Along with that copy of Imprint that I was sent yesterday, someone at the Bell (Scott? Was that you?) slipped in a copy of … oh, it was horrifying … a comic book. Not just any comic book, though, a Crusader Comic, one of Jack Chick’s line of full sized comic book style propaganda pamphlets (unlike the usual smaller sized tracts we usually see). This one was called “Primal Man?”. Yikes. It’s basically a colorized version of “Big Daddy?”, only instead of an evilutionist college professor getting outsmarted by a wise Christian student, it’s an evilutionist movie producer getting outsmarted by a Christian anti-evolutionist anthropologist. There aren’t many of those around, I can tell you, but since Chick is unconstrained by reality, he could just invent one.
The plot line is familiar and bogus. Evilutionist asserts the truth of biology, smug and smarmy creationist makes a series of baldfaced lies in support of his position, and at every step, evilutionist reels and gasps in shock at the persuasive power of utter nonsense. It’s a kind of creationist porn, where the object of their desire simply succumbs to their charisma in a dizzyingly unrealistic fashion — believable to the creationist reader only because they so desperately desire it to be real.
For example, the manly hero of this story makes the execrable moon dust argument, and what does the evilutionist do? The mere utterance of creationist tripe makes him stagger.
Uh, you know that that argument is bogus, right? Accurate calculations, that is, ones that used well-supported estimates rather than an old, worst-case estimate cherry-picked by the creationists, predicted centimeters, not meters, of moon dust. We also didn’t need to send a man to the moon to figure out that there couldn’t be hundreds of feet worth of soft dust piled up — all you needed to do was look at craters with an earth-based telescope.
The comic web page provides more examples of Lying for Jesus, with panels claiming that living snails were dated as old, as were recent lava flows. Every word is long-discredited spin and dishonesty, straight from the old master himself, Henry Morris. It’s an indication of the perversity and persistence of religious thought that Christianity hasn’t simply imploded under the disgrace of the blatant liars who are among its most vocal proponents.
A word of warning, creationists: if you try to pull these kinds of goofy arguments on me, I won’t clutch my chest and cry out, “My life has been a wasted dedication to Satan’s folly!”, nor will I swoon in terror of your brilliance. I’ll probably laugh as I cruelly slice you to ribbons.
Another hint: if you have the opportunity to deliver pizzas to two hot co-eds in their hot-tub equipped studio apartment, you will not hear chicka-chicka-wow-wow music, and offering to help them with their anatomy homework will end with you clutching a ruptured groin, some police officers hauling you away, and no tip.
> a Christian anti-evolutionist anthropologist.
Arkansas Jones?
Alabama Jones. His catchphrase is “Thank God for Mississippi”.
I’ve always had a soft spot for Chick tracts. They are comic relief of the highest quality. In fact, I think some of them rank up there with Monty Python sketches.
So is it just me, or could that second frame have been lifted straight out of a Nazi propaganda poster?
I had a housemate that collected those things. Crazy. The Big Daddy one was curiously racist – notice how the creationist protagonist is a white male and the rest of the races and the entire other gender go along with the evil evolution conspiracy and are turned around by the glowing Aryan? MartinM, right on with your comment, I think I agree with my former housemate – these little comic books are curiously fun! (As in, a peek inside a crazy world-view)
Framing science for the religious ?
http://img225.imageshack.us/img225/9537/framezn6.jpg
My favorite Chick comic: a tract that warned that the end times were approaching. Part of the evidence: modern times have witnessed an increase in cardiovascular disease. An illustration showed a man suffering a heart attack being loaded into an ambulance. The relevant biblical text: “their hearts shall fail.” Apparently the authors of these tracts wouldn’t recognize a metaphor if it bit them on the metaphorical ass. This is particularly strange given that their messiah taught through the medium of parables.
Give young people a real alternative To Jack Chicks propaganda!
Join the Darwin Youth today!http://cedros.globat.com/~thebrites.org/DarwinYouth/index.html
Setting aside all else that’s wrong with the argument… I find the assertion that “If X amount of dust falls on Earth, the same amount falls on the Moon” fairly amusing. Because, you know, it’s not like the Moon is smaller or anything.
I suppose it’s too much to hope that that was taken into account in their bogus calculations?
Actually, they didn’t know about heart attacks back then. Even recently (19th century) a fatal heart attack was diagnosed as acute indigestion, not heart failure. They didn’t know that the function of the heart was to pump blood.
You know, besides the general stupidity/dishonesty behind the moon dust argument, it occurs to me that if it takes 5 billion years to accumulate 137 feet of moon dust at the bogus rate of 14 million tons per year, it’ll still take a good 380,000 years to accumulate an eigth of an inch…
Part of the evidence: modern times have witnessed an increase in cardiovascular disease.
Another angle to this fallacy is that people were keeling over from things like typhoid, consumption and cholera before they had a chance to develop heart problems.
I’ve only seen the comic at the link provided, so was wondering: do they happen to cite any scientific sources more recent than 1968, or is that when all science stopped? Forty years is a long enough time to hold a grudge.
Part of the evidence: modern times have witnessed an increase in cardiovascular disease.
But the rate of cardiovascular disease (or at least death from CVD) is now falling. Evidence that we are moving away from the end times?
Darwin Youth? Hmm?
OK, I have a question. I know, and you know, that the theory of evolution is not a theological argument, and that it’s at least honorable (if not logically defensible) to believe in God and Creation while also acknowledging the full role of evolution in the development of living organisms. Say that one day we finally managed to convince the vast majority of religious people of the correctness of evolutionary science, and we were no longer feeling threatened by ignorant fundamentalism. What flag would we atheists rally ’round then? Would we even have one? What would our chatroom and comment-thread trolls and our wanna-be theocrats obsess about then as their particular idee fixe?
I don’t put a Darwin fish on my car because I don’t wish to equate my atheism with my acceptance of evolutionary theory. The two things are associated only because the scientific facts happen to conflict with the Genesis myth, and the proponents of the myth are squeaky wheels. I feel we atheists need to resist, to some extent, the temptation to be dragged into the side issue of evolution, if we intend to keep the focus on the central discussion of the postulated existence and attributes of the supernatural.
That’s not framing, and it’s not appeasement. It’s just trying to keep from being distracted by issues related to evolution while other weak spots, including but not limited to the efforts to impose a theocracy in the USA, are neglected.
people were keeling over from things like typhoid, consumption and cholera before they had a chance to develop heart problems.
I prefer to think God in his mercy blessed people with typhoid, consumption and cholera to save them from the ravages of heart attacks and cancer.
Good ol’ god!
Please. Doesn’t Jack Chick know the moon landings were faked?
Speedwell:
I don’t think we’re even especially rallied around evolution. This is just a matter of my own perception, but it seems to me that what we have is people responding to other people who claim that ideas the facts don’t support ought to be taught as supported by the facts. The self-proclaimed moral champions of the nation are trying to legislate a lie, because they feel that the views that the facts do support threaten beliefs they daren’t challenge.
In other words, I don’t see atheists as some sort of mobilized army forwarding the cause of evolution. It’s more reactive and less cohesive than that. Witness yourself: you say you don’t see the evolution debate as one you wish to participate in, and so you don’t. You’re hardly alone in that (: However, you are posting on the blog of an active biology researcher and vocal atheist; you have to expect a lot of discussion of evolution here (:
Chick at his craziest.
http://www.angelfire.com/on/3angels/nameinvatican.html
http://www.angelfire.com/on/3angels/macho.html
Wait, wait, isn’t Kali supposed to SLAY demons?
http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0070/0070_01.asp
Exactly how can a nature-worshipping religion that dosen’t follow Judeo-Christian mythology believe in Satan again? I kind of got lost around panel 5.
http://www.angelfire.com/on/3angels/satansmaster.html
Oh, sure I expect that, and that’s why I come here. I am very fond of examining the interface between theists and atheists (a casualty of having been both at different times, I guess), and in particular the defense of science against anti-scientific, purposeful ignorance is fascinating to me. But I’m getting alarmed at what I see as the potential for scientists to get bogged down in fighting nonsense at the expense of science itself, and equally alarmed at the potential for genuine honest godlessness to be shackled at the ankle to the raving lunacy of religious apologetics instead of being free to develop its own rational paradigms.
The Big Daddy one was curiously racist
As is “Primal Man?” – there’s nothing explicit, but some of the ‘Hollywood producers’ (nudge, wink) early in the comic seem to have wandered in from the funny pages of Der Stürmer.
I grew up reading Jack Chick comic books… I loved them, much more so than the tracts, especially the CRUSADER series. But then, I also loved horror stories, “Alfred Hitchcock Presents…”, The Twilight Zone, and Twinkies for breakfast. Some things we’re meant to outgrow. :) Certainly they were hugely unsuccessful at indoctrinating me into the Christian Wingnut Brigade.
Interestingly, Chick is a very controversial figure even among Christian circles, in light of his anti-Catholic comic books, beginning with “Alberto.” About 10 years ago, while visiting my parents, we went to the local Christian bookstore, and I asked about the Chick comic books — nostalgia, mostly, since when I was kid, going to the Christian bookstore for a new comic book was my very favorite thing in the world. The woman hemmed and hawed, then took me aside and murmured, “Actually, we keep those in the back, because they upset so many of our customers…” I have expected her to give me my purchases in a discreet brown paper bag.
Religious porn. That’s what Jack Chick amounts to…. :)
Say that one day we finally managed to convince the vast majority of religious people of the correctness of evolutionary science, and we were no longer feeling threatened by ignorant fundamentalism. What flag would we atheists rally ’round then? Would we even have one? What would our chatroom and comment-thread trolls and our wanna-be theocrats obsess about then as their particular idee fixe?
I don’t put a Darwin fish on my car because I don’t wish to equate my atheism with my acceptance of evolutionary theory. The two things are associated only because the scientific facts happen to conflict with the Genesis myth, and the proponents of the myth are squeaky wheels. I feel we atheists need to resist, to some extent, the temptation to be dragged into the side issue of evolution, if we intend to keep the focus on the central discussion of the postulated existence and attributes of the supernatural.
What would replace the Darwin fish as the symbol of (American) atheism, an atheist “tribal” rallying cry despite the fact that the two ideas it unifies are related strongly but only incidentally, if those two ideas were no longer related? Simple: a coathanger.
But, fine, suppose abortion and women’s rights in general aren’t a hangup of religious groups either. If that were the case, then I think there wouldn’t be a symbol for atheism, because there wouldn’t be a need. I disagree with religious people about a lot of ideas, just like how I disagree with people about sports and politics and fashion, but most of those disagreements don’t get in the way of anything. I should only speak for myself – I imagine most people around here would agree, but I don’t know for sure – but I think that there are really only two non-negotiable points for atheists: when religious people try to argue that belief is based on logic or science when it’s really a matter of feelings and subjective experience (Collins’ “God is proved by the beauty of a waterfall” or whatever it was), and using religion to dictate public policy.
In your example, the “vast majority of religious people” have abandoned one main instance of both of those. Eliminate my example and they would have abandoned the other as well, so there would be no need for a symbol for atheism, except for fears of backsliding or something.
Thanks, Cyrus, I think you understood exactly what I was getting at in the portion you quoted. Liked your take on it, too. :)
“Religious porn. That’s what Jack Chick amounts to…”
with Jack-Chicka-Chicka-Wow-Wow music in the background :)
I especially liked when he referenced the AD&D Dungeon MAster’s Guide as a source or the Witchcraft story.
Laser Potato, that last Chick tract is brilliant. At one point it actually cites a Dungeons & Dragons manual!
Darn, someone beat me to it!
In the Chick comics, the non-fundie always gets bowled over by the fundie’s arguments and converts immediately. No matter who they are or how passionately they held their own religion, the fundie not only triumphs over them — he triumphs easily.
I have to wonder what this does to the mindset of the wingnut who believes them, when he runs out to convert others and finds out it’s not that easy. Does it fill him with frustration and rage, that reality doesn’t match his wish-fulfillment porn?
Here’s a parody of “Big Daddy”.
http://www.facts4u.com/OffSite_Stored_Pages/wyd_files/wyd01.htm
And another:
http://www.skepticfriends.org/forum/showquestion.asp?faq=4&fldAuto=46&page=2
maureen, as a former Christian, I can answer that. Frustration, yes. Rage, no. The Christian who fails to convert someone by witnessing to them as he’s been taught usually simply blames himself. He tells himself he didn’t say the right things in the right way, or he was trying to glorify himself rather than God because he took personal pride in the conversion, or his faith or devotion was being tested. He might also have been taught that God may have had someone else in mind for that potential convert, or that the Devil had the person in bondage, or that it is actually not his job to convert people, but to present the message to those ready to receive it (those who do not receive it being willfully blind deniers who belong to Satan).
Not to mention, Inoculated Mind, how the “science” professor in that tract, looks like a cross between the devil and an early 20th-century anti-Semitic caricature?
I’ve found Chick tracts a source of unintended amusement for years, mostly because Chick makes the Dobsons and Falwells of the world look like sane and reasonable men. Although I enjoy tracts that blame D&D and Harry Potter for inducting children into Satanism, my favourite has to be, “The Story Teller”, wherein Jack reveals that the founding and rise of Islam was [gasp!] a conspiracy by the Catholic Church! (Chick thinks the Jesuits are behind every anti-Christian force in the universe. If a hurricane knocked over the house of a King-James-Bible-Only church, he’d blame the Society of Jesus and its Satanic weather rituals.)
Another thing about Chick:
most of the people that get saved had never heard of Jesus or the Bible beforehand.
How does one manage that while growing up in the USA?
Speedwell — thank you for your reply; it’s food for thought for me.
khan — I’ve noticed that as well in amateur fiction written by fundamentalist girls. They seem to have very strange ideas about what the culture is like outside of Christian fundamentalism; they, too, portray people as having never heard of Jesus or Christianity, or just barely having heard the names. I think they really believe that.
Wow, this is just my day for spamatoza (hehehehe).
I spouted off on something similar not long ago.
I have a buddy who’s a born again YEC’er, & I seriously suspect he got most of his info from these Chicklet tracts (he & another ‘BAX’ were discussing them 20 years ago when I was hanging out w/them).
I told him recently that these things were a load of crap.
He told me, ‘That’s just your opinion.’
He started citing some drivel recently (I forget what it was now), & I demanded some sources, citations. He choked.
A lotta these people fumble when you do that, I note.
Oh, come on. Stop toying with quote-miners.
Speaking of comics, don’t miss the Manga Bible!
http://www.themangabible.com/
My favorite tract was “Dark Dungeons.”
Why didn’t anyone ever offer to initiate me into the practice of real magic? I’m sure my D&D character was high level enough.
O-dot-O: I am from Arkansas and I am an agnostic skeptic. Your stereotype was as nausiating as Jack Chicks drivel.
I remember being fed those comics when I was a kid. Another comic in that same series claims that the orion nebula is the entrance to heaven. I still laugh about that.
John Marley:
Check out the best “Dark Dungeons” parody on the Net, “Dork Dungeons”, now with annotations!
LOL @ “Arkansas Jones”
But hey, wasn’t it Adam himself who first coined this phrase:
“Snakes! Why did it have to be snakes?”
As a former particle physicist, I must admit that I have always had a soft spot in my heart for “Big Daddy,” especially the part about nuclei not being held together by the strong force, but by Jesus! It’s a wonder that he had the chance to get around to getting crucified, what with all the time he must have spent holding each and every nucleus in the universe together. But it makes perfect sense: radioactive decay must be nothing more than nuclei slipping through His fingers (they are really small, you know) and falling apart before He can catch them again.
Screw the Standard Model. Gell-Mann was a chump.
Jack Chick. I get it now. I’ve received a few infinitely-forwarded emails over the past couple of years that feature tales from the lecture hall, wherein the smug, atheistic professor (and his logical argument against the existence of God) is easily defeated and humbled by the bright, brave Believer sitting in his class.
Fiction is great! You can make ANYTHING be true. (cf. The Bible)
That’s very interesting, but not really surprising. Consider this: A key component of the Fundamentalist mindset is that [true] Christians are a minority, a persecuted minority at that, steadfastly hanging on to their Faith in the face of a perpetual threat of being thrown to the lions here this decadent, faithless, modern-day Rome. The lesson, then, explicit or implicit, is that there are a lot of “them” out there, and only a few of “us” in here who truly Believe. And given any child’s propensity for arriving at necessarily literal and simplistic conclusions… well, there you go.
Have any of you wondered that, if the Romans had fed the lions to the Christians, lions wouldn’t be an endangered species today?