posted
Something stranged happened to me at work. A customer gave me and the cashier a Jack Chick tract!
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posted
It still amazes me that there are people who equate giving out Chick tracts with "spreading the good word" ... I don't think any of his words are particularly good Posts: 1907 | Registered: Feb 2000
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posted
I had an idea once of making a counter-Chick Tract, with tract in it's entirety placed side by side with refutations of the more blatant lies found in some of them. At the end where Chick has the "Are you saved? Check yes or no" I'd have something like "Are you enlightened? Check yes or no".
Posts: 4089 | Registered: Apr 2003
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On the one hand, I'm sure the people who take the effort and muster the courage to pass out something filled with what they believe to be vital truths are extremely sincere and altruistic in their motives and deserve a measure of respect.
On the other hand, I just really, really enjoy making fun of those damn tracts.
posted
This Jack Chick thing escapes me. The only time I've ever heard anything about it was on this forum. It seemed like a self-parody when I read it. Maybe I missed the point.
Also, I found a chick tract tacked to a bulletin board in the student center several weeks ago. It amused me. I think we tossed it around for a while and then threw it away.
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Frankly, he mangles Catholic doctrine so badly that I can't imagine any Catholic who went to CCD being able to do anything but laugh. If anyone's interested, I've listed some of the more blatant misconcpetions.
I've never heard a priest say "I've forgiven anyone's sins."
The Catholic church does not teacht that being "good enough" will save you.
Catholics do not "Pray to Mary." We ask Mary to pray for us. (Of course, we also pray directly to God, both for ourselves and for others.)
posted
There's actually a parody of a Jack Chick tract that Scott Kurtz did for PvPOnline, though he later retracted it...
It can be found here, if you scroll all the way down to the bottom of the page. The top part is his reason for replacing the strip with another one in the archive.
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posted
The last panel in that parody is the most important one - how many people are turned away from Christianity because of this man's works. It reminds me of something I've been thinking about since we studied Dred Scott in Con Law last month.
For those who don't know, the Dred Scott decision had three principle holdings:
1.) Blacks can never be citizens of the U.S., so cannot avail themselves of the court. Despite the fact that this odious holding would have dispensed with the case, the decsion further held that
2.) The Federal Government cannot ban slavery in the territories, as this constituted a deprivation of property without due process of law. This was the first decision striking down a federal law using a clause in the Bill of Rights.
3.) States cannot free slaves brought into their territory by the owners.
In Chief Justice Taney's decision, he justified the first holding in part by quoting the Declaration of Independence: "For we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal..." He then said that since many of the founders owned slaves, they could not have considered blacks to be "men."
The passage underscored to me the incredible responsibility that making moral pronouncements carries. If a person is generally held out to be a moral authority, people will justify their own sins on the grounds that "such and such did it and he's a good person, so this can't be a sin." Similarly, a person who attempts to be a moral teacher can bring discredit to the laudable goals he has because people can say, "such and such believes that, and he did X, which is a very bad action, so that belief must be immoral."
And yet I don't believe people can be excused from making moral pronouncements. The world needs people to say, "Feed the hungry. Free the slaves. Allow people to worship according to the dictates of their conscience." And no one is totally good enough to be immune from the criticisms described above. It's quite the connundrum.
posted
I know. I just don't feel qualified to refute those like I do his attacks on Catholicism.
At least quoting Scripture makes some sense in trying to convince a Catholic to convert. But quoting it to someone who does not believe it is God's word is not going to convince them.
"You should believe X because this book says X is true, and part of X is believing that everything in this book is true."
Now, I believe that the Bible is the word of God. But if someone else doesn't believe that, how can quoting it convince them it's the truth?
posted
The ironic thing is the tracks always try to make those who don't agree with the Chick guy out to be evil, plotting, ignorant, hate mongers themselves. Of course, for Chick the "Christians" are full of purity whose very words should have instantly convinced someone of "the truth."
I am sure he is screaming "persecution" every time others don't agree with him. Yet, can you really call it persecution when you bring it on yourself by persecuting others?
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posted
Ron and I bought some bike pedals with clips on ebay, and when they came they had this little picture-postcard of the temple in SLC with some stuff on the back. We were amused, but not offended. Though I thought going through the discussions and NOT converting was , like, a "Get-out-of-proselytizing-free Card."
Back in the early 70s, when I was a wee thing, I remember that people at our church gave out those Chick tracts. I remember finding them weirdly compelling, like the close-up looks at insects, or diagrams of organs.
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posted
Sorry, but for Mormons prosylitising is a way of life. Every member a missionary. The only "get out of prosylitising free card" known to most Mormons IS conversion
On the other hand, what that has to do with chick tracts is beyond me. To equate a post-card with a Temple on it, and the hate filled B.S. of the Chick stuff is to totally beyond my comprehension -- and the association DOES offend me. That is, IF you were comparing the two.
posted
I WAS comparing the two, but only in a joking way (note the ), because obviously, there is no comparison. I mean, DUH. A pretty picture of a big-@ss building is about as subtle as you can get. It has to be the polar opposite of "D&D Players are Possessed by Deamons" and "Catholics are Going to Hell."
That's why I thought it was funny. I like Mormons. If I could get around my fundamental belief that anything with a penis probably doesn't have my best interests at heart, I might even be one.
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I especially liked the one with about (I use the word lightly) Witchcraft. 'Yeah, we learned it from Harry Potter books--we wanted his power!"
Pfft. At first I thought they were funny because people actually believe the stuff he puts out. Then I felt sick because people actually believe the stuff he puts out.
And the Ralphie adaptation of Bad Bob meets Science Mystery Theater 3000--- Posts: 463 | Registered: Oct 2003
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posted
Well, I'm glad you thought it was funny, but it's also kinda true.
I believe in God. I just think that God shouldn't be... limited. And gender seems limiting to me (because if something is x then it cannot be y and therefore is limited by its x-ness).
I guess that was a funny way to put it, but I didn't say it to be funny or to offend. I said it because it's true. I probably would be LDS now if it weren't for deities with dangly bits.
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posted
Makes sense to me... I always wonder why people consider god male... but then I am conflicted and seem to believe and not believe in god at the same time.
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posted
In my mind, the goal of a religious believer should be to discover the true nature of deity, whatever that might be, and learn from it.
I personally don't understand why someone would attempt to imagine, in advance, what features God ought to have, and then apply them as requirements, as though they were the HR person in charge of hiring God.
For instance, the requirement that God must be blandly perfect, or that God must be able to perform even the most counterintuitive of actions, or that God must represent any and all states of imaginable being, and cannot possess any descriptor that could be construed as a limit.
This proscriptivist view asserts as one of its base assumptions that, in order to be God, God must meet certain criteria imagined by man.
Personally, I believe in a more descriptivist view. I think our goal ought to be to commune with God through whatever means we have at our disposal, and seek to discover, from Him, what exactly it means to be God.
And if we learn that God is a giant marshmallow, we should be prepared to accept the hard truth when it comes Posts: 1907 | Registered: Feb 2000
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posted
Rat, that's actually why I think saying "I KNOW the nature of God is X" is so laughable. At least that's part of it.
The other part is that if God is physiaclly like us, only superior in many ways... then he's like an alien gardener, trying to grow more things like himself. That is an understandable aim for any being, actually. The need to make more like itself.
I can accept that. I just don't see any reason to call such a being "God." *shrug*
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