Dumbing of Age Book 10: No Boozahol, No Worries
Dumbing of Age Book 10: A Sober Off-Campus Party Contradicts Itself So Hard It Winks Out of Existence
Dumbing of Age Book 10: Perhaps Edgin’ a Paradox is a Passable Substitute for Inebriation
Dumbing of Age Book 10: Wow It Feels Anxious in Here
Yep, there are way more options than that. Unless each option counts as ~0.5 titles and the end result is 3.5 when you add all of them up. It might be clearer to say there are 7/2 titles in this strip.
Casi
What if its an average titles per panel measurement?
Atheism is difficult to accept since it means you have to accept bad things are only made by humans, and natural disasters just happen without anyone causing them. An indifferent universe is a painful reality.
Yes, well . . . the idea that the creator of the universe did so to make us the most important part of it is hubris.
abysswatcher1993
Hubris is addictive to many, like booze and political power.
Shane Wegner
The idea that there are about 100,000,000,000 stars in the Milky Way, (lots with plants it turns out) is incomprehensible wnough. The fact that there are apparently hundreds of millions or more of GALAXIES isn’t a concept I can meaningfully measure the scope of.
But yes the idea that all of that somehow revolves around a few plains apes on a little continental mudball on one of those grillions of worlds is.. Optimistic at best. But that thought helped some people make some sort of sense of it all.
Funny thing is, I can accept those just fine. I’m still agnostic, I just have a feeling that 1) There may be something after death, and 2) God/s probably don’t give a fuck about us, like how humans don’t give a fuck about microbes
Meagan
We give a fuck about microbes when they might infect us or make us sick somehow, or when they might help is (like probiotics). It is really thought provoking to imagine deities that have that kind of relationship to us 🙂
jmsr7
Er – that’s the thinking behind Cthulhu mythos. Its deities are so far beyond us as to be incomprehensible, and if they think of us at all, it’s in that sense.
Which i too am fine with, btw; it’s just that a lot of people find the idea that humanity isn’t special or even significant in the cosmic scheme of things to be horrifying. Religions are what we came up with to shield us from this thought.
Mister Sparkle
“Its deities are so far beyond us as to be incomprehensible, and if they think of us at all, it’s in that sense”
That’s also the thinking behind grad school in math.
If Atheism means accepting bad things are only made by humans, and natural disasters just happen without anyone causing them and that an indifferent universe is a painful reality, then what would you call the belief that bad things happen without anyone causing them, that natural disasters are only made by humans and that far from being indifferent, the universe is out to get you. (I mean, just look at entropy and everything that follows from that.)
These are contradictory points – natural disasters are generally not made by humans (though we’re doing a bangup job intensifying them recently, thanks petrochemical companies), and are a bad thing. See also: diseases, where yes, human screwups can intensify things (e.g. antivaccers, the CIA torpedoing polio eradication by embedding agents in a WHO group), but fundamentally it’s a bad thing happened caused by non-human sources.
Clif
Those are contradictory points, the point being that the original formulation of things abbysswatcher felt made atheism difficult for people to accept were contradictory as well. Unless you believe natural disasters are not bad things.
A lot of people also don’t want the responsibility that no powerful being is coming to Rapture us away to save us from the consequences of climate change and war. We either solve our human problems or we don’t, and the uncaring stars won’t notice or have any opinion on which we choose.
The other side of this is, we (sometimes) appreciate the own tiny little sparks of out lives and those around us and appreciate them for existing in the great big void.
You don’t need to be an atheist to assume that natural disaster just happen and people acting like assholes is their choice and worst of all “there is no big plan in which everything that happens to me makes sense.”
It just needs to assume that deities are not there to make us (or humanity in general) the center of their existence.
It doesn’t help that atheism still has a reputation of arrogance and elitism attached to it. Of the 9 atheists I’ve personally met, 7 were snobby intellectual elitists who believed that anyone who didn’t agree 100% with their world view were beneath them. The other 2 are some of the best people I’ve ever met, so I assume I just have bad luck and have met a disproportionate amount of the assholish ones. But that reputation is unfortunately hard to shake it seems.
Roborat
Funny, my experience has been pretty much the exact opposite, anytime I meet a religious person, they come off as arrogant and conceited, and the more religious they are, the more of an asshole they are. And the atheists are welcoming, tolerant and friendly
thejeff
There was a thing in the 2000s mostly, of arrogant obnoxious atheists. Tied to the “New Atheism” movement, though not everyone attached to it fit that stereotype of course. All so proud of their rational skepticism and determined to show it to everyone.
A lot of them turned into misogynist edgelords (or even full on alt-right racists) when bashing SJWs became popular.
Elisto
Well, also, the arrogant people in any bunch are also the ones more likely to announce themselves and thus be noticed. I doubt you know the religious beliefs of everyone you’ve met, so you’ve probably people who were perfectly nice, but you didn’t know they were atheists.
Khno
can vary with the place. I mean in a place with 40% atheist, it’s quite clear all can’t be snobby intellectual elitists. Some will also be insufferable proletarian absolutists
Kat
My experience around the Southern US is that Athiests who are former Christians are mostly unbearable. They haven’t left what I call the “Burden to Evangelize” behind with Christianity, they still feel a need to convert people to their religion. Their religion is just Atheism now. Effectively they’re just fanatics with a different cause. They’re still fanatics, and still annoying.
On the other hand, those laid back enough to simply go Agnostic tend to have the more gentle “eh, who knows and with all the stuff going on here, who cares?” attitude that I myself share. But, that could all be totally biased by my sample size and location. To each their own.
You’re all making quite a lot of assumptions that “evolution = atheism”. There’s a huge gap between “not taking the Creation story literally” and “There is no God”.
Science recruits people as hard as it can because more scientists means more discoveries means more inventions means the existing scientists can live to be two hundred and have hovercars.
Atheism recruits not to make more atheists, but to make less of everything else.
Joyce, why not consider Terry Pratchett’s worldview? That everything that occurs is a natural event, but we use imagination to change the world and give it meaning? Magical thinking is for religious fanatics and compulsive gamblers.
The science of the discworld (where the wizards have a magical mishap and create a roundworld universe which works, to the great shock of all wizards, without any narrativum present) is a mind-boggeling read for anyone. It would probably break Joyce.
1) Renounce Magical Thinking and Embrace Empirical Evidence
1.5) Right Across the Street From Blowjob Cat
2) No Boozahol, No Worries
3) Edgin’ a Paradox is a Passable Substitute for Inebriation
216 thoughts on “Renounce”
Doctor_Who
I tried to resist doing this, but the Dark Side won out.
BigDogLittleCat
The internet is yours.
Joe Moose
Beautiful. I’m fuckin’ sobbing.
Matt
Why can’t I like or upvote this.
Lokitsu
You Sir, are a genius. *Applauds*
Ayb
I am replying to this after years of lurking just to bring you your well earned interwebz.
Roborat
You are the master.
fire_daws
Only the master of evil
RichardDarth.Ryek Hvek
Well done – both Robin and Aide approve heartily.
Arianod
So beautiful (tear rolls down)
Ana Chronistic
“Wholesome?? PASS”
Hazel
ALL HAIL DINA
Clif
Hail, yes!
Marsh Maryrose
As Ben Jonson didn’t write:
Drink to me only with thine eyes,
And I will pledge with mine;
Or leave an paradox edged in the cup,
And I’ll not look for wine.
And as Emily Dickinson didn’t write:
I taste a liquor never brewed –
From Tankards scooped in Pearl –
Not all the Paradoxes edged
Yield such an Alcohol!
Clif
They didn’t? I’m sure it was an oversight.
das-g
Nobody’s perfect.
King Daniel
Dumbing of Age Book IX: You’re Getting a $5 Amazon Gift Card
No Name
Dumbing of Age Book IX: Renounce Magical Thinking and Embrace Empirical Evidence.
AntJ
Dumbing of Age Book 10: No Boozahol, No Worries
Dumbing of Age Book 10: A Sober Off-Campus Party Contradicts Itself So Hard It Winks Out of Existence
Dumbing of Age Book 10: Perhaps Edgin’ a Paradox is a Passable Substitute for Inebriation
Dumbing of Age Book 10: Wow It Feels Anxious in Here
DrWattson
Let’s be honest, “Wow It Feels Anxious In Here” could realistically be the title of ANY DoA book.
supersonic92
I’m pretty sure that could be the title for the entire Walkyverse.
Needfuldoer
If today’s alt text was an effort to end that meme once and for all, it only made it stronger.
Or was that the plan all along?
Deanatay
Willis, you fell a bit short. We’re measuring at least six potential book titles in this comic.
Keulen
DoA Book 10: Right Across The Street From Blowjob Cat
Clif
I think we’ve broken the 3.5 barrier.
Sunny
Yep, there are way more options than that. Unless each option counts as ~0.5 titles and the end result is 3.5 when you add all of them up. It might be clearer to say there are 7/2 titles in this strip.
Casi
What if its an average titles per panel measurement?
das-g
If no 5$ Amazon gift card is included, such a title might be false advertising.
Shane Wegner
Ride the edge of oblivion Ruth! And Dina may have gotten her wish, but Joyce just isn’t ready to admit it to the world. Maybe.
abysswatcher1993
Atheism is difficult to accept since it means you have to accept bad things are only made by humans, and natural disasters just happen without anyone causing them. An indifferent universe is a painful reality.
Bathymetheus
Yes, well . . . the idea that the creator of the universe did so to make us the most important part of it is hubris.
abysswatcher1993
Hubris is addictive to many, like booze and political power.
Shane Wegner
The idea that there are about 100,000,000,000 stars in the Milky Way, (lots with plants it turns out) is incomprehensible wnough. The fact that there are apparently hundreds of millions or more of GALAXIES isn’t a concept I can meaningfully measure the scope of.
But yes the idea that all of that somehow revolves around a few plains apes on a little continental mudball on one of those grillions of worlds is.. Optimistic at best. But that thought helped some people make some sort of sense of it all.
Icalasari
Funny thing is, I can accept those just fine. I’m still agnostic, I just have a feeling that 1) There may be something after death, and 2) God/s probably don’t give a fuck about us, like how humans don’t give a fuck about microbes
Meagan
We give a fuck about microbes when they might infect us or make us sick somehow, or when they might help is (like probiotics). It is really thought provoking to imagine deities that have that kind of relationship to us 🙂
jmsr7
Er – that’s the thinking behind Cthulhu mythos. Its deities are so far beyond us as to be incomprehensible, and if they think of us at all, it’s in that sense.
Which i too am fine with, btw; it’s just that a lot of people find the idea that humanity isn’t special or even significant in the cosmic scheme of things to be horrifying. Religions are what we came up with to shield us from this thought.
Mister Sparkle
“Its deities are so far beyond us as to be incomprehensible, and if they think of us at all, it’s in that sense”
That’s also the thinking behind grad school in math.
Clif
Point.
Clif
If Atheism means accepting bad things are only made by humans, and natural disasters just happen without anyone causing them and that an indifferent universe is a painful reality, then what would you call the belief that bad things happen without anyone causing them, that natural disasters are only made by humans and that far from being indifferent, the universe is out to get you. (I mean, just look at entropy and everything that follows from that.)
Knayt
These are contradictory points – natural disasters are generally not made by humans (though we’re doing a bangup job intensifying them recently, thanks petrochemical companies), and are a bad thing. See also: diseases, where yes, human screwups can intensify things (e.g. antivaccers, the CIA torpedoing polio eradication by embedding agents in a WHO group), but fundamentally it’s a bad thing happened caused by non-human sources.
Clif
Those are contradictory points, the point being that the original formulation of things abbysswatcher felt made atheism difficult for people to accept were contradictory as well. Unless you believe natural disasters are not bad things.
Shane Wegner
A lot of people also don’t want the responsibility that no powerful being is coming to Rapture us away to save us from the consequences of climate change and war. We either solve our human problems or we don’t, and the uncaring stars won’t notice or have any opinion on which we choose.
The other side of this is, we (sometimes) appreciate the own tiny little sparks of out lives and those around us and appreciate them for existing in the great big void.
drs
Not sure why it’s better that children dying of tsunamis and malaria is a deliberate act of God.
CJ
You don’t need to be an atheist to assume that natural disaster just happen and people acting like assholes is their choice and worst of all “there is no big plan in which everything that happens to me makes sense.”
It just needs to assume that deities are not there to make us (or humanity in general) the center of their existence.
Rukdug
It doesn’t help that atheism still has a reputation of arrogance and elitism attached to it. Of the 9 atheists I’ve personally met, 7 were snobby intellectual elitists who believed that anyone who didn’t agree 100% with their world view were beneath them. The other 2 are some of the best people I’ve ever met, so I assume I just have bad luck and have met a disproportionate amount of the assholish ones. But that reputation is unfortunately hard to shake it seems.
Roborat
Funny, my experience has been pretty much the exact opposite, anytime I meet a religious person, they come off as arrogant and conceited, and the more religious they are, the more of an asshole they are. And the atheists are welcoming, tolerant and friendly
thejeff
There was a thing in the 2000s mostly, of arrogant obnoxious atheists. Tied to the “New Atheism” movement, though not everyone attached to it fit that stereotype of course. All so proud of their rational skepticism and determined to show it to everyone.
A lot of them turned into misogynist edgelords (or even full on alt-right racists) when bashing SJWs became popular.
Elisto
Well, also, the arrogant people in any bunch are also the ones more likely to announce themselves and thus be noticed. I doubt you know the religious beliefs of everyone you’ve met, so you’ve probably people who were perfectly nice, but you didn’t know they were atheists.
Khno
can vary with the place. I mean in a place with 40% atheist, it’s quite clear all can’t be snobby intellectual elitists. Some will also be insufferable proletarian absolutists
Kat
My experience around the Southern US is that Athiests who are former Christians are mostly unbearable. They haven’t left what I call the “Burden to Evangelize” behind with Christianity, they still feel a need to convert people to their religion. Their religion is just Atheism now. Effectively they’re just fanatics with a different cause. They’re still fanatics, and still annoying.
On the other hand, those laid back enough to simply go Agnostic tend to have the more gentle “eh, who knows and with all the stuff going on here, who cares?” attitude that I myself share. But, that could all be totally biased by my sample size and location. To each their own.
BarerMender
Dumbing of Age IX title: Ride the Edge of Oblivion, Ruth!
Shane Wegner
I fully support this title!
TheWanderingMist
You’re all making quite a lot of assumptions that “evolution = atheism”. There’s a huge gap between “not taking the Creation story literally” and “There is no God”.
thejeff
To Joyce there isn’t. It’s all tied together and either evolution is false or everything she’s been taught is a lie.
BarerMender
Yeah, even Pat Robertson doesn’t buy young earth creationism.
ValdVin
Well, the party is technically at Robin’s, so there’s always the contact high from Skittles vapor.
He Who Abides
And peel-and-eat Cadbury Cream Eggs.
ValdVin
“Officer, I got high off the wrappers when I was bagging the trash.”
BiOnyx
What does science have in common with religion in the modern era?
Relentless attempts at recruitment.
I, for one, welcome our new dino-hybrid overlords… and ladies.
begbert2
Science recruits people as hard as it can because more scientists means more discoveries means more inventions means the existing scientists can live to be two hundred and have hovercars.
Atheism recruits not to make more atheists, but to make less of everything else.
Diner Kinetic
this might almost be my new favorite strip
Cholma
LOVE Panel Two! 😀
Kravis
Joyce refuses to renouce magical thinking and embrace empirical evidence but is juuust fiiiiine with giving that lizard man Bezos a fiver!
He Who Abides
It’s probably Carla’s fiver. Someone needed a hug.
abysswatcher1993
Joyce, why not consider Terry Pratchett’s worldview? That everything that occurs is a natural event, but we use imagination to change the world and give it meaning? Magical thinking is for religious fanatics and compulsive gamblers.
ǝ snow ʍousɐ
Well, it’s true that she wasn’t raised in a community of compulsive gamblers…
CJ
The science of the discworld (where the wizards have a magical mishap and create a roundworld universe which works, to the great shock of all wizards, without any narrativum present) is a mind-boggeling read for anyone. It would probably break Joyce.
Owlmirror
3.5 book titles, eh?
1) Renounce Magical Thinking and Embrace Empirical Evidence
1.5) Right Across the Street From Blowjob Cat
2) No Boozahol, No Worries
3) Edgin’ a Paradox is a Passable Substitute for Inebriation
Anyone get a different list?
Deadjolras
“Wow, it feels anxious in here.”
Norah
Wow, it feels anxious in here.
OBBWG
A sober off-campus party contradicts itself so hard it winks itself out of existence.
trizzle9