idea that "everything is valid" is nonsense

[Greatbeast]

RH,

Your newest "personal interest" strip states that "Since the idea that all faiths are equally valid, then it makes none of them valid" and it seems to state that ANYONE who is NOT a religious/conservative type has NO morals or standards at all.

NONSENSE.

I will admit, I am one of those what you call "Liberal". That (If you look in a dictionary) means that I am OPEN TO OTHER IDEAS that may NOT be mine.

I do Not judge someone by their faith or lack of it, I do NOT hate the Military, I am NOT necessarily anti-gun ownership, I do NOT have the idea that "government should control everything in life", or any other nonsense that a certain Political Party would have you believe.

I DO believe that a person's faith is their Own business (wierd religions that include human sacrifice excluded, naturally), I do feel that if you take away the window dressing, Most religions, at the core, say a lot of the same thing.

I have friends who are Catholic, Jewish, Protestant (including Baptist variants), non-believers, and Wiccans.

Each of them follow their own ways, none are bad people.

We all have different faiths, however, we each ALL have a value system that is Very similar. Check the ideals behind all the window dressing. You will find the 10 commandments, the Rule of Three, etc VERY similar.

The window dressing of religions is where you end up with issues. IE Deuteronomy 13/8/9/10 commanding to "stone people to death".

Just one person's opinion....


By the way...RH, I have no issue with you creating a 4th occasional strip about your own personal struggles with your chosen philosophy....

BUT I do think you need a little more perspective on things. Don't be so afraid, the world is NOT going to Hades in a handbasket due to people not following certain religions.

I do think that the reason people come here is to Read your STORIES.

You have a talent for it. That talent makes others happy, at least for the time they read your strips.

Consider that every time you do a strip, you are "doing good works".

[Sun tzu]

Actually, I think I agree with what Mr Hayes has said this time (a somewhat disturbing experience, I must say. I'm an atheistic liberal who's lived in France for most of his life and has read all of Ralph's strips for years - disagreeing with what is said around here has come to feel like the natural order of things ).
While it is possible (I will not attempt to argue here for or against - not my call) that Ralph believes what you've said ("it seems to state that ANYONE who is NOT a religious/conservative type has NO morals or standards at all."), that's not what was said here. Today's comic essentially stated that all ideas are not of equal value - some are good and correct, some are bad and wrong. Then it added that the reason the opposite idea became so popular is that if all of them are equally valid, that means no moral judgement can really be passed.
I'm not certain if I agree with the second part (though it's definitely plausible), but I certainly do with the first. Proposition A can be true or false - but "A" and "not A" cannot be equally valid. And very often, large amounts of peple believe in nonsense (just watched "What the Bleep Do We Know" with my grandmother last week to point out the errors and manipulation. Can't believe this thing got popular. Bleagh).
So, sure, I respect the Christians, Muslims and Jews I am friend with/related to. Doesn't make me think their beliefs have a shred of truth in them.

Also, a lot of people have complained about "Hard Onions" for various reasons. I actually think it's a good decision. One, expressing and explaining our opinions is almost a civic duty, and I'm not sure about the "almost". Hayes has some beliefs which he considers important, it makes perfect sense for him to do some proselytising. Two, I'd rather see religious and political in a medium designed for them than somewhere where they ruin my enjoyment of a good story (not that I expect the other strips to stop having a Christian conservative viewpoint, though). And anyway, if I still read "Absurd Notions" and "Avalon", I'm sure I can live with whatever update rate these comics end up with.

[Dapple]

Wow, todays was deep. I think its true that these philosophies do not have equal vallue.

Ethological, political, and Social, these philosophies are neither
equal nore comparitivily compatible.
I thank God for seperation of church and state, for without it I would have long ago gone mad.

In the end the perpose of these phylosophies is to give order and direction or order to life and the afterlife.

Regardless I think finding ones own moral and ethical "center" is most inportiant. Then define my relationship with God, than Society, and finaly politics.

Please realise that in the United States and in Western society we are highly individulistic as uposed to a more comunity driven way of thinking, more common in Eastern social phylosophy.

I tend to like Morality as defined in peaceful action, ethics as defined by social responsibility or ultruism, and ethologicaly I like religion that doesn't "rub against the grane" like for example I don't have a problem with say Buddists, or other differing religios phylosiphy.

American social phylosiphy has taught me tollerance, is there such a thing as too much tollerance? Ever since 9/11 I have been wary of all Muslims, and it worries me. Have I developed an unjustified prejudice were none existed before? The media have certainly been trying to scare me with a constant unrealenting tide of horror stories about the "Islamic Menace".

I loath any religion that can be defined as militiant. I identify it with using your religion as an excuse for violence. Many times irationaly.

Fortunatly I don't have a problem RH has with thinking too much. In fact I think as little as possble.

And with that I close with "You do not even honor man; how can you honor spirits!" Confucius (Kong Fuzi, 551-479 B.C.E.)

[Kerry Skydancer]

Very well said, Mr. Hayes. I'd have added anti-rational to the list of epithets that post-modernism is guilty of, but you said this very well.

One can admit that value judgements are possible while still discussing which particular judgements are the correct ones, but to claim they're all equal? These idiots go so far as to claim that science itself is subjective and alternate versions are equally valid - the least sane thing I've ever seen was one of them deconstructing a physics text and pointing out its 'cultural bias' - just like the umbrella and the window. Bizarre.

[Faquarl]

I suppose if your neighbour was a crazy murderer, or rapist or something and you decided not to report them because you believed in tolerance -even of crazy murderers and rapists - you could say that you had a bit too much tolerance.

Hooray for run-ons.

[Kchishol1970]

RH

You're certainly entitled to your opinions, although you should expect to face some intelligent disagreements and counter-arguments.

However, I go to the Tales of The Questor site to see that specific strip that you do with wonderful talent and imagination. As an atheist, I don't even mind the Christian subtext you put in any more than I object to C.S. Lewis's own opinions in his own stories such as The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe.

However, I have no patience for you sneaking in your editorial strips to spout off your opinions to unsuspecting people who just want to enjoy TotQ. Last time I checked, you have obvious links to your other regular strips on the front page and it's no great technical challenge to add a third similar link for your opinion strip.

To do what you are doing now, deceptively ambushing readers with comic strip bait and switch is disgraceful and beneath your talent.

[Faquarl]

Possibly it's all an ingenous scam organized with the people at comicgenesis. Putting up opinionated comics will get more people to sign up at the forums to complain and thus the advertising rates will increase! Can you hear the evil laughter?!

I honestly don't think that this is really that bad. Sure, it would be nice if there was a separate archive for this comic somewhere, but it's no worse than filler art. No one's forcing you to read it, and the conspicuous black and white style makes it hard not to notice that the usual comic isn't up.

I think it would be a lot worse if RH actually made a Questor comic that was actually an animated .gif. He could put up a flashing "EMBRACE JESUS" for a single frame each loop. Whoops. Now my idea for making people love L. Ron Hubbard is out. Me and my big mouth...

[Tom Mazanec]

kchishol1970
Agreed. The Ozy and Millie cartoonist has a separate webite (I believe it is called I DREW THIS) for his own personal views. You already have a link on your sites to express your personal views...the LiveJournal. Use that, not the strips we come to read.

[Tom Mazanec]

Faquarl
I still have to page down to get to the strip to see the style. Ralph gets plenty of comments cs on his LJ, so people are reading it. I understand the commissions because he has to make money. He is not making money with his onion strips, as far as I know, he is just taking time away from drawing the strips I come here to see.

[BrockthePaine]

kchishol1970
Agreed. The Ozy and Millie cartoonist has a separate webite (I believe it is called I DREW THIS) for his own personal views. You already have a link on your sites to express your personal views...the LiveJournal. Use that, not the strips we come to read.

Personally, I would prefer it to stay exactly where it is, thank you very much.

[Damo]

he is just taking time away from drawing the strips I come here to see.

Which he has every right to do. It's not as if this is his job (okay, there's donations, but that's not quite the same). If, God forbid, he stopped the whole thing tomorrow, so be it. He has no obligations here, he's doing something creative and sharing it with us for free.

That said, speaking as a God-Fearing Christian, I have to agree that it is a little unintentionally disingenuous to be putting these strips on the main Tales of the Questor site. A sub page, blog, or whatever would be more suitable. The Narnia comparison is apt if not perfect - C.S. Lewis did not include any essays about his beliefs in his books, and he certainly didn't put them in between chapters. When there's a title saying "Tales of the Questor" I don't smile upon seeing "Onions" below it. That, unintentionally, seems the kind of underhanded "trick" the "religious right" gets accused of. I'm sitting here today wincing at yesterday's overturning of an anti-abortion bill, which I think was significantly hurt by dirty politics from people whose beliefs I happen to agree with. Having something as simple as "no Questor today, but you can go to [link] for my Onions strip" seems like it would be a way to get people interested and not "defensive". If you follow the link and don't like what you see, just don't follow the link again. With Questor I can understand why people (especially those going through the archives, and ESPECIALLY people like me who had to go through the archives on Dialup) would be upset. If the person you're talking to is making up their mind to disagree with you based on how you've chosen to present your message, whatever you may wish to say in the message gets lost. It's ultimately RH's cause, but speaking as someone that has to deal with the dread Load Time Beast while trying to read this wonderful work, I can understand why some people would be offput and even less inclined to listen to the message if it's put on the main site and stored in the same archives as Questor.

[Tom Mazanec]

Damo:
I must admit, you have a point. But he is getting his main money from the donations and merchandise, if I understand correctly. So it is kind of his job. And we, the readers, are his customers. He has every right to change his comic, or even drop it completely. But if he does he will lose what is mow a major source of income. If he wants a nine-to-five job to support himself, I wish him all the luck in the world. I will miss the strips, of course, if he drops/changes them, and hope he is not planning to. But he is changing the strip right now, becoming the "onion" strip. I hope this is just a passing phase. If it is not than he will lose this customer at least.

[Damo]

Damo:
I must admit, you have a point. But he is getting his main money from the donations and merchandise, if I understand correctly. So it is kind of his job. And we, the readers, are his customers.

I think that's stretching things. He is under no obligation. And I've found that threatening to leave almost never has any effect except to make a creator more inclined to stick to his guns. More importantly when someone is trying to talk about their faith, saying that they might lose money isn't going to have any effect at all, nor should it. If it turned out I couldn't tell people about my faith without losing money... oh well, I guess I'd be losing some money. I'd survive, it's a lot better than the alternative. But I do think the method he's used to present his beliefs is liable to backfire and drive off a number of people that might have been reached otherwise. Some might even walk away more convinced that those leftist pundits talking about religious people being out to "brainwash" them any way possible are right. That's counterproductive. The Sonic the hedgehog fan that originally told me about this site has told me he's worried he won't be able to continue suggesting it to people. He doesn't share my faith, so I can understand his reluctance, and I'm sad to think he and others might stop letting people know about this wonderful work. Frankly nothing would make me happier than knowing I could freely give out this link to anyone of any age or background as freely and happily as I suggest the Narnia books, without having to ask if the Onions strips are the best way to present Christianity to people that don't believe in it (so far the answer is no, I don't think they are). Honestly I think things like Questor and Narnia on their own, without things like Onions, are a lot more liable to get people asking questions and interested in learning more themselves. That's a very good thing.

[Tom Mazanec]

Damo:
OF COURSE he is under no obligation. This is a free country, he can change the strip or drop it entirely. But if he changes it, he is going to lose a lot of his fans who come here to read about his established universe, and it will take him time to build up a new fan base. I just hope he realizes that. He has talked about his faith voluminously on his LJ and I never complained as far as I can remember (well, maybe as a comment on the LJ or a PM specifically disputing some point, but that is what LJs and PMs are for). It was when he started talking about it on the strip that I got concerned. At first I thought it was going to be just a few times a year, which I had no problem with. But he seems to be doing more onions than TotQ, and that is what bugs me. I would be fine with him having four strips as opposed to three, if he feels he has to preach in comic as well as text. I don't read N&T or GH either. But don't hijack the established strips to do it.

[Damo]

Well it's really very early into the game to be saying it seems like he's dong more Onions than Questor. He only just started O, he's probably going to have a few things he wants to get off his chest immediately before finding a balance.

But, like I said, on dialup these strips don't download very fast. I often go away a few weeks at a time, then come back to read what I've missed at dinner or similar, because I know it'll take a while to load everything. I wouldn't go so far as to use the word "hijack" but I can see a new reader in a few months getting put off what he's saying simply because it's slowing down their reading of Questor. That would be a shame.

[Sun tzu]

Er...When you say there's more "Onion" strips that Questor strips, do keep in mind that "Onion" has black-and-white, schematic, simplistic drawing that probably takes only a fraction of the time a Questor strip takes to draw...

[Anthony Lion]

I must admit to NOT bothering to read the last two of RHj's onions.
All I've done is scroll down to see if there's a comic further down, then been on my way to a site where the author isn't trying to force-feed me his opinions.

Did I mention that I only go to church for weddings and funerals?
Or don't care what religion other have...
(As long as they don't try to force their religion on me, I won't force them to swallow their books... )

[Kchishol1970]

kchishol1970
Agreed. The Ozy and Millie cartoonist has a separate webite (I believe it is called I DREW THIS) for his own personal views. You already have a link on your sites to express your personal views...the LiveJournal. Use that, not the strips we come to read.

Personally, I would prefer it to stay exactly where it is, thank you very much.

Oh, you like how RJH cannot be bothered to put his editorial strips in a separate section like he does for his other strips and instead ambushes his readers with underhanded bait and switch?

That kind of lack of artistic integrity is beneath him

[TMLutas]

RH,

Your newest "personal interest" strip states that "Since the idea that all faiths are equally valid, then it makes none of them valid" and it seems to state that ANYONE who is NOT a religious/conservative type has NO morals or standards at all.

NONSENSE.

I will admit, I am one of those what you call "Liberal". That (If you look in a dictionary) means that I am OPEN TO OTHER IDEAS that may NOT be mine.

I do Not judge someone by their faith or lack of it, I do NOT hate the Military, I am NOT necessarily anti-gun ownership, I do NOT have the idea that "government should control everything in life", or any other nonsense that a certain Political Party would have you believe.

I DO believe that a person's faith is their Own business (wierd religions that include human sacrifice excluded, naturally), I do feel that if you take away the window dressing, Most religions, at the core, say a lot of the same thing.

There is no naturally about excluding human sacrifice. I personally have been in a lecture hall with 300 college kids and challenged a professor to disavow suttee and explicitly defined what I wanted disavowed as nonvoluntary. She simply would not do it.

That's the real post-modernist beast.

It is one of the reasons I have so much contempt and disgust for modern academia. Such evil is tolerated and protected instead of ridiculed and exposed for the freak show cowardice it really is.

[Zobeid]

This last screed about postmodernism didn't do much for me. Maybe it's because RHJ is shooting down an idea (that all concepts are equally valid) which I already rejected as an absurdity long ago -- probably the first time I ever heard it.

He has, however, written a few things that I found striking and would like to comment on. First quote:

You wonder why I, as a Christian, am so at odds with modern society. . .

Welcome to my world! As an atheist, I know this feeling.

I maybe be over-reaching, or I may be wrongly reading my viewpoint into his. . . But I can't help thinking the real reason RHJ feels out-of-step with our society is something else. He and I both love the truth, and we care about it even when it doesn't directly affect our everyday lives.

That is not normal. If you ask most people whether the world was created in six days or 3.6 billion years, many of them will express an opinion one way or the other. (That's not a believer versus non-believer question: even among Christians there are many faithful who read Genesis metaphorically rather than strictly literally.)

So, there's never a shortage of opinions. But how many of them really care? How many have bothered to study the issue -- on either side? I expect most of them have not. Most people are not theologists, or geologists, or biologists. These questions are too abstract, too remote from their daily lives, and they have the pragmatic good sense not to worry about them too much. Unlike RHJ. Or me, for that matter.

RHJ and I are both freaks, and we're really the same kind of freaks -- because we do care about these abstract details. We care enough to argue about them and cause stress and conflict, even though there's nothing tangible to gain from doing so. We are willing to argue over how many angels can sit on the head of a pin. Yet even if we had the answers, it wouldn't change how we live our lives.

Postmodernism is a bugaboo. What's really killing us is not that all ideas are equally valid (or equally invalid). What kills our souls is that so many people don't consider these abstract ideas important -- not important enough to argue over, not important enough to insult or attack people over, not important enough to have sleepless nights and damage friendships without any benefit to anyone.

And they're right. If you wake up one morning thinking that God created the world in 3.6 billion years instead of six days, it's not going to change your life. It's not going to change how you feel about your family, or your neighbors, or even how you feel about your God in all likelihood. It really is a little bit crazy to get too worked up this kind of thing.