Wouldn’t be surprised. My own experience in high school and college was the narrow-minded religious fanatics were the first to fall into a pit of moral degeneracy by their own faith’s definition. They were almost always hypocritical about it as well. “If I do it, it’s not a sin, but if YOU do it you’ll burn in HELL!”
That sounds kind of ridiculous. Do people tolerate the company of the individuals you speak of? Because they sound like they wouldn’t really be fit for any social group. Outcast both by those who value morals and those who don’t. Almost definitively unlikable.
Hypocrisy usually doesn’t bother people as much as you’d think. I think it’s because most people aren’t willing to throw stones.
gangler
Well hypocrisy is a facet of what was described to be sure, but if someone is some manner of moral degenerate, then they probably don’t fit in at church, and if they spend all their time condemning moral degenerates, I can’t see them fitting in with that crowd either. I’m having trouble imagining a viable social circle for the type of person described here.
People aren’t necessarily bothered by hypocrisy, but to systematically alienate yourself both from religious people, and from the secular world, this seems like it would at the very least severely limit social options.
KCO
Unfortunately these people congregate in large groups. Living in the Bible Belt of the South of know this all too well.
Katosen27
My mother is one of those types
Ancestral Hamster
In high school, since these people were all of the same fundamentalist sect, it seemed just the “moral” standard of that congregation. So this was a case of “how is it that you see the mote in thy brother’s eye, but not the beam in thine own”. Whether that blatant hypocrisy was typical of that particular branch of Christian fundamentalism or just to the local chapter of it, I don’t know.
In college, while they were tolerated and seemed to have friends (or at least drinking/drugging buddies), I cannot say definitively since I had more options to avoid them, as opposed to growing up with them and so learning about them and their church regardless of my own wishes.
@Loki. Indeed. Those willing to throw stones are usually the hypocrites themselves.
gangler
Oh wow. Two responses while I was typing. Certainly I can understand the mass assembly of fools, and I suppose the social workings of society have all sorts of strange mechanisms that would allow these people to congregate without going at eachother’s throats.
And yes, there seems to be some odd quirk about human nature that dictates that the harshest criticizers are generally guilty themselves. I don’t know why it is that the man who spends his time criticizing everyone he views as “wussier” than himself can do nothing but bongo and complain when given any piece of work, inconvenience, or general tribulation, but there it is.
You’ve obviously never been (or dated) a fundamentalist – not only is your religion part of the criteria, but the exact denomination as well. Back when I was religious, my old church seemed to think Catholics were going to a special hotter place in Hell than even heathen nonbelievers…
Ya, some people can be very picky. I’m Christian and while I wouldn’t necessarily recommend dating someone outside of the religion, it’s by no means a sin or wrong as far as I’m concerned. Some people thoguh believe you’ll go straight to Hell for that one. Some people can just be so fickle.
Shift
And let’s not forget the parents of those kids. There are many kids who refuse to date people form outside their faith, not because of their own opinions, but because they know their parent’s won’t approve.
gangler
Been there. Try growing up mormon, knowing that there are sixteen women of your faith in the city for you to pursue, and seventeen men to compete with. No one wants to be the odd man out because if you don’t get married and have children then you can’t get into heaven.
When it gets most ridiculous is when people actually move to cities with higher concentrations of mormon women for that sole purpose. God I’m glad I could finally just mellow out with the whole religious shtick once I moved out for college.
FlyingFish
I think this is a result of the hurdles people set up for themselves. More morals means more ways to screw up, and if you let your whole identity ride on those morals, when you screw up it can be devastating. And even when you succeed, watching everyone around you not even care about the same morals, and enjoying themselves more than you, just adds to the temptation. Combine the slip-ups and the frustration, and something is likely to burst as the person decides “screw it!”
Especially true for those who previously were surrounded (solely) by supportive peers and now find themselves thrown to the wolves with no defenses (e.g. college students who were previously home schooled). Those who didn’t grow up isolated from the world are more likely to have gotten support and practice when the temptation first arose, and know where it’s okay to bend and where they need to stand firm. If they’re first exposed to other ideas after they’re separated from any support, they’ll try to resist everything and crack like an egg from the pressure.
I actually had a good friend on the receiving end of that attitude when he first moved from the Detroit area to Dallas/Fort Worth to work for Radio Shack/Tandy years ago. A co-worker & his wife invited my friend to a church ice-cream social when my friend saw a cute girl in the crowd. He later asked the co-worker “why didn’t you introduce me to her?” and the co-worker (totally straight-faced) said, “Well, since you’re Jewish -and therefore damned for all time – I didn’t want to put the temptation in front of her.” Fun in the bible-belt….
I’m pretty sure the point here is that when you think that someone loves, or could love, you, then you start to compromise for them. Whether or not Christianity is the ‘truth’, disregarding your own beliefs for a date is usually bad.
I don’t think cautioning against inter-faith romance counts as anti-semitism. Neither Becky nor her pastor singled out Jewish folk as bad to date. And for particularly devout individuals, dating someone with similar beliefs is actually pretty sensible advice.
Now I don’t know how much emphasis Joyce’s and Becky’s church (in the DoAverse) puts on proselytizing. But in our world, don’t the more gung-ho of the evangelical denominations give you major bonus points for getting Jews in particular to accept Christ, more so than other non-Christians? Given that, in their theology, the New Testament supercedes the Hebrew scriptures, and belief in Jesus supercedes the laws of the Torah? Not to mention how we allegedly were the ones who betrayed him the most because he was one of us, etc., etc.
When I was in Hebrew school, Jewish summer camps and such, the rabbis used to warn us about how there were entire evangelical organizations (like “Jews for Jesus”) dedicated specifically to witnessing to Jews, for these reasons. So mightn’t Joyce’s church view dating a Jew as an opportunity, rather than a sin? I don’t know. Insufficient data here, probably.
It doesn’t seem like Joyce’s and Becky’s church is one that gives bonus points for converting Jews (at least by dating). If it was, then Becky would be asking things like “Have you gotten him to accept Jesus as his personal Lord and Savior” instead of scolding Joyce for dating non-Christians.
Conversion is viewed as great in most religions. The more sensible one’s (which is of course all relative) realize that dating other religions has more potential for the loss of a member than anything else. It’s just not the smartest means of proselytizing, with such high risk, and very little potential gain (spending ages on one person instead of going around the town and rounding up all you can grab).
ME
Actually, conversion’s not that popular outside Christianity, Islam, and maybe the Hare Krishnas.
Lokitsu
Heh, go to NYC sometime and wait for the evangelical jews to show up. (I realize they are a minority in Judaism, but they are darned amusing.)
Dating is a terrible< way to proselytize, because the more one becomes romantically attached to someone the more you want to please them and listen to them and not argue with them – which puts the proselytizer at risk of being converted themselves. Or failing that, having them marry the person without first converting them, resulting in a two-religion household which is very bad for the indoctrinainwashing of kids.
The much better way to proselytize is to do it while thinking of the subjects as mere statistics, that you care nothing at all about except in how they effect your conversion numbers.
The fact that it’s a terrible method doesn’t stop people from attempting it, sadly… Or using it as an excuse, consciously or no, to date people “outside the faith”.
GASP! Non-Christian Dating?! Oh my god! How dreadful! Joyce could be exposed to the opinion and beliefs of other people, allowing for her to grow as a person outside of a single organization! It’s madness! Madness I say!
Good to see where Joyce’s priorities lie. I was expecting Mike to force her out of her comfortable little religious bubble, but Joe doing it will be more interesting.
Mike? Seriously? That seems out of character for him. Wouldn’t the more likely scenario be that Mike completely horrifies Joyce to the point that she flees in terror back, driven so deeply into her religious bubble that slightest opposing stimuli could result in a complete psychotic break?
Shortpacked!Mike has a tendency to force people to acknowledge the worst parts of themselves (usually hypocrisy), leading to growth and maturity. It just so happens that he does it in the most insane, psychotic way imaginable.
However, there are many ways one can say that. Was it the fire and brimstone approach where he anyone who attempts it is condemned to hell or was it an subtle villainization of other religious groups or was he easy going about it and only stating how difficult it can be for some people of opposing faiths.
gangler
Hm… Well in the church I was raised in it mostly took the form of constant reinforcement of how other mormons understood our lifestyles, and outsiders would require lots of explaining of our standards. Outsiders expect things like premarital sex.
Also, outsiders can’t enter the building we do our marriage ceremony in, which means that our marriage wouldn’t be recorded in heaven as well as on earth, which is needed to get into the highest level of heaven. May or may not shed light on her faith, but there it is.
Two points. We’ll start with the boring one first. Joyce and Becky’s pastor does have a legit point – dating someone who doesn’t believe the same things you do, ESPECIALLY if the both of you have really strong religious convictions – can be a bed of thorns. It isn’t inherently bad, and can lead to a lot of very interest conversations and investigation of your own religion, but it is… rough. I say this out of experience.
Of course, considering Joe, I doubt he has anything NEAR what Joyce does in terms of religious conviction. Unless “fucking” is a religion.
That aside! It is also my experience that Christians who are okay with swearing (yes, most hardcore denominations that advocate DO NOT BE UNEQUALLY YOKED would consider “crap” a bad word) are raging hypocrites. This should end interestingly.
If what you said is true, that may not bode well for me and the guy I’m dating at present…completely different in our religious views. Prejudiced bastard(Not you).
In all seriousness, that does not bode well for you, if one or both of you care in any significant way about your religion.
If you’re both the local-religion equivalent of cafeteria catholics, then you might be able to pull it off – possibly without difficulty. But if either of you have the notion that the other person’s religion needs to be changed at some point in the future, well…
I’m not going to pretend that I’m some wise guru that knows all the ins and outs of inter-religion dating, nor am I going to pretend I know everything about your life.
All I’m going to do is advise you to scrutinize your relationship and determine whether or not the headache of arguing with someone about religion is worth it. And if you think it’s worth it, then ask the question about whether or not either one of you will change what you think, and/or can live with the difference. If the answer is “no,” then – heartless as it may seem – you probably ought to break up with him to save the both of you a lot of heartache.
I don’t know you, so bear in mind that I”m just a stranger on the internet that likely doesn’t know what she’s talking about, but the main person you need to be looking out for is you. You have to decide if the difference is worth it.
Yeah, in fairness to Becky, I really doubt the pastor would approve of Joe…though not so much for his Jewishness as his Joeishness. (Not that either of them know that at this point, though I suspect Joyce will fairly soon.)
Neither my parents nor my siblings married people with whom they had precise religious identities. My nieces and nephews are all OK with that. We’re all actually somewhat close to “It’s Walky!” Mike in that respect — we worship our dogs, and they reciprocate. If we were half the people our dogs think we are, we’d be twice the people we are.
So when is she going to have her date so she can have all her hopes and dreams dashed when Joe tries to bang her? It seems so long ago he asked her out.
97 thoughts on “Change”
Jen Aside
GROW INTO THE SAME WOMAN THAT DOESN’T GET YOU LAID
yeah
arjay2813
this is gonna blow up in both their faces…
David Herbert
Kinky.
arjay2813
…i did not actually mean it that way, but i suppose it could work like that..
MrGBH
Nah, even Joe’s not that lucky.
Sakimei
Kinda reminds me of, “Oh, you Pagans and your cute problems!”
Mimi
WHERE IS THAT FROM? I know it, but I really can’t think where from?
Wackd
http://www.itswalky.com/d/20040112.html
T Campbell
Becky’s going to be a pregnant lesbian stripper by semester two.
Ancestral Hamster
Wouldn’t be surprised. My own experience in high school and college was the narrow-minded religious fanatics were the first to fall into a pit of moral degeneracy by their own faith’s definition. They were almost always hypocritical about it as well. “If I do it, it’s not a sin, but if YOU do it you’ll burn in HELL!”
gangler
That sounds kind of ridiculous. Do people tolerate the company of the individuals you speak of? Because they sound like they wouldn’t really be fit for any social group. Outcast both by those who value morals and those who don’t. Almost definitively unlikable.
Loki
Hypocrisy usually doesn’t bother people as much as you’d think. I think it’s because most people aren’t willing to throw stones.
gangler
Well hypocrisy is a facet of what was described to be sure, but if someone is some manner of moral degenerate, then they probably don’t fit in at church, and if they spend all their time condemning moral degenerates, I can’t see them fitting in with that crowd either. I’m having trouble imagining a viable social circle for the type of person described here.
People aren’t necessarily bothered by hypocrisy, but to systematically alienate yourself both from religious people, and from the secular world, this seems like it would at the very least severely limit social options.
KCO
Unfortunately these people congregate in large groups. Living in the Bible Belt of the South of know this all too well.
Katosen27
My mother is one of those types
Ancestral Hamster
In high school, since these people were all of the same fundamentalist sect, it seemed just the “moral” standard of that congregation. So this was a case of “how is it that you see the mote in thy brother’s eye, but not the beam in thine own”. Whether that blatant hypocrisy was typical of that particular branch of Christian fundamentalism or just to the local chapter of it, I don’t know.
In college, while they were tolerated and seemed to have friends (or at least drinking/drugging buddies), I cannot say definitively since I had more options to avoid them, as opposed to growing up with them and so learning about them and their church regardless of my own wishes.
@Loki. Indeed. Those willing to throw stones are usually the hypocrites themselves.
gangler
Oh wow. Two responses while I was typing. Certainly I can understand the mass assembly of fools, and I suppose the social workings of society have all sorts of strange mechanisms that would allow these people to congregate without going at eachother’s throats.
And yes, there seems to be some odd quirk about human nature that dictates that the harshest criticizers are generally guilty themselves. I don’t know why it is that the man who spends his time criticizing everyone he views as “wussier” than himself can do nothing but bongo and complain when given any piece of work, inconvenience, or general tribulation, but there it is.
Jalathas
Sounds like my first girlfriend.
Lokitsu
The good news is Becky will get her own show on TLC.
liahansen
WOW
AngryBamboo
I COME FROM THE FUTURE!!! reading old comments and this one is hilarious in retrospect.
Joebo
You know, I normally wouldn’t consider your date’s religion to be criteria for a first date.
Dakhran
You’ve obviously never been (or dated) a fundamentalist – not only is your religion part of the criteria, but the exact denomination as well. Back when I was religious, my old church seemed to think Catholics were going to a special hotter place in Hell than even heathen nonbelievers…
G.S. Mercs
Ya, some people can be very picky. I’m Christian and while I wouldn’t necessarily recommend dating someone outside of the religion, it’s by no means a sin or wrong as far as I’m concerned. Some people thoguh believe you’ll go straight to Hell for that one. Some people can just be so fickle.
Shift
And let’s not forget the parents of those kids. There are many kids who refuse to date people form outside their faith, not because of their own opinions, but because they know their parent’s won’t approve.
gangler
Been there. Try growing up mormon, knowing that there are sixteen women of your faith in the city for you to pursue, and seventeen men to compete with. No one wants to be the odd man out because if you don’t get married and have children then you can’t get into heaven.
When it gets most ridiculous is when people actually move to cities with higher concentrations of mormon women for that sole purpose. God I’m glad I could finally just mellow out with the whole religious shtick once I moved out for college.
FlyingFish
I think this is a result of the hurdles people set up for themselves. More morals means more ways to screw up, and if you let your whole identity ride on those morals, when you screw up it can be devastating. And even when you succeed, watching everyone around you not even care about the same morals, and enjoying themselves more than you, just adds to the temptation. Combine the slip-ups and the frustration, and something is likely to burst as the person decides “screw it!”
Especially true for those who previously were surrounded (solely) by supportive peers and now find themselves thrown to the wolves with no defenses (e.g. college students who were previously home schooled). Those who didn’t grow up isolated from the world are more likely to have gotten support and practice when the temptation first arose, and know where it’s okay to bend and where they need to stand firm. If they’re first exposed to other ideas after they’re separated from any support, they’ll try to resist everything and crack like an egg from the pressure.
calendarman27
oh dude, i’m catholic and i can tell you we totally are
calendarman27
going to a hotter place in hell i mean, i wanted to be under what i was replying to.
R.J.
I actually had a good friend on the receiving end of that attitude when he first moved from the Detroit area to Dallas/Fort Worth to work for Radio Shack/Tandy years ago. A co-worker & his wife invited my friend to a church ice-cream social when my friend saw a cute girl in the crowd. He later asked the co-worker “why didn’t you introduce me to her?” and the co-worker (totally straight-faced) said, “Well, since you’re Jewish -and therefore damned for all time – I didn’t want to put the temptation in front of her.” Fun in the bible-belt….
Ragnal
Oh no! Dating a Jewish person? That’s…A SIN!
…I’m not doing this sarcasm thing right, am I.
Kaokie
I’m pretty sure the point here is that when you think that someone loves, or could love, you, then you start to compromise for them. Whether or not Christianity is the ‘truth’, disregarding your own beliefs for a date is usually bad.
XtraLargeRyan
Well you were doing it fine… until you asked if you were doing it right.
NF
I love Joyce’s expression in the last panel.
TheSoundDefense
Joyce has her priorities in order I suppose.
Dierna
Wow… all this anti-semitism in a comic….
Dear Joyce and Becky.
Jesus was Jewish……your pastor is a moron…
JK9000
I don’t think cautioning against inter-faith romance counts as anti-semitism. Neither Becky nor her pastor singled out Jewish folk as bad to date. And for particularly devout individuals, dating someone with similar beliefs is actually pretty sensible advice.
Alice Macher
Now I don’t know how much emphasis Joyce’s and Becky’s church (in the DoAverse) puts on proselytizing. But in our world, don’t the more gung-ho of the evangelical denominations give you major bonus points for getting Jews in particular to accept Christ, more so than other non-Christians? Given that, in their theology, the New Testament supercedes the Hebrew scriptures, and belief in Jesus supercedes the laws of the Torah? Not to mention how we allegedly were the ones who betrayed him the most because he was one of us, etc., etc.
When I was in Hebrew school, Jewish summer camps and such, the rabbis used to warn us about how there were entire evangelical organizations (like “Jews for Jesus”) dedicated specifically to witnessing to Jews, for these reasons. So mightn’t Joyce’s church view dating a Jew as an opportunity, rather than a sin? I don’t know. Insufficient data here, probably.
Ancestral Hamster
It doesn’t seem like Joyce’s and Becky’s church is one that gives bonus points for converting Jews (at least by dating). If it was, then Becky would be asking things like “Have you gotten him to accept Jesus as his personal Lord and Savior” instead of scolding Joyce for dating non-Christians.
gangler
Conversion is viewed as great in most religions. The more sensible one’s (which is of course all relative) realize that dating other religions has more potential for the loss of a member than anything else. It’s just not the smartest means of proselytizing, with such high risk, and very little potential gain (spending ages on one person instead of going around the town and rounding up all you can grab).
ME
Actually, conversion’s not that popular outside Christianity, Islam, and maybe the Hare Krishnas.
Lokitsu
Heh, go to NYC sometime and wait for the evangelical jews to show up. (I realize they are a minority in Judaism, but they are darned amusing.)
Revil Fox
The most effective way to convert a Jew is with your Christian vagina.
begbert2
Dating is a terrible< way to proselytize, because the more one becomes romantically attached to someone the more you want to please them and listen to them and not argue with them – which puts the proselytizer at risk of being converted themselves. Or failing that, having them marry the person without first converting them, resulting in a two-religion household which is very bad for the indoctrinainwashing of kids.
The much better way to proselytize is to do it while thinking of the subjects as mere statistics, that you care nothing at all about except in how they effect your conversion numbers.
Loki
The fact that it’s a terrible method doesn’t stop people from attempting it, sadly… Or using it as an excuse, consciously or no, to date people “outside the faith”.
Shift
GASP! Non-Christian Dating?! Oh my god! How dreadful! Joyce could be exposed to the opinion and beliefs of other people, allowing for her to grow as a person outside of a single organization! It’s madness! Madness I say!
George
Good to see where Joyce’s priorities lie. I was expecting Mike to force her out of her comfortable little religious bubble, but Joe doing it will be more interesting.
Shift
Mike? Seriously? That seems out of character for him. Wouldn’t the more likely scenario be that Mike completely horrifies Joyce to the point that she flees in terror back, driven so deeply into her religious bubble that slightest opposing stimuli could result in a complete psychotic break?
Tristan J
Shortpacked!Mike has a tendency to force people to acknowledge the worst parts of themselves (usually hypocrisy), leading to growth and maturity. It just so happens that he does it in the most insane, psychotic way imaginable.
dchorror
I like that. I choose the advice that gets me a date.
DaniellePhantom
even possibly laid
dchorror
I’m pretty sure she hasn’t thought that far ahead.
Lokitsu
Not just a date, but a date with a cute guy!
Joad
It’s okay. Joyce will get Joe’d. Joe’d up da butt.
Eri
Joyce is a woman with an objective, guys! And I love her cute little pouting face xD
Shift
I really wanna know exactly WHAT the Pastor said about dating non-Christians.
gangler
He probably said not to. There`s not really much to that story.
Shift
Der… Gee, thanks. I never would have guess that…
However, there are many ways one can say that. Was it the fire and brimstone approach where he anyone who attempts it is condemned to hell or was it an subtle villainization of other religious groups or was he easy going about it and only stating how difficult it can be for some people of opposing faiths.
gangler
Hm… Well in the church I was raised in it mostly took the form of constant reinforcement of how other mormons understood our lifestyles, and outsiders would require lots of explaining of our standards. Outsiders expect things like premarital sex.
Also, outsiders can’t enter the building we do our marriage ceremony in, which means that our marriage wouldn’t be recorded in heaven as well as on earth, which is needed to get into the highest level of heaven. May or may not shed light on her faith, but there it is.
SamClemensRIGL
That’s pretty stupid.
Ryune
Two points. We’ll start with the boring one first. Joyce and Becky’s pastor does have a legit point – dating someone who doesn’t believe the same things you do, ESPECIALLY if the both of you have really strong religious convictions – can be a bed of thorns. It isn’t inherently bad, and can lead to a lot of very interest conversations and investigation of your own religion, but it is… rough. I say this out of experience.
Of course, considering Joe, I doubt he has anything NEAR what Joyce does in terms of religious conviction. Unless “fucking” is a religion.
That aside! It is also my experience that Christians who are okay with swearing (yes, most hardcore denominations that advocate DO NOT BE UNEQUALLY YOKED would consider “crap” a bad word) are raging hypocrites. This should end interestingly.
Gianni
Joe I believe is the patron saint of fucking…
Cinder
If what you said is true, that may not bode well for me and the guy I’m dating at present…completely different in our religious views. Prejudiced bastard(Not you).
begbert2
In all seriousness, that does not bode well for you, if one or both of you care in any significant way about your religion.
If you’re both the local-religion equivalent of cafeteria catholics, then you might be able to pull it off – possibly without difficulty. But if either of you have the notion that the other person’s religion needs to be changed at some point in the future, well…
Ryune
I’m not going to pretend that I’m some wise guru that knows all the ins and outs of inter-religion dating, nor am I going to pretend I know everything about your life.
All I’m going to do is advise you to scrutinize your relationship and determine whether or not the headache of arguing with someone about religion is worth it. And if you think it’s worth it, then ask the question about whether or not either one of you will change what you think, and/or can live with the difference. If the answer is “no,” then – heartless as it may seem – you probably ought to break up with him to save the both of you a lot of heartache.
I don’t know you, so bear in mind that I”m just a stranger on the internet that likely doesn’t know what she’s talking about, but the main person you need to be looking out for is you. You have to decide if the difference is worth it.
Strephon
Yeah, in fairness to Becky, I really doubt the pastor would approve of Joe…though not so much for his Jewishness as his Joeishness. (Not that either of them know that at this point, though I suspect Joyce will fairly soon.)
TheAlucinaut
My inexplicable crush on New Joyce only continues to grow despite having every reason not to…
Loki
She certainly seems to understand nuance better than her friend… Which says something about her friend.
Robert in San Diego
Neither my parents nor my siblings married people with whom they had precise religious identities. My nieces and nephews are all OK with that. We’re all actually somewhat close to “It’s Walky!” Mike in that respect — we worship our dogs, and they reciprocate. If we were half the people our dogs think we are, we’d be twice the people we are.
Cinder
So when is she going to have her date so she can have all her hopes and dreams dashed when Joe tries to bang her? It seems so long ago he asked her out.
Rowen Morland