My English 2010 students this past semester had to write argumentative essays for their final assignment, in which they researched a current issue and took a stand on it. I told them multiple times that while they would probably start out with an opinion on their topic, they should keep an open mind and be willing to change it if the research led them in a different direction, instead of trying to make it conform with what they already believed. I don't know how many took that advice in practice. But I had a student who started with the opinion that transgender athletes should be banned because of their unfair physical advantages, and then after he did the research he changed his mind. He found that there's a lot of misinformation on this topic. He found that when people complained about transgender high school wrestler Mack Beggs dominating girls' wrestling, they wrongly claimed or implied that Beggs' transition was male-to-female instead of the opposite and left out the part where he wanted to wrestle with boys and was denied by Texas law. He found that transgender women are not dominating women's sports to anywhere near the extent that people (specifically Republicans) claim they are. He found that their physical advantage is severely curtailed by the hormone treatments they're required to take, and that various cisgender athletes also have unfair physical advantages for the simple reason that people's bodies are different. Perfect parity in sports is impossible to achieve, but in his view (which I share, though I have less credibility since I don't really give a crap about sports), it's best served by letting the small number of transgender athletes participate with the gender they identify as, provided they meet the same physical requirements as everyone else. I'm so proud of his open-mindedness, and his essay was one of my favorites. I'm not an expert on this topic by a long shot, but I noticed quite a while ago that people who deny the validity of intersex, transgender, and non-binary people's experiences are the ones who invariably end up looking stupid in online arguments, because they just repeat "There are only two genders" while their opponents cite scientific research. These people insist that they're the ones on the side of biology and common sense, yet their understanding of sex and gender remains at the elementary-school level of "penis equals male and vagina equals female." And at this point their ignorance is a deliberate choice. Lots of information is out there for anyone who cares to look at it, but they choose to pretend otherwise, obviously to protect themselves from the cognitive dissonance that the actual complexity of sex and gender causes with their beliefs. In my book this qualifies as lying. And it leads them to something that should cause even more cognitive dissonance with their beliefs - bearing false witness against their neighbors. This year I've been disgusted by members of my church and other so-called Christians lying about Lia Thomas' athletic record and lying that transgender athletes are overrunning women's sports and we should all be very afraid of them. I'm disgusted by the Utah Legislature's recent passage of an all-out ban to address the nonexistent problems not being caused by Utah's four transgender high school athletes. (But I'm proud of Governor Spencer Cox for jeopardizing his reelection by vetoing the bill on principle even though he couldn't stop it.) My favorite lie about this topic is that gender dysphoria is caused by Satan's lies. Apparently Satan can just whisper in a girl's ear that she's a boy and that explains everything. This kind of thinking is about on par with diagnosing epilepsy as witchcraft. My second favorite lie is that all sex and gender anomalies can be lumped together and dismissed as "mental illness," not because these liars have one iota of love or compassion for people with mental illness, but because they don't. Anyway, the other day someone in the church's Newsroom group on Facebook mentioned transgender people and said "We need to show them love, and also have the courage to steer them in the right direction with a good loving advice led by the Holy Ghost." I saw an opportunity to speak up, but because I wanted to actually make a positive impact on people and not start an argument (I do switch things up once in a while), I limited my remarks to something so basic that no one seriously attempting to follow Christ could have a problem with it. Given that posts in this group about how Covid exists or how we shouldn't be racist are regularly overrun by triggered right-wing snowflakes who make me want nothing to do with the church, I was pleasantly surprised by my comment's positive reception. Only one person argued with me, in fact, and she was very polite and capable of writing mostly coherent sentences. But she obviously misunderstood me because she went on about chastity and how we can call people to repentance without being unkind, when all I said was that telling a transgender person they're not the gender they think they are doesn't magically make them stop feeling like the gender you say they aren't. And she also brought gay marriage into it for some reason. So at that point I did bring up the fact that sex and gender are demonstrably far more complicated than the church tries to make them, and that unless you've examined a person inside and out and down to the cellular level (which would be gross), you don't know how much they biologically lean one way or the other, let alone what eternal gender their spirit is supposed to be, and should mind your own business. I linked to this article for more details - all of them physical, tangible realities of people's bodies, not even touching on the touchier subject of gender identity. As one would expect, she doubled down and responded to the details by not responding to them at all. Her non-response was the inspiration for this post. If she wasn't saying that gender dysphoria is a sin, then she had literally no reason to start arguing with me. I hadn't said anything related to chastity or anything about sex reassignment surgery (or same-sex attraction for that matter). I hope this comment's lack of substance is self-evident enough that I don't need to analyze every sentence here. If this is the best argument you can come up with to defend your viewpoint when presented with substantial inconvenient evidence, then your viewpoint almost certainly doesn't deserve to be defended. In this case I mean the infantile and demonstrably wrong viewpoint of sex and gender, not the entire gospel, which I believe can stand on its own without lying about science - but if this argument represents the level of intellectual and spiritual rigor that God expects of me in defending the gospel, then count me out. I will just say that accusing LGBTQ+ people of promoting division in this nation, as opposed to, oh I don't know, the straight cisgender people who have persecuted them for centuries, is really ignorant. Most of this comment is really ignorant, but I just felt compelled to point out that this particular part, like most of the parts, is really ignorant. It's like blaming racial minorities for the racial unrest in this nation. Oh wait, conservatives do that too. Anyway, "the Pride narrative" literally only exists because LGBTQ+ people have had to assert their right to be accepted as human beings and not hate themselves for the way God made them. Pride is the opposite of shame. Also, of all the things the Bible is good for, a science textbook is not one of them. Also, the Bible says God created day and night, but I don't see anyone complaining that scientists worship Satan because they've determined that various stages of twilight exist. But again, in fairness, only this one person argued with me. A few others pushed back against her. People like this guy are the future of the church, unless they all leave because it's a toxic environment for them. Ah yes, the laugh reaction (which came from someone else who didn't participate in the discussion) is also a standard fallback for people who can't refute facts and are allergic to empathy for anyone different than them. Dallin H. Oaks did state in late 2019 that "the intended meaning of gender in the family proclamation and as used in Church statements and publications since that time is biological sex at birth." But that was a few months before the church updated its handbook to acknowledge for the first time in its history that intersex people exist - albeit only one very limited kind of intersex people - so maybe it's different now. Or does President Oaks really mean to imply (in keeping with the family proclamation's vague statement) that people who are biologically intersex at birth were created with intersex spirits and will continue to be intersex for eternity? Somehow that doesn't seem like an idea he would accept. I apologize for the snark, but intersex people have been known to exist for the entirety of human history, so I feel just a little impatient.
On a related note, a few months ago BYU administrators directed the Department of Communication Disorders to cease providing gender-affirming speech therapy for three transgender students. This is a violation of both the HIPAA Privacy Rule and the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association Code of Ethics, and consequently BYU is under investigation (again) and its speech-language pathology Masters program will most likely lose accreditation if it doesn't reverse course. I won't lose a moment of sleep over BYU getting what it deserves, but I will feel awful for the faculty who, according to rumors that I have no reason to doubt, are not in agreement with this decision, and for the students who will be royally screwed over when the degrees they invested their time and money in turn out to be even more worthless than most college degrees. And then BYU administrators and church leaders will probably spin the incident 180 degrees backwards and portray themselves as the ones being persecuted.
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Last week in Elders Quorum, the teacher asked us what things we wish we knew about Jesus. I chickened out of sharing my question because it was too weird. My question was this: since we know that the Atonement covers non-human animals in some way, because they will also be resurrected and inherit eternal bliss, did Jesus also experience their lives and all of their pain as He did for us?
This pain is not insignificant. It was a leading cause of Charles Darwin's faith crisis. He wrote, "With respect to the theological view of the question; this is always painful to me. I had no intention to write atheistically. But I own that I cannot see, as plainly as others do, & as I wish to do, evidence of design & beneficience on all sides of us. There seems to me too much misery in the world. I cannot persuade myself that a beneficient & omnipotent God would have designedly created the Ichneumonidae with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of caterpillars, or that a cat should play with mice." More recently, militant atheist Richard Dawkins wrote: "The total amount of suffering per year in the natural world is beyond all decent contemplation. During the minute that it takes me to compose this sentence, thousands of animals are being eaten alive, many others are running for their lives, whimpering with fear, others are slowly being devoured from within by rasping parasites, thousands of all kinds are dying of starvation, thirst, and disease. It must be so. If there ever is a time of plenty, this very fact will automatically lead to an increase in the population until the natural state of starvation and misery is restored." Non-human animals deserve to suffer even less than most of us do. And in a way, their suffering is all the more cruel, because they lack the mental capacity that most of us have to contextualize and cope with pain. And yet God requires their suffering as an integral part of their mortal existence, just as He does of us. It seems reasonable to me, then, that Jesus was willing to go through everything that was required of them, just as He was willing for us. And as I contemplate that, I have another question: even though non-human animals are (probably) not accountable when they rape or murder each other, does Jesus still have to pay a price for those violations of moral laws, as He does when humans sin in ignorance? This is all, of course, just a less considered subset of the problem of evil that everyone knows about. Daniel C. Peterson has said: "Consider... this supremely complacent remark, offered by a vocal atheist critic of Mormonism during a 2001 Internet discussion: 'If there were a God,' he reflected, 'I think (s)he’d enjoy hanging out with me - perhaps sipping on a fine Merlot under the night sky while devising a grand unified theory.' Only someone very comfortably situated could be so marinated in smugness about the question of whether or not God exists. "But the vast majority of the world’s population is not so situated, and, for them, atheism, if true, is very bad news indeed. Most of the world’s population, historically and still today, does not live, well fed and well traveled, to a placid old age surrounded by creature comforts. Most of the world has been and is like the favelas of Rio de Janeiro, the slums of Cairo, the backward rural villages of India, the famine-ridden deserts of northeastern Africa, the war-ravaged towns of the southern Sudan and of Rwanda. If there is going to be a truly happy ending for the millions upon millions of those whose lives have been blighted by torture, starvation, disease, rape, and murder, that ending will have to come in a future life. And such a future life seems to require a God. "Yes, the problem of evil is a huge one, but to give up on God is to give evil the final say. It is to admit that child rapists and murderers dictate the final chapters in the lives of their terrified and agonized victims; that Hitler and Stalin and Pol Pot really did triumph, forever, over the millions they slaughtered; that, in the rotting corpses of Darfur and Iraqi Kurdistan, we see the final, definitive chapter of thousands of lives; that there is, really, no hope for those whose health is in irreversible decline; that every human relationship ends in death, if not before. "This would not be good news, and I see no compelling reason to accept it. In fact, I see numerous persuasive reasons to reject the claim. But that is a subject not just for another occasion but, necessarily, for a great number of other occasions." First and foremost, I believe in the message of Easter, that Jesus rose from the dead and that all people and other animals will likewise rise from the dead, because without some compensatory afterlife, existence is as depressing and pointless as Richard Dawkins suggested in the rest of his quote: "In a universe of electrons and selfish genes, blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won't find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference." Wanting to believe in a purpose doesn't mean there is one, but if I'm wrong, I've lost nothing. And faith and hope go together for a reason. (I do recognize that other belief systems about the afterlife exist, Christian or otherwise, and there are reasons why I believe mine makes the most sense, but I don't want to denigrate the others by getting into that.) Happy Easter. Ben Spackman, a scholar of religious and scientific history who's been very influential on my thinking in recent years, wrote a blog post last month on why you should ignore the 1980 (and current) Institute Old Testament manual for teaching Genesis. I have a personal grudge against that manual. I've never been taught from it, but I read from the copy that my parents had laying around, and between the General Authority quotes that it implies to represent an official stance of the Church, and the "scientific" arguments in the Seventh Day Adventist tract that it excerpts at great length, it persuaded me to become an evolution denier for a couple years. Despite not understanding how Adam and Eve could be reconciled with other early hominids, it had never occurred to me that there was any great unbridgable gulf between the Bible and modern science. This manual assured me that there was. And despite this kind of anti-evolution rhetoric disappearing from other church publications and venues, in this instance it hasn't been revised in forty-two years. I've heard rumors here and there that multiple attempts have been made to update the manual but people couldn't agree on what to say or hesitated to throw Joseph Fielding Smith under the bus.
Despite my strong disagreement with everything in this part of the manual, and my distaste for its lack of honesty in not disclosing any of the quotes more favorable or agnostic toward evolution that also exist in church history, I would have assumed that its author was a decent guy of reasonable intelligence. Come to find out from Spackman's post, which discusses research that he'll publish in a paper later this year, that its author was in fact the biggest crackpot church leaders could have found. He has some stiff competition for that title, but I bestow it because he thought women shouldn't vote, long after that debate was settled. So this guy was buddy-buddy with some prominent Apostles, he got to write a section of a church manual that would influence millions of people for decades to come, he got to remain anonymous so nobody could hold him accountable for his personal views - keeping church manual authors anonymous is standard practice, but it didn't used to be, and I don't think it should be anymore either, because it gives the erroneous impression that these manuals are all written by a faceless monolith known as "the Church" - and then Correlation let it through with just one change, and then it was left in place unchanged for four decades and counting. To be blunt, although Ben Spackman is in no way hostile to the Church, I hope his airing of these facts will be embarrassing enough to make it finally update the damn thing. I shared his post in a group "where people may ask challenging questions with a view of expanding our knowledge and faith." This is a group specifically set aside for intelligent discussions, not faith-promoting memes and quotes, though those have their place elsewhere. So of course some people appreciated the post. But even here, I met with pushback from people who considered Ben Spackman an untrustworthy source, or just didn't like him, or wanted to know why he didn't share his own research and perspective on the quotes and issues raised in the manual even though within the body of the post he linked to dozens of resources doing exactly that, including some of his own blog posts. One apparently senile woman told me "Stop attacking the gospel and start living it!" but then I don't even know what she was referring to, and neither did she, because her comment (a response to my response to someone else) started with the words "What manual?" People will believe what they want to believe, obviously. And the issue here isn't even the validity of evolution as a scientific theory (which, spoiler alert, is enormous and not up for serious debate among people who have actually studied it), but epistemology, scriptural interpretation, and whether a guy who thinks that women shouldn't vote sixty years after they got the right to vote should be given free reign to write whatever he wants in church manuals. I also shared the post with a friend who left the Church a couple years ago, because we had discussed that section of the manual once. She had mentioned that she shared it with a friend who had questions about evolution, and then I kind of flipped out and explained all the reasons why it was wrong, and then she apologized for getting so heated but she wasn't mad at all. Now she doesn't remember that, but said she was glad she had shared something with her friend that would probably result in him leaving the Church. And then she called me and talked some more about her reasons for no longer believing in the Church. I just listened and didn't try to argue. Some of them, in my judgment, are good and understandable reasons; others not so much. Like "the thousands of changes to the Book of Mormon." You can count the significant changes on one hand. Most of them are punctuation. But she already knew that. Did I know, she asked, that the original manuscript didn't even have punctuation, and the punctuation was just put in by some guy who wasn't even affiliated with Joseph Smith? In her mind, this makes it impossible that the Book of Mormon could be "the most correct of any book on earth." I still didn't argue, but I was kind of baffled that she could think Joseph Smith was talking about punctuation when he said in the same sentence that "a man would get nearer to God by abiding by its precepts, than by any other book." It was just so interesting to me to observe this kind of dogmatic and fallacious thinking on both sides, in belief and in unbelief. The kind of thinking that says "If the Church is true, its manuals must be written by the finger of the Lord" (yes, the senile woman asked me "If the Lord wrote with his finger on the wall, would you still doubt?") or "If the Book of Mormon is true, every comma must have been in the right place the first time." I probably still fall into that kind of thinking in some ways that I'm not aware of yet because if I were aware of them, I would change them. These are obvious examples. More subtle ones probably abound. I also argued with a family member who was upset by my post about "The Family: A Proclamation to the World" a few weeks ago. It was a very Ben Spackman-influenced post, though I make no claim that he would agree with everything I wrote. But one of his big points is that revelation or scripture never just speaks for itself. People think they can just read something as is without interpreting it, but they're always engaging in interpretation, always bringing their own assumptions that the author may or may not share. He also talks in detail about how God's perfect truth vs. people's imperfect opinions is in some ways a false dichotomy, because, again, when a prophet receives revelation and then when a prophet writes down or communicates that revelation to others, the prophet is engaging in interpretation. He does not become God's ventriloquist dummy. Even if he did, God would still have to speak to us in a way we could understand. The example of these principles that Spackman talks about over and over again, as you might guess, is how Genesis and other parts of scripture state things as fact that are not facts - e.g. the Earth was created in seven days (and he explains why the "The Hebrew word for 'day' can also mean 'time period'" explanation, while accurate, doesn't work in this context) - but the authors had different paradigms and priorities than modern readers, and God worked within their understanding of the world instead of trying to correct it. Another Biblical example would be how He said "Be nice to your slaves" instead of "Slavery is wrong." I think this is really important stuff. It was implicit to my post on the Family Proclamation. Perhaps I should have made it more explicit. Everyone else seemed to like my post, though, and I was frustrated that this family member alone interpreted it as an attack. I don't want to make it sound like she's is the worst sort of fundamentalist by any means. But we kind of talked past each other. She thinks I don't have enough faith and I think she's not using her brain enough. She acknowledges the imperfections of scripture, the mistakes of past church leaders, and the changes in church teachings, but tries to downplay their significance as much as possible while I don't feel that's warranted. On the other hand, it's probable that I sometimes blow them out of proportion. In any case, she cited the "line upon line, precept upon precept" scripture as a defense of changes to gender roles in the Church like changing the definition of "preside." I don't disagree with that scripture at all. It's exactly the sentiment I conveyed in my post. I just don't see a reason to assume, especially in light of my knowledge of history and current events, that the lines and precepts stopped in 1995. She also cited "Condemn me not because of mine imperfection," and maybe I am too condemnatory of past church leaders and members, but that verse also says to "give thanks unto God that he hath made manifest unto you our imperfections, that ye may learn to be more wise than we have been." So pointing out that Gordon B. Hinckley totally snubbed the Relief Society general presidency was still the right thing to do. If you've been following my blog for longer than I think anyone except maybe one person has been following my blog, you remember that I created many scripts for comic strips that I had neither the time nor skill to actually draw. I more or less abandoned them because they weren't going to pay any bills, a lot of them weren't that funny, and the real-life events of the last couple years were kind of impossible to incorporate into the story I already had (which spans from 2004 to 2024 with an epilogue in 2054). But I was looking at my big document with all the scripts recently, and remembered the potential they had. I might have shared some of these, I don't remember, and I'm sure no one else does either. Previous blog posts about them may be found under this category, and holy crap, turns out the last one was over four years ago. Where does the time go? To recap, the core cast of the Cracroft family is: Alvin - the boring straight man Rachel - his mentally challenged wife Tyler - his bratty daughter Bill - his serially divorced brother Susan - his lonely sister George - his right-wing father Connie - his bland mother Bigfoot Country (2008)Panel 1 Alvin: Bill, Rachel and I need a vacation. Could we borrow your camper? Bill: Sure thing, Al. Just bring it back in one piece. Panel 2 Bill: Where were you fixing to go? Alvin: Camping in Oregon. We really need to get away from here. Panel 3 Bill: Driving that distance with a two-year-old? Are you insane? Alvin: No, just very poor. Panel 1 (and only) (in car) Alvin: And we're on our way to Oregon! I sure hope we don't die of dysentery! Rachel: Who's Terry, and why is he so sensitive? That joke is so oblique and unfunny that I had to think about it. Dysentery - dissin' Terry - get it? Ugh. Panel 1 (in car) Tyler: WAAAAAAAAAH! Panel 2 Tyler: WAAAAAAAAAH! Panel 3 Tyler: WAAAAAAAAAH! Alvin: Excuse me while I jump out into traffic. Rachel: Don’t be silly, Alvin, you’ll get hurt. Panel 1 Rachel: Wait, this is really Oregon? We just crossed the border illegally? Alvin: No, it's just a state, Rachel, not another country. You just drive on through. Panel 2 Rachel: So you're saying I brought our passports for nothing? Alvin: Those are checkbooks, Rachel. Panel 1 Ranger: You folks came at the right time. There’s been lots of Bigfoot sightings around here lately. Alvin: How convenient. They bring the tourists, eh? Panel 2 Ranger: Well, they’re probably just bears, but you never know. It doesn’t hurt to believe, does it? Alvin: I suppose not. Bigfoots – er, Bigfeet have never hurt anybody. Panel 3 Ranger: Well, actually there are some stories about – Alvin: We’d better go get set up before dark. Thanks, sir! Panel 1 Alvin: We’re here! Fresh air at last! Rachel: About time! Tyler: WAAAAAAAAAH! Panel 2 Alvin: Look at all the beautiful trees, and – what’s this? An enormous footprint? Looks like Bigfoot’s been here! Heh heh... heh... Tyler: WAAAAAAAAAH! Panel 3 Alvin: Uh, how strong do you think this camper is? Rachel: Alvin, you’re scaring the baby. Tyler: WAAAAAAAAAH! Panel 1 (In a boat, fishing) Alvin: Remember in “A Goofy Movie” when Goofy hooked a steak and caught a Bigfoot with it? Heh... good thing that can’t possibly happen for real. Rachel: You seem a little on edge, Alvin. Panel 2 Alvin: It’s nothing... it’s just that when I was little, my family went camping and Bill pranked me pretending to be a skunk ape. I wet my sleeping bag. I still remember it vividly. Rachel: Haha! I mean, aw, that’s rough. Panel 1 (Night, around campfire) Alvin: Bigfoot can’t possibly be real. There’s no way a population of animals that size could go undiscovered for so long... right? Panel 2 Alvin: That footprint must have been from a bear. A bear with surprisingly humanlike feet. Granted, bears are dangerous, so that’s not very reassuring. Panel 3 [SNAP!] Alvin: Aaaugh! What was that?? Rachel: Dear, we came here to relax. Panel 1 Alvin: Yawn. I slept so peacefully last night, Tyler’s screaming didn’t even wake me up. Rachel: Yeah, me neither. Panel 2 (Alvin and Rachel stare at each other) Panel 3 Alvin: Aaaaaaaaaagh! Where is she?? Rachel: How rude. She didn’t even leave a note. Now that I think of it, a two-year-old shouldn't still be screaming every night. I guess Tyler's just extra needy. Panel 1 Alvin: Tyler! Tyler, where are you?? Panel 2 Alvin: Tyler! We’ll buy you any toy you want if you come out right now! Panel 3 Alvin: Oh no... she must really be gone... Rachel: Or she’s waiting for you to raise the jackpot. Panel 1 Alvin (thinking): This is, without a doubt, the worst moment of my life. I never knew I could experience such a depth of despair. Panel 2 Alvin (thinking): My baby, lost and alone and unprotected... she could be hurt, every bone in her body broken, crying out for help and finding none... Panel 3 Tyler (playing with leaves): La la la la la... Panel 1 (and only) Alvin (kneeling): Dear Lord, I know we haven’t spoken in a while, but please... please keep our little girl safe and bring her back to us. Panel 1 (In heaven) St. Peter: Oho! Looks like Mr. Cracroft suddenly isn’t too good for us anymore! Clara: What are you talking about? Panel 2 St. Peter: He’s sent us a prayer for his little girl. She’s lost in the woods. Want to take care of it? Clara: Tyler can take care of herself. But I’ll speed things along so her father doesn’t worry. Panel 3 St. Peter: Actually, maybe he deserves to worry for a while. Clara: Sometimes I feel like you’re not suited to this job. Clara Cockcroft is Alvin's ancestor from the 1600s who was introduced as his guardian angel in a Christmas storyline where she stops him from killing himself, and then retconned into a bunch of other stuff. St. Peter is her boss and also kind of a jerk. Panel 1 Bigfoot: Sniff! Tyler: ? Panel 2 Bigoot: Sniff sniff! Tyler: Hewwo. Are you a Wookiee? Panel 3 Bigfoot: Grrrrr... Tyler: Yeah? Will you take me to your ship? Panel 1 Rachel (crying): Judas Priest, this is all my fault... I’m the one who wanted to go camping... Alvin: It’s not your fault, Rachel. Tyler is very cunning for her age. Panel 2 Rachel (crying): I should have known, when I got to sleep for a whole hour uninterrupted, that something was wrong... Alvin: We both should have. But blaming ourselves now won’t help anything. Panel 3 Rachel: Well, what will help anything? Alvin: I wish I knew. Panel 1 (Bigfoot taps Rachel on the shoulder) Rachel: Not now, Alvin, I’m trying to think. Panel 2 (Bigfoot hands Tyler to Rachel) Tyler: Aww... I wike you more than Mommy. Rachel: Oh! Oh, thank you so much, Mr.? Panel 3 Tyler: I call him Chewie. Rachel: I’m glad he didn’t call you chewy. Panel 1 Alvin: Tyler! My sweet baby! Thank God you’re okay! Tyler: Of course, Daddy. Panel 2 Alvin: But that – just now – was that – it couldn’t have been – Rachel: Yeah, I didn’t think Wookiees were real either. Panel 3 Alvin: It must have been a bear. Tyler: I’m bored now. Can we go home? Panel 1 Alvin: Yeah, so, all’s well that ends well. But you might want to check the lock on the camper. Panel 2 Bill: Sheesh, Al, you must need a vacation after that vacation. Alvin: You can say that again. But not until Tyler is older, I guess. Panel 3 Bill: You think she’ll stop getting into trouble when she’s older? Alvin: I can dream. Occupy Wall Street (2011)Panel 1 Alvin: What do y’all think of this “Occupy” movement? Bill: It looks like a lot of fun. Connie: It looks unsanitary and dangerous. George: Hmph! Panel 2 George: It looks like a bunch of whiny brats who don’t even know what they’re protesting about and can’t be bothered to get a job. Panel 3 Alvin: It looks like the sort of thing you did in the late sixties, Dad. George: That was a long time ago! I incorporated a lot of real-life events into the storyline, which got old fast for a few reasons. First of all, a lot of things are really difficult to joke about without crossing boundaries of good taste that even I'm reluctant to cross. Second, a lot of them are just plain repetitive (e.g. school shootings, police brutality). And perhaps worst of all, Alvin usually just ended up as a puppet for my own views, striving to be the most reasonable and nuanced character, which I found preachy and annoying. Panel 1 Alvin: I have to admit I agree with some of the movement’s grievances... I mean, for those folks who do know what they’re protesting about. Panel 2 Alvin: The income inequality in this country is pretty disgusting. I don’t think we should fix it by stealing money from the folks who rightfully own it, but there must be something to do. Panel 3 Alvin: To say nothing about income inequality throughout the world. Most of the US is in the 1%. George: Join a commune, son. See what I mean? Panel 1 Alvin: Where’s Bill today? George: Oh, he went off to join that stupid protest. He thought it would be glamorous or something. I’m surprised you didn’t join him. Panel 2 Alvin: Hey, I’m not a huge fan of this movement. I just said I understand some of where it’s coming from. George: That gives you one up on Bill. Panel 3 (New York City) Bill: Yeah, I like money. Rich people suck. Where’s the food around here? Panel 1 Emily: Dude, so you don’t actually know, like, why you’re protesting? Bill: Uh, no. Panel 2 Emily: Me neither! We can be, like, friends! I’m Emily Barnes, but my friends call me Star Child, mmkay? What’s your name? Bill: Bill Cracroft. Panel 3 Bill: Uh, is there a bathroom somewhere? Emily: Like, try that spot over there. It totes worked for me. Star Child and Emily were two different characters that I introduced at different times and then retconned into the same character. I retconned a lot of stuff. That's one advantage of not actually publishing things. I also recognize that if this were an actual comic strip, Emily would most likely be as hated as Jar Jar Binks, but I like her and I won't apologize for it. Panel 1 Emily: Like, don’t tell anybody, but this is actually my first protest ever. Bill: No way! Mine too! Panel 2 Emily: Far out! We have so much in common! Hey, dude, want some special brownies? I, like, baked them myself. Bill: Thanks! You know, it’s great how we’re walking the walk here. We’re like a big family, and we’re sharing our wealth. Panel 3 Star Child: Just make sure to use them up so no one, like, shanks you for them tonight. Bill: Wait, what? Panel 1 (Emily takes out her guitar) Bill: You’re a musician, Star Child? Emily: Totes! This machine, like, kills fascists, as they say. Panel 2 Emily: GATHER ‘ROUND PEOPLE, WHEREVER YOU ROAM! AND ADMIT THAT THE WATERS AROUND YOU HAVE GROWN! Panel 3 (People throw tomatoes at her) Emily: See? Sharing the wealth. Bill: Let me try that. I’m starving. Panel 1 Alvin: So how’s fighting the power going, Bill? Bill (on phone): Michael Moore spoke at our protest today, cheering us on and bashing the 1%. Panel 2 Alvin: The same Michael Moore who’s a fat millionaire from lying in documentaries? Bill (on phone): Yeah, I didn’t get it either. Panel 1 (and only) Protesters: #@$% THE USA! #@$% THE USA! #@$% THE USA! Bill: I’m suddenly a lot less comfortable with this whole thing. Emily: They’re just, like, letting off steam, mmkay? Panel 1 Bill: It was great to meet you, Em– er, Star Child. I hope I see you around. What are your plans? Emily: Going back to college. I just started. I don’t actually, like, go to classes and stuff, but I gotta represent, mmkay? And you? Panel 2 Bill: Going back to my dad’s print shop, Prints Charming. So if you ever need anything printed... Emily: Hey, yeah! You can, like, print the signs and pamphlets for my next protest! Panel 3 Bill: Well, if it’s a cause my dad approves of. Emily: How’s he feel about baby seals? Panel 1 Bill: I’m back! So, can I get my paycheck for the days that I missed? Panel 2 (George stares at Bill) Panel 3 George: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA Bill: Right then. Connie: Phyoo! You still smell like Occupy. Emily Visits Blue Haven (2012)Panel 1 (At the door) Bill: Star Child! What a surprise! Emily: Hey Bill. I was just in the zone and thought I’d, like, stop by, mmkay? Panel 2 Bill: It’s great to see you. Emily: Likewise, dude. Panel 3 Bill: Uh, what’s with all the suitcases? Emily: I was hoping you needed, like, a roommate. Panel 1 Bill: Well, I guess you could stay for a few days... there does happen to be a vacancy, since I just finalized my divorce. Emily: Oh! Like, tragic! How long were you guys together? Panel 2 Bill: About two months. Emily: Uber tragic, dude! Panel 1 Emily: So I’m, like, almost finished with classes and I need a job for the summer. I was hoping to find something around here so I could be near my best friend, mmkay? Bill: You know, it so happens that I did just see something. Panel 2 (Bill hands Emily a flyer) Bill: There’s an opening for counselors at Camp Itchyfoot, just a few miles away. I noticed it because I have fond memories of that place. I visited every summer when I was twelve to eighteen. Panel 3 Emily (reading flyer): So, like, there's a boys' camp and a girls' camp? Bill: Guess which one I visited. Camp Itchyfoot was the name of the camp in a story / sing-along cassette tape that a family in my hometown played in their car sometimes when I was with them. It had fun songs for kids, including the version of "The Cat Came Back" that ends with the human race, but not the cat, getting nuked out of existence. And speaking of existence, the only evidence of it for this cassette tape that I can currently find on the entire internet is a reddit post cross-posted in two subreddits asking about it with no success. What. The. Crap. Panel 1 Bill: You remember I told you about Star Child, Mom. I met her at the “Occupy” rally last year. Connie: I refuse to call her that. What’s her real name? Panel 2 Bill: Emily, but – Connie: Emily! So you’re living with a barely legal girl named Emily. That you met at a conglomeration of socialist riffraff. How delightful. Panel 3 Connie: My son, cohabitating! Where did I go wrong? Alvin: This bothers you more than all his divorces? Emily: I’m, like, standing right here, dudes. Panel 1 Connie: Well, George? You usually love to talk and criticize folks. Why didn’t you chime in? George: I’m sorry, it’s just – I was having such a flashback. It’s incredible how much she reminds me of my high school girlfriend Moon Nugget – er, Stella. Panel 2 Connie: Oh, by all means, don’t let me interrupt your daydreaming about Stella. George: It’s not like that, Connie, it’s just – thinking back to when we were so young, and reckless... nostalgia burst, you know? I got a lot of fond memories with her. Panel 3 (Connie is furious) George: Er, but not that fond. Alvin: Uh, I’ll leave you two alone for a while. Panel 1 Bill: Sorry my parents are so – uh, square. Emily: Hey dude, they’re just, like, looking out for their son, mmkay? I got mad respect for that. Panel 2 Bill: They don’t think I can take care of myself at this age. They don’t think a man and a woman can be just friends. What kind of trouble do they think we’re getting into, anyway? Panel 3 Emily: How’s about I bake you some of my special brownies, mmkay? Bill: Oh, yes please! Spoiler alert, Bill and Emily always remain just friends. I think that's kind of beautiful. Panel 1 Emily: So, like, I got the camp job, and I’ll be moving there in a few weeks. Bill: Great. I mean, great that you have a job. Panel 2 Emily: Yeah. And then I’ll be back to college in Connecticut. So let’s make the most of our time together, mmkay? Bill: Yeah. You wanna see the sights? Panel 3 Emily: There are, like, sights around here? Like, no offense, but looks like a big long drag to me, dude. Bill: Well, it’s better after a big long drag. Hahaha, drugs. Susan Gets Laid Off (2018)Panel 1 Boss: I’ll cut to the chase, Susan. My niece wants a job here. We’re going to have to let you go. Susan: What?? Panel 2 Susan: But I need this job... I’ve put my heart and soul into it... Boss: I know it’s hard. Times are tough all over. But you’ll bounce back! And I’m sure your husband can help with – Panel 3 Boss: Oh. Right. Susan is a real estate agent, in case anyone forgot or didn't care. Panel 1 (Susan is cleaning out her office) Susan (thinking): After all my time with this company, they just throw me out like a used tampon so some snot-nosed unqualified kid with a connection can take my place... Panel 2 Susan (thinking): What could be more degrading than that? Boss: Oh, can you train her before you go? Panel 1 Susan: So, the first main principle you’ve always got to keep in mind is – Niece: You can hold it right there, ma’am. Panel 2 Niece: Save your time and I’ll just tell my aunt you trained me real good. I’m just going to be playing “Doom” on my office computer all day every day anyway. Panel 3 Susan: Are you #@$% kidding me? Niece: I know the graphics stink, but you can’t beat the classics, all right? The only reason it's "Doom" is because of a Dilbert comic I read from one of my dad's books long before I had any idea what it was. Dilbert schedules one month to build the product and five months to play "Doom". Panel 1 Susan: I always prided myself on having built my own successful career without depending on a man. Now here I am, forty-four years old, and suddenly I don’t have a man or a job. Panel 2 Susan: I can’t find another real estate agency hiring in this state, and all the other decent jobs are asking for thirty years of experience in fields I know nothing about. I don’t know what to do. Panel 3 Alvin: You could always come join the rest of us at the print shop. Susan: I’ll keep looking. Tyler Starts a Band (2018)www.youtube.com/watch?v=VaEY7Z3QsOAPanel 1 Tyler: You know what would be cool? Let’s start a band! David: Yeah! Becky: Sweet! Panel 2 Tyler: We’ll be called “The Purple Stars” and play a mix of punk, metal and Gothic rock. I’ll be lead singer and guitarist, Becky will be on bass and backup vocals, and David will play drums. Panel 3 Becky: You’ve already put a lot of thought into this, huh? Tyler: I didn’t want you guys to ruin it with your lame ideas. David: Can I have purple hair? In fifth grade I had a crush on this girl who totally snubbed me, so in sixth grade when she started a band called the Purple Stars I started a rival band called the X-rays and determined that we would crush them. Each group wrote some songs and to my knowledge never got futher than that. Panel 1 Tyler: Let’s see... we’ll need to come up with pretentiously nonsensical album titles and art, psychedelic music videos with no coherent plots, and provocative antics for our live shows. Panel 2 Tyler: We’ll need a band logo and licensed merchandise... T-shirts, pencil cases and so on... a tour van, groupies, media coverage... anything I’m missing? Panel 3 Becky: Instruments, musical abilities and a song repertoire? Tyler: Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Panel 1 Alvin: Tyler, if you’re really serious about starting a band, I’d be happy to buy you a guitar. But I need to know you’re committed. Panel 2 Alvin: Being a musician isn’t all fun and games. It takes hours and hours and hours of practice. You need to work on memorizing chords until your fingers are calloused. Panel 3 Alvin: Will you do that? Tyler: You lost me at “isn’t all fun and games”. Panel 1 George: Hang on, Tyler, I think I’ve got my old guitar in the attic somewhere... I was in a band once, you know. “The Friendly Ogres”, we called ourselves. Tyler: Wow. Panel 2 (In attic) George: Yep, here it is! We’ll just need to tune it and it should be good as new. Tyler: Wow. It’s beautiful. Panel 3 Tyler: How can I ever thank you? George: By not practicing at my house. Panel 1 Tyler: Dad, can the Purple Stars practice in our garage? Alvin: Er... well... Panel 2 Alvin: I guess you have to practice somewhere... I wouldn’t want to stifle your creativity... this is a great thing you’re doing... um... well... okay, sure. Panel 3 Tyler: Good, because we’re already set up. Alvin: Rachel, if you need me I’ll be out of town. Panel 1 Tyler: So we haven’t written anything yet. I suggest we start out like most people do, with covers of already existing songs. Here’s a favorite: the 1992 version of “Temple of Love” by Sisters of Mercy. Panel 2 David: A girl band? Tyler: No, they’re all guys, though this song has guest vocals by “the Israeli Madonna”, Ofra Haza. Panel 3 Becky: Never heard of her, but those sound like big shoes to fill. Tyler: You’re doing her part. I’m the lead, remember? Panel 1 Tyler (singing): With the fire from the fireworks up above / With a gun for a lover and a shot for the pain / You run for cover in the temple of love / Shine like thunder, cry like rain... Becky: Wait... “shine like thunder”? Panel 2 Becky: How is thunder shiny? It’s a sound. Did they mean “shine like lightning”? That would make more sense. Tyler: Becky, it’s artistic. It doesn’t have to make sense. Panel 3 David: But they put so much thought into the “shot” pun... Tyler: You’ll be the one getting shot if you guys don’t quit interrupting! For real though, I love this song. Panel 1 Tyler: Do you guys think I sound most like Tarja Tarunen, Anette Olzon, or Floor Jansen? David and Becky: Who? Panel 2 Tyler: The original lead singer of Nightwish, and her successors. Their vocal styles are very different, because Tuomas Holopainen felt Tarunen was irreplaceable. Panel 3 Tyler: Whichever one I sound most like will determine whether we do “10th Man Down”, “Escapist”, or “Endless Forms Most Beautiful”. Becky: I feel like you started a band just to show off to us. 10th Man Down is the first Nightwish song I ever heard, Escapist is the second, and Endless Forms Most Beautiful is profoundly spiritual to me (as well as reflecting Tyler's interest in biology). Susan, Tyler, and Becky Go to Camp (2018)Panel 1
Tyler: Now that we don't have to go to school, we can go anywhere. I vote for China. Becky: You can afford that? Panel 2 Tyler: Well, no, but – Becky: Do you speak Chinese? Panel 3 Tyler: Stop trying to ruin my goals, Becky. Becky: Would you settle for accompanying me to summer camp? At the end of first grade I told my class I was going to China, and then I was upset that my mom made a liar out of me by saying no. Also, setting up this storyline, which I really loved when I looked at it again recently, is the whole reason I shared the above storylines. Panel 1 Bill: Yo, Susan, Star Child’s working at Camp Itchyfoot again this summer and she says there’s still another opening. Want me to have her put in a good word for you? Susan: Thanks, but no thanks. I’m looking for something more... respectable. Panel 2 Bill: And what have you got so far? Susan: Uh... well... Panel 3 Bill: I guess you could always come join the rest of us at the print shop. Susan: Tell Emily that I accept her generous offer. Panel 1 Susan: Well, I got a job as a girls’ camp counselor for the summer. I guess it beats flipping burgers. Panel 2 Alvin: Who knows? You may end up loving it. Susan: Living out in the woods with a bunch of angsty, hormonal adolescent girls? Not likely. Panel 3 Alvin: Hey, on that note, you can get Tyler away from us for a while! You’ll give us a discount, right? Susan: I would if I didn’t know you were desperate. Panel 1 Emily: Hey, dudettes. So, like, welcome to Camp Itchyfoot. I’m your counselor, Emily Barnes, aka Star Child, and this is my assistant, Susan Cracroft. Susan: Hello ladies. Panel 2 Emily: So, like, find your cabins and set up your stuff and, like, meet back here, mmkay? We’re gonna have a stellar time this week. Susan: We have lots of fun activities planned! Panel 3 Emily: Just be careful of snakes, skunks, skunk apes, bears, wolves, cougars, the lake monster, poison ivy... Tyler: There’s poison ivy everywhere. Susan: They don’t call it Camp Itchyfoot for nothing. Panel 1 Emily: Right now, y’all put your cell phones and tablets and, like, electronic stuff in this basket here, mmkay? We’re gonna get friendly with nature this week. Girls: Awwwwwww... Panel 2 Susan: You’ll get used to it! You’ll have so much fun with nature, the week will be over before you know it! Emily: Time for a hike, dudettes! And, like, we’re off! Panel 3 Becky: I’m gonna die if I don’t check Instagram in the next thirty seconds. Tyler: Do I even know you, Becky? Panel 1 Emily: A-HIKING WE WILL GO, A-HIKING WE WILL GO... Susan: Quite. Er, I’ll just go find Tyler and Becky. Panel 2 Emily: They’re missing? Susan: I can guarantee without turning around that they’re missing. Tyler’s my niece, remember? Panel 3 Tyler: Ooh, paw prints! Let’s follow them! Becky: I used to follow people... when I had a phone... Panel 1 Susan: Tyler! Becky! There you are! Tyler: Hi, Aunt Susan. Becky: It was her idea, Mrs. Cracroft! Panel 2 [Rustle Rustle] Susan: I don’t doubt that. Look, Tyler, I know you’re not a group person, but stick with us, please? Your parents would skin me alive if anything happened. They wanted to get rid of you, not get rid of you. Tyler (glancing at rustling): Sure thing. We’ll hurry back right away. Panel 3 [RUSTLE RUSTLE] Susan: W-what’s that? Tyler: Probably whatever left the tracks. Coming? Panel 1 (At the picnic tables) Emily: So, like, what craft are you making, Tyler? Tyler: An AK-47 that will shoot pinecones. Panel 2 Emily: Ha! Mad respect for your ingenuity, dudette, but, like, give peace a chance, mmkay? Tyler: A well-armed summer camp is a polite summer camp. Panel 3 Emily: Ha! Cute! Like, Susan, come see what your niece is making! Susan (off-screen): I don’t particularly want to know. Becky: I made a phone. It’s better than nothing. Panel 1 (Around the campfire) Emily: Right, dudettes, it’s time for campfire songs! Like, what do y’all like? I can play Guthrie, Dylan, Lennon, Marley, Yankovic, Seeger... Tyler: Hey, Becky and I are musicians too! Becky: Well, we just started this year. Panel 2 Emily: Far out! Nice to meet some sisters of soul! Listen, you wanna get far, you gotta, like, expand your mind and see things different, mmkay? All the great artists did it. But not ‘til you’re older, mmkay? Tyler: Riiight. Panel 3 Emily: Try this on for size, y’all. COME GATHER ‘ROUND PEOPLE, WHEREVER YOU ROAM... Girl: Can we tell scary stories instead? Panel 1 Emily: Y’all want scary stories? Like, I’ll tell you a scary story, mmkay? You think you’ll grow up and change the world, but it’s all, like, just a scam. Rigged by Big Brother and the fat cats who fund him. Panel 2 Emily: They’ll never do what it takes to stop climate change. And even before then, their nukes will probably, like, melt us all like Popsicles. We have, like, maybe a century left on this planet, mmkay? Panel 3 Becky: That is a scary story. Tyler: Only if you think the human race is worth saving. Panel 1 Becky: Emily, you said something about a lake monster, right? What’s that about? Emily: Ah, I’m glad you asked! So the monster is, like, some kind of aquatic dinosaur or whatever, mmkay? And he lives just over there, like a half mile away, in the depths of Lake Gammagoochee. Panel 2 Emily: This monster isn’t sociable like his cousin in Loch Ness. He’s, like, an actual carnivore. He’ll pin you down and start, like, tearing out your organs while you’re drowning. Panel 3 Tyler: Good story, but you need to flesh out the juicy details, no puns intended. Emily: Have you ever, like, dissected an innocent frog? It's like that, but messier. "The Gamma Goochee" is a really weird song by Joe Walsh. Panel 1 Emily: Night, dudettes! If y’all need anything, like, just come and holler at my cabin! But don’t ever, ever come in without, like, knocking first, mmkay? Tyler: Fair enough. Panel 2 (In the girls' cabin) Tyler: Good night, Becky. Good night, Stanley. Wait – aw crap, he’s gone. Help me look. Becky: Look for who? Who’s Stanley? Panel 3 Tyler: A snake I met earlier. Becky: Not funny, Tyler. Panel 1 Emily: So, Susan, you have, like, a boy toy? Or, like, if you swing another way, I’m totally cool with that too. Just wondering. Susan: Ah, no. I’m currently single. Panel 2 Emily: Hey now sister, you’ve come to, like, the right place, mmkay? Star Child will show you all the, like, tricks of the trade. I’ll have the boys, or whomever, lined up around the block for you. Susan: Er... thanks. Panel 3 Emily: Oh, that reminds me, Frank, you can, like, come out now. Frank (popping head out from under bed): Thanks. It’s stuffy down here. Panel 1 Tyler: You know, Becky, this isn’t really my idea of a camp. Anything with showers and flushing toilets isn’t camping in my book. Becky: Then screw camping. I happen to like modern plumbing. Panel 2 Tyler: Well, I’d still like to up the ruggedness factor a bit. You down for a little midnight adventure? Becky: What do you have in mind? Panel 3 Tyler: Skinny-dipping in the lake. Becky: I had to ask. Panel 1 (Outside) Susan: Tyler! Becky! You’re supposed to be asleep! Tyler: So are you, Aunt Susan. Panel 2 Susan: Yes, well, things got a little awkward in Emily’s cabin. Her boyfriend is with her, and they’re... uh... well... Panel 3 Susan: …smoking pot. Tyler: Thank goodness. For a second I thought it was something inappropriate. Panel 1 Tyler: We’re going skinny-dipping in Lake Gammagoochee. Wanna come with us and feel youthful again? Susan: Well, the thing is, “Jaws” long ago cured me of any desire to skinny-dip at night. Panel 2 Tyler: There are no sharks in landlocked freshwater lakes, Aunt Susan. And even if there were, they never deliberately hunt humans like in that movie. Susan: I know. It’s not a rational thing. You know how childhood fears can be. Panel 3 Becky: Of course, there is the small matter of the lake monster... Susan: Exactly! Er, just kidding, heh. Panel 1 (In the water; everyone is shown from the neck up) Tyler: A monster in this lake is even less plausible than in Loch Ness. It’s much too small for a population of surviving plesiosaurs or whatever the hypothesis is. Susan: I’ll take your word for it. Panel 2 Tyler: I don’t think any of the cryptids are real. They’re all too large to still be undiscovered by now. Susan: Your mom says Bigfoot saved you when you were a baby. Panel 3 Becky: Really? I wanna hear that story! Tyler: She also says “Lord of the Rings” is a documentary on feudalism, so... See, this is literally the whole reason I shared the Bigfoot storyline. Panel 1 Becky: Ack! What was that? Tyler: What was what? Panel 2 Becky: Something just moved in the water over there! Tyler: Relax, Becky, it's probably just Jason Voorhees. Panel 3 Becky: Th-th-that's not f-f-funny, Tyler. Tyler: I beg to differ. Susan: I'm gonna swim away from you guys for a while. Panel 1 Susan (off-screen): Tyler! Becky! Where are you?? Becky: Right here! Don’t worry! Tyler: Now quick, head for shore and steal her clothes. Panel 2 Becky: What? That’s terrible! Tyler: It’s just a harmless prank. We’ll all laugh about it tomorrow. Panel 3 (At the shore, still in the water) Tyler: Unless, of course, she stole ours first. Becky: I’ll laugh tomorrow if I haven’t frozen to death. Panel 1 (Tyler sees a dark shape with eyes in the water ahead of them and talks to it) Tyler: Well played, Aunt Susan, well played. I see you take after me more than I thought. Susan (off-screen): Who’s that you’re talking to, guys? Panel 2 (Tyler’s and Becky’s eyes bulge) Panel 3 Susan (off-screen): Guys? Becky (looking down): This water got real warm all of a sudden. Panel 1 Susan: Emily! Did a couple of naked campers run through here? I tried to catch up, but – Emily: Hey now, sister, be cool, be cool. We’re all, like, one big family, mmkay? Panel 2 Susan: Pull yourself together, Emily! We have a responsibility for these girls! Gah, your breath reeks! Emily: Have you ever looked at your hands, Susan? I mean, like, really looked at your hands? Panel 3 Susan: Oh, never mind, I see them up in that tree. Emily: Heh, of course! Like, where else would they be? Tyler (off-screen): Can we agree to never speak of this moment again? Becky (off-screen): I’m itchy. Panel 1 Tyler (writing): Dear Mom and Dad, Becky and I went skinny-dipping at night, Aunt Susan stole our clothes, we almost got eaten by the Lake Gammagoochee monster, and we ran naked through poison ivy. Panel 2 Becky (off-screen): AIIIIIIIEEEEEEE! Panel 3 Tyler (writing): On the plus side, we found Stanley. Becky (off-screen): TYLER CRACROFT! Panel 1 Tyler: So one of our counselors gets high at night, which is horrifically negligent of her, and the other one is my aunt, which is lame. No offense, Aunt Susan. Susan: Some taken. Panel 2 Susan: You’re right, though, Tyler. Emily should be fired immediately. And I might just resign. I need a job, but this is even more stressful than I anticipated. Panel 3 Susan: You know, I heard Principal Donaldson wanted this job too... Tyler: I meant “negligent” and “lame” in the most affectionate possible way, of course. Panel 1 Emily: Listen up, y’all! The boys across the lake have challenged us to, like, a multi-event sports tournament! So we’re gonna, like, grind up their kiesters into organic burger meat, mmkay? Panel 2 Tyler: What happened to “Give peace a chance”? Emily: Sports rivalries are, like, a special case. Panel 1 Becky: There’s a boys’ camp across the lake?? Crap, Tyler, do you think they saw us skinny-dipping? Tyler: Doubtful. It was pretty dark. Panel 2 Tyler: Unless – of course! They pranked us! There was no monster! And tonight, we’ll go back and prove it! Becky: Nuh-uh. I wouldn’t go back in that lake if you paid me. Panel 3 Tyler: Learning from your mistakes now? That’s going to make you less fun, Becky. Becky: Sue me. "Sue me" is a great punchline that can be used in so many contexts. I first learned it from Gary Larson. Panel 1 Susan: Do you girls wanna be in the three-legged race together? I heard you like to run. Tyler: Hardy har har. Panel 2 Susan: Oh, but can you still do it when you have clothes on? Tyler: This is a new side of you, Aunt Susan. Panel 1 Cheerleaders: Go team, go! Beat ‘em beat ‘em beat ‘em! / Go team, go! Defeat ‘em ‘feat ‘em ‘feat ‘em! Panel 2 Cheerleaders: Call the plumber! And call the ‘lectrictian! / ‘Cause Camp Itchyfoot’s in a winning position! Panel 3 Becky: I love how we’re so loyal to this place we’ve only been at for a few days. Tyler: “Plumber”? “‘Lectrician”? What the crap? This cheer comes verbatim from the aforementioned cassette tape. I guess in order to sue me, the creators would have to first prove its existence. Panel 1 (Yelling at the boys’ camp counselors) Emily: Are you, like, blind or something? That was totally in, mmkay? Susan: Maybe if you paid attention to your own players instead of ogling ours! Panel 2 Emily (off-screen): Not that I’m like, prejudiced against blind people... Tyler: Sheesh. Adults get so worked up over sports. It’s just a game; who cares? Panel 3 Becky: I think I see David on the other team. Tyler: Really? Then let’s pulverize them. Emily: Tyler, do you, like, still have that AK-47? Panel 1 (Boy kicks a soccer ball) [POW!] Panel 2 Emily: And it’s going, and it’s going, and... oh no! That idiot boy kicked it, like, right into the lake! Panel 3 Susan: Want to go get it, Tyler? I heard you like to swim in that lake. Tyler: Okay, that’s actually pretty funny, Aunt Susan. Fine. Panel 1 (At the lake) Tyler (thinking): Don’t soccer balls float? Then why don’t I see – (off-screen): [PTOOEY!] Panel 2 (The deflated soccer ball lands at Tyler’s feet) [Plop!] Panel 3 (Back at the game) Susan: Well? Did you find it? Tyler: Anyone for chess instead? Panel 1 Emily: And the winner is... everybody! Because, like, we’re all winners! Trophies for everybody, mmkay? Susan: What?? Panel 2 Emily: Naw, just kidding. We totally, like, kicked your trash, boys. Suck it. Susan: Yeah! Suck it! Panel 3 Tyler: Sorry about that, David. David: I think the swelling’s starting to go down. Emily (off-screen): Dudettes, I’ll be in my cabin, like, celebrating. Panel 1 Susan (thinking): I don’t know how Emily’s lasted six years here without getting fired, but that ends now. Tomorrow I’ll report her irresponsible behavior. Emily: Susan? Panel 2 Emily: I just wanna say that you’ve been, like, a great friend and I’m sure we’ll have a great summer together. And I’ll try to help you find a boy or whomever, mmkay? Though honestly, boys are cray-cray. Panel 3 Emily: No offense, Frank. Frank (under bed): None taken. Panel 1 (Tyler is staring forlornly at the ground) Becky: I know it’s difficult to let go of Stanley, Tyler. But it’s for the best. This is his home. Sometimes in life we have to let go of the ones we love for their own happiness. Panel 2 Becky: He needs to make his own way in the world. He needs to travel, to explore, to find mice and mates and whatever his little snake heart desires. But even though he’s gone, he can always stay in your heart. Panel 3 Tyler (pointing): Becky, he’s still right there. Becky: Don’t ruin this moment for me, Tyler. Based on a true story. On a Boy Scout camping trip, we found a salamander and named it Sam after a girl from our church district (equivalent to a stake which is equivalent to a diocese, is what I've heard, though I don't otherwise know what a diocese is) because that was a gender-neutral name. On the last day we released it back into the wild and one guy gave a little speech like this and another guy ruined the moment by pointing out that he was still right there. Panel 1 Emily: Bon voyage, dudettes! Remember, fight the power and, like, stick it to the man, mmkay? Susan: I’ll see you around, Tyler. Tyler: Shh, I’m pretending I don’t know you. Panel 2 Tyler: Why aren’t you checking everything on your phone? Becky: Hey, yeah! I had so much fun with nature, I forgot all about that! Panel 3 Tyler: I guess this story has a moral after all. Becky: That was the only moral you got out of it? Panel 1 Alvin: Thanks for taking care of Tyler, Susan. But I heard a rumor that the other camp counselor got drunk every night. Anything to that? Panel 2 [Silence] Panel 3 Susan (on phone): Ah, no. Emily did not get drunk. Alvin: Well, that’s a relief. Hahaha, drugs. This event happened on campus recently in the science building auditorium where ten years ago I took my first college class ever and gained a testimony of organic evolution. It was filmed, so I expected by this point that I could link to a YouTube video and have that be the post with just a touch of commentary from me, but no luck. Ratio Christi is an apologetics group that seeks to prevent 70% of Christian college students from leaving their faith. I have been invited to its meetings but have a class during that time. On this occasion it was represented by Matthew Markham, the guy who sends me texts and emails, and Gil Sanders from Weber State University. The Latter-day Saints were represented by Kwaku El. As you may remember, Kwaku fell from grace in my eyes after his plague parties and CES Letter videos last year, but I decided not to let that ruin my enjoyment of his funny and intelligent contributions to the discussion which, incidentally, turned out to have little if anything to do with the end of faith. The participants discussed their theological differences on the nature of God and how to discern truth, and ran out of time to discuss their similarities.
The moderator announced from the beginning that this was to be respectful, an example of the dialogues that should be taking place to exchange ideas and determine truth. It was not a formal debate. It lived up to that promise, but that didn't stop small-minded audience members on the Slido app from submitting bad faith questions (no pun intended) such as: "How does the LDS community explain the lack of archaeological evidence for it's [sic] historical claims?" "Why does the LDS church use the king james translation when Joseph Smith made a translation with a plethora of 'corrections' made to the bible" "Kwaku you said that your church has eternal truth. Yet your church changes its official teaching over time. How can that be? Because truth never changes." "Why do [sic] the Mormon president tell Mormons to not check into the history of the LDS church?" "Why are none of the LDS temple ordinances ever mentioned in either the Bible or the Book of Mormon?" "If there were gods before the LORD, Why does God say this? Isaiah 46:9 (KJV 1900): For I am God, and there is none else; I am God, and there is none like me," "Kwaku, why do you by definition follow a [sic] Another Gospel?" "'You dont [sic] need to care about them, to care about what they wrote.' JS lived an immoral life. How could someone trust what he says based on his actions?" "To be exalted, you must be temple worthy. This is determined by a bishop (maybe your plumber). Why not worship him? He holds the keys to your exaltation." "It seems that Mormonism is rooted in emotionalism" [Astute observers may notice that this is not a question.] "What do you think of Joseph Smith's practice of divination by using a seeing stone to receive revelations. When this practice is condemnd [sic] in Deuteronomy 18:10" "If exaltation is so wonderful why did Jesus not teach it? Why is it not contained in the Bible, or the Book of Mormon?" "You talk about being sealed in marriage in heaven but the Bible says otherwise. Luke(22:30) for they are neither mary [sic] nor are given in marriage." [Astute observers may notice that this is not a question.] "How can you believe the teaching of Mormonism when it verbatim is exacly [sic] what Satan taught which lead [sic] to the fall of man." "What do you think of the lamanite dark skin curse?" "Kwaku: is the earth also flat?" "If I convert to mormon, can I keep smoking weed?" "What about Joseph Smith's practice of Free Masonry which is rooted in lucifarenism [sic]?" A few other questions also showed skepticism toward LDS truth claims, but were actually thoughtful and worthwhile questions. Strangely enough, I didn't see anyone attacking the evangelical faith, though several criticized Gil for talking about philosophy so much. One complained, "Why is the Mormon the only one quoting Scripture?" Gil's point, which he explained, was that he had started his faith journey as an agnostic, and his study of philosophy was what led him to believe in one Supreme Being in the first place. It was the prerequisite to him taking Scripture seriously at all. Philosophy "proved" a certain kind of God and then evangelical Christianity was the only religion that matched. Both evangelicals really downplayed the significance of emotions or spiritual experiences, which they regarded as unreliable and often meaningless. Kwaku, as one would expect, defended those things but acknowledged that they have to be weighed against logic and common sense. He pointed out that we're emotional beings by nature and our brains are unreliable too. They ended up talking a lot about their different visions of heaven, including this controversial LDS idea from the Bible that we can become gods. Matthew said that really all he wants is to praise and adore God for eternity. I can't relate to that. Certainly God deserves to be worshiped, but if that's the only reason He created us and the only thing He has for us to do forever, I think that makes Him an egotistical creep. Kwaku talked about how cool and reasonable it is to think that eternity is such a long time and we'll be able to keep progressing and God will at some point give us responsibility over something. Gil said he's down with the idea of continuous progression in heaven, but there will always be an unbridgeable chasm between us and God. Kwaku said yes, God will always be above us, and if it's less controversial to call ourselves "exalted beings" instead of "gods" because words carry all kinds of baggage and can mean anything, and the word God comes from Odin anyway, then so be it. So it seemed like he and Gil basically believed the same thing and that was shocking. The discussion reminded me of a philosophy class I took once, in fact. It was like "Oh, that's a good point. Oh, that's a good rebuttal. Oh, that's a good rebuttal to the rebuttal." I'm sure nobody changed their religious views that night. I'm sure everyone just had their pre-existing biases reinforced. I'm no exception, because not only am I a Latter-day Saint but I figured out some time ago that if I ever stop being a Latter-day Saint, evangelical Christianity is one of the last religions on Earth I'll consider joining. (Catholicism, Buddhism, and Sikhism are at the top, if anyone cares.) So I can't objectively read a whole lot about the merits of their respective positions into the fact that the beauty of exaltation has never resonated with me more than it did that night. I passed through a phase years ago where I couldn't bring myself to care whether God was an exalted man with an exalted wife or "only" a shapeless force that filled the universe, and exaltation was so far beyond what I wanted or deserved that I didn't care about that either, so long as I could be assured that I would be happy in heaven regardless of the details. I have a testimony of those things now. They wasted their time discussing whether Mormons, in their view, are Christian. Wikipedia says they are. Move along. The moderator asked the weed question as a joke. As anyone who knows him would expect, Kwaku said he knows a guy. Ha ha. I shook everyone's hand afterward, even Kwaku's, and went outside before the Ratio Christi guys could return to the little tables they had set up with cards and pamphlets. My eyes were drawn to a little stack of cards with the angel Moroni silhouetted beside the words "The truth will make you free" and a link that, upon investigation, went to a nearly two-hour video called "An Earnest Plea to Latter-day Saints" about all the reasons why our church and the Book of Mormon are fraudulent while evangelical Christianity, by implication, has no historical or theological or scientific problems whatsoever, and the inerrancy and miracles of the Bible are of course fully supported by secular archaeology and textual criticism. This earnest plea and sincere concern for the welfare of my eternal soul moved me so much that I took all the cards. |
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- Amelia Whitlock "I don't know how well you know Christopher Randall Nicholson, but... he's trolling. You should read his blog. It's delightful." - David Young About the AuthorC. Randall Nicholson is a white cisgender Christian male, so you can hate him without guilt, but he's also autistic and asexual, so you can't, unless you're an anti-vaxxer, in which case the feeling is mutual. This blog is where he periodically rants about life, the universe, and/or everything. Archives
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