Lovely People aka 'the bunny comic'

[lwise]

I think it's possible that we're interpreting "not allowed" differently.

I think that's true.  Minna said if you someday find yourself in such a "utopia", people may not be legally allowed to speak of Christianity, not that that is true now.  Plainly it is not, or this site would have been shut down.  Totalitarian governments don't seem to like Christianity (see China and USSR), and so if a government sets up such a social-credit-system, it is not unreasonable to suppose that such a government -- for practical purposes totalitarian, whatever it calls itself -- would legally silence Christians.

But I also don’t think she is entitled to tell others what to believe ...

She is entitled on her own site, which this is.  Whether people accept it -- and clearly many do not -- is up to them.

[moredhel]

Totalitarian governments don't seem to like Christianity (see China and USSR)

That was not true in every case https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usta%C5%A1e and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francoist_Spain#Roman_Catholicism were very catholic governments.

[Yuuago]

I think that's true.  Minna said if you someday find yourself in such a "utopia", people may not be legally allowed to speak of Christianity, not that that is true now.

I think that's where we're getting hung up. You're talking about the content of the comic. I am not. That is not the issue here. (I agree that totalitarianism is bad. I hope I did not give the impression that I think it is a good thing.)

What I am saying: If she actually thinks that we are all sinners who should humbly turn ourselves to Christ, as she states in the endnotes, then that is indeed hurtful and offensive to many of her fans/former fans. She's entitled to think that, and her audience is entitled to be repulsed by her views and say "you shouldn't say things like that".

[thorny]

OK maybe I can quote multiple people from midthread in the same post by moving everything into and then out of a text document.

All of that not to mention the "World Concuil that controlls everything and everyone and hates christians" being a very old antisemitic trope, and the mockery of "inclusivity" with the segment explaining "Bible 2", especially the bit with mocking gender neutrality on there.

The persecution complex comes from making the dichotomy where you either serve God (and thus are automatically good and correct and pure), or serve the evil bad shallow fake unpure iphone china amazon.
No room for anything else, no other options.

People disagreeing with her on any subject are basically Jesus Haters who are Evil.

Yes Minna. It IS offensive to go around telling people theyre going to hell for living their life in this Society.

This. Very much this.

And that's true whatever society we're talking about, if you're telling them not only that there's something wrong with that society, but that you have the Only Possible Moral Option.

She’s been a devout Christian only for a year and a half - two years, from what I heard her also say during the stream, which still places her conversion a while after the conclusion of the first adventure

According to the text at the bottom of the page, a lot less than that. About a year for some sort of Christianity, but only a few months for the current version:

A little over a year ago I started feeling a pull to belive in God, Jesus, and I hestitantly started calling myself a Christian. But really I wasn't, I didn't even know what Christians believe. [ . . .] \ and then, in late autumn of 2020, repentance and forgiveness throught his son Jesus Christ.

I I hope that her conversion does not spark acrimony among the fans. Let us leave Minna to explore her new faith in peace

She doesn't seem willing to leave others to explore their faiths, new or otherwise.

It's hard not to feel some acrimony when being attacked.

I've got no problem whatsoever with Christians who don't do that. I've also known some truly excellent people who are Christians. They just don't have an exclusive hold on being excellent people.

I wonder what community was created by the people that fled, because they surely aren’t all christian.

I suspect that in Minna's head they are indeed all Christian, or else will shortly become so. Because that's the only alternative she's presenting. Worship the Corporation, or worship the Jesus: she's not seeing anything else.

Yes, many people here are saying that Sundberg should not say those things.

This is a social response. Not an authoritative response. Nobody here can force her not to say those things. Saying "What you say is rude and offensive and if this is how you feel then I don't want to read your comic any more" is not literally repressing her from saying anything.

This.

She should be legally allowed to say that I'm a terrible sinner and am going to go to Hell. But I should be in no way required to stand there and listen to it. And people are allowed to respond, even if it's to say that no, she's the one who's being a terrible sinner. Why should it be OK for her to say we're wrong but not OK for anyone to say she's wrong?

I suspect that I'm going to hang on to the end of this particular story arc, out of curiosity, but staying out of the undoubtedly-censored Discus; drop the comic thereafter, even if Minna doesn't; not read anything else she produces; but possibly pop in here once in a while to see how people I've come to care about are doing.

if a government sets up such a social-credit-system, it is not unreasonable to suppose that such a government -- for practical purposes totalitarian, whatever it calls itself -- would legally silence Christians.

And a whole lot of other people, of other religions and atheist. Totalitarians don't only want to silence Christians. Sometimes, of course, as Iwise points out, they claim to be Christians.

[Superdark33]

And a whole lot of other people, of other religions and atheist. Totalitarians don't only want to silence Christians. Sometimes, of course, as Iwise points out, they claim to be Christians.

Its always extra rich to me to see the flavors of christianity that pretty much ruled the world for the last few hundrad years complain about being "Persecuted", writing stories about how Being A Christian Is Forbidden and give as examples the facts that they cant scream at people that they are inferior anymore, while i dont need to bring up much to talk about what my people gone through to overshadow that by a large margain.

What they describe as oppression basically amounts to complaining they cant oppress me anymore.

[JoB]

She tells you straight out in the text at the end of the comic.

That text is prefixed with the words

Thanks for reading my comic to the end! Hopefully you got something out of it. I wrote some paragraphs about my motivations behind making this comic, you can read them below if you're interested, but it's not necessary.

It then describes how she found herself swept away with her religious epiphany, and goes on to theorize how we're headed for an Alizonciety because "we" welcome it as an utopia and fail to see the sinfulness of all human life. Technically she's not even trying to proselytize anyone with that (remember what I wrote about the former Christian "this world is a lost cause, anyway" stance?), and since I neither believe us (Westerners) to be on that steep a descent nor am anywhere near welcoming it if we turn out to be, I'm not reading anything on the "you have been messaged subliminally" scale, either. Somewhat talked down to, sure, but that's nothing I'm not able to just shrug off. Especially when I strongly suspect that the other guy's aiming way too high with his prophecy.

-- OK, apologies for multiposting, but I don't see any other way to do it on these boards; I'm only seeing the option to "insert quote" for the most recent few posts, and I want to respond to some in the middle.

Are you on a phone, or a PC? If the latter, you can open the "Quote" link above every post you want to address in a new window/tab and copy-paste all the text snippets into a single post-to-be editing form.

I suspect that in Minna's head they are indeed all Christian, or else will shortly become so. Because that's the only alternative she's presenting.

Considering the penultimate, black and white panel where we're suddenly looking up a hill with a radiant cross on it, while the bunnies are forging ahead on a path through a somewhat more lush wilderness in the adjacent panels above and below, that's what I feel being suggested, too.

[lwise]

... I'm not reading anything on the "you have been messaged subliminally" scale, either. Somewhat talked down to, sure, but that's nothing I'm not able to just shrug off.

That's pretty much my reaction.  Growing up I basically despised Christians because of the way I was treated.  Maybe I hang out with nicer people these days, but the Christians I know include my best friends and other people that I genuinely respect.  It's a little disconcerting for me when someone starts talking heart-felt about their beliefs, as Minna did, but I look at it as an aspect of their life that I don't want to explore, withdraw a little until they stop, and I just go on.  They are not the abusive people that I had the misfortune to know.

[moredhel]

I suspect that in Minna's head they are indeed all Christian, or else will shortly become so. Because that's the only alternative she's presenting. Worship the Corporation, or worship the Jesus: she's not seeing anything else.

I am not sure if it is about presenting alternatives. It could be the other way around.
Speculation:
Minna found a Religios praxis that makes her happy. Although I think Christianity is a way to see the world which gives me a whole range of uncomfortable and fearful feelings, many people are happy with it. If I assume Minna is happy with her christian faith, and it is something important for her, it is not unusual she wants to talk about it. As anybody can see in the forum people want to talk of their Moments of happiness.
As a webcomic author she made a Comic about it. Maybe she wantet just to say: "I found a religion that makes me feel nice and the normal day to day problems feel less relevant now." That would make a not very interesting comic because of a lack of story. So what to do if you want to make it more interesting? Exaggerate the day to day problems until a story emerges.
So maybe she did not want to tell us believe or go to hell, but just I found religion and it gives me the confidence to happily go to wherever the future takes me. That would fit the end of the comic the bunnies go confidently to wherever, the point is they do not go directly to heaven, they go to an unknown future. So no magical total salvation, just bunnies doing what they think is the best thing to do. We do not know if they are sucessfull, we do not know if they survive. We saw no salvation or something.

I do prefer the interpretation, that minna just wanted to tell everyone that she feels happy ond confident and it feels easier for her to get things done.

[viola]

She is entitled on her own site, which this is.  Whether people accept it -- and clearly many do not -- is up to them.

Just for quick clarification, Minna doesn't actually own this site. The forum is independent, started, owned, hosted, and run by volunteers. She links us to her website, but we don't get any money or perks or anything from her, and she has no moderation or control over how we run the site.

[thorny]

That text is prefixed with the words [ . . ]Technically[/i] she's not even trying to proselytize anyone with that [ . . . ] Somewhat talked down to, sure, but that's nothing I'm not able to just shrug off.

And it ends with these words:

remember this: your problem is your sin against God. But He is loving and merciful, and is still gathering his lost sheep, humble yourself and repent.

Some of us, I'm sure, find this sort of thing easier to shrug off than others. Maybe we've been reading different chunks of history.

Are you on a phone, or a PC? If the latter, you can open the "Quote" link above every post you want to address in a new window/tab and copy-paste all the text snippets into a single post-to-be editing form.

Yup, that'll work too. Thanks. It's actually easier for me to copy over into a text document, though; same amount of copy-pasting (except for once at the end to get it back into a reply window) and I can see a lot more text at the same time.

[Róisín]

Superdark and Yuuago make good points. My unease at the one true way aspect of this is because my own ancestors suffered at the hands of the Christian church. How do the Jews and Muslims in the Forum feel about this?

A friend who occasionally reads the comic was also horrified. He is an elderly man of the Kurnai people of Victoria, and his mother was a survivor of the Stolen Generations. That is, an Aboriginal woman who as a child was taken from her family, forcibly converted and for practical purposes enslaved to a white Christian family. That happened more than most people know about, but the historical records still exist for many of the cases, though there were many more instances where it happened unofficially, and the survivors of those actions are still trying to find their surviving families, if any. He recognises that rhetoric about forcing people for their own good, as do I, and hopes that the events that shattered his own family do not happen again.

Sadly, many of these ‘oppressed’ Christians simply want to regain the right to oppress the rest of us. ‘For our own good’, you know. Minna has every right to become a convert to Christianity, and to tell us about it, but no right to expect us to join her.

[thorny]

How do the Jews and Muslims in the Forum feel about this?

My heritage is Jewish, though I don't practice. That may well have something to do with my reactions (given various places in this thread, as I expect Róisín already noticed.)

[MollyVampiric]

I really don't think I can form as well made comments as y'all, but I just finished reading it and all I can say is that it rubs me the wrong way. Don't get me wrong, it was promising, but... y'know. Everyone is entitled to their own belief, but the way she writes it reminds me of my grandparents. I am bisexual, I've known ever since I was 12. I also know that if I ever told my grandparents, they would disown me. They value their faith over my own safety, I know for sure. I'm not saying that Minna is that way, but the tone and language in which she writes gets on my nerves because of the bad memories it brings back. The persecuted Christian narrative always grinds my gears, because oftentimes these writers don't actually know what it means to be rejected by your own family or society for something you couldn't change if you wanted to. It feels as if Minna is equating persecution to saying something offensive on Twitter and getting mass disliked. (Yes, the story is written in a social credit system universe, but I'm talking more about the vibe it gives.)

[JoB]

And it ends with these words:

remember this: your problem is your sin against God. But He is loving and merciful, and is still gathering his lost sheep, humble yourself and repent.

Some of us, I'm sure, find this sort of thing easier to shrug off than others. Maybe we've been reading different chunks of history.

"All humans are born in sin, a debt that by far the most of them can never get rid of, but God loves them nonetheless" is pretty much standard belief of Christians, usually including their own selves with those humans. It's what prompted the Christian God to sacrifice His own son to atone for said sins, so, quite the central and indispensible motif. Are we still talking about Minna's particular points of view here?

[moredhel]

This is pretty much the standard belief of christians. Very scary stuff.