…you know, this story arc is really darn good. You manage to send the message without sacrificing a single bit of humor, and that’s what lots of comics failed at before.
It’s coming off as weird and non-nonsensical even for this comic. This last one has come off as a bit preachy.
I’m still hung up on how this is supposed to represent EVERY religion suing her…I mean, some religions don’t have hell. Some have a hell that everyone goes to for some amount of time to pay off their crimes…
That and this Judge could get kicked out his job for acting like this. He has to obey the law.
The rules of the court have to make some semblance of sense, though, if you’re trying to wrap it back around to some sort of real-world point, as it seems the writers must be trying to do. This whole arc is a bit dragged out, with not enough punchlines.
Not enough punchlines? I think that at least this strip does have a very good one, especially if we consider that Shitropolis is probably in the U.S. of A., and not in some semi-atheistic European or Asian country.
Actually, this last strip shows how gullible people are, and how much act out of fear or faith over reason and it’s making fun of it.
Or, in other words, you laugh when you want to weep. Oh, the humanity!
Have you been paying attention to the Judges on allot of these issues?
To many judges are in elected positions, and do NOT follow the law when it suits their politics and prejudices, and instead go on power trips. There are plenty who follow the law to the best of their ability, but there are also plenty who use their job to force their world view on others. There are even cases of someone being kicked out for violations and then getting re-elected back into the same position.
Heck if you look at the Us supreme court, and compare the rulings and reasonings of the judges there is clear bias from numerous judges who rule more along party lines then the law, and have even gone so far as to blatantly contradict themselves on cases do justify voting differently
One of the problems with copyright suits and patent trolls is the person filing the suit chooses where to file it, and selects the location where they will find a favorable or even bought judge. This is a judge is clearly sympathetic and had clearly made up his mind before the trial even started based on his first appearance, almost everything the Devil lawyer has put forth should have been thrown out instantly for multiple reasons.
There are even cases of someone being kicked out for violations and then getting re-elected back into the same position.
Heh, I hadn’t read this response of yours, before I wrote my own response, below this. You were thinking of ones like the example I threw out there, right?
… not that there haven’t been plenty of other examples to use.
… numerous judges who rule more along party lines then the law …
*cough*Scalia*cough*
At least he was fairly consistent, though. I was about to ask if Scalia was the douche-bag who said that the 1st Amendment only applies to Christianity, but then I did a few Google searches, before typing this sentence.
Nope, I was thinking of Judge Moore, the guy I referenced below. I should have thought of him in the first place. I don’t know why that attached to Scalia, in my mind.
Bryan Fischer has said the same thing at various times, but he’s just a spokesman for the AFA, not a judge.
Scalia was all for teaching Christian creationism in science classes, but at least he wasn’t so far gone as to say that only Christians are protected by the 1st Amendment. He left that to the other hundred or so judges who rule that way.
That and this Judge could get kicked out his job for acting like this. He has to obey the law.
Tell that to Roy Moore. The guy was removed from office, as the Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, over his repeated violation of an order to remove a Ten Commandments monument from his courtroom. That happened in 2003.
In 2012, he ran for and was elected to the position of Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, again. He’s currently in the news for ordering Alabama probate judges to not issue any gay marriage licenses. He’s now suspended from the bench, pending trial and ruling, and he’s almost certain to be removed from office again.
If he runs for Chief Justice again, in 2020, I’m sure he’ll probably be re-elected. You get this sort of insanity in lots of states, where the majority of voters are in favor of any number of flagrantly unconstitutional things.
Why do people in the comments seem to think she’s being sued by every religion? If you go back and look Good Girl reading the summons said she was being sued by “religion” not all religions, just an entity calling it self religion.
Animism does not count as “Religion” for the purposes of this story-arc. I think all the rest have hell or karma or something similar to scare people into submission. Even Buddhism, which may not have god but has karma anyhow.
Also, I don’t think that the Jews had an afterlife before Christianity bogarted Yahweh and started using him for their own purposes. I’m not sure what range of beliefs modern Jews have, since all of my Jewish friends are secular/atheistic Jews.
Checked and ancient Judaism believed in something like Greek Hades, called Sheol. Rabbinic Judaism believes additionally in Olam Haba, a sort of Heaven, open also for non-Jews, and Gehenna, a sort of Christian-like Hell-cum-Purgatory. Some do believe in reincarnation even.
Yeah, this may result in a hung jury.
Honestly, there are few places I could see that working, I would not think there are even enough Christians who truely believe in hell (what with the forgiving and ever loving God), and in my experience, people do not involve their personal beliefs in affairs such as these, of course, I may just completely underestimate how strong religion is in the US.
Err, only a few places in which you could see this working? You’re in New England or somewhere similar, aren’t you? ^.^
There’s usually some twisted justification for why a loving god would send people to hell. It often involves something about his perfect justice, having to punish humanity for sin … by torturing people eternally for the slightest thing. And somehow, letting people off for the worst atrocities, as long as they engage in a form of scapegoating, is also perfect justice. I’m not sure how they convince themselves that that’s perfect justice, but then I’ve never been religious.
And yes, you’re seriously underestimating how many fundamentalist extremists we have, here in the US. Somewhere between 20% and 40% (it’s hard to get a solid figure, since the numbers change depending upon the wording of the question) of people in the US think that the universe is less than 10,000 years old.
A theology student once explained it to me thus (heavily paraphrased, if my memory is accurate at all):
It is not god sending one to hell, but instead the devil claiming them, as one hasn’t done enough to put oneself closer to god. God and the devil are both trying to claim one’s soul, but if they is not close enough to god, the devil can get them instead.
P.S. Hell was just a dreary non-heaven place with ambient fire and brimstone until Dante wrote the world’s most renowned self insert fanfic, Dante’s Inferno.
That sounds like something they would say, yes, although that’s fairly primitive, as far as theology goes. It’s a slightly spiced up version of “God doesn’t send you to hell. You send yourself to hell.”
The problem is that what you’re relaying only works within a dualistic theology, involving a rivalry between two finite, opposed forces. If one side of the rivalry is omnipotent and omniscient, then the whole thing goes out the window. The responsibility falls wholly back on the omni-attributed entity.
I know a few theology students, myself, and I’ve read several Christian apologetics books. It’s a very obfuscatory, masturbatory endeavor. In my experience, a handful of stoners, high or drunk off of their asses to the point that they can’t stand, will come up with more fascinating concepts than a bunch of professional theologians.
If you want a good story, you have to remove the omnimax attributes of the Christian god and set him and Lucifer up in a more dualistic scenario. That’s what some of my favorite movies, such as Constantine, do.
And yeah, it’s amusing how most Christians don’t know that their concept of the devil comes from fanfic. The passages that lots of theologians point to as referring to Lucifer are explicitly referring to the king of Babylon and … Syria, I think it is. I can’t remember for sure which empire the second one is; it’s been a while since I’ve looked it up.
The first reference to the Morning Star is the king of Babylon, in Isaiah 14. Modern Christians only think that that passage is a reference to Lucifer because the writers of the New Testament thought that is was. The writers of the New Testament based their theology upon some pretty dodgy scholarship. You can see a lot of that in their attempts at having Jesus fulfill the prophesy of the Jewish scriptures. Most of the fulfilled prophesies weren’t even prophesies, as written in the Jewish scriptures.
To be precise Lucifer is Latin (“light bringer” and is therefore not in the pre-Vulgata Bible in any way. Lucifer referred to “the morning star” (either Venus or Mercury when in the correct position), to the Moon or the spiritual notion of Dawn (Aurora).
At some point it seems to have become conflated with the Greek legend of Prometheus and the Zoroastrian/Manichean one of Ahriman to create the non-Biblical notion of “fallen angel”, which is totally apocryphal. But, hey, “ex cathedra” direct connection to “God”, you know. Ironically Prometheus has some unlikely connections with Yaveh, because he created humankind out of clay (rings a bell?)
What does appear in the original Bible (and the Koran) is Satan, which translates as “the opponent”, “the obstructor”, and is in fact often translated as such “adversary”, “opponent”, “enemy”, without further ado. In very few instances the “being” appears as someone personal, as in Job.
Dante’s Hell is based on Hindu/Jain/Buddhist traditions, as always much more nuanced an detailed than Western ones in spiritual matters, including a frozen 7th hell.
Yeah, Hell is ALREADY FROZEN, part of it, in Eastern and Dante’s traditions. So it’s sorta pointless to say “till hell freezes” to certain people.
Note: however Oriental Hell is AFAIK for souls already so evil that they have become demons themselves. Otherwise you get normal terrestrial karma, which is rather like an endless purgatory.
It’s fun to speculate, though. So much of the best inspiration in art history comes from the use of really good narcotics and other mind-altering substances.
AFAIK Atheism has been growing a lot in the USA in the last few decades but still it compares best with Saudi Arabia than with your usual European country (except Poland, of course).
Don’t insult Saudi Arabia like that, by comparing it to the US, man. :-P Hell, Saudi Arabia is downright progressive, lately. A few days ago, the Saudi justice ministry issued a directive to give women a copy of their marriage contract, so that the women will know what’s in the document.
Depends which version of the mythology you subscribe to. Maybe you could describe him as the leader of the biggest gang in the prison? I dunno; it’s difficult to draw analogies to real-world scenarios.
If hell is a one-way only prison like the Pit in Dark Knight, then the toughest gang jailed makes the rules, as well as enforces them against the other inmates.
Seems you may be right. It’s an interesting issue because this matter of purgatory does not only segregate most ancient Christian churches from (most) Protestants but seems also rooted in the ancient Jewish schism that led to the formation of Christianity and Rabbinic Judaism, as it deals with references in the Septuaginta, specifically in Maccabees.
yes, about my point. A test to se if GG can not only doenough good fore the new form bud also deal with it on a social level where see seams to have a deliberate blindspot somtimes.
…you know, this story arc is really darn good. You manage to send the message without sacrificing a single bit of humor, and that’s what lots of comics failed at before.
Now DD’s argument makes sense of what’s been happening, for me at least.
I’m honestly finding it the opposite.
It’s coming off as weird and non-nonsensical even for this comic. This last one has come off as a bit preachy.
I’m still hung up on how this is supposed to represent EVERY religion suing her…I mean, some religions don’t have hell. Some have a hell that everyone goes to for some amount of time to pay off their crimes…
That and this Judge could get kicked out his job for acting like this. He has to obey the law.
The devil is evil, that’s why he’s claiming to speak for all religions.
I’m getting less and less sure this is a feint that direction.
Ditto.
Well, I’m enjoying this arc.
The laws of the court – like the laws of Physics – are entirely optional in a superheroic setting.
The rules of the court have to make some semblance of sense, though, if you’re trying to wrap it back around to some sort of real-world point, as it seems the writers must be trying to do. This whole arc is a bit dragged out, with not enough punchlines.
Not enough punchlines? I think that at least this strip does have a very good one, especially if we consider that Shitropolis is probably in the U.S. of A., and not in some semi-atheistic European or Asian country.
This one was better than most of the previous ones in this arc, yes.
Actually, this last strip shows how gullible people are, and how much act out of fear or faith over reason and it’s making fun of it.
Or, in other words, you laugh when you want to weep. Oh, the humanity!
Have you been paying attention to the Judges on allot of these issues?
To many judges are in elected positions, and do NOT follow the law when it suits their politics and prejudices, and instead go on power trips. There are plenty who follow the law to the best of their ability, but there are also plenty who use their job to force their world view on others. There are even cases of someone being kicked out for violations and then getting re-elected back into the same position.
Heck if you look at the Us supreme court, and compare the rulings and reasonings of the judges there is clear bias from numerous judges who rule more along party lines then the law, and have even gone so far as to blatantly contradict themselves on cases do justify voting differently
One of the problems with copyright suits and patent trolls is the person filing the suit chooses where to file it, and selects the location where they will find a favorable or even bought judge. This is a judge is clearly sympathetic and had clearly made up his mind before the trial even started based on his first appearance, almost everything the Devil lawyer has put forth should have been thrown out instantly for multiple reasons.
Heh, I hadn’t read this response of yours, before I wrote my own response, below this. You were thinking of ones like the example I threw out there, right?
… not that there haven’t been plenty of other examples to use.
*cough*Scalia*cough*
At least he was fairly consistent, though. I was about to ask if Scalia was the douche-bag who said that the 1st Amendment only applies to Christianity, but then I did a few Google searches, before typing this sentence.
Nope, I was thinking of Judge Moore, the guy I referenced below. I should have thought of him in the first place. I don’t know why that attached to Scalia, in my mind.
Bryan Fischer has said the same thing at various times, but he’s just a spokesman for the AFA, not a judge.
Scalia was all for teaching Christian creationism in science classes, but at least he wasn’t so far gone as to say that only Christians are protected by the 1st Amendment. He left that to the other hundred or so judges who rule that way.
Tell that to Roy Moore. The guy was removed from office, as the Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, over his repeated violation of an order to remove a Ten Commandments monument from his courtroom. That happened in 2003.
In 2012, he ran for and was elected to the position of Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, again. He’s currently in the news for ordering Alabama probate judges to not issue any gay marriage licenses. He’s now suspended from the bench, pending trial and ruling, and he’s almost certain to be removed from office again.
If he runs for Chief Justice again, in 2020, I’m sure he’ll probably be re-elected. You get this sort of insanity in lots of states, where the majority of voters are in favor of any number of flagrantly unconstitutional things.
Why do people in the comments seem to think she’s being sued by every religion? If you go back and look Good Girl reading the summons said she was being sued by “religion” not all religions, just an entity calling it self religion.
Page 539 – Opening Argument:
“I represent all religious organizations on this planet, who have set aside their differences to fight against threats to the very core of faith.”
The Lord of Lies strikes again!
Animism does not count as “Religion” for the purposes of this story-arc. I think all the rest have hell or karma or something similar to scare people into submission. Even Buddhism, which may not have god but has karma anyhow.
Hmm, what about deism?
Also, I don’t think that the Jews had an afterlife before Christianity bogarted Yahweh and started using him for their own purposes. I’m not sure what range of beliefs modern Jews have, since all of my Jewish friends are secular/atheistic Jews.
Checked and ancient Judaism believed in something like Greek Hades, called Sheol. Rabbinic Judaism believes additionally in Olam Haba, a sort of Heaven, open also for non-Jews, and Gehenna, a sort of Christian-like Hell-cum-Purgatory. Some do believe in reincarnation even.
Yeah, this may result in a hung jury.
Honestly, there are few places I could see that working, I would not think there are even enough Christians who truely believe in hell (what with the forgiving and ever loving God), and in my experience, people do not involve their personal beliefs in affairs such as these, of course, I may just completely underestimate how strong religion is in the US.
Err, only a few places in which you could see this working? You’re in New England or somewhere similar, aren’t you? ^.^
There’s usually some twisted justification for why a loving god would send people to hell. It often involves something about his perfect justice, having to punish humanity for sin … by torturing people eternally for the slightest thing. And somehow, letting people off for the worst atrocities, as long as they engage in a form of scapegoating, is also perfect justice. I’m not sure how they convince themselves that that’s perfect justice, but then I’ve never been religious.
And yes, you’re seriously underestimating how many fundamentalist extremists we have, here in the US. Somewhere between 20% and 40% (it’s hard to get a solid figure, since the numbers change depending upon the wording of the question) of people in the US think that the universe is less than 10,000 years old.
A theology student once explained it to me thus (heavily paraphrased, if my memory is accurate at all):
It is not god sending one to hell, but instead the devil claiming them, as one hasn’t done enough to put oneself closer to god. God and the devil are both trying to claim one’s soul, but if they is not close enough to god, the devil can get them instead.
P.S. Hell was just a dreary non-heaven place with ambient fire and brimstone until Dante wrote the world’s most renowned self insert fanfic, Dante’s Inferno.
That sounds like something they would say, yes, although that’s fairly primitive, as far as theology goes. It’s a slightly spiced up version of “God doesn’t send you to hell. You send yourself to hell.”
The problem is that what you’re relaying only works within a dualistic theology, involving a rivalry between two finite, opposed forces. If one side of the rivalry is omnipotent and omniscient, then the whole thing goes out the window. The responsibility falls wholly back on the omni-attributed entity.
I know a few theology students, myself, and I’ve read several Christian apologetics books. It’s a very obfuscatory, masturbatory endeavor. In my experience, a handful of stoners, high or drunk off of their asses to the point that they can’t stand, will come up with more fascinating concepts than a bunch of professional theologians.
If you want a good story, you have to remove the omnimax attributes of the Christian god and set him and Lucifer up in a more dualistic scenario. That’s what some of my favorite movies, such as Constantine, do.
And yeah, it’s amusing how most Christians don’t know that their concept of the devil comes from fanfic. The passages that lots of theologians point to as referring to Lucifer are explicitly referring to the king of Babylon and … Syria, I think it is. I can’t remember for sure which empire the second one is; it’s been a while since I’ve looked it up.
The first reference to the Morning Star is the king of Babylon, in Isaiah 14. Modern Christians only think that that passage is a reference to Lucifer because the writers of the New Testament thought that is was. The writers of the New Testament based their theology upon some pretty dodgy scholarship. You can see a lot of that in their attempts at having Jesus fulfill the prophesy of the Jewish scriptures. Most of the fulfilled prophesies weren’t even prophesies, as written in the Jewish scriptures.
To be precise Lucifer is Latin (“light bringer” and is therefore not in the pre-Vulgata Bible in any way. Lucifer referred to “the morning star” (either Venus or Mercury when in the correct position), to the Moon or the spiritual notion of Dawn (Aurora).
At some point it seems to have become conflated with the Greek legend of Prometheus and the Zoroastrian/Manichean one of Ahriman to create the non-Biblical notion of “fallen angel”, which is totally apocryphal. But, hey, “ex cathedra” direct connection to “God”, you know. Ironically Prometheus has some unlikely connections with Yaveh, because he created humankind out of clay (rings a bell?)
What does appear in the original Bible (and the Koran) is Satan, which translates as “the opponent”, “the obstructor”, and is in fact often translated as such “adversary”, “opponent”, “enemy”, without further ado. In very few instances the “being” appears as someone personal, as in Job.
Dante’s Hell is based on Hindu/Jain/Buddhist traditions, as always much more nuanced an detailed than Western ones in spiritual matters, including a frozen 7th hell.
Yeah, Hell is ALREADY FROZEN, part of it, in Eastern and Dante’s traditions. So it’s sorta pointless to say “till hell freezes” to certain people.
Note: however Oriental Hell is AFAIK for souls already so evil that they have become demons themselves. Otherwise you get normal terrestrial karma, which is rather like an endless purgatory.
So, what you’re saying is that all of the good … err, herbal remedies that Dante got his hands on came from the Indian region?
I wouldn’t dare to say so much but his seven-layered concept of Hell seems indeed to have such origins.
It’s fun to speculate, though. So much of the best inspiration in art history comes from the use of really good narcotics and other mind-altering substances.
AFAIK Atheism has been growing a lot in the USA in the last few decades but still it compares best with Saudi Arabia than with your usual European country (except Poland, of course).
Don’t insult Saudi Arabia like that, by comparing it to the US, man. :-P Hell, Saudi Arabia is downright progressive, lately. A few days ago, the Saudi justice ministry issued a directive to give women a copy of their marriage contract, so that the women will know what’s in the document.
Are they even allowed to read? Wow! One step ahead of the Taliban!
They can have a copy, at any rate. Your guess is as good as mine, as to whether or not they’ll be able to read it.
Isl of hope, isl of tears, isl his ancestors left that he may just have to return to if he looses this.
Considering where this is, over half of the jury has probably been to Hell and back. Somehow I doubt they’d be intimidated by that threat.
Agreeing with the Prince of lies will get you a nice ticket to hell.
I’m getting a bizarre combination of a Beatles song and an AC/DC song in my head, right now.
Nice one!
Ever heard of Beatallica?
Nope. I was referring to a combination of Ticket to Ride and Highway to Hell. What’s Beatallica?
Looks like this case is just going down to… well you know.
Err, Satan doesn’t send people to hell. Yahweh does. Satan is just the jailer.
Actually Satan is the inmate.
Depends which version of the mythology you subscribe to. Maybe you could describe him as the leader of the biggest gang in the prison? I dunno; it’s difficult to draw analogies to real-world scenarios.
Yeah, I’ll buy that.
If hell is a one-way only prison like the Pit in Dark Knight, then the toughest gang jailed makes the rules, as well as enforces them against the other inmates.
I’m not sure that they’ve changed the policy and have started letting people out of hell. That’s purgatory. So yeah, one way.
Hell would be a particularly rough place, since you can’t actually die from the gang wars. A masochist’s dream.
The Pope declared ex-cathedra some years ago that Purgatory does not exist. As for protestants, it’s not in the Bible, so…
You’re thinking of Limbo. The pope magicked away Limbo in 2007, but Purgatory is still a part of Catholic dogma.
Seems you may be right. It’s an interesting issue because this matter of purgatory does not only segregate most ancient Christian churches from (most) Protestants but seems also rooted in the ancient Jewish schism that led to the formation of Christianity and Rabbinic Judaism, as it deals with references in the Septuaginta, specifically in Maccabees.
Correction: Rabbinic Judaism does have a Hell/Purgatory: Gehenna. Although they break apart from Ancient Judaism in not acknowledging the Septuagint.
OBJECTION! The Plantiff is threatening the afterlives of the jury if they don’t vote in his favor.
Bailiff, please take that man into custody for attempted jury tampering.
Yeah, you’re supposed to contract out the jury tampering to the mob. They get annoyed if you step on their turf. You’d think Satan would know better.
Ah, but does the judge know better? I think not.
No worries. Vinnie will be sure to remind him, in the back alley behind the courthouse, after the trial.
Vinnie? Doesn’t he work for horns?
well she is screwed
Maybe.
So… openly threatening or otherwise coercing jurors. This is a thing.
“Might”, “just saying”. You have no case.
It’s a hell thing.
I’m getting the feeling that this is all ment symbolicly and not as canon. What could be he chage that this is all a spiritual test fore GG?
Or maybe a dream. From the very point where she get an angelic form
yes, about my point. A test to se if GG can not only doenough good fore the new form bud also deal with it on a social level where see seams to have a deliberate blindspot somtimes.
Just sayin’
Trump evangelism in a nutshell