281

Elijah
Posted on March 4, 2019 by David M Willis
Was hoping to have the Book 8 Kickstarter ready to go tonight, but Kickstarter is lagging in approving projects!  So look for it next Monday, I guess.

281 thoughts on “Elijah”

  1. Ana Chronistic

    “if you’re broken, that means you should get fixed… and I still kinda wanna hanky-panky in the future”

    1. Ana Chronistic

      yeah I was disappointed when I dreamt I met Armin van Buuren, and when he knew my name I knew it was a dream and was really sad =C

      1. Thursday Violist

        But maybe it was the real Armin van Buuren except he was just experimenting with dream-travel technology?!?

        1. Ana Chronistic

          Where did he learn my name tho??? Is he stalking me instead of spinning sweet tunes?? D=

        2. Thursday Violist

          Ummmm…
          *trying to think a plausible excuse*
          You were wearing a name-tag.

        3. C.T Phipps

          I dreamed I met Buffy the Vampire Slayer and she wanted to date me.

          I don’t think it was magical.

          🙂

        4. Michael Lanting

          I thought she only dated vampires.

        5. Jack

          So you’ve figured out C.T Philips is a vampire.

        6. Kinoko

          Or seemingly ordinary high school jocks who are actually part of a secret military task force. Riley was a pretty decent guy, IMO.

        7. Kamino Neko

          She was dating Willow toward the end of the Dark Horse comics.

        8. Deanatay

          She was probably possessed by a demon. She’s always getting possessed or manipulated or some such.

        9. HeySo

          Or getting mistreated by the people she considered friends and family. Other than Willow and, later on, her mother, everyone else Buffy interacted with [eg, Giles, Xander] focused on putting all the pressure and blame and responsability for things on her, much more than they focused on supporting her.
          (Though in fairness, Xander’s entire shtick was about starting off as extremely immature and slowly turning into Nick Fury, so he can explain his poor behaviors away as necessary elements for character development. :P)

          That sort of treatment really escalated after her revival, which is no doubt one of the reasons she fell so hard into Spike, who- for all his flaws- never put any of that kind of pressure or blame onto her, and moreover, devoted his time and attention to single-mindedly supporting her. He was a self-destructive indulgence, but also a balm and strength. From either side of things, an escape.

          Really, Buffy had a hard life in many ways- but damn if her story didn’t make for an amazing narrative for us to go along with.

          I’ve some definite hesitations about the upcoming remake but, at the same time, some carefully sheltered hopes for it..

        10. Sai

          Because you always know more in dreams than you would know if it were real life. And because you were basically weaving subconciouses together it would be easy for him to know

        11. Ana Chronistic

          Dreamweaver van Buuren is a sleep-walking Wikipedia?

  2. NerdHerder

    On the plus side, Dream!Joyce is really working her way through a lot of seamless wardrobe changes.

    1. Gwen

      I’m just glad she made it through the orange sweater unscathed

      1. StClair

        Same.

      2. Mr. Random

        I think, in context here, she’s going through why she feels she’s unworthy or at least not doing things “properly”.

        I’m wondering if that sweater was a subconscious reminder, not of what happened but a self-condemnation of HOW she reacted.
        Using violence.

        Not to judge her, or say that it wasn’t an appropriate response.

      3. Needfuldoer

        Now she has the wrist brace again, though…

        1. Mollyscribbles

          Metaphor? Broken, but healing.

  3. JetstreamGW

    Man, I feel like I ought to know who the hell this guy is.

    1. DailyBrad

      He wrote that “our god is an awesome god, he came from heaven above, he is known far and off, our god is an awesome god!” song, that’s mostly what I know him from, anyhow

      1. Agemegos

        It bugs me that that implies a comparison with other gods.

        1. Clif

          So does “Thou shall have no other gods before me.”

        2. AntJ

          You know what also implies comparison with other gods? The Bible.

        3. Skater Girl

          The entire OT is one long dick measuring contest btwn yaweh and the other regional gods. The whole thing implies thier god is the best god, not the only one.

        4. Benjamin

          The term they use for that is “monolotry” as opposed to “monotheism” – i.e., worship of only one god rather than belief in only one god.

          The one curious thing about the Bible that at the very least adds to the possibility that it is a monotheistic book rather than merely a monolotrous one is that most texts that recognize multiple gods, even when recognizing some of them as bad or evil or other, have the other gods appear in some way as characters in the text. The Bible is curious in that while the God of the text most definitely appears as a character, other gods referenced by name only appear as representations or mentions, not as characters. It’s not slam-dunk proof or anything, but after being someone who’s leaned heavily toward the monolotry side (in my thoughts on the likely correct understanding of the biblical text) for a long time, I thought it was some interesting food for thought.

        5. DailyBrad

          I guess the closest we get to appearances of supernatural stuff not affiliated with God would be things like the Pharaoh’s magicians also being able to turn their staves into snakes, even if Moses won that particular pokemon battle.

        6. Chris Phoenix

          I’ve read that there are snakes that go rigid when you pick them up a certain way. And that if you simply put fig sticks in the ground, they’ll sprout. In other words, that was a battle of showmanship and stage magic.

        7. King Daniel

          I believe it was almonds in the case of Aaron’s staff – one of my college-level horticulture textbooks actually lists one of those verses as being textual evidence of ancient cultures’ knowledge of asexual plant propagation methods (i.e. producing plants without seed/spores/what-have-you). Along with listing other non-Biblical examples, but still.

        8. King Daniel

          The verse is just mentioned as an aside in a small box in the section introducing the reader to the history of plant propagation by the way, it’s not a religious textbook or anything like that.

        9. Agemegos

          Do they not know the word “henotheism”?

        10. RacingTurtle

          I would like to thank Benjamin and Agemegos for making me finally learn the difference between monolatry and henotheism. Thank you!

          (The short version, for anyone wondering: In monolatry you accept other gods might exist but you only consider one of them worthy of worship. In henotheism there are many gods to choose from—your community might even have an actual pantheon—and you’re just choosing the one that’s right for you.)

        11. alice

          whoa that’s a way cooler way to do gods!

        12. Huehuetotl

          Many of the texts, especially the older ones, that formed the Hebrew Bible probably started polytheistic or monolatristic. After Josiah, they were edited to obfuscate the polytheism. The serpent in Genesis could be a demoted god, related to all the serpent idols that Josiah had destroyed, and also the serpentine god of medicine of nearby religions, Ningishzida.
          Shamash was probably the original patron god in the Samson story. And being a god concerned with justice, he’s a candidate for the inspiration for the appointed Adversary in the Job framing narrative.

        13. Fogel

          So Islam’s ‘There is no God but God’, versus the OT ‘you shall have no other God before….” [if those are at all accurate]?

        14. HeySo

          Versus Christianity’s “There is no God but God and his two other selves.”

          So yeah, you can see modern Abrahamic monotheism as a developed outcome of Abrahamic faiths overtaking and overshadowing other western religions, to the point where it became easy to simply dismiss other belief systems outright [versus viewing them as a direct threat that needed to be warned against] [Well, outside of the ‘all other belief systems are the influence of the devil’ mantra that you’ll come across at times.].

        15. thejeff

          Interestingly, from what I’ve read, there was a lot of emphasis in early Islam on exactly that – on how they were really monotheistic, unlike the Christians and their Trinity.

        16. Abbefaria

          Yeah the “one and only god” is one of the things that lead to so many at the time being fed to the lions for sport. Cults (churches at the time) were given some range in who they worshiped, and as recorded efforts were made to assimilate foreign gods into the pantheon as the empire expanded. When the Christians started to come along though their whole thing was “this is the one true god” and all the others are bs (to dumb it way down). This as said was one of the major points that rubbed the establishment the wrong way real bad since the religious system was based on folks being allowed to believe and worship whichever god they chose (it wasn’t “exactly” freedom of religious but sort of a freedom within the religious system set up by the state…kind of)…so this new cult going around bragging and claiming their god was the real deal and true thing above EVERYTHING else got on peoples nerves. That isn’t to say feeding them to the lions was a good solution from a modern moral perspective but…there were reasons.

        17. Shane Wegner

          If there are alien civilizations out there, their gods will be as many and varied as ours have been.

          But their atheists believe about the same thing ours do.

        18. thejeff

          Nah, that’ll seem to be true at first, but with more research into each other’s history and development we’ll find that some obscure historical religions that never really amounted to much had exactly the same beliefs as one of their near forgotten religions. 🙂

        19. C.T Phipps

          We also need to put a permanent can on the “Romans were tolerant of other faiths” B.S. because they weren’t. They organized the first and second most horrible of all massacre of Jewish people in all of history based on their hatred of Judaism. They also destroyed the Druids as a faith. They also suppressed the Cult of Bachuus and their way of “tolerating” local faiths was to state, “Your gods are actually just our gods but you misunderstood them.”

          Their faith was, “We tolerate you as long as you behave in accordance with ours.”

          Which…isn’t very tolerant.

          Gibbons the 17th century Historian hated Christians and was a Romanphile that put out some toxic and truly wrong ideals about Roman cosmopolitanism.

        20. Makkabee

          It wasn’t because they hated Judaism, it was because they hated REBELLION — as long as the Jews were saying “we reject your gods but we’ll pay our taxes and not make trouble” the Romans were like “you’re weird, but whatevs.”

          And as someone who lost family in the Holocaust, let me add that anyone who argues that the Roman massacre of Jews was the most horrible in history can shut right the hell up forever.

        21. Mr D phone posting

          So they did the exact same thing Christians did.

        22. Annonymouse

          And according to the old testament the Jewish people did as well to the Canaanites.
          So pretty much everyone has been a murderous butt head at some point in history at least once.

        23. BBCC

          That’s only if you believe the story of Exodus is at all historical

          (The historical record is….doubtful).

        24. chris2315

          Our god is an awesome god. Much better than that ridiculous god Desert Bluffs has,

        25. RacingTurtle

          ALL HAIL THE GLOW FAZ

          ALL HAIL

        26. Marsh Maryrose

          Why would anyone not worship a Smiling God?

      2. Durandal_1707

        The nerdy side of me wants to correct your seriously misquoted lyrics, while the bitter ex-fundie side of me wants to not give a shit. You’ve really backed me into a corner, DailyBrad.

        1. Arian

          Here you go, Durandal’s nerdy side. It’s fixed now, and without your having to do it:

          “Our God is an awesome God, he reigns from Heaven above with wisdom, power and love, our God is an awesome God.”

          My own nerdy side can’t help singing under its breath,

          “When he rolls up his sleeves, he ain’t just putting on the ritz…”

        2. LaShawn Wanak

          It’s always the chorus people remember, but never the other words, which, frankly, I loved a lot more than the chorus.

          Also, today’s strip is giving me so many feels as a Christian who has grown jaded and cynical over the past few years. Now I need to go read some of his stuff.

        3. DailyBrad

          I’ll cop to not having sat down to listen to the song in a bit, so I remembered it wrong, but meaning’s about the same, isn’t it? Our God is rad, yo.

          (yes, I know he probably meant awesome as in like awe inspiring, I am just a jackass)

        4. Arian

          When He rolls up His sleeves
          He ain’t just puttin’ on the Ritz
          (our God is an Awesome God)
          There is thunder in His footsteps
          And lightning in His fists
          (our God is an Awesome God)
          Well the Lord He wasn’t jokin’
          When He kicked ’em out of Eden
          It wasn’t for no reason that He shed His blood
          His return is very close and so you better be believin’
          That our God is an Awesome God

          [REFRAIN]
          Our God (our God) is an Awesome God
          He reigns (He reigns) from heaven above
          With wisdom (with wisdom) power and love
          Our God is an Awesome God

          When the sky was starless in the void of the night
          (our God is an awesome God)
          He spoke into the darkness and created the light
          (our God is an awesome God)
          Judgement and wrath He poured out on Sodom
          Mercy and grace He gave us at the cross
          Hoping we have not too quickly forgotten that
          Our God is an Awesome God

      3. RacingTurtle

        He also wrote a song about “going out like Elijah” that I only learned about because of this DoA storyline. Despite being areligious myself, I thought it was pretty good if you like that kind of country-rock that was popular in parts of the 1970s and 80s.

    2. toby

      as in more than a cursory google can tell you, or…?

  4. BBCC

    Oh, Joyce. Honey.

  5. toby

    when I saw this strip on patreon yesterday it made me breathe out real hard in catharsis, and that’s all I have to say about that

  6. timemonkey

    The good news is the trauma sweater went away.

    1. Tilt

      But she’s wearing her brace now, so not all the trauma is gone…

      1. BarerMender

        Good catch.

      2. Needfuldoer

        I think the orange sweater represents her trauma (the encounter with not-Ryan), and the wrist brace represents her crisis of faith and the emotional fallout from it (she sprained that wrist punching Toedad). Remember when she wore it to her church at home, and felt ostracised by the sideways glances it got her? She’s realizing how toxic the environment she grew up in can be, but it’s intertwined with her understanding of faith because she isn’t familiar with anything else.

        1. thejeff

          Is it just the brace that’s significant here or is the outfit important as well?
          I can’t remember when she wore this before – it’s not her Ross-punching outfit.

  7. Doctor_Who

    It’s probably because I am in no way familiar with the musical stylings of Rich Mullins and am generally a heathen, but his quote in panel 4 somehow put the idea in my head that he’s playing a cover of Common Man Boogie called Wretched Man Boogie.

    He’s just a wretched man
    Helpin’ Joyce with her prayers
    He’s just a wretched man
    Convincin’ her Jesus cares

    1. DailyBrad

      That’s hard times, baybeh.

  8. Stephen Bierce

    Once Upon A Time in a V.A. Hospital…
    My father, still in the Marines Reserves, was visiting a buddy on Sunday when he began hearing some awful screaming down the hallway. So he goes to investigate and in one of the rooms is a former Chaplain, strapped down, and on the TV set is one of those evangelists going “HEAL! HEAL! HEAL!” The Chaplain is screaming that he wants the TV set turned off or changed to a different channel. So Dad did just that and the Chaplain’s blessings have followed him ever since.

    1. Stephen Bierce

      Poor ol’ Kaw-liga, he never got a kiss.
      Poor ol’ Kaw-liga, he don’t know what he missed.
      Is it any wonder that his face is red?
      Kaw-liga, that poor ol’ wooden head.

    2. Needfuldoer

      To be fair, I have the same reaction to televangelists.

  9. DailyBrad

    This one hit me like a ton of bricks. Joyce has changed so much in what, for her, has been like a month.

  10. Badgermole

    If there’s one quality in Joyce that’s been shining and getting stronger through everything she’s been through, it’s empathy.
    Empathy is centered in and comes from other people. Not a perfect god.

    1. AutobotDen

      She’s shaping up to be a VERY good person.

  11. AutobotDen

    I want to hug Dream!Joyce and tell her that everything will be alright, and that she doesn’t have to follow what she was taught, as long as what she chooses to follow feels right to her, and she’s not hurting anyone or trying to take their rights to exist away.

    1. Opus the Poet

      “An as ye harm none, do as you Will shall be the whole of the Law.” Words I try to live by, and generally fail to do.

      1. Chris Phoenix

        This is a really interesting game of Telephone. Here’s how I remember it from a few decades ago:
        The Wiccans said “An it harm none, do as thou wilt.” (search “wiccan rede”)
        Then Crowley, who IIRC was a self-labeled Satanist, said “Do as thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.”

        But Wikipedia says the latter is from “Thelema” which Crowley invented and, at least according to that page, preceded modern Wicca and Satanism. I suspect a lot of Wiccans would disagree, and I don’t propose to sort it out. It may just be Christians who called Crowley a Satanist – another thing I don’t propose to sort out.

        1. Kabo

          He was definitely not a satanist in any straightforward sense, especially not a self-labeled one. He was an occultist in the tradition of the Golden Dawn, and like all those guys he was highly syncretistic, and utilized elements from all kinds of religious and occult traditions, including Satanic imagery.

  12. WingedBeast

    This is one of the things I dislike about this kind of Christianity.

    No, we’re not all broken. We’re all people. Imperfect people, yes. But, not broken and in search of your particular religion to make us conform into better people.

    And, in so much as the four gospels can be merged into a singular character of Jesus, that character is not perfect.

    1. Jenny Islander

      Yep. Plus, that bit Jesus says about “Be ye perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect” is specifically about generosity. It’s not about Doing Everything Right All The Time In Every Way Whatsoever And Never Doing Anything Wrong. It’s a summary statement following a list of things that people are supposed to do for everybody, not just preferentially, because despite what certain commentators had written in the Bible, anybody could look around and see that rain fell on the fields of the pagans just as it did on the fields of the properly observant. So, to be like God, Jesus says, be generous, even to, y’know, those people. (There are also implications of passive resistance to Roman rule in that passage, but that’s another rant.)

    2. C.T Phipps

      It’s a weird balance between the idea that people are flawd and imperfect versus believing that requires you to hate yourelf or even dislike yourself (which is also explictly condemned).

    3. LaShawn Wanak

      I replied earlier about being a jaded and cynical Christian. This is the reason why.

    4. Untes

      You’re taking broken to a higher semantical level than I think it implies. “Imperfect” and “Broken” are largely synonymous with this kind of theology. Some people go a bit too far with it, as is the case with just about any religion really. But the main crux of “Imperfect = Broken” is the general idea.

      1. Shade

        But broken and imperfect are not synonymous at all. No matter how you try to spin it theologically, broken is always going to carry the connotation of being damaged in someone’s mind even if only subconsciously.

  13. DarkoNeko

    Getting conforted by dead people in your dreams

    1. Thursday Violist

      Slightly better than getting comforted by dead people while you’re awake.

      1. Jess

        …only slightly?

        1. Zach

          I’d say it’s less so.
          I would take extreme comfort in finding any sign of an afterlife.

        2. ego

          ok, there is an afterlife. it’s eternal. you have forty years to determine which sadistic, xenophobic tyrant sponsors it. yeah your quality of life just went way up.

        3. BBCC

          Counter possibility – It’s pretty much just people being themselves (more or less, accounting for whatever character development they’ve been through post death), only now they are dead.

          Basically one big ass party.

        4. DarkoNeko

          some of us would prefer one big ass library

        5. Thursday Violist

          The downside of just one library is that all the people expecting a party would also be there.

        6. Clif

          Point.

        7. BBCC

          Who says the big ass party won’t have one? 😛

      2. Needfuldoer

        Don’t you need a pottery wheel for that to happen?

      3. Sunny

        The zombie apocalypse could arguably be less stressful than what we’ve currently got. It would definitely be more simple.

  14. Woomy

    He’s a wretched MAN

    1. DailyBrad

      a miserable pile of secrets

      1. Grant Barnes

        BUT ENOUGH TALK, HAVE AT YOU

      2. StClair

        /e wineglass

  15. Electriccombines

    The lighting and mood in the last panel is beautiful, I can honestly feel how sad Joyce is, and it breaks my heart.

  16. Skater Girl

    Honestly, Christianity’s message that we are all innately evil and worthy of unending torture makes it one of the worst religions I’ve ever come across.

    1. Kyrik Michalowski

      As someone who is now an atheist but was raised a christian, I wonder if that is where my belief that everyone is innately evil stems from. Granted it wasn’t fundamentalist christian, but it is still something that I think. I just don’t believe in any of the rest of it, I think people are innately evil and choose to be good but are not simply good because you believe in a higher power.

      1. Alanari

        I think that every human has good parts and bad parts. We decide which parts to nourish and which to suppress. That is what makes us a good or bad person.
        I was raised completely areligious. Not pro or against religion, just without. I’m curious whether religion plays a role in our image of humanity and if yes, whether different religions foster different images of humans.

      2. HeySo

        My belief that most humans are inherently evil comes from, y’know, having interacted with humans in the past. They really don’t try all that hard to disuade you from adopting that belief, y’know?

        ‘course, I’d think that the decent humans are the ones who act decent in their day-to-day and who retain that decency when under pressure, rather than the ones who donate the most in church and best meet religion-based social expectations, so..

        The foundation of the religion may not be wrong, but the rationality seems to get pretty warped as you look into its broader implementations.

    2. Xerxes

      Thats a gross simplification. Its not that we are “innately evil and deserve to suffer.” Its that we are capable of doing evil things. And despite that we are still loved by God. If you dont like Christianity then fine, do you, but dont be a dick about it.

      1. ozaline

        Unfortunately for some Christians they do believe that humanity is innately evil. Not all branches and to different extents, but it is a real teaching. “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of god,” and this is a God who demands perfection or else you will be consigned to hellfire.

        They also teach that Christ helps fight temptation once you’ve accepted him. Which is where I think a lot of born and raised Christians get the idea that Athiests must be evil (and just watch the first two God’s Not Dead films if you don’t think that idea exists)… “I am tempted to to bad things sometimes, but I usually resist, cause I’ve got Jesus! They don’t, how scary!”

        I realize there are many different takes on Christianity, but inherently evil is one of them.

      2. Skater Girl

        Pro tip: People who actually love you don’t torture you for violating arbitrary rules you make up. That’s called abuse.

        1. Skater Girl

          *they make up

        2. Owlmirror

          Yeah, but what I just wrote below goes here in reverse: Not all versions of Christianity teach that all non-saved humans are tortured forever. They figure that since God is loving and just, that the way he treats human souls will follow from that loving and just nature, and cannot include eternal torture.

          Of course, it could be that Xerxes’ church actually does have eternal torture as a dogma, but his pastor or priest or whatever has been soft-peddling that aspect.

      3. Owlmirror

        I think you need to realize that there is not one single unified Christianity; one single interpretation of the gospels and epistles out there. Maybe the version you know teaches some sort of universal salvation or ultimate reconciliation, or some other ultimate fate of human souls, but there do exist harsher versions of Christianity that have, as dogma, that all who are not saved are damned to be tortured in hell eternally, and that further teach that, since God is just, all who are damned deserve it.

        1. Freemage

          Thing is, the definition of who is and is not ‘truly’ Christian often seems to be on some massive sliding scale, depending on the person’s desires in the conversation. I’ve seen fundies who slide from pointing out that 80% of the U.S. population is “Christian” (to justify things like crosses on public land and prayer at public gatherings) and then immediately flip and say that if you don’t support specific beliefs (say, on abortion or homosexuality), you’re not ‘really’ Christian.

          And I’d say that considerably more Christians belong to faith-sects that teach the literal interpretation of “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me,” which is to say, the Christian exclusion doctrine–you have to be not merely ‘good’ but also a baptized Christian (through the Water and the Spirit) in order to actually go to Heaven.

          (BTW, I’m not saying most Christians actually believe this–a great many are actually ignorant about, or actively ignore, aspects of their sect’s dogma and doctrine, especially the ones with unpleasant implications.)

    3. Agemegos

      “Good news! You’re inherently vile and deserve eternal punishment. God is just and he’s going to give it to you.

      “Submit! Obey! Tithe! Tithe! Tithe!”

    4. Jenny Islander

      And once again the loudmouths who say that they are the Real True Christians get everybody else to believe them…

      The core of that teaching, without all the blood and thunder preaching that gets tacked on in American Protestantism, is that we can’t not screw up. Look around you. Think about your own life. Think about history. From a Christian perspective, even the first part of the Bible, where the founding myths are related, is about how humanity just plain can’t not screw up. BUT. We can start again. All we have to do is admit that we screwed up, ask for help, and begin where we fell off.

      It’s a relief to know that we don’t have to break ourselves trying to attain everything we can imagine, because we can’t. This doctrine is also a warning that even when we think we have all the factors organized and under control, we don’t. We screw up. People get hurt, wrongs are unrighted, we fritter away what we were given, and we hurt ourselves. But we can, indeed we must, get up again. And we aren’t alone.

      Martin Luther (who screwed up a lot) kept this on a piece of paper in his pocket toward the end of his life: “We are beggars; this is true. Alleluia!” By the ancient law of hospitality, beggars could expect to be taken in at their destination, even if they were awful to look at and too smelly to be near. We screw up, but we’re going home anyway. We just have to keep moving. And that’s the heart of it.

  17. Buggman

    And that, my friend, is the genius of the Christian message. God isn’t just remotely judging the world from Heaven, but entered into human experience, experiencing everything that we experience, both good and bad, through his Son. God knows what it’s like to be rejected, bullied, hormonal, hungry, irritable, exhausted, and even unjustly tortured and killed–and did it all out of love for us.

    1. David M Willis

      so jesus jerked it, huh

      1. whatevsman

        that was the one bit of wood working Joseph never taught Him

      2. DailyBrad

        that famous Bible verse, “Jesus wanked.”

      3. Benjamin Geiger

        Nah, he had women “washing his feet” all the time.

      4. Arian

        “so jesus jerked it, huh”

        He might well have, and seeing I don’t think there’s a problem with it, it wouldn’t bother me if he had.

      5. Buggman

        I wouldn’t say that–in Jewish thought (i.e., the thought of the NT writers), that would fall under the category of sin. But I’m quite certain that he felt the urge and probably had some impressive wet dreams, as do we all. (Involuntary responses are not considered sins in Jewish thought.)

    2. Rabid Rabbit

      You’d think he’d have come down as a woman so he could know what menstruating and giving birth is like.

      1. ktbear

        Well THAT was never gonna happen, no one would have taken Geulah seriously. In a time when a woman was basically the property of her father or husband, pretty much at God’s instruction, a female prophet would have flopped badly.

        1. Agemegos

          Deborah. Fourth Judge of Israel. See Judges 4 and Judges 5.

        2. ktbear

          Okay, I stand corrected. Thank you for that. However, Deborah was of noble birth as opposed to a carpenters daughter. I’d like to think it would have worked, and I suppose if God willed it it would have. If nothing else it might have given the church a different take on a woman’s place in the world. Which is exactly why I’m sceptical.

        3. Agemegos

          God can do anything. Things are as they are because He wants it this way. Everything is for the best in this best of all possible worlds.

        4. StClair

          Thank you, Pangloss.

        5. Madock345

          Thank you for the new word. I promise to take good care of it.

        6. HeySo

          What Madock said. Though optimism more relates to the belief that things will get better, than to belief in idealized predestination. That’s more a fundament of blind faith than of anything else.

          In short, Age’d be a pangloss if they were stating that bad things were happening because God was preparing for good things in the future; Not so with the given phrasing, which states that things are already as good as they can be for the present timeframe.

        7. Arian

          I wonder whether that means that any worlds better than this one are imaginable but *not* possible, rather than that there could be no imaginable improvement. I haven’t read what you’re referencing, which doesn’t help. 🙂

        8. Agemegos

          It’s from Voltaire’s Candide, where it was the slogan and doctrine of Dr. Pangloss. Pangloss is a satire of a Leibniz, a philosopher who reconciled the axiomatic goodness of God with the evident miseries of the World by “deducing” that better worlds might be imaginable but are not possible, that God has does as well as is possible subject to logical constraints the are not apparent to us. (That God cannot do the logically impossible is not a limitation of his axiomatic omnipotence.)

          Leibniz was, however, an excellent mathematician.

        9. thejeff

          “The optimist believes we live in the best of all possible worlds. The pessimist fears this is true.”

        10. jothki

          It could be that this world is so terrible because all of the other better worlds do in fact already exist, and we’re somewhere down the chain of worlds that aren’t perfect but are still good enough to be worth existing.

        11. Arian

          Hmm. I don’t think everything happens for the best, but I probably do think this is the best world that can exist given said constraints. Otherwise, things like cause and effect, and actions and consequences (which don’t always fall on the person who actually took the actions), would be nullified. That would be a disconcerting world to live in. I prefer to think that natural laws will work today the same way as they did yesterday. :/

        12. Buggman

          Judaism has NEVER considered the woman to be property. That’s why in Jewish law, the woman cannot be forced into a marriage and even within the marriage, she always is the final determiner of when they have sex.

    3. FacelessDeviant

      “experiencing everything that we experience”.

      Except two very important things. Being god and knowing he was, removed doubt about if there even was a god or afterlife. Also knowing this removed the fear of death, since god/Jesus -knew- he would be resurrected and would be the king of heaven.

      Removing those two things definitely lessened the human experience.

      1. FacelessDeviant

        At least, thats my thoughts around it.

        1. dgmillo

          It’s hard to argue this should be and often seemed the case. And yet he still feared the end of his life, praying twice in the garden at Gethsemane that God take the burden from him.

          And at the very end, he cried, “My God! My God! Why have you forsaken me?”

          That seems like fear, doubt, and despair to me.

        2. FacelessDeviant

          True. But he was still sure of gods existence. His fear was that he had angered/disappointed him. And that happened only once, at the very end. Some humans wrestle with doubt their entire lives.

          Besides, the crucifiction has four versions. Luke, John, Mark and Matthew. All differ from eachother.

          In some he doubts, saying the thing about forsakening. In others, he says things like “It is done.” and “Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit.”

      2. Buggman

        Why do you think it removed doubt? Read the Gospel accounts carefully, and you’ll see Yeshua becoming increasingly agitated and short-tempered on the final road to Jerusalem and the cross, and he’s practically freaking out in Gethsemane–blood in his sweat is a known condition (hemitadrosis) that comes about from prolonged and near-lethal levels of stress. While it’s safe to say that he did not give in to doubt, I don’t think we can conclude that he never experienced it.

        1. FacelessDeviant

          How could he doubt gods existence and the afterlife when he -was- god, performed miracles and spoke to angels on a somewhat regular basis?

          Sure, he was stressed. He knew he was going to be betrayed and executed. Regardless of what one believes, that can’t be fun.

        2. Buggman

          You realize that he didn’t do his first miracle until he was 30, right? (Turning water into wine.) That gives a whole lot of time for him to have wrestled with doubt. And if indeed, as the NT claims, he “in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin” (Heb. 4:15), then he would have been tempted with doubt as well.

          And the thing is, not all of us have problems with doubt our whole lives. I did in my late teens and early 20s, so I went and did my research on the areas where I had guilt. While I would have been perfectly happy at that point in my life to be an atheist, the evidence did not lead me in that direction. On the other hand, it didn’t exactly lead me in the direction of my Evangelical upbringing, either–hence why my picture has me wearing a talit (Jewish prayer shawl). Having wrestled with my doubts and resolved them, I just don’t have them any more, at least not on the big issues. Most of my doubts these days involve second-guessing myself on the right thing to do in specific situations.

          But I do remember being in Joyce’s shoes and encountering new challenges to my faith, both logical and moral, for the first time in college. I was raised to be better equipped than her (I had plenty of non-Christian friends), but it’s still a difficult time of life for anyone raised in a particular faith.

    4. Kryss LaBryn

      Late to the party, but what Jesus never experienced was helpless despair. As in, every time he saw suffering: hunger, sickness, injury, death, he was able to wave his hand and magically fix it. Crowds of people need to be fed but there’s no food? No prob: Miracle of the loaves and fishes! Whereas the rest of us would have to do some combination of running around trying to find enough food to feed them all without stealing it, and feeling bad because they were hungry because they’d left their homes and come there to listen to us, and we couldn’t do anything about it despite it arguably being our fault/responsibility.

      Feel sorry for someone because they are blind? Lame? Sick? No prob! *magic hand wave* All better now! Yay!

      He never ever had to watch even a stranger, let alone anyone he cared about, anyone he loved, suffer a painful illness and die, without being able to do anything about it. He never felt that helplessness. He never even experienced being sick or injured himself, until his final few days of torture. Fuck, he never even spent a week in bed with the flu, or had to make the choice between taking the time to heal, and not potentially losing his job, or at the very least losing the income from those days, and possibly not being able to buy food or pay his rent. He never had a broken bone (eight weeks to heal, assuming it’s set properly) let alone any chronic illness or injury.

      He never was trapped in his own ailing body. He was never helpless in the face of the suffering of others.

      We know rich people from multi-generational wealthy families who never had to want for anything in their entire lives have absolutely no concept of what it’s like to have to make hard choices. Do you send your kids to bed hungry, or do you pay the rent on time? Do you fill their bellies with cheap trash, or do you buy the healthy stuff, but not be able to pay down the electricity bill this month? Do you put them into gymnastics/soccer/dance/whatever else all their friends are in and loving, that gets them exercise and fun and discipline and some kind of physical skills, or do you take care of that vehicle repair while it’s only a few hundred dollars and not a replacement vehicle? Do you replace your broken vehicle with another beater, knowing it’s gonna end up costing more in repairs; or spend more than you can afford now to get a vehicle in better condition, that hopefully won’t have so many costs over the next few years?

      He never, ever, ever had to make a hard choice. Ever. He never had to feel helpless in the face of others’ suffering.

      He has no fucking idea what it’s like to be human. Even the super privileged uber-rich have to deal with incurable sicknesses and loss. It’s the one thing that unites every single human on the planet.

      But not him. Not Jesus.

      God still doesn’t know what it’s actually like to suffer.

  18. Dana

    You can tell he’s broken because he makes Joyce sad.

  19. DaveM

    The whole “we’re all made in Gods image” and “We’re all wretched imperfect sinners” was one of the things that started me questioning religion (not necessarily the existence of God, but rather the teachings of the church). The other thing is that I could no longer believe that ANYONE could ever deserve the eternal torments of hell.

    On the first point, I know it’s all “fall from grace” yadda yadda. But Eve is tricked into pinching one piece of fruit and 6,000 years later we’re still getting kicked for it? Get over it, you know? 🙂

    1. DaveM

      Oh, just in case it needs to be said. I’m well aware that the Earth is around 4.5 billion years old, and that mankind has been around for around 200,000 years (and we’re evolved apes).

      1. Clif

        It’s less we evolved from apes than we had common ancestors with the other kinds of apes.

        1. Shade

          They didn’t say evolved from apes, they said humans are evolved apes. Which is true, we are apes.

    2. Zach

      I heard somewhere that the Jews view that story as Adam and Eve growing up and being kicked out of the house. A coming of age thing, not so much a punishment.

      1. King Daniel

        Been a while, but that sounds familiar to me.

        1. ktbear

          2 Peter 3:8–9. According to the whole one day is like a thousand years, I can see God still being pissed at Eve six days later?

        2. Agemegos

          Does the World unfold according to His plan or not?

        3. Arian

          Well, no, if the Creation got broken.

        4. RacingTurtle

          Still seems petty, though. A little like being angry and disappointed at an 80 year old for something she did as a toddler…and then also taking out those feelings on her grandchildren.

        5. RacingTurtle

          And also in this analogy the life expectancy of the 80-year-old is, to the god, even shorter than a golden retriever’s life expectancy is to a human. That’s not even getting into the power differential.

          Basically, if God is still angry at Eve, he is a bad pet owner.

        6. C.T Phipps

          I confess to not believing in Original Sin because there obviously wasn’t a Adam and Eve.

          That doesn’t mean it doesn’t work for me as a parable or that I don’t believe in God.

    3. Buggman

      Christianity tends to overplay the “wretchedness” angle, but let me address the “made in God’s image” bit. According to Dr. Michael Heiser, the Hebrew can be rendered “made to be God’s image,” which is to say, God’s representatives in the physical world. What the Bible portrays is not simply that human kind is horribly flawed (though we are), but that we are so terribly fallen from what we should be. Interestingly, I find some of the best pieces on what humankind at it’s best should be to be the “humans are space orcs” posts floating around on Tumblr and Pinterest: They bring out our incredible bonding instincts (even to other species), capacity for joy, inventiveness and creativity, and endurance. The fact is that humans are pretty damn incredible–and yet, we’re also pretty damn awful. That’s the paradox that Judaism and its child religion, Christianity, wrestle with–and, in the person of the Messiah, present a solution to.

  20. Reltzik

    Joyce, if it makes you feel better, Jesus condemned remarrying after divorce while saying nothing about the institution of slavery. So maybe you can do better?

    …..

    ….. dammit quit with the sad panel 7 face already….

    1. C.T Phipps

      Jesus notably said it was better to allow yourself to be killed rather than hurt someone so I think that more or less rules out slavery.

      Divorce in Jesus’ time was also for the benefit of men not women. The purpose of it was to make sure that you could kick out your wife for a younger version and let the former die in the streets. Not exactly a triumph of feminism to support it.

      1. thejeff

        This is one of those things that would trouble me about Christianity. You can’t simultaneously treat Jesus’s words as specifically relating to the conditions of his time and as the timeless Word of God to live by.
        God should be able to do both at once, not be constrained by the social context of the time.

        1. C.T Phipps

          I think you can if you look at the conversations involved being:

          1. Is Jesus being asked about the timeless word of God?

          2. Is Jesus being asked about the specific time period.

          Because he was often asked about both. He spoke about generalities and universal truths as most religious leaders are.

        2. Vika

          But.. why would god have to censor himself to a specific time period? If he doesnt let people know something is wrong, wont it cause a lot lot more sins to take place until the people figure out by themselves that the thing is wrong?

      2. Reltzik

        A) If it takes 17+ centuries to be interpreted as such, then it’s hardly a clear condemnation of slavery.

        B) So making it impossible for women who were already divorced to remarry makes it better?

        There’s a lot of good stuff ascribed to Jesus, but “perfect” is overselling it in a very dangerous way. My point is that Joyce should aim for a higher bar.

      3. David M Willis

        “Jesus notably said it was better to allow yourself to be killed rather than hurt someone so I think that more or less rules out slavery.”

        uh

        jesus told so many parables — so many — about slavery

        like so many stories about slavery

        and not once did he ever say NOT TO DO IT

        instead those parables often ended with an unruly or disobedient slave being beaten or tortured

        so, like, spare me your weak rationalizations

        1. HeySo

          Related: https://youtu.be/oRdxUFDoQe0?t=70

      4. JBento

        Considering the Bible says Jesus said it was totally ok to beat a slave provided they didn’t die within 3 days of said beating, I’m pretty sure Jesus was totally in favour of slavery.

        1. Arian

          Where does it say that?

        2. Arian

          I found the quote you were thinking of: it’s in Exodus (i.e. second book of theOld Testament). Can’t find anywhere where Jesus said anything remotely like that.

      5. Shade

        The Jesus that told slaves to obey their masters?

        1. DR. GONZO

          As to be fair, there had been a steady slave economy throughout Mediterranean and Near Eastern civilization since at least the Bronze Age so what seems like a horrible abomination to us, was pretty much the norm back in Jesus’ time.

        2. thejeff

          Which makes it a perfectly reasonable thing for a human reformer to argue, but problematic as the literal Word of God.

        3. Arian

          There’s a lot of things that Jesus didn’t say anything specifically against (that we have a record of) that nevertheless most people wouldn’t assume he condoned. Things that happened in parables don’t count as saying “and all of this was perfectly fine”, either. If you apply the overarching principle “love your neighbour as yourself” (with ‘neighbour’ being clearly defined as ‘everyone you come into contact with’), a lot of not-specifically-banned behaviour can be seen as clearly wrong.

        4. C.T Phipps

          What Jesus said was also not entirely recorded and we only have four books that were passed down. What is noted is that Jesus condemned all inequalities.

  21. whatevsman

    … yeah, screw it. i’ll out myself on this one. i’m still confused

  22. Deadjolras

    Dream!Joyce has her wrist brace on it and that makes me feel things.

    1. ValdVin

      I did not notice that until your post.

      Now I worry evev more about her.

    2. Bicycle Bill

      She didn’t have it in the previous panel. It appeared with the change from the sweater to the T-shirt outfit. And it will probably be gone with the next costume change.

  23. Grant Barnes

    I have so many emotions about this, because letting go of the burdens that evangelical christianity places on you can be extremely painful. You’re taught so much that it’s about feeling God, about experiencing that high, but when you can’t feel it all those platitudes don’t make it any better. There are stretches of months, years, when I feel like God is so far away.

    I’ll air out some baggage over here. I used to be a pastor in Texas. I was let go from ministry, for reasons and through processes to bureaucratic and pointless to go into. I’m now doing a PhD in California, and while I’ve never been happier to be pursuing what I love, and as much as I don’t miss that pain of being in the position I was in… it still hurts to not feel like you have a spiritual home. Being an exile, either self-imposed or not, is a lonely prospect. I hope that, with or without religion, Joyce can find a home again.

    1. Arian

      Based on my own experience, it’ll be all right in the long run. You might change your mind about a lot of things, but you’ll settle out to a new stability. Just keep going where you find yourself headed; don’t sit down in the road and give up. Don’t clutch hard to any former understanding. You can get there.

      1. grantimusmax

        Thanks, I really appreciate that. I know time will heal some things, and if nothing else, the scar tissue will knit the wounds up. Trying to figure out who the new person emerging out of your soul is can be quite the process. Sometimes the best thing to do is keep moving/crawling forward. 🙂

        1. Arian

          It is. Keep crawling. 😉

  24. lilyliv --> ian livs

    “That doesn’t comfort me anymore. That just makes me feel sad” is… I’ve said this before, but Joyce is honestly the most relatable in terms of this kind of storyline that I’ve ever seen. I love her. She drives me nuts sometimes (usually because it’s like seeing the bits of my former self that I dislike most) but I love her, and I know this is DUMBing of Age, but I really hope everything turns out well for her in the end.

    1. MatsuoTanuki

      That’a the mark of a well written, fleshed out character, that pepole can find little bits of themselves in said character to empathize with. Well done Willis, well done indeed.

  25. StClair

    IMO, the trick is accepting – really accepting – that we are all of us imperfect, and that is okay.

    1. Some1

      More than okay, it’s brilliant! All the fun in life comes from imperfection. Being perfect would be like playing a video game where you can’t fail.

    2. Shade

      Right flawed sure, but absolutely not broken.

  26. Mr. Random

    … A while ago someone tried to comfort me by saying something along the lines of “It’s normal to feel that.”

    It took me a second, to really process that, since that was the first time someone had tried to use that sorta line with me.

    It kinda made me feel worse.
    To be reminded that so many other people had felt that way?
    It just sorta made me wish no one DID understand.

  27. Bagge

    “All the good things we do are Gd workin’ through us!”

    http://www.dumbingofage.com/2014/comic/book-4/02-i-was-a-teenage-churchmouse/freezeframe/

    1. Bagge

      “Gd”?

      I’m a cool youth pastor now?

      1. C.T Phipps

        Funny thing, that’s actually a Hindu concept.

        Jedi too.

        “It controls your actions?”

        “Partially, but it also obeys your commands.”

        We are part of the One and the One is part of us.

        1. Mephron

          “I am one with the Force and the Force is with me.”

        2. Freemage

          Yes and no–in the Christian flavor, you don’t have the ability to command in reverse. God works through you when you’re doing good, and when you’re not, you’re acting on your own. But while you can ask, nicely, pretty please with sugar on top, for God to do something, you have no power to actually induce it, and in fact, your prayers are usually supposed to include an acknowledgement of this. (C.S.Lewis accused some Christians of praying, “Thy Will be done–but so Will it!” because they’d fail in the latter part of it.)

  28. Jess

    :O Wisdom comes from the most unlikely of sources! And maybe some eye-opening revelations, too, depending on how the next few weeks go here.

    Since this seems like as good a time as any to share my own thoughts on Christianity: I was raised Lutheran (as a church brat, actually — my mom ran our Sunday School program for most of my childhood) and a lot of my identity still comes from that. I still enjoy our church and a lot of its people, filled as it is with mostly progressive people who are better than a lot of churches at embodying the good parts of Christianity and not so many of the bad.

    I don’t think I really believe in God, etc any more, though. If anything I believe that humans created the Christian version of God and Satan — maybe all or at least most gods, though that’s not a claim I’d make for sure right now — from our image. Christianity’s God was created when people saw the little flashes of perfection in people — of kindness and generosity and beauty — and added them up into something to aspire to and admire. The inverse with Christanity’s sense of the devil.

    I derive a lot of the same hope from my theory that it seems many Christians derive from Rich Mulligan’s message (and what follows after re: Jesus’ presence on Earth as God’s son) up there. It means that we hold the key to our own better futures just as much as we hold the key to our own destruction. Yes, we don’t always get it right, and often we have differing opinions on what getting it right even means. But there’s always another chance to do better and come to understand one another. We have a lot of potential that way. And I’m optimistic.

    1. MatsuoTanuki

      That’s actually a nice way of thinking about it. Thank you for sharing 🙂

      1. C.T Phipps

        I sometimes struggle with my faith but I try to be enlightened by the weird I encounter rather than reject it.

        As the Dali Lama said, “Science is the key to truth. When Buddhism and Science contradict, Buddhism must change. However, the result is all the greater.”

        1. Arian

          I’m extremely fond of the Dalai Lama. I think he has a good handle on the stuff that matters.

      2. Jess

        Thank you!

  29. abysswatcher1993

    Maybe you should consider a more liberal approach to Christianity, Joyce? Something about following the ideals of Jesus without glorifying him and without vilifying humanity in general for not being like Jesus????

    1. C.T Phipps

      Glorifying Jesus doesn’t seem like a bad thing to me.

      But then again, it’s a real question of which Jesus you mean.

      White Jesus or Historical Jesus or Black Jesus?

      🙂

      1. abysswatcher1993

        It really doesn’t matter which Jesus since there’s thousands of interpretations of him. Just pick the one that makes you feel like you can be a good person.

        However, don’t pick the Jesus of the Laughing Coffin cult in SAO abridged.

        As for glorification, putting something above human lives in general is a bad idea in human history. Jesus, Islam, Free Market, Communism, nationalism, etc.

        1. C.T Phipps

          I prefer not to devote much love to Supply Side Jesus. He who is the God of Rich People.

        2. Freemage

          You have to be careful around Drunk & Bitter Jesus, too. He’s been known to get smite-y.

  30. MatsuoTanuki

    It all becomes much easier once you stop taking every contradictory teaching the church and the Bible say at face value and as carved in stone truth. The Good Book is thousands of years old, went through multiple language changes down the lines of history, and has been interpreted and cherry picked time an again to justify the intolerance and violence they do. Even if it was, 100% genuine Word of God once, the writing of man has no doubt perverted it.

    So just stick to the passages that speak for peace. Be kind to each other, forgive one another and don’t let fear and hatred poison your soul, use the time that is given to you to live the best life you possibly can, and have faith that somewhere out there in the great big cosmos of the ever expanding universe, there’s someone or something that’s set everything in motion and has some sort of grand scheme for it all.

    1. C.T Phipps

      One of the strangest conversations I ever had was when I pointed out that Jesus’ ministry was largely based on how interpretating the old books literally was wrong.

      And it snapped his brain like a twig.

      He’d never actually read the New Testament as contradicting any of the old despite….large sections being about that.

      1. C.T Phipps

        Said person being a fundamentalist associate of mine.

        He reacted…badly.

      2. Rabid Rabbit

        Ooh, nice. I’ll have to remember that one.

        Out of curiosity, was he anti-Semitic? Just that a lot of fundamentalists are, so how they reconcile Jesus-means-take-everything-literally and Jesus-is-DEFINITELY-not-a-Jew is… always fascinating.

        1. C.T Phipps

          Thankfully not. I grew up in a region with a lot of fundamentalists and there would be people who were horribly homophobic yet actively campaign for black civil rights and get in fights with Neo-Nazis.

          People are….flawed.

          Thankfully, I got out of my fundamentalist roots that were homophobic.

        2. C.T Phipps

          Mind you, I also knew some straight up racist homophobic transphobic bordering on Neo-Nazi garbage that believed everything they did was the word of God.

          ugh.

    2. thejeff

      Of course the word of man had started to pervert it. That’s why God inspired King James to have all the corruption removed and another inspired edition made.

      1. Arian

        Another inspired edition that was a pretty terrible translation. 🙂

    3. Freemage

      That’s one approach. The other is to take the teachings that make sense and withstand an empathy test, and treat them as you would any other philosophical musings–from Plato to Confucius to Sitting Bull. It’s when you decide that this or that specific book is somehow unique, that it was writ by divinely guided hands rather than by other people also trying to figure this whole ‘life’ thing out as best they could, that things get screwed up.

      It requires no faith in a grand master plan, nor in divine benevolence. It works just fine to assume that this is it, the one shot we get, and any meaning it has comes from what we choose to impart to it.

  31. newllend(henryvolt)

    Joyce conflict of being betrayed by the church community she had so much hope in is starting to remind me of “Moral Oral.”

    Matter of fact I think this would fit right about now: https://youtu.be/Vm-NW1RwPY8

  32. Beef

    I have mixed feelings about seeing Joyce lose faith. As a formerly religious person I tend to think most people would be better off without religion but for some reason I don’t want to see Joyce become an atheist, maybe because I know it’s kinda depressing at times

    1. Josh Spicer

      I agree with you. I think I want to be questioning, agnostic, or at the very least realize that you can still believe and not have to weigh yourself down with the ideas to the point where it becomes a part of your person as much as it used to with Joyce.

      Making her atheist paints the picture that there’s no in between, even if it takes a while for her to get there.

      1. Josh Spicer

        *want her to be

  33. Rabid Rabbit

    Good heavens. Rich Mullins is quoting Mike. Or as close as. http://www.dumbingofage.com/2018/comic/book-8/04-of-mike-and-men/righteous/

    Which probably suggests that his beliefs are, y’know, just a bit evil.

    1. Bagge

      …that’s very well spotted, and a very interesting parallel between Mike’s nihilism and Joyce’s self obliterating brand of fundamentalism.

      1. C.T Phipps

        “No one is perfect but you should try to be” is a hard thing to demonize.

        The difference between Mike and Dream Mitch is the former gave up while the latter keeps trying.

        1. Bagge

          Very true, and for many people Dream Mitch’s message is truly uplifting.

          But I’m with Dorothy – I think Joyce use the same message to keep herself down
          http://www.dumbingofage.com/2014/comic/book-4/02-i-was-a-teenage-churchmouse/mysterious/

        2. ValdVin

          Nice callback, as always.

    2. jez2718

      If you mean Mike’s “none are righteous” thing, that is quoting Paul (Romans 3:10) which is in turn quoting the Psalmist (traditionally King David).

      1. Josh Spicer

        And David is just a HUGE ball of a mess when it comes to the bible.

  34. Keulen

    I’ve never had any dreams that I can remember where I talked with famous people. I did have one dream where the moronic current president somehow was in my house, but I didn’t talk to him.

    1. newllend(henryvolt)

      Was he eating your breakfast like a slob and hitting on your wife? I feel like that’s how a dream with him in it would go.

      1. BigDogLittleCat

        I had a dream in which the moronic current occupant of the White House was at a Kings hockey game and the arena was echoingly empty because all but a handful of people boycotted and those who were there booed him. He was wearing a silver sequin leisure suit.

  35. RacingTurtle

    The longer I read, the more I realize I want this version of Joyce to end up an atheist. Walkyverse Joyce is still religious, just differently religious, which was nice for her. I’d like to see DoA Joyce do something different.

    There tends to be an assumption in the media I encounter that losing faith entirely can’t be beautiful the way rethinking your faith can be. Even creators who seem to be atheists themselves tend to fall into that type of thinking. I like Beautiful Belief stories fine, but I want a Beautiful Disbelief story, dangit.

    (My own journey to atheism was less traumatic than Joyce’s, though, mostly because I was coming from a religious stance more like Billie’s. I believed in God because most people I knew believed, but the few times I tried on religion it never really stuck.)

    1. Icalasari

      Very least, I would like Agnostic. Sort of a, “I don’t know if there is a god or gods or what they want so I’m doing what I believe is right and I’ll let things be figured out when I die, if there is an eternal soul anyways”

      1. Icalasari

        Huh, went through and I actually *forgot* that Joyce is basically a genderswapped version of Willis. Which means she’ll likely turn out the same as Willis. I THINK Willis is still religious, so Joyce will remain so, too

    2. C.T Phipps

      I hope she finds a faith that works for her but this is Willis’ character and a very important one to him.

      So it’ll obviously be up to him.

      1. RacingTurtle

        Of course. I sometimes forget that he interacts with this comment section, so something like I wrote can seem like a demand rather than a wistful wishing in the Universe’s general direction. Sorry about that.

    3. Rabid Rabbit

      It’s like I still long to see a decent story where a couple end up pregnant, realize they aren’t ready, have a non-traumatic abortion, and stay together. Possibly having kids a few years later, possibly not. And it just sort of not being a huge deal.

      1. C.T Phipps

        I recall a couple of those but I’m trying to remember them.

  36. Hazel

    I love this colour scheme so much. This page is just beautiful! Reminds of how much the art has changed since DOA began, and before that Shortpacked. It’s neat.

  37. BenRG

    Joyce, honey, if you’re going to go looking for perfection in humans, you’ll be looking for a long time and getting a lot of frustration in your life. It’s better to try to be the best person that you can be, instructed and guided by wise words.

    1. Rabid Rabbit

      And the wise words need not necessarily come from the bible.

    2. Ethics Gradient

      This and Rabid Rabbit.

  38. C.T Phipps

    “It makes me sad.”

    Nobody is perfect but trying is what makes life worth living.

    1. seeprybyrun

      Trying to be good, yeah. But trying to be perfect?

      1. Agemegos

        Meliorate!

        1. Jhon

          Like Amelia!

  39. JessWitt

    Wild prediction: After waking up, Joyce becomes a Christian EDM artist.

    1. Josh Spicer

      I’m now genuinely curious if those exist.

  40. Shane Wegner

    Sweet hovering in midair ability though. I can do that in dreams sometimes.

  41. GUIGUI

    He seems like an okay guy.

    1. BenRG

      Wisdom comes in odd forms and you may not recognise the messenger of the divine as such.

    2. Mel

      In real life he was an extremely okay guy, way more so than a lot of groups who use his music. For example he spoke out about white American Christian culture isolating themselves from the real, multicultural world and pushing gays away.

    3. JohnnyO

      He was a pretty chill bro, and I say that as an ex-Christian turned Atheist. I mean, for starters he actually gave out tons of money to charities.

      He spent the last years of his life living on the Navajo reservation. Not to evangelize, but just because he wanted to teach music.

      1. Arian

        Right. I think he had his head screwed on the right way, even if I don’t agree with every word in every song he ever wrote.

  42. suchipi

    Big. Fucking. Mood.

    I didn’t realize how much I needed a story about losing one’s faith in my familiar webcomic format.

    1. BenRG

      Oddly enough, I don’t think this is about Joyce losing faith in God as much as it is about losing faith in herself. Her parents raised her with a fixed definition of ‘righteous’ that is supposedly achievable if you’re a good person. Much to her shock, she’s found that no-one, not even her parents or the oldest brother she idolises, even comes close. Worse, neither does she and she’s facing a genuine fear of being a failure.

      1. Vika

        i honestly think the story will build up to Joyce becoming an atheist. Partially because Willis always said the story was semi-autobiographical, but also a lot things in the comic i think have been pointing to it, specially yesterday’s comic, after that id be surprised if this wasnt the long long term arc Joyce is going through

  43. Khno

    So what has taken shamanka!Joyce to gte her visions?

  44. Icalasari

    You know, I just remembered something. I was going through a sort of crisis of faith myself once, arguing points with a version of Joyce I put in my head as a strawman

    …Aaand ended up getting whooped with arguments I didn’t even consider. I ended up being the strawman to a fictional character that is a semibiographical interpretation of Willis

    That STILL throws me for a loop to this day. Least I haven’t lost an argument with myself like that since. Would kind of worry me, in fact, since the three times that’s happened, arguments were brought up that I never thought of before. At all. Like maybe I had bits and pieces of information over time, but it was legitimately like arguing with another person and I STILL know that if that happens again I am making an emergency appointment with my psych because that is creepy as hell to have happen

    I have been up way too late I am now rambling

  45. T Campbell

    I will be a bit sad if Joyce leaves her faith behind utterly, because in David’s past work she’s spoken to the best parts of my own faith as well as some of the naive and difficult ones. I’m an agnostic or possibly a “none,” but a lot of the lessons I learned from church did make me a better person. It’s been nice to have somebody else’s character represent that instead of just fire and brimstone and hatred. (I don’t like it when areligious people think that’s all Christianity is, but I like it even less when so-called Christians do it.

    That said, sometimes stories have sad parts but are still rewarding, and David’s certainly earned the right to tell his story his way. Dumbing of Age does a better job than anything else I’ve seen anywhere of acknowledging Christianity’s different shades and variations. That, I suspect, won’t change, no matter what happens to Joyce.

    1. Sam

      If she does leave her faith behind, that will be more like Willis’s own journey as she is autobiographical to an extent. Joyce will likely be better for it if that is what she chooses to do for herself, than if she tries to pretend her faith wasn’t based on toxic rules and beliefs that ran counter to her core self. She could always find faith again later in life as well.

  46. Minder

    Look, so long as everyone keeps their clothes on in this dream sequence, I am fine.

  47. C.T Phipps

    He really does look like Bill Murray.

  48. Vika

    ive grown.. exponentially more and more uncomfortable with religion since some time ago, to the point now where i hesitate to ever talk about religion with anyone who believes in one because i really dont wanna be an asshole, and i tend to really care about epistemology so its hard for me to not argue about whats true (not that im saying im an authority on truth or anything i just like talking about why i think something is true amd maybe be proven wrong and learn more), but so far ppl i tried arguing about religion with really didnt like it so i backed off.

    And that makes comment sections like this really hard since i want to try and interact and discuss stuff, but when it comes to religion i get so put off that id like to say something sometimes, but since i disagree so hard with what someone has as a core belief i dont know how to put it in a way that wont be considered hostile or shitty… i dont wanna insult anyone, but i might be really put off with some beliefs you might have and really think youre wrong, and if anyone has any advice on that id really appreciate it…

    1. Vika

      ill just avoid talking most times otherwise to be safe,,

      1. buli-buli

        Considering most, if not all, of the comments I have skimmed have been people discussing how they lost their faith, or never had it, OR how when I brought up how Creationism — Secular Evolution is more of a spectrum than a binary choice a few years ago and got dog-piled for it, I think you’d be in good company in this thread.

        That said, thank you.

    2. dgmillo

      Arguing about the validity of someone else’s core religious beliefs is always fraught b/c it is often the core of their identity. The more wrong/ridiculous one thinks their beliefs to be, the more fraught it becomes. It makes people feel called out and challenged. The walls go up and the cannons are loaded and lit.

      So consider not arguing at all. Give up on the idea of winning or engaging in battle to change someone’s mind.

      Instead, just share how the topic at hand relates to the story of your own personal journey, and do so with as much empathy for your past as you can muster.

      Then let it go.

      The other person will take from your story what they will. Some will try to take advantage of it and use it to “prove” their own PoV, attempting to hurt you and score points. Those are the assholes spoiling for a fight and looking to win. You were never going to reach them anyway, argument or no.

      But some of them will hear your story. Even if they don’t agree they will recognize your humanity and sincerity. And with that empathy, maybe they will tell their own story and a dialogue will begin. Those are the people willing and capable of exchanging ideas. You’ll each come away from the experience feeling less under attack and more understood.

      It’s not an easy approach to take, as it requires opening oneself up and being vulnerable. Even with practice, I’ve found that there are times that it still blows up in my face, so whether and when one tries it should be carefully considered.

      But even with all the caveats, I find it has done more for me than decades of arguing ever did.

      1. Arian

        Sound advice.

    3. Yuooooo

      I’m religious (Jewish)! I’m happy to talk, and VERY hard to offend. Wanna discuss?

  49. Vulcanodon

    Not feeling God when I pray didn’t destroy my faith but it did open me to considering arguments on the existence of God.

    1. Vulcanodon

      The Twilight Zone interpretation of Joyce for me is when she’s struggling to figure out the big questions and DIY deprogram herself – a nearly impossible task – and constantly getting trashed by commenters in the comic she isn’t aware she appears in. It’s as if on some level she can hear those voices and they cause her pain.

      1. ValdVin

        Tangent: What TZ episode does this remind you of so far?

        Can’t come up with anything exact, but The Hunt is a bit of a start.

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hunt_(The_Twilight_Zone)

    2. Vulcanodon

      I have an indistinct memory of an episode* where some people were holed up in a diner, waiting for a storm to end. The rain kept tapping on a metal sign outside, and as their social dynamic deteriorated the sound began to drive them insane. It turned out they were characters in a novel someone was writing, and the tapping noise was the staccato rhythm of his typewriter…

      *(It could have been Outer Limits or Night Gallery; in my head they all kind of lump together under TZ)

  50. Kaz

    Yeah but where’d her sweater go? Is this slowly going into wet dream territory? Is Jacob going to show up? Is Jacob going to suddenly have Dorothy’s face after making out and then she wakes up?

    1. rtmq

      Her wrist-brace is back though, and it looks like they’re in her family’s church. I’m guessing this isn’t going into wet dream territory but instead it’s Joyce letting guard down. We’re seeing her when she was at her most vulnerable, faith-wise, and she was confronted with the darker side of her congregation (which really fits the context of this conversation).

      I could see a moment of introspection to follow, with her dream-guide/divine voice (I’m personally reminded of a lot of “voice of God In Familiar Form” tropes in media) guiding her to accept that perfection is a fine thing to strive for, but that we’re human and it’s just as noble to accept something you might see as flawed but that makes you happy. Enter Jacob for a tender, NOT sexual moment and something clicks.

      I’d be glad to see the first part without the Jacob bits (heh) but that’s the way I imagine Jacob could be a part of this sequence without a non-sequitur .

  51. ziggy78eog

    It looks as if Joyce is beginning to accept that she is no longer the same person, and that changing and growing, is a good thing. I am not saying that will happen immediately after her dream sequence, but it is a start. Now, if only two other people would start to grow up, and change for the better…

    1. Sam

      You only get two. Pick wisely.

      1. Emperor Norton II

        Malaya and Roz.

        1. Emperor Norton II

          (For what it’s worth, I was wondering for a second to pick Becky and Dina, just to see how long it would take before Bagge would run in and say “NOOOOOOOOOOOOO, they’re perfect, PERFECT, I tell you!”)

  52. wakeangel2001

    it’s SUPPOSED to make you feel sad, that’s how churches work. Break your leg, hand you a crutch, and say they helped you.

  53. Dave

    For those who don’t know who Rich is – this is an accurate site: https://blog.faithlife.com/blog/2017/09/8-things-you-didnt-know-about-rich-mullins/
    As for the story – I don’t think Joyce would be listening to Rich (This is Dave’s personal history). She’d be weaned on David Crowder and Chris Tomlin. Maybe Toby Mac if she was getting crazy. All great musicians!

  54. Jed!

    Dying is a sin now? If God himself doesn’t rise you up into heaven before your death, there’s something wrong with you? Evangelists have really high standards…

  55. Jess

    Can I just say, I am living for the comments page on this update. This is exactly the kind of exchange of information I adore. Thank you to everyone sharing their thoughts, and especially those doing so politely and respectfully!

    1. ShinyNeen

      Seconding this! There’s some really cool discussion going on, and a lot of interesting (and moving!) thoughts and experiences being shared. I’m not really sure how to put my own thoughts about this sequence into words, but that just makes it more interesting to read what everyone else has to share. Thank you all!

  56. hof1991

    Rich Mullins (who I had never heard of), Mother Theresa (who stopped hearing God, but persisted), Leonard Cohen.

    Ring the bells that still can ring
    Forget your perfect offering
    There is a crack, a crack in everything
    That’s how the light gets in.
    That’s how the light gets in.
    That’s how the light gets in.

    The dorm is full of broken people. Sal? Amber? Walky? Mary is terribly broken. Billie and Ruth and Sarah. Lucy harbors pain. Dorothy barely knows how to live. And the adults are worse, even Joyce’s family (Jocelynn excepted).

    1. autogatos

      I’d argue even Jocelynn isn’t an exception. Even if her brokenness isn’t in the form of a character flaw (though she probably does have flaws we haven’t seen, as everyone does), she probably FEELS broken inside, having to hide herself from her family, not able to be who she really is in front of them. That does a number on your psyche.

    2. thejeff

      And even though it all went wrong
      I’ll stand before the Lord of Song
      With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah

      I am very much a non-religious person, but Leonard Cohen is one of the few who’s been able to give me a glimpse of what it might be like.

  57. leadsynth

    Hammer dulcimer!

  58. HeySo

    @Willis
    You forgot Sayid on the poll, again. :/

  59. Josh Spicer

    Oh good, we’ve reached the nihilism and cynicism of being a Christian exposed to the real world for too long without having opportunities to reinsert yourself back into the fold entirely. And not just going to church one Sunday, like a week-long mission trip, or a moment where you feel him there.

    It sucks, Joyce. But trust me, you can get out of this still believing, even if the church itself, the culture, and the organization of it all is much more exposed to your no longer adolescent/teenage/innocent brain.

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