259

Free and happy
Posted on January 19, 2022 by David M Willis

259 thoughts on “Free and happy”

  1. Ana Chronistic

    DEFINITELY not me post-FINALLY-quitting-Neopets-over-their-NFT-fiasco or anything

    1. The Wellerman

      Woah! I LOVE NeoPets!

      Do you also miss their games?

      1. True Survivor

        I think I also played that as a kid. Also, are you wearing Jar-Jar Binks as a hoodie. I mean I get he’s not the most popular character, but that’s dark man.

        1. The Wellerman

          I was aiming for an alien kind of look, but not Jar Jar in particular! ?

          I’m playing around with the colors right now to see if I could get the hoodie to look good with the Genderfluid flag behind it.

        2. Delicious Taffy

          The orangey-yellow seems like a good combo. Might be a bias but a nice radioactive green would also look decent.

        3. The Wellerman

          Thanks! I think I got the colors down, at least for now, but what do you think?

        4. Delicious Taffy

          It certainly pops. The shadow is a good touch.

        5. The Wellerman

          Thanks slick! I’ll be ready for pride day for sure!

          By the way, did you make that crack-ship avatar yourself?

        6. Delicious Taffy

          Nah, I shelled out for the real goods on Kickstarter last year.

        7. Clif

          Bless you.

      2. Hoboturtle

        You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villian.

        Mind you I thought neopets died two decades ago, but that’s besides the point.

    2. Delicious Taffy

      What, the weird backdoor Scientology stuff didn’t do it for ya? That site has such a strange and fascinating history.

    3. Rose Red

      I… huh. I haven’t played in years, but that still makes me really sad. No new plots in three years? No attempt to fix the holes left by Flash? It really is almost dead. And the NFTs on top of it….

      well, does anyone know of the existence of a shapeshifter clone? because that was the last game that I really enjoyed, and I’d like to play it again someday and I don’t think Neopets will be around long enough for that to happen.

      1. The Wellerman

        There actually IS a way you can still play old flash games!

        It’s called Flash Point, and you can use it to play all the Neopets games and many, MANY more!

        https://bluemaxima.org/flashpoint/

        1. Rose Red

          So Shapeshifter wasn’t (isn’t?) actually a Flash game, so I’m sure I could still log in and play if I wanted to. But that means that I’m pretty sure it didn’t get caught in any of the Flash archive efforts.

        2. The Wellerman

          Did I mention Flash Point has basically all other plug-in games that aren’t exactly flash?

        3. Rose Red

          Assuming I used the browser search function correctly, it’s not in there. I think it was a HTML or javascript game or something, a la Pyramids and some others. I’m almost certain it’s still working, I just don’t want to try to recover my password or make a new account.

          I appreciate the effort, and I’m sure there are some other Neopets games that I’ll have the urge to play sometime that I’ll now be able to.

        4. Yumi

          It does still work on the site, but it does require you to be logged in to play. I get that’s a barrier, but just wanted to share that in case you ever change your mind. Still slightly obsessed with Neopets, so.

        5. Rose Red

          So I found my old login info and, well, it’s not letting me actually play. Sadness.

          (I tried to play level 17 again, and it said “You came from the wrong page. Please go to the game!!!”. Then I tried to go back to level 1 without completely resetting my progress, and it said the same thing. Then I went to the previous page and said “start over”, and it said the same thing again. I’m just… sad now. Hopefully the new strip tomorrow will cheer me up?)

    4. Needfuldoer

      Their WHAT.

      1. Clif

        NFTs are a form of imaginary ownership which some people have made serious money with, however some people is not likely to include you or me. People who are involved with something often feel a form of ownership. Legal ownership is something else again. Sometimes all these religious beliefs collide.

        1. Needfuldoer

          I mean, we probably shouldn’t be surprised a site built around collecting imaginary things is getting into Blockchain Dibs, but at least they weren’t actively contributing to the video card shortage before.

          ”They stole my Moehogs, Odo!”

        2. Needfuldoer

          Thanks for eating my link, comment system.

          https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=DrbDWq64BNg

    5. Yumi

      The NFT stuff definitely sucks, but I’m still playing. Not as much, since there’s not as much to do, but I’m still there.

    6. Inbar Fink

      Damn, I was just thinking the other day that maybe I should go back to Neopets and I find out about this…. sucks.

  2. Sirksome

    Grape juice and crackers are a nice snack. Don’t have to be associated with communion.

    1. The Wellerman

      Yeah! And if it make you feel better, you can always add a little sharp cheddar to the crackers and some cherry to the grape juice!

      I hereby declare this meal DEconsecrated!!!

      1. Slartibeast Button, BIA

        Joyce may be an atheist now, but mixing food is still heresy!

        1. C.T. Phipps

          Speaking as a person on the spectrum, mixing food is something that is weird and creepy.

          It is the other people who are wrong.

          🙂

      2. Freddie!

        Cherry would just make it look like more oxygenated blood.

    2. Doctor_Who

      If Joyce had known that, she would have quit church years ago!

    3. Laura

      My old Bible study teacher in high school (yes, went to a religious high school) said that in seminary the students would have communion using pretzels and beer instead of bread and wine. Works for me! ;-D

    4. brionl

      I don’t think most Protestant sects do communion. I’m pretty sure Joyce’s family wasn’t Church of England or anything like that.

      1. Laura

        I’m pretty sure most do. Every one I’ve attended has, in some form. Only the Quakers don’t practice sacraments as such, but many of the Evangelical Friends still do, actually.

      2. C.T. Phipps

        They do communion (Presbyterian–Calvinist-Lite). They just don’t believe in the literal transubstantiation of the bread to the body of Christ. In Catholicism, its more like when a priest blesses water and it suddenly can kill vampires. Its now spiritual and holy.

        (Odd but accurate summation)

        Protestants are just doing it as symbolic so presumably Protestant communion wouldn’t burn vampires but Catholic would.

        1. eh, whatever

          Catholic: Transubstantiation – bread & wine become literal body & blood of Christ, but retain the properties of bread & wine.

          Luther: Consubstantiation – bread & wine remain bread & wine, but also become the literal body & blood of Christ in addition.

          Zwingli: it’s just symbolic.

          Luther and Zwingli actually met, discussed this, and couldn’t agree. This is why the German and the Swiss Protestants have never merged: they both believe the other is getting something fundamentally wrong.

        2. The Quirk

          Imagine the problems vampires face with these divisions.

        3. Deanatay

          =Ve drink zeir blood!
          -No, ve consume deir life force. De blood ees seemply seembolic!
          -Blasphemer!!
          -Literalist!!

        4. pope suburban

          Huh. Now I wonder if this isn’t the origin story for the energy vampires in What We Do In the Shadows. Maybe there was just a vampire schism over feeding and here we go.

        5. thejeff

          See I was thinking of it in terms of a secret conspiracy of vampires being behind Protestantism so that people won’t have as much access to real holy water.

        6. jothki

          Claiming that you’re literally turning bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ is like claiming that you’re capable of literally resurrecting yourself from the dead. Sure it’s theologically possible, but maybe you have a bit of an inflated opinion about your abilities.

      3. Dinajoyce

        Pretty much every Christian group does communion (there’s a few exceptions that prove the rule, but those groups are usually exceptions on lots if issues). Many evangelicals don’t do it every week, which might be what’s throwing you off. Lots of churches just do it the first Sunday of the month and some (especially among Southern Baptists) just do it once a quarter.

        Worth noting, I think most “mainline” or “high church” protestants think it’s more than a symbol, even though they don’t believe in transubstantiation. They believe that God is present with the congregation in a unique and special way that impacts the souls of those taking communion. They just don’t think a priest is necessary for that special experience to happen and they don’t think the bread and wine/juice actually have to turn into flesh and blood. But Joyce’s churches probably all went with the straight symbol explanation.

        1. Clif

          And some do it because they take Jesus’s comment, “do this in remembrance of me” as a command given to the church.

      4. thejeff

        Joyce’s church certainly did. We’ve seen it.

        As well as Joyce’s craving for grape juice after her experience with Jacob’s more high church version.

  3. True Survivor

    Joyce’s face in panel five scares me.

    1. True Survivor

      Wait — oh my gosh I can comment! Everything I tried to post for the last two weeks just said ‘awaiting moderation’ indefinitely. I am FREE!!!!!

      1. RassilonTDavros

        Welcome!

      2. Delicious Taffy

        With the recidivism rates today, I figure you’ll be back behind bars soon enough.

        1. ktbear

          Wait, is THAT what thats about? Damn, Katie HAS been a bad girl.

        2. Decidedly Orthogonal

          Seems she was bearly bad enough to note. But anyone speaking of themselves in the third person should be trustworthy.

        3. Clif

          Clif certainly thinks so.

      3. Mr D

        Congrats, last time I got caught in the “awaiting moderation” jail it lasted from june to january

        1. Delicious Taffy

          Maybe you shouldn’t have run over Willis’s pet parrot.

        2. Decidedly Orthogonal

          He’s just having a nap. He’s been pining for the fjords.

        3. Roborat

          And it has such beautiful plumage.

      4. Slartibeast Button, BIA

        How can any of us really be free while we still have personal possessions?

        1. Delicious Taffy

          Yes. The quick answer is yes. Sentiments to the contrary are propaganda spread by the rich to convince us poor people we’re being ungrateful.

        2. Keulen

          To really be free we need to end capitalism.

        3. thejeff

          There are all sorts of ways that ending capitalism could leave us a lot less free

        4. mrnoidea

          Tbh I don’t blame my personal possessions. I blame the state.

        5. Ed Callahan

          I blame Trump.

        6. Clif

          I blame mrnoidea’s personal possessions. Mine are guilt free.

        7. mrnoidea

          You leave my $65 dehumidifier out of this.

        8. milu

          Of course you’re gonna feel territorial over stuff you’ve spent your hard-earned cash on.

          The path of true wisdom is shoplifting.

        9. thejeff

          Steal This Book

        10. milu

          Steal This Album

    2. Freddie!

      It’s the face of acute grape-juice-and-crackers withdrawal.

  4. Kyrik Michalowski

    Now for Joyce to learn that she can buy crackers and grape juice on her own. Also, for someone who is trying to be an atheist, Joyce sure does dig deep into it.

    1. C.T. Phipps

      Honestly, huge numbers of Biblical scholars and theologians are atheists. Lots of history, mythology, and cultural studies to pour over even if you don’t believe they are literally true.

      No weirder than people who obsess over Spider-Man and Beowulf.

      1. Kyrik Michalowski

        That’s a good point, hadn’t considered that.

      2. Reltzik

        Considerably less weird, given that the people who believe in the Bible have far more impact in history and in the present day than people who believe in Beowulf or Spidey. It’s relevant to a lot of what’s happening today, regardless of whether it’s true.

    2. Zal

      As far as I’ve experienced, it is actually fairly common for people to dive deep into studying religion as they are coming out of it. Since before that most of what you “know” is just regurgitated ideas from allegedly trustworthy sources, you actually want to research and learn as much as you can so you can better understand it and process it for yourself.

      Also, by allegedly I mean it is assumed they have done said research thoroughly and come to an honest conclusion rather than also just regurgitating ideas from another allegedly trustworthy source.

      1. Shade

        Also the topic she’s studying isn’t one a lot of true believer types would find very comfortable, at least in my experience.

        1. Stifyn Baker

          I’m guessing that your experience of ‘true believer’ types is quite limited, then. Worldwide, Christianity is a spectrum of beliefs, with many, many churches that have no truck with Biblical Literalism and thus no problem with the idea that a number of the epistles weren’t written by Paul.
          Official Christian doctrine is actually that Biblical Literalism ISN’T A THING anyway; mainstream Christianity abandoned that idea sixteen hundred years ago. It crept back in about 150 years ago, thanks largely to Industrial Revolution era revivalists who were reacting against what they saw as the secularisation of mechanised society, and were thus trying to get back to the ‘fundamentals’ of their faith (hence ‘fundamentalist’).
          St Augustine, 4th century Church Father, and the man who probably did more than any other single person in history to shape the Christian faith believed that it was the duty of every right thinking believer to ‘dive beneath the surface’ of the words and seek the truth ‘in the depths’. He taught that a belief in Biblical Literalism was a sign of a shallow or absent faith.

        2. Daibhid C

          “A lot of” does not equal “all” or even “most”.

        3. thejeff

          There is however not necessarily a link between Biblical Literalism and belief in the traditional authorship of the epistles (or of the gospels for that matter.) Or if there’s a link, it’s only one way. The literalists will believe in the traditional authorship, but others may do so as well.

          Also, there is no “official Christian doctrine”. Certainly not now and arguably never, despite the attempts of the church in Rome.

        4. Durandal_1707

          As someone who came from the same background as Willis, so far as I can tell, the topic she’s studying is definitely one that people from that tradition would be very uncomfortable with.

        5. thejeff

          Absolutely.

          Other than as “how to refute things the unbelievers say”. Like how they studied evolution.

        6. James

          Uh… she’s not studying biblical literalism, so why did you write a big post about biblical literalism?

          There’s a big difference between “the bible is metaphorical” or “the bible has important lessons but isn’t literally true” and what Joyce is studying, which is “the bible is composed at least partly of stories maliciously written by bad actors pretending to be other people to achieve their personal aims”.

          That’s a lot tougher for most Christians to swallow. There’s a difference between the bible not being true and the bible being explicitly faked.

        7. Wizard

          It’s not even necessarily malicious. Writing under the name of an established figure to draw on their authority is hardly unique to Christianity. It’s been a common practice throughout history among the adherents of many prophets and philosophers. It’s also not uncommon to have the works or earlier but more obscure thinkers attributed to a more famous figure who came along later. (Just look up Pythagoras for one good example.)
          There’s also the fact that for most of history, the only way to preserve documents was to copy them out by hand. Even the most conscientious scribe makes the occasional mistake. Documents were often lost, and later reconstructed from fragments. Then there’s the fact that historical documents are usually the result of translations, frequently multiple translations. Combine all these factors, and history starts to look like a centuries-long game of telephone.

        8. thejeff

          Willis already went off about this but while it wasn’t uncommon, it was never actually accepted. Malicious may not be the right term, but deliberately trying to get your ideas accepted by faking evidence that an existing authority wrote them is certainly dishonest.
          There’s no reason to think the epistles Joyce was talking about are mistakenly attributed based on scribal errors, reconstruction from fragments, translation or anything like that. They were like that from the start.

        9. C.T. Phipps

          American Fundamentalist Protestantism is one of the groups that really really hates when you extensively study alternative views of Christianity. Quite a lot of other ones have vast comparative and contrasting intellectual traditions. I visited a Catholic college and their studies of religion vs. a Baptist literalist college and the differences were night and day.

          “These are what ninety other groups say.”

          “This is true, all others fail.”

    3. Thag Simmons

      Nothing weird about it, it’s a pretty understandable thing to and plenty of people study religions without believing in those religions

    4. Keulen

      Considering how much impact the various religions in this world still have on the people and governments of multiple countries, studying those religions as an atheist seems pretty reasonable to me.

      1. thejeff

        Plus, they’re kind of fascinating. Especially the history and development aspects.
        At least to me.

  5. RassilonTDavros

    Hmm, I wonder if anyone has ever shipped Joyce and Walky in all of human history.

    1. Needfuldoer

      Joyce, and Walky? *Pfft* sure, maybe in some other universe!

      1. Spencer

        Take a machete to that ship, ew.

  6. alongcameaspider

    Maybe Joyce should occupy herself by finally exploring secular music like they talked about doing last night

    1. alongcameaspider

      Also I meant to bring it up yesterday but I notice she didn’t make a snide comment toward Lucy going to church

      Maybe learning to choose her battles, or her issues were more rooted in Becky specifically staying christian

      1. Needfuldoer

        She wants Becky to escape with her.

      2. Spencer

        I’ve been coming at this like “Joyce definitely thinks all religious folks thought like she does in the same circumstances,” in that she’s never thought of religion outside of hers and its variants and all of them were just factually wrong but thought as inerrantly as she did, but it’s going to be outrageously funny to me if she’s automatically chill with everyone except for Becky, because Becky’s the only one here from the same trauma inducing death cult.

    2. C.T. Phipps

      It’s entirely possible Joyce may find she just likes religious music too.

      Like all those people who don’t listen to Springsteen’s lyrics and assume he’s a flag waving nutjob instead of dedicated social critic like Dylan.

      1. Daibhid C

        Yeah, I mean, I’m a folkie. There’s a lot of Christian symbolism in folk music ( Ithink it’s like 20% religion, 30% war, and 50% blatant metaphors for sex). And the religious songs have decent tunes, and historically interesting lyrics, and I like them.

        1. thejeff

          Blues is the same way. For that matter, so is most popular music, to one degree or another. Culture is permeated with religion and symbolism and references are everywhere.
          I can even enjoy a lot of older explicitly religious music – like old gospel stuff.

          Almost all the modern Christian pop I’ve heard turns me off though. I suspect the difference is that not only is it explicitly preachy rather than just culturally Christian, but that’s it’s very tied to some of the worst fundamentalism and to rejection of the very styles it’s adopting. You’re supposed to listen to it instead of the worldly music it’s imitating – like Joyce was only allowed to listen to such Christian singers.

  7. Delicious Taffy

    Joyce’s problem can be solved by getting addicted to a nice MMORPG, like the rest of us.

    1. The Wellerman

      Hell yeah bruh!

      What was your favorite MMORPG?

      Club Penguin will always have a special place in my heart! ☺️

      1. PirateTawnee

        My MMORPG of choice was Yohoho Puzzle Pirates, a picture from which is what Dane uses(d?) as their Avatar.

      2. Needfuldoer

        I’ve been playing Kingdom of Loathing off and on since around 2005.

      3. Thag Simmons

        Probably Destiny, which is only marginally an MMORPG.

      4. Twitcher

        I still play Gaia Online for the weeabooness of it all. They’ve fixed it so you can play ZOMG without flash.

      5. Clif

        If you want immersion in a world that is more complex than you will ever explore, that has a rich and partially inaccessible lore, that can be played solo or in large groups that go to war, that let’s you pursue combat, trade (with a realistic in game economy), exploration and a lot more, as you will, to carve out your own niche, or simply accept missions if you’re less self directed, all with impressive immersive video that keeps improving, I can recommend Eve Online. The learning curve is tough, but you can dip your toes for free. It’s technically turn based, but those turns are a fraction of a second.

        1. The Wellerman

          Those who love a test of brain power will love the challenge indeed!

          But for everyone else, Eve Online is a spreadsheet simulator.

      6. James

        Probably the original Russian-made FalloutOnline for me. The one that was basically an overhaul mod of Fallout 2 to turn it into an MMORPG. Got lots of good memories from there. After that, probably Terris or Improbable Island, if either of those count. Maybe Realm of the Mad God.

    2. Rose by Any Other Name

      Speak for yourself. I only play single player turn-based RPGs…

      And sometimes single player real time RPGs, but always single player. Or that weird type of multiplayer where you don’t interact with other people except through floor messages or little quotes on supports.

      1. Delicious Taffy

        RPGs in general are lovely. I just wish some of them were faster and less involved.

      2. Kyrik Michalowski

        Foor messages, i’m going to assume you are referring to Dark Souls/Bloodborne style games. I prefer RPG’s as well, both turn based(final fantasy, breath of fire) and action (Kingdom Hearts and Dark Souls.) I do occasionally dip my toe into multiplayer games but only with my friends on a couch or an online game, again with friends.

        If I had to choose, I’d say turn-based JRPG’s are my preference.

        1. Rose by Any Other Name

          Yes, Dark Souls and Bloodborne are about as close as I get to anything multiplayer. Also, since I don’t pay for online features, no one can invade me (or help me, but whateves).

        2. Thag Simmons

          Turn-based is definitely my preference, but RPGs sell themselves to me based on their narrative. Like I love Tyranny, but I think I’d love it more if it was turn-based. I’d also have loved if there was more of it, I think the world could use more Tyranny in it

        3. Rose by Any Other Name

          Likewise.
          I suffered through the combat in Xenoblade Chronicles for the excellent story.
          And I grind my way through Darksouls for the excellent worldbuilding and passive storytelling elements.

        4. Spencer

          See, at least those function well enough.

          Imagine playing Persona 2 because the story’s not just rad, it’s one that can only be really experienced in a game, except the act of playing that game involves spending like two hours per dungeon figuring out how to talk to demons to get cards to summon new Personae, and then you have to grind those Personae for 100 battles for them to be worth a damn.

          And it was somehow even worse in Persona 1.

        5. Rose by Any Other Name

          I tried to play the Persona 1 rerelease for PSP and couldn’t get through it. The combat was brutal, grinding didn’t seem rewarding, and the characters felt far thinner than I was used to (having played Persona 3).

          I have never gotten ahold of a copy of either half of Persona 2, but I have read the plot summary and it sounds excellent.

        6. Spencer

          Persona 1’s combat is this genuinely cool experiment where absolutely none of it works, but damn if I don’t wish they kept on trying.

          The manga version is actually really good, though, and it’s the best way to experience Persona 1 nowadays since the characters all have way more personality and the art’s drawn in that eternally stylish 90s shoujo look.

          Like the protagonist is given a name, personality, and investment in the main plot that he absolutely did not have in the game but without coming at the cost of Maki, the game’s central focus character.

    3. Delicious Taffy

      My favorite is Final Fantasy 14, but before that it was Old School RuneScape.

    4. Shade

      My catboy needs better gear so he can make giant monsters attack more.

    5. Spencer

      I’m telling y’all

      Joyce should pick up Shin Megami Tensei

      1. Delicious Taffy

        But those games have a spinoff series dedicated to the concept of teenagers growing as people and eventually killing God. I’m not sure what relevance that sort of thing might have to Joyce, the fully matured atheist.

        1. Spencer

          You’re right.

          Joyce should play otome games instead.

        2. The Wellerman

          What about the Binding of Isaac?

          That game was practically made by atheists, for atheists!

      2. alongcameaspider

        I’m currently playing through Shin Megami Tensei V and let me tell you I have no idea how current Joyce would react to the games plot

        Start of series Joyce would have an aneurysm though

        1. Spencer

          Joyce would think the part where Lucifer descends from the sky declaring God to be dead to just be an actual thing that happens all the time in Japan.

    6. Ana Chronistic

      Y’all missing the obvious choice

      Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer

      1. Ana Chronistic

        Joyce could choose EXPLICITLY where Becky lives and everything about her home!

        …granted, she would have to accept Becky as a purple chicken BUT STILL

    7. RassilonTDavros

      One of these days I will try an RPG and not give up on it because I accidentally used all three save files on the same non-exitable dungeon, woefully underlevelled, with no way to grind for XP, thus forcing me to start the whole game over if I want to progress.

      (The DS version of Chrono Trigger, when I was a teen, if you’re curious.)

  8. newlland(Henryvolt)

    You can take the church girl out of the church but you can’t take the church out of the girl…or can you? I don’t know.

  9. Agemegos

    Of course the proper thing to do on a Sunday morning is to spend it in bed with your sweetie. But if you don’t have the necessary sweetie the alternatives are to take one off the wrist, to make a decadent breakfast involving fried batter products and milky caffeinated or theobrominated drinks, or to take your dog to the beach.

    1. Agemegos

      At a stretch, Viennoiserie can be substituted for the pancakes and doughnuts, but I don’t hold with making it myself on Sunday.

  10. NinjaNick

    Don’t forget the peanut butter.

  11. Pivitor

    Oof, this is relatable. I did way more research and learned way more about the Bible and my former religion when I lost my faith than I ever did as a believer.

    1. Rose by Any Other Name

      I was never a believer in Christianity, but I love Judeo-Christian mythology. I’ve done tons of research for fun (and for my novels).

      1. The Wellerman

        Ooo! Any chance we’ll see a biblically accurate angel in there? ?

        1. Rose by Any Other Name

          Yes, but not until books 4+.
          However, there is a discussion of Jewish mysticism in book one concerning the nature of fallen angels vs demons and how ‘satan’ is an assigned title held at various times by various angels, most of whom aren’t fallen.

      2. C.T. Phipps

        Rufus: God HATES it when you call it mythology.

        Bethany: Well let’s ask the PROPHETS what to call it.

  12. Kitschensyngk

    You can take Joyce out of the church, but can you really take the church out of Joyce?

  13. DarkoNeko

    no grape, only cheetos

    1. Freddie!

      … Ch- … Cheeto juice?

      1. J. Gawain

        That sounds absolutely awful…but if it were presented to me I would have to try it. I am nothing if not a dead cat.

        1. J. Gawain

          Whoops. New computer and I messed up the capitalization in my email. lets just get my gravs all synced up again.

  14. BBCC

    Oh no. The withdrawal has begun. Godspeed, Joyce. Those are never fun, regardless of whether it be purely physical, emotional, or a little bit columns a and b.

  15. Laura

    OK, now I want to know which of the Epistles were forged… and WHY. 8-|

    My Bible Study teacher at church told us that Paul was gay. As a young queer kid, that did make me happy.

    1. Laura

      (OK, *LIKELY* gay. …)

      1. Dinajoyce

        I’ve never heard the claim that Paul was gay before. There’s the “thorn in the flesh” passage but I don’t think there’s any basis to speculate on what that was, let alone that it was about sexuality at all. The only other argument I can think is just that he never married? That, to me, would be a very problematic line of reasoning.

        1. Dinajoyce

          I don’t want to burst your bubble, it’s just a surprising claim to me and I’ve heard a lot of weird biblical claims.

      2. Minotaur

        Paul being ace is also quite probable

        1. Dinajoyce

          Possible, but I wouldn’t go nearly so far as to say probable. As somebody who is neither asexual nor aromantic, but who was single until after college, I have a problem with our culture’s erasure of voluntary celibacy. I just had other priorities in life and didn’t want those messed up or complicated by any relationship that I couldn’t see becoming permanent. Everybody kept telling me I “must be” a repressed lesbian (asexual wasn’t as common of an identity back then, but I suspect a few friends were already speculating that I was ace, just not to my face). Nobody was willing to believe me about my own feelings and priorities. Paul believed he was on a mission given to him personally by the Messiah. He knew he would likely be killed for his mission and he probably believed the whole world was ending soon. He gave pretty clear reasons advocating for celibacy (1 Cor 7). I don’t see any reason to disbelieve him just because our culture is uncomfortable with voluntary, contented celibacy.

        2. Laura

          Oh, yes, celibacy can be a radical concept, just as radical and subversive as queerness or gender transgression. (I speak as a queer/genderqueer person myself.)

          Saint Thecla, for example, is an amazing example of how voluntary celibacy, female self-defense, feminist resistance to male sexual domination, and female leadership can be intertwined as radical and subversive concepts.
          (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thecla)

          I forget which specific passages it was that my old teacher said supported his hypothesis. I think it did have to do with the avowed lack of opposite-sex sexual desire (1 Corinthians 7:7) and Paul’s concern for preventing sexual abuse of underage enslaved boys and male sex workers in Greek society (ironically, those same passages now used to condemn homosexuality).

          But you’re right — those things don’t necessarily make a person gay. I think it was just a comforting story that we talked over to help us feel better about the haters who would use the Bible to condemn people I identified with.

          And so much of religion is like that, or can sometimes have been like that in nostalgic memories of childhood… comforting stories we told ourselves and each other to make ourselves feel better about the world we were in and our place in it.

          I feel such grief for all the people who have unhappy memories of religion in their youths. I hope that beautiful art (like Dave Willis’s) and supportive, inspiring, intelligent community (like the commenters here) and friendly debate can help folks to feel more like there is a home in this world that accepts us exactly as we are.

          Because not a single one of us can be replaced.

          (Like the Softer World comic:
          https://asofterworld.com/index.php?id=1129 )

      3. Opus the Poet

        Self-loathing Gay, at that. Makes as much sense to me as a self-loathing black person, but nobody ever said religion has to make sense.

    2. Dinajoyce

      “Forged” is a modern concept that a couple of scholars (notably Bart Ehrman) have used for shock value to sell their popular level books. In the ancient world it was fairly common to write something on behalf of or in the tradition of another person, usually your teacher. Think Plato writing from the perspective of Socrates. And just like scholars make a distinction between Socratic thought (as told by Plato) and Platonic thought (also told by Plato but still usually told from Socrates’ perspective), the line between the thought of the teacher and the thought of the student eventually gets blurry. Probably some of the deuteropauline epistles were cases of churches writing down what they remembered Paul teaching them shortly after his death (or possibly even before). Others were likely his students trying to summarize his teachings. Eventually we might get people trying to think of what Paul would have said in a new situation if he were alive, or having a vision of Paul and writing it down or something like that.

      There’s some dispute about which ones weren’t written by Paul himself, but most scholars would say
      Ephesians, 1 and 2 Timothy, Titus, and maybe 2 Thessalonians and Colossians weren’t really Paul. And Hebrews never claims to be by Paul and lots of people always doubted it was by Paul, but traditions assigns it to him because the last couple chapters sound an awful lot like they came out of Romans (those chapters almost certainly weren’t originally part of Hebrews).

      1. eh, whatever

        In the ancient world it was fairly common to write something on behalf of or in the tradition of another person, usually your teacher.

        Well, yes, but pseudepigraphy (the name for this) was considered lying. Pseudós and pseudês mean “lie” and “liar”.

        1. David M Willis

          Yeah, “writing books pseudographically was fine and accepted” is a bit of modern apologetics to smooth over the obvious forgery of half the books attributed to Paul. This was never the case, and pseudographical works were considered deceitful in the same way we’d view them today. There’s no support to the idea that it was an allowed practice.

          You’d write something under Paul’s name for the obvious reason — you wanted to establish doctrine with authority. You didn’t like how one wing of the church was going, and so to “prove them wrong,” you would magically provide “proof” that Paul believed the opposite. That’s why pseudographical Pauline works exist. They address second century church concerns and they specifically attack growing lines of thought at the time that we would now consider counterorthodox.

        2. Dinajoyce

          That’s the scholarly term for it. It may be derived from ancient references, but as a blanket categotization/accusation, that’s a fairly modern concept. Paul references people writing in his name (ironically, it’s in one of the epistles that we’re unsure about its authorship) but in that passage, it’s clear that he’s upset because those messages are contradicting his teaching. He tells them to test any letters they get from him against the teaching they heard from him in person. There’s no indication that he would be opposed to, say, the church in ephesus writing down the teachings they remembered from his ideas or even extrapolating from what he taught to their current situation

        3. David M Willis

          Yes, of course Fake Paul writes in his Fake Pauline Letter to please ignore all the other Fake Paul Letters, because his stuff is real!

        4. Dinajoyce

          Right. But that is exactly the standard that people used for determining “real” and “fake” letters. When determining lists of what they deemed canonical, the church fathers weren’t trying to hunt down original autographs and compare handwriting or find the emanuensus who paul dictated the letter two or witnesses who originally received it, all of which would have been reasonably possible to do if they thought paul (or whoever) writing the material himself was the important part. But we just don’t see that line of argument. Early lists of the epistles are happening within a generation or two of Paul’s death. They just looked at the content of the teaching. They weren’t idiots, I can’t imagine they were oblivious to “paul’s” shift to existing calmly in society by maintaining household roles or the later eschatology in the books we call deutero paul. I’m sure those points were considered, but ultimately they decided pretty quickly that the core teachings of those books were close enough to what first hand and second hand witnesses to Paul’s teachings remembered him saying. That’s clearly all they were concerned with. Similarly, I don’t think most of their contemporaries literally believed that Enoch came down from heaven and dropped a couple books written in contemporary language. But the teachings aligned with what the majority of the teachers knew about God and addressed contemporary issues well. So it was commonly accepted. Not quite as canon, but the idea of a strict canon is a little later anyway.

        5. David M Willis

          Of course they weren’t idiots. They chose the books that gave them the control they wanted. They were pretty shrewd in choosing the letters that told women to shut up. Which is a pretty odd doctrine to choose as authentic if that’s what you’re actually after! But it wasn’t. They wanted control.

        6. David M Willis

          Nobody’s ever saying the early church were idiots. They knew which letters were already understood as authentic and which were in question – but they chose their canon on what they knew they had to include (for legitimacy) and what they could get away with on top of that. It’s extremely odd that both of us are admitting that the folks in charge both knew they were pushing lies, but it’s only you who thinks that was done altruistically.

        7. Dinajoyce

          You talk as if church leadership was a group of dudes in a room laughing maniacally about how to get control. These were church leaders in different parts of the world separately deciding which texts were trustworthy to teach their own congregations. They wrote letters to each other to help each other out, but they were welcome to disagree with one another, somewhat like baptist or non-denom churches today. Their main concern at the time wasn’t control, it was surviving persecution from the Roman empire. Women were quite prominent in the early church for a while. Those passages weren’t frequently used to reduce the leadership of women until later.

        8. David M Willis

          if dudes are writing nicely about it to each other, it’s not about control, and other things I’m actually well versed in and extremely tired of

          take your Bible studies elsewhere please

        9. Dinajoyce

          It’s your page and I respect your request to be done with the discussion. I wasn’t trying to pick a fight, I was answering a genuine question about biblical studies, which is my professional area of expertise. My answers throughout are in alignment with the majority of biblical scholarship, both Christian and secular. I realize this comic is semi-autobiographical and I therefore assume the issue of biblical trustworthiness is a personally difficult one to you. I respect that and I intended no offense.

        10. Laura

          Wow, I’m actually super-impressed at the quality of discussion and scholarship here, and super grateful that two such deep thinkers chose to share their thoughts with me. Thank you, David Willis (for EVERYTHING) and thank you, Dinajoyce, too, for making me think deeply about these things that I consider important. Thank you for sharing your time and your expertise.

        11. Clif

          But you see, this is all part of the Machievelian manipulation of a living God to produce the divinely inspired document we have today.

          Truth is where you find it and sometimes you find it in the unlikeliest of places.

      2. thejeff

        Other than those still defending Pauline authorship, the consensus is also that the non-Pauline Pauline epistles were written at least a few decades after Paul’s death. More along the “people trying to think of what Paul would have said in a new situation if he were alive” at best than just passing on or summarizing his teaches now that he was gone.

        It’s also worth distinguishing this kind of pseudography from some of the other works, like Hebrews or especially the Gospels. Those weren’t forgeries, since they don’t include any claims of authorship, but authors were assigned by later tradition.

        1. Laura

          I think of most old texts like improv sketches.
          Plato’s writings attributed to Sokrates, the ancient Indian and Chinese “Once upon a time, the Buddha was born as…” folk tales, tales of the lives of the great martial artists, etc.

          It’s all just a thought experiment. It’s a “What if?” game.

          “OK, Plato, what do you think Sokrates would have thought about…?” “OK, try this one: what if the Buddha had been a TIGER?” It’s adopting a familiar structure as a way to frame thinking about an idea that the storytellers wanted to explore.

          You see this in fanfiction, often. I walked into a Chinese bookstore and saw a novel with a wizard on the cover, and asked the bookseller what it was. She said, “Oh, that one is Harry Potter and the China Doll. It’s about the time that Harry, Merlin, and Gandalf got together and went on a journey to…” A loose approach to intellectual property!

          Or like the Marvel Comics Universe films and comic books, that tell the stories of the same superheroes (Spider Man, Hulk, Jean Grey…) over and over again, in different ways, with different backstories, sometimes with different actors. The name is just the springboard for the new story they want to tell. Internal consistency is less important than using the story to tell something interesting and new.

          The licensed Star Trek novels (of dubious canonicity) are like that, too.

          Stories we tell ourselves using familiar terms in new ways. It’s improv.

          …Although, I do get that for someone for whom literal truth and historical accuracy was very important, it would be problematic to think of the Bible stories as “myths” or “archetypes” or “illustrations of concepts.” There goes my liberal upbringing again…

        2. thejeff

          Except that’s still not what the fake Pauline letters were.

          Everyone knew that Plato wrote his dialogues with Socrates. How much they were based on Socrates teaching vs his own ideas is disputable, but he didn’t write them up and sign Socrates name to them. That’s more like the Gospels, where authors compiled stories about Jesus and his teachings and put their own spin on them.
          When you’re actually pretending to be the famous figure to give your ideas more authority, that’s completely different. That’s not writing my Cap/Bucky fanfiction because I like it and hope others will enjoy it, that’s forging Kirby’s name to a fake story to prove that my ship really was the original canon ship.

          And for whatever it’s worth, I’m an athiest. I don’t think any of the Biblical stories are literally true. I don’t have any problem in thinking of the Biblical stories in terms of myths or archetypes, but I’m also interested in historical accuracy – not so much of the stories themselves, but of the development of the religion and the canon. The idea that forgery like this was just acceptable at the time bothers me, because it simply isn’t true.

  16. Yotomoe

    I mean, I’m always down for some grape juice and crackers but that’s beside the point.

    1. Yotomoe

      By the way, I’m just gonna come out and say it. Grape juice is way better than wine.

      1. Kyrik Michalowski

        I agree for the most part, though I have found some sweet wines that are just as good as grape juice. That being said, I’m not allowed to drink except for a few times a year so I make sure I get something that I will enjoy.

      2. The Wellerman

        Right? But what could compare to chocolate milk, really? ?

      3. Delicious Taffy

        Wine tastes like grape juice with higher water pressure.

      4. StClair

        My sweet tooth and I agree with you.

      5. mrnoidea

        Ooh, yeah! I can’t tell the difference between a $4 bottle of wine and a $50 bottle. Both taste inferior to plain grape juice.

      6. Ray Radlein

        Kikkoman plum wine kicks grape juice’s ass all up and down the street.

        Never compared it to plum juice, though.

        1. Delicious Taffy

          Is plum juice the same as prune juice? Prunes are just dried plums, right? And if the juices are distinct, then in what way? Is plum juice wetter?

        2. Rowan

          Found this on plum vs prune juice. Sounds like prunes are basically slow-cooked

          https://www.lacademie.com/prune-juice-vs-plum-juice/

        3. Delicious Taffy

          Okay, so the way that article is written makes new want to strangle the author for what they’ve done to the English language. There are so many fucking instances of “Here’s the information, now I’m gonna tell you the information, here it comes, it’s coming”, with half of a sentence indicating a tiny portion of part of the information. My brain cannot parse what this lunatic is trying to say, so I’ll just trust your summary that prune juice involves an extra step, and then I’ll further extrapolate that it’s like the difference between apple juice and apple cider.

        4. milu

          i see that you are not familiar with cooking blogs.

        5. Delicious Taffy

          Not especially, no. But I AM familiar with the concepts of malicious incompetence and stringing people along for the sake of padding out an article. I have no patience for people who go out of their way not to just tell me information on a direct, succinct manner.

        6. milu

          yep. that’s SOP for about every recipe i’ve ever found online =) you have to wade through pages worth of anecdotes and random musings about calories and cooking utensils before you even get to the ingredients.

          i do agree it is infuriating and i think we should all follow your example in boycotting cooking blogs and probably cooking altogether. humph!

          =P

        7. Delicious Taffy

          Oh, I don’t boycott ’em. I just don’t have an interest, partly because of the fetishisation of deliberate obtuseness they seem to share. Like, nobody cares how many dogs you had growing up, Agnes, just tell me how much beef your meatloaf uses before I hunt you for sport. It’s a good thing modern devices have a “Search in page” function, or there’d be a lot more bloodshed.

        8. Yumi

          Please allow me to link to an image taken from one of my favorite examples of “I just wanted a recipe, but I got all this”: https://i.redd.it/5ea6w7hspit41.jpg

          (The original posting of the recipe I can’t find anymore, probably because this post started spreading and people couldn’t play nice.)

        9. milu

          omg but this isn’t your typical hollow lifestylish content padding, it’s actually pretty harrowing =C

        10. Delicious Taffy

          Reminds me of the maple bars recipe that was making the rounds online because it started with something like “Shortly after the attacks of September 11, 2001”. People really have some issues.

      7. Chronos

        I’ve yet to find a wine I didn’t find utterly vile. Grape juice isn’t bad, but it’s too sweet to drink more than a little of it at a time. It goes really well mixed with cranberry juice (which, oddly, I find undrinkable on its own).

        1. Clif

          A 50 50 mix of cranberry juice and ginger ale is pretty damn good.

      8. Deanatay

        Yeaah, why would you wait until AFTER your grape juice went bad to drink it?

  17. HeinousActsZX

    Make sure you spend your time in looking for the piece of bread that ls most appetizing.

  18. Huehuetotl

    dammit. I recognized the second thing when it happened. I was annoyed by the first thing, and now I know why.

  19. LiterallyJustSomeGuy

    I’m pretty sure Joyce has skipped church before, and it wasn’t this much of a crisis. Is it just because she’s more “out” about it now? . . . Okay, it was probably a crisis then, too, just with different symptoms and before other baggage got added to the pile.

    If Joyce is missing the sense of community, it might be nice for her to join a club or something. Does this campus have a Space Force Pilot Trainee club?

  20. mrnoidea

    Priest (holding goblet of grape juice): “I’m not sure if I should give this to you.”
    Joyce: “It’s okay, it’s not a big deal—I just need it.” *twitch* “You got any more crackers?”

    1. Delicious Taffy

      She’s gonna start threatening pastors at gunpoint, wearing a striped shirt and a domino mask, taking only budget communion snacks.

      1. Delicious Taffy

        Mmmm, Joyce in a cartoon burglar outfit…..

  21. C.T. Phipps

    I wonder how Joyce will react to discovering that non-Biblical literalists exist.

    I bring this up because I actually had a Joyce-like friend who was beaming with her atheism and its assumed wisdom who was confused and outright angry to discover that not everyone was raised with the idea the Bible was inerrant and thus one element being wrong didn’t show it all as wrong and thus disproven.

    Which isn’t me harping on her but it was like the idea had never occurred to her all other branches of Christianity weren’t teaching the same things (except Catholics who didn’t qualify where she was from).

    Example:

    “How can you still believe in this stuff? If the Bible isn’t true, then it’s all fake!”

    “I mean, literally Jesus calls out parts of the Old Testament as like 80% of his ministry.”

    “That doesn’t count.”

    1. Ray Radlein

      Yeah, there’s a reason (several reasons, actually) why the Catholic Church considers biblical literalism as a heresy.

      1. William Leonard Reese Jr.

        Which is the right position to take I feel.

        Though I’d love to know how long that has been it’s position and when it started being enough of an issue that the Catholic church actually moved to act on it.

        1. C.T. Phipps

          I think the Council of Nicea actually. The Catholic Church’s foundation was actually based on the idea they needed to have a coherent “one faith” that they had trained exerpts to interpret. Previously, everyone had been doing their own thing and while some were fairly harmless spin offs, others did go in….well, strange directions even by the standards of a religion based on resurrection, bread, wine, and fish.

        2. William Leonard Reese Jr.

          If I recall correctly that was mainly over the division of the Holy Trinity. Was he the son? The Holy Spirit made manifest?

          Looking back it’s shocking how much such, seemingly minor differences in theological doctrine, caused such ardent *violent* divides.

          And how it continues to be so important today. I think growing up, and being intermittently forced to go to church, we spoke the Nicene creed at least once a service.

        3. Regina phalange

          It’s a little less surprising that minor doctrinal differences caused less violent divides when you look at the historical context surrounding each division—it’s rarely JUST about doctrine. For example, Martin Luther’s main doctrinal split (of several) with the Catholic Church was about how one get into heaven, but that’s not the reason he was hated; he was hated because his ideas criticized and thus threatened the personal wealth of high-level clergy. (If we know nothing else, it’s that even today the Church’s desperate gold-hoarding rivals only Jeff Bezos.)

        4. Clif

          On the plus side, they have a very nice astronomical observatory.

    2. Huehuetotl

      There are Christians who hand-wave away their cherrypicking, that’s not a strength in the argument that any of the Bible’s supernatural claims are true. Non-literalists become apostates too.
      And there’s a difference between arguing about the moral interpretations of religious laws and factual claims.

  22. Heather

    Ah something she shares with Liz: despite not believing anymore having been suitably brain washed enough that it still has its clutches on her emotionally. Which yeah. I said this before when it came up with Liz but: relatable.

    Also it hasn’t been that long for either of them in any case.

    1. C.T. Phipps

      I feel like framing everything in indoctrination kind of belittles and demeans Joyce.

      Is she not supposed to have an interest in history anymore? She seemed to actually enjoy Biblical study and history when doing her investigation of Becky. She might actually find a good major in religious studies.

      1. Zal

        I suspect they were referring more towards the vague feelings of guilt (and sudden craving) than the desire to research scholarly consensus on the bible.

      2. Shade

        Pretty sure they were talking about the guilt thing.

        That indoctrination can be so strong that atheists of many years still sometimes find themselves scared of hell despite genuinely not thinking it exists. That stuff gets in deep.

      3. Spencer

        Your attempts at finding silver linings in Joyce’s brainwashed death cult upbringing never ceases to amaze.

        1. milu

          and i’d say Phipps has a point here. Willis himself recently linked to a series of videos about the literary history of the bible. He clearly still enjoys his historical biblical discourse.

        2. Spencer

          Literary history of the bible is cool but probably less so in a strip about how Joyce is doing it out of habit after cutting herself from her death cult’s indoctrination and how it’s robbed of her stability, and also it provides nothing of what it used to, much like her tastes in music. Her “investigation of Becky” was looping around a whole bunch trying to justify why Becky wasn’t going to burn in Hell for all eternity. That’s not fun, that is an outcome that shouldn’t exist but is a barely passive malaise in American culture to this day.

          Like actually maybe it’s cool to say Christianity abused this kid and it’s fine that she doesn’t have to give back to it.

        3. milu

          Oh right this is why I stopped writing serious comments. I know you’ve been very involved in this discussion which probably accounts for the intensity here, and its understandable. but I’m not enjoying this at all. Please carry on without me

      4. alongcameaspider

        I mean she can enjoy it, I’m not sure it’s the best choice to replace going to church though

      5. Heather

        The look on Joyce’s face does not suggest any kind of enjoyment to me. Maybe in the future she can but it’s pretty clearly not the case now.

  23. Bagge

    Just go and watch cartoons together. You know you want it.

  24. William Leonard Reese Jr.

    I will say that researching the actual historical context of the Bible and it’s books/acts actually is **super** interesting.

    I don’t remember doing that in Sunday School (Catholic) though.

    I barely remember a thing about it. Other then one day one of the teachers played us a youtube video.

    I think it was . . . .Yes! “Slow Fade” by Casting Crowns!

    I don’t know WHY he played us this music video, but he did.

    1. Delicious Taffy

      Great, now you’ve got me wanting to pose as a Sunday school teacher and find excuses to put on Tool videos for the kids. Really pit some weird imagery in their heads.

      1. William Leonard Reese Jr.

        I’d be tempted to do so and play Ghost.

        I imagine that, presuming this is the same Sunday School I went to, that Father Shrek(yes really that was his name) would throw me out on my ass. Or might find it humorous while throwing me out on my ass.

      2. Clif

        You too can play a Sunday school teacher on YouTube.

  25. Needfuldoer

    I love the friendship they insist they don’t have.

  26. Amós Batista

    Is obsession with your former religion, or all other faiths, a normal thing in atheists?

    1. Delicious Taffy

      While I can’t claim to be especially “normal” in most regards, I haven’t noticed much religious obsession from fellow atheists. Well, beyond the ever-present background radiation typical of a small Midwestern farm town.

    2. The Wellerman

      As far as I know, it’s quite the trend among the recently deconverted in the English-speaking parts of the world.

      I think it’s mainly a thing among those who’ve come out of especially manipulative groups, to try to put as much mental distance between themselves and their group.

      It’s quite freeing for them — for the first time in their lives, they’re not just swallowing what their being handed, but processing it critically, acknowledging the actual historical context in which their scriptures where written, etc.

    3. Shade

      Depends. I wouldn’t say I’m particular focus on Christianity myself but I do find at times I’m more familiar than some of the Christians I know. But I also didn’t grow up in a strict Christian environment be bombarded with it constantly.

      I could see someone from that kind of environment wanting to discover how much of what they thought was true was and how much wasn’t. Plus for arguing with family.

    4. Thag Simmons

      I don’t know of it’s default but I don’t think it’s uncommon with apostates

    5. Reltzik

      I don’t know if it’s “normal” in the sense of “a majority of recent deconverts do this”. I haven’t seen hard numbers on that and I suspect those hard numbers haven’t been catalogued.

      But of the various ways that deconversion plays out, that one’s fairly frequent. People will often go through that research cycle during the process of deconversion, and that cycle can keep going after that process is complete. Part of it can be resentment at being “lied” to. (Calling it a lie isn’t really accurate, but on an emotional level that’s how it feels.) Part of it is seeing previously- (and still-)forbidden truths and wanting to explore all the things you are now free, free, free to explore. Part of it can be simple inertia — you keep doing the thing from before because it’s what you were doing before. Part of it can be recognition that a large part of your past life was in error, coupled with a desire to understand and avoid that sort of error in the future.

      In Joyce’s case, I suspect it’s a mix of resentment, inertia, and error-analysis.

    6. vlademir1

      It’s certainly been the case for most I’ve met who went to an atheist worldview from a fundamentalist Christian background, just like the performative antitheism we’ve seen Joyce engage in.

    7. Huehuetotl

      It can be the opposite direction. Someone who has a interest in understanding their (and other) religions ends up becoming an atheist because of what they learn.

      1. Huehuetotl

        I knew someone who went to divinity school, and he said like a third to half of the people there ended up atheists.

        1. Amós Batista

          divinity school is like seminary, in some colleges, right?

    8. Doki

      Not for me. But I honestly never really believed Christianity was the literal truth either, so it never had any kind of hold on my brain either way.

      I completely get why Joyce ended up the way she did though.

    9. Sam

      If you are a deconverted atheist that was as entrenched as Joyce was, I would say yes. Pretty much in the same way that if you take an abuse victim that used to do all the chores and would stare into space for 6 hours on Saturday and Sunday and put them in a different location, they would probably still default to doing the exact same things even though they are free to. Not do that. And could choose to do other things. The routine and thought patterns would still be ingrained and would take conscious effort to actually break and reminders of other choices.

      Joyce literally does not know what to do with this time as she has never had the freedom to do other things. And her life has been filled with strict rules created by Christianity that shape what activities she knows to do. She mostly likely read the Bible. She had her cartoons and movies restricted. She could only dance in very set circumstances. The only music she knows is Rich Mullins. If you asked her what else she could do with this time, her brain would probably blank as so much of what she did was ‘be a good Christian’ rather than actual things that were fun and separate from that identity. That identity SHAPED the rules of the entertainment she was allowed very deeply.

      1. Amós Batista

        Yeah, I got the issue.
        The good point is I using this “curiosity” in a artistic project, so I kind dealing with the subject well. But thank you and you others for answering my question.

  27. AbacusWizard

    That last line is so relatable and now I kinda want a very specific kind of fruit punch.

  28. foducool

    communion withdrawal symptoms lmao

    1. Needfuldoer

      She needs to go to the grocery store and pick herself up some tortilla wraps and a bottle of Welch’s. That should take the edge off.

  29. Arianod

    Last panel Joyce is staring into my soul and I don’t like it

  30. Spencer

    Welcome to the “capable of being nice in Joyce’s time of need” club…

    *checks notes*

    Walky?

    1. Spencer

      dang it sure is weird that as soon as joyce talks to someone who doesnt have a vested interest in keeping her in a little box and punishing her when she strays from it she can then just vocalize her feelings of trauma and malaise at a newfound lack of inerrant purpose at someone and not be forced to justify and defend them

      like she can talk to someone who shes been antagonistic with the whole series and it’s just “dang joyce i thought we were kidding around together right there, here’s a helpful suggestion instead of going off on one about how it’s weird you’re different and changed now and will snap and suck a billion dicks”

      crazy how nature do that

      1. Delicious Taffy

        They have a comfy dynamic that doesn’t hinge on either of them behaving favorably toward the other. Makes it real easy to talk to somebody.

        1. Spencer

          The actual punchline is that I am a megasimp for Joe and the last line of dialogue he’s had with Joyce back in October was “please just go fix this, it’s awkward enough sharing a class and I don’t want it to get worse.”

    2. Keulen

      Sadly most of Joyce’s friends don’t seem to be in that club.

  31. Sombrero

    Oprah: “How did you get the idea for the Julia Gray/JAWsome crossover?”

    JN Brown: “Well, it was kind of a boring Sunday morning…”

  32. Eldritchy

    I wonder how would Joyce feel if she’d buy some grape juice and crackers and would start eating them… would she feel relieved or SUPER Uncomfortable?

  33. Rabisch

    Joyce should listen to her stomach and go eat something.

  34. milu

    aloha lovelies,

    i repeat my offer of earthly glory and personal gratitude for anyone with the skill to whip together a silly slideshow video!

    remember 2 days ago? that megastrip that had everybody tearing up? How do we not yet have a video version of this, featuring the actual Rich Mullins soundtrack?

    well, presto, here’s everything you need to make this dream a reality in, honestly, a matter of minutes if you just go the lazy still-images-with-no-transition route (and to be clear, i absolutely commend you for your laziness, i am the galactic emperor of laziness, or one of the many galactic emperors, none of us can be bothered to fight the others for supremacy)

    BOOM

    raise your hand if you choose to do it and i will light a candle to your good fortune. or maybe, like, a joint. also i will put you in my good book in all caps. also i will name my first-born after you. i will sacrifice all my oxen to your god. i will sing your praises in my loveliest falsetto. come on be a hero

    1. Amós Batista

      can we trust the download?

      1. milu

        Um
        I dont know
        all i know is i’ve used filetransfer.io a bunch of times, maybe my computer is now riddled with spyware tho
        Do you have another service to recommend?

        1. Amós Batista

          If it’s a video, I generally uploads in a Youtube or TicToc account.

        2. milu

          Oh no its a ZIP file containing the soundtrack I’ve made (Rich Mullins + MCR uke cover + some foley and mixing) (also separate elements of the soundtrack to give the video editor more latitude) plus all the panels as individual PNGs, some of them edited somewhat

          Listen just write me @ miluburner at protonmail dotcom

        3. Amós Batista

          Don’t worry about it, I just opened the zip.
          Nice work, anyway. Is everthing ready to mix, perfect.

        4. milu

          oooooh goody!!!! so you’ll do it????

          again i have waxed lyrical in vain. (but it was so much fun, i regret nothing)

          yayyyyyyaaaayayyyyaaaaaayyyy you are VERY COOL Amos <3

    2. Clif

      So, purely out of curiosity, how many oxen do you have? Theoretically speaking, I would want to be sure of getting my money’s worth.

      Allegedly there is this thing called Fiver.

      1. milu

        oh i hadn’t seen your reply before producing the undermentioned, but aforeposted outcry. *squees at not being nigh-entirely ignored*

        so, regarding the oxen, would a fermi estimate do?

        1. milu

          re:Fiver: excellent advice and thank you, but i feel like the present page is the right place to offer up this “gig”, being as it is after all, a fanwork for this very webcomic.

        2. milu

          i’m also not sure if i’ve adequately conveyed what i am proposing. i have no stake in this except that i spent [redacted] hours putting together a fairly sweet-ass soundtrack, then neatly cropping all the separate panels of the Megastrip, only to find i was out of a serviceable video editing program in which to cook up a video from these disparate, but very much sufficient elements. Really all one would need to do is to plonk down the soundtrack and then plop in the image files in sync with the music, then hit export. i could probably do that with powerpoint if i truly had no pride left in me.

          this is really the equivalent of wanting to make homemade mac and cheese, and having bought the pasta and grated the cheese, asking around for anyone with an oven. not that i know the first thing of mac and cheese, being a european and all, but i think you get the idea??

          but enough pleading on behalf of this silly projectoid of mine, if it is not to be then i shall stoically prod on through the slings and arrows of this life of sorrow, one small grief adding its stillborn weight to my already cracking spine. *sniffles, but stoically*

    3. milu

      O beloved friends and esteemed nemeses, i find your collective lack of time and enthusiasm in taking on this ridiculously easy* yet clearly crucial task tragic and deplorable.

      (*for one with the know-how and software)

      …@Yumi surely??? =P

      …i mean, otherwise i guess i’ll just have to teach myself how to edit video *soul-wrenching sigh*

  35. Amós Batista

    I’ll gonna create a creepy pasta for Joyce face in last panel. It’s so uncanny.

  36. Jimmy

    It’s interesting to see this way of dealing with losing one’s faith. I stopped believing I went through a long depression, but after that I just accepted it. It seems the stages of grief work well with losing one’s religion too.

  37. mitch

    I called it years ago, when Grace was first traumatized and saw the parallels in church.

    As someone who went through a long and painful deconversion process, this hurts to watch, but it hurts the same way you’d re-break a poorly-healed broken nose, so it can be set correctly. It’s a necessary and cathartic pain.

    The cravings, the vague undefinable guilt, the obsession with fighting back against the lies you grew up with. Yeah, it’s real, and it is a struggle.

    Hopefully, she’ll find a way to build up her personality and life in ways that don’t revolve around religious thoughts, positive or negative. But until then, she’s likely going to put her foot in her mouth a lot and rage against ‘god’ and various religions, giving them rent-free living space in her brain until she can clear the clutter and poisons out.

  38. Koname

    Walky’s magic changing stain at the top of his sweatshirt first looks like South America, then Africa, and then North America to me…. that or I spent too long teaching 4th graders what the continents look like.

    1. True Survivor

      It’s not just you, those definitely rough sketches of the contents. I guess Walky’s sloth has gotten so bad that even his own filth is desperate for him to learn something.

  39. Pilgrim

    Joyce needs to find one of those secular conspiracy meetings.

    1. Clif

      Shhh!

  40. Bratty Roger

    I think Dorothy was right when she suggested that Joyce would be more comfortable with Deism¹* than atheism!

    〰️〰️〰️〰️
    ¹Think Thomas Pain & Thomas Jefferson.
    *As my late maternal grandmother put it: She believed in God – she just couldn’t believe said God was too… stupid (?) to make use of his own creation(s)/invention(s)

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*

*

*

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.