Happy Agnostica!

[q99]

X-mas isn't the only holiday this time of year, so I thought I'd share some comicage of my personal holiday of choice, the secular winter holiday Agnostica!









Comic and animation from Nukees

Comments

[nezchan]

Is that Kiki the ferret on the guy's shirt?

[q99]

Huh, I'm not sure. It might be.

[selke]

I wish I would have thought of that BEFORE I wrapped presents. The tags would have been much more fun.

[badficwriter]

THE WAR AGAINST CHRISTMAS PROCEEDS SATISFACTORILY.

[q99]

They can do their holiday all they want, we just have ours :)

[btravage]

I thought X-Mas was secular.

[psychopathicus_rex]

Frankly, that guy is insufferable enough to put me off the holiday altogether.

[q99]

The guy at the end? He's just an insufferable physicist butting in, Luca the reasonable one is the pro-Agnostica one.

[psychopathicus_rex]

Either one - they both come off as way too (ironically) holier-than-thou for their own good.

[q99]

Hm... I have some trouble seeing it, since he's just answering her questions directly.

Now, jerk at the end, sure...

[psychopathicus_rex]

It's not really either of them, I guess - it's the depiction of Agnostica as a celebration which flouts its vaunted superiority over lowly religious holidays by packing in enough scientific and mathematic gobbledegook that it ensures ONLY people who are whiz kids at such subjects can even celebrate it on the right day. I'm sure that's meant to be part of the joke, poking fun at the high-and-mighty ways that some atheists/agnostics put on, but it ruffles my feathers nonetheless, because it's a little too close to reality.

[lieut_kettch]

Bah! These pencil-neck eggheads would surely fail at the Feats of Strength at Festivus Dinner!

[psychopathicus_rex]

It is possible.

[meatwhichdreams]

ALL HAIL FESTIVUS!

[q99]

Sounds to me like you're just looking for a reason to dislike it.

It's a loose holiday that doesn't have a specific day and has math/physics jokes.

[psychopathicus_rex]

*shrugs* Well, I had the same reaction to it the last time it was posted here, so maybe I'm just not the target audience.

[destroyed]

You're not the only one. Then again, advanced mathematics is the Devil's tongue to me.

[psychopathicus_rex]

Me too! Just regular old common mathematics often trip me up.

[q99]

If it's not your thing, you don't have to comment :)

[ian_karkull]

It's no reason not too, either. Polite disagreement is a part of discourse and positive feedback is not the only valid one.
Rex voiced his/her reason for not liking this thoughtfully and respectfully and there's absolutely no reason why he/she shouldn't do so.

Personally, I think that the concept (and comic) is a bit rubbish myself, but to each his own.

[q99]

I'm just saying it would be kinda nice to post a non-antagonistic post about the holiday I actually celebrate and have for the last decade and not have people complain about it's simple existence.

[ian_karkull]

No one's denying you your holiday or enjoyment thereof, but this is a discussion board and when you post something, you'll have to be prepared for people offering their opinion on the subject matter and that they might not necessarily agree with you.
We're not trying to be mean or spoil your fun, but our opinions count as much as anyone's.

"If you don't like it, shut up." is the most counterproductive attitude there is.

[q99]

"No one's denying you your holiday or enjoyment thereof"

Well, that's the thing, he didn't attack just the strip or say he didn't like the holiday, but was pretty strongly implying those who like it were insufferable.

So.... yea. His comments definitely rubbed me the wrong way.

-
"If you don't like it, shut up." is the most counterproductive attitude there is.-

I don't think so. I doubt the Christmas posts would benefit from similar posts.

Yes, one can post negatively in a way that adds to the conversation, but I submit holiday cheer posts are not the best place for it. What's been discussed factors in to it too.

[ian_karkull]

S/he merely said that the character in the strip came across as insufferable in his/her opinion, nothing more. I'm sorry if you feel this insults you personally somehow, but since nobody actually was insulted, I still feel it's a teensy bit problematic to tell people what and when to post, regardless of the season.

[q99]

It was more the comment a few later that got a bit more general, not the initial one, that I had issue with.

Anyway, I think the issue's resolved between psychopathicus and myself, so I'm fine with dropping the line of argument.

[psychopathicus_rex]

Well, if I only commented on things that WERE my thing, I wouldn't be doing a lot of commenting other than 'yeah, nice stuff', which gets boring. A good rant every now and then does no harm.

[q99]

Still, I found it antagonistic to jump from 'this guy is kind of smug,' to attacking the holiday as a whole for daring to cater to people who find 'scientific and mathematic gobbledegook' fun to someone who celebrates it.

[psychopathicus_rex]

To be honest, I hadn't realized at the time that Agnostica was a genuine holiday that people actually celebrated. I was under the impression that it had been made up for the strip. I wasn't trying to belittle your enjoyment of the holiday - and if I did come off that way, I apologize - I was grousing about a strip I didn't like because I thought the characters were jerks.

[q99]

Ah, that does explain things. Sorry if I bit your head off.

It was invented by the maker of the strip originally, but at the same time he does stuff like set up a "random bad of fun" and such that's run for many years now and people do participate in Agnostica festivities and there are some people such as me who do celebrate it 'cause it's fun. So it's a small but real thing.

[psychopathicus_rex]

Ah, so it's mainly a 'fans of the strip' sort of thing. I guess that explains why I never heard of it - it's not a strip I follow.

[q99]

Or to put it another way, some of *us* have fun with it, is it really necessary to step in each time and make it known you're not?

[psychopathicus_rex]

I DON'T step in each time and make it known I'm not. The strip irritated me, that's all; doesn't mean other people can't find it funny.

[q99]

I could've sworn last year you made a few posts on why you didn't like it too.

Though honestly, it's mostly the tone of your comments in this post strike me as really antagonistic to the holiday and those who do like it (i.e. me, some of my friends).

[psychopathicus_rex]

Well, like I said in another post, I didn't realize it was real, so I'm sorry. I thought it was just something made up for the comic.