comic and punch them right in their stupid faces. I’m so angry right now, this is past the “I HAVE FEELS” stage.
Yeah, not at all Catholic. They strike me as non-denominational christians. At least they are like the ones in my area (one of whom tried to hold an intervention for me because I played D&D)
What really strikes me is that Joyce’s parents are apparently BETTER than most of the other people in their community. Remember when Mary went off at Sierra and Dorothy, and Joyce said, “this must be why we switched churches all the time?”
For what it’s worth, as terrible as they are, Joyce’s parents did manage to raise her as a good person. Joyce has earned +200 Good Person points in the past three days of strips alone, just by standing up to them. Her parents might be hateful, but Joyce actually sticks to the principles they supposedly raised her with.
As I said lower, notice how they waited to have this little chat after they were in Joyce’s room. They at least may feel ashamed of trying to spout this stuff in public, but behind closed doors is ok.
Woah. Where’s the cool Joyce’s dad from comic 2? ;o;
But no for serious, as much as I hate these guys, this is a huge huge step for Joyce. Honestly 3years ago(I can’t remember the in universe time) she was just like them. Monkey Master outfit aside, she’s really changed and this is a stark, and much needed, juxtaposition of pre-college Joyce.
Unfortunately, people can appear very nice and pleasant and still believe things like this. Notice how they didn’t have this discussion until they got to Joyce’s room.
Actually, Hitler was a pretty cool guy to hang around. I mean, he was definitely open about his desires to kill everyone who wasn’t Aryan, but the dude was still really nice.
Wow! I mean. WOW!!! That is a whole new level of asshole!
Joyce can be a bit pig-headed at times and take on a holier-than-thou behavior, but at least she’s got her likeable moments. These two have absolutely no positive traits.
They lost the argument, you know. Pulling out the Hitler card means you’ve got absolutely nothing else to back up your position. And yeah, as Joyce pointed out, you can look like a motherfucking asshole when using it.
Let’s see, although the chance is slim, these idiots can redeem themselves.
I got a list of fictional characters that I want to punch:
1) Lacus Clyne
2) Kira Yamato
3) D.W
4) Lucy from Peanuts
5) That dog from Duck Hunt
6) Seth
7) Kazuya Mishima
8) Kefka
9) Seymour Guado
10) Mist Rex
Of those I know:
Lacus Clyne
Kira Yamato
Lucy from Peanuts
The dog from Duck Hunt
Kefka (you know your a dick when AutoCorrect wants to change your name to Jerks)
And Seymour Guado
This hit close to home. I have never had strong beliefs religiously (I am an agnostic Quaker) and when I confess this to my more religious friends I am always scared of this reaction. But DoA Joyce seems more strong willed than Old Joyce so I think this will just open her eyes to how close-mindedly she was raised.
How much do you trust your textbooks? I knew a Romance language teacher who went to Arcachon (Southern France). That was probably 10 years ago, and she was mid-twenty. The pupils there (she came from Germany as a teaching assistant) asked her whether she had been in WWII. Seriously.
She sent us photocopies from text books there. For example, there was the headline “Being a youth in Germany. Discuss.” followed by two photographs. One was a Hitlerjugend pimpf of about 6 years, in uniform, doing the “Heil Hitler” salutation. Another was a rather famous photograph where a number of people including children leave the Warsaw Ghetto with raised hands.
WTF? This was 50 years after the end of WWII. Who considers that fit for teaching German culture?
When she went partying there and people asked her where she was from, she answered “Belgium” (which was not entirely untrue since she lived there, just beyond the border). Because if she answered “Germany”, the conversation was over.
In the end, she made the best from what she was given there. The children there were a bunch of undisciplined brats, and she “pulled a German” on them finally, yelling at them from the top of a desk and going completely overboard. Which worked due to the absurd conditionalization those people got. She’s actually rather nice, but since that did not buy her anything, she made the best use of the absurd reputation she had been handed.
I still can’t believe those textbook copies she sent. That was out of this world.
? What grade was she teaching? Kids often have very unclear notions of time — cf. countless comic strips with kids asking their parents if they’ve seen dinosaurs. As for the textbooks — and the prejudice agains Germans you describe —, that looks nothing like what I’ve seen. In the region I was every summer there were lots of German tourists, and I think the worst cliché I heard about them was that they wore socks with sandals…
Well, she taught German. I think they were around 16 or so. And you won’t find anything like that in Paris or so. This was the extreme South of France, so it’s actually quite unlikely they had much enemy contact.
At any rate, given that this was teaching material, it would likely be at least on county level that this indoctrination existed, and the personal reactions of the people there to her being German were also of a quite absolute manner.
I don’t think that particular area is touristy (and frankly, German but even more Dutch and Danish beach tourists are not necessarily a recommendation for their country): I think they maintain their imagery without much “enemy contact”. But at least in this backwater town, she might as well have been a member of the occupational forces based on their reactions. She was glad when she was back after a year or so.
Arcachon is a small town, but very touristy in the summer, but I agree that kids proably don’t get that much contact with tourists. The place where I grew up is also very rural, and not that much bigger than Arcachon — the place I went to high school, that is, the place I was actually living was much smaller — and also less touristy, except during an extremely popular summer festival. And no-one I knew held any grudge against German people, or think they are all Nazi. There were cultural exchanges between our town and a twin city in Germany and everyone seemed happy with it. I just checked and there’s a similar program between Arcachon and Goslar, so the kids who study German there probably have at some point the opportunity to actually visit Germany as well, and vice-versa for the kids who learn French in Goslar.
As for the curriculum, in France it is defined at national level, but the exact content of the textbook may vary to some extent. The pages you describe look like they were taken from a history textbook, and WWI is covered pretty exensively, including Germany through the 1930s-1940s, especially during the last year of junior high school. But of course these pages are not meant to teach German culture, more like “German-culture-in-pre-WWII-Germany-and-how-it-can-help-us-understand-the-rise-of-nazism”.
Anyway, I’m not saying no-one in france has any prejudice against Germans and all textbooks are perfect and fair and balanced, just that, although your friend had a bad experience, it’s certainly not the general case.
Also, the Siegals and Wilcoxes are close to being as bad as the Browns, but just slightly behind them in my opinion (and I _have_ a dad as abusive as Danny’s parents are!)
Be afraid, be very afraid. Perhaps now is the time to stop reading DoA for a week or so if you cherish your sanity. Would be silly to get a stroke over a fictional comic character, wouldn’t it?
“So anyway like we were saying before that negro came in the elevator, fuck you daughter. We dislike you and your way of life and dinosaurs were huge pussies that probably never existed. Also I invested your college money in a bomb so we can blow up this elevator. IT’S THE BEST WE COULD DO”
WOW. Just wow. And it shows just how much Joyce’s upbringing fucked up her worldview (I mean the crazy fundie thing, not the homeschooling thing). Apparently her parents have never heard of Kinder Kirche Küche, AND they maybe are anti-Semitic (maybe). Let me guess, they also think Jesus wasn’t Jewish, right?
Fuck I hate them right now.
In other news, good for you, Joyce! And I’m sorry you have to be here, Joshua!
I just noticed that Joyce is from where I live currently: La Porte, IN. It actually quite fits. There’s way too many churches (around 40), and a christian homeschooling association.
I live in La Porte, too, and was homeschooled and raised as a Christian in that very same homeschooling association. Let me tell you that there are way too many zealots like Joyce’s parents that are part of it (sadly) 😛
Oh, god, this one strikes to close to home… I had this same interaction with my parents… but they were trying to protect me from “that weird tomboy”, one of the three only friends I had on highschool, because for them she was obviously gay (of course the queer one was me). I ended up on tears, so I really hope Sarah arrives ASAP :'(
How in the Hell can they believe what they are saying? I mean really believe that self righteous bullshit?
I’m a Pagan who occasionally attends UU, and I personally feel we have a moral approach to life, and a part of that is total respect for other religions and life styles.
This is just beyond…..
Run Joyce. You can do it.
How in the Hell can they believe what they are saying? I mean really believe that self righteous bullshit?
No experience with zealots? They can make themselves believe it for the sake of making their children believe it, for the sake of their immortal souls.
If you can’t convince yourself of something, convince someone else and you’ll be forgiven for your doubts. And the one you convinced will never be plagued by doubt like you were.
If you find people preaching lifestyle choices like vegetarianism, it’s a reasonably safe bet that you can meet them next year in McDonalds if nobody can be interested in their persuasions. Those who don’t doubt their own course don’t feel the need to proselytize.
A zealot is one who considers himself an inedequate believer, so he tries making up for that in numbers.
If that’s the case, I’m a little bit pissed at him, too. I can understand not wanting to get into these arguments with family as I’ve been there, but he should be standing up for his sister.
But Joyce is doing a pretty good job of standing up for herself. She might be better suited to a confrontation than her (very conflict-averse) brother is.
Really I’d love to see Joshua have a heart-to-heart with Joyce out of their parents’ earshot.
If that’s the case, I’m a little bit pissed at him, too.
If that’s the case, he can’t really help Joyce, because Joyce is not a secret atheist. His own convictions would be quite irrelevant for Joyce’s position.
I’m not necessarily saying he needs to chime in about the religious issues, but at least trying to help support her as being able to make reasonable decisions, or even just a ‘This is supposed to be a fun weekend visit, can we do this later and not ruin it?’
The whole problem is that “reasonable decisions” are an atheist concept. Joyce’s parents expect her not to succumb to reason. Supporting her as being able to make reasonable decisions would be about as helpful as supporting her as being able to have premarital sex.
The ability was never drawn into question. But her parents don’t want her to use it. That’s what atheists do.
Joshua can’t really score here. They’ll just pay for two exorcisms if he tries.
I’m going to have to disagree with ‘reasonable decisions’ being an atheist concept. Saying that just because they’re fundamentalists they lack any reason is about as bad as saying that just because Dorothy’s an atheist she lacks a moral compass. I’m not arguing that they aren’t ignorant to certain things, they just have a different set of ‘facts’ to reason from.
I’m saying that Joshua could go the route of ‘you raised her and taught her blah blah blah, she’s a good Christian, trust her to know when someone is being a good or bad influence on her and that she’ll continue to have faith’ or some sort of appeal to that effect.
You can only trust in God, humans are fallible. If they put reason above faith, they think they are less fallible than God.
Really, that stuff is finger exercises for Jehova’s Witnesses or fundamentalists. You don’t get through with reason. They’ve seen it. They know their battleground. Reason can’t touch them.
Their fortresses are invincible, but it’s a narrow and barren place where you don’t want to go anyway.
“Reason is a whore, the greatest enemy that faith has; it never comes to the aid of spiritual things, but more frequently than not struggles against the divine Word, treating with contempt all that emanates from God.”
-Martin Luther
Certain evangelical or nondenominational Christians really do take this to heart, and actually do consider “reason” a dirty word.
Naw, he’s gay – or at the very least, having an active sexual relationship that he doesn’t want his parents knowing about (maybe he’s even dating a nice Jewish girl). Willis made him use the words “hook up” in the first panel, and that had to be a conscious decision.
“Hook up” does not mean to everyone what it means to you. I’ve encountered this before. In some areas, “Hook up” means “get laid”. In other areas, “Hook up” means “go and meet with”. Sometimes it has a romantic implication, often it doesn’t.
So yeah, I wouldn’t make any assumptions based on that.
I know. I’m saying it has a double-meaning: He’s saying it to his parents as “I’m going to meet up with some friends” when he actually MEANS that “I’m going to have a romantic rendezvous.”
I’m not implying that he is just flat-out saying “HEY MAW, I’MA GO SEX SOMEBODY!” I’m implying that there was a reason that Willis chose that specific phrase.
I’m betting on less straight out atheist and more agnostic. He thinks college and expanded horizons are good for Joyce, because he’s been there himself.
I sooooo want to hate on Joyce’s folks right now… but knowing how Willis has said that Joyce is a somewhat autobiographical character, I don’t want to speak out on it without knowing how much of THIS particular storyline might be drawn from his own past, and if it is at all based on truth, how it ended… (Which, if it is based at all on truth, might be a spoiler for the comic… so it might be best not to know before this storyline concludes.)
So, although it is difficult, I’ll try to not hate Joyce’s parents. But that doesn’t mean I don’t hate what they are saying, or that they aren’t acing like assholes at the moment! Let us just hope that the prospect of alienating their daughter makes them reassess their actions on this matter.
What the hell is with all the anger and hatred in here? How the hell did you expect them to react? Frankly, I’m surprised Joyce’s parents have such restraint. Considering their views, they’re handling the whole thing pretty calmly.
They literally think their daughter’s friend might get her sent to hell. Think about that.
They think their daughter’s friend is going to hell. WWJD in this situation?
A) Encourage their daughter to befriend and be kind to the Atheist girl so that she can hopefully eventually be brought to see the virtue inherent in the Christian faith, saving her from an eternity of torment? Perhaps trust that their daughter’s faith is strong enough to survive exposure to alternative viewpoints?
B) Shun the non-believer! Shun! Shun!
Reaction B is less the instinct of a Christian hoping to save people and more the instinct of a cultist who fears another member is about to be exposed to thought which doesn’t conform with the cult’s brainwashing.
So yeah. They’re not good people. Not even by Christian standards.
And whosoever shall offend one of these little ones that believe in me, it is better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he were cast into the sea. And if thy hand offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched: Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. And if thy foot offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter halt into life, than having two feet to be cast into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched: Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out: it is better for thee to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye, than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire: Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.
Which is so utterly, inexpressibly STUPID that it can’t help but inspire hate because seriously, WHO on Earth is so profoundly idiotic, so caught up in their own self-made delusions, that they play the Hitler card? It’s easily the worst logical fallacy I know of, possibly the worst in existence, and the presence of such stupidity is just infuriating.
It was the punchline of the strip. That’s something I don’t always take seriously, character-wise. I feel like most people usually know this, or at least I thought I did, but everyone here seems to be taking the punchline pretty seriously.
Mostly I’m just puzzled that, in a cast full of flawed characters, people are taking this one character flaw and using it to decide that Joyce’s parents are, like, the worst people ever.
Ah, I see your confusion. This is a Willis strip. One of his trademarks is subverting reader expectations regarding gag punchlines and status quo is god comics. Once, he made a main character a congresswoman as a punchline. Not only did the story go on for the next several strips, but she kept her seat through re-election and was a plot point several times. This in a strip about dudes who work in a toy store with a talking car in the sock room.
Just because something’s a punchline in a Willis strip doesn’t mean it’s not an important character moment.
The six state constitutions that effectively bar atheists from running for public office, the studies that show that the only group less trusted than atheists in the US is RAPISTS, and the fact that this hostile attitude is something that people have dealt with before in real life means this hits REALLY close to home.
Holy Hell that just happened.
Stupid.
Sorry, I’m in shock.
No, Stupid is what’s happening
Mom! Dad! If I wanted to have this conversation I would just go to the Youtube comments!
Good one. 🙂
It’s extra funny because Hitler was a devoted christian. Just as Mussolini and also as the Spanish and many Latin-American facists. They all made it very clear in their letters, propaganda and public speachs.
Read Hitler’s Table Talk, he expresses more pagan beliefs than Christian. He makes statements to the effect that the RCC should be a powerless church with a weak leader. He claimed Jesus was an Aryan and other lies. He had an Anti-Christian Martin Bormann in his inner-circle & was an admirer of “God is dead” Nietzsche, thus Hitler’s wish for “Übermensch.”
Mussolini came to power on an Anti-Cotholic ticket, and had to deal w/ the RCC after he was in power. See the book “condemned to repeat it” by Allison, Adams & Hambly.
How do you tell when a politician is lying? There lips move.
It would be convenient, but I doubt it.
@Far The “anti-christianity” of the Nazis was because they rightly saw the christian churches as potential nexuses of dictatorial powers in opposition to their own. Aside from Bormann and Rosenberg (who was heavily marginalised for being too nutty), the Nazi hierarchy didn’t want to destroy christianity but to subvert it to their own use (i.e. do to the cult what Constantine did back in the 4th century, and many rulers since), thus the invention of “German christianity” during the Nazi regime, and the attempt to corral all the protestant sects into it.
And you also have to remember, Hitler did believe in the christian god, he thought he had sent him (Hitler) down to earth to lead his (god) favoured Aryan people to dominance over the world. The table talk snippets denouncing christianity all happened either soon after prominent christians questioned the wisdom of Hitlers varied genocide programmes (we all know how well Adolf reacted to criticism) or when the war was obviously lost (and Downfall showed us how babyish he was when things weren’t going his way). He wanted Germany to be christian, just not the kind of christian it then was.
I’m tickled by the presented incredible savvy of distrusting politicians while defending a 2000-year-old story of guys saying they saw a dead guy once after he died, written forty years after it happened.
I think pointing out his pagan beliefs or what not is in danger of being a “True scottsman” fallacy. as in “he doesnt adhere to what i’d call and X so he isnt an X” which is exactly what millions of christians say bout millions of christians. And conveniently ignore their differences when it comes to “Christians vs Y”.
Cus if we are going to talk about people who aren’t “real” christians i’d point out all the ones who for some weird reason celebrate a pagan holiday in winter dedicated to celebrating the rise of the winter court of Faeries and the astrological continuation cycle in which people hang poisonous plants and decorate evergreen trees to be homes for Faeries.
Yes but unfortunately both Hitler and Mussolini were Catholic which to folks like Joyce’s parents doesn’t count.
At least Youtube doesn’t have the ‘in your face’ aspect that real life does.
Why go to YuoTube, when Willis will do it here?
Remember, these are Willis’ characters saying what Willis wants them to say. Very much “strawmen”.
Um, no. They’re based on people he’s actually met. He was apparently told similar things by his own parents.
When you’re on a webpage with like 1000 comments, and a good portion of those comments are from people saying “yes, this was my life, this was my life exactly,” and it’s from content created by a guy who lived this for twenty years, clearly the course of action you’ve chosen here is the best one.
C’mon. Keep on calling all of us liars. Remind us why we left.
@Cronomatt Well, I grew up in a situation similar to Joyce’s and I remember hearing the rumor that Hitler was partly Jewish. This rumor was connected to a theory that because the Jews were God’s favored people, they either did awesome things or were mini-antichrist’s.
Idiocy and bigotry happened.
Don’t forget inflamed argumentative assumption.
More like control issues and inability to cope with not being able to make their children’s decisions for them forever using Christianity as a shield happened.
I have seen this happen quite often with controlling religious families.
Brolaf was the shit, dude
The fuck happened to all that stuff I learned in Catholic school? Love thy neighbor, turn the other cheek, don’t be stupid judgmental dicks (yes, that was an actual lesson I got in sixth grade, exact words), casting stones? Did they stop teaching it?
They Aren’t Catholic, Though That Is A Lesson I Learned Growing Up (Raised Presbyterian If That Makes A Difference) Seems Fundamentalists Thrive On Hypocrisy.
Catholic != Fundimentalist Protestant, and in both cases Actual Doctrine != People’s Interpretation Thereof*, and Interpreted Doctrine != Actual Behavior.
* One of the more infuriating examples I’ve encountered within Catholicism – it’s been said by multiple Popes (notably Pius XII who said it first, and JPII who expanded on it) that evolution is not incompatible with God (basically ‘God gave us souls’ is the important part, and ‘evolution gave us the form we have’ doesn’t contradict that), but I’ve encountered a whole whackload of Catholic creationists, who bust out the idiotic ‘Humans and Dinosaurs coexisted’ and ‘if we evolved from monkeys, why are there still monkeys?’ crap.
You know who WAS Catholic?
Not Hitler. Hitler used vaguely Christian ideas to help his build to power, but ultimately, the Aryan outlook became a cult of its own with him as its leader, based on a mix of Catholic and Teutonic ideals.
Well, it was catholic enough to keep the pope appeased.
He was officially a Catholic, though: he was raised as one and always claimed to be one; whether he was sincere is a different matter.
So he wasn’t much different from all those corrupted “devout Christian” one-percenters we have today….
Probably. Of course, most of those “Christian one-percenters” are happy to wait for their God to do the bombing and ethnic cleasing for them (I think it’s called ‘the rapture’) That’s an improvement.
Oh, I know a few idiots (including former friends, sadly) who think that Nazism was socialist…
@Totz the Plaid
That’s probably because the Nazi party’s official name was “National Socialist German Workers’ Party”. But since they weren’t socialist (by the definition of socialist at any point in time since its creation), a lot of them were not German (Hitler was Austrian)(I mean okay technically Austrians are German it’s just that at the creation of Germany as a country, the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Prussia were NOT friends), etc.
If they did appeal to anyone with socialist ideals, it was only because the mark was worth less than the shit they wiped off their asses at the time. And they only got power because Hitler was really charismatic and the party in power thought “oh he’s just a figurehead, if we get him on our council he’ll just be a charismatic puppet” and then it turned out he was a domineering asshole who also happened to be charismatic.
(… Sorry my History Professor last term has his doctorate in Modern European history so he went way in depth on WWII and how it all happened. You do not want to see how many pages of notes I have from those lectures.)
Makes it a lot easier to sleep at night if you pretend no one evil has ever been Christian, huh?
Chill out, Li. Hitler wasn’t Christian, not really. He paid lip service to Christianity because he knew that was what would get him elected, and no, he never officially left the Catholic church (again, probably because it was a better political move to stay there), but he personally disliked religion and did not consider himself religious.
I’m pretty chill, really.
We like to pretend that no one has ever done anything terrible in “our” camp (whatever camp that may be); we tell ourselves that Nazi Germany was atheist and Communist, even though neither of those things are true. (The Nazi party was capitalist, and in America we thought they’d drive out the awful Communist influence from that country, which had been rising of its own accord). In America, “eugenics” had also taken hold, and when Germany first started segregating its population, some in America complained that they were “beating us at our own game”.
We can’t afford to forget shit like this just because it’s ugly. And in our current climate, we can afford it even less.
I reiterate: it’s comforting to pretend that no one can look like us while being vile, because then we ourselves are protected from being vile. But it’s especially egregious to protect ourselves from the idea of a Christian Hitler while foisting the blame for him off onto other persecuted minorities to help give us more reason to hate them.
I’ve never met anyone who thinks that Nazi Germany was communist; it’s pretty universally known that they were fascists, and anyone who knows the first thing about WWII history knows that they were explicitly out to destroy communism. And it’s also universally acknowledged that the people of Hitler’s Germany were mostly Christians (I can’t speak for Totz the Plaid, but I’m certainly not arguing against that point). So I have no idea where you’re getting “we tell ourselves that Nazi Germany was atheist and communist” from
And nobody’s burying their heads in the sand when it comes to Hitler’s personal anti-religion, that’s just the truth. Again, he may have officially been Catholic, but he was by no means a practicing Christian.
Hitler was as much a Christian as many Americans, who consider themselves to be Christians, despite not being devout. It is stupid to try to disown him simply because you dislike what he did – that just opens the door for some other charismatic madman to pull the same trick.. And regardless of Hitler, many Germans were devout Christians who were perfectly okay with having the Jews shipped off “for the good of the state”. Maybe they wouldn’t have wanted to see all of them massacred, but that doesn’t help the victims of Hitler’s giant organized pogrom that we now call the Holocaust.
For that matter, it doesn’t help the thousands upon thousands of Jews who were killed by Christians in Europe due to other pogroms. Or the millions of Christians, Catholic and Protestant alike, who were killed by other Christians.
What jaimehlers said, with a healthy heaping of “lucky you, you’ve escaped our propaganda machine”. But don’t for a second think that “atheist Communist Nazi Germany” is something I made up. No. It’s a quite popular little lie.
Additionally: fascism is totally unrelated to economic systems. Nazi Germany was both fascist AND capitalist.
I’m not trying to “disown” anyone. I am an atheist. I have no reason to try and sweep Christians who do horrible things under the rug. They disgust me.
But Hiter actually was not a Christian. He may have professed to be so in public, but he made numerous private statements to his associates stating his distrust and his dislike of religion. Yes, he was nominally Catholic, but as someone mentioned below, you have to actually believe in the stuff to be part of it, and it doesn’t appear that Hitler did. That’s what separates him from a “Christmas and Easter Christian.” He actually just didn’t believe it.
And Li, I never said Nazi Germany wasn’t capitalist. I said they weren’t communist. Fascism is opposed to communism. So when I said they were fascist, I meant that that meant the weren’t communist.
Regardless of whether Hitler was Christian or not, he still used Christianity to control others and convince them to perform atrocities. Regardless of whether he actually believed in God, he still used belief in God to rally other believers under the flag of Nazi Germany. It doesn’t matter if he was sincere or not. Religion is culpable either way, for being a tool that has such power over a person that it can convince them that killing hordes of innocent people is for the best.
Yep, no true Scotsman. I knew that would show up eventually.
There’s no way to really prove what someone believed either.
…the following comment was meant to be part of this thread. Oops:
Oh, I know a few idiots (including former friends, sadly) who think that Nazism was socialist…
So he was bad Catholic. The RCC doesn’t exactly let you leave once you’re baptised into the Church. Nulla salus and all that.
What do you mean? Plenty of people have been ex-communicated.
And you can always use the apostasy proceeding (though it’s complicated to do).
John Paul II?
Do Popes shit in the woods?
I was raised Cath & spent a few years in school, and the Chicago region never taught any such Fundie Jesus riding dinosaurs bullshiit. And I paid attention, because I got kicked out for kickng ass by 5th grade.
My entire family back to the early 1930s all went to cath School in Pittsburgh. Never EVER were they taught such shit. They glossed evolution with “we came from the sea” and taught dinos like a science should be, sticking to “periods” without getting into years, but never once teaching the 6 day creation as a 24 hour human day.
I don’t know where you met the Catholics YOU know, but I’ll bet there is moonshine involved.
They skipped that part when they didn’t read the catholic rulebook.
Not only are Joyce’s parents not Catholic, they almost certainly don’t consider Catholics to be Christian. In fact, if they’re anything like most Fundamentalist Christians I’ve known and read, they consider Catholicism to be a Satanic counterfeit of Christianity, designed to fool people into damning their souls while thinking they’re saving them. Sometimes there are implied connections to ancient Babylon.
It’s a scary way to look at the world.
I’ve always wondered what those people think of Orthodoxy. Reading those anti-Catholic screeds, I usually get the distinct impression the author doesn’t realize that they exist… the closest is typically mention of “Catholics slaughtering true Christians” in the fourth crusade, but in light of the typical claim that things started downhill with Constantine, that just ends up raising further questions.
Some Christians don’t like the Christ bits.
These things always go hand in hand.
It’s really unfair to the readers when the cartoonist invokes Godwin’s Law before we can. Damn you Willis!
You know WHO else had something to do with the Godwin’s Law before us?
Yeah. I cant believe joyce’s family are such dicks.
Ok. Fuck Joyce’s parents. You heard me. I am past jokey mad and legitimately hate these fictional people.
Amen
Do you need a barb-wired baseball bat?
Agreed, also because they’re completely wrong. Nazi Germany was (technically) religious, they’re thinking of Soviet Russia, as it was anti-religion due to the communists. I know I sound like a bible-thumping redneck when I say that, but I’m not, and it’s the truth; the USSR grouped capitalists and religious organizations together due to the tendency towards corruption and taking money.
Stalin was an atheist who forged an ego cult for himself, and cut out other religions to keep them from competing with Stalinism… technically Communism isn’t anti-religious.
Like in all things concerning communisem the state is just preserving it’s monopoly.
Depends on what you choose to call “communism”. Lenin was using rather scorching terms for religion in general. But of course, “practiced” communism had only comparatively loose ties to the views and theories of its nominal founders.
Communism is based on an atheistic worldview: Karl Marx stated that a society of non-exploited, non-alienated human beings would have no use for religion. It was his followers who went from “no use” to “must be destroyed”, but that may also have to do with the fact that religious institutions of the era -starting with the Catholic church- were often ultra-conservative and basically preached against social reform and workers’ rights.
There’s really no such thing as “an atheistic worldview”.
“No such thing as an atheistic worldview?” In which sense?
In the sense that it’s just disbelief. It doesn’t require any specific views.
This is what I meant. Marx’s creation was close to one of the church’s most heavily abusive eras, and his doctrine was that people would reject all forms of capitalist corruption and greed, let the people control everything, and once people got used to it and relinquished the idea of a person having more stuff than another, government, along with other forms of control over people, would be unneeded and cast aside.
Nazi Germany, on the other hand, was Facist, which is a bad mix of capitalism and totalitarianism. Hitler, in fact, used religion to get people on his side and influence them to come under his regime’s command (the US, also in fact, used this and continues to use this method).
Communism like so many utopic ideas tended to fail in practice due to not fully tking in account human nature.
No, not really, communist systems don’t like religion because it threatens their authority and hold on power over the people.
It is not that so much as that religion tends to actively placate people being exploited by systems not built to protect them from exploitation. The idea is that people will keep their heads down and not make waves even if they are being abused by a feudal or a capitalist or a whatever system if they believe they will be reward in the afterlife, while people who do not believe that will fight harder to make things fair in this life. Communism as Marx imagined it was a socially just system where people would be treated fairy and cared for generously by their fellow man, the idea is that when you have that you no longer need God to fill that role.
I do not really think that religion and social revolution are incompatible, personally, but that is the general idea.
Meanwhile the Nazis preached that all Russians were actually Jews. Which is why more than 70% of Russian POWs were executed.
Damn right. I take back what I said a couple nights ago: this is why I can’t stand Christians. As if all atheists are automatically heartless, amoral, murdering rapists, and all Christians are good, innocent people who would never, ever do anything bad. Y’know, fear of god isn’t the only reason to be a good person, and I am very disturbed by Christians who think it is.
Actually the bible can be used to justify almost anything. God gives his blessing on incest, murder, genocide and slavery… But of course it’s the atheist moral compass that it’s off. At least atheist don’t try to defend themselves with God told me to do it….
Actually, God was not fine with incest once he made up his mind and dictated Mosaic law. People like Adam’s or Noah’s immediate descendants or Abraham (marrying his half-sister) preceded that.
Problem is, people who use scripture to defend their actions, tend to be selective in their quotes. My point that you can find a quote in the bible to justify almost anything still stands. If you go by the spirit of the teachings of Jesus, he would be mortified by lots of things done in his name, both in the pat and the present.
Anyone who uses scripture has a tendency to be selective in their quotes, whether defending their actions or not. Taking things out of context is an underlying problem with using a book as big as the Bible to create an argument.
Don’t forget Lot’s daughters.
Why’d you do that, Heavensrun… Now I have that image stuck in my head. Gross.
Well, their offspring was not unilaterally successful.
I like how he needed some time to make his mind up.
Incest was kinda hard to avoid back when Adam and Eve were alive since everyone was more or less related.
If Joyce, Dorothy or Roz were my sisters, I’d have used the bible to convince them incest was just fine! Or hit them over the heads with it! Same if my Sis was Sandra Bullock, Salma, and a host of other chicks!
Unless they were Kardashians… then I’d have used it to encourage human sacrifice of virgins – and with THEM, probably have to start (and finish) before the end of 2nd grade AND live near a volcano.
Your gravatar looks like a textbook example of why generations of inbreeding is bad.
You better not mean “hit” in the literal sense, because I’d make you eat the book.
And that’s not cool…even if they are over-rated and supposedly annoying.
The scary part is the implication that these people would absolutely rape and murder and steal all the time if they weren’t afraid of God.
I have seen a couple of Christians confirm that, yes, the only thing keeping them from going on a rapey murder-pillage spree is a fear of hell.
I’m willing to bet that’s more them being intractable in their position than any reflection of their actual desires.
Yes, I have made this very point to some of the more annoying fundies who have attempted to convert me.
The scary part is the implication that these people would absolutely rape and murder and steal all the time if they weren’t afraid of God.
Thank goodness for “Murder Simulators” as Jack Thompson calls them, otherwise I might actually have to go out in the real world to get my murder fix. 😛
You know, your use of the word ‘all’ in “all atheists” kind of makes it sound like if most, or at least a good portion of atheists are heartless, amoral, murdering rapists.
We’re not.
I’m Jewish, and I don’t think anyone needs to hate these people. A simple befuddled head shake and a long drawn out sigh should do.
Obviously, I don’t speak for everyone in my particular minority group, and everyone is of course welcome to react how they want, but if I let all the uninformed, preposterous things people say make me hate them, I’d lose myself. I mostly just pity neo-nazis when I come across the insane conspiracy theories I read online, and Joyce’s parents certainly don’t seem actively hateful on that level…just immersed in a framework of ignorance that allows them to perpetuate some recognizably harmful beliefs. I can’t hate them. I can really only feel sorry for them.
In their minds they’re trying to protect a loved one. It just sucks that the bubble they’ve chosen to immerse themselves in causes that behavior to manifest in a really ignorant way.
On a side note, being bi as well, I await Ethan meeting Joyce’s parents with a strange mix of dread and excitement.
They still need to be punched in the face…with logical arguments.
Unfortunately logic all-too-often doesn’t work in these case. They just tell themselves that logic and critical thinking are tools of Satan to try to make them doubt their faith and dismiss them out of hand.
I don’t want to change their minds, I just want them humiliated.
We’ve seen how Joyce handles logical arguments:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2013/comic/book-3/02-guess-whos-coming-to-galassos/proven/
There’s no expectation that her parents are any different. In fact, given that they’re older and likely are quite aware that they are wrong (at least on a subconscious level), they probably are downright vicious to anyone that disagrees with them or who can argue against them.
Bonus points: Joyce sees nothing wrong with physically assaulting someone who does something she doesn’t like (Joe), wonder what’s gonna happen when the climax of this storyarc arrives. Will we be seeing some violence from the good parents there?
That was just for comedy and she felt bad afterward. If they do strike her, I think it will end badly for everyone.
You’re both of my demographics, except that you’re also level-headed. Nice to meet you, I appreciate your calming perspective.
Nice to meet you as well, and thank you kindly!
you did notice the main aim were atheists… The main statement being without God there can be no morality… not that i want to interfere with your right to be offended so you can show off how you rise above it, and feel better…
Forgive me if I’m wrong, but the final panel happens to contain Joyce expressing concern that someone with my heritage is being compared to Nazis, and her own father trying to JUSTIFY said comparison by claiming a genocidal dictator that killed many people with that heritage potentially shared it, correct? That is a thing I am allowed to offer personal perspective in response to, no?
Not trying to disregard that Joyce’s parents have seriously unfortunate attitudes towards Dorothy’s atheism expressed in the comic, and of course people are allowed to respond to that, but I fail to see where I was out of line.
“not that i want to interfere with your right to be offended so you can show off how you rise above it, and feel better”
Also not trying to be impolite, and I truly apologize if I’m misinterpreting, but I get the sense you’re being really condescending here. Again I was just offering my personal perspective. I explicitly said I didn’t speak for anyone, and didn’t put down anyone for feeling differently than myself. That was uncalled for.
you do realize it’s a comic? Nobody is doing anything, it’s all just a drawing on a screen… There are no parents to defend here. If you feel the need the need to either defend to condemn, it should be the author.
Having said that, the true party to be offended would be devout christians, since the author is actually making a joke at their expense. the hitler was a jokes are pretty much done to death, and hardly ever have any true merit. So it is already silly being offended by them.
coming from a country where jewish organizations (well mostly one) have taking offense to a level that most Jews say, give it a rest already, and we are talking a country were a picture of a pig was deemed offensive, i find your offense mildly amusing. It’s a joke, no offense was intended. So lighten up.
Even within the context of the comics there was no offense. Even you argue there was no malice against Judaism within the context of the strip, so there would be no reason to be offended.
But then again if yo feel the need to be offended be my guest. As long as you remember that there is a right to free speech, but there is no right not to be offended.
Basically every comment on every comic on this site is responding to the ideas presented in the comics. That doesn’t mean anybody is actually unaware that the characters aren’t real, but some of the ideas they present ARE real. But there is no reason for anybody to condemn the author for portraying those ideas, as they are not his own ideas. Anyways, and correct me if I’m wrong, but Sgore is not actually offended. The only person who seems offended here is you.
Sgore is (again, correct me if I’m wrong) talking about a real reaction to the real ideas that are presented by these fictional characters, as someone who is hurt by those ideas. Many real people do believe such things about atheists and Jews. I’ve met people who really do believe Hitler was Jewish, and use that as some sort of criticism of Jews. Who are you to say whether she can or cannot be offended by them? She didn’t express any offense at the comic, anyways, but merely expressed her opinion on the ideas contained therein.
And the comic DOES refer to Jews. Joyce’s mom’s comment is about atheists, but her dad’s comment is saying Hitler was possibly Jewish, which is the comment to which you seem to think Sgore is taking offense. But as someone who identifies as both atheist and Jewish, I can tell you both of those ideas are offensive, but that doesn’t mean anybody should blame Willis for representing them here. I don’t think anybody here is offended at the comic’s existence, and an open discussion of the offensive ideas that are represented in it does not indicate oversensitivity to the comic itself. Discussing hateful and hurtful beliefs and why they are hateful and hurtful doesn’t mean anybody feels they have a “right not to be offended.” I, and probably most other people, really wish harmful beliefs about Jews didn’t exist, but that doesn’t mean anyone feels like they have some special right to not see them; discussing these ideas and how they make us feel isn’t demanding special treatment.
Maybe you should lighten up. Again, you’re the one who seems to be offended by Sgore offering her opinion, here.
“but some of the ideas they present ARE real”
I can personally confirm this, i have had the conversation in the first three panels verbatim with my extended family. something that is worrying when you are the atheist mentioned.
This isa response to several at once, so not all comments relate directly to the parent post.
First off, I believe very much in free speech, and everybody’s right to express their opinion. Just like others I like to express mine. I don’t mind a discussion, as long as it’s done on the basis of arguments. I try never to take things personal, nor make things personal. Since I don’t know anyone here in person, me responses are always based on (my perception of) their comments, and never intended as personal attacks.
As a former Catholic turned Atheist (yes, actually had my name removed from the baptismal register), i’ve first hand experienced some of the believes expressed in this comic. However I never came across anyone that actually believed Hitler was (part) Jewish. The statement would be considered ridiculous. But then again, I never considered there might be countries (in the western world) were people might actually give any credit to that notion. On that basis I saw little offense in that remark. In fact I see it as a comment on the intelligence of the dad, and the (to put it polite) overly devout in general.
There is a large group that believe Atheism to be the root of all evil. Every day all religions demand their share of respect while offering none in return. Being both gay and Atheist i’m used to being insulted by religion on a regular basis.I have more than once heard the comment about Nazis being Atheist, because God fearing men would not do that. And colored as my judgement might be, i think this comic was more about Joyce’s parents views on Atheists than on Jews.
Of course it’s about atheism more than Judaism, because they’re talking about Dorothy, who’s an atheist more than a Jew. (Is it even true that she’s part Jewish? I don’t remember that being mentioned anywhere else, but that’s really irrelevant anyways.) But their apparent views on Judaism are questionable, too. And comparing someone who is part Jewish to Nazis is kind of not okay, even if the main issue is their atheism. So yeah, I think these views are offensive to both Jews AND atheists AND, in particular, atheistic Jews. And just because the atheism is the focus doesn’t mean you should just dismiss any offense expressed by Jews. I get that you identify with the hatred of atheism shown here, but why must that result in you dismissing anybody identifying with the antisemitism and telling them to “lighten up” just because you think it affects you more? This isn’t a “who-do-the-Browns-offend-more” contest.
And there definitely are people out there who believe Hitler was Jewish. A small minority, to be sure, and of course it’s ridiculous, but the belief does exist.
You’re kidding me right Luggs? “It’s just a comic” and “Lighten up, it’s just a joke.”
It is a very distasteful joke. It seems these past few strips haven’t been about “Haha, look at the funny”, they’re showing how Joyce has grown. In doing so, Willis showed a lesson that she’s learned, and it’s a lesson that most of us have gone through at one point or another.
I feel for Joyce. I grew up in a religious household, and I had my own beliefs shaken by my own research. When I tried to leave that belief system behind, it offended my family. But I digress.
Everyone has a right to their opinion. They also have a right to have opinions on someone else’s opinion. I’m not going to infringe on your right by saying “get off the internet troll.” I don’t have that right, and I wouldn’t want it. I am, however, going to use my right to leave an opinion about your opinion, and question your character as a person for questioning someone else’s character for being offended by you insulting them.
End rant.
@TheLuggs: If you want mindless entertainment, go somewhere else.
Missed the Your heritage part… Hate to break it to you, but Dorothy is depicted as Atheist, not as Jewish. The comment from the mom within the context was aimed at Atheists and not Jews. The she is part Jewish remark would be a statement she’s not a “full” Atheist. So even the simple premise that Joyce feels the need to defend Dorothy by making a claim she’s not a real Atheist could be considered offensive. It’s again referring to a widespread misconception that morality stems from religion. While scripture is filled with things that would now be considered immoral. For example God seems to approve of slavery.
Just to make a point, i’ll use a quote from Leviticus, since bible thumpers like to use Leviticus to point out why Gay people are immoral:
However, you may purchase male or female slaves from among the foreigners who live among you. You may also purchase the children of such resident foreigners, including those who have been born in your land. You may treat them as your property, passing them on to your children as a permanent inheritance. You may treat your slaves like this, but the people of Israel, your relatives, must never be treated this way. (Leviticus 25:44-46 NLT)
Can you explain the morality in this ?
Actually despite the lie Joyce told her parents about going to church with Dorothy, I’m pretty sure “she’s part Jewish” is a response to the Hitler comment.
As in, “How dare you compare my friend to Hitler, her family is more closely related to his victims than WE are.”
She didn’t lie, she took Dorothy to church that one time and brought Sierra along. It’s heavily implied that Joyce and Sierra have been going together every week, which is probably the girl she told her parents about. Her parents were the ones that assumed “oh this is Joyce best friend? She must be the religious one that goes to church with her.”
This hadn’t occurred to me. I feel even ponder towards Joyce with that in mind. (Not that I was super resentful about the “lie” before, but I could see why it would be hurtful to Dorothy?)
Actually the Hitler comment follows Joyce’s comment that Dorothy is part Jewish.
The but she’s Jewish comments follow after mom compared her to Nazis for being Atheist, which implies it’s ok to compare Atheists to Nazis..
It implies no such thing. What it implies is that it’s not okay to compare a Jew to Nazis. Saying she’s part Jewish doesn’t take away from her atheism, but it does make the comparison to Nazis particularly distasteful. You can be a Jewish atheist, depending on how you define Jewish. I’m one. Joyce isn’t saying, “Well, she’s Jewish, so she’s not REALLY an atheist, so you can’t compare her to Nazis.” Being Jewish makes the comment particularly terrible, but there’s no implication there that the comparison of atheists to Nazis is any more apt if they aren’t Jewish.
You seem to think that Joyce saying she’s Jewish is taking away from her atheism, but it isn’t. It’s like if Joyce’s mom had said, “Left-handed people like her are what cause the Holocaust,” and Joyce had replied, “Mom, she’s Jewish!” That isn’t saying that under other circumstances, the comparison between left-handed people and Nazis is just fine; it’s just saying that in this case, the comparison is particularly awful because she is Jewish.
Calling it “the Hitler comment” was just glossing. I meant the NAZI comment, which does indeed come before Joyce’s protest.
You seem to have the misconceived notion that all Jews practice Judaism. Being Jewish is as much a heritage as a religion.
Someone obviously doesn’t quite grasp the distinction between practicing and ethnically Jewish. Same goes for the distinction between “devout christians” and fundamentalist flat-earthers.
You don’t even need a god to deny science.
Quit trolling. Sgore didn’t say she was offended.
She’s not “part” anything, but it is apparently a culture as well.
Yes, Joyce’s parents are fictional. However, you do know that there are millions of Christians just in America who have exactly the same opinion as them, right? The authors are making a point about the attitudes that many Christians hold, not because they’re reasoned out or well-considered, but because of nebulous feelings and things they were taught as children.
Yes, that means that a lot of Christians believe that atheists are morally deficient, capable of doing any evil, simply because they don’t believe in gods. They don’t believe it because atheists actually do evil things, they believe it because they can’t imagine someone being able to be moral without a god telling them how to be moral.
The problem is, when you’re depending on something or someone else to provide you with your moral center, it’s easy to justify doing horrific things if you can convince yourself – or be convinced – that they’re actually moral to the external source of your morality.
Now, I live in Texas, and I’ve been in a lot of different churches from different Protestant traditions, and that’s not how I’ve ever heard this argument presented*. It’s not “atheists can’t be trusted because they have no fear of God and therefore no morality,” it’s “the atheist position is untenable because even they believe some things are inherently morally correct or morally wrong, which implies some kind of authority for morality, which implies God.”
Anyone who makes that first argument is either ignorant and unaware of the Scripture itself, or malicious. For example, in Romans 2:14-16, Paul implied there is that the law (summed up in “Love your neighbor as yourself” and “Love God with all you have”) is written on our hearts by nature. There are other references to unbelievers having consciences elsewhere, as well as our natural consciences being corrupted and therefore unreliable, but if we had no moral center without Christ, we could never see that Christ fulfills the moral center we have and come to know and love Him.
I am aware that posting these sorts of things will most likely make me seem like a raving lunatic, so you don’t have to tell me that I sound like one. 🙂
*I could just be lucky, and I will accept the testimony of witnesses that they have seen such a thing preached in churches.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that, sure, some people who claim Christianity say this, but I’ve never seen it officially taught, and those who say these sorts of things are ignorant of what Christianity actually teaches.
I will agree that anyone who says something like “the fear of Hell is all that keeps me from committing evil” is either a dangerous madman or clinging to an ignorant position through sheer bullheadedness.
Like most things that get this kind of response, I’m guessing this is something that Willis was told verbatim when he was growing up.
It doesn’t automatically imply anything.
I’m a Jewish Atheist, and I immediately saw red after reading the last panel. I’m not sure I would be able to keep myself from screaming at anyone who actually said that to me.
That loud screeching was the sound of me co-signing this comment so hard…
And that loud squealing was me telling you your Gravitar is pretty.
That yelling was me yelling that I don’t know what we’re screeching, squealing, and yelling about.
…
(i love lamp)
Man, Elan’s latest album really stopped bringing the bardsong, just went for the straight Sonic Damage…
Sonic Damage sounds like the name of a metal band.
I would have said Techno industrial, but I see your point.
Yeeeeah…I was trying to give them the benefit of the doubt, hoping it’d turn out they were more like Joyce…more set in their ways, but still ultimately well-meaning, just rather ignorant and sheltered from different points of view. Then they just snapped right to Godwin’s Law. Fuck those peeps, fo shizzle. [/Robin]
As for Joshua…I won’t think less of him if he doesn’t help Joyce out here, just because he hasn’t been around long enough for me to think anything of him at all. I’ll definitely think *more* of him if he does help his sister out, though.
I don’t think Godwin’s law means what you think it does.
Actually it doesn’t mean what I was thinking it meant when I wrote that. Darnit….
(Was thinking of Poe’s Law).
Carry on…
Fear not, for I too know the sting of *shudder* being mistaken about a minor point on the Internet! Alas, you’re quite correct about Poe’s Law not applying, however; the Browns are all too accurate to real life.
Poe’s Law applies to most everything Willis writes on this subject, though, since a lot of people seem to take it as particularly hamhanded parody.
Wouldn’t that be like Inverted Poe’s Law? I thought Poe’s Law was that no matter how over the top you made a parody of extremism, someone would mistake it as a depiction of the real thing. Or is it? Damn, now I’m not sure!
Poe’s law: If an authors intent on the subject is not clear, then it could easily be seen as both a parody and a real depiction. At least that what I was told it was told.
Poe’s Law: Any ‘fundamentalist’ piece given as satire will be mistaken for the real thing; there is no position so radical that it has not been taken by a fundamentalist of one side or the other at some time.
Corollary: real fundamentalist positions will be derided as satire by defenders/attackers of the position.
Poe’s Law works both ways – basically it can be stated that real fundamentalism (religious or political) is indistinguishable from parody, so you can never know which is which.
Well then, I’d say up till now Poe’s Law actually held…though I’m not currently seeing anyone treat Joyce’s parents as anything other than the genuine article.
Regarding Joshua, I think what’s important is that he is being supportive of Joyce, even if he’s not explicitly defending her. He knows his parents are a lost cause and not worth the struggle, but he still seems sympathetic to what Joyce is going through.
A good point, and despite what I said before, I think that if Joshua doesn’t do *anything* to show Joyce his support, even if it’s literally behind their parents back, I will think a bit less of him. Downgrade in perception from ‘suspiciously neutral’ to ‘suspicious’ anyway.
Yeah. Fuck them. Mr. & Mrs. Brown are hateful scum. They have leapfrogged the Wilcoxes and Siegals in my mind. All three sets of parents are utterly vile, though.
I can understand hating the Siegal’s (mainly Ethan’s mother)
And the Brown’s (mainly Joyce’s Parents)
…But what have the Wilcoxes done at all that deserves such hatred?
Some people are interpreting Mrs. Wilcox’s attitude towards Danny’s breakup and “new girlfriend” as her being judgy and emotionally abusive. I still think we’ve seen way to little to justify that position, and that her attitude is kinda understandable given the circumstances.
Their comments (both Danny’s mom AND dad’s) are definitely indicative of an at least somewhat emotionally abusive attitude.
I grew up with an emotionally abusive father. I know what I’m talking about.
While I’m not thrilled with the Wilcoxes’ attitude in that conversation, the place where Mrs. Wilcox really steps over the line is demanding if Danny’s new girlfriend is as good as Dorothy. Leaving aside the unfair ridiculousness of the question (“Well, on a rating scale of one to ten…”), what, exactly, is she expecting him to say? “No, mom, she’s not. I guess I’ll go break up with her right now and stalk Dorothy until she changes her mind about breaking up with me, or, failing that, remain ever romantically alone because no woman can ever compare to the one who dumped me.”
As much as it does seem like their bugging him, you gotta se it on their side. They spent a hefty amount of money to send their son to a collage he only went to because his girlfriend was going, only to find out that the girl in question dumped him a week into it. Can you see why they might be a little ticked off? (P.s. I wholeheartedly agree that asking if his new girlfriend was as good as the old one is unacceptable)
I wonder how much of his pursuing Dorothy to college was driven by them though.
Well, given that Danny’s father legitimately thought that Danny following Dorothy to college was a good idea, I think it would be safe to say they had a part in it.
That is an interesting theory, the idea that the Wilcoxs hoped that by allowing him to be led by his love of Dotty to go to college and get a college education, but with the break-up, they now fear he might drop out or something.
Yep. Legit hate here.
Let us shake our heads and pat Joshua sympathetically on the shoulder.
I just want to put him in my backpAck and hide him in a safe place in the woods.
You either have a HUGE backpack or do you intend on dismembering him first? 😛
I know, right? I mean, he clearly doesn’t want to be anywhere near this argument and yet he’s been expressly forbidden to leave. T.T Speaking as one who also hates being around when people are yelling at each other, I feel more for him than I do for Joyce. Heck, I’m more focused on that than the idiotic logic their parents are using! And since the idiotic logic was clearly supposed to be the point (as well as being a bit of a pet peeve for me anyways), this is saying a lot.
Part of me agrees, but another part of me is like “Dude, your the big brother here. You clearly don’t agree with the stupid crap your parents are saying (at least, I assume that ‘pick your battles’ line to Joyce means your on her side). Your little sister could some backup here.”
If he enters this “debate” knowing nothing more than his parents do about Sarah, does that actually help? And the truly stupid stuff happened after he tried to skip town, and he may yet have a response to that stuff. I say give him the benefit of the doubt until the next strip.
Holy shit I already hate her parents just bring back the ones from It’s Walky please ;-;
I know, they were so nice there, so… not this.
At least the worse thing they did back then was try to get Joyce to give them some grandbabies.
So that “Really good book” doesn’t count as bad or naughty?
Hm..It’s odd, but I just can’t summon any hate for them. I mean, yeah they’re totally wrong and pretty terrible, but there’s no emotion there.
I guess I’m just confident that Joyce will shake off their venom and keep hanging around with Dorothy.
Me too, honestly. They’re not earning any kind of sympathy here, but I can’t muster up any sort of hatred towards them like other characters I know.
Yeah, I can’t say that I hate them either. Probably because I can’t think of them as people. They’re just something that needs to be escaped.
I thought that earlier, based on what we learned about them from Joyce, without remembering their appearance in the first few strips, but I was advised to withhold judgment until we got a clearer picture. Only now I think I was right.
Wow, just… wow
Oh. Oh, no. No no no.
Do you know who else was Jewish?
JESUS.
Historical Jesus?
No, Blue Sash Jesus.
Wait, how many Jesuses are there again?
Six.
Wait — it’s not Tuesday anymore. There are only six Jesuses (Jesi? Jesodes? Jeshuim?) on Tuesday. Not sure how many there are on Wednesday.
And they were all Jewish.
Don’t be ridiculous; Blue Sash Jesus was white.
And if you want to play the whole “but his parents-” card, then allow me to introduce you to the next Jesus in the queue, Black Jesus. Logic and genetics quail in the face of wishful thinking!
…Jews can be white. In fact, white people prefer to think of Jews primarily AS white.
Modern European Ashkenazim? Sure.
The people living in the Judean sector of Roman-ruled Palestine/Syria in Year Dot? Not so much. Caucasian, sure, like all other Arabs, but not white as we think of the concept today.
I was responding to someone who said that “Blue sash Jesus” is white, therefore can’t be Jewish. I am aware of the fact that at the time of actual Jesus, there would not have been any white Jews.
How can they be caucasian? Then again, the classical definition of race is horribly flawed.
Black Jesus isn’t particularly impossible. People back then mixed pretty freely, especially in the cosmopolitan areas like Egypt.
Case in point: Socrates was almost CERTAINLY a very brown dude. There’s one historical record which mentions it that I can’t remember right now, sorry, but just look at the original marble head busts. He has almost stereotypically African features.
But like every person of even remote European significance, we pretend he’s totes white when we start writing history books after the fact, including paintings of him, etc. ALL THE GREEKS AND ALL THE ROMANS WERE WHITE, TOTALLY WHITE, WE GAVE YOU PEOPLE CIVILIZATION AND DEMOCRACY WITH THE FORCE OF OUR WHITENESS RRRR
Yeah, that’s actually what’s being referred to when someone (at least on a Willis page) says “Blue sash Jesus”; it’s almost a derogatory term to mean the gentile-ization that white people have put Jesus through.
Jeshuae.
87… I think.
I think you mean “how many Jesusi”
are you sure it isn’t Jesi?
HOW MANY JESUSES HAVE YOU SEEN TODAY?
Four. But that’s because I live in San Antonio, one of them’s my cousin, and the other three I work with. And they pronounce it Hey-sue-ss. 😐
Well, actually Joyce’s argument highlights the insensitivity of her mom’s one but doesn’t invalidate it.
What invalidates her mom’s argument is its obfsucating, insulting and undeniable stupidity.
GLORIOUSLY phrased, Leonou.
What does Jesus have to do with Christianity? Jesus was preaching to the jews. Christianity is Judaism Light (“Go with the flavor, not the laws!”) invented by Paul as a remix popular with heathens.
. . . “What does Jesus have to do with Christianity?”
Really? Did somebody really put that sentence together? Tell me you’re being ironic, or something, please.
I think what David is saying is that Jesus was not a christian. Jesus was a Jew. He couldn’t be a christian because his existance is why Christianity exists, so he couldn’t be one until he made it.
Jesus didn’t make Christianity. Other people made Christianity fifty years after his death.
The bug-eyed Aslan grav really made your statement ring true.
ASLAN DISAPPROVES.
+1 for you, sir/ma’am.
Introducing the worst characters to exist
agreed. You can’t pull out the Hitler card like that!
You gotta activate your trap card first.
ACTIVATE JINZO!
F@#K YOUR JINZO, I GOT RAIGEKI!
*Counteracts with my BS GOD card*
Metal Reflect Slime + Revival Jam + Jam Defender = God Blocker!
Black hole!
Magic Jammer.
Magician of Faith flip effect, bring black hole back to my hand! Black hole! Card destruction!
Infinite Sheldon!
I Play Wrath Of God, Destroy All Creatures, They Can’t Be Regenerated. Oh My Bad, I Only Ever Played Magic The Gathering
Unlucky for you I play theme decks and today was the day for the all artifact deck. Lucky I didn’t pull out my goblin or Thallid deck else it would really be a bad day.
Counterspell!
…wait. That’s the wrong game, isn’t it.
they Had Split Second, Can’t Be Countered, So I Cast Boomerang And Send Them Back To Their Hand.
Moisture Creature flip effect!
Damn, am I the only Duel Masters player?
i’m all for religion and stuff, but people who say that they have no moral authority without god terrify me. like, are you telling me that without an all-mighty sky wizard, you’d go around killing people left and right?
scary, man.
I mean hell, if I had an all-mighty sky wizard I’d go around killing people left and right.
There are very few things that can stop a sky wizard.
I dunno. What about an outer-space wizard?
So it’s all in the altitude?
I know that my moral centre comes from the fact that if I misbehave, the space teapot will pour boiling water on me. 😛
Fuzzy kitty Jesus might be able to do it.
Excellent point.
Those people are on the “Do not convert” list in the athiest handbook.
Yep. I don’t mind if your reasons not to kill me are different from mine. When I have to choose, I prefer it if you have bad reasons rather than none.
When the knife enters my body again and again as my life flashes before my eyes, the knowledge that my murderer believes in the supernatural will make my stabbing pains hurt a little less… 😛
“i’m all for religion and stuff, but people who say that they have no moral authority without god terrify me. like, are you telling me that without an all-mighty sky wizard, you’d go around killing people left and right?”
Oh, now your just being silly! The Crusades, Catholic Inquisition, Salem Witch Trials…we’re totally down with killing! Its just that we do it in the name of the all-mighty sky wizard! I trust you see how that makes it so much better.
He cretainly likes people dying in his name even though it’s established that Earth is kinda like a science project to him and that also we shouldn’t kill.
If this was a science project, he’d say don’t kill, because he knows that people think its okay if they aren’t caught, and he wants to know lots of ways to kill people. But that’s only if we’re a science project.
Well, to be less tongue in cheek, I think the obvious answer is that people like to use the “commit evil for a greater good” excuse to do terrible things. Awful to say, but that just seems like human nature. God, or whatever religion you want to pick, makes for a “good” excuse in this regard.
If humanity was a science project, God would get an F. First, we aren’t even done yet; when the hell is this project due? Second, we’re pretty much destroying everything he’s created, and I’m sure that won’t be looked upon well by his teachers. Third, he probably had his parents help him out on it, too!
I laughed out loud, oh my gosh.
This is glorious, have an Internet it’s on me.
Uh, if you do an ant farm as a science project, would you honestly claim that you can’t get credit before you made sure you killed all the ants?
It rather looks like the project got finished just fine and the ants were set free.
The reason why the miracles stopped is because a while ago the universe was transferred to the mulch pile.
There is a school of thought that basically claims that The Earth is God’s science experiment to show the rest of the universe why sin is bad mmm’kay.
I really have to wonder exactly what sect they are. I consider my religion to have a lot of safety guards, and everything I have been taught and asked about has told me that good people are good people, whether or not they find Christ, and WILL in fact go to Heaven. So, I really wonder where these 2 are coming from :/
And yet, unfortunately, this isn’t an uncommon view on things.
really? Because everything I have been taught and asked about has told me that to get into heaven, you have to have been a good person AND accepted Jesus as your lord and saviour
And that’s what I’ve been taught my whole life too. Apparently it’s not a common view. It’s weird cause even as a kid the fridge logic came in on the ‘wait, would people like the pre Columbius Indians, who had no way to know who Jesus was, have to go to hell” had been asked at some point at CCD. I’m pretty sure that the answer was ‘doing good was accepting Jesus into your heart’ or something like that. I’m not even some weird off shoot or anything, I’m frickin Roman Catholic.
Likewise here. I had a Religion Teacher waaaay back in the day who used the tale of the Good Samaritan as an example. Guy was a Gentile (Non Jew) but since it was Jesus of Nazareth who was telling the story about how to get into his kingdom, I’d imagine the hypothetical guy qualifies.
You can say that you follow in his footsteps, but he doesn’t want lip service. He wants your actions to reflect that. Love your fellow man and seek to make the world a better place, and it doesn’t matter what religion you follow in my eyes.
I fear for this world every time I see people who think good people go to hell just because they didn’t call the higher power by the right name. Or even if they believed he was up there. One might give more credit to the atheists. Many super religious people I’ve met do the right thing because their religion tells them to, what about atheists? They do it on their own will, and nothing else. Somehow, that seems more worthy then the religious type.
Uh no, Jesus did not tell how to get into his “hypothetical kingdom” with the tale of the Good Samaritan. He was answering the question who in “Love the next one like yourself” was supposed to be the “next one”. The point of the story was not to claim non-jews could get into heaven. The point was shaming the jews into considering non-jews as being eligible to decent treatment as humans in need.
Jesus was quite explicit regarding “nobody gets to my father except through me”. He actually healed quite a few heathens who believed in him personally rather than the whole lot of Judaism. But that’s not what the story of the Good Samaritan is about.
The whole idea that many otherwise decent people will end up being cast into Hell to burn alive forever and ever is one of the less comfortable aspects of mainstream Christianity.
Batshit Crazy?
And now I’m wondering what religion you were brought up in, because the viewpoint that good people get into heaven regardless of their faith is not exactly a common one.
Also, doesn’t that mean your own religion is telling you there’s no need to believe it?
The majority of Catholics who actually know what it means to be Catholic (an unfortunately low number, the church is fairly lax teaching what it’s all about and prefers people to come to it instead. Guess how many people do that, actively.) tend to be okay with the idea that good people are not necessarily always Christian people, or even religious people. As for your second point, no, that’s like saying we shouldn’t study chemistry because the reactions will happen in the physical universe whether we observe and actively take part in them or not.
I have faith, but I consider my faith more of a gateway to understanding the sublime than a guideline for my behavior…I think anyone can be a good person, or a bad one, regardless of what they do or do not believe in. And in a similar vein, I certainly don’t think that mine is the only pathway to understanding the sublime in the universe, it’s just the one that appeals most to me.
If just being a decent person is all you needed to get into Heaven, then there would be no special need to be a Christain at all, it’s the fear of going to Hell that puts bums on pews.
doubt you’ll get around to reading this, but Mormon. To make a long story short, basically we believe that everyone gets a chance… There’s a lot that goes into going into Heaven, and yes we believe that Jesus Christ has EVERYTHING to do with it; we as humans are imperfect, and without his atonement, we can’t have hope of justice tempered with mercy.
The part about belief in Christ taking you to God’s Kingdom comes from trying to live as He did: loving everyone, doing right, and generally behaving as though The Son and The Father was in the room with you; trying to do what is right in all times, in all things, in all places. That means NOT being judgemental, or saying you don’t want to be around someone just because of faith. A good person is a good person, and if you want to be like Him, you want to be there for people, to show them happiness, and if they want to change it’s up to them but either way you are an example of what should be good.
That’s what the gospel is about. And if I may be so bold, it is NOT about trying to say who will or who will not go into Heaven… I believe that is God’s call, and ONLY God’s. All we can do is the best we can, and have Him judge our actions at the end. Listen to his words, and live them.
I’m writing this now, because it is my firm belief that sharing a message of peace is right, and also a message of hope, and acceptance, no matter what may have been written, said, or done by any reading in their lives.
And on a lesser not, I am writing this because it is my opinion as a person trying to be good in this century that an atheist has no business being compared to as Hitler simply because they have chosen not to believe in God.
My beef with these nondenominational churches is that they have no overall structure, creed or dogma, so depending on the inclinations and biases of the individual preachers and congregations, they can go down some very strange paths with no mechanism for self correction.
Bias alert: I was raised Presbeteryian (sic) and later gravitated to high church Episcopal.
I’ve got a friend who says the idea that God’s keeping tabs on him is the only thing keeping him in school, seeking employment, and away from alcohol.
I’m never quite sure how to react when he brings that up. “Um…I’m glad you believe in God, then?”
Yep, that’s the right answer. “Sounds like your belief gives you strength to make good choices. Glad that works for you” style of thing.
Even a staunch atheist should realize that it’s much more important to be healthy and functional than it is to be technically correct about something that, let’s face it, doesn’t exactly matter anyway. Good on your friend.
Good point. The problem only really comes when he presumes everyone operates that way–or, bizarrely, everyone he hasn’t met yet.
Huh. Yeah, I can see that being awkward!
Pshaw. Without my Lord and Savior the Flying Spaghetti Monster to guide me, I would fall off the path of righteousness and fail to seek bloody vengeance on my enemies, and THEN where would I be morally? In the sauce pits, that’s where!
The delicious, delicious sauce pits.
of the lust-wolves ^^
I’m a Christian and I don’t even believe we need to believe in God to know not to kill. Mostly because of a combination of the fact we as a society usually have no need for killing our fellow man and, well, the whole compassion thing. All of that gives good reason why we’d put ‘no killing’ on our judicial rule book as soon as we started a system of law.
@Alex Stritar: And we’d probably all be dead.
Yeah, true. As long as there’s two people on this Earth, someone’s going to want someone else dead.
Nah, takes at least three or four. Gotta have someone around to appreciate your action.
“The second God crapped out a third caveman, a conspiracy was hatched against one of them!”
-Hunter Gathers
The main appeal of religion wheneber you believe it or not is the idea that when you die, the next life will be so much better than before and all those evil scumbags will get what was coming to them.
I think that Joyce’s parents have a legitimate point. I know this is anecdotal, but I’m an agnostic and I’ve killed about a dozen people, just in the last couple hours here. Seriously, I got them stacking up like cordwood here, and it’s getting hard to type with all the blood on my hands congealing between the keys of my keyboard. Imagine the carnage I would wreak if I was a full atheist or a Hindu or something! The streets would run red.
Now I’m hungry for spaghetti.
I know, right?
Eric Hovind said he would.
Yeah, that’s really terrifying to think about, honestly.
Also, completely undermines their own argument because that makes every Atheist _MORE_ moral because we don’t _NEED_ a God to know that doing rape, murder, etc. are utterly abhorrent!
I don’t even know what “moral authority” means. Does anyone but me have any possibility to decide for me what I think is moral? I don’t think so.
are you telling me that without an all-mighty sky wizard, you’d go around killing people left and right?
Without his magic sky beard, Joyce’s dad would be wearing a human skull as a hat right now.
Punch fists loaded in my arms,
Locked, loaded, ready, armed!
Activate Rocket Elbow in 3 . . .
Using Rocket Elbow is giving mercy to our enemies. Activate Rocket Punch!
OK, I’m a religious guy. But I am REALLY starting yo hate these people.
It does seem that most extremists are much more similar to each other regardless of affiliation than to the moderates in their own camps.
A shame they wind up speaking for their groups so often.
A lot of comments yesterday mentioned ideas that Mr Brown is now sprouting.
Yeah only we were joking and he’s a dick.
It’s like escalation. We joked about it and Willis cranked up the dickery.
Prophetically, since he wrote this well before the comments from the past few days.
The Willis Is All Knowing And All Seeing, Never Question The Greatness That Is The Willis.
Yes, it’s quite scary how predictable we are.
Maybe WE are Willis’s science project?!
Market research/crowd sourcing certainly proves that to be true.
Well this Conversation went Godwin pretty fast.
Murphy would approve.
Also Duverger would note that Joyce’s parent are totally an SMP system, well Joyce leans towards PR.
SMP? PR? What do they stand for?
Super Mega Prime, Public Relations.
PR is Proportional Representation while SMP stands for Single Member Plurality its a play on Duverger’s law because SMP electoral systems according to Duverger’s law generally lead towards two party systems well PR leads to multi-party systems. Political Science joke.
By the rules of the internet, Mr. Brown just lost the internet.
Off course, the rules of the internet also state that somewhere there’s a drawing of him in bed with Sailor Moon, so he’s got that going for him.
Lost the argument. Damn.
And now i just lost the game.
HATE.
Now you need to join a PUA(Pick-Up Artist) group to regain your game. 😀
I don’t think he ever FOUND the internet to begin with, as it’s a vehicle for sin and debauchery.
He did get the elevator and go down into the lobby, but probably he didn’t quite get down to inventing the internet in the end.
I, on the other hand, beat the internet. (The last boss was hard.)
You BEAT that thing? Kudos! I was ten hours in, got to the s***ing d***-nipple form and the screen flashed ‘37% COMPLETE.’ I gave up.
Well, if people can win internets, they can lose them too.
He also lost by the rules of HUMANITY !
Wait…no. No, not gonna do it. Not gonna do it. I’m stronger than that, and will not-
*TEN SECONDS LATER*
OH MY GOD WHY IS MY SAFE SEARCH NOT ON?!
I mean, all told, some porny weirdness of mr brown plus sailor moon wouldn’t be that…
oh. “mr brown.” oh my. RIGHT. comment (nearly) redacted!
On the bright side, he’s won at least one game of Cards Against Humanity.
Mechahitler!
So are you saying that rule 34 causes art to be spontaneously generated? I always believed it was created in a slow process over many drafts.
Also, I would like to see examples of said art for… Reasons.
Like he cares if he loses the internet
He’ll just go to the lobby and invent his own Internet…..
With Hookers and black jack
Thats very messed up. (messed isnt the word i want to use)
Dammit Joyce’s dad, Godwin’s Law never gets us anywhere.
I know, in many ways, Stalin was a lot worse.
But people never seem to paint him as evilly as Hitler. Despite the fact the Uncle Joe’s death count was actually higher than Hitler’s.
Maybe because he didn’t start a freakin’ world war, try to conquer the world or exterminate whole ethic groups. Stalin also stayed in business a lot longer than Hitler did; if H. had succeeded in his ambitions, his final body count would likely have been much higher.
So we can give this advice to bloodthirsty dictators:
“If you want to stay in business, only kill people no-one outside the country cares about.”
Heh. Sad but true: it worked for Mao, Francisco Franco, Daddy al-Assad and plenty others.
You could also add “Don’t invade Russia”.
I think that can be generalized to “don’t start a land war in Asia”.
Both are quotes from Marshal Montgomery.
Stalin has killed more people than Hitler, true.
But I’d still call Hitler more evil, due to motive.
Stalin killed people for (potentially) threatening his control. Hitler killed people for existing.
Eddie Izzard once said that Stalin and Mao were not as reviled internationally because they were killing their own people instead of killing people next door.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndhnGPAgecM
I tend to agree with him.
The only thing Stalin really has going for him is that even HE hated Hitler. He was pretty much an even worse person than Hitler in every way shape and form.
I dunno, Stalin was kinda an equal-opportunity mass murderer. Gotta give him credit there.
Sometimes the comments to these strips are even funnier than the strip itself.
Sometimes it was like they were competing to see who could kill more Russians.
Honestly, when you get to that level of evil, it’s almost impossible to quantify who’s technically worse. Hitler, Stalin, Pol. Pot, etc. (and all their top men, of course), they’re all utterly indefensible and evil beyond all measure.
Although the specifics still haven’t made their way into many textbooks yet, historians have learned a lot since the end of the Cold War. Ethnicity was absolutely a reason for mass murder at times in the Soviet Union, far more often than was believed during the twentieth century. The Nazis certainly killed more noncombatants under Hitler than the Soviets under Stalin, though. That’s no longer a matter of debate among those who’ve put in the research. The Soviet famine claimed more lives than any other event under Stalin, including deliberately starving millions of “kulaks” in Soviet Ukraine (thousands upon thousands more were simply executed) and over a million people in Soviet Kazakhstan. Although possibly as many as a million people were shot to death during the Great Terror, the numbers had always been presumed much higher before the collapse of the Soviet Union provided access to Easter European archives.
And contrary to popular, uninformed belief, Stalin actually launched killing campaigns motivated by ethnicity before Hitler. While their larger motivations were different (Stalin saw ethnic killings as a path to modernization; Hitler just wanted to exterminate all European Jews), they were very similar in their policies and actions.
Stalin was horrid, but you could cut a deal with him. Hitler, you couldn’t — not and be sure he’d still honor it once the ink was dry, anyway. It was kill or be killed when dealing with Hitler.
Heh, moral equivalence. Also, most of the Russians didn’t actually die.
Really? Who is worstest, Stalin or Hitler?
It isn’t really comparable. They were bad either way.
“Hitler: Whoa, whoa, whoa, guys. This is between y’all. Don’t drag me into this! I just want to get my cafeteria tray and find a nice, quiet place to eat before the game.”
Why do people always use me in unecessary arguments?
Einstien: I have no idea
Jesus: Yeah, don’t bring us into this.
Historical Hitler, or Biblical Hitler?
Marvel Universe Hitler.
There was this One time, when Captain America punched hitler in the face.
Similar-but-different, in this one cold-war comic, Colossus was brainwashed by the KGB, and became PROLETARIAN MAN, Hero of the Soviet Union!! (his first mission: to DESTROY the X-MEN).
Wait, wasn’t it actually, like a robot Lenin built by Arcade when the X-Men went to Murderworld?
Yes! Oh man somebody else read that thing
I loved that run.
A lot more times than that if you count his clone “Hate-Monger”…
So, Hate-Monger?
Cap also punched the original Hitler in the face (not sure if it’s canon, but it DID happen on the cover of Cap’s debut issue during WWII).
I like to believe it’s canon. Because really, who doesn’t want a universe where superheroes punched Hitler in the face?
Don’t forget about Stupid Jetpack Hitler.
Twin clones of Hitler for the win
Oh, jeez, why did you remind me of that horrible Elseworlds Superman story?
Because that is where the book gets awesome!
We Talking Ultimate Hitler Or 616 Hitler?
Good Hitler.
http://amultiverse.com/2013/07/31/skyball-part-3/
MLK Jr: You guys said it!
… why are they all having lunch together? That would be some awkward meal conversation…
Now, hang on, you can disagree with people and still be friends with them.
Einstien: now hitler, let’s get back to that whole making my people look like assholes thing.
Hitler: Why don’t WE talk about that whole A-bomb thing?
Einstien: I don’t want to be credited with that!!!
Jesus: fellas, fellas.
Both: Not now, traitor!
Saw this coming from a mile off.
Still doesn’t make it any easier to see unfold, though.
Joshua is Joyce’s elder brother, yeah? That’s a creepy amount of control to exert over your post-college, adult son.
True. He should be like, “uh no. Screw you guys, I’m goin’ home!”
“You and what car?”
The one growing out of my pelvis. I call them my legs.
“Gonna have trouble walking, what with my foot up your ass if you talk back to me again.”
“Well, enjoy your 180 mile, 60-hour walk.”
Is it just me or is walking 180 miles in 60 hours really wishful?
It’s a fast walk for some people with short legs (3 mi/hr). Most can jog that in a half hour. It’s not a bad guess.
And totally not impossible, though you won’t see me walking beyond 5 miles without a reason.
Hey, don’t blame me, blame Google Maps.
Heck, I got friends here. I’ll just call them up and hitch a ride with them.
Homeschooling probably broke his spirit.
It’s more like what he told Joyce: she should pick her fights.
It isn’t so much that she has control but that he doesn’t want to antagonize her too much, because she’s family.
I’m still nice to/humor my grandma even when she’s being a racist, spiteful bongo.
Ugh. That seriously pissed me off. It’s amazing that I can hate fake people so much.
Ouch. Just…OW. I am thankful that I don’t THINK I’ve run into someone that bad.
I do believe in an invisible sky wizard, but I still REALLY hate these people. I like to think that if God didn’t exist, people wouldn’t go and kill everyone left and right.
I honestly think it doesn’t matter. People are gonna use any excuse they can to do what they want. Religion normally acts as a border for people to see as a moral compass. The thing is, some people can still twist it, just like any other construct.
Oh fuck, Hank did NOT just go there.
DEATH GLARE
That may be the most relevant gravatar in history.
DildoJoyce is unamused by this bullshit.
You glare him down.
He would have a stroke if Joyce actually wore that Hat.
Then he’d be the first to blink.
Must… not… hate!
The hate is swelling in you now. Give in to your anger. The dark side is more fun anyway.
Come to the Dark Side. We have cake.
No, the cake is a lie. We have cookies, remember?
I thought it was pie.
Also. FEED US. FEED US YOUR HATRED!
Guess they mellowed with age.
These parents are pretty painful to watch. So how far will Joyce go to defend Dorothy?
I think she’ll go beyond defending Dorothy and take a hard look at the moral system she grew up on, I honestly don’t think it will be fun to watch.
She’ll push back so hard that by the next time they see her she’s going to be smoking, drinking booze, doing drugs, and having wild, unprotected sex with girls.
Or maybe Joyce is just going to be slightly depressed for the foreseeable future. That could happen too.
…how on Earth do you have unprotected sex with girls?
…or was that part of the joke?
Lesbians can get STDs. You don’t need a dick involved to spread that stuff.
Oh. I feel silly now. I was thinking pregnancy only. T.T
I know they make condoms for women, but I also know STDs are spread through fluid exchange. So for some reason, my mind is making lesbian balloons. They are pretty colors.
It’s late here…
But, are there 99 lez-balloons?
If there aren’t, someone should damn well go and make them NOW XD
99 lez balloons floating in the summer sky.
AW, and I was all ready to link you to the ‘Hazel learns about safe lesbian sex’ story from Girls With Slingshots.
Also some lesbians do have dicks!
You know who else is an asshole? Hitler.
Man, that guy sucks.
And completely off his rocker and somehow protected from assassination attempts from time travelers.
But he is the guy who killed hitler, so he’s got that going for him at least.
Yeah, but he’s also the guy who killed the guy who killed Hitler. What a knob.
Yeah, but he’s also the guy who killed the guy who killed the guy who killed Hitler, so it comes back around.
…wait.
It gets even more confusing when you realize they all ganged up and killed him, too.
…serves me right for failing to take two seconds to look at the other comments before making the same damn joke they already did…
Warning – Tasteless joke:
Well, he’s not ALL bad… I mean, he DID kill Hitler, after all…
Aaaaand I’ve lost any remaining respect for this couple.
aaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAND IT’S GONE.
There is actually no proof of that.
So Hitler was like Voldemort and the whole “part muggle” thing? The more you know.
Shhh. Death eaters were based on Nazis. Shhh.
Little-known fact: Hitler was actually part snake.
Hitler was Christian… (if that hasn’t been said already)
That’s not strictly true. Hitler was whatever served his needs at the time. He was Christian on, like, Tuesdays, on Wednesdays he was Atheist, and all the other days he was just a murderous jerkwad.
You forgot Hindu! He stole random things from India, too!
The dude treated religion like a buffet. Trying to blame a particular religion for him is stupid.
Heck I was surprised when an ex-girlfriend and I went to a museum and saw the swastika on some ancient robes from Japan. I think they had a different word for them and they were in another direction, but still, dude, did I learn something.
Stupid Nazi vandals
Similar experience in India: turns out an orange swastika with dots between the arms is a VERY common religious symbol there. People paint it on trucks to avoid bad luck on the road.
Yeah, I saw a map in Japan that was littered with Swastika symbols. Turns out, they’re the icon of Buddhist temples.
There was definitely a degree of Teutonic ideals in there as well, what with the whole “Aryan” thing.
I will admit to initially parsing this as “tectonic.”
Hitler causes earthquakes I guess.
I know it’s complicated, but he seemed to affiliate with Christianity a lot. No one knew what was in his head for sure, but he made it clear they weren’t like the godless Communists/Socialists.
“Kitchen, Children, and Church” were Hitler’s roles for German women, although I don’t know if he specified any particular sect. So there was supposed to be a faith involved in Nazi Germany in addition to the cult of personality he fostered around himself.
being from Austria his flavor was Catholic… People tend to ignore the Vaticans questionable role in WWII. Though the Vatican tends to play up the story about the Jewish woman they saved… I guess they could find any evidence of more than one woman saved….
Probably some statue of Mary.
He turned Christianity into something different. Hitler’s “Christianity” was focused on worshipping the German state and revering the Fuhrer. Faithful Christians who stuck to the Bible were treated as political dissidents. Plenty were killed. One pastor, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, even tried to assassinate Hitler over it.
When it comes down to it, Nazism is its own cult. You can argue for hours over what Hitler _might_ have actually believed, but it’s undeniable that he was, in fact, a cult leader when it comes down to it.
People love to say, “Hitler was a Christian/atheist/vegetarian,” when they’re trying to convince others of why one of them is a bad thing to be, despite the fact that none of those claims is historically accurate.
Willis is right. Hitler himself said that he was Catholic a few times, but his close associates claimed he wasn’t at all interested in religion.
What about the iron crosses and “God with us” on Nazi belt buckles? Why did he leave the Vatican alone instead of harvesting its art and such?
…because even Hitler wasn’t crazy enough to turn on his closest ally to fight his way through to a tiny city-state with some nice statues? Nor was he the only person who got to dictate Nazi policy – “Gott mit uns” is a slogan much older than he was.
“GOD IS ON OUR SIDE” Flags, Banners and Pins – available in all colors and languages!
Also, the iron cross and “god on our side” predates the Nazis. Just saying.
They still used them is why I brought it up. It’s a little hard to call them atheist.
Agreed.
In the really old days, people didn’t have gods conveniently around for them to worship, they had toget out there and make their own damn gods.
If all else failed, you just worshiped that tree over there.
It worked out surprisingly well.
Tree worship is how druids and hippies got started.
Which helped propagate recreational drug use and thus gave the world some of the Beatles’ best songs. Definitely worked out.
Or heck, you ask for help from the spirits of your ancestors.
Well if I have to worship anything, i find it helps me if i can prove it exists. with the three, its quite doable to prove its existence… and as far as the worshipping goes… I noticed that all deities yield similar results as the three…
Also some trees give you fruit. Nothing wrong with a little food.
Always thought the prayer should say: Give us this day our daily fruit.
And if you can’t make your own gods, you can always just worship the sun. That’s always a safety net.
It’s the biggest, brightest thing around and it makes life possible. That’s good enough for me.
I dunno; I’d feel a bit unoriginal. If I was stuck on my own with no deities to worship, I’d find something that no one else was using. Like pants. All hail the glorious pants!
Or you could worship accidents. Whoops be praised!
You know who else blames the Jews for everything? Nazis. You know who weren’t atheists? Lots of Nazis. You know who aren’t mostly Nazis? Germans. You know who’re apparently asshats? Joyce’s parents.
Oh boy. The “Hitler Argument” flavor of asshole. This rare flavor is only rarely seen outside of internet forums. But today we have the ‘luck’ of seeing one in person.
Little do we know, Willis was inspired to write the dialogue of this panel based on internet forums.
Watch out. That means the .gifs are coming out. One paralyzing glare and she might be dead. Let’s watch.
Please re-read this comment in the voice of the crocodile hunter.
I didn’t see it in person, per se, but a former close friend of mine compared me to Hitler for deleting personal insults he made about me on Facebook after I pointed out the scumbag truth about Ron Paul.
He chose to end the friendship by making the insults, then that comparison made me lose all respect I had for him.
It’s not that he called me “Hitler”. I know how stupid that comparison is. It’s that he effectively insulted every single person who suffered as a result of the Holocaust and Nazi ideals.
I say this as a Christian:
Fuck you, Joyce’s parents. Atheists didn’t give us Nazi Germany, horrible people who hated Jews gave us Nazi Germany. Atheists don’t live without a moral code, they take their code from their conscience, society, the law, and whatever else they might want to take it from.
Dorothy’s parents were polite to you. You’ve been nothing but jackasses to everyone so far. So please go fuck off and may your overly legalistic interpretation of Christianity find you ironically burning in hell.
As A Fellow Christian I Heartily agree, Joyce’s Parents Need To Be Put In Their Place, Or Maybe Have Some Scripture Quoted At Them, Such As “Love Your Neighbor As Yourself” And “Judge Not Lest Ye Be Judged”
Actually, those “who gave us Nazi Germany” did not as much “hate Jews” rather than integrating the persecution of Jews into their fascist fantasies of modeling a populace according to their whims.
Last year I spent a few nights in Zürich (Switzerland). The hotel was kept by a family, tidy and friendly, the information in the rooms contained pointers to kosher food outlets and services, the reception lady had a prominent nose, the hotel had been founded by her father who made his money with early music boxes, a smart trader.
This has been an integral part of German history, and it still felt like being an integral part. Nazi Germany won that part of the war: in Germany, this history is dead. The stereotypical role of the “shrewd Jewish businessman” has been taken over by corporations which are unmitigatedly soulless.
I’ve been born 20 years after the war ended, so it did not really affect me personally. But it was then that I realized that the Nazis were successful in bereaving me of an important part of our national and cultural identity and diversity in Germany.
“the reception lady had a prominent nose”
Did you seriously just say this as a way to imply that the place was Jewish?
Also, I’d wager that the explosion of global economy has more to do with the trend towards soulless corporations over small business owners. Additionally, it depends entirely on the area and what you’re more likely to witness. You saw this because you were at the hotel. How many privately owned hotels do you normally see?
Regardless, the rest of your post is tragic.
No, I said it to state that the setting including the family running the business met a set of stereotypes that we were taught to avoid at all costs. Things were fitting together harmoniously in a way that political correctness would not consider it nice to see.
I’ve been in quite a number of family-run hotels. That’s not really the point. It was the combination of little details establishing an unobtrusive “we’re Jewish and you are welcome” atmosphere. Other hotels have “we’re Catholic and you are welcome”. But the point is that you don’t really see the former in Germany. People then rather go for “we’re international and you are welcome”. After all, most of their customers will not be Jewish.
That’s a shame.
Also, I don’t know how one is supposed to avoid the stereotype of a large nose if one HAS a large nose.
Whatever happened to respecting other people’s beliefs? On that note, Eid is tomorrow!
Respecting other’s beliefs is for decent human being’s! These are Joyce’s parents we’re talking about.
You know after what they said their only slightly better than fuckin adolf hitler.
Well maybe not that bad.
Why did I read their as is? Why does it make me want to laugh so badly?
If you skip the last panel, you’ve got my parents.
Must’ve been hard for you :c
strangely no, they’re just pleasantly surprised (and a little confused) when a non-religious person does good stuff
Joshua made the right call to get the hell outta Dodge.
However, he did not make the right call at the right time.
MAKE A BREAK FOR THE WINDOW!
GO FOR THE COMA!
GO FOR THE COMA, THE COMMA, AND THE OXFORD COMMA!!
Joyce needs to become an orphan. Soon. That way A) we don’t have to see them and B) Amazi-Girl has a new sidekick replete with tragic backstory. Sal’s been looking tired recently anyways.
But the only problem with that is that joyces needs a cool side kick name.
Old-testagirl!
“Testagirl” is a little too much like “testegirl” or “testigirl”…
(And that’s Sarah’s role anyway!)
New-Testagirl!
Revelations?
I dunno her name, but she keeps her biblrangs in her Bible Belt.
Bible Basher? Monkey Maid?
Premarital Hanky-Panky? /yeahidunno
I thought we settled on Bible-Thumper a while back.
Actually, Revelations sounds like the name of some dark, gritty, comic book hero from a series that doesn’t actually understand religion, but likes having a vaguely spiritual feeling to it.
The name is still cool, though.
I can see two possible outcomes (and I’m sure there’s more): One — faced with this comparison, Joyce backs down and returns to the fold, so to speak.
Two, the seeds of dissent are sown and she starts the process of distancing herself from dogma.
Even if she “comes back to the fold” the seeds are planted. The moment her dogma gets her to act out of accordance with what she feels is right, resentment will begin to grow and fester.
If anything if she just buts heads with her parents over this and they end the weekend on bad terms then that would be better for her continued faith. That’s a clean wound. All that means once she’s done mulling it over in her head is that she’s right and her parents are wrong. She can look through the scriptures and find all the reasons why her interpretation of God’s will is more legitimate than theirs and that will just be that.
Yeah, it’s official: I know these people. And they suck in real life, too.
Is the next strip about Joyce researching to find the worst nursing home she can send her parents to? I’m thinking one that makes the residents fight for an off-shore gambling website.
No moral foundation without god? Now that’s a load of BS. I practically don’t believe in religion and I follow moral philosophies that always make me think twice about things.
Also, that Hitler comic is probably gonna come back and bite him in the ass.
See? If you were religious you would not need to think twice. Heck, you would not even need to think once as other people already did the thinking for you.
Now that’s standing on the shoulders of giants.
So basically, screw the consequences if it’s for God? Now I may not recall right seeing as I suck at history, but wasn’t kinda what happened with the Crusades? Y’know, the whole any Christian participating gets to indulge without consequences. Correct me if I’m wrong.
I really have a hard time teaching Fundamentalism 101 to you heathens. You embrace the consequences if it’s for God. There is no such thing as a “necessary evil” when doing God’s work. It’s all good. Accept it. Understand it. Cherish it. Only the weak falter.
Abraham was willing to sacrifice his son. Jepthah did sacrifice his daughter. What are the Browns going to do?
Calling it now. Her parents say that college is a bad influence and try to make her leave
I have been thinking along the same lines since I saw how they reacted to Dotty.
That and joyce says she wont go in an adorable saddened face.
I meant 2 reply to evergreen fir.(my bad)
Dammit i meant 2 reply 2 icalasari not evergreen fir 2 fuck ups in one time the internet wont forget.
Problem is, Joyce is an adult now, she doesn’t have to do anything she doesn’t want to. They can withdraw financial support but Sal can always rob a few more stores to cover the costs.
Kudos on making so many people hate two fictional characters. It’s not easy to do, especially in this medium.
Actually, Willis is not the first person who made me hate certain fictional characters. The first one is whoever it is made D.W a Karma Houdini.
Huh?
D.W? Doctor Who? Da Wolverine? Dinosaur Woman?
Dora Winnifred.
Never call her that.
Darkwing Duck?
A cartoon aardvark on public television.
David Willis?
A lot of you are hating on Joyce’s parents as if you didn’t think this was going to happen. I saw this shit coming a mile away as soon as this chapter began. Have none of you come into contact with strong-willed devout Christian parents before?
Not really, no.
Nope. And despite seeing it come a mile away, it still makes me angry.
I have. I’m mainly mad because this ISN’T EXAGGERATED AT ALL.
Do you know who else is an atheist? God! He also doesn’t believe that anybody created him.
We don’t really know that for sure. Maybe god is just an office worker in some building in a bigger Arc-Universe, and we’re his pets, and he goes to church every 23rd day to celebrate Mecha-God Mass. Cuz that could happen.
Nah, God is a Buddhist. But he only lets Mormons into Heaven, for some reason.
God isn’t an atheist. He’s a tinkerer with a love for detail. And with all those physicists on the hunt for the fabric of the universe, he’s pretty busy nowadays keeping all those experiments turning out consistent. Ok, he bungles a lot of them but always comes up with plausible explanations.
Actually God does worship god if you believe in the holy trinity. Jesus is God so there you go. Truthfully when your the beginning and the end, the whole personification of needing a deity gets thrown out the window.
There’s a part of my arm right now that wants to smash Mr. Brown’s skull in while repeating “NO!” multiple times.
…and in case someone jumps on me, I did a search to see if Hitler really was partly Jewish, but no, it stands at maybe.
My point is you don’t compare Hitler to the people he imprisoned.
I saw on Willis’ twitter, “Today nobody will ever like Joyce’s parents ever again.” I then asked myself, “How far could they possibly go?”
The answer turns out to be…to Godwin.
Now that I think of it, riling Joyce up after she hit a guy in the face with a piece of glass might not be the best plan of action. She wasn’t even entirely lucid when she did that…
I bet if they find out Joyce was assaulted some time ago, they might decide to pull her out of IU right then.
I wonder if Sarah’s bat is still in the room
Hitler was pretty much every religion. He grabbed bits and pieces of everything from Roman Catholicism to Hinduism for the sake of giving his philosophy some perceived credit. He converted the German Protestant church into a state-run patriotism factory that replaced the cross with the swastika, and he took special care to get rid of any Christians who resisted him, which led to people like Dietrich Bonhoeffer 9the pastor!) trying to assassinate him. Attempting to blame any ONE religion for Hitler is stupid. Blame Hitler for Hitler.
Hitler was Christian? Tell that to the Christians he slaughtered.
Hitler was Atheist? Tell that to the Atheists he slaughtered.
Hitler was an Occultist? Yeah, you get where I’m going here.
in short, Hitler’s religion was Power.
Hitler was a cult leader.
The Inquisition also targeted their own. Atheists can kill each other no problem.
The Inquisition clearly targetted people with religious beliefs which they perceived as different (heretic) from their own. If Hitler was religious, he didn’t use persecute anyone because of his religious beliefs.
Wow, Joyce’s parents actually represent the parts of religion that I dislike. Then again, I would guess many people would disapprove of such views as well.
Now I glad I voted to see them in the poll.
(Yes, I know technically we already saw them in the first couple of strips, but we didn’t get to know them.)
Still trying to decide if i hate Joyces dad more than Ethans mom
The Ultimate Dilemma. We might just have to fuse them into one hateful, androgynous, punchable fuckwad of a character.
Can we throw Danny’s parents into that mix there?
And the plot twist of Ethan “liking” the brother more than Joyce?
I’m a very Catholic person and for everyone who thinks all Catholics are like this, they’re so not. This is the opposite of what it means to be a Catholic. Like I’d like to jump into this comic and punch them right in their stupid faces. I’m so angry right now, this is past the “I HAVE FEELS” stage.
Joyce’s family isn’t Catholic, and so I don’t think they directly represent Catholicism at all!
They do not represent Catholicism. They represent bigotry. (Do not confuse bigotry with Bigamy)
Yeah, not at all Catholic. They strike me as non-denominational christians. At least they are like the ones in my area (one of whom tried to hold an intervention for me because I played D&D)
What really strikes me is that Joyce’s parents are apparently BETTER than most of the other people in their community. Remember when Mary went off at Sierra and Dorothy, and Joyce said, “this must be why we switched churches all the time?”
For what it’s worth, as terrible as they are, Joyce’s parents did manage to raise her as a good person. Joyce has earned +200 Good Person points in the past three days of strips alone, just by standing up to them. Her parents might be hateful, but Joyce actually sticks to the principles they supposedly raised her with.
Doesn’t mean I don’t want to punch them, though.
As I said lower, notice how they waited to have this little chat after they were in Joyce’s room. They at least may feel ashamed of trying to spout this stuff in public, but behind closed doors is ok.
They just don’t want to make a scene.
Joyce assumed that was the reason. It could be her family was the b-words that didn’t fit.
Woah. Where’s the cool Joyce’s dad from comic 2? ;o;
But no for serious, as much as I hate these guys, this is a huge huge step for Joyce. Honestly 3years ago(I can’t remember the in universe time) she was just like them. Monkey Master outfit aside, she’s really changed and this is a stark, and much needed, juxtaposition of pre-college Joyce.
Unfortunately, people can appear very nice and pleasant and still believe things like this. Notice how they didn’t have this discussion until they got to Joyce’s room.
You know who else was very nice and pleasant in public?
Wait, no… Hitler was a raving, genocidal nutbag in public, too.
Never mind…
Actually, Hitler was a pretty cool guy to hang around. I mean, he was definitely open about his desires to kill everyone who wasn’t Aryan, but the dude was still really nice.
Psychopaths are able to turn their empathy, or charm, on & off at will. It’s why they make such effective CEOs.
So, he was the inverse of Joyce’s parents? Polite and cordial in one-on-one situations, but shit-flinging bonkers in public.
Wow! I mean. WOW!!! That is a whole new level of asshole!
Joyce can be a bit pig-headed at times and take on a holier-than-thou behavior, but at least she’s got her likeable moments. These two have absolutely no positive traits.
They lost the argument, you know. Pulling out the Hitler card means you’ve got absolutely nothing else to back up your position. And yeah, as Joyce pointed out, you can look like a motherfucking asshole when using it.
Let’s see, although the chance is slim, these idiots can redeem themselves.
Wow I didn’t know I could want to punch a fictional character this badly.
I got a list of fictional characters that I want to punch:
1) Lacus Clyne
2) Kira Yamato
3) D.W
4) Lucy from Peanuts
5) That dog from Duck Hunt
6) Seth
7) Kazuya Mishima
8) Kefka
9) Seymour Guado
10) Mist Rex
Which Seth? ‘Cause I know three different Seths that are punchable.
…I’m just gonna back away slowly now.
Really? Kazuya? I mean he’s a dick, but why not Heihachi?
The dude killed Dan Hibiki.
Hibiki was just hiding in Pandora, ya silly.
I…know who three of those are.
I suddenly feel so very out of the loop.
Of those I know:
Lacus Clyne
Kira Yamato
Lucy from Peanuts
The dog from Duck Hunt
Kefka (you know your a dick when AutoCorrect wants to change your name to Jerks)
And Seymour Guado
Don’t forget Shou Tucker. Dude needs punching BAD.
Good excuse to trot out this old chestnut….
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-january-20-2011/word-warcraft
And the follow up.
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-january-24-2011/24-hour-nazi-party-people
And the followup to the followup. Sorry, these work best if viewed together.
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-january-27-2011/bill-o-reilly-defends-his-nazi-analogies
This hit close to home. I have never had strong beliefs religiously (I am an agnostic Quaker) and when I confess this to my more religious friends I am always scared of this reaction. But DoA Joyce seems more strong willed than Old Joyce so I think this will just open her eyes to how close-mindedly she was raised.
I’m disappointed that Joyce didn’t point out that Hitler was a Christian. WHY DIDN’T JOYCE SAY THIS, IT WOULD HAVE BEEN EPIC.
Because she was never taught that. Homeschooled by these two, remember?
Yeah, unless she learned it in the past three weeks, anything about Hitler she knows comes from her parents and her textbooks.
(Also, as noted above in discussion, it’s not strictly true.)
How much do you trust your textbooks? I knew a Romance language teacher who went to Arcachon (Southern France). That was probably 10 years ago, and she was mid-twenty. The pupils there (she came from Germany as a teaching assistant) asked her whether she had been in WWII. Seriously.
She sent us photocopies from text books there. For example, there was the headline “Being a youth in Germany. Discuss.” followed by two photographs. One was a Hitlerjugend pimpf of about 6 years, in uniform, doing the “Heil Hitler” salutation. Another was a rather famous photograph where a number of people including children leave the Warsaw Ghetto with raised hands.
WTF? This was 50 years after the end of WWII. Who considers that fit for teaching German culture?
When she went partying there and people asked her where she was from, she answered “Belgium” (which was not entirely untrue since she lived there, just beyond the border). Because if she answered “Germany”, the conversation was over.
In the end, she made the best from what she was given there. The children there were a bunch of undisciplined brats, and she “pulled a German” on them finally, yelling at them from the top of a desk and going completely overboard. Which worked due to the absurd conditionalization those people got. She’s actually rather nice, but since that did not buy her anything, she made the best use of the absurd reputation she had been handed.
I still can’t believe those textbook copies she sent. That was out of this world.
? What grade was she teaching? Kids often have very unclear notions of time — cf. countless comic strips with kids asking their parents if they’ve seen dinosaurs. As for the textbooks — and the prejudice agains Germans you describe —, that looks nothing like what I’ve seen. In the region I was every summer there were lots of German tourists, and I think the worst cliché I heard about them was that they wore socks with sandals…
Well, she taught German. I think they were around 16 or so. And you won’t find anything like that in Paris or so. This was the extreme South of France, so it’s actually quite unlikely they had much enemy contact.
At any rate, given that this was teaching material, it would likely be at least on county level that this indoctrination existed, and the personal reactions of the people there to her being German were also of a quite absolute manner.
I don’t think that particular area is touristy (and frankly, German but even more Dutch and Danish beach tourists are not necessarily a recommendation for their country): I think they maintain their imagery without much “enemy contact”. But at least in this backwater town, she might as well have been a member of the occupational forces based on their reactions. She was glad when she was back after a year or so.
Arcachon is a small town, but very touristy in the summer, but I agree that kids proably don’t get that much contact with tourists. The place where I grew up is also very rural, and not that much bigger than Arcachon — the place I went to high school, that is, the place I was actually living was much smaller — and also less touristy, except during an extremely popular summer festival. And no-one I knew held any grudge against German people, or think they are all Nazi. There were cultural exchanges between our town and a twin city in Germany and everyone seemed happy with it. I just checked and there’s a similar program between Arcachon and Goslar, so the kids who study German there probably have at some point the opportunity to actually visit Germany as well, and vice-versa for the kids who learn French in Goslar.
As for the curriculum, in France it is defined at national level, but the exact content of the textbook may vary to some extent. The pages you describe look like they were taken from a history textbook, and WWI is covered pretty exensively, including Germany through the 1930s-1940s, especially during the last year of junior high school. But of course these pages are not meant to teach German culture, more like “German-culture-in-pre-WWII-Germany-and-how-it-can-help-us-understand-the-rise-of-nazism”.
Anyway, I’m not saying no-one in france has any prejudice against Germans and all textbooks are perfect and fair and balanced, just that, although your friend had a bad experience, it’s certainly not the general case.
Joyce: Hitler was a CHRISTIAN!
Joyce’s Parents: ERROR! ERROR! DOES NOT COMPUTE!*heads blow up*
You do realize that even if Joyce could prove that, her parents would insist it was all “atheist propaganda” meant to discredit “true Christians”.
Nah, they’d just say “He wasn’t Christian, he was a Catholic. Completely different thing.”
I wonder if we will meet any parents worse thaan the Browns.
And then Ethan’s parents walk in.
Willis says the Browns are a distant second.
Also, the Siegals and Wilcoxes are close to being as bad as the Browns, but just slightly behind them in my opinion (and I _have_ a dad as abusive as Danny’s parents are!)
Be afraid, be very afraid. Perhaps now is the time to stop reading DoA for a week or so if you cherish your sanity. Would be silly to get a stroke over a fictional comic character, wouldn’t it?
Watch it be Dina’s parents.
“So anyway like we were saying before that negro came in the elevator, fuck you daughter. We dislike you and your way of life and dinosaurs were huge pussies that probably never existed. Also I invested your college money in a bomb so we can blow up this elevator. IT’S THE BEST WE COULD DO”
That made me lol, so damn hard
I’m laughing and feeling like I’m about to cry at the same time.
Why can’t I stop laughing?
I think I recall some comment by Willis on twitter implying that this was a sad arc for Dina. This may be entirely true.
And it would be awful.
Personally, I’m hoping the worst parents are the restless ghosts of Ruth’s parents.
Actually, Willis said that Ethan’s parents were a distant second. Whether the Browns are the apex of douchebaggery here remains to be seen.
We still haven’t seen the Walkertons. Don’t forget that.
So, Joshua, is this a fight worth fighting now?
Too late; regardless of whether it’s worth it, it’s happening.
WOW. Just wow. And it shows just how much Joyce’s upbringing fucked up her worldview (I mean the crazy fundie thing, not the homeschooling thing). Apparently her parents have never heard of Kinder Kirche Küche, AND they maybe are anti-Semitic (maybe). Let me guess, they also think Jesus wasn’t Jewish, right?
Fuck I hate them right now.
In other news, good for you, Joyce! And I’m sorry you have to be here, Joshua!
All I can think of here is Harold Weir on Freaks and Geeks and his continuous name-dropping of famous people who died for vaguely relevant reasons.
I feel like Joyce’s dad is kinda like that except awful.
i once knew a guy who remembered harold weir.
HE DIED.
I once knew a guy who forgot to put “You know what happened to him?” in their Harold Weir references. You know what happened to him? He DIED.
Dammit. Another perfectly fine, properly trained kid ruined by actually meeting the people we’ve been vilifying.
Jesus might love you, Mr Brown, but he’s also very, very pissed with you.
He forgives you, ‘cuz he’s cool like that, but the penance he’s coming up with won’t be fun.
I just noticed that Joyce is from where I live currently: La Porte, IN. It actually quite fits. There’s way too many churches (around 40), and a christian homeschooling association.
Is Grace Baptist still standing? You know, across from the Little Caesars? Do they still hate dancing?
I live in La Porte, too, and was homeschooled and raised as a Christian in that very same homeschooling association. Let me tell you that there are way too many zealots like Joyce’s parents that are part of it (sadly) 😛
I went to high school with a guy like that (in California, though) and even when he wasn’t being all aggressive he was just… Weird.
…oh my god, did you grow up in the small town from Footloose?
Hey, you swam in Stone Lake, too?
*Googles up La Porte, Indiana*
FORTY churches for twenty-two thousand people???????????????
Hey, it’s the home of Belle Gunness. Lots of reason for praying here.
*Googles up Belle Gunness? Oh GOD.
Well, in terms of “bad parents from La Porte, IN” she has the Browns beat solidly. Rank amateurs.
Mannnn, the wikipedia page used to list me as a notable resident.
Remedied.
Don’t you live in Ohio?
Yeah, but I spent almost half my life in La Porte.
BOOM! GODWIN’S LAW!!!
Game Over Mr. Brown!
Oh, god, this one strikes to close to home… I had this same interaction with my parents… but they were trying to protect me from “that weird tomboy”, one of the three only friends I had on highschool, because for them she was obviously gay (of course the queer one was me). I ended up on tears, so I really hope Sarah arrives ASAP :'(
OMG, sorry, wrong place 🙁
Aw! That sounds awful and confusing. I hope things are going better for you now.
Things are much better, not with my parents but on my life, and that’s great for me. Thank you! 🙂
How in the Hell can they believe what they are saying? I mean really believe that self righteous bullshit?
I’m a Pagan who occasionally attends UU, and I personally feel we have a moral approach to life, and a part of that is total respect for other religions and life styles.
This is just beyond…..
Run Joyce. You can do it.
No experience with zealots? They can make themselves believe it for the sake of making their children believe it, for the sake of their immortal souls.
If you can’t convince yourself of something, convince someone else and you’ll be forgiven for your doubts. And the one you convinced will never be plagued by doubt like you were.
If you find people preaching lifestyle choices like vegetarianism, it’s a reasonably safe bet that you can meet them next year in McDonalds if nobody can be interested in their persuasions. Those who don’t doubt their own course don’t feel the need to proselytize.
A zealot is one who considers himself an inedequate believer, so he tries making up for that in numbers.
Ooohhhhhhhh no. You don’t know fear until you see people chanting in tongues. It is terrifying, it sounds like they want to murder you.
*coughcough* Love thy neighbor shall be the whole of the law *coughcough*
Now would be a great time for Walky to show up in that room, ready to let her see some more Dexter and Monkey Master episodes.
Speaking of which, isn’t Walky also an atheist? And didn’t Joyce know Walky prior to the events of this comic?
No, Joyce did not know Walky prior to the start of Dumbing of Age (that we know of…no aliens to bring them together).
I…I hate the oxygen that they breathe for being there.
Is that bad? Am I a bad person?
No, Vince, that means you are not like them.
Joshua’s a secret atheist. Calling it now. Unless someone called it in an earlier thread.
If that’s the case, I’m a little bit pissed at him, too. I can understand not wanting to get into these arguments with family as I’ve been there, but he should be standing up for his sister.
But Joyce is doing a pretty good job of standing up for herself. She might be better suited to a confrontation than her (very conflict-averse) brother is.
Really I’d love to see Joshua have a heart-to-heart with Joyce out of their parents’ earshot.
If that’s the case, he can’t really help Joyce, because Joyce is not a secret atheist. His own convictions would be quite irrelevant for Joyce’s position.
This is (yet) a fight between believers.
I’m not necessarily saying he needs to chime in about the religious issues, but at least trying to help support her as being able to make reasonable decisions, or even just a ‘This is supposed to be a fun weekend visit, can we do this later and not ruin it?’
The whole problem is that “reasonable decisions” are an atheist concept. Joyce’s parents expect her not to succumb to reason. Supporting her as being able to make reasonable decisions would be about as helpful as supporting her as being able to have premarital sex.
The ability was never drawn into question. But her parents don’t want her to use it. That’s what atheists do.
Joshua can’t really score here. They’ll just pay for two exorcisms if he tries.
I’m going to have to disagree with ‘reasonable decisions’ being an atheist concept. Saying that just because they’re fundamentalists they lack any reason is about as bad as saying that just because Dorothy’s an atheist she lacks a moral compass. I’m not arguing that they aren’t ignorant to certain things, they just have a different set of ‘facts’ to reason from.
I’m saying that Joshua could go the route of ‘you raised her and taught her blah blah blah, she’s a good Christian, trust her to know when someone is being a good or bad influence on her and that she’ll continue to have faith’ or some sort of appeal to that effect.
You can only trust in God, humans are fallible. If they put reason above faith, they think they are less fallible than God.
Really, that stuff is finger exercises for Jehova’s Witnesses or fundamentalists. You don’t get through with reason. They’ve seen it. They know their battleground. Reason can’t touch them.
Their fortresses are invincible, but it’s a narrow and barren place where you don’t want to go anyway.
“Reason is a whore, the greatest enemy that faith has; it never comes to the aid of spiritual things, but more frequently than not struggles against the divine Word, treating with contempt all that emanates from God.”
-Martin Luther
Certain evangelical or nondenominational Christians really do take this to heart, and actually do consider “reason” a dirty word.
If he still has to live at home, I think I can forgive him….
That’s true. I guess I wasn’t sure if he still lived at home.
Nah. Pagan. Or possibly LaVeyan Satanist.
Yes, let’s go with that. Until the actual answer comes out, I’m headcanoning him as a Satanist.
LaVeyan Satanists are just Atheists with attitude, to be honest.
I called that yesterday, if I was an atheist and I had parents like these, I might want to stay ‘in the closet’ too.
Naw, he’s gay – or at the very least, having an active sexual relationship that he doesn’t want his parents knowing about (maybe he’s even dating a nice Jewish girl). Willis made him use the words “hook up” in the first panel, and that had to be a conscious decision.
“Hook up” does not mean to everyone what it means to you. I’ve encountered this before. In some areas, “Hook up” means “get laid”. In other areas, “Hook up” means “go and meet with”. Sometimes it has a romantic implication, often it doesn’t.
So yeah, I wouldn’t make any assumptions based on that.
I know. I’m saying it has a double-meaning: He’s saying it to his parents as “I’m going to meet up with some friends” when he actually MEANS that “I’m going to have a romantic rendezvous.”
I’m not implying that he is just flat-out saying “HEY MAW, I’MA GO SEX SOMEBODY!” I’m implying that there was a reason that Willis chose that specific phrase.
There is such thing as reading too much into things.
I mean, I don’t think it’s far-fetched to think that Joshua might be gay, but your evidence is flimsy at best.
Don’t you destroy my dreams of him having sex with Ethan.
I’m betting on less straight out atheist and more agnostic. He thinks college and expanded horizons are good for Joyce, because he’s been there himself.
I sooooo want to hate on Joyce’s folks right now… but knowing how Willis has said that Joyce is a somewhat autobiographical character, I don’t want to speak out on it without knowing how much of THIS particular storyline might be drawn from his own past, and if it is at all based on truth, how it ended… (Which, if it is based at all on truth, might be a spoiler for the comic… so it might be best not to know before this storyline concludes.)
So, although it is difficult, I’ll try to not hate Joyce’s parents. But that doesn’t mean I don’t hate what they are saying, or that they aren’t acing like assholes at the moment! Let us just hope that the prospect of alienating their daughter makes them reassess their actions on this matter.
Wow, if people are reacting to them after this, just wait until they meet her boyfriend… and maybe his parents.
And his roommate.
(Mike is his roommate, right?)
No, Jacob is Ethan’s roommate (and tempting eye candy). Mike is rooming with Walky.
Oh. Well, I’m sure that will make things much better. 😉
Mike still hangs out with Ethan, right? I’ll settle for that.
this is what made me leave religion behind completely
There’s a *lot* more to religion than this kind of nonsense.
And yet this alone is pretty much all you need to know – about their flavor of belief/fervency that is.
AAAAAAAAAAARGH!
WTYETYNFWHNETSYMT<U35737KM#%&KM#%@&J@$@^Q$@YM@WYNJSFWNAFZBGESTHSM STMTSYN SA%NMTWM%@NQY#EUCDT<US
What the hell is with all the anger and hatred in here? How the hell did you expect them to react? Frankly, I’m surprised Joyce’s parents have such restraint. Considering their views, they’re handling the whole thing pretty calmly.
They literally think their daughter’s friend might get her sent to hell. Think about that.
They think their daughter’s friend is going to hell. WWJD in this situation?
A) Encourage their daughter to befriend and be kind to the Atheist girl so that she can hopefully eventually be brought to see the virtue inherent in the Christian faith, saving her from an eternity of torment? Perhaps trust that their daughter’s faith is strong enough to survive exposure to alternative viewpoints?
B) Shun the non-believer! Shun! Shun!
Reaction B is less the instinct of a Christian hoping to save people and more the instinct of a cultist who fears another member is about to be exposed to thought which doesn’t conform with the cult’s brainwashing.
So yeah. They’re not good people. Not even by Christian standards.
Not even by Christian standards?
And whosoever shall offend one of these little ones that believe in me, it is better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he were cast into the sea. And if thy hand offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched: Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. And if thy foot offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter halt into life, than having two feet to be cast into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched: Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out: it is better for thee to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye, than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire: Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.
Ivan has good points, but also…
They played the Hitler card.
Which is so utterly, inexpressibly STUPID that it can’t help but inspire hate because seriously, WHO on Earth is so profoundly idiotic, so caught up in their own self-made delusions, that they play the Hitler card? It’s easily the worst logical fallacy I know of, possibly the worst in existence, and the presence of such stupidity is just infuriating.
It was the punchline of the strip. That’s something I don’t always take seriously, character-wise. I feel like most people usually know this, or at least I thought I did, but everyone here seems to be taking the punchline pretty seriously.
Mostly I’m just puzzled that, in a cast full of flawed characters, people are taking this one character flaw and using it to decide that Joyce’s parents are, like, the worst people ever.
Ah, I see your confusion. This is a Willis strip. One of his trademarks is subverting reader expectations regarding gag punchlines and status quo is god comics. Once, he made a main character a congresswoman as a punchline. Not only did the story go on for the next several strips, but she kept her seat through re-election and was a plot point several times. This in a strip about dudes who work in a toy store with a talking car in the sock room.
Just because something’s a punchline in a Willis strip doesn’t mean it’s not an important character moment.
The six state constitutions that effectively bar atheists from running for public office, the studies that show that the only group less trusted than atheists in the US is RAPISTS, and the fact that this hostile attitude is something that people have dealt with before in real life means this hits REALLY close to home.