When this burglar breaks into the home of a Christian, he wants to get saved too.

“Boy, what delicious eggs! The cat hair is definitely a nice touch. Yeah, kitty, make sure to scrape your filthy claws around and get a whole bunch of Toxoplasma in my food. Mmm, good!”

Love the expression on his face, too. It’s like, “huh, that’s weird… are eggs supposed to have sand in them?” Or, like, “I forget, does bacon normally smell like yak feet?”

Joey’s just devoid of logical faculties, isn’t he? “Wow, if I kill this guy, he’ll inherit a fortune! I gotta get in on some of that! Because he… uh… apparently… left a bunch of stuff to himself. Or, uh… he has… some kind of twisted rich relative who said that this guy could only inherit his fortune after he died. Or… uh… well, anyway, if I hang around here through all the paperwork for transfers of titles of ownership and processing of the will and all of that, I’ll be walking out a wealthy man!”

“At least five crowns. Maybe more. Might be six. I’m hoping for seven, but, y’know, you don’t want to push it with God. He can be a little… y’know. Infinitely cruel.” “Jerry, how the fuck are you even going to wear a crown? You’re an eight by ten inch piece of glass.”

My, what a dumb motherfucker. I’m going to have to try the “hey, don’t kill me, I’m getting a posthumous inheritance” thing if I’m ever robbed. Though, I don’t know, if my robber has even slightly higher reasoning skills than a nugget of goldfish shit, he or she will realize it’s really not sound reasoning: In order for this inheritance of riches to actually take place, the guy has to die. So it’s really just an incentive to kill him. And subsequently, in order for the robber to steal this trick “inheritance”, if it works in the purely physical manner he obviously thinks it does, he has to hang around at least long enough for someone to discover the body and notify all necessary parties about the guy’s demise. There’s just way too much work involved. Plus, how’s he going to explain the bullet in the guy’s head?

Who the hell’s this dog, by the way? Where’s Fang? I want Fang! Hrmm, maybe this is Fang, but he lost part of his tail in an unfortunate saw-sharpening incident.

DROOL DROOL

This is a great (and I’m pretty sure entirely unintentional) metaphor, here: Just as this guy is tricking Joey the robber into being good through promises of riches and wealth, God tricks humans into being good through promises of riches and wealth. “Do you like stuff? Huh? Things? Expensive things?” Yeah, don’t be a good person simply because other people are, well, people too and deserve to live — do it because you’re a greedy prick who wants a bunch of gifts!

Every time I see the usual “big burst erupting from someone’s back, accompanied by a surprised or excited expression” thing, I always like to think they’re suffering a spectacularly violent and unexpected defecation.

Uh-oh! I smell a mischievous animal prank coming up…

Oh-hoh, how delightful! The cat turned the tables by falling on the dog. Hold on, everyone, I have to print this out to hang on my fridge.

HOLY SHIT GIGANTIC DOG-SIZED MUTANT RAT

I’m going to train my house to shout random, offensive things at old people. “Listen, you old fool! I’m gonna send you to hell!” “Hey grandma — I watch you while you’re sleeping.” “Hey oldie! Oldie! Your head looks like a dehydrated peach!”

“Whooooooaaaaaaa!” You know, I know this is extremely immature, and I know there’s already a lot of poo humor in this one as it is, but looking at this page… I keep staring at the panel on the right expecting that it’s some kind of trick animated gif where eventually a turd drops out of Joey’s mouth, really quickly so you can’t even be sure you actually saw it.

HAW HAW! Where’s Yakety Sax when you need it? Superfluous animal tomfoolery!

Or, wait a minute — is that a cat, or is it one of Jack’s “cutesy” demons, like the ones that were crawling all over the gays in Birds and the Bees?

“Ow… ow… I’m going… to… ouch… cat claws… in… scalp… I’m going… to… heaven…”

Why? Why would your release from the material world involve more material shit? “Boy, I sure can’t wait to be done with my life, to leave behind all these material possessions and this horrible, tired old body, all full of problems. ‘Cause then God will give me a bunch of other shit to have to deal with! I’ll never be free of my attachment to consumerism! Isn’t it great?” And what do you do about the “wanting is often more pleasing a thing than having” aspect of ownership that’s been ingrained into the fundamental levels of our behavior? It’s… no, I just reject this entire concept outright as completely ludicrous.

And how the fuck do you get inside of that thing, anyway? Have to climb the sides or something.

Yeah, that’s really awesome for the angels, huh? That is so much worse than hell, having to suck off all these smug, self-satisfied, self-righteous shitheads and smile while doing it. I can see why Lucifer rebelled. Fuck, even getting my balls slow-roasted to a violent explosion once daily in a pressure cooker would be preferable to that. At least I’d still have a modicum of dignity.

Why the need for servants in the first place? Last I checked, God was supposed to be omnipotent. Why can’t he just… provide? Why all the middle men?

“You’ll remember me when the west wind moves upon the fields of barley. I’ll forget the sun in his jealous sky as I walk on streets of gold.”

So, uh… define “old”, within the context of immortality. I mean, basically, based on the descriptions I’ve heard, heaven is a place where nothing ever happens. And in a place where nothing ever changes, is there really such a thing as “time”? Anyway, at what stage of agedness will we be after we’re dead? Do we get to choose? Can we change our minds? And, well, fuck, what if we want to get sick? What if someone’s heaven is getting to experience all the different sensations available, including aging and death?

“I’ll never get sick or old again! And I’ll get a mansion! And angels will serve me! And Andre the Giant will be my friend! He’ll have a really neat belt, and he’ll let me wear it if I want to!”

It’s a little disorienting when Jack switches mid-Tract to Fred Carter’s somewhat less shitty artwork.

I’ve mentioned this before: If, for instance, masturbation is a sin, and God doesn’t allow sin into heaven, can the faithful masturbate once they’re there? If not, is it really paradise? Or is heaven only “paradise” in a kind of bullshit, creepy gated community way, where everyone’s house is the same color and you can’t put out lawn gnomes or paint your garage door the wrong color without finding yourself subject to fines? Maybe you just find yourself physically incapable of doing whatever it is you wanted to do that’s considered a “sin”, or at least was so on Earth. In which case, it’s just as much a fascist state as hell, only you’re tortured by mundanity instead of pain.

Gyah, I don’t want to “meet Jesus face to face” if he’s going to stare at me all blank and creepy like that. And doesn’t he realize he’s crushing Africa with his big oblivious hand? (Oh my God — he killed Kenya! …Sorry. Again, so, so sorry.) No idea what’s happening to eastern Asia and New Zealand and Australia and Alaska and such on the other side all pressed up against his chest like that.

Of course, if Jesus is in one of his little moods where he’s as depicted over on the right (I still have yet to figure out the distinction, really… what puts him in “bearded white guy” mode and what puts him in “faceless fascist” mode) how can I meet him “face to face” if he doesn’t have a face?

Know what I think would be amusing? If everyone in heaven lived in the exact same mansion, but, like, in different “dimensions”. Only, all the furniture is common to all dimensions, so any redecorating you do is reflected in everyone else’s mansion. After all, back to the “gated community” subject, presumably everyone in heaven will be entirely the same and will all have the same desires (or, well, the same lack thereof) and tastes and such, so it really shouldn’t be a problem, right?

That’s another thing: What if someone doesn’t approve of another person’s paradise? If heaven is this community, and paradise is truly subjective… bah, I give up. Fundamentalist heaven is yet another logic-deficient, completely ludicrous construct. Not even in a “religion doesn’t need to be logical” way, either, because whenever a part of it gives in, to be supported by another aspect through faith or suspension of disbelief or whatever, it only casts doubt on that other aspect and eventually it all collapses. For instance, if you say “well, God doesn’t have to show anyone what another person’s version of heaven truly is, if they’re not going to like it”, well, that makes God a liar.

Hey, lady, here’s an idea: Put the bag you’re carrying in the cart, and carry the troublesome little shit.

BOY HOWDY, I CAN’T FUCKIN’ WAIT TO DIE!

Ah, but at the last minute, he releases the cat, which triggers the spring-loaded trap, which sends the log with the spears roped around it down into the side of Joey’s head, killing him instantly. It was a clever ruse all along!

You know, if someone ever counts up before they shoot me, I’m going to request that they do it like The Count from Sesame Street. When they get to two, they’ll just start laughing so hard at how silly the whole situation is that they’ll lay down their gun and we’ll become close friends, always joking about the circumstances under which we met. We’ll have a lot of adventures together. Then eventually he’ll become an astronaut and I’ll become the space launch technician, and when I’m counting down and everyone is all tense and nervous about whether things are going to blow up unexpectedly, I’ll start counting like The Count, and he and I will share a laugh — perhaps the last we’ll ever have. *big sigh* And then I’ll fuck his girlfriend while he’s away on his space mission, and when he gets back, he’ll actually shoot me then.

They’re just inches away from a full-scale make-out session here.

“What’s wrong, Joey?” “I (sniff)… I wanna kiss you.” “What’s that?” “Er, I said, I wanna go with you.”

“Joey, the man on the cross next to Jesus was a thief. Look what happened to him. He died an extremely painful death, basically suffocating on his own bodily fluids, and was probably left there for days. Isn’t that a beautiful story?”

“He was found guilty by a rigged jury… a jury of JEWWWWS!”

I see a little silhouette of a man.

The way he’s talking from the top of his skull like that, I like to think that he just stands there with that same smug, silly expression on his face the whole while, and has somehow mastered the art of blowing air through his gargantuan, bulbous nose in such a way that it reverberates through his skull and creates speech-like sounds.

Okay, so what you’re telling me is, this character in the Bible, this Jesus, he did a lot of great things for people and then he was unjustly murdered, and then he came back to life. So, uh, how does this apply to real life? Can I get… I mean… do you have any kind of corroborating evidence for any of this, or is it all circular reasoning — that is, that the book which may very well be fictional somehow isn’t fictional because it says so itself? Ah, thought so. Well, come back to me when you have a little more than just “the Bible says”.

And another case of navelmouth has been alleviated with the Smugness Power of the Lord. Seriously, go back — in every panel until this one, the antagonist has had a navel-shaped mouth.

“HOMPH HURMPF OH GOD YES HURMPH GLOMPF DELICIOUS HURMPH CARPETING HOMPH HOMF CAT HAIR HURMF TOENAIL CLIPPINGS HOLMPH”

No, Jack, most smart people figure out that the fundamentalist version of God is an enormous fucking asshole and that fundamentalist beliefs are absolutely ridiculous, and figure out some other, far more rational way to either believe or not believe in some form of deity, Christian or otherwise.

It really is scary that the only real way to get certain people to be decent human beings and not just randomly kill people is to threaten them with eternal fire for misbehaving and then carrot-stick them with immeasurable riches for not being a complete dick to everyone they meet. Perhaps such religious beliefs are necessary — the last and most effective resort for dealing with fucked up people incapable of calibrating their own consciences or recognizing compassion and empathy — but it’s really fucking sad that they are.