283

Edifice
Posted on December 16, 2023 by David M Willis

283 thoughts on “Edifice”

  1. Ana Chronistic

    Joyce filling in (badly) for Dina with the dinofact-checking

    1. Thag Simmons

      Technically this is Christian-esoterica checking, which she’s much better informed about.

    2. Warcodered

      I feel like Dina would be offended by that fact check or the association with that fact check.

    3. Mturtle7

      She actually trampled over Dina on the way here; her elliptical practice gave her the advantage in that conflict! Any moment now, though, she’s about to get raptor-pounced on while her guard is down.

      1. M!a

        Hompk.

  2. Marvelman

    Dropping later and later.

    1. Doctor_Who

      Space is warped and time is bendable.

      1. cookie1995

        I thought time was a big ball of wibbly wobbly timey wimey stuff

        1. morleuca

          Time is a kind of weird soup

      2. Laura

        There is no spoon.

        1. NGPZ

          I like spoons

        2. Laura

          Well, I do, too, but sometimes I run out of them.

        3. Laura

          There is no spoon:
          https://www.youtube.com/shorts/7Qz9jPbcVVQ

          The worm is the spice. The spice is the worm.
          https://youtu.be/0ko5_U1xU6U?si=-XaL8s9icYnxgQ_z

          Or, as the transcendentalist said to the pizza vendor: “Make me one with everything.”

        4. thejeff

          Spoon!

        5. Laura

          Definitely all out of spoons right now. ?

        6. thejeff

          Spoon!

    2. Thag Simmons

      Yeah the clock runs long

      Good news is that after [x] years of this we should be back on the proper timescale.

      1. Clif

        But only once a day,

        or something like that.

  3. NGPZ

    Too late Joyce! You said it, now it’s RAPTOR TIME!!!! ?

    *plays “It’s Pizza Time!” by Tour de Pizza on hacked muzak*

    1. Bryy

      peanut butter raptor time with a baseball bat

  4. Bodmans

    14 minutes now. Has the host server ever had a restart?

    1. Mym

      Yea, but it was like 19 minutes

    2. Doctor_Who

      We just wait until it hits 24 hours, then it’s fine for a while.

    3. Fezzam

      Comment at 12:05 how is that 14 mins after anything? I’ve never seen a new page drop before 12:00. Not that I sit here refreshing, I’ve been moseying (sometime) after 12 for years now.

      1. nobodybasically

        The time on the post is ALSO 14 minutes behind.

        1. Clif

          A pair of minutes for each star in the Pleiades.

        2. ktbear

          Aka the Subaru badge.

        3. Clif

          There is no shame in being owned by the Subaru.

        4. Mark

          I had to climb to the top of Mauna Kea to learn that. You get it free.

  5. shadowcell

    Dumbing of Age Book 14: Motherfucker Killed All the Dinosaurs

  6. Reltzik

    … so, given the presumed distance from the basement exercise room to wherever Lucky are now, it looks like Joyce really got into running.

    1. StClair

      or outright teleportation, given the timeframe between Walky saying that and Joyce popping up to respond to it.

      1. Reltzik

        She said she RAN out here…. so…. speed force?

      2. Slartibeast Button, BIA

        She also needs telepathy or clairvoyance to know what was being discussed.

        1. Clif

          She merely hitched a ride with Dina who always knows when dinasours are being discussed.

    2. cbwroses

      It’s in the basement?

  7. Mym

    It is that bad

    1. Reltzik

      … sorta?

      It’s one of those messages that some Christians take to heart in constructive, wholesome ways while others take to heart in really destructive and antisocial ways, and the former set could probably get the same benefits from a different message that wasn’t so readily interpreted in awful ways… so…

      … yeah, it’s bad.

      1. Mym

        It’s even worse than I originally thought

      2. Mark

        I’ve been thinking that it might be helpful if people looked at the Bible as, in large part, a catalog of things that don’t work.

        Some people: if You would just destroy all the sinners, everything would be perfect.

        God: I did that. Remember the Flood? It didn’t work, did it? Demonstrating that you haven’t understood the problem. Think harder! You can get this!

      3. Dr. Sharks

        Please. If anyone ACTUALLY believed this stuff, they’d call it the cruci-nonfiction.

        1. Mym

          It has taken me ALL DAY to get this joke, and it is the BEST joke today!!!

  8. sdrainbow

    LUCY, PLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEASE

    1. anon

      who knows, maybe she’ll trade herchurch in for a therapist ta some point but donation plate collection aside ,church is free if only inconvenient for ppl woh can’t make mornings

      1. Imogen

        I know people are being rightly critical of the faith Lucy defends, but I don’t think she’s wrong here, exactly. She’s expressing what Christianity means to her, and what it means to her is good! People take good messages from bad or messy belief systems. And Walky is being very Walky about this. buddy you don’t need to vocalize every little thought that might get you attention for your opinions

        1. Bryy

          She’s not wrong, but her intention is to say something that will win the argument.

        2. Imogen

          Yeah, but Walky is kind of trying to start one, consciously or no. Like, imagine he did this with literally any other gathering she invited him to that was extremely important to her. Imagine she took him to see her favorite movie, Elemental.

  9. Shade

    I don’t know why they insist on that one, it creates more problems for the story than it solves.

    1. Slartibeast Button, BIA

      Because dinosaurs are cool, kids like dinosaurs, and you don’t want to lose kids by making them choose between dinosaurs and God.

      (See also the dinosaur book I saw in a waiting room where someone very carefully tore out all the pages that mentioned millions of years.)

      1. Thag Simmons

        Also Dinosaurs have an innate appeal that you can harness to draw attention to your movement. A lot of early scientific study was driven by getting awesome fossil monsters to put in museums to fund the stuff scientists actually cared about, and the YEC movement is tapping into that same appeal to market themselves.

        Like this stuff mostly comes from Ken Ham as I understand it, and that dude flat out runs a massive tourist trap where a model of the ark with surprisingly good dinosaur reconstructions is a key attraction. “Dinosaurs on Noah’s Ark” is something he insists on because it makes him money

      2. Felian

        that makes surprisingly good sense xD

    2. Mark

      Because it is necessary to support the Ussher Chronology, since dinosaurs are known to have existed.

      (That merely kicks the can down the road, since it’s only laypeople who still accept the Ussher Chronology.)

      1. thejeff

        But surely the simplest explanation would be that dinosaurs died in the flood because they didn’t get on the ark. Having them on the ark means you need some other reason for them all to die.

        I guess they just have to stick with the literal “every land creature”, so they must have been aboard.

        1. Mark

          You’re thinking of the unicorns.

        2. Shade

          Also there’s the size/space issue, like just using modern species the idea is already absurd but when you insist on adding dinosaurs to it.

  10. RassilonTDavros

    Honestly, one of my favorite things about this comic is that no matter how down-to-earth slice-of-life the situation gets, the characters still have comedic teleportation powers whenever they’re relevant to the conversation.

    1. DailyBrad

      I love it, too. I know Willis felt (probably rightly) that Mike didn’t really translate into the setting in a sustainable way, but I like that we still get cartoony things like this, or how Robin is basically Daffy Duck in queer woman form even without the speed powers, etc, and it still just kind of works.

      1. Thag Simmons

        You can get away with a lot of shit in a slice of life comic and still have it feel grounded. Honestly you could probably push it further.

    2. NGPZ

      It’s funny ’cause Dina might have been a better choice for the last panel.

      1. David DeLaney

        but she’d’ve had to come from the other direction

        –Dave, where she had been behind the tree

    3. anon

      lol maybe becky was going to pass her and they met halfway or so/them talking and catching up for a bit and then her ears picking up walky’s snarkiness and rushing to him

  11. Taffy

    Teleporting hot chicks wearing unsuitable clothes for cold weather? I enjoy.

    1. Mym

      Nipples stabbing through her damned sports bra, certainly

      1. Taffy

        If she stabs somebody with them, does that mean she has a killer rack?

        1. Mym

          AHAHA.

          Yes.
          Fuck.

        2. cbwroses

          Yes, and better than getting stabbed herself (R.I.P. Tatum).

    2. Dday

      There is a god!

      1. Clif

        Other than Willis?

  12. DailyBrad

    It’s a good thing Joyce was working out and not like in a dressing room, or this would have been awkward.

    Kidding aside, I do get this, like my best friend is agnostic, used to be very religious, and they still get pedantic about people misrepresenting scripture/theory they don’t even believe in anymore.

  13. Katosen27

    I gotta wonder – Joyce has got to be freezing with those bare shoulders out in the cold. Comedic timing or no lol

    1. Slartibeast Button, BIA

      Joyce gets pneumonia and has to spend weeks in the hospital.

      1. Clif

        The doctor has an uncanny resemblance to Mike.

  14. gears

    Calling it now, Walky and Joyce still end up together.

    1. DailyBrad

      I feel like they don’t, but I do find it funny they have both, albeit in a roundabout way, have acknowledged finding each other attractive. With Walky, it was part of why he figured out Ethan was gay, to Dorothy’s amusement, and Joyce saying she had a crush as a kid on the church mouse that wound up being Walky.

      Part of me would love to see them kiss sometime just because both would wig out after, like some spin the bottle scenario or something, but I have a hard time picturing the two actually dating in this setting.

      1. Coatl

        I feel that this versions of Joyce and Walky are very far from falling in love, unless they also kiss at some point while drunk and are disgusted the next day.

    2. anon

      it’d be interesting if they were ‘stuck’ with each other as ‘inlaws’ or so in spirit bc their partners are all besties with each other XD

      1. cbwroses

        Joyce already considers Walky family, as she said so back when Becky first ran away.
        But considering how she feels about some of her blood family, that’s not exactly a term of endearment.

        1. John Campbell

          I’ve said before, I think they make much better semi-antagonistic pseudo-siblings than they ever did a romantic couple.

  15. milu

    The singing especially used to creep me out. All these grown-ups singing the most inane lyrics (badly). It’s not my faith in god that was crushed a little more every sunday, its my faith in adulthood.

    (I have grown some perspective and charity by now, but this is what 12-year-old me felt.)

    1. Yumi

      One time in high school, I was waiting for my friend to get out of her after school Christian club, and I was sitting in the hall by the door to the classroom they were in. They were singing, one dude had a guitar, and I was like, “Hm, maybe I could go in and chill in there until they’re done.” Then they go to a line in the song that was like, “And it’s all about you, Jesus!”

      And something in the delivery just had me…burst out laughing. And then I was like, “No, no, I can’t go in there, I’d end up being a total dick.”

      1. milu

        Yeah, I also remember the songs being so hollow musically, so cheaply composed, it felt so unnerving to me that people were singing them like… unsarcastically?? Not all of them, but so many relied on this stunted harmonic vocabulary. My sophisticated tastes were offended =P

        I’m sure there’s local differences though. Obviously some religious art is incredibly beautiful and moving…in a sense, maybe its good for me that that wasn’t the case at my childhood catholic church haha.

        1. Xujhan

          I try not to judge people regarding matters of taste. Sophistication isn’t a requirement for something to be fun or meaningful for some people, and something being not to my tastes doesn’t mean that it’s bad.

          Now, the idea that people have no inherent worth besides that which is imparted to them by an unquestionable authority (who, incidentally, needs your money). That I’ll judge the fuck out of.

        2. milu

          Again i was evoking my 10-12 year old experience of these hymns. For context i was dragged into church for years after i started complaining i hated it. Not the worst form of indoctrination — as my dad used to tell me: “one hour of mass a week won’t kill you” — but i feel like i’d at least earned the right to be silently petty and judgmental.

        3. Mark

          Indeed, “no accounting for tastes,” but I often find myself thinking along the line “really? that is ‘your best for His highest’? Have the composer and the lyracist ever seen each others’ work?”

          Nod to Xujhan: I’m not complaining about the singers, but about the authors. There’s this thing called workmanship, or artistry, and the people who emulsified some very popular songs: they don’t have it.

      2. Mark

        Oh, I know that one! There are songs that are much better (and much worse). I think I can see how the delivery of this one could go very wrong.

    2. Yotomoe

      But I love doing Karaoke. If I could meet fans every sunday and sing Anime OPs together I’d make it a weekly ritual.

      1. milu

        For sure, but you wouldn’t make a religion out of it… right..??

        1. Yotomoe

          Milu, Milu, Milu
          Son Goku died for our sins and he rose 8 years later to kill Majiin Buu.

        2. Clif

          Seven years. One for each star in the Pleiades.

        3. milu

          *backing away slowly*

        4. Mym

          The father, Son Goku, and the Holy Ghost: Coast to Coast

        5. cbwroses

          I mean, Goku has been all 3, and at the same time, so…

        6. Taffy

          Super Saiyan 3, because it’s a trinity.

        7. Mark

          The day the music died?

    3. Nicoleandmaggie

      I quite like the episcopal hymnal (lotta famous classical composers and folk tunes). Though once I went to a different church and had to sing I’ve got that joy joy joy joy down in my heart where … so I get what you’re saying.

      1. thejeff

        Yeah my experience with religious music is mostly old hymns and gospel, both of which can be quite good, so I don’t really relate to this.
        From my limited exposure I think a lot of modern Christian combines the worst of mass produced pop music with really creepy messaging

        1. milu

          my experience is as a european catholic, mind. no gospel music there

        2. Mark

          Same here. Google “Commercial Worship” for one critique.

    4. lyzyrdwyzyrd

      The singing creeped me out too. Even as a kid.
      I’m Quaker now and we don’t do compulsory songs.
      It’s weird there are so many things that.. like, I have various thoughts on many things and always have and I increasingly realize “I was always kind of a Quaker, I just didn’t know it”

  16. Yotomoe

    I’m of two minds.
    I don’t actually need the belief in God to feel a desire to do good. My desire to do good is fueled by two main things.
    1. A desire to be loved by people and society as a whole
    2. A sense of Empathy
    I try to be nice cuz I hate being treated like shit.

    That said, if your belief in whatever religious you practice is reinforcing positive feelings, actions and behaviors more power to ya. I absolutely understand a desire for a feeling of connection and something greater than oneself. Even amongst my “atheistic” (probably more agnostic) friends they tend to believe in some sorta spiritual connective tissue to the human experience. The idea that there’s someone, somewhere, something above it all CAN give someone’s life meaning and I don’t wanna remove that meaning just because I personally don’t believe in it.

    I’m not against Christianity as much as I don’t like how it’s sold. By selling the wrathful, judgemental and angry god or the punishment of endless damnation it ends up becoming a negative experience. Faith at gunpoint. Which just creates the perpetual cycle of people taking advantage of people, people using it to spread negativity and people who force everyone they know to believe what they believe. If Lucy just finds hope and inspiration from her belief in God I feel like that’s fine, but she’s got a little of that Christian guilt that rubs me the wrong way.

    1. Slartibeast Button, BIA

      [Religion must remain an outlet for people who say to themselves, ‘I am not the kind of person I want to be.’ It must never sink into an assemblage of the self-satisfied.] – Last words of Toure Bomoko
      Dune by Frank Hernert

      1. Vanessa

        The evangelicals don’t believe that heaven is earned through good works or being a good person, they believe that faith alone can save you. It seems like the real cause of so much self-righteous assholery and human rights violations. The logical conclusion is that people who aren’t of your particular domination or church are not fully human.

        1. Slartibeast Button, BIA

          And that churches are museums for saints instead of hospitals for sinners.

        2. deliverything

          It always seemed weird to me that some people seem to think that it’s important to believe in Jesus, but not to actually pay any attention to what he said.

        3. katosen27

          It seems to me that a lot of people use Jesus’ forgiveness of sins as a crutch to continue their bad behavior, but firmly believe they are still in their Lord’s good graces or somehow better than others.

    2. Viktoria

      My stance, that I rarely get into, is that basically any organization with any power will eventually turn to evil. Some people are jerks, jerks want power, it’s impossible to harden an org against any jerk ever getting power, and once one jerk gets power they make it easier to add more jerks. Boom, suddenly your charitable org is stealing poor people’s organs.

      The solution is to tear down any institution on a regular basis and replace it, but people for some reason object to that when you do it with churches, national governments, and large corporations.

      1. Yotomoe

        I concur. It’s VERY difficult to create any organization or group without the jerks matriculating to the top. It just happens that the kinda personalities that are really good at attaining power are also the kinda personalities that tend to be complete assholes.

        1. Clif

          Now I want to see an drawing of jerks matriculating to the top.

        2. David DeLaney

          Willis starts a new category called Slipglory

      2. Heather

        I think I read this online so I’m not sure how accurate it is but I did hear some big guy in early Christianity (when it wasn’t in charge) was all about religious tolerance, but then within his life time Christianity actually got to be in charge and he sure changed his tune.

    3. milu

      Yeah, i think a theology that insists you need to believe in god to have a moral compass is not worth listening to, that’s just blatantly false.

      I see religion as a social thing first and foremost. Which is not to knock its spiritual potential. connection to others is a powerful force and can definitely be conceptualized as something spiritual.

      We just happen to live in societies where the human experience can, in many communities, be talked about without reference to religion. We atheist aren’t smarter. We just make use of different technologies of social bonding that happen not to reference supernatural entities.

      1. Coatl

        Wow, I really like your comment and I dare to say that it is one of those few comments where you do not seek to belittle one side, because something that I have noticed in this eternal fight between believers and atheists is a single objective…to demonstrate that They are right.

        but, of course I’m not generalizing, after all the world is quite wide and you will find all kinds of people, different nuances, etc.

        It is rare to find the value of spirituality in these times and that you highlight it here is very good, I am from a Catholic family and as I grew up, I realized certain details in the Bible that made me think too much, despite From this, you would be surprised that it has some details that are worth it.

        1. milu

          Why thank you!
          I was raised catholic as well, and the bible is a cool book indeed. It definitely has some great parts. Jesus is just The Coolest. And some of the ancient testament stories are just wild and bonkers. There’s alot to love about it, and i’m in good atheist company in feeling that way =)

        2. Coatl

          It’s nice to know that harmony can exist between differences.

        3. milu

          The argumentative ones just tend to be louder. I suspect a lot of people just don’t care very much what the rest of the world does or doesn’t believe =)

        4. Coatl

          The world is big and you will find everything 🙂

        5. Clif

          But will you find a round square?

        6. Pergola

          We tried round squares. They got crushed by circles.

        7. Mark

          Cllif: ask a Byzantine architect.

      2. thejeff

        I’m not sure if that’s really true. Religion is a powerful social bonding force. More specifically the practice of religion, with regular community gatherings and the like. There’s no inherent reason that has to be tied to the spiritual, but at least in recent history it has been and I don’t really see any secular substitutes.

        Individual atheists can certainly find individual connections without the spiritual, but that doesn’t fill the same social role.

        1. milu

          wait i’m not saying atheism *itself* has become a social force, but that such powerful secularizing movements as nationalism, liberalism and marxism have produced modern atheism in a way that possibly didn’t exist in earlier societies where religion was such a core social structure.

          admittedly it’s such a vague and borderline ahistorical point i’m making i’m not gonna defend it too hard.

          but as for secular substitutes sure, none are one-to-one translations. but like.. mass media events, sports, elections, wars, social movements… all seem like conduits for the type of socialized affects that religious practices afforded? no?

        2. thejeff

          To some extent, but I’m thinking more of the day to day (or Sunday to Sunday) experiences building community. Mass event aren’t really the same.

          Activist social movements can be, for those who are active in them, but that’s a quite small fraction

        3. milu

          i also think it’s interesting that you speak of “individual atheists” finding “individual connections”.

          the concept of the “individual” is itself modern/secular/liberal. i wonder if there could even be any atheists before the invention of the individual?

          (basically my entire thought process is a way to square the existence of atheism as a historical phenomenon. in historical texts dating before the 18th century, afaict there doesn’t seem to *be* such a thing as an atheist. i don’t believe in “progress”, so there’s got to be a historical explanation.)

        4. Li

          I mean, I guess first we have to determine when you think the concept of the individual was invented.

          But there have definitely always been atheists. Kinda feels like you’re conflating the specific term and modern conceptions with a very broad type of human behavior, sorta like saying being trans or gay is “new” just because prehistory wouldn’t have used the same terms for it.

          Heck, several non-Christian religions are fully compatible with atheism. Frankly the emphasis within Christianity on faith as the most important part (it’s more important that you believe in Jesus and that Jesus is specifically the son of God than it is that you follow the 10 commandments or abstain from sin) is both unusual and relatively recent.

    4. Bash

      Your version makings you beholden to other people. Religious people are beholden to a vague concept that can mean whatever they want it to mean. And unsurprisingly, it usually ends up confirming their own biases. Religious people who are kind and generous were clearly good people to begin with. Because there are so many examples of people using religion as an excuse to be awful to anyone different from themselves.

      History and the news are both full of examples of people doing awful things in the name of religion. I don’t blame all religious people but I do blame religion for giving them a justification. It’s too widespread to say it’s just some isolated incident.

      1. Yotomoe

        To be fair being beholden to other people isn’t necessarily better. People have done awful things for social reasons like, Nationality, Race, Culture and the like. People will find just about ANY reason to do bad things to other people.

      2. eskimolos

        I feel as a hunch from my own experiences and observations that religious people who are good and kind have been through something, and that maybe the religion is all they’ve ever ever known or maybe they found it later, but it’s a facility to cope with some kind of trauma or great loss, and I can appreciate and support that sort of religious devotion.

        But otherwise, I don’t speak about my atheism much, my mother is Unitarian universalist and fell through a lot of flavours of Christianity before ending up there. She’s always been supportive of gay rights, my father was gay but wanted a family, and ended up succumbing to AIDs when I was small, so my mom certainly struggled to marry her need for Christian faith with the homophobic stance of most denominations. It stood to reason that most of my half-siblings and I are atheists, despite accompanying her to church on many occasions.

        Because faith or lack of it is deeply personal, I tend to take with a grain of salt when atheists kick off against it – I know that comes from empathetic horror if not outright personal trauma inflicted by one religion or another, and I certainly do not blame victims of other horrific traumas for lashing out in their pain. But yeah, I’ve had few occasions to feel anything besides anywhere from pity to disgust for people who actively advocate for others to believe in their religion. How you feel about these things is personal, you’re welcome to share them with other like-minded people, but trying to convert someone who isn’t in actual imminent danger from their beliefs generally feels misguided.

        1. Mark

          Attitude is important. If I am willing, even eager, to give you my religion, I see no problem — if you refuse the gift, that is your right. If I am determined to pry your hands open and force my religion into them, that is a problem. Not just for you — it’s a problem for me, because I will have broken faith with my deity and put myself in His place.

        2. lyzyrdwyzyrd

          I’m a case study in the trauma hypothesis. Being bipolar is hard.

    5. Felian

      I read a comment to some tweet a while back that hit home for me:
      “If you need the threat of eternal damnation to be a good person, you are not a good person.”
      I mean, i’m glad if some people refrain from doing bad shit because their faith tells them not to, but if you *struggle* to do good out of your own motivation, it’s concerning.
      If you inherently want to do good, and your faith helps you in making more of an effort (sometimes it IS hard to be kind if it comes at a personal cost), good! 🙂

      Tangent:
      Another question is how we define good. The christian definition(s) are different than the humanitarian one(s). My definition of good is: anything that gets us closer to a world in which every sentient being, as well as nature, is living a life without avoidable suffering.
      Thus, advancing medicine is GOOD (stretches the amount of suffering being actually avoidable)
      Advancing social justice is GOOD (reduces suffering from discrimination for individuals of marginalized groups)
      Doing something against climate change is GOOD (keeps/makes the planet healthier and this is good for humans, other animals and nature)
      Being kind to individual human beings or other animal beings is good (makes individual lives more enjoyable)
      Not all of that would be considered good in christianity, or even if it actually is (God told humans to take care of the world, right?!?!) it gets ignored.

  17. Suet

    There’s an evergreen philosophical topic of doing good (without the need of a God) out there somewhere. Maybe Socrates or Plato, to start.

    Gosh I don’t wanna know how it feels to go out in that much snow while in that outfit— didn’t we surmise that Joyce has teleport powers, and not Dotty, who’s still prolly lifting weights

    1. Coatl

      Dotty is currently channeling her recent anger into training.

    2. Li

      You’ve misread the alt text; Willis is joking that Joyce’s teleportation powers are usually limited to “teleporting to wherever Dorothy is”, and Dorothy isn’t outside with Walky and Lucy. ?

      1. David DeLaney

        Walky is substitutable for Dorothy as the spell’s target by now

        –Dave, using the law of contagion – once together, always together

        1. cbwroses

          She’s using instant transmission and homing in on Walky’s soul-tie with Dorothy (I honestly hate that concept so much that I feel the need to express my hate even while making a joke).

      2. Suet

        I consider Joyce as a free teleporter. After all, she teleported behind Malaya in the most epic way possible

        1. cbwroses

          I forgot about this.
          That’s like reverse slasher killer teleportation (the kind where they disappear when a truck passes by).
          Also, what do unicorns smell like and why does Malaya recognize it?

        2. thejeff

          That confused Malaya too

    3. Clif

      … there’s no Dorothy – Willis

      Imagine there’s no Dorothy
      It’s easy if you try.
      No future honest president,
      and Joyce would surely die.

      Imagine there’s no dumbing,
      Imagine Mary wins.
      Imagine what you want to,
      but only for the grins.

      1. cbwroses

        There’s is no “Dorothy”; only Zuul.

    4. Mark

      I suppose it’s something like this: in a society in which spontaneously doing good for others is normative, sometimes you will be one of the others and receive good that you don’t deserve. If you like that, normalize it and you’ll get it, plus you’ll live among happy people and you may like that too.

      Materialist reformulation: as social hominids we have built-in reward systems to reinforce group cohesion. If you want a dopamine hit, be kind to your neighbor.

  18. Schpoonman

    I feel like I remember a passage or four where God talks to someone without tempering his capital G-ness and it’s not a terribly mundane experience for the human. Feel like that counts as yelling.

    I’m completely lost on “edeifice– oh goddamit “dei” as in “deity” like–I’m going to bed.

    1. Bin

      I can think of two scenarios.
      2 Kings: 2:23… where Elisha is walking down the street, some kids call him bald, Elisha curses them in the name of Yahwee, and two bears are summoned who maul 42 kids to death. And then Elisha keeps on walking. Story over.
      Out of everyone I have talked to only one guy had a moral for this story: don’t mess with Yahwee’s prophets. This counts as indirectly talking to Yahwee.

      And then there was the time Moses was on the mountain talking to Yahwee and Yahwee finds out about the Golden Calf. And Yahwee just… man… he just f@cking loses it.
      Exodus 32: 10 (NLT) “Now leave me alone so my fierce anger can blaze against them, and I will destroy them.”

      But Moses is better than Batman. He stands his grounds and tries to save the idiot followers.
      Exodus 32:11 (NLT) “But Moses tried to pacify the Lord his God”. That’s right. Dude doesn’t flinch. He told Yahwee to chill out. And he did. Amazing.

      Yea Moses then goes down, forms The Secret Police, has them rat out and murder 3,000 of their own family / friends, and their deaths earned Yahwee’s blessing, and then Yahwee infects the people who didn’t worship the calf with a great plague anyway…. but um… story over.

      1. Heather

        I sometimes wonder if that first story was just the author writing vent fanfiction. Like the author had kids who mocked his baldness and in his heart really wanted them mauled by bears. Kind of like when kids write Sonic beating up their bullies or calling them cool and awesome only weirder because it’s an adult against children and a deity.

    2. Gigafreak

      What’s more, Deifice is an actual word in Latin, and it means to elevate an entity into godhood.
      I don’t know Latin, so I don’t know whether there’s an expectation that the deifice’d entity must actually exist…

      1. Mark

        I know enough Latin to understand on sight that it literally means “crafting [a] god,” but I can’t help with your question. Without researching at all, I would guess that this process was mostly used with emperors, who definitely existed and could have you killed if you didn’t do it (or, at least, pretend).

  19. StClair

    “God’s terrific. He dropped a church roof on thirty-four of his worshippers last Wednesday night in Texas while they sang a hymn.” – Hannibal Lecter

    1. Clif

      I never said that! – Benjamin Franklin.

      1. StClair

        it’s a line from the show.

    2. John Campbell

      ‘Terrific” originally meant “causes terror”.

  20. True Survivor

    I like the tiny people in the background.

    1. milu

      What could *they* be talking about?? Could they be having lives and thoughts and feelings and joys and sorrrows of their own??? No! They’re just tiny black pixel blobs! Hi pixel blobs.

      1. Clif

        Come the revolution, the tiny black pixel blobs will sieze the means of comic production.

      2. Mark

        They’re having a blazing row about the societal implications of those two young persons working out their relationship loudly in the entry hall of a church.

  21. Li

    And so we have our answer, Walky was definitely being polite* about his church feelings bc they were still in church and not because he was exceptionally concerned about hurting Lucy’s feelings, pff.

    * I mean he wasn’t saying it in a super polite way, but it is still more polite to say that you didn’t enjoy church than to say church creeped you out and made you think “my girlfriend is in a cult”

    1. Matt

      I think that’s definitely a factor but I wonder if their argument made him realize he needs to be less exceptionally concerned about hurting Lucy’s feelings, or she will generate all sorts of internal stories that are kinder than reality

      1. Li

        That would be a good thing for him to have learned.

        I’ll say again that I find Walky hard to read. Maybe especially since the timeskip slash Mike’s death? Willis often draws him with a neutral expression that gives his dialogue a flat affect in my head rather than any specific tone.

        The third panel here especially, I don’t know if Lucy is oblivious to Walky’s seriousness or if he himself is saying things he really feels in a tone of voice that obfuscates that seriousness, or EVEN if he’s actually less serious about all of this than I’d thought.

        I’m pretty sure from his thought bubbles in church that it’s either the first or second thing, because I’m pretty sure he at least IS serious about this, but the way he’s drawn doesn’t give me any hints.

        Which, to be clear, I do think is a deliberate artistic choice on Willis’s part. And I think it is VERY much in Walky’s character these days to be kind of……. low-key always deflecting and defusing. Always undercutting his own feelings on a subject when they’re actually pretty strong.

        Treating his mom (and dad)’s likely disapproval of Lucy as a thing to be sitcom shenanigan’d past instead of something painful, not only bc of how it would hurt Lucy but also bc of how it’s hurt both him and his sister their whole lives… being an example.

        (I’m not saying this is completely new btw, he’s always done this a little, but I feel like it used to be less intense and less frequent. He was always a bit of a class clown, but these days his routine feels… less like something he’s having any fun with, more numb.)

  22. DarkoNeko

    Lord almighty Joyce you’re gonna catch a cold

  23. Yotomoe

    Joyce, you of all people should know that bible lore isn’t consistent between different sects and subsects. Therefore there are some versions where god absolutely killed the dinosaurs.

    1. Mym

      I think “my immortal” was more consistent than the bible

      1. thakoru

        Genesis in particular is hilarious in how much it contradicts itself. It was probably cobbled together from at least three different sources, so you get shit like having two different versions of the same creation myth inelegantly smooshed together, such that animals and humans each end up getting created twice, and God somehow both takes six days to create everything and also does it all in one day.

    2. Li

      Yes but THOSE versions are WRONG and HERETICAL

  24. Wendy

    It’s always interesting to me to learn about the beliefs of different evangelical groups re: dinosaurs!

    The Christian cult I grew up in believed that the earth had moooostly its scientifically-established history (e.g. earth is billions of years old, etc.) so in their teachings, the dinosaurs lived and died millions of years before the flood happened.

    That said, they do still believe in The Flood, and they also believe the human species is only 6,000 years old. When I was in the cult, I rationalized the 6,000 year thing in my brain as meaning “6,000 years ago was when man first started being ‘made in God’s image,’ as in, that’s when humanity had evolved to the point of being able to have a relationship with God.”

    1. Slartibeast Button, BIA

      So before then, hominds didn’t have a soul slot?

      1. Clif

        Sure they did. They just weren’t human souls in those slots.

      2. Wendy

        This cult didn’t believe in souls.

        Or rather, they believed what’s called the “soul” is simply life itself.

        1. Clif

          What about the undead, such as vampires, leaches and zombies? If the undead didn’t have undead souls, how would they go to hell?

        2. Wendy

          This cult didn’t believe in hell actually!

          A big part of why a lot of Christian denominations didn’t consider them “Christian enough” lol

    2. milu

      Wow, that is bizarre. So they accepted that species evolved over geological timeframes in messy, fuzzy evolutionary processes… but humans just popped into existence all at once??

      1. Wendy

        YEP

  25. Vanessa

    Lucy is, as usual, completely ignoring the point that Walky is making and is gas-lighting him. Ugh I hope he can escape.

    1. Taffy

      Liar.

    2. milu

      Her smiling tenderly is a devious form of love-bombing. Also, this is psychological harassment for reasons.

      What an toxic abuser who is also rude, this Lucy.

      1. NGPZ

        Eh, Walky will be fine, as long as we don’t see Lucy stir a spoon along the rim of an empty teacup to induce a trance state.

    3. Mym

      I’m down to always point out Lucy being manipulative…
      But I think today, she is the one being manipulated by the church. Those people are taught indoctrinating others is love.
      She needs to learn, but I don’t think today is full of Lucy-gaslighting

    4. Wraithy2773

      She’s saying what she gets out of it, why it works for her. That’s not gaslighting, that’s just her voicing her viewpoint on it all.

      If she was gaslighting, she’d be conniving a way to get him back into church again some other time, something that she’s explicitly said she’s not going to do.

      You can consider her view naive and childish if you want, that’s up to you, but to push it to gaslighting? That’s a step too far.

    5. Li

      DOA comments are officially impossible to parody, I’m only like 85% sure this is a joke.

      1. milu

        I’m barely at 50% myself but i decided to treat it like a joke and continue the hypothetical bit, cos why be angry when you can be silly

        1. Li

          Also you gotta figure someone who meant it sincerely would be more annoyed to have it treated like an absurd joke than any other response

        2. milu

          exactly. it’s a win-win situation.

        3. Li

          hi5!

    6. Bryy

      Lucy is bad but not at gaslighting.

  26. Doopyboop

    Obligatory mention for that time a kid in school told me that the dinosaur bones were all part of a test by God who wanted to cast doubt and test the faith of man by placing fake bones into the Earth. I, a big dinosaur nerd and fan who grew up with Jurassic Park, Land Before Time, Dinotopia, and other such dino media, got REALLY mad and we had a big argument about it.

    1. Mym

      That’s much better it was a peer.
      My fucking parents and grandparents both said dinosaurs were a test! What a wild way to think

      1. Clif

        But if God went to so much trouble to place fake bones, isn’t it only polite to go along with the shtick?

        1. Clif

          Anything else would be disrespectful.

      2. Doopyboop

        I never got my grandma’s opinion on dinos but I’m sure she’d agree. She also told me that animals don’t go to heaven because they don’t have souls, and after I had nightmares about my pets burning in hell she ‘apologized’ by showing me a vhs of some preacher guy talking about how “maybe animals do have souls after all”.

    2. Tan

      But if God placed the dinosaur bones, then isn’t the true faith to believe that those divinely-created dinosaur bones are real, regardless of whatever mortal authorities may say?

    3. AbacusWizard

      I had a friend like that in elementary school. Once I went to his birthday party—I was his only friend from school that was there; all the rest were his friends from church—and he introduced me to them as “This is [name], he believes in Darwin but he’s still pretty cool.”

      The next year his parents switched him to home-schooling and I rarely saw him after that.

      1. Clif

        The evidence for the existance of Darwin is pretty good, but I suppose it could have been faked.

        1. Gigafreak

          Saint Nicholas was a real man who did historically live and die.

          Therefore, to an atheist, Santa Claus is technically more real than Jehova.

          It stopped feeling weird to be a non-Christian taking part in Christmas celebrations after realizing this, especially in a culture where the gift exchange has pushed Yeshua of Nazareth so far into the sidelines.

        2. Taffy

          I don’t know much about the guy, but isn’t celebrating a saint’s holiday still partaking in at least a tangentially Christian way? I’m asking for real, not sarcastically. I don’t really know how little interaction with the religion it takes to stop counting.

        3. Tan

          To be clear, Christmas is not Saint Nicholas’s holiday. The Feast of Saint Nicholas (for those denominations that acknowledge feast days for saints and don’t consider it blasphemous veneration) is typically December 6 in Western Christianity or Decembet 19 in Eastern Christianity

        4. David DeLaney

          child in Santa’s lap: “Homoousios or Homoiusios?”
          Santa: “What?”
          Child: ” … you’re not the REAL St. Nicholas”

          –Dave, a shibboleth

    4. Mark

      Stock answer to that sort of handwaving: “here’s a Bible — show me where He said that.”

  27. Agemegos

    On the topic of God not yelling at us, I’m reminded of that bit in an old movie called Aliens in which a little girl points out that her doll doesn’t have any bad dreams “because she’s made of plastic”.

    1. cbwroses

      Am I the only one taking E-mo-tion-al Dam-age from Aliens being called an “old” movie?
      “Classic”, please.

  28. drs

    I’d thought Walky was generically not-religious, given his background, but he seems ready to flip into full atheism if not anti-theism, if he hasn’t already.

    Team Dorothy Dina Joyce Walky, woot.

    Recent re-reading reminded me that Joyce once called Billie her closest Christian friend on campus, to Billie’s horror. (When Joyce was introducing Becky around). Billie more Christian than Walky, I guess.

    1. anon

      given walky’s ‘sassiness’ i can’t imagine him having faith in anything really, other than being dedicated to cartoons but plenty of fandoms turn on the series when things don’t go down the way they want or a network ‘ruins’ some series b/c of early cancellation or interference from the higher ups

  29. Slartibeast Button, BIA

    Is Walky going to trip on those loose shoelaces?

    1. David DeLaney

      he very seldom has

      1. Needfuldoer

        It’s his latent superpower.

        1. cbwroses

          Which is impressive since Miles Morales has spider powers and still slipped on untied laces.
          Joyce teleports.
          Walky seldom trips over his untied laces.

        2. Tesset

          You can take the Walky out of the superpower universe, but you can’t take the superpowers out of the Walky

      2. Mark

        He’s had years of daily practice at avoiding that.

    2. Tesset

      I’m not as bad as Walky, but my shoelaces are p regularly untied and I rarely trip over them. I once was doing longsword fencing drills with untied shoelaces and didn’t even notice until afterwards

  30. Bin

    Actually its seven pairs for clean animals. Also birds.

    Genesis 7:2 Take with you seven pairs of every kind of clean animal… one pair of every kind of unclean animal …and also seven pairs of every kind of bird

    Its crazy how nobody knows this.
    Its literally like four sentences after Genesis 6:19 which calls for just one pair, but later passages take precedent (I guess).

    1. Mym

      That boat was absurd in size.
      Unless we go back in time and collect 7 of the Last-Universal-Common-Ancestor

    2. BBCC

      Dinosaurs aren’t clean animals in Joyce’s opinion. Clearly.

      1. Daibhid C

        Have you ever seen a kosher restaurant selling dinosaur?

        1. John Campbell

          Chickens are dinosaurs.

    3. Clif

      It was one pair for every star in the Pleiades.

    4. Agemegos

      That’s what God ordered in Genesis 7:2. What Noah actually did is in Genesis 7:8–9

      8 Of clean beasts, and of beasts that are not clean, and of fowls, and of every thing that creepeth upon the earth,

      9 There went in two and two unto Noah into the ark, the male and the female, as God had commanded Noah.

      1. Taffy

        That just makes it sound like they’re walking into the boat in pairs.

      2. Bin

        @agemegos
        I’m with Taffy. I didn’t know what “two by two” meant literally but
        https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/two%20by%20two
        states that its means “two at a time : first two and then another two”

        New Living Translation has it as “they entered the boat in pairs”

        Not that it really matters as a single pair or seven pairs can enter “two by two”.

    5. deliverything

      Although… Genesis 6:19: “And of every living thing of all flesh, two of every sort shalt thou bring into the ark, to keep them alive with thee; they shall be male and female.”

      1. David DeLaney

        always mount a backup or scratch ark

    6. Nicoleandmaggie

      If the rest were for eating does it matter their sexes?

  31. Dday

    Thunder is God yelling that the clouds were getting too rubby.

  32. BBCC

    I like that they can have this conversation without it getting heated or nasty.

    And of course Joyce bursting in with that. XD

    1. Bryy

      Can they, though? It seems to really upset Lucy, and she’s shown a lot of aggression about people either deconverting or just plain not believing.

      1. thejeff

        She has?
        The closest I can think of is her talking to Becky about playing Rich Mullins songs for Joyce, which was hardly aggressive.

        Here, Walky is being far more over the top about his opposition to church than she is about her defense of it.

  33. thakoru

    It is really weird looking back to my Christian upbringing and noticing how much of it was adults telling me that, no, the obvious interpretation of that passage or hymn or story isn’t actually what it’s saying – that would be a horrible or at least inconvenient thing for us to believe. No, it’s actually a simple, uncontroversial, affirming message that can be totally encompassed in a catchy platitude. Or as Bo Burnham put it, “When God, in verse 45, says that slaves are okay to buy, he meant that people all from the start, each have slaves within their heart … God calls us to set these free; free our hearts from slavery. And then as God goes on to explain the logistics of buying and selling slaves… He was just… He was just kidding around. You know… Jesus… (trails off)”

    Though actually, the one that really sticks in my mind is pastors trying to explain the bits where Jesus tells his followers to give up all their worldly possessions to an assembly of middle class white homeowners.

    1. Clif

      I’m not sure they had a middle class, as such, back then.

      1. Songbird

        The sentence is constructed a little confusingly, but I think thakoru was saying that the pastor was explaining Jesus’ words to the homeowners in question among his congregation, and these homeowners who claimed to be believers were unable or unwilling to understand or accept that if they are to consider themselves followers of Jesus, then the command to give up their possessions would apply to them as well.

        1. Songbird

          I hit post before I was done–sorry for the double comment; I was going to go on to say that the sentence wasn’t implying that Jesus was saying these words to the middle class of his time period. As you point out, there probably wasn’t such a thing during his life time.

          Unless your original comment was a joke, in which case please feel free to ignore my tangent.

        2. Mark

          IIRC Jesus gave that advice to one person, whom He said specifically needed it. [Mt 19:16-30]

    2. Bash

      And this book is supposedly the reason that some people can’t have rights.

      1. Dara

        Yeah. And I hate that I have to know so much about that stupid FUCKING book so very, very, very much.

      2. C.T. Phipps

        I mean they flat out had to rewrite the book to remove Exodus as the slave owning plantation owners had severe issues with a book about Moses leading them all to liberty and a bunch of rules that you’re not ACTUALLY supposed to enslave people for life as well as horribly abuse them.

        I mean, fuck slavers, but even the bare minimum of 2000 years ago was apparently too much for them. So the Slaver’s Bible they gave to slaves was carefully edited.

        Fascinating stuff.

    3. C.T. Phipps

      I mean Jesus flat out said that the rich are damned, to forgo all violence, to give up your possessions, and to separate church and state. So, yeah, the book is often told to be something utterly different than it is.

      Jesus also said that whenever the testament said something wrong, you should do the opposite.

      1. Kelibath

        I have to ask, even if you never see this reply – where does your second statement come from? Legitimately, I’m fascinated and want to reread that part. I can’t remember it the way it’s paraphrased here.

        1. C.T. Phipps

          It’s more a running theme of his ministry:

          * Stoning for Adultery, Don’t Do it.
          * Working on the Sabbath, do it if it’s something good to do.
          * Divorce is actually pretty terrible if God put you together and the Law of Moses is not the Law of God.
          * Jesus contradicts “Eye for eye” vengeance by saying you should give your other eye.
          * Jesus contradicted Moses who said God will send rain to the righteous and not to the righteous. Jesus said God will send rain to everyone good and bad.

  34. AbacusWizard

    Wait, the dinosaurs *did* get to go on the Ark? What happened to them afterwards? I thought I was all caught up on young-earth-creationist malarkey, but apparently I missed some important details.

    1. Clif

      It was the unicorns that didn’t make the ark.

      1. David DeLaney

        a long time ago
        when the earth was green

        –Dave, the unicorns? were hiding, and playing silly games

    2. Queezle

      I heard the “explanation” that we hunted them to extinction afterwards. Apparently dinosaurs are delicious. Probably taste like chicken.

      1. cbwroses

        I mean, Fred used to get some ribs after every movie, so they do seem to be very tasty.

      2. Mark

        On Venus, roast dinosaur is very highly regarded.

        [Let’s see who gets that reference.]

        1. Roborat

          Hmm, not sure on this one, there were so many early sci fi stories with dinos on Venus, are you talking about the Burroughs books, or Pope maybe/

  35. anon

    lol based on what we see of his parents he should prolly do the opposite of what they want XD

  36. Amelie Wikström

    Panel 7
    Walky: “Okay I can see how you made that connection from what I said, but I didn’t mean to suggest the dinosaurs died in the flood. I was just blaming God for killing the dinosaurs with that meteor.”

    Joyce: “Oh, more general Atheist griping than anti-Young-Earth-Creationism then. My mistake. Boy do I feel silly.”

  37. pope suburban

    I feel like once again, Walky is expressing a stance and Lucy is not hearing it. He clearly has strong feelings on organized religion. Glossing over that is not a great idea. I’m reminded of when Becky was talking about Joyce leaving the church and Lucy kind of supporting trying to bring her back. And it’s like, eeeh, Joyce has been through a lot, maybe don’t pressure her to return to an institution that traumatized her from birth, culminating in a violent kidnapping and several deaths? Becky seems to have evolve from there. Lucy does not. I do not love this.

    1. C.T. Phipps

      For Lucy, being connected to God is great and glorious. Him being the source of all good doesn’t diminish her but makes her a part of something greater as they share in the divine.

      For Walky, he’s hearing that God clearly is diminishing her free will. And that clearly God cannot be the source of good because it undermines him as an individual.

      Basically, Walky is a Sith and Lucy is a Jedi.

      Walky would side with Kreia to kill the Force.

      1. Mark

        Hear, hear!

    2. BBCC

      Disagreeing with how Walky characterizes her church in a relatively light hearted way isn’t the same as trying to pressure him to go. She knows he doesn’t want to and that he only came today for parent pleasing reasons and that was WALKY’S idea.

      1. cbwroses

        For LUCY pleasing reasons.
        Going to church does nothing for the parents, who don’t even know he did it.
        He did it as an apology to Lucy because of his mom’s attitude.

        1. Daibhid C

          And Lucy liked the idea because “You can tell your parents what a moral citizen I am!”

        2. cbwroses

          Which is another reason for it being Lucy approved.
          It’s still not the reason he suggested it.

        3. Devin

          And also has absolutely no bearing on anything. Linda has given absolutely no signs that going to church elevates anyone in her eyes.

          Lucy is having a hard time seeing outside of the lens of her own experiences. Which to be fair is a hard lesson to learn. She’s just definitely not there yet.

        4. Bryy

          I never thought that Lucy’s insistence that walky like church/convert is an extension of her imagining he said he loves her.

  38. Kaffeeteria

    Everybody knows Noah had to build a second ark because once the two brontosauruses stepped aboard the first one, it sank into the ground where now all the dino bones can be found.
    That’s science. *nod*

    1. Vulcanodon

      “I built a castle an ark, and it sank into the swamp…”

  39. Needfuldoer

    re: alt-text:

    Must be the residual Dorothy that’s still clinging to Walky.

  40. someone

    Don’t blame God for the brain sabotage, it’s humans who do it.

    1. Devin

      So I do, both individuals and institutions, but mostly because I find it less than useful to place blame on an entity I don’t believe exists and therefore cannot be held accountable. I’m not sure that’s the reasoning you were hoping for, but in the end it achieves the same thing, right?

      If this were more of a D&D type scenario, with more effable and interactive gods, I’d hold them at least a little responsible.

    2. eskimolos

      I’m sure those in the know, know that the correct quote is “Don’t blame us. Blame yourself or God.”

      I just needed to quote that, Devin said it better than me.

  41. Heather

    And then Joyce immediately freezes to death which helpfully side steps another argument for the Walky and Lucy pair. For now.

    1. Mark

      Nah, it’s Indiana, it’s January, it could be 45⁰ that day. (High in the twenties tomorrow.)

      1. Heather

        I mean there’s like snow so it has to be colder than (looks up) 7C. Probably closer to 0C/32F

        1. Mark

          It was colder.

  42. Amós Batista

    Yes, faith can really sabotage your brain.

  43. ValdVin

    Joyce is not wearing a jacket. She will get tuberculosis, somehow.

    We all know its the most Victorian romantic way to die. Joe will leave a single pale ? on her grave each anniversary of her passing.

    1. Reltzik

      Given how fast she ran out to correct Walky, more like TURBOculosis, am I righ- *vaudeville hook*

  44. BlackScarabFilmZ

    Now Dina has to teleport in to double-correct the dinosaur facts.

    1. Mark

      Teleportation is not real. Making inaccurate statements about dinosaurs changes history so that, now, Dina was there all along.

      1. John Campbell

        Dina has been there all along. She’s behind the door. Lying in wait to pounce on her Becky.

  45. Hof1991

    Christianity and the books of scripture (Hebrew and Christian) are like lego blocks. You can build just about anything using them. Universal salvation? Burning unbelievers in hell? Acceptance? Gatekeeping? Love for all. Genocide. It’s all in there.

    What you build says a lot about people, communities and societies.

    1. C.T. Phipps

      I mean you can but that’s because a lot of people flat out lie about what they say. They may not always say good things and say a lot of bad things but they do say things that charlatans use utterly misrepresent or lie about or claim mean the opposite for their own ends.

    2. Li

      Jewish folks meanwhile off to one side giving Christians side-eye like, “why are you taking our parables, mangling them in translation, and insisting on interpreting everything literally”

  46. Matt

    or maybe their argument made him realize he needs to be less exceptionally concerned about hurting Lucy’s feelings, or she will generate all sorts of internal stories that are kinder than reality

    1. Taffy

      Sometimes it’s a good thing to get your feelings hurt by somebody you care about.

    2. Bryy

      That, too. He is catching on.

  47. Vulcanodon

    Can relate to Joyce here. I often quote scripture and reference scriptural myths, though i am an atheist. It is similar to trading in the currency of the land in which I live.

    (Also I once studied for the ministry so I have a lot of that currency)

    1. Schpoonman

      The prose of the Bible can be really capturing in a way I have trouble better describing.

      Don’t tell me you’ve never thrown your arms wide and shouted “It is finished!” after a long and arduous task.

      Maybe it’s just having grown up constantly drilled in my head, but goddamn you’re right knowledge of the local major religion can make conversations with strangers easier. Also conversations with people close to you really really hard, which is kinda bullshit.

  48. David DeLaney

    so … does this count as a date

    –Dave, i mean, in-universe, we’ve seen worse

    1. Mark

      I hope so, because they still haven’t had that conversation and time is running out.

  49. Icalasari

    Dina is going to teleport in next

    1. Schpoonman

      It’ll be after Joyce mentions fire-breathing dinosaurs again.

  50. Bryy

    Lucy’s body language is, as always, not reassuring.

    1. eskimolos

      I get what you’re saying, I guess it seems more reasonable for her to be this way than bouncing joyfully as per usual – she’s just had some sobering revelations dropped on her head, and I’m sure she’s still processing for now.

  51. Juanoku

    There’s SNOW out, WHY IS SHE HERE

  52. Hinoron

    “God doesn’t yell”
    “He just had 100 strangers yell at me in unison, to a melody.”
    “Walky, that’s called singing.”
    “It is nonetheless a very loud method for indoctrinating someone into your cult’s beliefs.”
    “Christianity is not a cult.”
    “…Oh, you’re right. Over 500 members, it’s a ‘religion’. Hey wait! If Christianity is split into like 35,000 or so denominations, who disagree with each other enough that they aren’t willing to be counted as the same group, wouldn’t quite a lot of them be small enough to qualify as cults?”
    “…I’m ready to stop talking about church if you are.”
    “Hells yes!”

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