I don’t think she has, certainly not directly like that.
However, that is (more or less) the basic logic required to be an atheist. And Joyce is aware of that fact, which would color any in-depth conversation they could have about religion.
Jamie
It is true that most atheists believe that, since most atheists these days are very specifically reacting to some form of fundamentalist Christianity. But having that opinion is by no means a requirement of atheism. Not having Christian parents is incredibly helpful for not developing that kind of reactionary belief system.
Elliott
Definitely, but I think that leads to another problem where Dorothy doesn’t really have a basis for faith being this Big Important Thing, either. At least an atheist with a Christian background would understand Joyce’s crisis because they have a shared background.
(that’s part of why Dorothy is so healthy for Joyce, though, bc she pokes holes in the logic without even trying)
Charlie Spencer
And hey, it’s not like we feel that way exclusively about Christianity; we think that about every religion. And while they were made up by long dead men, it’s living ones who are handing down the superstition.
Deanatay
Also, if the original creators of Christianity could see what subsequent generations have done with their faith, the planet could go completely renewable, just by harnessing the power of their spinning corpses.
CJ
Would that be because the world as it is now is totally inconceivable to them or because of differences is interpretation of dogma?
das-g
Yes.
drs
I don’t see how you be atheist and not fundamentally believe the Dorothy superstition line. You might not put it that way normally, or go picking fights with believers. But you’re atheist, you don’t believe in God. So nothing in the religion came from God. Where did it come from? It was made up by humans, whether deliberately or in response to ‘visions’ or as some cultural accretion. Might not use the word ‘superstition’ as denigrating, but it refers to belief in supernatural forces that don’t exist, which has got to be the atheist view of religion.
(Well, taking ‘atheist’ as the standard more or less scientific materialist atheist. In theory you could disbelieve in God but believe in souls and psychic powers. Though that still doesn’t help respecting any claims of religion coming from God.)
Seregiel
Not knowing religions are still real today until 7th grade made things very confusing for awhile.
Leorale
Counterpoint: Atheist Jews.
I teach Torah Studies to adorable 4th Graders. Developing little Jewish children is my fulltime job; I’m very pro-religion.
And, I don’t believe in God at all.
You definitely don’t have to be anti-religion to be an atheist.
Leorale
(I know Dorothy isn’t Jewish. I’m just using myself as an example, to say, being an atheist definitely doesn’t necessarily equal being anti-religion! Religions are way more than beliefs. Christianity is weird that it centers around belief at all, instead of, say, actions or community or history or identity or helping the world or etc. etc.)
Charles Phipps
It’s more an issue of what exactly Joyce wants from the conversation and if the conversation is, “I want to believe in God and that he/she is good” then that is something Dorothy can’t help with.
drs
But as an atheist, where do you think Torah came from?
JR
Oooh, as an atheist Jew I’m qualified to answer this one!
I believe that the Torah (aka the Five Books of Moses, aka one of three sections of the Jewish Bible) is a collection of formerly oral stories that were gradually codified by whomever had the power to do so at the time, the same way that the non-Hebrew translations were codified by a king who declared that 70-something rabbis had all independently come up with the same translation and therefore it must be divinely approved.
Now, if you’re like me, you read a legend like that with some suspicion of that king, whose word was law and couldn’t be challenged on such things but who had an interest in asserting a specific translation that suited his interests. By the same token, when you’re me, you read with skepticism any story that features a single character speaking to God without a witness. You may personally choose to trust God, but that doesn’t mean you can necessarily trust everyone who claims to have spoken to God and whose story was included in the Torah. Because I believe it possible for the Torah to be written by humans, I have no urge to believe it was written by anyone other than humans, especially when the use and spread of religion is otherwise explained by power and politics, even to the modern day.
So! Are there useful lessons in the Torah? Sure! I think Jewish law handles the grieving process brilliantly and with great compassion. Are there harmful ones too, that reflect the prejudices and power dynamics of the times in which they were written? You betcha – like stories that assert that it’s possible for Egyptian wizards to turn staves into snakes. I believe you could do that as a magical illusion, with a lot of practice; I don’t believe that a person can actually transmute matter that way, as Exodus claims. But it was certainly a useful story for asserting the Israelites’ God’s superiority when Moses’s staff-snake ate the Egyptians’ staff-snakes!
Unrelated because not in the Torah, the story of Chanukah is recent enough that there are historical records around what happened from the perspective of the government, and it is so much more interesting than the version of the Maccabeean Revolt that I learned as a kid. There’s the politics of imperialism and assimilation and traditionalists vs secularists and it’s super interesting as an example of more recent claims of divine intervention during an era when there were contemporary government records of what was going on from the imperialists’ perspective.
This went long, sorry! Anyway, yeah, that’s what I think as an atheist Jew. 😀
Lux
Ok, that was legitimately fascinating 😀 I was born Jewish and at this point tend to refer to myself alternately as an atheist and as “Jewish culturally but not religiously.” I realize there are some differences between the labels, but I consider them to be equally valid descriptors of my views.
Lailah
Uh, I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but the basic mode required to believe in any religion, even the most syncretic one you can imagine, is to say ‘I believe that my specific set of beliefs is correct, even when it conflicts with your own’. By this logic, the only person who can actually help is one of her former co-religionists. And they can explicitly not help.
LeslieBean4shizzle
That is a very bleak view of religion, and as religious person, I don’t think that is at all accurate.
For many, myself included, religion is about one’s own personal experience and interpretation which will not – in fact, cannot – truly be the same as anyone else’s. We can all worship the same general set of gods, but we won’t worship them the same way or view all of those deities equally. Religion needs to be personal and up to interpretation or it loses all meaning – or, at least, that’s my view on it.
While not the only view clearly, it does bring up a counterpoint to yours. Not every religious person is taught to see things in such a rigid fashion – and this applies to Pagans (like myself), Jewish people, and even many Christians. I have a Catholic friend who was just as flexible about adapting her faith to the modern era as I was, and she is awesome. We have the best discussions.
I’m using a joke format to demonstrate that Dorothy can’t help Joyce with her problem because Dorothy believes the problem is not one. She can’t help Joyce through her crisis of faith because she believes the faith is misguided.
BBCC
Fair enough. I didn’t get that this is a ‘what Joyce would hear’ kinda thing. My bad.
Charles Phipps
I could have done better with my intro.
Elisto
An atheist who’s gone through a crisis of faith themselves can help though because they can relate and isn’t necessarily opposed to someone else continuing believe, if that ends up the outcome of their crisis. Joyce may not realize this, but Dorothy could still point it out.
drs
Dorothy feels like she grew up atheist. Conversely, atheists who turned away from Christianity are often the most allergic to Christianity.
If some mad scientist ever creates a version of Dorothy with Billie’s chest and Sal’s hair, Joyce is gonna switch teams so hard that Becky will tell her to tone it down a bit.
Its weird because in I WAS A TEENAGE WEREDEER (a YA book I wrote) the protagonist is bisexual whose friend has been in love with her for years. The problem isn’t their sexualities, it’s the fact that she just doesn’t see her like that.
Thank you, I was unaware of that cover.
It rocks, but in my (admittedly old fashioned) opinion there is no way it could ever rock as hard as the Eurythmics with Annie Lennox on vocals. YMMV of course.
StClair
the Missionary Man
He’s got God on his side
He’s got the saints and apostles
Comin’ up from be-hind!
She freaked out about Agatha’s Mormonism when Joyce was still a fundamentalist Christian, though, not when she was doubting the existence of God at all and after accepting the humanity of LGBT+ people. At this point, I’m not sure she’d bat an eye at Mormonism anymore.
I suppose she could talk to Becky about it, but she’s wanting a different perspective, and Becky’s background is so similar to her own.
I guess she could talk to Danny, but in addition to not really having much interest in talk to Danny outside of this, I don’t know how into the theology of it he is. He wouldn’t necessarily debate it with her like Jacob has in the past.
Which, let’s be honest, was a large part of what Joyce wanted. I mean, she likes talking through the religion stuff anyway, but that it was also a means of flirting with Jacob made it special.
Joyce needs to meet up with Leo. Not only so that they can exchange Christian viewpoints and give Joyce that outlet she desperately needs; but also so that we can finally find out which one is really the reverse-gendered clone of the other.
161 thoughts on “Believer”
Sporky
I love creepy Dorothy-loving friend Joyce
Yet_One_More_Idiot
Joyce has been in love with Dorothy ever since she saw her faaaaaaaaaaace 😀
Mr. Bulmbin
And she’s a believer
Not a trace
Of doubt in her mind (about Dorothy, anyway)
Roborat
Just when I thought we had beaten that to death.
Yet_One_More_Idiot
You know what’s really easy to flog? A dead horse…’cos it can’t run away. 😛
Charlie Spencer
She echos a creepy Penny-loving friend Amy Farrah Fowler, although I doubt Joyce was allowed to watch ‘Big Bang’.
Suet
*slowly mutes the Monkees CD I’m playing*
Honesty ain’t much, but on the right situation, it helps.
Clif
But …
Spoken like a true future politician, Dorothy.
Charles Phipps
Joyce: I’d like to discuss doubts I have about religion and reconciling my faith.
Dorothy: I think your religion is a bunch of superstition made up by long dead men.
Joyce: Yeah, this is why.
Dorothy: Oh.
BBCC
When has Dorothy ever denigrated Joyce’s religion like that?
Jeff K!,
I don’t think she has, certainly not directly like that.
However, that is (more or less) the basic logic required to be an atheist. And Joyce is aware of that fact, which would color any in-depth conversation they could have about religion.
Jamie
It is true that most atheists believe that, since most atheists these days are very specifically reacting to some form of fundamentalist Christianity. But having that opinion is by no means a requirement of atheism. Not having Christian parents is incredibly helpful for not developing that kind of reactionary belief system.
Elliott
Definitely, but I think that leads to another problem where Dorothy doesn’t really have a basis for faith being this Big Important Thing, either. At least an atheist with a Christian background would understand Joyce’s crisis because they have a shared background.
(that’s part of why Dorothy is so healthy for Joyce, though, bc she pokes holes in the logic without even trying)
Charlie Spencer
And hey, it’s not like we feel that way exclusively about Christianity; we think that about every religion. And while they were made up by long dead men, it’s living ones who are handing down the superstition.
Deanatay
Also, if the original creators of Christianity could see what subsequent generations have done with their faith, the planet could go completely renewable, just by harnessing the power of their spinning corpses.
CJ
Would that be because the world as it is now is totally inconceivable to them or because of differences is interpretation of dogma?
das-g
Yes.
drs
I don’t see how you be atheist and not fundamentally believe the Dorothy superstition line. You might not put it that way normally, or go picking fights with believers. But you’re atheist, you don’t believe in God. So nothing in the religion came from God. Where did it come from? It was made up by humans, whether deliberately or in response to ‘visions’ or as some cultural accretion. Might not use the word ‘superstition’ as denigrating, but it refers to belief in supernatural forces that don’t exist, which has got to be the atheist view of religion.
(Well, taking ‘atheist’ as the standard more or less scientific materialist atheist. In theory you could disbelieve in God but believe in souls and psychic powers. Though that still doesn’t help respecting any claims of religion coming from God.)
Seregiel
Not knowing religions are still real today until 7th grade made things very confusing for awhile.
Leorale
Counterpoint: Atheist Jews.
I teach Torah Studies to adorable 4th Graders. Developing little Jewish children is my fulltime job; I’m very pro-religion.
And, I don’t believe in God at all.
You definitely don’t have to be anti-religion to be an atheist.
Leorale
(I know Dorothy isn’t Jewish. I’m just using myself as an example, to say, being an atheist definitely doesn’t necessarily equal being anti-religion! Religions are way more than beliefs. Christianity is weird that it centers around belief at all, instead of, say, actions or community or history or identity or helping the world or etc. etc.)
Charles Phipps
It’s more an issue of what exactly Joyce wants from the conversation and if the conversation is, “I want to believe in God and that he/she is good” then that is something Dorothy can’t help with.
drs
But as an atheist, where do you think Torah came from?
JR
Oooh, as an atheist Jew I’m qualified to answer this one!
I believe that the Torah (aka the Five Books of Moses, aka one of three sections of the Jewish Bible) is a collection of formerly oral stories that were gradually codified by whomever had the power to do so at the time, the same way that the non-Hebrew translations were codified by a king who declared that 70-something rabbis had all independently come up with the same translation and therefore it must be divinely approved.
Now, if you’re like me, you read a legend like that with some suspicion of that king, whose word was law and couldn’t be challenged on such things but who had an interest in asserting a specific translation that suited his interests. By the same token, when you’re me, you read with skepticism any story that features a single character speaking to God without a witness. You may personally choose to trust God, but that doesn’t mean you can necessarily trust everyone who claims to have spoken to God and whose story was included in the Torah. Because I believe it possible for the Torah to be written by humans, I have no urge to believe it was written by anyone other than humans, especially when the use and spread of religion is otherwise explained by power and politics, even to the modern day.
So! Are there useful lessons in the Torah? Sure! I think Jewish law handles the grieving process brilliantly and with great compassion. Are there harmful ones too, that reflect the prejudices and power dynamics of the times in which they were written? You betcha – like stories that assert that it’s possible for Egyptian wizards to turn staves into snakes. I believe you could do that as a magical illusion, with a lot of practice; I don’t believe that a person can actually transmute matter that way, as Exodus claims. But it was certainly a useful story for asserting the Israelites’ God’s superiority when Moses’s staff-snake ate the Egyptians’ staff-snakes!
Unrelated because not in the Torah, the story of Chanukah is recent enough that there are historical records around what happened from the perspective of the government, and it is so much more interesting than the version of the Maccabeean Revolt that I learned as a kid. There’s the politics of imperialism and assimilation and traditionalists vs secularists and it’s super interesting as an example of more recent claims of divine intervention during an era when there were contemporary government records of what was going on from the imperialists’ perspective.
This went long, sorry! Anyway, yeah, that’s what I think as an atheist Jew. 😀
Lux
Ok, that was legitimately fascinating 😀 I was born Jewish and at this point tend to refer to myself alternately as an atheist and as “Jewish culturally but not religiously.” I realize there are some differences between the labels, but I consider them to be equally valid descriptors of my views.
Lailah
Uh, I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but the basic mode required to believe in any religion, even the most syncretic one you can imagine, is to say ‘I believe that my specific set of beliefs is correct, even when it conflicts with your own’. By this logic, the only person who can actually help is one of her former co-religionists. And they can explicitly not help.
LeslieBean4shizzle
That is a very bleak view of religion, and as religious person, I don’t think that is at all accurate.
For many, myself included, religion is about one’s own personal experience and interpretation which will not – in fact, cannot – truly be the same as anyone else’s. We can all worship the same general set of gods, but we won’t worship them the same way or view all of those deities equally. Religion needs to be personal and up to interpretation or it loses all meaning – or, at least, that’s my view on it.
While not the only view clearly, it does bring up a counterpoint to yours. Not every religious person is taught to see things in such a rigid fashion – and this applies to Pagans (like myself), Jewish people, and even many Christians. I have a Catholic friend who was just as flexible about adapting her faith to the modern era as I was, and she is awesome. We have the best discussions.
Charles Phipps
I’m using a joke format to demonstrate that Dorothy can’t help Joyce with her problem because Dorothy believes the problem is not one. She can’t help Joyce through her crisis of faith because she believes the faith is misguided.
BBCC
Fair enough. I didn’t get that this is a ‘what Joyce would hear’ kinda thing. My bad.
Charles Phipps
I could have done better with my intro.
Elisto
An atheist who’s gone through a crisis of faith themselves can help though because they can relate and isn’t necessarily opposed to someone else continuing believe, if that ends up the outcome of their crisis. Joyce may not realize this, but Dorothy could still point it out.
drs
Dorothy feels like she grew up atheist. Conversely, atheists who turned away from Christianity are often the most allergic to Christianity.
ValdVin
Dorothy, Joyce and Jacob seemed to enjoy talking religion almost like they were flirting. You can’t possibly expect Joyce to want that fr–
Ana Chronistic
Cheer up, Joyce! You still have… uh… maybe Jaime will listen
Delicious Taffy
Now that Joyce is a goshless heathen, she can sing any kind of song she likes to little Jaime. This seems like an appropriate start.
Charles Phipps
Joyce: Also, I have unresolved bisexual feelings toward you but nothing to Becky because she’s like my sister.
Dorothy: Uh…
Joyce: Are you sure about that 0 on the KS?
Doctor_Who
If some mad scientist ever creates a version of Dorothy with Billie’s chest and Sal’s hair, Joyce is gonna switch teams so hard that Becky will tell her to tone it down a bit.
Charles Phipps
Its weird because in I WAS A TEENAGE WEREDEER (a YA book I wrote) the protagonist is bisexual whose friend has been in love with her for years. The problem isn’t their sexualities, it’s the fact that she just doesn’t see her like that.
Nono
For some reason I read that as a version of Dorothy with chest hair.
Delicious Taffy
Now I’m picturing a sort of Shadow the Hedgehog-style tuft on Dorothy, and… I guess it’s not the worst thing in the world.
mrnoidea
*Dorothy takes Joyce in for a make-out*
Becky: “OH HELL NO”
BarerMender
In the words of E.A. Poe, “Those are the facts stated sufficiently plainly.”
Twirls
Actually Dorothy said she was a 1 didn’t she?
Twirls
Nope I am bo bo the fool she did say 0
Stephen Bierce
There is just one thing you must understand
You can fool with your brother…
But don’t mess with a Missionary Man!
Stephen Bierce
Today’s strip is sponsored by American Girl dolls.
DaveM
Eurythmics! Respect sir. True respect!
KaiserKris
I mostly know this from the Ghost cover.
DaveM
Thank you, I was unaware of that cover.
It rocks, but in my (admittedly old fashioned) opinion there is no way it could ever rock as hard as the Eurythmics with Annie Lennox on vocals. YMMV of course.
StClair
the Missionary Man
He’s got God on his side
He’s got the saints and apostles
Comin’ up from be-hind!
Kamino Neko
*squees Satanically*
(… The hell have I turned into Papa Nihil?)
Deanatay
Stop what you’re doin
Get down upon your knees
I’ve got a message for you
That you’d better believe, believe, believe, believe…
BBCC
Aww, cheer up, Joyce. There’s a bunch of Christians in this comic. How many do you know that would be happy to talk theology with you?
….Ah. I see the problem.
Oh! Wait! Sierra and Agatha! You can talk to them. It’ll be their backdoor into the main cast.
Regalli
Yes! Bring on the Sierrathoyce Theology Session!
Nono
Agatha’s Mormon, which Joyce has… kind of freaked out about before.
Pablo360
That puts her in a not-very-exclusive club.
BBCC
Yeah, but it also means she’s a different denomination which is one of the things that gave Jacob that different perspective.
Jon Rich
She freaked out about Agatha’s Mormonism when Joyce was still a fundamentalist Christian, though, not when she was doubting the existence of God at all and after accepting the humanity of LGBT+ people. At this point, I’m not sure she’d bat an eye at Mormonism anymore.
DailyBrad
I suppose she could talk to Becky about it, but she’s wanting a different perspective, and Becky’s background is so similar to her own.
I guess she could talk to Danny, but in addition to not really having much interest in talk to Danny outside of this, I don’t know how into the theology of it he is. He wouldn’t necessarily debate it with her like Jacob has in the past.
Nono
Danny ‘cares’ about church as much as Billie does.
Marsh Maryrose
Don’t forget Lucy! Although I think Joyce already has.
BBCC
Awww, but Lucy has her back door into the main cast. 😛
Ana Chronistic
I had a similar conversation about this in terms of what I wanted in a person, and a friend volunteered herself as a good candidate
“unless you mean someone with outdoor plumbing” she added
thejeff
Which, let’s be honest, was a large part of what Joyce wanted. I mean, she likes talking through the religion stuff anyway, but that it was also a means of flirting with Jacob made it special.
Bryy
Yeah, cheer up, Joyce. Next week or so, your crisis of faith will be 100% resolved. By force.
Kammon
Joyce needs to meet up with Leo. Not only so that they can exchange Christian viewpoints and give Joyce that outlet she desperately needs; but also so that we can finally find out which one is really the reverse-gendered clone of the other.
mrnoidea
Is it bad to say Joyce is stanning for Dorothy?
How about Joycing?
King Daniel
If she repeats it over and over, it’s re-Joyceing.
Bagge
Heh!
mrnoidea
fuck i just saw the alt-text XD
King Daniel
faaaaaaaaaaaaace
(man, that’s a long callback)
mrnoidea