Speaking as an agnostic viewing the whole Jesus stuff like any other piece of fiction?
I can see a version of the story where Jesus and Mary were together, but they didn’t bang much, because she didn’t have much push towards it because of that whole prostitute business that might be a more recent retcon, and he was just super-focused on the whole Messiah thing and just didn’t get around to it.
Just a super-chaste, but still loving relationship? You could make a religion out of that (wait no crap great now we’ve got all the crusades fuck).
Ed Rhodes
The whole “prostitute thing” was Saul/Paul’s doing. He seemed to have problems. Scholars have formed an alternative theory that Mary was a wealthy widow, who was financing the whole thing.
StClair
“[Saul/Paul] seemed to have problems.” – now there’s some massive understatement. :p
StClair
He would, of course, have insisted that it was everyone else who had the problems (and was wrong).
You mean the self-loathing gay man may not have been perfectly sane? Unpossible!
Wraithy2773
Yeah, but if I threw away every retcon some arch-conservative white guy threw in there, we’d hardly have any canon to work with! At some point, you just have to work with the lore you’re given.
thejeff
I might have missed something, but I don’t think Paul even mentions Mary Magdalene. He says very little about Jesus’s life in general.
There’s a tendency in some circles to blame Paul for everything they don’t like about Christianity, which is weird because I doubt most of them would want to keep the full Torah law, which was his biggest contribution.
Freemage
Paul gets blamed for two reasons:
1: By turning Christianity into something OTHER than a Jewish sect, he essentially created Christian evangelism, which is, in turn, the concept that drove it to be a geopolitical force with a divine mandate to convert others. Had Peter won the Circumcision Debate (and all it encompassed), it’s unlikely that Rome would ever have Christianized, let alone the New World.
It’s perfectly likely, of course, that other forces would’ve still driven colonization, but it might not have had the patina of ‘killing the heathens to save them’. An old-school pagan Europe might have been more inclined to treat indigenous peoples as equal-ish, or at least in a similar fashion to how the Roman Empire treated conquered peoples.
2: While he did ditch much of the OT, he also is the one who decided which bits got kept–and it was pretty much everything about women and sexuality that modern sensibilities regard as utterly asinine.
All that said, you are correct, thejeff, that Paul didn’t have anything to do with “MM = Prostitute” thing. That was more likely a conflation of multiple women induced by the early Church to justify the reduced/subservient role of women in the Church.
Mark
Well…turning Christianity into something OTHER than a Jewish sect: yes, he was commanded to. (Acts 22)
Created Christian evangelism: was that not rather the Great Commission? (Mt 28 etc.) But Paul is the one who got out and pushed to make it happen.
thejeff
Or an old school pagan Europe might have treated indigenous people more as the Vikings did. Or remained entirely a slavery based empire (or series of empires) as Rome was. And as much of the rest of the old world was.
It’s really impossible to speculate on how thousands of years of history would have played out with something as major as Christianity removed. Islam could dominated Europe as well as North Africa and the Middle East – or never existed, since it drew much inspiration from Christianity.
There were also other mostly forgotten religions that could have spread in Christianity’s absence.
But more I don’t think most of the people who blame Paul think that way, but more in the “corrupted Jesus’s message” way. That Christianity still would have spread, but it would have been hippy loving Jesus, without the rules and repression.
Matthew Davis
I actually wrote on Mary Magdalene in my doctoral dissertation and spoke to this. It was Gregory the Great who stated that the Magdalene was a prostitute. She also, as a figure as we understand her, is a conflation of several women mentioned in the Bible. I would take _anything_ it says about the life of Christ with the proverbial grain of salt, much less anything it says about those who were around him.
Wraithy2773
At this point, the bible has gone through so many writers, translations, revisions, retcons and other changes that, if there was any historical truth in there at any point, it’s almost certainly all gone now.
Hence my comment about approaching it like any piece of fiction, and snarky comments about retcons.
thejeff
Not really. The Bible as we have it today is pretty damn close to the earliest versions of the texts we can trace. There’s little evidence of any widespread revision after maybe the 3rd century and even most of that is minor. A few questionable passages. It is a set of conflicting books, all with different viewpoints and message, mostly written long enough after the events to not be entirely trustable on historical accuracy, but that’s up to the original authors, not to later changes.
At least for the NT. The OT went through more complex changes in antiquity, but that was still complete roughly by Roman times.
That’s my take on it. I imagine Willis had even more of a visceral reaction to those ads than I did, and I nearly vomited the first time I saw one of the ads.
Taffy
Why does this sound like a Christian gross-out ad campaign?
Needfuldoer
Because that’s exactly what it was. (Assuming we’re all referring to the same thing.)
thejeff
Yeah, Superbowl ads – among others.
More of a fake-out than a gross-out really. The ads themselves were fairly mellowing, focusing on the popular image of a loving Jesus who “gets us”, but they were funded by and linked to the usual extreme right wing churches.
Maybe, maybe not. I have a feeling that that’s the point where Walky will think, “I have to talk to her about this ‘love’ issue first. It’s not fair to her, to keep quiet any longer.”
Reading it made me think maybe this was the first time she’s brought up the expectation of sex with Walky. I’d hope they both are kinda on the same page here with their relationship and I don’t know if Walky’s even thought about….the sex. Lucy’s horny, I don’t know if Walky is yet.
Clif
They agreed that no sex before the third date was in the sermon on the mount.
Walky is also the first person to blush in today’s strip, when Lucy brought up that it would be their third date, and therefore okay with Jesus according to the Sermon on the Mount (thank you, huesatlight).
PirateTawnee
Has the last line in that comic always been that? I don’t remember laughing that hard at the time.
It’s possible that Lucy might be a virgin, given that basically all her ‘boyfriends’ were on TV.
So couple that with her immense crush on Walky, and that could add further to the messiness of ‘Walky isn’t completely at the place that Lucy’s at’.
Taffy
On the other hand, having a caring and experienced partner can make a first time significantly less stressful and way more fun.
Example 1: Dorothy and Walky.
Example 2: Billie and Ruth (at least in the wlw sense)
Example 3: Mike and your mom.
Dr. T
Cool! My mom got a nickel!
Rabid Rabbit
I’m… really not sure one can qualify Billie and Ruth as “caring,” no matter how much I still ship that glorious mess. (Well, in the shower, yes, but that wasn’t their first time.)
Taffy
Fair enough, at least early on like their first time was.
thejeff
Possible, but I wouldn’t bet on it. Her attitude towards it doesn’t seem to imply that and I’d expect her to have brought it up if she was.
Taellosse
Why would she? It’s pretty common for young adults to feel that still being “virgins” is embarrassing. Often even when they’ve explicitly chosen to avoid sex for moral or religious reasons.
All her behavior, not to mention the strong implication from her brother, indicates that she’s never actually been in a romantic relationship before (“boyfriends” who don’t know who she is, or are unaware she considers them her significant other, don’t count). She also very much doesn’t appear to be the sort of person to have engaged in random hook-ups. Which means, regardless of her wishes, Lucy is almost certainly still a virgin.
The bit I find fascinating is how everyone here seems to be assuming that the only thing holding them back from making the beast with two backs is Lucy’s self-imposed restraint. And yet, it seems to me that Walky hasn’t even shown any sign of being attracted to Lucy at all. He wasn’t just oblivious to her interest for untold eons, he only asked her out because Dorothy told him to. In the time since, he hasn’t just taken a passive role in terms of physical intimacy, he literally never says or does anything that indicates sexual attraction or interest towards her.
I think the odds are better than even that when/if their relationship matures to whatever arbitrary milestone Lucy decides is sufficient, and she works up the nerve to attempt initiating sexytimes with Walky, he’s going to find himself unable to go through with it – either when he realizes kissing her doesn’t turn him on, or when his dangly bits provide a graphic demonstration of his lack of arousal that neither of them can ignore.
Lucy was literally created to be a fan of Starfire from the Teen Titans cartoon.
It’s not surprising that she has some of Starfire’s verbal tics when she is uncomfortable with talking about something.
i think lucy’s just awkward becomes (assumedly) she’s a virgin but i’d imagine walky would have experience and she’d know the basics of safe sex at least
*Head in hands*
It’s not that I don’t think they COULD be cute together, it’s that at the moment with the relationship as it presently is… hoo boy. They are NOT on the same pages here in MANY ways but they’re both too 18 to recognize it.
226 thoughts on “Double date”
Ana Chronistic
Jesus totes down with the bonin’
Ana Chronistic
“remember to leave room for Jesus!”
“…is THAT what the Holy Trinity means??”
ValdVin
“Remember to leave room for Jeses.”
“If you told me we’d have a threesome I’d have booked a room with a queen bed.”
(FYI My autocorrect doesn’t know ‘threescore. I have failed somewhere.)
ElderlyMarxist
as a horrible theologian can confirm this is a legit theological interpretation
Rose by Any Other Name
I’m a subscriber of the Mary Magdalene = wife thing. For several historical and linguistic reasons.
Decidedly Orthogonal
Well obviously. Everyone knows jesus was nailed before he died.
Wraithy2773
Speaking as an agnostic viewing the whole Jesus stuff like any other piece of fiction?
I can see a version of the story where Jesus and Mary were together, but they didn’t bang much, because she didn’t have much push towards it because of that whole prostitute business that might be a more recent retcon, and he was just super-focused on the whole Messiah thing and just didn’t get around to it.
Just a super-chaste, but still loving relationship? You could make a religion out of that (wait no crap great now we’ve got all the crusades fuck).
Ed Rhodes
The whole “prostitute thing” was Saul/Paul’s doing. He seemed to have problems. Scholars have formed an alternative theory that Mary was a wealthy widow, who was financing the whole thing.
StClair
“[Saul/Paul] seemed to have problems.” – now there’s some massive understatement. :p
StClair
He would, of course, have insisted that it was everyone else who had the problems (and was wrong).
Opus the Poet
You mean the self-loathing gay man may not have been perfectly sane? Unpossible!
Wraithy2773
Yeah, but if I threw away every retcon some arch-conservative white guy threw in there, we’d hardly have any canon to work with! At some point, you just have to work with the lore you’re given.
thejeff
I might have missed something, but I don’t think Paul even mentions Mary Magdalene. He says very little about Jesus’s life in general.
There’s a tendency in some circles to blame Paul for everything they don’t like about Christianity, which is weird because I doubt most of them would want to keep the full Torah law, which was his biggest contribution.
Freemage
Paul gets blamed for two reasons:
1: By turning Christianity into something OTHER than a Jewish sect, he essentially created Christian evangelism, which is, in turn, the concept that drove it to be a geopolitical force with a divine mandate to convert others. Had Peter won the Circumcision Debate (and all it encompassed), it’s unlikely that Rome would ever have Christianized, let alone the New World.
It’s perfectly likely, of course, that other forces would’ve still driven colonization, but it might not have had the patina of ‘killing the heathens to save them’. An old-school pagan Europe might have been more inclined to treat indigenous peoples as equal-ish, or at least in a similar fashion to how the Roman Empire treated conquered peoples.
2: While he did ditch much of the OT, he also is the one who decided which bits got kept–and it was pretty much everything about women and sexuality that modern sensibilities regard as utterly asinine.
All that said, you are correct, thejeff, that Paul didn’t have anything to do with “MM = Prostitute” thing. That was more likely a conflation of multiple women induced by the early Church to justify the reduced/subservient role of women in the Church.
Mark
Well…turning Christianity into something OTHER than a Jewish sect: yes, he was commanded to. (Acts 22)
Created Christian evangelism: was that not rather the Great Commission? (Mt 28 etc.) But Paul is the one who got out and pushed to make it happen.
thejeff
Or an old school pagan Europe might have treated indigenous people more as the Vikings did. Or remained entirely a slavery based empire (or series of empires) as Rome was. And as much of the rest of the old world was.
It’s really impossible to speculate on how thousands of years of history would have played out with something as major as Christianity removed. Islam could dominated Europe as well as North Africa and the Middle East – or never existed, since it drew much inspiration from Christianity.
There were also other mostly forgotten religions that could have spread in Christianity’s absence.
But more I don’t think most of the people who blame Paul think that way, but more in the “corrupted Jesus’s message” way. That Christianity still would have spread, but it would have been hippy loving Jesus, without the rules and repression.
Matthew Davis
I actually wrote on Mary Magdalene in my doctoral dissertation and spoke to this. It was Gregory the Great who stated that the Magdalene was a prostitute. She also, as a figure as we understand her, is a conflation of several women mentioned in the Bible. I would take _anything_ it says about the life of Christ with the proverbial grain of salt, much less anything it says about those who were around him.
Wraithy2773
At this point, the bible has gone through so many writers, translations, revisions, retcons and other changes that, if there was any historical truth in there at any point, it’s almost certainly all gone now.
Hence my comment about approaching it like any piece of fiction, and snarky comments about retcons.
thejeff
Not really. The Bible as we have it today is pretty damn close to the earliest versions of the texts we can trace. There’s little evidence of any widespread revision after maybe the 3rd century and even most of that is minor. A few questionable passages. It is a set of conflicting books, all with different viewpoints and message, mostly written long enough after the events to not be entirely trustable on historical accuracy, but that’s up to the original authors, not to later changes.
At least for the NT. The OT went through more complex changes in antiquity, but that was still complete roughly by Roman times.
anon
are we gonna see a ‘historically accurate’ teen Jesus pop up in theor dorm room lol
Needfuldoer
Maybe he works at Galasso’s.
Ana Chronistic
have we seen him and his name is something else tho?
shellshockbp
I have…just…so many questions.
Thag Simmons
Man they’re getting a lot closer to this than I thought they would. Huh.
The Wellerman
?? They’re gonna do it!!! Hooray!!! ?
Clif
Dunno. I’m still trying to figure out if the alt text is talking about Walky or Jesus.
The Wellerman
I swear if that’s a reference to “He Gets Us” ?
Dr. T
That’s my take on it. I imagine Willis had even more of a visceral reaction to those ads than I did, and I nearly vomited the first time I saw one of the ads.
Taffy
Why does this sound like a Christian gross-out ad campaign?
Needfuldoer
Because that’s exactly what it was. (Assuming we’re all referring to the same thing.)
thejeff
Yeah, Superbowl ads – among others.
More of a fake-out than a gross-out really. The ads themselves were fairly mellowing, focusing on the popular image of a loving Jesus who “gets us”, but they were funded by and linked to the usual extreme right wing churches.
Mark
Maybe, maybe not. I have a feeling that that’s the point where Walky will think, “I have to talk to her about this ‘love’ issue first. It’s not fair to her, to keep quiet any longer.”
justin8448
I’m desperately hoping for this. Gonna kill the mood, but it’s the only way forward that’s not awful for everyone.
Sirksome
Yes…”the” sex. That’s not a red flag right?
Doctor_Who
Well, you don’t expect them to settle for just having a sex, do you? Some sex maybe, perhaps even many sex if there’s time.
Jon S.
Yeah, Walky already did a sex. Now it’s time to do the sex.
pickonecard
how would that be a red flag?
Sirksome
Reading it made me think maybe this was the first time she’s brought up the expectation of sex with Walky. I’d hope they both are kinda on the same page here with their relationship and I don’t know if Walky’s even thought about….the sex. Lucy’s horny, I don’t know if Walky is yet.
Clif
They agreed that no sex before the third date was in the sermon on the mount.
huesatlight
I just got the double entendre. https://www.dumbingofage.com/chill
DailyBrad
I love that it’s Lucy making that joke, too.
Schpoonman
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2021/comic/book-12/01-sister-christian/solution/
Walky is also the first person to blush in today’s strip, when Lucy brought up that it would be their third date, and therefore okay with Jesus according to the Sermon on the Mount (thank you, huesatlight).
PirateTawnee
Has the last line in that comic always been that? I don’t remember laughing that hard at the time.
Hoboturtle
It’s been predetermined that the ship is unviable so everything is a red flag.
someone
Unviable? But the ship name is literally “Lucky”!
Nono
It’s possible that Lucy might be a virgin, given that basically all her ‘boyfriends’ were on TV.
So couple that with her immense crush on Walky, and that could add further to the messiness of ‘Walky isn’t completely at the place that Lucy’s at’.
Taffy
On the other hand, having a caring and experienced partner can make a first time significantly less stressful and way more fun.
Example 1: Dorothy and Walky.
Example 2: Billie and Ruth (at least in the wlw sense)
Example 3: Mike and your mom.
Dr. T
Cool! My mom got a nickel!
Rabid Rabbit
I’m… really not sure one can qualify Billie and Ruth as “caring,” no matter how much I still ship that glorious mess. (Well, in the shower, yes, but that wasn’t their first time.)
Taffy
Fair enough, at least early on like their first time was.
thejeff
Possible, but I wouldn’t bet on it. Her attitude towards it doesn’t seem to imply that and I’d expect her to have brought it up if she was.
Taellosse
Why would she? It’s pretty common for young adults to feel that still being “virgins” is embarrassing. Often even when they’ve explicitly chosen to avoid sex for moral or religious reasons.
All her behavior, not to mention the strong implication from her brother, indicates that she’s never actually been in a romantic relationship before (“boyfriends” who don’t know who she is, or are unaware she considers them her significant other, don’t count). She also very much doesn’t appear to be the sort of person to have engaged in random hook-ups. Which means, regardless of her wishes, Lucy is almost certainly still a virgin.
The bit I find fascinating is how everyone here seems to be assuming that the only thing holding them back from making the beast with two backs is Lucy’s self-imposed restraint. And yet, it seems to me that Walky hasn’t even shown any sign of being attracted to Lucy at all. He wasn’t just oblivious to her interest for untold eons, he only asked her out because Dorothy told him to. In the time since, he hasn’t just taken a passive role in terms of physical intimacy, he literally never says or does anything that indicates sexual attraction or interest towards her.
I think the odds are better than even that when/if their relationship matures to whatever arbitrary milestone Lucy decides is sufficient, and she works up the nerve to attempt initiating sexytimes with Walky, he’s going to find himself unable to go through with it – either when he realizes kissing her doesn’t turn him on, or when his dangly bits provide a graphic demonstration of his lack of arousal that neither of them can ignore.
Caro
Nah, it was a pre-discussed topic. It’s not just any sex, it’s The sex, the one they talked about that one time
True Survivor
It implies there is only one sex, which presumably must be fought for by a group of immortal warriors. THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE!!
Slartibeast Button, BIA
If you are unfortunate enough to have seen “Highlander: The Source” the ultimate prize is:
Spoiler:
You get to have a kid.
That’s it.
What all that killing over the millennia was for.
True Survivor
Gives new (and disturbing) meaning to “Aye, the quickening empowers me!”
That is all I know about Highlander, except that Gumball did a fantastic parody of it (that I doubt any of the kids watching it got).
Shadowsnail
There was only one, until Walky made another one.
Jeff K!
Lucy was literally created to be a fan of Starfire from the Teen Titans cartoon.
It’s not surprising that she has some of Starfire’s verbal tics when she is uncomfortable with talking about something.
Yotomoe
When is …the best time…to have the sex…to become…pregnart.
Dr. Sharks
Does Lucy is pregante?
Yotomoe
How would Lucy know if she’s Prangan?
Kyrik Michalowski
How did Lucy get pregante?
Slartibeast Button, BIA
She was exposed to Pregnatite radiation.
ValdVin
Huh. That’s why the Pregnatite brand diaphragm’s slogan was “Not Actually Radioactive!” I mean truthful ad but didn’t help sales.
Yotomoe
Is Lucy 32 months….
PRGANANANT
Needfuldoer
At least this comic’s pace is too slow for how babby is formed.
Rabid Rabbit
Grammatically it is. I will still never forgive Willis for unleashing the cancer of “a sex” upon the world.
Opus the Poet
But this is THE sex! Not just any sex.
anon
i think lucy’s just awkward becomes (assumedly) she’s a virgin but i’d imagine walky would have experience and she’d know the basics of safe sex at least
And maybe a wholesome slipshine now too?
zee
It’s a flag she’s a total virgin
anon
it’d be quite out of character if she wasn’t because pretty sure she confirmed to sarah(?) that walky was her first boyfriend
Regalli
*Head in hands*
It’s not that I don’t think they COULD be cute together, it’s that at the moment with the relationship as it presently is… hoo boy. They are NOT on the same pages here in MANY ways but they’re both too 18 to recognize it.
Vukodlak