Chick

I fear I may have too much dismissed the fact that I still find a measure of worth in monitoring angry opponents in the last post. Listening to them, but not debating anymore… :-)

I admittedly still keep track of some of them every once in a while (not near as much as I once did). It’s too late there, I’ve already become so used to them that I almost find them cute, in a kitschy way :-). The vitriol I mainly hope to avoid and no longer go looking to combat is the “I want you dead” sort.

On the lighter side and for example, take one of my favorites, Jack Chick. You may have had his work handed too you on a street corner. He can’t stand the gays (the Mormons, the Masons, or the Catholics either).

I can’t help but find some ironic humor in his tracts, particularly those regarding gays. I suppose there’s no more hilarious an effigy than the one purporting to be made of yourself, one that reveals just how absurdly far into an illusion those burning it have bought. Take for example The Birds and the Bees:

Here

Yes, yes, Mr Chick, if I and my “wife” (and the invisible demons making out while perched on our heads) get our way, we’d put you in prison. Boogaty boogaty boogaty! And the old Gay Sodom yarn… Classy.

My “favorite”: the panel with the quote “But some people are evil and intolerant,” (my emphasis certainly not added or needed). Maybe I should take that shocked gay guy on the left as my avatar ;-).

But, if you think that’s bad, you should see how he treats the LDS, in the ominously entitled The Visitors:

Here

Bet you LDS folks didn’t know your religion was so easily debunked, or that you were modern-day worshipers of Baal ;-).

Ah, classic Chick: the angry non-believer missionary, the missionary about to see the light after such an overwhelming intellectual assault ;-), the literal light that old Aunt Fran gains when she sees the error of her ways. Why, you can see the villainy and morality right on their faces (But not as well as Ms. Henn in the gay tract; she appears ready to throw a kid into her gingerbread oven and take off on a broom).

Anyway, see what I mean? How does one remain respectful and measured in the face of such? It’s so difficult… Must… maintain… respect… for his… humanity. :-)

I think though one of the main lesions learned from my last site was that I can’t take out my frustration with people like Chick on those who share his faith. In fact, one of the best online friends I ever made from that site is a Baptist minister. Simply and of course, not all of them want to harm my family; neither do they all think the LDS worship a Babylonian God :-). To treat them, from the start, as though they are Chick clones is to use just as unfair an effigy as those made in the tracts above.