Lovely People aka 'the bunny comic'

[thorny]

I expected the social credit system to begin banning more and more religions as "dangerous ideas" while getting tangled up with itself and the people who run it as their own religious beliefs were being targeted.

Now that would have been worth reading.

As you say: tricky to do well; but would have been worth the attempt, even if results were imperfect.

And it occurs to me, reading that: we never saw the people implementing the system, did we? They, their motives, their intentions in instituting the system and in changing it further to start interfering with religious texts -- that's all a black box. Just a black box with Something Bad in it.

[translunaryAnimus (TA)]

we never saw the people implementing the system, did we?

Nope! Just the newscasters reporting the new changes to the system.

It's unfortunate how it turned out but I'm still holding out hope that future Christian based projects of hers end up better than LP. We'll have to see i suppose.

[Róisín]

Hopefully better and deeper work may develop with emotional maturity? The potential for depth and brilliance in Minna’s work has always been there, but just because she is as brilliant as she is we tend to forget that Minna is still very young. What, early thirties at oldest? And she sounds like somebody who has worked alone a lot and has lived a very sheltered life.

Having myself raised a brilliant but unworldly child whose genius far outstripped his age, I think that what saved him was having a bunch of older siblings who looked out for him until he could interact safely with the world without being used or exploited, and being part of a family and social group that was vastly diverse in terms of race, religion, lifestyle, jobs and interests. He was never really exposed to the concept of a ‘one true way for everyone’ except as something he read about at school. His growing up was still hard, because being a genius interacting with a duller world is always hard, and his chronic severe medical challenges made everything harder, but he has achieved a measure of happiness and a life that still has space for other people and other ways of looking at the world, and his own family has turned out well.

I can only hope for the same for Minna, and that she can make a good and useful life and be happy. But I think we need to cut her some slack because both she and her genius are still maturing. Good luck to her.

[wavewright62]

Many thanks to spegeljord for that analysis and tweak.  I admit that I have not read LP since the day it dropped on us like Kokko's ashy turds after she consumed dozens of trolls.  But by and large, your points make huge sense, especially the points about 'acceptable' churches in that world.

Offhand, I don't think Minna particularly subscribes to the prosperity gospel model.  She's been quite cheerful when acknowledging that she has alienated (and fully expects to continue alienating) the audience that has kept her among the few who can make a comfortable living as a working artist.  (Granted her economic needs are few as her lifestyle is pretty basic.)  She is ready to move on.

[dreki]

In her stream tonight, Minna says she's actually read the Bible (over the course of three months) so she's not making up her beliefs but I've also seen some Christians says that the bible isn't against self improvement...
Unfortunately I can't say one way or the other because I'm not Christian in any form (unless you count Christmas and singing songs about the Lord in Primary school assemblies)
But also she's got a study bible she plans to read so maybe her views will change? She claims to be a "recent convert and very pumped up"

I know this is a really old post but this is something I think is really important -

The bible was written in three different languages, and two thousand years ago. Read something from Old English written a thousand years ago - it's nigh incomprehensible to a modern English speaker.

To be able to truly read the bible - you have to study, to fluency, three separate languages. Then you have to study the historical context to understand what those words actually meant.

It is a dedication of a lifetime. Not something you can do in three months.

There's pretty few people in this world who can honestly say they've read the bible. 

If you're reading a translation then you are reading another person's biases.  End of story. It is not the word of god, it's the translation by a human of their understanding of the word of god.

The line about fitting a camel in the eye of the needle is probably one of the more amusing ones - a more accurate translation was probably twine.  Rope vs camel.  Look how MASSIVE a difference that is - one word.

Now in Greek, the primary language of the Gospel, the word for camel is (depending on how it’s transliterated) kamilon. But Burgess argued (and he is one of many who have) that since the word for rope, kamiilon, is essentially a homophone, the passage actually makes more sense if Jesus is telling his fisherman followers, in whose former trade cords and nets played such a prominent role, to imagine trying to thread a thick, nautical rope through a needle’s eye. - https://www.thecatholicthing.org/2010/01/04/camel-or-rope/

It doesn't actually change that passage very much but it should be a sobering awareness of how volatile translation can be that the words "camel" and "thick rope" can be mixed up!

The chunks on homosexuality are probably the ones most people know about the disagreement on. If you look, the word referred to child molesters and someone changed it to homosexuality in the 1940s. https://um-insight.net/perspectives/has-%E2%80%9Chomosexual%E2%80%9D-always-been-in-the-bible/

I've also seen a scholar claim that the part about Eve being punished with pain in childbirth - the word "pain" was more akin to work/toil and is the same one that's used to refer to needing to work the soil/farm.

Which many farmers would tell you is hard work but highly rewarding, and not needless agony the way people interprate "pain in childbirth".

The idea that you have to suffer in childbirth has had a massive impact on our cultural idea of what birth looks like.

Unless someone can prove their proficiency in Ancient Greek, Biblical Hebrew, and Biblical Arameic - take anything they have to say about "what the bible says" with a massive grain of salt.

And even if they can prove that proficiency - remember that ultimately they're a fallable human with their own biases and background which will impact how they interpret things.

[Róisín]

dreki, you make good points. And we need to also take into account the preoccupations and fanaticisms of the king who paid to have the King James translation made. I’m not a bible scholar, though I read several translations and many commentaries thereon when I discovered that my stepmother was a Christian, because I wished to understand her, and have some idea of how she would interact with the rest of us.

I do know several bible scholars, one of whom pointed out to me another bit of weird translation: the Greek ‘venifice’ being translated as ‘witch’, as in ‘thou shalt not suffer a witch to live’. But what the word actually means is ‘poisoner’. That translation always puzzled Wiccans.

[Jitter]

Hmm, in Finnish that bit is, or at least used to be in the previous translation “do not let a witch WOMAN” live… thank you patriarchy

[dreki]

I think it's fine to take whatever translation helps you, for your own personal use.  It's when someone forces it on others that it's an issue.  We don't know for sure what the passages meant, so lean towards respecting others' freedom.

It also is really disturbing when christians insist if we don't know what god said what's stopping people from XYZ.

Seriously? The only thing stopping you from murdering people and attacking children is the bible? Not, I don't know, basic levels of human decency?   

Hmm, in Finnish that bit is, or at least used to be in the previous translation “do not let a witch WOMAN” live… thank you patriarchy

In modern English, witch is almost exclusively female. The witch trials mostly focused on women, too.  I'm not sure exactly when, but for centuries "witch" has been an accusation against any woman who is too uppity/independent/intelligent/confident.

Right now, like within the last decade, there's been a slight increase of using witch to refer to men - but that's because witchcraft is a feminist heavy subject so gender equality is a big deal to modern witches.

So there's definitely the implications of patriarchy in the English version as well.

[Jitter]

Yeah, the female connotations are nowadays heavy with noita = witch in modern Finnish too, but it’s also been used as akin to “medicine man” or similar, a person of power that often but not always were men. Especially the magic-users of the Sami were called noita. The other word, tietäjä, translates directly as “the one who knows”.

Incidentally the witch hunts in Finland claimed more male victims than females.

The “witch woman”, noitanainen translation is in the 1992 version, which is the current official and newest full version. In the previous translation from the 1930’s the word is “velhonainen”, “wizard woman”. Even before Harry Potter that would have been a bit confusing as we were already moving to “men are wizards and women are witches” usage but an entire generation reading a series of books repeating this over and over definitely established it firmly (which incidentally in light of later events suddenly tastes even worse in my mouth than it previously did).

Which leads us back to the previous discussion - Róisín, is the Greek word gendered? Are we to put to death all poisoners or just female (or male) ones?

[Róisín]

Jitter, my Greek is basic basic and, as in most languages of which I know only bits and scraps, mostly related to cookery, botany and magic, so I’m unsure whether the word is or is not gendered. I had not thought so but you need to ask a Greek speaker. And I don't know if ‘witch’ is gendered in Greek. But in Italian there is strega and strega macho (man witch). It was a strega macho who taught me the few scraps of their magic I know.

Modern witches/wiccans here in Australia use the word ‘witch’ in non-gendered ways. The senior witch around here is a bloke, but his wife is also just a witch.

[greentea]

I know that I am super late to this discussion but I have recently been re-reading SSSS and gave LP a try again and have had it on my mind a lot recently.

Like many others I went into it when it first came out expecting something pretty different, or not knowing what I expected honestly and was smacked upside the head with the result. It hit me really hard since I was going through (and still am) a religious or spiritual crisis, as I was raised non-religious and during the pandemic isolation it started to weigh on me that I felt I was missing something. I was never increadibly interested in Christianity, but LP turned me away from it entirely. It just left me feeling increadibly hurt in a very personal way.

I generally agree with the sentiments already posted here so I don't have much left to say, its just been weighing on my mind and I thought I'd put it out there.
Ive been a lurker for years on the comic and forum and this is my first post! Its been wonderful to read all of your discussions for all this time!

[thorny]

Welcome, greentea! Glad to have you here!

And  -- yeah. I don't think the heavy-handed people understand that attempting to convert people by attacking them is likely to backfire.

[moredhel]

Hmm, in Finnish that bit is, or at least used to be in the previous translation “do not let a witch WOMAN” live… thank you patriarchy

In German they translate it to "Zauberin" strangely not our word for witch it is the female version of the german word for wizard. In the weird way german works as a language you could argue it implies male wizards would be ok.

[Yastreb]

I do know several bible scholars, one of whom pointed out to me another bit of weird translation: the Greek ‘venifice’ being translated as ‘witch’, as in ‘thou shalt not suffer a witch to live’. But what the word actually means is ‘poisoner’.

I once had the opportunity to test a street-level evangelist with that fact. The conversation went along these lines (sorta).
Her response was something akin to "Witches poison people's minds!"
"So what do you call someone who puts arsenic in the coffee?" I riposted.
I don't recall her exact answer, but whatever it was, it didn't make much sense.

[Jitter]

Imagine the repercussions if Christianity set out from the beginnings of the church to take a very strict stance on poisoners - and included poisoning of the air, earth, etc as well as substances that cause disease into it (starting from when the harm was first discovered), not just personally poisoning one person. We might have a different world.