Oh gods, that would be wonderful.
Like, a little thermometer with different Sarah faces and a red fill to indicate her current position.
That would be the best!
for real tho, science is “correct” bc it finds the answers in terms of itself, vs. “ok trust me there’s a sky dad you can’t see but sky dad is why everything exists and also women and POCs are inferior to rich white dudes”
Also important: Science reassesses its statements based on new evidence all the time. “OK SO [XYZ] FIT WITHIN CERTAIN FRAMEWORKS BUT WE’VE FOUND A BETTER EXPLANATION BASED ON A NEW FINDING!”
We’re but specks of cosmic dust trying to understand the universe with our limited tools and sometimes, we’re mistaken but hey! That means we can keep working on Finding Out! – And I find this part of being a human one of the best things we have, along with art and empathy. The journey is the destination, science isn’t dogmatic etc. But to a Fundie, or anyone who can’t stand anything but ABSOLUTE CERTAINTY, of course this wonderful thing about us as a species… Has to be terrifying.
Also-also important, the way scientific fact is based on demonstrable, repeatable evidence allows scientifically-literate people to repeatedly demonstrate its facts and convince people en masse without, you know, threats like burning at the stake or genocidal holy war.
WanderingLynx
YEP. Everyone with the right tools can replicate any scientific experiment, and it’s even possible to debunk former experiments, as in – You can KNOW if someone’s cooked the numbers so they fit “better” (looking at you, Mendel).
What the fuck is taught to Fundie kids? They use the Bible as the ultimate paradigm and twist everything to fit into their worldview, instead of, y’know. Taking demonstrable evidence and building up from there.
Adam Black
I believe in SCIENCE.
Mendel was telling the truth.
Therefore God was just lazy and didnt get around to creating Chromosomes till AFTER Mendel.
Suddenly he was going to get caught not doing his homework.
This also explains ‘the Miracle’ of Mendel’s journals being conveniently Lost and found again.
It couldve been like No Mans Sky all over again.
with some Terrible adhoc explanation why noticed Chromosomes before.
Z
Scientific discoveries are just god retconning plot holes. Like hamfistedly shoving midichlorians into the star wars universe. Or revealing that one season of Dallas was all a dream. (God I hope that’s the right reference I’ve not watched dallas sorry just heard about it)
Demoted Oblivious
It’s not secondary sources, but you got me to go re-read wikipedia on Mendel, and it seems the debate/paradox and drama over his data were rather more overstated than they really deserved. The current concensus sounds like it was actually a non-issue that got blown out of proportion in popular awareness.
Wizard
Well, sort of. Despite claims of Biblical literalism, there are significant swaths of the Bible that they ignore. (I really doubt Joyce’s former church throws out anyone who wears polyester and cotton blend shirts. ) And many of their doctrines come more from tradition than the Bible. (The Holy Trinity is foundational to most Christian sects, but it’s barely mentioned in the Bible.)
But to the brainwashed, that’s bad because the explanation “keeps changing”. They see that as a weakness to exploit.
“Sky daddy moves in mysterious ways” is irrefutable and etched in stone, to their view. It’s a simple answer they can accept at face value because it never changes.
Honestly, depending on how much fanfic he had to read that was just her self-insert OC “fixing” Draco, cursing her with childbirth pains may have been letting her off lightly.
Z
If you actually look at the biblical term, the word they translate to pain more accurately translates to labor as in “a hard days work”. So basically eating the fruit gave humanity a sense of purpose and the satisfaction of sitting down after a long day and knowing you’ve done something worthwhile.
Childbirth isn’t necessarily innately painful. Some of the pain is self-inflicted because we *expect* pain so when we feel the intense sensation it translates as pain.
Childbirth Without Fear is a really good look into this by a medical doctor.
Anyways.
I’m just really a big fan of the idea that Eve gave humanity purpose and a sense of accomplishment and fulfillment.
I’m also a big fan of empowered birth options based on solid science instead of fearmongering to push surgeries.
Ducky
So, yay for looking at translations, but…
Childbirth is going to be painful. You can tell we weren’t designed because good grief that process is ugly.
I haven’t watched the video, but I was in the room for the birth of three of my four children. Yeah. It can be pretty bad.
Clif
I could be wrong of course but “Childbirth isn’t necessarily innately painful. Some of the pain is self-inflicted because we *expect* pain so when we feel the intense sensation it translates as pain.” sounds an awful lot to me like it was written by someone who had never experienced giving birth to a child themselves and is, likely as not, male.
Ryek Hvek
Never let complete personal ignorance about a topic get in the way of pompously expounding upon it.
Clif
Well, that’s a motto that I certainty strive to live by, particularly if there is profit involved, but I reserve the right to point out other people’s BS.
HeySo
What could possibly be painful about shoving a lump larger than a coconut [aprox diameter of a coconut: 12in, aprox diameter of baby’s head: 15in] out through a hole that typically only extends to a diameter better matching the shape of a grapefruit?
Women can’t feel pain after all, and a bit of tearing never hurt anybody anyway. I mean, except rich white men but, as we all know, rich white men are just sensitive like that. It comes from being bred in a better way, you understand.
This is also the reason why you don’t need to give any consideration to a virgin woman when you break her hymen. I mean, just keep telling her it isn’t painful and her tiny little woman-brain will eventually understand your righteous truths. A woman just needs a man to tell her things, after all, as they’re incapable of properly grasping even instinctual things like pain. Much like all non-human animals. And black people. And jews. And..
..this was a message brought to you by Tim Allen and the cast of Last Man Standing. Please consider watching us if you want to lose all grasp of sanity, morality, and dignitythe liberal agenda! Remember: The election was stolen!
HeySo
(The diameter of a grapefruit bit was an attempt to give reasonable benefit of the doubt in regards to the kind of stretching one’d accept as tolerable, of course.
If you’d prefer to use male anatomy as the reference point, we’d consider a range between a marble [1/2in+] and a ping pong ball [1.5in]. [average diameter of a penis, according to Google: .73in].
In short, the gap between what’s “normal” to pass through that region and what happens during childbirth is massively significant, as well as being significantly beyond how you could normally stretch the numbers.. or body.)
Z
If you have a vagina, like I do, I strongly encourage you to play around with just how much you can stretch. A healthy vagina can MORE than stretch as much as it needs to and that level of fullness us just another level.
I’m not sure how x rated were allowed to get but, in my experience, coming to completion with that fullness and then allowing the natural contractions of your body to gently push that fullness out is really just amazing.
And that’s not just labor I’m talking about btw. But gradually stretching yourself to taking a full fist without pain and experiencing climax can certainly help you understand the joy of birth.
Z
I’ve had three natural childbirth, all without major pain interventions,two painfree.
If you think your body can’t stretch that much, and you’ve got a vagina, you may want to discover the wonders of fisting. My partner’s fist is about the size of a newborn and fits *very* nicely.
Demoted Oblivious
Haven’t we also got in the habit of encouraging women to give birth in ways ignoring what their bodies are telling them (encouraging birthing on their backs)? This has more recently started to change with other techniques being explored.
As for the process itself, having been present for two births, it’s not nearly as ugly as it may seem to the un-involved. Then again, they were my kids and I was super excited and invovled in helping mom as much as I could.
Ryek, should we call that the Dunning-Kruger rule? The effect is having the confidence to speak about what one little understands, but the rule would be that knowing we little understand, we are obliged to speak authoritatively on a subject?
Z
Yes exactly this. Ina May Gardner is a midwife who really championed the joy of birth and attended thousands of births with a really low rate of interventions.
She also encouraged making out with your partner to help the birth go along.
I genuinely enjoy giving birth. It’s a dick move that you have to go through 9 months of pregnancy and 18 months of childrearing to have it.
I’m considering becoming a surrogate but God that’s complicated.
BBCC
Is Ina May Gardner the same person as Ina May Gaskin? Because she is a horrible person who encourages bad science and her methods have led to the deaths of multiple children in childbirth.
As for pain, I’m glad you had multiple pain free childbirths, but please don’t dismiss the notion that many people do feel pain – even a great deal of pain – while giving birth and condescend to calling it ‘self inflicted’ because they expect pain.
Regalli
Also, everyone’s anatomy is different, including and especially things like ‘size and shape of vaginal opening’. Or things like, say, how endometriosis tends to increase risk of complications and sometimes pelvic pain while pregnant. (I can’t find if it worsens labor pains offhand, but I’d suspect that it depends on where your excess endometrial lining is growing. Either way, when the potential complications tend to be life-threatening, I’d assume pain as a possibility.) Not all pain’s expectation-based, ESPECIALLY with something like childbirth where there’s a lot of variables and a lot that can go wrong.
shit, if it was MONTHS I would’ve had kids LONG ago
Demoted Oblivious
Need to follow up just to clarify, I in absolutely no way meant to imply that pain relief during birth or any painful procedure was wrong. For both of my exes I intervened to ensure they were taken care of when it seemed like the staff were ready to say “f-it, she’s got this.” First kids mom was definitely down for it from the get go. Second one wanted to go drug free, but after a complicated gestation and a week(ish) of trying to induce, when it cam to the end and she was in pain and questioning, I encouraged her to take the epidural. She’d already been through hell at that point and there was really no purpose to allowing her to suffer through more. She was worried people would think she was a bad mom.
…
I mean, it turns out she was, but that wasn’t the reason why. (5 years of custody battles later and she still violates court orders and stops my daughters from seeing each other.) No judge around here has the gumption to invoke penalties, they just keep threatening her and letting it slide.
I seem to remember reading somewhere that it wasn’t an apple, those weren’t known to people at the time the bible was written, think it was a tomato or something?
Miles
Im 97% sure it was a ball and then a tit. Think about it. Eve was tempted by a “snake” and ate a “fruit” of the “tree” of “knowledge of good and evil.” She then presented Adam with her “fruit” and he partook a bit. Then when God came by they had to hide their bodies, but when he wouldn’t leave Adam stopped hiding to face the music, in the hopes at least he wouldnt see Eve. When God finally found Eve was when He got upset and the punishment were loss of innocence and a specifically painful burth of the child Eve was going to bear – not just a hypothetical child but the one already growing inside her belly.
The whole thing is an allegory for unsupervised puberty if allegory is allowed. If allegory is not allowed and everything must be literal then the whole thing is “God hates it when people have straight sex, and if it were Adam and Steve maybe we’d still have a garden of eden to chill in”
Don’t forget the snake had legs and walked, too. It was only after the “magic fruit” incident that God condemned it to crawl on the ground.
“Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and all wild animals! You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life.
And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.”
Johnny Hart even did a cartoon about it once in ‘B.C.’ (sorry, I couldn’t find a link). Showed a snake on two legs walking past one of the cavemen, who looks out at the reader and says, “This world is younger than I thought.”
To o’reach the terms does the trouser snake betray the “enmity between you and this woman”… so that battle of the sexes (poor terminology and all) is His fault too?
Yeah see, thiiiiiis is why Dina’s head’s this close to exploding. Empiricism this ain’t.
And remember, early Becky Dates included ‘hey can you help me figure out how much of what I learned was bullshit?’ She’s heard at least some of this before. And probably immediately repressed the knowledge of ever hearing it because how do you work with that unless the person you’re talking to is interested in deprogramming?
I’m honestly not sure how much of this Joyce actually believes to begin with. This reads a lot more like she’s just neutrally stating things she’s been told than actually trying to prove Dina wrong. Which is a lot different in tone than the last time these two talked about science vs religion.
Doctor_Who
Yeah, Joyce isn’t “out” as having lost her faith yet, especially not around Becky, so she kinda has to go through the motions here.
C.T Phipps
There’s plenty of atheist science deniers. Joyce can easily keep her anti-science stance without having God to fall back on.
Z
Or atheist assholes who cherry pick science so end up proponents of eugenics and insist bigotry is scientifically based. Not sure if Hitler was an atheist or not, don’t care, but Nazism was super focused on using sciencey sounding bullshit to justify literal genocide.
Kaffeeteria
Hitler was allegedly a “devout catholic” and used the Church and religion for his murderous propaganda. And the Church loved him as much as evangelicals love Trump today.
Delicious Taffy
He also ate sugar, so we’ve that to consider.
He Who Abides
A plurality of historians believe that, while publicly Catholic, Hitler was most likely a Deist. Still believed in a god, just not a God.
Hitler also notably trash talked Christianity as a Jewish religion of the weak in private. SHOCKINGLY, he may have been a hypocrite as well as mass murderer.
Clif
Well yes, but Robin also eats sugar and… You know what, I thought I had a point there, but nevermind.
Doctor_Who
Not sure if you’re kidding, but the “Hitler ate sugar” thing is a reference to a joke from Daria.
Delicious Taffy
Who’s Daria?
Clif
I choose to believe that Daria is a web comic that I haven’t read yet, but will someday.
If I’m wrong don’t tell me. Let me have my little delusion.
Roborat
Well, there was a cartoon called Daria, it was a spin-off of Beavis and Butthead.
thejeff
There are certainly atheists who fall for a lot of pseudo-science nonsense, but not a lot of young earth creationist atheists. She’d need to find a different framework to hang her science denial on.
Regalli
Oh, yeah. I’m not certain if she’s wrapped her head around it all yet, but there was in fact a change here that Dina doesn’t know about.
Reltzik
I’d guess you’re right, but I’m also thinking it’s possible that just because Joyce stopped believing in God, doesn’t necessarily mean that Joyce stopped believing in the garden and the fruit and etc etc. Deconversion can follow those weird sorts of paths.
C.T Phipps
She may also cling to things that refute science just because she doesn’t want to deal with it.
Regalli
Given Joyce’s whole thing about original sin back around Kidnapping #1 (if one thing’s not true, it all falls apart) and the discussion about how rigidity of faith often leads to a complete shattering rather than an adaptation re: Joyce’s atheism back in the first post-skip arc, I think she’s eventually going to be more open to science now.
But I can see her resisting for a while too, to avoid accepting she’s changed (and that on some level she never did believe in anything but the structure.) That said, I do think she no longer buys into original sin, at least not completely, and from there the Eden story crumbles.
436 thoughts on “Isotope”
sultryglebe
I kind of want a Sarah meter on the side of each strip now.
Thag Simmons
the comments section will have to suffice
Tandel
Pretty sure she’s currently here on the meter: (NSFW probably?) https://www.dumbingofage.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/WttFZ2preview-300×300.png
Rabid Rabbit
Oh, I think she’s well beyond it. I mean, in that picture, she’s working for it. Right now, she doesn’t have to make the faintest effort.
Rose by Any Other Name
Oh gods, that would be wonderful.
Like, a little thermometer with different Sarah faces and a red fill to indicate her current position.
That would be the best!
Demoted Oblivious
Isn’t the purpose of slipshine to show us Sarah’s current position?
Tobias
I have to expect that it would eventually reach ridiculous Dragon Ball Z-style power levels.
JA
I also want a Sarah Meter on each strip now. She must be high as a kite by now.
Roborat
She is probably having non-stop multiple orgasms by now.
Ana Chronistic
for real tho, science is “correct” bc it finds the answers in terms of itself, vs. “ok trust me there’s a sky dad you can’t see but sky dad is why everything exists and also women and POCs are inferior to rich white dudes”
WanderingLynx
Also important: Science reassesses its statements based on new evidence all the time. “OK SO [XYZ] FIT WITHIN CERTAIN FRAMEWORKS BUT WE’VE FOUND A BETTER EXPLANATION BASED ON A NEW FINDING!”
We’re but specks of cosmic dust trying to understand the universe with our limited tools and sometimes, we’re mistaken but hey! That means we can keep working on Finding Out! – And I find this part of being a human one of the best things we have, along with art and empathy. The journey is the destination, science isn’t dogmatic etc. But to a Fundie, or anyone who can’t stand anything but ABSOLUTE CERTAINTY, of course this wonderful thing about us as a species… Has to be terrifying.
Reltzik
Also-also important, the way scientific fact is based on demonstrable, repeatable evidence allows scientifically-literate people to repeatedly demonstrate its facts and convince people en masse without, you know, threats like burning at the stake or genocidal holy war.
WanderingLynx
YEP. Everyone with the right tools can replicate any scientific experiment, and it’s even possible to debunk former experiments, as in – You can KNOW if someone’s cooked the numbers so they fit “better” (looking at you, Mendel).
What the fuck is taught to Fundie kids? They use the Bible as the ultimate paradigm and twist everything to fit into their worldview, instead of, y’know. Taking demonstrable evidence and building up from there.
Adam Black
I believe in SCIENCE.
Mendel was telling the truth.
Therefore God was just lazy and didnt get around to creating Chromosomes till AFTER Mendel.
Suddenly he was going to get caught not doing his homework.
This also explains ‘the Miracle’ of Mendel’s journals being conveniently Lost and found again.
It couldve been like No Mans Sky all over again.
with some Terrible adhoc explanation why noticed Chromosomes before.
Z
Scientific discoveries are just god retconning plot holes. Like hamfistedly shoving midichlorians into the star wars universe. Or revealing that one season of Dallas was all a dream. (God I hope that’s the right reference I’ve not watched dallas sorry just heard about it)
Demoted Oblivious
It’s not secondary sources, but you got me to go re-read wikipedia on Mendel, and it seems the debate/paradox and drama over his data were rather more overstated than they really deserved. The current concensus sounds like it was actually a non-issue that got blown out of proportion in popular awareness.
Wizard
Well, sort of. Despite claims of Biblical literalism, there are significant swaths of the Bible that they ignore. (I really doubt Joyce’s former church throws out anyone who wears polyester and cotton blend shirts. ) And many of their doctrines come more from tradition than the Bible. (The Holy Trinity is foundational to most Christian sects, but it’s barely mentioned in the Bible.)
Needfuldoer
But to the brainwashed, that’s bad because the explanation “keeps changing”. They see that as a weakness to exploit.
“Sky daddy moves in mysterious ways” is irrefutable and etched in stone, to their view. It’s a simple answer they can accept at face value because it never changes.
ValdVin
Yep. It’s all there in the story of N-rays.
Clif
And how the truth of N-rays was suppressed by the dark scientists.
Miles
Except when the old guard is wrong and progress literally stalls for 3 generations.
Like the Big Sugar thing, John Money, and pretty much the entire field of economics.
Mikey
That snake wasn’t really talking. Eve was just the first parseltongue.
Doctor_Who
The knowledge she got from eating the apple was that she belonged in Slytherin.
crow
God only punished her because it was cringey.
Doctor_Who
Honestly, depending on how much fanfic he had to read that was just her self-insert OC “fixing” Draco, cursing her with childbirth pains may have been letting her off lightly.
Z
If you actually look at the biblical term, the word they translate to pain more accurately translates to labor as in “a hard days work”. So basically eating the fruit gave humanity a sense of purpose and the satisfaction of sitting down after a long day and knowing you’ve done something worthwhile.
Childbirth isn’t necessarily innately painful. Some of the pain is self-inflicted because we *expect* pain so when we feel the intense sensation it translates as pain.
Childbirth Without Fear is a really good look into this by a medical doctor.
Anyways.
I’m just really a big fan of the idea that Eve gave humanity purpose and a sense of accomplishment and fulfillment.
I’m also a big fan of empowered birth options based on solid science instead of fearmongering to push surgeries.
Ducky
So, yay for looking at translations, but…
Childbirth is going to be painful. You can tell we weren’t designed because good grief that process is ugly.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHIXduEbLz0
He Who Abides
I’m . . . I’m not going to watch that video.
Ed Rhodes
I haven’t watched the video, but I was in the room for the birth of three of my four children. Yeah. It can be pretty bad.
Clif
I could be wrong of course but “Childbirth isn’t necessarily innately painful. Some of the pain is self-inflicted because we *expect* pain so when we feel the intense sensation it translates as pain.” sounds an awful lot to me like it was written by someone who had never experienced giving birth to a child themselves and is, likely as not, male.
Ryek Hvek
Never let complete personal ignorance about a topic get in the way of pompously expounding upon it.
Clif
Well, that’s a motto that I certainty strive to live by, particularly if there is profit involved, but I reserve the right to point out other people’s BS.
HeySo
What could possibly be painful about shoving a lump larger than a coconut [aprox diameter of a coconut: 12in, aprox diameter of baby’s head: 15in] out through a hole that typically only extends to a diameter better matching the shape of a grapefruit?
Women can’t feel pain after all, and a bit of tearing never hurt anybody anyway. I mean, except rich white men but, as we all know, rich white men are just sensitive like that. It comes from being bred in a better way, you understand.
This is also the reason why you don’t need to give any consideration to a virgin woman when you break her hymen. I mean, just keep telling her it isn’t painful and her tiny little woman-brain will eventually understand your righteous truths. A woman just needs a man to tell her things, after all, as they’re incapable of properly grasping even instinctual things like pain. Much like all non-human animals. And black people. And jews. And..
..this was a message brought to you by Tim Allen and the cast of Last Man Standing. Please consider watching us if you want to lose all grasp of
sanity, morality, and dignitythe liberal agenda! Remember: The election was stolen!HeySo
(The diameter of a grapefruit bit was an attempt to give reasonable benefit of the doubt in regards to the kind of stretching one’d accept as tolerable, of course.
If you’d prefer to use male anatomy as the reference point, we’d consider a range between a marble [1/2in+] and a ping pong ball [1.5in]. [average diameter of a penis, according to Google: .73in].
In short, the gap between what’s “normal” to pass through that region and what happens during childbirth is massively significant, as well as being significantly beyond how you could normally stretch the numbers.. or body.)
Z
If you have a vagina, like I do, I strongly encourage you to play around with just how much you can stretch. A healthy vagina can MORE than stretch as much as it needs to and that level of fullness us just another level.
I’m not sure how x rated were allowed to get but, in my experience, coming to completion with that fullness and then allowing the natural contractions of your body to gently push that fullness out is really just amazing.
And that’s not just labor I’m talking about btw. But gradually stretching yourself to taking a full fist without pain and experiencing climax can certainly help you understand the joy of birth.
Z
I’ve had three natural childbirth, all without major pain interventions,two painfree.
If you think your body can’t stretch that much, and you’ve got a vagina, you may want to discover the wonders of fisting. My partner’s fist is about the size of a newborn and fits *very* nicely.
Demoted Oblivious
Haven’t we also got in the habit of encouraging women to give birth in ways ignoring what their bodies are telling them (encouraging birthing on their backs)? This has more recently started to change with other techniques being explored.
As for the process itself, having been present for two births, it’s not nearly as ugly as it may seem to the un-involved. Then again, they were my kids and I was super excited and invovled in helping mom as much as I could.
Ryek, should we call that the Dunning-Kruger rule? The effect is having the confidence to speak about what one little understands, but the rule would be that knowing we little understand, we are obliged to speak authoritatively on a subject?
Z
Yes exactly this. Ina May Gardner is a midwife who really championed the joy of birth and attended thousands of births with a really low rate of interventions.
She also encouraged making out with your partner to help the birth go along.
I genuinely enjoy giving birth. It’s a dick move that you have to go through 9 months of pregnancy and 18 months of childrearing to have it.
I’m considering becoming a surrogate but God that’s complicated.
BBCC
Is Ina May Gardner the same person as Ina May Gaskin? Because she is a horrible person who encourages bad science and her methods have led to the deaths of multiple children in childbirth.
As for pain, I’m glad you had multiple pain free childbirths, but please don’t dismiss the notion that many people do feel pain – even a great deal of pain – while giving birth and condescend to calling it ‘self inflicted’ because they expect pain.
Regalli
Also, everyone’s anatomy is different, including and especially things like ‘size and shape of vaginal opening’. Or things like, say, how endometriosis tends to increase risk of complications and sometimes pelvic pain while pregnant. (I can’t find if it worsens labor pains offhand, but I’d suspect that it depends on where your excess endometrial lining is growing. Either way, when the potential complications tend to be life-threatening, I’d assume pain as a possibility.) Not all pain’s expectation-based, ESPECIALLY with something like childbirth where there’s a lot of variables and a lot that can go wrong.
Uly
18… months of childrearing?
Ana Chronistic
shit, if it was MONTHS I would’ve had kids LONG ago
Demoted Oblivious
Need to follow up just to clarify, I in absolutely no way meant to imply that pain relief during birth or any painful procedure was wrong. For both of my exes I intervened to ensure they were taken care of when it seemed like the staff were ready to say “f-it, she’s got this.” First kids mom was definitely down for it from the get go. Second one wanted to go drug free, but after a complicated gestation and a week(ish) of trying to induce, when it cam to the end and she was in pain and questioning, I encouraged her to take the epidural. She’d already been through hell at that point and there was really no purpose to allowing her to suffer through more. She was worried people would think she was a bad mom.
…
I mean, it turns out she was, but that wasn’t the reason why. (5 years of custody battles later and she still violates court orders and stops my daughters from seeing each other.) No judge around here has the gumption to invoke penalties, they just keep threatening her and letting it slide.
Roborat
I seem to remember reading somewhere that it wasn’t an apple, those weren’t known to people at the time the bible was written, think it was a tomato or something?
Miles
Im 97% sure it was a ball and then a tit. Think about it. Eve was tempted by a “snake” and ate a “fruit” of the “tree” of “knowledge of good and evil.” She then presented Adam with her “fruit” and he partook a bit. Then when God came by they had to hide their bodies, but when he wouldn’t leave Adam stopped hiding to face the music, in the hopes at least he wouldnt see Eve. When God finally found Eve was when He got upset and the punishment were loss of innocence and a specifically painful burth of the child Eve was going to bear – not just a hypothetical child but the one already growing inside her belly.
The whole thing is an allegory for unsupervised puberty if allegory is allowed. If allegory is not allowed and everything must be literal then the whole thing is “God hates it when people have straight sex, and if it were Adam and Steve maybe we’d still have a garden of eden to chill in”
Bicycle Bill
Don’t forget the snake had legs and walked, too. It was only after the “magic fruit” incident that God condemned it to crawl on the ground.
“Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and all wild animals! You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life.
And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.”
Johnny Hart even did a cartoon about it once in ‘B.C.’ (sorry, I couldn’t find a link). Showed a snake on two legs walking past one of the cavemen, who looks out at the reader and says, “This world is younger than I thought.”
C.T Phipps
Yes, clearly it was a flying dragon before.
Chris Phoenix
Yes, it must have been that fire-breathing dinosaur. God changed it after the Fall, so that’s why dinosaurs appeared to “go extinct.”
Demoted Oblivious
To o’reach the terms does the trouser snake betray the “enmity between you and this woman”… so that battle of the sexes (poor terminology and all) is His fault too?
Z
How else could fundies justify the snakes with hip bones?
Mister Gray
That’s probably true cuz she was the only one who talked to it besides God.
Geneseepaws
Adam probably was from Hufflepuff, and so didn’t speak parsletongue.
Nono
Oooh, tell Dina amount the firmament again. Sarah may actually explode.
Regalli
Yeah see, thiiiiiis is why Dina’s head’s this close to exploding. Empiricism this ain’t.
And remember, early Becky Dates included ‘hey can you help me figure out how much of what I learned was bullshit?’ She’s heard at least some of this before. And probably immediately repressed the knowledge of ever hearing it because how do you work with that unless the person you’re talking to is interested in deprogramming?
Regalli
Good news for Dina on that last part, though! Joyce hasn’t accepted it all yet but she is far more open to the possibilities now.
Sirksome
I’m honestly not sure how much of this Joyce actually believes to begin with. This reads a lot more like she’s just neutrally stating things she’s been told than actually trying to prove Dina wrong. Which is a lot different in tone than the last time these two talked about science vs religion.
Doctor_Who
Yeah, Joyce isn’t “out” as having lost her faith yet, especially not around Becky, so she kinda has to go through the motions here.
C.T Phipps
There’s plenty of atheist science deniers. Joyce can easily keep her anti-science stance without having God to fall back on.
Z
Or atheist assholes who cherry pick science so end up proponents of eugenics and insist bigotry is scientifically based. Not sure if Hitler was an atheist or not, don’t care, but Nazism was super focused on using sciencey sounding bullshit to justify literal genocide.
Kaffeeteria
Hitler was allegedly a “devout catholic” and used the Church and religion for his murderous propaganda. And the Church loved him as much as evangelicals love Trump today.
Delicious Taffy
He also ate sugar, so we’ve that to consider.
He Who Abides
A plurality of historians believe that, while publicly Catholic, Hitler was most likely a Deist. Still believed in a god, just not a God.
hof1991
There was an entire section of the Dachau concentration camp reserved gir priests who opposed the Nazis. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priest_Barracks_of_Dachau_Concentration_Camp
C.T Phipps
Hitler also notably trash talked Christianity as a Jewish religion of the weak in private. SHOCKINGLY, he may have been a hypocrite as well as mass murderer.
Clif
Well yes, but Robin also eats sugar and… You know what, I thought I had a point there, but nevermind.
Doctor_Who
Not sure if you’re kidding, but the “Hitler ate sugar” thing is a reference to a joke from Daria.
Delicious Taffy
Who’s Daria?
Clif
I choose to believe that Daria is a web comic that I haven’t read yet, but will someday.
If I’m wrong don’t tell me. Let me have my little delusion.
Roborat
Well, there was a cartoon called Daria, it was a spin-off of Beavis and Butthead.
thejeff
There are certainly atheists who fall for a lot of pseudo-science nonsense, but not a lot of young earth creationist atheists. She’d need to find a different framework to hang her science denial on.
Regalli
Oh, yeah. I’m not certain if she’s wrapped her head around it all yet, but there was in fact a change here that Dina doesn’t know about.
Reltzik
I’d guess you’re right, but I’m also thinking it’s possible that just because Joyce stopped believing in God, doesn’t necessarily mean that Joyce stopped believing in the garden and the fruit and etc etc. Deconversion can follow those weird sorts of paths.
C.T Phipps
She may also cling to things that refute science just because she doesn’t want to deal with it.
Regalli
Given Joyce’s whole thing about original sin back around Kidnapping #1 (if one thing’s not true, it all falls apart) and the discussion about how rigidity of faith often leads to a complete shattering rather than an adaptation re: Joyce’s atheism back in the first post-skip arc, I think she’s eventually going to be more open to science now.
But I can see her resisting for a while too, to avoid accepting she’s changed (and that on some level she never did believe in anything but the structure.) That said, I do think she no longer buys into original sin, at least not completely, and from there the Eden story crumbles.