I know what you mean, the very idea that an entity like YHWY could just exist without some sort of creator seems downright ludicrous.
Marisa Mockery
Well done, sir.
Reltzik
NOTHING is as freaky as what atheists believe!
Gigafreak
I see what you did there
Horerczy
There’s always Nihilism.
Ryan
No, there isn’t.
jpic89
+1,000,000 Internets, holy shit, I haven’t laughed like that in weeks. Thank you good sir.
Aisling
+9000 lol.
Vree
Having just spent last evening chatting about wave/particle duality,the true meaning of particles as quanta of force fields, time dilation, and the concept of anti-matter (including the retrocasual interpretation), I’m inclined to agree.
The craziest.
Oberon
Sounds like you had the typical New Years, just drunkenly blathering on about nothing at all. 🙂
As an atheist I’ve always wondered how Christians reconciled the clear and obvious contradictions between the old and new testaments. And for that matter, between parts of the new testament and itself. I’ve heard that “new covenant” excuse before, but my reaction is similar to Sara’s. It seems to me that if you need to approach your religion like a lawyer, piecing together this and that phrase from disparate parts of the bible in order to attempt to justify your position on some topic, you’re doing it wrong.
As someone who has actually read the bible and the Quran (although I’m far less familiar with the Quran) I’ve found that anyone who picks an argument with me over religion soon finds themselves on the losing end of the facts, so I typically “win” simply by throwing out enough actual quotes from their holy book that the other person just doesn’t believe actually exist, so I get to tell them to actually read their holy book before trying to argue about what it says. 🙂
Annie
As a kid when I’d ask why I was allowed to wear pants or eat shrimp, catfish and bacon, or why my brother wasn’t dropped off at the edge of town for disrespecting our dad like it says in the Old Testament I was always told one of two things along with the “New Covenant” thing:
1) The Old Testament is included in the Bible as a history lesson. It shows who we were and who God was before Christ was born, died and resurrected. It shows why it’s so important that Jesus died for our sins.
2) The Old Testament isn’t meant to be taken 100% seriously. Especially not the laws in Deuteronomy and Leviticus. The 10 Commandments were the only ones meant to be serious. The other laws are meant to show that no human on Earth is perfect enough to be equal to God’s standards.
Neither explanation ever made sense to me and both just made me have a bunch of new questions that I could never get answers for. That could be why now I’m so agnostic as to essentially be atheist.
Robbzilla
The Old Testament (OT) especially was written in the mode of the time, which included a lot of hyperbole. For example, when 1 Samuel 15:8 said “And he took Agag the king of the Amalekites alive, and utterly destroyed all the people with the edge of the sword.”, not all of the people were actually utterly destoryed. This was the way things were reported, and not to be taken 100% literally. (The people in question showed back up later to cause trouble).
To compare writing styles, Ramses III once wrote “I slew the Denyon in their islands, while the Tjekker and Philistines were made ashes. The Sherden and the Washesh of the sea were made non-existent, captured all together and brought on captivity to Egypt like the sands of the shore.”
Pretty similar. Utterly destroyed vs. make nonexistent are pretty similar statements in hyperbole. Ramses later goes on to state that they were captured.
This is just an example of the writing style of the times. I hope it brings a little perspective. It’s not supposed to be taken literally, as we do today. It’s rhetoric, as is much of the OT.
(I Stole these examples shamelessly from http://www.tektonics.org/gk/hyperbole.php, which goes into great detail in regard to the hyperbole of the bible, the mindset of the writers, and our mindset which brings up so many questions about the writing.)
Tenn
So basically “And he pwnzored ALL of teh noobs!”
whatever
Actually, those laws were primarily made for a time when eating shellfish and pork would kill you, as they’re dirty animals in the wild, and carry diseases that we could easily get. The disobedience thing was basically the perscribed and used punishment at the time, so it was what was used. Also, where was the pants thing? Never heard that before.
Astatine
You’re right in the sense that there’s laws that demonstrated how impossible it was to be 100% holy. However, there’s still laws that carry over from the OT because– at least, as far as most Christian theologians put it– there’s three types of law: moral, ceremonial, and Israeli civil. The ceremonial laws (e.g. dietary restrictions) is what you’re referring to.
qka
Shouldn’t that be “What Atheists don’t believe”?
Yet_One_More_Idiot
No, us Atheists have beliefs too. They’re just pretty much the polar opposite of religious beliefs – that is, just as Christians believe that there is a God, we* believe that there isn’t.
(* This is a generalisation. Pretty much every Atheist has their own unique beliefs in practice, but they tend to coincide quite a lot of time)
To sum it up:
Christians DO believe that there is a God.
Agnostics either do not believe that there is a God (as in, they’re not sure), or they do believe that it’s impossible to be sure that there is a God. Depends on who you ask for a definition.
Apatheists don’t care if there’s a God or not.
Atheists DO believe that there is NO God.
Agnostics aren’t sure, so they kind-of sit in the middle. Then there are Christians at one end and Atheists at the other, who are both sure in their beliefs in the existence and non-existence, respectively, of God. Basically. xD
Jen Aside
Pretty sure atheism isn’t God-exclusive… but then, as an athorist, I disbelieve the specific existence of Thor, so =D
begbert2
To speak as an atheist, I disagree, because 1) you seem to be implying that atheists have a consistent belief system (beliefS, plural) with each other, which we don’t, and 2) because the one sole belief that you could theoretically attribute to all atheists, an active disbelief in god/God/Vishnu/theorized undefined gods, isn’t actually the case for a lot of self-proclaimed atheists. There’s a pretty common definition for atheists which is simply “doesn’t believe in any gods” and which includes babies and rocks in the definition. The kind of active disbelief you speak of is commonly called something like “hard atheism”, while mere disbelief is called “soft atheism” – they’re both atheism.
Personally I’m an atheist, in that I don’t believe in any gods, but I don’t go to the effort to have active declarative disbelief in most of them. Thor, for instance. Don’t care about him. Vishnu. Don’t know anything about him. (Her? I dunno). I don’t actively disbelieve in either of them. And as for the Christan God, which Christian god? There are so many different versions. Tri-omni gods obviously don’t exist due to the problem of evil, but beyond that? I have provisional disbelief but I’ll accept a unicorn with sufficient evidence too. (No Christian has sufficient evidence, because they consider head trips and faith to be evidence.)
So yeah. By my definition, there are theists and non-theists (aka atheists). All agnostics are either theists or atheists, grouped under the handy labels of “theistic agnostics” and “atheist agnostics”. Or as I generally think of them, “non-specific believers” and “atheists who don’t like the stigma of the label”.
Vishnu is a god (male), fyi. All the three main Hindu gods (Vishnu, Shiva, Brahma) are male. (You wouldn’t believe the amount of people that think Shiva is female because of the final fantasy summon…).
ICSM
And there are the apatheists/apathetic agnostics, the guys who think that God might exist or not, but they don’t really care too much about it.
I’m agnostc without being neither theist or atheist because my awnser to the question “Does a God exist” is “Dunno, why would I care about it? It won’t change a single thing in my life in the long run”
Vree
Be careful saying that atheists “believe”. Many are picky about that.
1, because “belief” as defined by Christianity (which differs from the everyday meaning) is something we don’t do, and 2, it is possible to have a kind of thinking based entirely on rational thought and instinct (where instinctive things take the place of axioms) and have things naturally arise from that, without the need of a central belief (god) for an axiom, so saying that you have to believe is doubly false. (And if you simply define belief as thought, then you have moved far from the religious meaning of the word.)
“Aren’t sure” isn’t quite accurate, vis a vis Agnostics. Agnostics aren’t on the fence, no matter what some theists and some atheists believe. Agnostics have not found compelling reasons or evidence to support a solid belief in any side of the equation.
In effect, “the absence of proof does not equate the proof of absence” applies, as does “the existence of creation implies a creator.” Agnosticism, for many, means ‘receptive to input from all sides.’
Which is why statements (which weren’t said above, by the way) like “an agnostic is an atheist without the courage of his convictions” rankles so much. Agnosticism is a philosophical and theological viewpoint on all its own.
Also: http://xkcd.com/1211/
Birds are dinosaurs and Trex is more like a bird than a stegosaurus.
khambatta
What I want to know is, have they decided what T. Rex wings looked like yet – are we talking barely noticeable, as in a Kiwi, or enormous, like an Ostrich?
khambatta, it isn’t clear what the status of T. rex’s feathers was in general. Some think adults my not have had feathers, since their size means they certainly wouldn’t need them for insulation. If they did have feathers, they may have just been in a few places, for display (some dinos seem to follow this pattern). The arms where so small it seems unlikely they would be displaying much with them. And on the flip side they were heavily muscled, feathers might have interfered with whatever purpose they were being used for.
The Old Testament is superseded by the New Testament in Christian doctrine on the grounds of what Jesus and some of the apostles said in the opening books of the New Testament and little more. The Old Testament remains a part of the Christian Bible because it is still considered the Word of God™ and for historical reference. It is also often cited as a guide even though it is no longer considered hard law. In any case where the Old Testament and the New Testament disagree with one another the New Testament is deferred to. Even Christians understand the statute of limitations, though that may be the only complex concept they admire.
None of it’s supposed to be hard law except for those commandments which were in the old testament. The rest of it, ALL of the rest of it, is just guidance for morals that have been translated from translations of translations so many times that it’s really just not worth the effort to argue about. The end all be all should be “Don’t be a dick and don’t kill people”, but you can’t get followers to give tithes and offerings without at least an hours worth of personal interpretation of a small part of the book every Sunday.
Also, considering that several times in the New Testament does Jesus say to NOT WORSHIP HIM but to worship God instead, but churches are filled with depictions of Jesus, people constantly praise Jesus, people make songs to worship Jesus, and yet the old testament had a commandment to not worship other idols. “Oh he was just being humble” “Oh but he’s God’s son” “Oh but he and God are both one as the Holy Trinity” etc. etc. excuse after excuse.
Sailor_Arashi
Ironically Jesus also says that people who pray in public are just looking for attention, and that prayer should always be done in private. He’d be dead-set against prayer in school, among many other things. It’s incredible how many Christian traditions are basically the exact opposite of what Christ wanted.
David
Well, you would not want to trust Jesus Christ on traditions. Jesus was a jew, and the jews crucified our Lord and Saviour.
And Jesus was a pretty chauvinist jew, to boot. Just read the “It is not meet to take the children’s bread and cast it before the dogs” passage.
“The Old Testament is superseded by the New Testament in Christian doctrine on the grounds of what Jesus and some of the apostles said in the opening books of the New Testament and little more.”
You must be referring to the part where Christ said:
“Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill.
For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the Law until all is accomplished.”
Or perhaps there is some other meaning of “supersede” (to take the place of, to replace) which has the equivalent meaning to “not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the Law until all is accomplished” (to not change in any way, to remain the same) of which I am not aware?
fogel
I think no one has mentioned that originally the Apostles upheld observance of The Law, whereas Paul threw it overboard. As I recall he said that the law is good, but avails nothin without faith in Jesus, whereas if you have faith you don’t need the law. Which the Apostles called him on the carpet for … as if Paul cared what they thought. I’ve always suspected, though, that Paul u understood that The Law was a huge barrier to entry if you wanted to convert Gentiles, especially THE sign of the original covenant between God and His People.
The intro to my copy of the Bible says we were released from OT law by the new covenant, but we read it still because it shows God’s love for humanity, as did His sacrificing His son, of course.
Note: Joyce is not in general a good guide to “what Christians believe”. She is a good guide to what certain sects of Christian believe — in particular, the sect that David Willis grew up in. But there’s a lot of disagreement on points of doctrine between different sects.
That said, yes, the whole “Jesus supersedes the old covenant” is pretty solid for most forms of Christianity as far as I can tell. Except when someone wants to use the Old Testament to justify their politics or something. Then you take whatever you need.
I keep having to remind myself about the autobiographical aspects of Joyce’s character whenever she annoys me. I get frustrated when the only representation of Christianity in the comic is either practically inactive, (Billie, for example,) or else the extreme end of the spectrum to the point that she’s consistently mistaken for being an exaggerated strawman. (The only other Christian character type is Mary, who is pretty much evil.) David Willis seems pretty good at writing characters from many different walks of life rather believably, so I kind of wish there was at least one character who was actively Christian without being so neive and sheltered that they seem like a parody. I can see why he doesn’t write in a character (or add that detail to an existing character) for the sake of simply representing a demographic, but as a Christian it gets frustrating for me when (almost) every single time religion is brought up, it is made fun of with nobody around to legitimately defend the belief system.
There are so many different types of people in Dumbing of Age, it just strikes me as odd that there are only two decidedly Christian characters, with one being evil and the other being the far extreme end of the spectrum. (Especially when Indiana resides squarely inside the Bible Belt.)
thebombzen
what about sierra or the rest of the people Joyce and she go to church with?
No Name
To be fair, none of them get much face time.
Maxy
Pretty much this, they’re never around when someone else is making fun of Joyce’s beliefs. (Or when the story is breaking them down without a specific person to do the making fun.) The one time Sierra does mention what she enjoyed about church… It was their carpet.
No Name
Actually, I think Becky might be fulfilling that particular niche soon. Were not sure yet, but I’m pretty sure she still identifies as a devout Christian. But considering she’s a lesbian on the lam, I doubt she’d be as naive and sheltered as Joyce.
Side note: If Joyce is autobiographical, does this mean one of Willis’s friends from high school is gay? And If so, did he (assuming gender switches all around) get a happy ending?
Maxy
I really hope he does this, at least a little. A lesbian but otherwise devout character seems like a perfect fit for this role.
The Old Testament IS superseded by the New Testament- Christ is quoted as saying “I bring a new law” among other things. But it’s not statute of limitations- it’s more like legal torts, where the latest decision supersedes an older decision. The old testament was for a specific chosen people- the Hebrews. Whereas Christ’s message was for all humanity. However, he always spoke from the foundation of Judaic law and, of course, was Jewish. One thing he did not speak on was homosexuality so it’s generally accepted that what was regarded as a sin is still regarded as a sin- with one significant change. Everyone remembers the story of how he stopped the mob from stoning an adultress. What most people forget is what he told the adultress afterwards- Go now, and sin no more. IE: she had been sinning, and God would judge her for it, but that was not a reason for fallible humanity to kill her. Similarly to how he treated the old laws of an eye for an eye and the other punishments from Leviticus, what had been a sin was still a sin, but punishing sin was the responsibility of God, not Man.
Luke 6.22: Blessed are ye, when men shall hate you, and when they shall separate you from their company, and shall reproach you, and cast out your name as evil, for the Son of man’s sake.
The point in not stoning the adulteress was that she could not have done it without the people who now wanted to stone her. It’s about hypocrisy.
fogel
Let whoever is without sin?
(Stone sails in from the back of the mob. Jesus is PO’d, shouts “who did that?” Sees the person, says “Mom, cut that out!”)
366 thoughts on “Applicable”
Khaner
Huh. So my Hebrew school teacher was right. That IS what Christians believe!
Plasma Mongoose
It’s almost a freaky as what Scientologists believe.
Yotomoe
But not quite as freaky as what Athiests believe!
Plasma Mongoose
I know what you mean, the very idea that an entity like YHWY could just exist without some sort of creator seems downright ludicrous.
Marisa Mockery
Well done, sir.
Reltzik
NOTHING is as freaky as what atheists believe!
Gigafreak
I see what you did there
Horerczy
There’s always Nihilism.
Ryan
No, there isn’t.
jpic89
+1,000,000 Internets, holy shit, I haven’t laughed like that in weeks. Thank you good sir.
Aisling
+9000 lol.
Vree
Having just spent last evening chatting about wave/particle duality,the true meaning of particles as quanta of force fields, time dilation, and the concept of anti-matter (including the retrocasual interpretation), I’m inclined to agree.
The craziest.
Oberon
Sounds like you had the typical New Years, just drunkenly blathering on about nothing at all. 🙂
As an atheist I’ve always wondered how Christians reconciled the clear and obvious contradictions between the old and new testaments. And for that matter, between parts of the new testament and itself. I’ve heard that “new covenant” excuse before, but my reaction is similar to Sara’s. It seems to me that if you need to approach your religion like a lawyer, piecing together this and that phrase from disparate parts of the bible in order to attempt to justify your position on some topic, you’re doing it wrong.
As someone who has actually read the bible and the Quran (although I’m far less familiar with the Quran) I’ve found that anyone who picks an argument with me over religion soon finds themselves on the losing end of the facts, so I typically “win” simply by throwing out enough actual quotes from their holy book that the other person just doesn’t believe actually exist, so I get to tell them to actually read their holy book before trying to argue about what it says. 🙂
Annie
As a kid when I’d ask why I was allowed to wear pants or eat shrimp, catfish and bacon, or why my brother wasn’t dropped off at the edge of town for disrespecting our dad like it says in the Old Testament I was always told one of two things along with the “New Covenant” thing:
1) The Old Testament is included in the Bible as a history lesson. It shows who we were and who God was before Christ was born, died and resurrected. It shows why it’s so important that Jesus died for our sins.
2) The Old Testament isn’t meant to be taken 100% seriously. Especially not the laws in Deuteronomy and Leviticus. The 10 Commandments were the only ones meant to be serious. The other laws are meant to show that no human on Earth is perfect enough to be equal to God’s standards.
Neither explanation ever made sense to me and both just made me have a bunch of new questions that I could never get answers for. That could be why now I’m so agnostic as to essentially be atheist.
Robbzilla
The Old Testament (OT) especially was written in the mode of the time, which included a lot of hyperbole. For example, when 1 Samuel 15:8 said “And he took Agag the king of the Amalekites alive, and utterly destroyed all the people with the edge of the sword.”, not all of the people were actually utterly destoryed. This was the way things were reported, and not to be taken 100% literally. (The people in question showed back up later to cause trouble).
To compare writing styles, Ramses III once wrote “I slew the Denyon in their islands, while the Tjekker and Philistines were made ashes. The Sherden and the Washesh of the sea were made non-existent, captured all together and brought on captivity to Egypt like the sands of the shore.”
Pretty similar. Utterly destroyed vs. make nonexistent are pretty similar statements in hyperbole. Ramses later goes on to state that they were captured.
This is just an example of the writing style of the times. I hope it brings a little perspective. It’s not supposed to be taken literally, as we do today. It’s rhetoric, as is much of the OT.
(I Stole these examples shamelessly from http://www.tektonics.org/gk/hyperbole.php, which goes into great detail in regard to the hyperbole of the bible, the mindset of the writers, and our mindset which brings up so many questions about the writing.)
Tenn
So basically “And he pwnzored ALL of teh noobs!”
whatever
Actually, those laws were primarily made for a time when eating shellfish and pork would kill you, as they’re dirty animals in the wild, and carry diseases that we could easily get. The disobedience thing was basically the perscribed and used punishment at the time, so it was what was used. Also, where was the pants thing? Never heard that before.
Astatine
You’re right in the sense that there’s laws that demonstrated how impossible it was to be 100% holy. However, there’s still laws that carry over from the OT because– at least, as far as most Christian theologians put it– there’s three types of law: moral, ceremonial, and Israeli civil. The ceremonial laws (e.g. dietary restrictions) is what you’re referring to.
qka
Shouldn’t that be “What Atheists don’t believe”?
Yet_One_More_Idiot
No, us Atheists have beliefs too. They’re just pretty much the polar opposite of religious beliefs – that is, just as Christians believe that there is a God, we* believe that there isn’t.
(* This is a generalisation. Pretty much every Atheist has their own unique beliefs in practice, but they tend to coincide quite a lot of time)
To sum it up:
Christians DO believe that there is a God.
Agnostics either do not believe that there is a God (as in, they’re not sure), or they do believe that it’s impossible to be sure that there is a God. Depends on who you ask for a definition.
Apatheists don’t care if there’s a God or not.
Atheists DO believe that there is NO God.
Agnostics aren’t sure, so they kind-of sit in the middle. Then there are Christians at one end and Atheists at the other, who are both sure in their beliefs in the existence and non-existence, respectively, of God. Basically. xD
Jen Aside
Pretty sure atheism isn’t God-exclusive… but then, as an athorist, I disbelieve the specific existence of Thor, so =D
begbert2
To speak as an atheist, I disagree, because 1) you seem to be implying that atheists have a consistent belief system (beliefS, plural) with each other, which we don’t, and 2) because the one sole belief that you could theoretically attribute to all atheists, an active disbelief in god/God/Vishnu/theorized undefined gods, isn’t actually the case for a lot of self-proclaimed atheists. There’s a pretty common definition for atheists which is simply “doesn’t believe in any gods” and which includes babies and rocks in the definition. The kind of active disbelief you speak of is commonly called something like “hard atheism”, while mere disbelief is called “soft atheism” – they’re both atheism.
Personally I’m an atheist, in that I don’t believe in any gods, but I don’t go to the effort to have active declarative disbelief in most of them. Thor, for instance. Don’t care about him. Vishnu. Don’t know anything about him. (Her? I dunno). I don’t actively disbelieve in either of them. And as for the Christan God, which Christian god? There are so many different versions. Tri-omni gods obviously don’t exist due to the problem of evil, but beyond that? I have provisional disbelief but I’ll accept a unicorn with sufficient evidence too. (No Christian has sufficient evidence, because they consider head trips and faith to be evidence.)
So yeah. By my definition, there are theists and non-theists (aka atheists). All agnostics are either theists or atheists, grouped under the handy labels of “theistic agnostics” and “atheist agnostics”. Or as I generally think of them, “non-specific believers” and “atheists who don’t like the stigma of the label”.
Airyu
Vishnu is a god (male), fyi. All the three main Hindu gods (Vishnu, Shiva, Brahma) are male. (You wouldn’t believe the amount of people that think Shiva is female because of the final fantasy summon…).
ICSM
And there are the apatheists/apathetic agnostics, the guys who think that God might exist or not, but they don’t really care too much about it.
I’m agnostc without being neither theist or atheist because my awnser to the question “Does a God exist” is “Dunno, why would I care about it? It won’t change a single thing in my life in the long run”
Vree
Be careful saying that atheists “believe”. Many are picky about that.
1, because “belief” as defined by Christianity (which differs from the everyday meaning) is something we don’t do, and 2, it is possible to have a kind of thinking based entirely on rational thought and instinct (where instinctive things take the place of axioms) and have things naturally arise from that, without the need of a central belief (god) for an axiom, so saying that you have to believe is doubly false. (And if you simply define belief as thought, then you have moved far from the religious meaning of the word.)
Eric Burns-White
(A year later….)
“Aren’t sure” isn’t quite accurate, vis a vis Agnostics. Agnostics aren’t on the fence, no matter what some theists and some atheists believe. Agnostics have not found compelling reasons or evidence to support a solid belief in any side of the equation.
In effect, “the absence of proof does not equate the proof of absence” applies, as does “the existence of creation implies a creator.” Agnosticism, for many, means ‘receptive to input from all sides.’
Which is why statements (which weren’t said above, by the way) like “an agnostic is an atheist without the courage of his convictions” rankles so much. Agnosticism is a philosophical and theological viewpoint on all its own.
Opus the Poet
The difference between an atheist and a monotheist is the atheist disbelieves in one fewer deity.
newllend
Hey did you know crocodiles are more closely related to Sparrow’s than lizards?
Plasma Mongoose
I believe that it’s also true in the Pokémon world.
Kelly
Yes. Crocodiles and birds are both archosaurs.
TheChickapedia
And also, chickens are distantly related to TRex. Or something like that.
Kelly
“T. rex”. “TRex” is a kind of fake lumber I think. Chickens are considerably closer to T. rex than they are to crocodiles.
In common terms, it goes like this: http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/museum/events/bigdinos2005/images/dino_tree.gif
(T. rex is in there with “other theropods”)
fogel
Also: http://xkcd.com/1211/
Birds are dinosaurs and Trex is more like a bird than a stegosaurus.
khambatta
What I want to know is, have they decided what T. Rex wings looked like yet – are we talking barely noticeable, as in a Kiwi, or enormous, like an Ostrich?
Gamaran Sepudomyn
Their arms are tiny, so barely noticeable.
Kelly
khambatta, it isn’t clear what the status of T. rex’s feathers was in general. Some think adults my not have had feathers, since their size means they certainly wouldn’t need them for insulation. If they did have feathers, they may have just been in a few places, for display (some dinos seem to follow this pattern). The arms where so small it seems unlikely they would be displaying much with them. And on the flip side they were heavily muscled, feathers might have interfered with whatever purpose they were being used for.
newllend
I thought Joyce was a Mormon?
Plasma Mongoose
IIRC, Sierra was the Mormon.
Belegcam
That would be Agatha.
Plasma Mongoose
My mistake.
Aeron
Sierra is shoeophobe.
Twilightomens
…
David Herbert
No, she’s anti-mormon. Sort of.
Swerve
I thought she was an anti-Papist.
SteveCharb
well after what she’s been through, who can blame her?
Wait, nevermind, you said “Papist” with a “P”
Swerve
I think you were mixing up Joyce with Sarah for a moment. Sarah was the one with the bat.
Yotomoe
No, she’s a MORON. I can see how you got confused.
Disloyal Subject
Fortunately, ignorance and naiveté are curable. Unfortunately for her, it’s likely to be an unpleasant process.
Amazistool
I’ve linked it yesterday, i link it again:
Her parents go to a nondenominational church and she was worried that Sierra is catholic, so anti-Papist is also correct.
Pink Freud
Gah I have had almost this exact conversation with my mother a hundred times. Well, this one was more friendly.
Aeron
The Old Testament is superseded by the New Testament in Christian doctrine on the grounds of what Jesus and some of the apostles said in the opening books of the New Testament and little more. The Old Testament remains a part of the Christian Bible because it is still considered the Word of God™ and for historical reference. It is also often cited as a guide even though it is no longer considered hard law. In any case where the Old Testament and the New Testament disagree with one another the New Testament is deferred to. Even Christians understand the statute of limitations, though that may be the only complex concept they admire.
Source: I grew up Christian, then I got better.
Shadow12000
None of it’s supposed to be hard law except for those commandments which were in the old testament. The rest of it, ALL of the rest of it, is just guidance for morals that have been translated from translations of translations so many times that it’s really just not worth the effort to argue about. The end all be all should be “Don’t be a dick and don’t kill people”, but you can’t get followers to give tithes and offerings without at least an hours worth of personal interpretation of a small part of the book every Sunday.
Opus the Poet
Or as B&T said, “Be excellent to each other!”
Kryss LaBryn
*Slowly mimes an air guitar*
Kinoko
Party on, dude!
B
To that point, isn’t Leviticus supposed to be a rulebook exclusively for Levite priests?
David
Just guidance? Whatever happened to “I’ve not come to dissolve the law but to fulfill it. Whoever is going to touch one iota of the law etc etc”?
Shadow12000
Also, considering that several times in the New Testament does Jesus say to NOT WORSHIP HIM but to worship God instead, but churches are filled with depictions of Jesus, people constantly praise Jesus, people make songs to worship Jesus, and yet the old testament had a commandment to not worship other idols. “Oh he was just being humble” “Oh but he’s God’s son” “Oh but he and God are both one as the Holy Trinity” etc. etc. excuse after excuse.
Sailor_Arashi
Ironically Jesus also says that people who pray in public are just looking for attention, and that prayer should always be done in private. He’d be dead-set against prayer in school, among many other things. It’s incredible how many Christian traditions are basically the exact opposite of what Christ wanted.
David
Well, you would not want to trust Jesus Christ on traditions. Jesus was a jew, and the jews crucified our Lord and Saviour.
And Jesus was a pretty chauvinist jew, to boot. Just read the “It is not meet to take the children’s bread and cast it before the dogs” passage.
Oberon
“The Old Testament is superseded by the New Testament in Christian doctrine on the grounds of what Jesus and some of the apostles said in the opening books of the New Testament and little more.”
You must be referring to the part where Christ said:
“Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill.
For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the Law until all is accomplished.”
Or perhaps there is some other meaning of “supersede” (to take the place of, to replace) which has the equivalent meaning to “not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the Law until all is accomplished” (to not change in any way, to remain the same) of which I am not aware?
fogel
I think no one has mentioned that originally the Apostles upheld observance of The Law, whereas Paul threw it overboard. As I recall he said that the law is good, but avails nothin without faith in Jesus, whereas if you have faith you don’t need the law. Which the Apostles called him on the carpet for … as if Paul cared what they thought. I’ve always suspected, though, that Paul u understood that The Law was a huge barrier to entry if you wanted to convert Gentiles, especially THE sign of the original covenant between God and His People.
fogel
The intro to my copy of the Bible says we were released from OT law by the new covenant, but we read it still because it shows God’s love for humanity, as did His sacrificing His son, of course.
Baf
Note: Joyce is not in general a good guide to “what Christians believe”. She is a good guide to what certain sects of Christian believe — in particular, the sect that David Willis grew up in. But there’s a lot of disagreement on points of doctrine between different sects.
That said, yes, the whole “Jesus supersedes the old covenant” is pretty solid for most forms of Christianity as far as I can tell. Except when someone wants to use the Old Testament to justify their politics or something. Then you take whatever you need.
Maxy
I keep having to remind myself about the autobiographical aspects of Joyce’s character whenever she annoys me. I get frustrated when the only representation of Christianity in the comic is either practically inactive, (Billie, for example,) or else the extreme end of the spectrum to the point that she’s consistently mistaken for being an exaggerated strawman. (The only other Christian character type is Mary, who is pretty much evil.) David Willis seems pretty good at writing characters from many different walks of life rather believably, so I kind of wish there was at least one character who was actively Christian without being so neive and sheltered that they seem like a parody. I can see why he doesn’t write in a character (or add that detail to an existing character) for the sake of simply representing a demographic, but as a Christian it gets frustrating for me when (almost) every single time religion is brought up, it is made fun of with nobody around to legitimately defend the belief system.
There are so many different types of people in Dumbing of Age, it just strikes me as odd that there are only two decidedly Christian characters, with one being evil and the other being the far extreme end of the spectrum. (Especially when Indiana resides squarely inside the Bible Belt.)
thebombzen
what about sierra or the rest of the people Joyce and she go to church with?
No Name
To be fair, none of them get much face time.
Maxy
Pretty much this, they’re never around when someone else is making fun of Joyce’s beliefs. (Or when the story is breaking them down without a specific person to do the making fun.) The one time Sierra does mention what she enjoyed about church… It was their carpet.
No Name
Actually, I think Becky might be fulfilling that particular niche soon. Were not sure yet, but I’m pretty sure she still identifies as a devout Christian. But considering she’s a lesbian on the lam, I doubt she’d be as naive and sheltered as Joyce.
Side note: If Joyce is autobiographical, does this mean one of Willis’s friends from high school is gay? And If so, did he (assuming gender switches all around) get a happy ending?
Maxy
I really hope he does this, at least a little. A lesbian but otherwise devout character seems like a perfect fit for this role.
Ukrongrad
The Old Testament IS superseded by the New Testament- Christ is quoted as saying “I bring a new law” among other things. But it’s not statute of limitations- it’s more like legal torts, where the latest decision supersedes an older decision. The old testament was for a specific chosen people- the Hebrews. Whereas Christ’s message was for all humanity. However, he always spoke from the foundation of Judaic law and, of course, was Jewish. One thing he did not speak on was homosexuality so it’s generally accepted that what was regarded as a sin is still regarded as a sin- with one significant change. Everyone remembers the story of how he stopped the mob from stoning an adultress. What most people forget is what he told the adultress afterwards- Go now, and sin no more. IE: she had been sinning, and God would judge her for it, but that was not a reason for fallible humanity to kill her. Similarly to how he treated the old laws of an eye for an eye and the other punishments from Leviticus, what had been a sin was still a sin, but punishing sin was the responsibility of God, not Man.
Luke 6.22: Blessed are ye, when men shall hate you, and when they shall separate you from their company, and shall reproach you, and cast out your name as evil, for the Son of man’s sake.
tinfoil theory
The point in not stoning the adulteress was that she could not have done it without the people who now wanted to stone her. It’s about hypocrisy.
fogel
Let whoever is without sin?
(Stone sails in from the back of the mob. Jesus is PO’d, shouts “who did that?” Sees the person, says “Mom, cut that out!”)
ukrongrad
ROFLOL 🙂 and it’s doctrinally correct!
nothri