I can taste the irony. Or maybe that’s just blood
LOL, sooo close and then WHOOSH, totally missed the point
This one makes my teeth itch
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The last section of the comic kinda hits deep to me because that’s exactly what happened once I worked up the nerve to leave Christianity. That was before I noticed the title, which just made it ironic.
I might still be religious if the creationist community didn’t exist. I met a lot of creationists in college. It was a mild culture shock. I believed in God and evolution. No issues.
They kept pestering me to look into the arguments. Long story, short: I eventually did. I just kept finding liar after liar. Found the lies didn’t stop on at pseudoscience either.
Thank you, creationist community. My life is better now.
There’s an old joke that the best way to create an atheist is to have them read the bible cover to cover. The more you know, the less it makes sense.
Same. The denomination I grew up in was adamant that the Bible had to be literally true in its entirety or none of it was valid at all. One I’d convinced myself that evolution was real and the universe was more than 6000 years old, I was like… “Welp, guess I gotta be an atheist now.”
Ah, well. That’s a bit different. I was trying to highlight how denominations like the one you grew up in chase away souls in the more liberal denominations. It was harder to see the lies when were not so falsifiable. But the science lies, aka the falsifiable ones, led me to explore a bit more. I think our paths converge there.
Coming from the “I did my own research” crowd this shit is mind boggling. Aren’t they the ones disagreeing with the scientific community regularly?
Waking up as a conservative must be like
Oh boy time to look for credible information on Facebook!
They have the horse blinders on and also have the fucking mouthpiece attached that makes them spew the rhetoric they see on headlines of Fox. And don’t you dare ask for any further details because that’s just asking to hear the same headline again
Omfg it’s infuriating…
When we had Trump and all the Russian investigations my dad would send me some bullshit fox news opinion article and then I would spend hours going over the actual information from the government, id go over the hearing, I even explained numerous times how this or that individual uses specific words as they have legal meaning from xyz source.
His reply would be another fucking Fox news opinion article.
I went through a phase of trying to argue facts with Trump supporters in my extended network of family and friends. I finally decided it wasn’t worth it when the last of them I was in touch with went absolutely bugshit insane during COVID lockdowns, but probably the most demoralizing one was when I spent weeks going back and forth with a friend of a friend via DMs, citing research papers and statistics, only to be ultimately blown off with an admission that the guy didn’t care about any of it beyond who was going to be friendlier to the oil industry (he worked as a safety consultant for offshore operations). No amount of racism, bigotry or violence was enough to sway him away from Trump as long as his own pocket was being lined appropriately.
I briefly went back to check how he was feeling about that when WTI crude went negative in the early days of COVID, but he was just parroting the Texas lieutenant governor’s line about how grannies should feel proud to die for the economy, so I didn’t even bother razzing him about it.
Don’t talk to him then.
Remember the study that linked lower intelligence to right wing beliefs?
That’s why so many people become way more liberal after they leave home and go to higher education, they literally grow their brain.
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That’s why I am leery of people who live in the same small town all their lives. How can you have any reasonable perspective on others? But you go to university and meet a broad spectrum of people with diverse ideas and backgrounds and you come to realize you don’t know very much yet. And you learn. That’s why conservatives hate higher education and rant and rave that it indoctrinates their children away from being conservative, it is SUPPOSED to because you are being EDUCATED away from the beliefs of stupidity they hold. Because conservative beliefs are stupid.
It’s also why they rant and rave a out policing the internet. It used to be that getting out of your small town and going to ANY type of higher learning like community college or a even some trade schools was enough to grow, learn, and meet diverse groups of people. Now you don’t ever have to leave your small town to learn, grow, and be presented the largest collective of diversity ever. It’s sitting in the palm of your hand.
And it’s called KillaryEatsBabies.redstate. com.
Anyone else think a lot of conservatives feel this way?
Nah, too self aware to be conservative. They’ve already done their research in the form of listening to half a dozen right-wing commentators. They’re all saying the same thing so that must make it true.
I would say something like “this comic goes both ways” but it is way too stupid anyway so im not giving it any credit.
A lot of everyone feels this way, really.
If the world will suddenly give birth to an ultimate rational argument to go conservative, we’ll face the same issues. It’s just that for now feeling and understanding coincide.
It is very important to keep in mind when holding any political discussion. We can be wrong. We are emotional about our positions. Doesn’t necessarily make them any wrong, just makes us attached to them beyond pure absolute cold reason.
I think awareness of these biases can be enough to avoid them. I am certainly a leftist but if a conservative position makes sense, and has logic, reasoning, and data behind it, then I would likely support that position. Dogma has no place in the modern world.
It’s great to have an open mind, it’s a prerequisite for critical thinking.
But often times awareness itself might not be enough, as I see it. Emotions are a much bigger driving force than we give it credit, and if you’re deeply ingrained into a community with certain beliefs, it might cause a deep crisis when you change them. Mileage will vary, but emotions will always influence your thinking on this way, and some won’t ever be able to escape.
“Flaired users only”
How very pro free speech they are!
There was literally a popup that I saw posted on here a little while ago from r/conservative that tells you essentially “this is a conservative safe space, difference of opinion is not welcome, we do not wish to have outsiders try to change our beliefs. This is for conservatives to discuss conservativism.”
They’re a fucking joke.
“Look at me, I’m the snowflake now.”
They always have been
“Every accusation a confession” and all that.
Are you upset at the hypocrisy or the concept itself?
Just the hypocrisy really
And just like hexbears all their focus and attention go to liberals lmao. Same energy in both circles.
Which is why I said tankies are red fash. They are just fascists who took the aesthetic of socialism.
They can’t discuss the problems with conservatism because it’s too close to their favorite autocratic authoritarian hellholes and they may get disappeared for being a dissenter. Really talking shit on liberals is all they have in life. It’s sad.
… being mean to liberals is fascism now?
No. Being sycophants for authoritarian and totalitarian regimes. Supporting Russia and China when they are committing genocide and are oligarchies and state capitlist. Spouting reactionary nonesense. Using the facade of socialism and progressivism to hide fascistic ideology.
You know, same BS American Repubs do and conservatives and fascists of yore.
Stop watering down the meaning of genocide! Twice as many civilians have died in Gaza as in Ukraine, and there’s no comparison at all between Gaza and Xinjiang province. More children have died in Gaza than the total number of civilians in Ukraine. Compare the numbers of journalists killed, aid workers killed, hospital staff killed, UN workers killed, there’s no contest. Gaza is what genocide actually looks like, and it comes across as shallow and hypocritical to call hexbears fascist when you’re the one that’s going to vote for genocide.
I’m talking about the Uyghurs?
I’m sorry what? This genocide has killed more people than that genocide therefore…what’s your argument exactly?
A genocide is a genocide, and I’m sure I’m with a lot of people when I say, let’s push to stop genocide altogether. Whether that’s in our own countries, in neighboring countries, in countries from across the world and even in countries we may not have heard of, any genocide is bad.
It’s because a significant number of hexbears are right wing Poe’s law trolls.
“Anyone else think a lot of liberals feel this way?”
/r/Conservative, “Flaired users only.”
…
Republican projection once again I see. They are nothing if not consistent (and predictable).
And masterful gaslighters
They posted about a study on “do your own research” today on Vice. Very interesting read.
Scientists Explain Why ‘Doing Your Own Research’ Leads to Believing Conspiracies https://www.vice.com/en/article/v7bjpm/scientists-explain-why-doing-your-own-research-leads-to-buying-conspiracies
There goes every doctoral thesis.
doctoral theses aren’t researched with a google search.
That’s the joke.
Well, I thought it was funny.
I thought it was hilarious, for what it’s worth.
Well, Google scholar is used. But I get your point.
Da bibble is full of the truths I need. There’s no smaller seed than a mustard seed, and bats are another variety of bird. Is it the truth, or is it what you’ve been told you must believe lest ye risk ostracizing yourself from your peers?
I feel projection of right wing levels.
There’s no smaller seed than a mustard seed
There might be more to that one than you think.
Here was the only group in antiquity with a different explanation for the sower parable (that it was about physical creation of the cosmos) talking about the mustard seed:
That which is, he says, nothing, and which consists of nothing, inasmuch as it is indivisible — (I mean) a point — will become through its own reflective power a certain incomprehensible magnitude. This, he says, is the kingdom of heaven, the grain of mustard seed
- Pseudo-Hippolytus Refutations 5.4
This group kept describing seeds as being indivisible points that make up all things and were the originating cause of the universe.
Language pretty much straight out of Lucretius’s De Rerum Natura where describing the atomism of Epicureanism for a Roman audience couldn’t use the Greek atomos (‘indivisible’) and used the word for ‘seed’ instead.
In a book widely popular in the Roman empire 50 years before Jesus was born.
In fact, Lucretius’s book is not only the only surviving book from antiquity to explicitly describe survival of the fittest being the mechanism by which mutants in nature survived or died off based on adaptation, but specifically used the language of “seed falling by the wayside of a path” to describe failed biological reproduction.
Again, in a book 80 years before a guy allegedly talking about how only what survived of randomly scattered seeds multipled and the seed that fell by the wayside of a path did not. In a public saying that was the only one in the earliest gospel to canonically have a “secret explanation” later on. Why were they so threatened by this saying?
There may have been more to the context around what these sayings about seeds from a guy killed by request of religious orthodoxy leadership were about in a culture where also from the 1st century a Rabbi was recorded as saying “why do we study the Torah? To know how to answer the Epicurean.”
Don’t just take at face value what cannonical Christianity says with its damage control versions of secret explanations and boring ass nonsense about ‘faith growing.’
Both your comments are fascinating but I’m not sure what then was Jesus trying to say when speaking about the seeds? In most of His actions Jesus speaks out against the empires of man, how does this lend into that narrative?
Full disclosure: I consider myself an original Christian, I believe the good news(gospel) is that when Jesus returns He will establish a fair, equitable, and just society here on earth, resurrect everyone then invite them to participate.
It kind of depends on which Jesus.
Based on your disclosure, you are concerned with the cannonical depiction of Jesus. In which case what he was allegedly discussing with these two seeds parables were the growth of faith.
But as can be seen from 2 Cor 11, before the gospels are written there are other versions of Jesus floating around, and a number of the topics Paul writes about to Corinth in 1 Cor overlap with the group who thought Jesus was effectively citing Lucretius in his seed parables. You can even see that in 1 Cor 15 Paul refers to sown seeds in the context of the human body where he also talks about a first physical man vs a second spiritual man. It’s only in 2 Cor that we see Paul talk about sown seeds relating to proselytizing.
This other extra-canonical group with ideas overlapping with early Corinth and their “other version of Jesus” had a very different eschatology from cannonical Christianity, and in their case they explained these parables as effectively relating to Greek atomism, but with the specific language of Lucretius. In fact, the apocryphal text they were following is filled with sayings of a Jesus very concerned with addressing the philosophical points of Leucretius in a rebuttal of the Epicurean belief there was nothing after death.
Essentially, there were at least two versions of Jesus in antiquity. One that was talking about evolution and matter being made of indivisible parts, and one that was not saying anything about this. The one that was canonized and a third of the world believes in today was the latter one, but personally I find the former a bit more astonishing coming from an age where these ideas were fringe and unconformable concepts but is now being read in an age where they are largely recognized as facts.
It actually reminds me of the structure of the third seed parable. That in the earlier age when they couldn’t tell what ideas were wheat and which ideas were weeds it would have been better to have waited preserving both until such a time it was clear which ideas were wheat and which were weeds. But instead the church perhaps prematurely labeled this other tradition as weeds, it was banned on penalty of death to even possess, and we only know of it today from works buried and lost for millennia and only recently rediscovered.
(This too was an idea in Lucretius - that it would be a mistake to throw out explanations for things before knowing for sure what was correct.)
To the last point ironically I believe the main Christian faith to be the weeds in that parable.
Thank you for explaining that, ive been reading de rerum Natura to get a better understanding of what you’ve said but I’ve not made it very far, got distracted after reading up to line 100.
I also will be rereading your comments as this has helped me get a better understanding of your original comments, as I think i overlooked a few key words based off what you’ve said here.
Thank you for explaining that, ive been reading de rerum Natura to get a better understanding of what you’ve said but I’ve not made it very far, got distracted after reading up to line 100.
I think it’s a great read and very eye opening about just how advanced some ideas in antiquity were, but it can be either an insurmountable read or an enjoyable one depending on the translation.
I’d recommend this translation: https://www.amazon.com/Nature-Things-Penguin-Classics/dp/0140447962
It’s much more digestible than the older translations with stilted language and does a great job in modernizing the poetic aspects for an English audience.
Don’t forget the fact that the Bible requires that any woman who isn’t a virgin when married be executed. So, pretty much every republican woman.
If they actually followed the Bible, there wouldn’t be any Republicans left.
The Old Testament only applies when it’s convenient
And, calling it a “testament” when no one’s swearing to its veracity on their soveriegn’s/leader’s/dad’s balls… Is just lazy.
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I’m not sure if this is a pun or whether you have been led to believe that the word testament is derived from the action you state? The additional biblical meaning coming from a confusion of the two meanings of Greek diatheke, which meant both “covenant, dispensation” and “will, testament”.
In his article, ‘A “WITNESS” AND A “TESTICLE”? A LINGUISTIC ANALYSIS OF THE LATIN WORD “TESTIS”’ (Carmenta, Sep 26, 2014.), Harvard scholar Larry Myer gives the following philological analysis, based largely on the works of the Princeton classicist, Joshua Katz:
‘Students of Latin are often struck by the fact that the same Latin word testis meant both a “witness” and a “testicle.” In fact, ancient Roman writers, like Plautus, sometimes played with this double meaning. Surprisingly, no scholar had satisfactorily accounted for the origin of this puzzling ambiguity until 1998, when the Princeton Classicist Joshua Katz published his article “Testimonia Ritus Italici: Male Genitalia, Solemn Declarations, and a New Latin Sound Law” in Harvard Studies in Classical Philology.
‘According to Katz (and others before him) the original Indo-European form of testis was trito-sth2-i meaning “a third person standing,” i.e. a third person standing by in order to witness some event (sth2, the second part of the IE form, is related to the Latin word sto, stare to stand). So testis originally meant a “witness.” But how did it come to mean “testicle” as well? In order to answer this question, Katz begins by citing Near Eastern examples of men holding someone’s genitals while they swear an oath. In one famous instance from the Hebrew Bible, Jacob instructs his son Joseph…’
You replied to second my point?
It also gives instructions to priests on how to perform abortions if a woman isn’t faithful to her husband!
Conservatives & strawman arguments go together like peanut butter & jelly.
And projection
Can confirm, pb & j & projection sandwiches are the bomb
“Science: two biological genders!”
“Oh yeah? Also science: 3.5 billion years of evolution.”
“I don’t wanna talk about this anymore, I have a headache.”…and so it goes…
Fun fact: Modern science does not say that there are only two biological genders but that even on a biological level, there is a spectrum. For example, there are measurable differences between the brains of a woman and a transgender man and there are more viable chromosome combinations than XY and XX.
Klinefelter syndrome with XXY is the most common of the non-standard combinations, but only account for about 1/1000 of male births. Combinatorics of sex chromosome aneuploidies such as XXX, XXY, XXXY and so on does only give a finite number of combinations.
I do not really see why this argument is brought up so often. Is it neccesary to speak of chromosmes to validate gender identity?
It is basically the entire premise of their argument, and it’s wrong, so yes.
Since most transphobes base their arguments primarily on a perceived biological binary, the argument needs to be brought up.
The psychological and sociological arguments around gender identity and expression sadly aren’t very fruitful when the people you’re trying to convince fixate on biology knowledge that has been refuted for decades.
Okay, I see. I am not from the US, which might be guessed from my misspelling of “necessary” above. I am sorry you have to deal with those people, but for what it is worth they are not so abundant here (in my experience at least).
I’m not from the US either, have met my fair share of idiots both on- and offline though…
Did not mean to make an assumption about you, merely say that the culture war waged by reactionaries is foreign to me.
No worries. I’m luckily also mostly spared from personal confrontations with assholes in my country
You have to connect with people based on their existing world view. If they think gender identity must be exclusively determined by chromosomes, then talking about XXY and YYX and whatnot can help them see that it’s not as simple as only two genders. It’s my understanding that the intersex rate is more like 1%, but it’s been a while since I looked into it and I don’t know the mechanism behind the other ones.
It could very well be higher than I wrote as there is evidence of it being underdiagnosed. I just do not see why chromosomes are pertinent to discussing gender identity when I think the point is that anyone should be able to self determine whatever they want to identify as.
Heart’s in the right place but can I just break down “biological gender” for a sec? Gender is more or less a Victorian euphemism for “sex”. The word’s original usage and origins are actually close to “genre” like book genre and in modern usage it works closer to “genre” as it describes an internal sense of affiliation to a cultural or phenotypic category or abstention from category drawn culturally broadly along reproductive groups. It’s a fuzzy line that we don’t use biology to try and police on purpose. It’s more the realm of psychology and wrapped up in questions of what supports a fulfilling life of interpersonal connection.
Gender is a lot of things but if you are talking about sexual characteristics and intersex people it’s important to distinguish and highlight that discussions about sex characteristics and gender distinctions are two separate conversations with two mostly unrelated minorites. Very often I see intersex people’s existence being used as a conservative gotcha for support of trans folk like myself and… It doesn’t work. They know trans and intersex folk aren’t the same thing and you are trying to red herring them off of the discussion they really want to have. Also… Intersex issues deserve more individual spotlight where they aren’t mashed in with transgender advocacy. They have their own unique battles with beaurcracy, society, mental health and so on. Give em some love sometimes. Talk about how our social concepts of binary sex has medical and social consequences for them. They need the press too.
Severing the old euphemism “gender” completely from the word “sex” so we can better have these discussions is a start. A lot of Conservatives use the two interchangeably to imply that gender doesn’t exist, to them it is just a synonym for sex so word combos like “biological gender” is developing into a unique alt right dog whistle with it’s own google alt-right web result pit so just wanna give you a heads up on that front.
I’m aware there’s a distinction between gender identity (psychology), gender expression (sociology) and sex (biology). I used the “biological gender” term since the comment I’m answering to did. I could have expressed myself clearer though. I’m just gonna use the fact English isn’t my mother tongue as an excuse here…
Generally my argument is „sex isn‘t binary (and shouldn’t be regarded as such), so why would gender (both identity and expression) be?“
Besides, sex is a spectrum beyond chromosomes. Even two XX or two XY people can have differing physiologies when it comes to hormones, etc. resulting in one appearing more masculine and one more feminine.
It’s rough even for English as a first language speakers. The alt-right, conservatives and transphobes in general have these little subtle words they use to signal their transphobia to each other and signal their intent to troll or that their real intentions while pretending to debate in earnest. “Biological gender” is a more frequent one but they get waaaaay more subtle.
One you see in the UK that is SUPER subtle is transwoman or transman. Properly speaking trans is a separate adjective so it modifies the noun. “The woman is trans” in effect. By removing the space in trans woman they sort of signal their intent and allegiance by creating a whole new noun as in : “That’s not a woman that’s a transwoman” it’s so subtle it could just be accidental and leaves plausible deniabillity for the user of the term… but trans folk get used to seeing these little cues that signal that the writer or speaker is getting their talking points from very specific hostile sources. Language has been very weirdly weaponized but when you understand what is happening it can help you figure out the diehard transphobes who are wasting your time and good faith from the people actually just properly duped by the misinformation brokered by those with malicious intent.
Basic biology: there are 2 genders
Basic math: 15 is not divideable by 4
Mathematical biology: the amount of genders is not a natural number (assuming it’s a spectrum), but it is countable
Never heard of π-sexuality?
Hey we’ve all watched American Pie.
Pisexuals should just stop kidding themselves
\frac{ing}{idiots}
But seriously: isn’t there a bride flag with a π on it?
Edit: it’s polyamory
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biological gender
Is that something like clockwork joke or liquid ennui?
Because of the fact that it takes roughly 100,000,000 years for DNA to double in complexity, some scientists have estimated that we actually are closer to 7 billion years of necessary evolution to create us. That just raises more questions though since our planet is around 4.5 billion years old.
I think the content speaks for itself. It’s shit.
But let’s talk about the typography: as someone who uses LaTeX, and irrationally hates bad typography, this one seems targeted. Look at the absolute state of the fourth panel! Ewwww. The river— I just can’t!
The content is great!
- the original comic is exactly why deprogramming cult members is hard: they recoil at the mere hint of a thought that the base of their community and identity might be wrong
- It’s deeply ironic that deeply religious cult members like modern day US “conservatives” unironically post this comic
I’m sure Zach loves his comic being used against him. The gall…
