297

Smarter
Posted on November 24, 2021 by David M Willis

297 thoughts on “Smarter”

  1. Ana Chronistic

    aww ^_^

    1. Clif

      Just remember, hugs are a gateway drug to smoochies.

      1. BarerMender

        Joyce wishes.

        1. Decidedly Orthogonal

          Pretty sure some us are wishing too.

      2. Keulen

        And eventually maybe even such lewd acts as handholding.

    2. Thag Simmons

      this is sweet

  2. Bagge

    Dorothy’s lil’ smile in the last panel <3

    1. Clif

      Yeah.

    2. ValdVin

      But of course, because there’s nothing a geek like Dorothy loves more than testing hypotheses.

  3. Doctor_Who

    Meanwhile Dorothy has read the same page five times and has no idea what it says.

    Been there. Multitasking is hard.

    1. Sirksome

      Well that page is blank so it would be pretty hard to read. Unless it’s a book on how to write and decypher invisible ink and she’s brushing up on her spycraft. I could see someone with presidential aspirations needing to know that.

      1. Jamie

        “This page left intentionally blank.”

        1. davidbreslin101

          I always look at that and go, “But you’ve unintentionally made it not blank, haven’t you?”

    2. Needfuldoer

      She’s been on the same dang page for twenty minutes.

  4. The Wellerman

    “Give me the child until they are seven, and I will show you the adult.”

    — Socrates

    1. Agemegos

      I think that was actually St. Ignatius Loyola. If you have an earlier citation I’d love to know it.

      1. The Wellerman

        Oops my bad, it was actually Aristotle, but I think he attributed this to Socrates:

        https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/709859-give-me-a-child-until-he-is-7-and-i

        1. Agemegos

          I can’t use a citation to “The Philosophy of Aristotle”. I want to check the citation. What work is it in?

          It seems like such an odd thing for Aristotle to say, and an especially odd thing for Socrates to say, considering that the general thrust of their philosophy is about amenity to reason even in adults.

        2. Agemegos

          Wikiquotes says that the saying was attributed to St Ignatius Loyola by Voltaire “perhaps mischievously”.

  5. ThunderNight

    the best kind of hypothesis

  6. Slartibeast Button, BIA

    But is this a double-blind hug study?

    1. The Wellerman

      Now that would be VERY interesting… ?

      1. The Wellerman

        An necessary, in fact!!!

      2. Jamie

        The other day, I actually read about a recent study on which style of hug (diagonal or over-under) has a greater effect on people.

        1. PASchaefer

          AND?

        2. Jamie

          From memory, the difference between 5 and 10 minutes of hug is negligible. Diagonal is seen as more egalitarian, and generally has a better impact. Over-under makes more sense when there’s a major height difference. They did two methodologies: one where they blindfolded people, and one where they asked questions: pandemic was… a problem for doing research.

          It wasn’t actually very interesting, so I didn’t save it. I just wanted to share that there is, in fact, legitimate hug research out there.

        3. Jamie

          Now I keep thinking back and trying to remember the times. I feel like “they tested 1, 5, and 10 minutes of hug” is wrong. Might be “1, 3, 5”? I don’t know.

        4. khn0

          for kids it’s at least 20 seconds.

        5. Decidedly Orthogonal

          My youngest, (a line backer from when he could walk until now/6) would disagree. If I go for a hug for more than 10seconds, I risk getting an elbow to the throat when he is distracted by something and wants to go check it out. It’s got a lot better as he aged, but… I had the bruises to substatiate this claim for a while.

        6. khn0

          I mean for comfort. Ofc when it’s not time, it’s not time. You US people hug a lot more than we do so it could also be culturally different (but since most studies are from the US…)

        7. Jamie

          It was “seconds”, not “minutes”. Derp.

          https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0001691821001918?via%3Dihub

        8. The Wellerman

          Was it Double Blind in either sense of the phrase? ?

  7. StClair

    Renounce magical thinking and embrace empirical evidence Dorothy.

    1. Steelbright

      this is the cutest pun

      1. The Wellerman

        Need more data!!!

        LOTS of data!!!!

  8. AY

    heck. this one’s cute.

  9. Hopey

    Atheism cannot be a default state, as it is defined by a notion opposite to theism, emphasized as to how it contains theism within its root. To lack a conception of a deity is not the same as to reject it.

    1. Hopey

      What is wrong with me, this is a fun daily comic.

    2. Doctor_Who

      Couldn’t it be seen as the absence of theism?

      It’s Atheism, not Antitheism.

    3. Carms

      You’ve set yourself up for a semantic argument there by opening with a prescriptivist definition- but that’s not even an accurate prescriptivist definition, nor an accurate rundown of the etymology or latin construction.

      1. davidbreslin101

        Also, etymology doesn’t always reflect historical reality. There’s a category of extinct fishes called “agnatha,” meaning “without jaws.” It’s the same use of the “a”-prefix. But they were around long before fishes with jaws. Jawlessness is the primitive, original state of fish. To us in the present day, though, it’s seen as an unusual lack. So we give them a name that reflects that.

        1. King Daniel

          Are you saying fish were Agnatha all along?

        2. milu

          Wait, are you saying I was Agnatha all along?

        3. King Daniel

          Depends, are you a fish?

        4. milu

          are you not???

        5. thejeff

          Are we talking cladistically? Or paraphyletically?

        6. milu

          Well that’s a pretty fishy question

        7. King Daniel

          You’ll be fin.

        8. milu

          Why, this conversation is going swimmingly.

          I don’t think you two are fishmen at all.

        9. King Daniel

          Of course not.

          Now, why don’t we take this nice little stroll over to this lovely New England town called Innsmouth…

        10. milu

          @davidbreslin: taxonomical names are not such a great example of what etymology can or cannot tell us because they are a highly artificial and codified part of language.

          Also, Agnathans are not quite dead yet =D
          the lampreys are still with us to delight us with their cute little mouths ^^

        11. Shade

          Yes, mostly taxonomy is basically just we need to categorise all these things in a way so we can keep some sense of track of them.

    4. Yotomoe

      See the problem with this logic is it paints atheism as a “rejection” of theism. As if one needs to have heard or been around people who were theists to be an atheist. So a guy who doesn’t believe in god isn’t an atheist unless they are in the proximity of theist. So if you don’t believe in god and nobody around you believes in god and you haven’t been exposed to religion you’re not an atheist until a Jehovah’s witness comes to your door and you say “ah, no thanks”. Which sorta paints the entire idea in a negative light. Like you actively have to disagree with religion and not simply just…not believe in god.

      1. Shade

        Exactly, you might not have a word for it until theism comes around, but that doesn’t mean you aren’t atheist.

      2. Hopey

        Negation does not have to be negative but atheism is absolutely that. Until a conception of a deity is provided, one cannot be an atheist as one cannot hold the position of rejecting the concept.

    5. DiktatrSquid

      You’re kinda contradicting yourself. Atheism is precisely the lack of belief in deities. All it requires is for you to not be convinced that any gods exist. To say there are definitely no gods is a different matter. To some that may sound like agnosticism, but against the common misconception, atheism and agnosticism aren’t mutually exclusive. Former deals with belief, the latter with claim to knowledge. If you lack belief in God, but admit to the fact that you have no evidence or absolute certainty, you’re an agnostic atheist

      Bottom line, atheism *is* the default position. Antitheism however is not.

      1. The Wellerman

        You deserve an upvote!!!!

      2. Yotomoe

        Fun fact, you can be a religious agnostic.

        1. Needfuldoer

          Do we really know that? CAN we really know that?

        2. Diner Kinetic

          ^the position of an agnosticism agnostic

          (I’m basically a religious agnostic– we do exist!)

      3. BarerMender

        I reject the need for certainty. Certainty is an emotional condition, not a logical position. Thus the common phrase, “I feel certain”.

    6. C.T. Phipps

      Technically, it means all babies are agnostic.

      1. BarerMender

        No it doesn’t. Agnosticism is not lack of belief. That’s atheism. Agnosticism is an epistemological statement.

      2. not someone else

        Technically all babies are agnostic at birth in the other sense of the word, because they don’t know shit about shit. 😛

    7. Robert Thompson

      To basically reiterate points made above:

      If the prefixes inform our definitions,
      Atheist = without faith (either once held or never held)
      Antitheist = actively rejecting/fighting against faith (like an Atheist, but aimed outward)

      Also, Agnostics ride the fence, and as such have to at least acknowledge/be aware of faith.

      1. Jamie

        If we’re playing the etymology game, remember that “theist” comes specifically from the Greek conception of the divine. I.e., “those guys who anthropomorphized literally everything”. River? Naiad. Tree? Dryad. Crazy town? Maenad. The night sky? Everyone’s mom. The ground? Everyone’s mom’s daughter.

        The Greeks had a word for faith. It wasn’t theos.

        1. BarerMender

          Atheism isn’t the rejection of faith. It’s the rejection of God or gods.

        2. Fist_of_Life

          That depends on how you are using the term faith there. According to Brittanica.com, the ancient Greeks didn’t have a word for religion. The closest words they had could be translated as “piety” and “cult.” One might argue that cult is their word for religion, but their cults would only encompass one deity and not the whole “religion.” They were pieces of the larger, cult-glomerate religion.

        3. br44n5m

          There’s a Greek God of fertility that’s just the lower half of a woman with a face kn her abdomen, all praise unto Baobo

        4. Zach

          You mean Yerta?

          http://www.casualvillain.com/Unsounded/comic/ch13/ch13_75.html

    8. BarerMender

      I reject your definition of atheism. To not believe is not to believe.

    9. eh, whatever

      Etymological fallacy.

      1. eh, whatever

        …oh, no, not even: atheos just meant “godless” plain and simple.

        1. Hopey

          The etymological point served as a reinforcement of how atheism is defined in our society. You can’t just call everything a fallacy.

          Regardless, this is a poor point as the root word of atheos is theos, thus emphasizing atheism’s necessary relationship with theism and therefore its inability to be a default state.

        2. James

          Or language is driven by what is common or expected, not be what is default. Arguing something isn’t default because the word we use for it compares it to something else is just silly.

          “amorality” is the default for organisms, and was the default long before “morality” entered the scene. Same for anaerobic organisms (you can’t ever have aerobic organisms if you don’t start with anaerobic ones), abiotic matter, etc. and so on.

          If anything, I’d argue an “a-” word is more likely to be the default condition than the other way around, because we don’t tend to create words for things that are “just the way things are” until we need to – it is only when we finally conceptualize something *different* that we make a word for it.

    10. Keulen

      What the hell are you talking about? Babies aren’t born believing in gods. Babies aren’t born believing in anything. They have to be taught everything they know by adults.

    11. milu

      well, i agree with you.
      we live in a society, so atheism is inevitably defined in relation to religion.
      there’s no such thing as a default state, except in the sense that not knowing how to speak is our default state. as soon as we’re educated, we’re accultured to the prevalence of religion in our social web, and being or becoming an atheist is automatically a significant part of our identity, whether we like it or not.

      1. Hopey

        This is precisely the point I was trying to make. Neither theism or atheism can be a default state. Thank you!

    12. Hopey

      Perhaps I was a bit flippant.

      The etymological fallacy is not the crux of my point anyways.

      The main point is such. The default state is a lack of conception of any deity. Atheism necessitates a conception of a deity to exist. For that reason, we can’t really call babies atheists any more than we can call fish atheist. We could but its kind of definitionally useless and just serves to bolster the egos for those of us inclined to such beliefs.

      1. Zerodime

        How would you call the default state then?
        Apistevist, maybe?

  10. Jon

    There it is.

  11. Spencer

    Me, a brain genius, seeing this go up on Patreon: pff what’s Dorothy talking about obviously that’s just vague platitudes

    Like half a day later: Oh right, Joyce calling herself an idiot for believing in God was the part of that conversation Dorothy actually heard, so actually it’s really sensible that Dorothy would hear Joyce say that line in panel 3 and connect it towards a degree of self-directed anger.

    1. PB

      YES SOMEONE FINALLY SAID IT

    2. Needfuldoer

      Sounds like Dorothy’s put some time into processing what Joyce was saying when Becky Kramered into her game of one-upmanship with Liz.

  12. alongcameaspider

    Ok Dorothy is handling this fairly well now

    Now let’s see how she handles getting Joyce to stop projecting that anger onto Becky

    1. James

      I am so glad someone understand what Joyce is actually doing her – expressing the anger she feels at herself – and is offering comfort instead of just judgement (she is still judging the externalizing, but she isn’t saying Joyce is wrong to feel the emotion itself or think what she is thinking).

      It’s really nice.

  13. MeghanTheDreamCrusher

    So Becky is about to walk up any second now and misconstrue this as them being an item right?

    1. alongcameaspider

      I dont think Becky would immediately jump to that

      Now misconstruing it at Dorothy being “on Joyce’s side” is something that’s within the realm of possibility I think

    2. Doctor_Who

      Nah, that’s gotta happen with a situation that looks WAY worse. There’s gotta be an accidental kiss or something.

      1. MeghanTheDreamCrusher

        “accidental”

      2. powerpowerpow

        Yeah no definitely. This is too tame, this is Willis we’re talking about. He’d put together a WAY bigger emotional gut punch before that happens.

    3. drs

      If Joyce & Dorothy did get together, how badly would Becky break?

      1. The Wellerman

        Just how exact of an answer are you looking for?

        1. justin8448

          As exact as you can be while presenting your response in the form of interpretive dance.

      2. Doctor_Who

        People would be in severe danger from the shrapnel.

      3. alongcameaspider

        I suspect it would make the argument they just had look like a friendly conversation

      4. MasakiSayz

        Genuine question, not trying to “that guy” the statement, but have we seen Dorothy express any sort of interest in Joyce? Joyce’s attraction is obvious to everyone who isn’t Joyce, but I can’t recall seeing Dotty reciprocating in any fashion. Admiring her as a friend and rooting for personal growth and introspection, yes. But attraction…?

        1. Jon

          Sadly, Dorothy told Danny that she’s explicitly straight and I believe Willis’s last words on Joyce’s sexuality was “explicitly straight” as well. But neither of those are terribly recent…things can always change…

        2. Regalli

          Look, with the sliding timescale and ever-increasing proportions of teenagers realizing they aren’t straight at earlier ages because the avenue’s more safely available to explore, eventually the current proportion of straight to queer characters will need to be reassessed. And while Dorothy’s not on my current shortlist of characters who will realize they’re bi because statistics, both of her remaining major people who have expressed romanticish interest in her are, and Danny’s already had his bi awakening. I can play the long, long game. They’re creeping ever closer to Dorothy.

          (That shortlist, if you couldn’t guess, includes Walky and Joyce. My third outside guess is that AG specifically MIGHT be into girls a bit more than she and Amber previously assumed. This is mostly facetious, but like. None of those would feel sudden.)

        3. BarerMender

          Joyce, knowingly or not, pretty much expressed her love for Dorothy with the “cherishing every second” of “breathing the same air” speech, which was freaky to Dorothy. D wasn’t ready for that.

        4. justin8448

          That was a fantastic moment though.

        5. anonymsly

          Love =/= sexual interest

        6. milu

          @Regalli: hahaha love that argument. i feel like there’s already a fairly high proportion of non-straight characters though? i’m super not complaining but the argument from statistical realism doesn’t really hold?

          Definitely Not Straight: Becky, Dina, Danny, Ruth, Daisy, Ethan, Leslie, Malaya, Booster, Marcie

          Insists they’re straight, but well: Joyce, Jennifer, Robin.

          Undeclared to the best of my knowledge: Walky? Jason? Carla? Jacob?

          I think they’re straight but can’t remember when/if it’s been textually confirmed: Sarah? Amber? Amazi-Girl?

          Straight: Dorothy, Sal, Joe, Lucy, Roz, Jocelyne (“I’m not actually gay”).

        7. BarerMender

          Fan wisdom holds that Carla is asexual and homo-romantic.

        8. BBCC

          Because sexuality transfers from the Walkyverse (albeit with the potential to discover new things in characters previously assumed straight but never totally explicitly stated) and that’s what she was in Shortpacked.

        9. BarerMender

          I have to confess I couldn’t find much interest in the rest of the Walkyverse.

        10. JBento

          Carla was attracted to Malaya, so definitely not straight.

        11. thejeff

          Jennifer is clearly not straight – far more so than either Joyce or Robin. Her public stance might have changed over the timeskip, though I don’t think there’s been an explicit declaration – unless you take her “phase” comment as being about being queer rather than specifically about her messed up relationship with Ruth.
          She wanted to be seen as normal, though she didn’t like putting it that way, but never denied her attraction to women, just framed it as something that everyone felt.
          I’m not sure she ever claimed to be straight – other than by denying she was queer.
          Robin is obviously bisexual, just still in denial.
          Walky has made various comments that hint at not being straight, but nothing confirming yet. Which is basically where I’d put Joyce as well.

          Jason and Jacob haven’t explicitly declared their straightness, but also haven’t given any hints of anything else. Not really any more reason to think they’re queer than for characters who have declared it, given that it’s fairly common for people to come out of the closet somewhere around this age.

        12. milu

          @thejeff: yeah, i was kind of clowning by putting Jennifer in that category ^^

          “Not really any more reason to think they’re queer” you meant not any more reason to think they’re straight, right? based on your next sentence.

          unless you were making a “coming out as straight” joke =)

          @BarerMender: so in the “Not Applicable” column?
          @JBento: was it sexual attraction though? it sounded like it might be a purely BDSM thing? i think BDSM is not necessarily sexual? i don’t know much about all that.

        13. milu

          @BarerMender oh sorry i don’t know why i read “aromantic”. Not Straight it is then^^

        14. thejeff

          Yeah, mistyped there.

        15. Regalli

          Aromantics and asexuals also are not straight, even if they are heterosexual or heteroromantic respectively. Our orientation is consistently misinterpreted and ignored, and there’s a really nasty exclusionary rhetoric that tries to argue aspec people aren’t ‘really’ part of the LGBT community (usually either ignoring aspecs who are also homoromantic or homosexual, or arguing that we’re not REALLY aspec, just gay, and treating aroaces as basically straight which ignores how deeply alienating it is to be aroace in a society that constantly argues you need a romantic partner), so we tend to be a bit tetchy on that front as well. Carla is, per Word of Willis and her Walkyverse counterpart’s explicit statements, a homoromantic asexual trans woman, and sex-repulsed specifically.

          Sexuality carrying over across universes, it is very very textual that Robin is queer – the exact word she ultimately used. (Malaya’s also clearly expressed interest in multiple genders and is, obviously, not cisgender, but in universal crossover I think it’s also fairly likely they’re some variety of aspec as well. That said, Walkyverse Malaya’s sexuality could also have been influenced by not realizing they transcend gender and having some dysphoria in play. Malaya ain’t straight but precisely HOW they ain’t straight is undefined. They probably transcend it, as well.)

        16. milu

          Shit, you’re right, thanks for knocking me straight (nyeh). i wasn’t treading carefully enough around pretty sensitive issues. i should know better. very sorry!

          re: cross-universe confirmation of orientation, i havent (yet) read the other timelines, so thanks for filling the gaps =)

        17. Regalli

          All good, I may be tetchy on the subject but plenty of people genuinely don’t know.

          The ‘sexuality is constant’ rule mostly exists because at the beginning of DoA people were wondering if this Ethan was gay, too. (It has since seemed to informally extend to gender, as Carla was a robot car in the old universe but being trans was necessary to her when reworking into Carla, and Jocelyne was retconned into existing in the Walkyverse because by the time J&W! ended, she was an actual character here.) But the end result is that we now know a couple Walkyverse characters are retroactively bisexual, and that Shortpacked Malaya probably also transcends gender. In most cases by now it’s been demonstrated in-comic that everyone who was historically non-heteronormative is still non-heteronormative. (Though a few bi/pan characters who are mostly background or only expressed attraction to a couple characters might not necessarily be read as bi or pan here. I’m pretty sure that’s the case with Grace and Mandy, and I could see people not realizing for a while that Marcie is bi – in addition to whatever she and Malaya have going on now, she also had a pretty serious relationship with Jason in the other universe.)

          As Wack’d put it over on the reruns the other day, their hope is that someday, over enough time, it will turn out that no one in the Walkyverse in any major role was straight. I share this hope.

        18. milu

          right. the spirit of the rule might be less, for any given character, “sexuality carries over” as “queerness may never diminish” =P

        19. AKP

          “Aromantics and asexuals also are not straight, even if they are heterosexual or heteroromantic respectively.”

          That depends who you ask, you can’t just blanket statement it. Ace and Aro folk are queer, but frankly as an ace heteroromantic person I have far more in common with the straight people I know than the gay ones. Hell, unless you want to date me my sexuality is irrelevant to you, so I’m never getting the discrimination that my gay friends and gay ace folk are gonna get. Passing privilege is real.

          I’m ace and I’m poly and that’s solidly queer, but if you aren’t actively denying or condemning my existence or my relationships it is in no way offensive to me to call me straight. I’m just ace and straight. Like some people are ace and gay. Whatever.

        20. Regalli

          AKP: Fair, but with the number of exclusionists who DO condemn ace people as a concept, I do still err on the side of ‘we count, all of us, fuck you TERFs trying to go recruiting the youths and then narrowing what counts further once you’ve hooked them,’ especially since they’re also the ones that argue no one ever tries to convince ace people they just haven’t had the right kind of sex yet and uh… yeah aces getting raped because they’re ace and the rapist wants to “fix” that is definitely a known and reported Thing. It’s complicated and self-identifying as a straight ace is reasonable, but I think the general community consensus is still, last I checked, ‘acceptable under the banner and telling the exclusionists everyone counts, aroaces don’t stop being queer because they have passing privilege around strangers and heteroromantic aces still have the risk of sexual assault trying to “fix” them.’

        21. thejeff

          It is kind of funny how often we focus on Joyce’s apparent attraction and use that to ship the two, when Dorothy has not only declared her self straight, but hasn’t shown any signs of reciprocating that attraction.

        22. anonymsly

          Even better, Joyce herself has stated that lady parts below the neck would have to not be there for her. I think a lot of people just think non-sexual relationships can’t be intimate.

        23. Luna

          Eh, Joyce said that, but Joyce has a lot of hang-ups with sex and sexuality, so I take it with a grain of salt. Though I do like the idea of her being biromantic but not necessarily bisexual too, that would no doubt be even tougher for her to untangle.

        24. StClair

          and yet Joyce keeps looking at Billie’s… just below the neck, and wanting to crawl into them and be warm and safe forever.

          I think she’s got a low but non-zero Kinsey number, and also that her ideas of what is included in “straight” gals being pals has been significantly influenced by Becky’s (unrealized, at the time) attraction to her.

        25. RacingTurtle

          I really hope Dorothy isn’t bi. Dorothy is Gen Z, introspective, open about sexuality, and has supportive parents. It’s plausible she could be closeted for political reasons, but she’s shown no sign of that. It’s fairly implausible that the idea of attraction to non-dudes has never occurred to her. Like, it would almost be a “fuck you, little girl, females don’t know anything about what they want” for her not to be straight, given that she believes herself to be. Bi/pan representation is important, but so is supporting the right of young women to be the experts on their own lives, y’know?

      5. Heavensrun

        Honestly, I doubt she’d be that surprised at this point.

        1. justin8448

          Yeah, she’s seen in coming.

          I bet she’s still capable of being simultaneously unsurprised and angry though.

      6. Spencer

        What if

        Joyce/Dorothy/Dina triad who talk about how God is dumb while having premarital sex

        1. zee

          That sounds like an actual nightmare Becky would have, along the same lines as Joyce’s dreams

    4. JepMZ

      Yeah, she just came running in tears after witnessing Dina oogling Joe

  14. Sirksome

    I know sometimes the comic seems to go out of its way to note they are just friends but moments like these really make me want to ship these two.

    1. RassilonTDavros

      It’s probably my favorite Joyce ship.

    2. C.T. Phipps

      I ship them despite Dorothy being straight.

      I also ship Jason and Walky.

      1. Devin

        Shipping does not require canon plausibility.

        1. StClair

          don’t I know it 😛

  15. Rose Red

    That went so much better than I was worried it would. She got to start to talk through her post-fight emotions. Dorothy is being supportive. Hugs are good.

    1. alongcameaspider

      Yeah the Deism comment from a couple straps ago had me concerned Dorothy was gonna be dismissive of Joyce’s feelings

      1. Suzi

        I took it as more a jab (a friendly one) that she has gone from one extreme to the other in neckbreaking speed.

        When my friend gets a little manic I tend to rib on him like that as well in an attempt to diffuse situations.

        1. DailyBrad

          Yeah. Dorothy’s a bit dry, but it’s not like she never makes jokes at all.

  16. cmasta1992

    All this does is confirm that Becky was right earlier and Joyce is just high on moral superiority right now. She’s basically an atheist fundie right now and it would be nice for her to learn how to even the hell out.

    1. C.T. Phipps

      Joyce is a champion and idealist. She believes in fighting the Good Fight for Truth!

      Now she believes that’s God not existing.

    2. Needfuldoer

      It’s the only playbook she’s got, so she’s going to apply it to all scenarios.

    3. James

      Dorothy is pointing out here that’s it isn’t really moral superiority – it’s externalized but self-directed anger (plus mis-directed anger at other specific people like her family) that is *presenting* as moral superiority.

  17. RassilonTDavros

    Hugs will always be fine.

  18. Carms

    feels like a sigh in my heart =)

  19. drs

    Joe and Walky: “We have some other hypotheses for you to test.”

  20. BBCC

    Hugs are nice. This is good progress. <3

    1. BBCC

      Okay this is like the 6th Walky one. Gravitar is taunting me.

      1. Regalli

        Seriously, that is some bad odds.

        But hey, Dorothy being better than expected at getting to the heart of Joyce’s issues! And hugs!

      2. BarerMender

        Heaven — or Willis — help you. I’d hate to be Walky.

        1. The Wellerman

          Good idea, wrong diety.

          The one that could help you is Random Number God — better known as RNG.

  21. Yotomoe

    I mean there’s atheists who are the dumbest people I’ve ever met.

    1. MeghanTheDreamCrusher

      Case in point

      Me

      1. Yotomoe

        Supporting evidence

        me

        1. Hoboturtle

          Ha, atheist who believe they have no intelligence.

          I’m agnostic so I don’t know if I have intelligence or not.

        2. Geneseepaws

          Ok, I wasted coffee during a Holiday morning, spraying at that comment. I’m sad and I’m STILL laughing.

        3. milu

          Hahaha^^ But seriously Yoto, you make a terrible case for some atheists being dumb as hell, sorry. (cos you’re actually super thoughtful and smart) (sorry)

        4. Yotomoe

          Haha well thank ya, but trust me, the amount of things I don’t know about or don’t understand is a significant.

        5. thejeff

          Just knowing that makes you smarter than an awful lot of dumb people.

        6. Vernal ancient

          That’s true of literally everyone though? Like, pick the smartest, most knowledgeable, most insightful person out of all ~seven billion of us, and all of their knowledge and understanding will still only add up to a fraction of total human knowledge, and humans as a whole are nowhere near understanding everything about the universe

        7. OBBWG

          Socrates (in disguise): Why do you all say Socrates is the wisest man in the world?

          Everybody: Because he is the only one wise enough to realize he is not the wisest man in the world.

        8. Yotomoe

          😛 I’m flattered but you don’t gotta go outta your way to compliment my intelligence.

        9. StClair

          congratulations, you’re on the good side of Dunning-Kruger.

        10. zee

          Exhibit C
          Me

    2. Knight of Whispers

      Can confirm. Am atheist. Am dumb as fuck.

  22. John Smith

    Apparently Joyce also read that gallup poll!

    1. thakoru

      Did she? Does that say 40 or 90? It’s hard to tell with this font.

      1. John Smith

        Huh. I definitely read it as 40, but you’re right. I can’t tell.

      2. milu

        pretty sure it says 40

        1. DaibhidC

          And a few strips back she said 3% of Americans were atheist.

          I feel like before Joyce became smarter she was good at maths.

        2. milu

          i think the 40% is meant to represent the share of young earth creationists. John Smith mentioned this Gallup poll which reports that figure

        3. Daibhid C

          Oh, good catch.

          Jeez, here I am criticising Joyce for becoming the worst kind of New Atheist, and she’s doing better at not lumping all religous people together than I am!

  23. Regalli

    Happy George Jetson Conception Eve, everyone! We get Joyrothy hugs!

    1. The Wellerman

      Is it really here?!??!

      WOOOOOO!!!!!

      ??????

      How do you all plan to celebrate?!?!?

      1. Reltzik

        This is a golden opportunity to brush off the “where’s my flying car” memes, isn’t it?

        …. I’m not GOING to, but it would still beat the current fla- civilized discussions about Joyce’s antitheism.

        1. Jamie

          I have a glorious rant that I can copy and paste about people asking that question, if you want. 😛

          (Actually, it would be terrible for the formatting, so I won’t paste it anyways. It comes down to “actually, they exist; we call them helicopters”.)

        2. Reltzik

          … but I thought broken formatting was a prerequisite for that sort of discussion!

        3. Jamie

          I mean the site formatting. It would come out as a very long, narrow column of text.

        4. Regalli

          And that is ABSOLUTELY a prerequisite for that sort of discussion on this site! (Says one of those most guilty for such long narrow columns.)

        5. Reltzik

          Atleastyoudon’ttrytofitlongrunonwordsintoasinglecollumn.

        6. Thag Simmons

          Flying Cars are a terrible idea and even if the tech was there widespread adoption would be unlikely.

    2. BBCC

      Yay, happy Jetson fucking day eve!

  24. Sirksome

    I guess a silver lining to Joyce and Becky separating is that we can get moments like this without Becks unapoligetically and obnoxiously inserting herself in out of jealousy and possessiveness.

    1. Alex

      Yes, I feel this strongly. I disagree with anyone who says Becky’s needling of Dorothy is completely good-natured.

  25. C.T. Phipps

    Now now, Joyce, let me teach you about Simulation Hypothesis.

    1. Buli-Buli

      I can’t think of simulation hypothesis without thinking of Roko’s Basilisk.

      Which given hiw proud Joyce is of her new found atheism, would be a hilariously ironic belief for her to pick up.

    2. Nobonesforever

      Hey now! Let’s only feed her good physics

      1. milu

        the simulation hypothesis isn’t falsifiable. It’s quite literaly metaphysics.

        1. C.T. Phipps

          Someone actually did a good job of showing how it was impossible for the Earth to be a simulation due to the data involved.

        2. milu

          oh you mean this?

          Myeah it does say they tested “one type of simulation hypothesis”. And i’m sure you can read it then go on and construct a slightly amended SH that accounts for these observations. Maybe the simulator has more computational capability than we can imagine? Or they use some type of computation that we, in our limited simulated state, do not have the capacity to comprehend? if you decide to believe in it, you can always justify it. it’s exactly like faith in god in that way. i can prove that genesis is not consistent with observable fact, but you can just brainstorm for a minute until you adapt your belief in god in a way that makes the veracity of genesis unnecessary. (unless you’re a batshit fundamentalist and decide instead you just need to kill anyone who disagrees with you, that’s not a thing with SH people i think)

          Honestly, i’m not terribly interested in the simulation hypothesis.

          No, that’s not quite true. I’m profoundly exasperated with the simulation hypothesis. I’m an endlessly curious sort of person, right, but this kind of speculation just pushes some sort of button that makes me want to scream “oh for fuck’s sake, don’t you have anything better to do with your time”. haha^^

        3. C.T. Phipps

          Neo, let me tell you about…the Matrix.

        4. milu

          See, but i still like The Matrix because it works great as a metaphor and its protagonists are a group of political activists aiming for the overthrow of an oppressive system. so that’s rad.

          The “actual” Simulation Hypothesis otoh, doesn’t feel very empowering at all.

        5. deliverything

          Slightly off topic, but from the page you linked: “In 2019, philosopher Preston Greene suggested that it may be best not to find out if we’re living in a simulation since, if it were found to be true, such knowing may end the simulation.”

          Douglas Adams got there first, in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: “There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened.”

  26. Yotomoe

    Also I know it’s the point but I hate the “I’m smarter now” type of person quite a bit. Like don’t get me wrong I don’t believe in god and find most religions hard to believe but that doesn’t make me smarter than anyone. Hell the reason why I identify as agnostic. Cuz like…what if I’m wrong. I get up to that afterlife and it’s like “nah we were real all along!” Boy would there be egg on my face as I presumably go careening down to hell.
    My money is, if there is an afterlife, it is so unlike anything any mainstream religion imagines it to be that there’s no way any of us are right about it. Just some real avante gard shit. Man it’d really suck if it was just a second level of earth and like…everyone there just knows all the fucked up shit people did on earth one.

    1. drs

      I’d say it’s a fact there’s no good evidence of an afterlife. Discovering an afterlife after we die wouldn’t retroactively change that, *especially* if it wasn’t much like the afterlife of any particular religion.

      There might well be many atheists who *hope* we’re wrong — not with respect to Christianity or whatnot, which all have Problems IMO — but with respect to there being a benevolent deity who’ll make up to us for the sufferings of this life. But hope can’t change that I find any particular religion absurd on multiple levels.

      1. C.T. Phipps

        One of the guys I used to know thought it was a demonstrable part of the Christian faith that there was no evidence and that God kept it from happening. I told him about the board of science for Catholicism and testing miracles with atheists reviewing evidence to avoid bias. He thought that was insane. I was like, “So seeking evidence of God is the weird part for you?”

        1. thejeff

          What I’ve always found weird about that argument is how blatantly unBiblical it is. If Christian faith requires belief without evidence, then why did Jesus (and later the Apostles and various saints) go around doing miracles to prove it?

    2. Reltzik

      Or maybe it’s just another Twilight-Zone-style twist on Hell where NO one knows the fucked up shit people actually did, but instead get told fucked-up conspiracy theories about the other people they share that afterlife with and 90% of the population believes them, because that’s the particular afterlife reserved for people who aren’t critical thinkers.

    3. BarerMender

      By “smarter now” Joyce might mean, or feel, that she’s more capable of clear thinking.

      1. King Daniel

        Way I see it she’s definitely meaning it in the “I’m superior” way, given how she literally began this interaction by naming herself “in the top 3% of most-intelligent Americans”.

        1. BarerMender

          That’s true, too.

        2. James

          As Dorothy points out, though, the things Joyce is saying aren’t *really* directed at other people – she is struggling to express emotions she is feeling about herself. While she’s clearly indicating she is smart than those other religious people, it’s also obvious the real thought she’s conveying is that she sees the person *she* used to be as stupid, and it hurts her to recognize how stupid she used to be (or rather, sees herself as having been).

    4. Nono

      Same idea as ‘humans are the most evolved animal’. Nope, we just adapted.

      1. James

        Most people don’t realize superlatives and other comparatives require conditions to be meaningful, because in normal life the conditions only need to be implicit since everyone recognizes what they are. But that breaks down when you start getting into scenarios where there is no common condition understand (like “most evolved” or “smartest”) meaning you need to provide an explicit condition for the statement to hold meaning.

        There are certainly conditions where humans could qualify as “the most evolved”, but also conditions where countless other organisms could qualify. You gotta finish the statement.

    5. davidbreslin101

      I find the “With My Mighty Brain!” kind of atheist as obnoxious as the “I’m praying for you!” kind of Christian. And that’s saying something. (OK, I had a brief With My Mighty Brain phase, but I was like 17 and I grew out of it. Plus, in the absence of easy internet access, I kept my superiority to my damned self.)

  27. DailyBrad

    Hugs are almost always welcome with friends.

    I do like that Joyce is getting pushback without necessarily being outright dismissed. You don’t want her to turn into a Morrissey.

  28. auroki

    I’m honestly surprised at how good Dorothy is handling this. In a good way.

    I was worried that she was gonna do the bad side of mom friending and keep trying to force Joyce to deal.with things the logical way. But here, she is letting Joyce vent, speak her mind and get her thoughts out of her system and such. And rather than belittle her when she is stating her facts, Dorothy is offering a literal helping hand to Joyce to.comfort

    1. Needfuldoer

      Yeah, that’s where I was afraid this was going.

      Joyce still needs a good dope slap from someone in either Dorothy’s position, or her own after she comes down from her anti-theist rage. She’s lost and confused, trying to recapture the feeling of righteous, confident superiority she had at the beginning of this arc, but she’s chasing a mirage and causing collateral damage on the way. She needs to get over herself.

      1. anonymsly

        And slapping always helps! Even better when it’s the flat of the hand from someone you live.

        1. Needfuldoer

          The best slap requires a fish.

          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLdK9zaLaG8

      2. James

        As Dorothy points out, Joyce is clearly externalizing anger she’s feeling towards herself. A slap at this point, regardless of the source, is only likely to solidify that by convincing her that the enemy is external. What Joyce is doing is much better, because what Joyce really needs her is some introspection.

        I don’t think she’s trying to capture a feeling of righteous, confident superiority – I think she’s trying to come to terms with how she feels about herself against a history where she wasn’t supposed to ever think about that… and then what it means about how she relates to and interacts with other people, especially those like Becky who have played such a central role in making her feel trapped in herself, through no fault of their own.

  29. Bicycle Bill

    The problem is that there is no way to disprove the hypothesis that the world was created by an invisible man.   And to those of you who would point to evolution and the fossil record, my response is to say, “Why couldn’t that be the method the invisible guy used to create it?”

    1. aelfwine

      And at some point you learn to realize that this sort of thing “You can’t disprove Santa Claus!” is arguing backwards, and that it’s a weak and cowardly attempt to prevent oneself from accepting reality.

    2. Tired of It

      But can you disprove the hypothesis that a hug would help?

      1. The Wellerman

        If science can tell us anything, it’s that the only way to find out is if you EXPERIMENT!!!

        ? ? ? ? ?

        Get excited!!!

        Joyce x Dorothy’s gonna be 10 billion percent epic!!!!

        1. The Wellerman

          Aaaaand I suspect just about nobody but Yotomoe got the Dr. Stone reference. ?

    3. Reltzik

      Because it was instead the method that the devil used to make people doubt that the invisible guy used two apparently-contradictory six-step programs instead. OBVIOUSLY.

    4. John Smith

      Which is why nobody really tries to ‘disprove’ god anymore. The scientific method deals with this fine, though. Falsifiability is kind of a major theme, lots of ink has been spilled on it.

      You don’t disprove unfalsifiable claims. You dismiss them. Russell’s teapot is a classic description of this. Alternatively, the dragon in Carl Sagan’s garage.

      1. Agemegos

        “There exists at least one black swan” is not a falsifiable claim.

    5. Sombrero

      No need to disprove anything when Occam’s Razor is your Chekhov’s Gun.

    6. Thag Simmons

      But it can’t be proven either

    7. Agemegos

      Or there is the Omphalos Hypothesis: that the invisible man created us and the world last Thursday, complete with light en route from quasars, memories in our minds, fossils in the rocks, and holes in our socks.

      1. milu

        Fossils in the rocks and holes in our socks!!! Beautiful ^^

        1. Agemegos

          And, sadly, not original. I paraphrased a remark by, I think, Bertrand Russell.

      2. StClair

        also known (somewhat more descriptively, if not as euphoniously) as “Last Thursdayism”.

    8. Nobonesforever

      The burden of proof is on those espousing “God exists and created the universe” you don’t prove the negative. Like without compelling, concrete, repeatable evidence the existence of god scientifically goes in the “not useful or important because it literally cannot be tested or proved” pile.

      1. thejeff

        “I had no need of that hypothesis.” – LaPlace

    9. C.T. Phipps

      Science is not about proving but stating, “Yes, there’s a 99.99% likelihood that this will happen and repeatable.” Theories change with the arrival of new evidence.

  30. Francoinblanco

    Finally, Dorothy im not dissapointed

  31. LiterallyJustSomeGuy

    Yay, communication and hugs!

  32. Robert Thompson

    THIS, THIS IS WHAT THE JOYCE STANS WANTED!!!

    With Joyce’s punchy atheism successfully disarmed (or at least put to “safe”), she can (hopefully with Dorothy’s help here) start to unpack it.

    Until Becky walks in and kicks up dust again, I’m sure.

    1. Reltzik

      Unfortunately, it’s not put on ‘safe’. Dorothy just managed to hit the snooze button for 30 seconds.

  33. Dafydd

    ♪An invisible man sleepin’ in your bed—
    Who[m] you gonna call?♫

    1. davidbreslin101

      Boast-Gusters!

  34. Florence

    And the defensive wall comes down as Joyce feels a tiny bit safe in Dorothy’s arms

    First up, it will be something amazing if Joyce figures out her feelings for Dorothy.

    Second of all, while Dorothy’s centrism annoys me, her kindness winning over cynicism is nice. Especially how someone finally found a little of what’s bothering Joyce and why she’s acting this way. I still find her approach previously to be very not good(in regards to the disappointment line) but this cutting through Joyce’s bs bravado to her true feelings is appreciated

    1. Spencer

      How I’m thinking of these last few strips is that Dorothy’s flaws are intentional, her going “try gently easing into it’s and “you’re hurting Becky” are extensions of her belief in “what Joyce needs to be”, but unlike Sarah, who tried to bulldoze to a solution by blaming Joyce, Dorothy is more constructive. Even what I view as mistakes here are rooted in trying to challenge Joyce, and then here when Joyce calls back to “I’m an idiot for believing” which we the only thing Dorothy heard, that’s something Dorothy is actually capable of meaningfully helping with by giving Joyce a safe spot to validate that internal anger. It’s not the only issue at hand, but it’s all Dorothy can help with.

  35. Reltzik

    Okay, I finally figured out what was bugging me about how Joyce is going about being an atheist. Or, rather, I already knew what was bugging me, but now I know how to categorize it.

    Joyce is an atheist-chauvinist.

    1. Jamie

      …and today I learned that my understanding of the term “chauvinist” was incorrect.

      Yeah. “atheist-chauvinist” fits.

  36. JediMB

    Finally! You’re a star, Dorothy!

  37. Fuzzy

    oh thank goodness someone showed concern for joyce’s self-loathing and offered compassion.

  38. Arianod

    in which Joyce finally does the smart thing

  39. Pickman

    “It sounds to me like your anger’s really at yourself”
    Wow, I never heard something so condescending.

    1. BarerMender

      Or accurate.

    2. DailyBrad

      Condescension is all in the delivery, and I really don’t get the impression that’s how Dorothy’s saying it. Like, given Joyce’s degree of itching for a fight lately, I don’t think she’d take it lying down if she thought Dorothy was talking down to her.

    3. Keulen

      I kinda felt like Dorothy was being way more condescending towards Joyce in the previous two or three strips. This sounds a lot less condescending and more like Dorothy’s finally trying to understand why Joyce is angry.

    4. Alex

      It sounds condescending if you take Joyce’s anger to be at the people who abused her in the name of religion. But I don’t think she’s there yet. I think she actually is angry at herself for believing.

  40. Amós Batista

    I love how Dorothy aways offers at the end.

  41. Rocket Relm

    How is it that just, Joyce-faces are so fun, literally no matter what she’s doing. Panel three especially, and it seems like especially Joyce is very fun in expressive manners.

    1. davidbreslin101

      I worry that overextraction will lead to our civilisation hitting Peak Joyce-Face, and this valueable resource will be gone forever.

  42. Sombrero

    Dina will be proud.

  43. Acher4

    Awww, our little Joyce is growing up. 😀

  44. Mr.Morningstar

    Theeere it is.

  45. Rabisch

    Now, this is reality good. Reality sweet and effective. Sigh… when Dorothy will leave this university, Joyce will feel terrible.

    1. Edwin I Callahan

      Given this strip’s time scale, we won’t get to the end of this semester before the energy death of the universe. I mean, it’s taken Willis more than a year to reach the first Saturday morning of the second semester.

    2. RassilonTDavros

      Yeah. Even if they still keep in touch through phones or text or whatever Kids These Days use, she’ll still miss seeing Dorothy’s face. every feature an’ facet an’ bump

  46. Keulen

    The last panel is definitely adorable.

  47. Alex

    Aw, cute!

  48. milu

    Great minds ship alike.

  49. GUIGUI

    CUTE!

  50. Amelie Wikström

    Going back to the “why do people think Joyce is terrible now but they still keep giving Becky chances” debate, I think it’s a lot about how Joyce makes it easy. She’s so obviously hurting, in ways that let people help her, like here. I mean, and this is coming from someone who’s spent the last 9-10 years fighting with white supremacists on twitter, you never want to destroy someone for fucking up, you just want to help them fix it.

    And Becky is very resourceful and clever, but Joyce is very resourceful and stupid like a sack of hammers. You want to give her guidance, and that’s basically all there is to it. Setting Becky straight (so to speak) is a much, much more subtle and complicated process. Probably the herds of readers who will take anything she says or does and find something wrong with it don’t help.

  51. Beau Kirin Maysey

    Dorothy: Joyce, atheism doesn’t make you smarter, EXPERIENCE does! Take this time to try out new things!- Road trips, new interests, new connections, facing your fears, lesbianism…

    Joyce: What was that last one?…

    Dorothy: Facing your fears…

    1. milu

      haha ^^

    2. The Wellerman

      “It’s time for us to take chances, get messy, make mistakes!!!”

  52. JBento

    Oh, if people thought Becky was upset right now, just let her walk in on that last panel there.

    1. Big Z

      Yup, she’ll just continue to smash boundaries and be creepily possessive, and inexplicably people will still be on Team Joyce Is 100% At Fault.

  53. Vulcanodon

    Atheism is the lack of belief in a god, so it is fair to say babies are atheist. But of course it is different from adult atheism; the lack of belief is simply the result of a question that has not yet been asked. It is like saying babies do not believe in the commutative property of addition.

    When I departed from faith I felt some anger but mostly a tremendous sense of loss, of all that I had invested in Christianity. Which was a lot.

  54. Kitsune

    Everyone is born an agnostic, not an Atheist. Atheism is taught , and can’t even exist without theism. You can’t believe there is no God, if you have no concept of God.

    1. thejeff

      This seems a very weird take to me. Even granting your premise, it would seem to apply to agnosticism as easily as atheism. If I have no concept of God, how can I believe we can’t (or don’t) know whether one exists?

      But more simply if Atheism is simply not believing in God, which seems a more straightforward definition than believing there is no God, then it doesn’t matter whether you know of the concept or not, you still don’t believe.

      1. Kitsune

        Okay I’ve always found Atheism, to be defined by actively disbelieving in God. Generally you can’t actively disbelieve in something if you don’t have a concept of it. Agnosticism probably isn’t correct either, since not knowing if you believe in something or not also requires you know that it exists, I just feel that it’s closer to the concept than Atheism. It’s a bit like Schroedinger’s cat in a way, you can’t really disbelieve in a concept or story until you know it exists. On the other hand, I know plenty of people who disbelieve in evolution, who really don’t know what Evolution is.

    2. someone

      You define atheism as “believing there is no god”, but a more proper definition would be “not believing there is a god”.

      Therefore, anyone who was never taught about any religion and hasn’t developed their own thought on the subject is atheist by default.

      1. Kitsune

        Initially was thinking it was a distinction without a difference, but I think I get it. I disagree however, it’s a bit like saying the inhabitants of North Sentinel Island are climate change deniers , because they have no contact with the outside world and are unaware of climate change. Agnostic isn’t really the correct term either, but I feel it’s closer than Atheist.

        1. James

          I think you’re confusing weak agnostic atheists with strong gnostic atheists or even just strong agnostic atheists. (remember that theism/atheism is about whether you believe in something, gnosticism/agnosticism is about whether you think something is knowable, and strong/weak is generally about how much you think your belief is the correct belief given the known conditions)

          So a weak agnostic atheist doesn’t believe in god, doesn’t have any real opinion on other people’s relationship with the concept, and doesn’t think its the sort of thing you could prove one way or another. This is basically the “baby” stance, since that’s basically a list of things you *don’t* think and babies haven’t thought about any of this.

          A strong agnostic atheist thinks we might never now for certain anything about divine beings, but believes we are better off as society, for example, if people didn’t believe. These are practical atheists.

          You could also be a weak gnostic atheist, utterly certain no gods exist but also perfectly wiling to keep your opinions to yourself as long as no one gives you shit about it.

          Strong gnostic atheists are certain god doesn’t exist *and* think everyone else should think the same way. You could classify these types more easily as “antitheists” than “atheists”.

          “a” is not the prefix for denial, that’s “anti”.

    3. John Smith

      So all babies are born Santa-agnostic, then become Santa-ists, then a-santa-ists? Since you can’t believe in no Santa, if you have no concept of Santa?

      I feel like it’s semantic stretch.

      1. Kitsune

        No more so than calling babies Santa-atheist. Again Agnostic really isn’t the right word for it either. It’s more the concept that ignorance of a subject is not the same as disbelief. I basically comes down to whether Atheism is the disbelief in God or gods, or the lack of belief.

    4. DiktatrSquid

      Contrary to common misconception, atheism and agnosticism are not mutually exclusive. Former is lack of belief and latter is lack of claim to knowledge. You can lack belief in any deity while not claiming certainty. Still if you’re not convinced of any god existing, you are an atheist. If your position is “Maybe, prove it” you still lack the conviction of “Yes” to either side. Atheism does not mean being convinced of no gods, although one convinced of no gods would also be atheist by definition.

      1. Kitsune

        According to Webster and atheist is ” a person who does not believe in the existence of a god or any gods” while an agnostic is “a person who believes that nothing is known or can be known of the existence or nature of God or of anything beyond material phenomena; a person who claims neither faith nor disbelief in God.” so the two are by the dictionary definitions mutually exclusive.

        1. James

          Those definitions are not mutually exclusive, though?

        2. Kitsune

          Yes they are. You can’t be unsure if there is aGod or not, and be sure there is not a God at the same time.

    5. temperaryobsessor

      If I had to guess I’d say the most natural initial belief is that mommy and/or daddy are God

      1. Agemegos

        I would be more inclined to say that the natural initial belief is a gnostic one, that Mummy and Daddy know things that they never had to learn, discover, or prove, and that they don’t have to support with evidence or reason. Agnosticism, the denial of revealed knowledge, is more of a teenager thing.

      2. James

        Natural also isn’t the same as default. Atheist is default, but kids left to their own devices can easily become strong gnostic theists with very little effort, indicating the outcome is still natural, although I’ve only ever seen it result in pantheisms. Once a kid starts believing in gods, you gotta put in some real work to make them stop at 1.

  55. Icalasari

    So happy lines of communication are starting to open up and people in the comic are recognizing now that Joyce is in her own sensitive spot needing some support to work through her own issues

  56. Raptorofwar

    This feels gay.

    1. Amós Batista

      That’s why I’m patroning Willis.

  57. Adept

    It makes me sad that religion is still such a big factor in people’s lives. We’ve given up on most superstitions, but these ones cling on. At least their power is diminishing year by year.

    1. C.T. Phipps

      I definitely believe religion is a fundamental part of the human experience and we need to update them with what we know so that we may make them embodiments of truth as well as enlightenment.

      1. Agemegos

        I think religion serves a number of human needs, and that for many people it may be replaced in some of them by varying combinations of (for examples) psychology or competing schools of psychology, political causes, philanthropic work, sports and music fandoms, participation in ecstatic group activities such as performing music and dance, craft work, surfing etc. The remaining core of undisguised religion will be constrained in what it can assert credibly by advances in cosmology, neurology, and knowledge of the formation of stars and planets and origins and development of living things. Future religious belief and practice, though unlikely to vanish, seem likely to be different from what we are used to, with much that is functionally religious differently compartmented and wearing a secular guise.

    2. Jamie

      The main superstition I believe in is that it matters when I post a comment on a webcomic.

    3. James

      Citation on “we’ve given up on most superstitions”? Even the non-religious people I know still have plenty of those.

  58. Amós Batista

    I wish more people offers hugs when we’re passing through hard moments in our lives, instead empty slaps on your back with classical “I’ll pray to God help you.”

    1. annarchy

      thank you.

  59. Brighter Side

    I don’t know if Dorothy’s going to be President if she’s this rational and kind, but she’ll sure make a great leader of some sort.

    1. Nobonesforever

      Dorothy will never be president because you have to be a soulless monster to be president. She’ll make a great mayor or something some day tho

      1. C.T. Phipps

        I still have an image of Dorothy watching Hillary lose to Trump and trying to parse that.

        It reflects probably a lot of us.

  60. Michael Haneline

    Anyone else getting video ads on this website now that cover 25% of the screen? Like they’ll go one and off. I hope it’s just temporary, I don’t want to turn my ad blocker on but it makes it hard to read the comic…

    1. coma

      I get video ads, but they are not a problem reading the comic on the website. Are you perhaps reading on a mobile?

      1. coma

        Oh no no no, I need another pic

        1. coma

          This is acceptable!

  61. SeasideSun

    Queer person that I am, I look at that last panel and my brain goes “This is gay this is so gay and I love it” and it’s just a girl leaning on another girl but it’s gay and you can’t prove otherwise.

  62. Imogen

    I just realized that there’s an excellent chance that Becky is going to walk in on Joyce impulsively kissing Dorothy this chapter and Joyce is going to (temporarily) lose both friends and it’s going to go to heck. “Left me for a phantom” indeed.

    Pleeeease give me the trashy unrequited lesbian ships my sad bisexual lesbian heart craves

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