(so we’re totes voting for Rich Mullins Patreon bonus comic??)
Inahc
but he looks creeeepy.
and we still haven’t gotten the gas station one 🙂
Alan
Can do.
Dean
I’m voting for Julia Gray, ace Space Force pilot.
AntJ
Nah, that’s for Slipshine. It could be called “I’m Glad We Waited” (or alternately “Five Years Later”)
Needfuldoer
The whole thing is just like the eponymous DoA strip: Joyce typing away at LITERATURE on her laptop, with various degrees of blushing and every euphemism she can think of scrolling by in a bubble. It turns out to be the first ever SFW Slipshine, at least until she sends the draft to Amber for advice.
Dana
I initially misread that as “SJW Slipshine”. I think Willis has that censored, so yeah, swap the F for a J. Mostly I just want to see if it’s still censored, and what the replacement was.
thejeff
IIRC, “glistening phallus”. It’s been gone for awhile, sadly.
The thing is, I suspect that was the root of Joyce’s teachings. ‘People are at their heart terrible and only God’s rules make them good’ is an actual doctrine. That’s part of why religious people sometimes assume atheists are terrible people – they can’t imagine NOT needing those rules to still be moral. (We saw this all play out with Dorothy way back.)
And Joyce’s ‘we’ could also refer to her church – up until Becky, Joyce was complicit in homophobic bullshit and she’s still realizing what she grew up in was garbage.
Either way, Joyce is definitely in crisis and responding as someone in crisis, not as someone whose experience with faith or lack thereof is at all healthy. (She cannot go back to where she was before, whether she emerges Christian or not. Her faith will naturally be different.) As I’ve said I find her and Willis’s experience with religious anxiety intensely relatable, and I discovered I couldn’t healthily divorce the anxiety from the religion. There was nothing under it to rebuild from. Joyce has a chance, but I suspect given she’s autobiographical to Willis that it may end up less like Becky’s and more like that.
Regalli
Saw downthread you probably agree with all that. Either way. Joyce leaving the fundamentalist ways will hopefully be good for her in the end.
BBCC
Regalli! <3
Regalli
Hello! Not always on the nocturnal schedule these days but man I relate to this recent run of strips.
(Also, someone please convince Billie she’s not doing great before she has another humongous destructive accident. Reach into the comic and get through to her, that’s how that works right.)
BBCC
I’ll add it to the list of things I want to do when I invent a way to enter fictional universe.
Right after I, bare minimum, chew out the Walkertons and make them take parenting and diversity classes, and take Clint’s cane and whack him with it.
Avitar Jailed After Running Amuck in Indiana. – The suspect was apprehended after beating an elderly gentleman with his walking stick and accosting a freshman on a nearby collage campus. “They were talking and words were coming out of their mouth, but they just weren’t saying anything that made any sense, whatsoever” said Jennifer Billingsly. “I’m not sure, but they may have also been responsible for kidnapping my friend’s parents and replacing them with aliens.”
thejeff
“Much nicer aliens, admittedly. Everyone’s happy with the change.”
BBCC
Well I’m not going to STAY after I do that. 😛 I’d have a ‘get me out of here’ button.
BBCC
Besides, my plan is to make the Walkertons take classes that will ideally make them less of shitheads, not replace them with aliens.
That’s not a bad plan B though…
Geneseepaws
I belive the term for that is Shelailiegh Law.
BBCC
What can I say? I’m from an Irish Canadian family. 😉
Felian
“I couldn’t healthily divorce the anxiety from the religion“
that’s phrased well. i can relate.
but hey! i realized that i ALSO have some anxiety that stayed anyway even after i gave up on religion! so… you can’t have the religion without the anxiety, but you can have the anxiety without the religion? maybe that’s not helpful advice 😀 … but i do get what you mean. if religion makes your life harder, it sucks. Religion is good if it helps you in your life, not if it makes you anxious or dogmatic.
Regalli
I mean I was prone to anxiety already, but mine these days tends to be related to other reasons why I am clearly terrible because anxiety disorders are assholes. But it did break a lot of my more obsessive thought cycles and that’s an improvement for sure.
Commander Dulton
“Humans are innately evil and only god can make them good” philosophy is called Puritanism and is the foundation for about most american Christianity. Catholics also thought this to some degree back in the day but it was more for getting taxes out of the people in the form of “buying” your way into heaven.
Colineo
I think there is some value in accepting that everybody is, to an extent, flawed. It keeps you from developing unrealistic expectations, and makes it easier to forgive those who inevitably fail. I think the problem comes in when people twist it to mean “everybody is flawed, *especially* those other heathens.”
There’s a church down the street from me with the most depressing messages out on its board. Stuff that boils down to “You’re going to Hell by default.” If I was considering Christianity, it would definitely be the last place I’d start.
Felian
Yup… bad marketing.
I mean, apparently this marketing WORKS, but a thinking person might start to wonder: is that the best thing you have to advertise with? aren’t there better things about faith that could be a reason to look for it?
thejeff
My feeling is that this marketing only works on people already buying into the basic premise already. Keeps the faithful in line, might even bring in Christians from other denominations, but won’t work to bring in new converts who aren’t already worried about sin and hell.
Like the Chick tracts are little more than offensive jokes seen from outside, but from inside they’re so obviously persuasive.
Kryss LaBryn
Hah, reminds me of what Canadians have for decades been calling “American-style politics” (in a tone of disapproval, and usually in the context of denigrating a politician’s attack ads or what). Means attacking the other guys’ character, rather than debating their position or offering a better alternative. Less “This is why I’m the better choice,” and more “This is why he is just awful, you guys.”
You know, mud-slinging. And it doesn’t work for people who are looking for something to turn to, rather than something to turn from.
Br44n5m
After a big snow storm one near my place put “ok, who prayed for snow?” On the board, was fun
This premise is a heresy introduced by Augustine of Hippo. Were it not for the Emporer seeing it as a tool for controlling the masses it would never have made it into Christianity, as most Church leaders at the time rejected Augustine as an unrepentent heretic and reprobate.
That is one of my favorite strips; it reminds me of my own college days.
LeslieBean4Shizzle
Likewise, albeit to a lesser degree. I handily resolved the “God made bad things” argument by becoming pagan. A quick read through Greek mythology shows the gods doing all sorts of mean, stupid, random shit. It seemed a better fit for the real world that Christianity, and I still found the idea that the random awfulness had a source to be a comfort. Plus, since most pagan gods are personifications of scientific events, there wasn’t any dissonance between science and religion. An additional dollop of Humanism also helped.
I mean, a read through the old testament also shows a god doing all sorts of mean, stupid, random shit; except taking it all up to 12*.
But yeah, at least the Greek gods are all “Yeah, we’re basically what humans wish they could be, end of story.” and not pretending that they particularly love humans** while doing all the mean shit.
*Because that’s higher than 11.
**Of course, they do “love” humans quite a lot…
Bathymetheus
Greek mythology is a very insightful study of human psychology.
I remember when I had my crisis of faith… I culminated in me having a miraculous 180 turn around in my depression therapy. My parents had me going to a pastor as a therapist, and he wasn’t too pleased to hear the reason I was getting better and was happy in my life was that I figured out that god wasn’t real. lol.
When I switched churches upon moving to college, communion was a giant hunk of bread dipped in juice, instead of those tasteless wafers with wine. I never felt anything from those tiny little discs. My new pastor said “Jesus shouldn’t taste like cardboard” and I heartily agree
Bicycle Bill
It’s the body of Christ, right? And bodies are made of meat, right? So why not distribute communion as a slice of summer sausage on a Ritz cracker?
PB
I dunno if it works the same way for Joyce’s church because I was raised Catholic, but we believe it turns to meat AFTER you eat it.
Chronos
That bit always struck me as something a trip to a hospital to use some imaging system could prove/disprove. I’m honestly surprised I’ve never heard anyone else even consider trying this.
thejeff
The communion takes on the substance of Jesus’s body and blood, but retains the appearance of bread and wine (or crackers and grape juice or whatever). It could do so when examined through some medical imaging system as well, just as it does when you taste it. Or even if you got sick and threw it up. 🙂
It’s miracle, not science.
Or so they say. In some variation, depending on the particular theology.
Spocky McSpockface
How do vegetarian Catholics deal with it?
Bysmerian
Well, for starters you have Jesus’s explicit consent and instruction, which farm animals are unable to give.
Inahc
At the age when I still went to church, I actually kinda liked the styrofoam-y flavour of the wafers. And they way they dissolved in my tongue. 🙂
Rabid Rabbit
In Québec, you can buy (unconsecrated) wafers in grocery stores.
I’m told they’re good with honey. Sacrilicious, in fact.
Annonymouse
Well Quebec has the distinction of using the various terms from Catholicism and its liturgy as profanities.
Do you prefer the bleached white flour or the whole wheat?
376 thoughts on “No taste”
Ana Chronistic
nothing that moment when the seeds of atheism sprout
Ana Chronistic
nothing LIKE
YAY past me proofreading
Ana Chronistic
(so we’re totes voting for Rich Mullins Patreon bonus comic??)
Inahc
but he looks creeeepy.
and we still haven’t gotten the gas station one 🙂
Alan
Can do.
Dean
I’m voting for Julia Gray, ace Space Force pilot.
AntJ
Nah, that’s for Slipshine. It could be called “I’m Glad We Waited” (or alternately “Five Years Later”)
Needfuldoer
The whole thing is just like the eponymous DoA strip: Joyce typing away at LITERATURE on her laptop, with various degrees of blushing and every euphemism she can think of scrolling by in a bubble. It turns out to be the first ever SFW Slipshine, at least until she sends the draft to Amber for advice.
Dana
I initially misread that as “SJW Slipshine”. I think Willis has that censored, so yeah, swap the F for a J. Mostly I just want to see if it’s still censored, and what the replacement was.
thejeff
IIRC, “glistening phallus”. It’s been gone for awhile, sadly.
DeadGuyKai
Anything that starts with the premise we are all somehow “terrible” should be discarded as bullshit.
Regalli
The thing is, I suspect that was the root of Joyce’s teachings. ‘People are at their heart terrible and only God’s rules make them good’ is an actual doctrine. That’s part of why religious people sometimes assume atheists are terrible people – they can’t imagine NOT needing those rules to still be moral. (We saw this all play out with Dorothy way back.)
And Joyce’s ‘we’ could also refer to her church – up until Becky, Joyce was complicit in homophobic bullshit and she’s still realizing what she grew up in was garbage.
Either way, Joyce is definitely in crisis and responding as someone in crisis, not as someone whose experience with faith or lack thereof is at all healthy. (She cannot go back to where she was before, whether she emerges Christian or not. Her faith will naturally be different.) As I’ve said I find her and Willis’s experience with religious anxiety intensely relatable, and I discovered I couldn’t healthily divorce the anxiety from the religion. There was nothing under it to rebuild from. Joyce has a chance, but I suspect given she’s autobiographical to Willis that it may end up less like Becky’s and more like that.
Regalli
Saw downthread you probably agree with all that. Either way. Joyce leaving the fundamentalist ways will hopefully be good for her in the end.
BBCC
Regalli! <3
Regalli
Hello! Not always on the nocturnal schedule these days but man I relate to this recent run of strips.
(Also, someone please convince Billie she’s not doing great before she has another humongous destructive accident. Reach into the comic and get through to her, that’s how that works right.)
BBCC
I’ll add it to the list of things I want to do when I invent a way to enter fictional universe.
Right after I, bare minimum, chew out the Walkertons and make them take parenting and diversity classes, and take Clint’s cane and whack him with it.
Clif
Avitar Jailed After Running Amuck in Indiana. – The suspect was apprehended after beating an elderly gentleman with his walking stick and accosting a freshman on a nearby collage campus. “They were talking and words were coming out of their mouth, but they just weren’t saying anything that made any sense, whatsoever” said Jennifer Billingsly. “I’m not sure, but they may have also been responsible for kidnapping my friend’s parents and replacing them with aliens.”
thejeff
“Much nicer aliens, admittedly. Everyone’s happy with the change.”
BBCC
Well I’m not going to STAY after I do that. 😛 I’d have a ‘get me out of here’ button.
BBCC
Besides, my plan is to make the Walkertons take classes that will ideally make them less of shitheads, not replace them with aliens.
That’s not a bad plan B though…
Geneseepaws
I belive the term for that is Shelailiegh Law.
BBCC
What can I say? I’m from an Irish Canadian family. 😉
Felian
“I couldn’t healthily divorce the anxiety from the religion“
that’s phrased well. i can relate.
but hey! i realized that i ALSO have some anxiety that stayed anyway even after i gave up on religion! so… you can’t have the religion without the anxiety, but you can have the anxiety without the religion? maybe that’s not helpful advice 😀 … but i do get what you mean. if religion makes your life harder, it sucks. Religion is good if it helps you in your life, not if it makes you anxious or dogmatic.
Regalli
I mean I was prone to anxiety already, but mine these days tends to be related to other reasons why I am clearly terrible because anxiety disorders are assholes. But it did break a lot of my more obsessive thought cycles and that’s an improvement for sure.
Commander Dulton
“Humans are innately evil and only god can make them good” philosophy is called Puritanism and is the foundation for about most american Christianity. Catholics also thought this to some degree back in the day but it was more for getting taxes out of the people in the form of “buying” your way into heaven.
Colineo
I think there is some value in accepting that everybody is, to an extent, flawed. It keeps you from developing unrealistic expectations, and makes it easier to forgive those who inevitably fail. I think the problem comes in when people twist it to mean “everybody is flawed, *especially* those other heathens.”
Charlie Spencer
There’s a church down the street from me with the most depressing messages out on its board. Stuff that boils down to “You’re going to Hell by default.” If I was considering Christianity, it would definitely be the last place I’d start.
Felian
Yup… bad marketing.
I mean, apparently this marketing WORKS, but a thinking person might start to wonder: is that the best thing you have to advertise with? aren’t there better things about faith that could be a reason to look for it?
thejeff
My feeling is that this marketing only works on people already buying into the basic premise already. Keeps the faithful in line, might even bring in Christians from other denominations, but won’t work to bring in new converts who aren’t already worried about sin and hell.
Like the Chick tracts are little more than offensive jokes seen from outside, but from inside they’re so obviously persuasive.
Kryss LaBryn
Hah, reminds me of what Canadians have for decades been calling “American-style politics” (in a tone of disapproval, and usually in the context of denigrating a politician’s attack ads or what). Means attacking the other guys’ character, rather than debating their position or offering a better alternative. Less “This is why I’m the better choice,” and more “This is why he is just awful, you guys.”
You know, mud-slinging. And it doesn’t work for people who are looking for something to turn to, rather than something to turn from.
Br44n5m
After a big snow storm one near my place put “ok, who prayed for snow?” On the board, was fun
JohnF
This premise is a heresy introduced by Augustine of Hippo. Were it not for the Emporer seeing it as a tool for controlling the masses it would never have made it into Christianity, as most Church leaders at the time rejected Augustine as an unrepentent heretic and reprobate.
Marsh Maryrose
If you’re looking for the seeds of — if not atheism, at least doubt — I’d go with this:
If humanity isn’t the cause of sin and pain and death, if it existed before us, if we didn’t unleash it, then God did.
goggleman64
That is one of my favorite strips; it reminds me of my own college days.
LeslieBean4Shizzle
Likewise, albeit to a lesser degree. I handily resolved the “God made bad things” argument by becoming pagan. A quick read through Greek mythology shows the gods doing all sorts of mean, stupid, random shit. It seemed a better fit for the real world that Christianity, and I still found the idea that the random awfulness had a source to be a comfort. Plus, since most pagan gods are personifications of scientific events, there wasn’t any dissonance between science and religion. An additional dollop of Humanism also helped.
Emperor Norton II
I mean, a read through the old testament also shows a god doing all sorts of mean, stupid, random shit; except taking it all up to 12*.
But yeah, at least the Greek gods are all “Yeah, we’re basically what humans wish they could be, end of story.” and not pretending that they particularly love humans** while doing all the mean shit.
*Because that’s higher than 11.
**Of course, they do “love” humans quite a lot…
Bathymetheus
Greek mythology is a very insightful study of human psychology.
Ana Chronistic
That’s when the seeds were planted
Oz
Yes, this strip summarizes Joyce’s faith perfectly. She need’s people to be guilty and sinful to justify the evils of the world.
Felian
It’s a scary moment… i feel you Joyce… it gets better though. atheism isn’t as horrible as you fear.
ubertook
At least it is not more horrible than where she was before.
H3xx
I remember when I had my crisis of faith… I culminated in me having a miraculous 180 turn around in my depression therapy. My parents had me going to a pastor as a therapist, and he wasn’t too pleased to hear the reason I was getting better and was happy in my life was that I figured out that god wasn’t real. lol.
toby
oh kiddo :(((
foamy
oof
DarkoNeko
This is getting weirder by the page
MatthewTheLucky
There’s only one person you can demand goodness from.
Delicious Taffy
Peter Parker, naturally.
Jess
Steve Rogers, though, surely?
Regalli
Miles Morales?
Mollyscribbles
Fred Rogers, too.
showler
Hail Hydra!
Ed Rhodes
Aunt May.
BBCC
I disagree. When others are mistreating you (or even just people around you) I do think it’d be morally right to demand better.
MatthewTheLucky
You can ask for goodness. You can expect it. You can demand compliance with a code of honor. But you can’t demand goodness from anyone else.
BBCC
I disagree. I think you can and should.
Delicious Taffy
I agree with this, with the caveat that you should also pick your battles.
NerdHerder
Welp, I’ve lived this comic.
ditrysia
Same.
King Daniel
When this comic started, Joyce was born five years before Rich Mullins’ death.
ValdVin
Ahh, I was wondering how Webcomic Time played out on that.
King Daniel
When the comic started, she was old enough to remember the beginning of the Bush presidency. Next year, she’ll have definitively been born after 9/11.
shadowcell
Dumbing of Age Book 9: Jesus Thankfully Has No Taste
newllend(henryvolt)
Maybe that one could have sticked.
McBogue
From what I can remember back when I routinely received the Body Of Christ…yeah, he was pretty bland.
AntJ
When I switched churches upon moving to college, communion was a giant hunk of bread dipped in juice, instead of those tasteless wafers with wine. I never felt anything from those tiny little discs. My new pastor said “Jesus shouldn’t taste like cardboard” and I heartily agree
Bicycle Bill
It’s the body of Christ, right? And bodies are made of meat, right? So why not distribute communion as a slice of summer sausage on a Ritz cracker?
PB
I dunno if it works the same way for Joyce’s church because I was raised Catholic, but we believe it turns to meat AFTER you eat it.
Chronos
That bit always struck me as something a trip to a hospital to use some imaging system could prove/disprove. I’m honestly surprised I’ve never heard anyone else even consider trying this.
thejeff
The communion takes on the substance of Jesus’s body and blood, but retains the appearance of bread and wine (or crackers and grape juice or whatever). It could do so when examined through some medical imaging system as well, just as it does when you taste it. Or even if you got sick and threw it up. 🙂
It’s miracle, not science.
Or so they say. In some variation, depending on the particular theology.
Spocky McSpockface
How do vegetarian Catholics deal with it?
Bysmerian
Well, for starters you have Jesus’s explicit consent and instruction, which farm animals are unable to give.
Inahc
At the age when I still went to church, I actually kinda liked the styrofoam-y flavour of the wafers. And they way they dissolved in my tongue. 🙂
Rabid Rabbit
In Québec, you can buy (unconsecrated) wafers in grocery stores.
I’m told they’re good with honey. Sacrilicious, in fact.
Annonymouse
Well Quebec has the distinction of using the various terms from Catholicism and its liturgy as profanities.
Do you prefer the bleached white flour or the whole wheat?