Justice, religion, and stuff. (Chick is funny... and sick.)

[BloodyWilliam]

As Halloween is coming by soon (dressing up as a ninja, myself!), I've done the annual ritual of reading Chick Tracts to get me into the spirit of things. :evilgrin:

They're of course full of crap, but they bring up an interesting philosophical question.

Can God be considered wrong?

Let's ponder for a moment that the crap Chick spews and that countless evangelical Christians (and others) lap up is true. (Then let go of that idea right away. Yuck.) According to my own moral values, any God that would create the rules has to be one of the most immoral beings to ever exist.

If the rules presented by evangelical Christians like Chick are true, then God has set the rules so:

1. Works are irrelevant. No matter how good you are, you are condemned to suffering if you don't accept Jesus.
2. If you are the worst possible bastard in life, as long as you accept Jesus with your dying breath, you won't be condemned to the same punishment as countless selfless altruists will be condemned to.

If this is true, fundamentalist radicals like Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, abortion snipers and bombers, the crusaders, the inquisitors, etc. have and will go to heaven while people like Ghandi have and will go to hell. (And arguably Mother Theresa, if you believe Chick's Catholics = damned rule)

How can anything consider this just? Even if such a god did exist, there is no way I could find that just. It's just some powerful lawmaker bullying people, caring more about his image than the state of the world.

Eh, rant over. For those interested, here are the Chick tracts I was reading:

http://chick.com/reading/tracts/0032/0032_01.asp

From that tract, this was the thing that spawned this rant.

(After Timmy was hit by a car when he ran out of a Halloween haunted house)

Mother: Don't make the mistake of believing that good people go to heaven and bad people go to hell. That's a lie straight from the devil.
(et cetera, et cetera)
Bobby: You mean being a good person won't get me into heaven?
Mother: No, Bobby. You must accept God's love gift, Jesus Christ.

(That's how it's worded, which leads me to wonder about... okay, I really don't have the heart to tell a joke about priests giving little kids 'God's love gift,' but y'all should know I thought about it. :evilgrin:)

Some other gems:

http://chick.com/reading/tracts/0064/0064_01.asp

http://chick.com/reading/tracts/0041/0041_01.asp

(Exactly what I was talking about)

http://chick.com/reading/tracts/0090/0090_01.asp

(This one is just fucking funny)

http://chick.com/reading/tracts/0014/0014_01.asp

(...riiiight.)

http://chick.com/reading/tracts/0034/0034_01.asp

("We're gonna rock, rock, rock, rock with the ROCK!" :yourock: :silly:)

http://chick.com/reading/tracts/0053/0053_01.asp

[speckledgator]

1. C'mon

The least that witch could do, is let the kiddies take a dip in the Lake of Fire before they fall into the Abyss??? That's not right!

[dolo amber]

2. Yikes!

Just fuckin' yikes! I used to collect these things (fuck knows why...teenage amusement?) until I went back and re-read some ome day and got the willies so bad I tossed them all. These are even scarier! The ones we had *back in tha day* were insane, to be sure, but these are a new breed. For example:

http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0042/0042_01.asp


Yes, now HERE'S a good idea...let's get all the freaky fundies to convert the Muslims that "expect a Muslim flag to fly over the White House" by 2010".

Fucking asshats. :eyes:

[Ratty]

3. I am such a big Chick fan

Oh, okay, I'm not a fan I guess but I do collect his comics and I love to read them. His style has become a cultural icon. His tracts exist in that perfect intersection where parody precisely meets reality. They would be equally at home on landover.com as on bju.com. C'mon, anyone would have to appreciate the classic Decapitator Mobile in his masterpiece The Beast. And who can forget that little Nazi Bobby, brainwashed and indoctrinated in the secular school system by the New Age Healer in perhaps his best tract ever The Last Generation?

Okay, I definitely understand how people can despise these things. I was just talking in another thread about how I can't read Orson Scott Card anymore because of his political beliefs. I guess maybe it's the kitschiness and campiness factor. The completely over-the-top craziness that I find impossible to take seriously.

Not too long ago I was shopping in a furniture store in a conservative area not too far from where I live. The first thing I see when I walk in is an ENORMOUS American flag hanging on the back wall. Then when I get to the register I see they have a large selection of Chick tracts available for free. Well my eyes light up and I tell the cashier how much I LOVE them and can I take some. I wax on and on about my favorites and start stuffing them in my pocket. Well, I'm a gay man and let's just say I ain't the most masculine fellow to ever walk the Earth and the cashier is just watching me, one eyebrow arched in dark suspicion, but she doesn't say a thing.

I had a few on my desk at work where someone else spotted them and she said she really loved them, so as she's looking through them we're talking about how much we like them and the whole time neither of us can get a feeling for why the other likes them, just which side of the parody/reality line the other is coming from, and after awhile it becomes a game for us. That was such a fun time.

Anyway, I really sincerely apologize if my enthusiastic tone offends anybody. I can definitely understand where you're coming from. I guess I just can't take them seriously and I don't really seem them changing any minds or converting anybody. I guess I see them as more useful at exposing the dark underbelly of the religious right.

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

4. I have about 50 Chick tracts

I started collecting them when they were banned from my church when I was a kid. I also have a number of them in Spanish too.