Billions worship some kind of idol. But there is only one way to heaven, and that’s through JESUS.

Which idol? Strangely, skimming ahead a bit, this one doesn’t appear to have the “if you watch TV instead of going to church, it means you’re worshiping a false idol” message, but rather seems to be referring to actual religious idols. So I guess those of us who don’t believe in or worship any kind of overblown, mythological fairytale aren’t really the target audience for this one.

Who is? Catholics, Muslims, Buddhists, and everyone else who doesn’t believe in and abide by fundamentalists’ specific version of religion. …Including fundamentalists, apparently. You’ll see.

What is she, backlit by a nuclear explosion? And why does she have a giant black condom for a hat? And that face — good lord, it’s like like someone shoved a bunch of Mr. Potato Head parts into a half-cooked loaf of bread.

Whether God exists or not, he’s still “a THING“. Either he’s an omnipotent being of some sort (which is “a thing”) or some other variety of entity (which is “a thing”) or he’s a concept (which is still — you guessed it — “a thing”). I mean, it’s sort of hard to get away from interacting with THINGS, regardless of what it is you’re doing.

With this goofy expression on his face, I’m picturing this guy repeatedly thrusting his head forward and making nothing but loud puking sounds. Maybe he has something caught in his throat, or he’s about to cough up a hairball — it could explain the bizarre emphasis on different words.

You know, coming from a guy who always has shit at the ends of his Tracts like “are you going to take the SMART path, or are you going to reject Jesus and end up in hell?” this implicit criticism of the woman’s reaction and condescension is rather unconvincing.

Well, in all fairness, he’d be guaranteed to get just as much back from worshiping that bird (or, hell, an old brick, a sandwich, a garden hose, someone’s lost wrist watch, a dead mongoose, Ronald Reagan, a used diaper, some pocket change, Colin Farrell, a pancreatic tumor, etc) as he would from worshiping Jesus, God, or any other deity. The existence of so much fucking incessant fundamentalist bitching about even the most trivial of “evils” is clear evidence that God isn’t in the “solving people’s problems” business. You’d think he could at LEAST censor some of these filthy heathen satanic godforsaken nipples you can sometimes find on television.

Yeah, nobody in the civilized world has antiquated, arbitrary sets of beliefs that they manifest through adoration of something not proven to have any kind of helpful effect in the observable world. And they’re especially not in any way easily led by objects they unquestionably worship that they made themselves.

“And do you know what they did?” “What?” “Well, they drowned. I mean, what else are they going to do during a flood? Jeez, lady, pay attention.”

What’s that kid doing? Does he have some sort of weird, hair-specific frotteurism?

So… eight people — a family, all related — all fucked one another, and then their kids fucked each other, and then their kids’ kids fucked each other, and so on, and so on, and somehow this was all okay, this big, incestuous, multi-generational humpfest. Brothers and sisters, cousins, possibly aunts and nephews, uncles and nieces, parents and children (look at Adam and Eve) all fucking each other, and it was perfectly fine. In fact, it was demanded by God. Fundies just gloss over shit like this without question, but the second a loving, committed relationship between two people who both have penises or both have vaginas is mentioned, the pissing and moaning begins.

I’m not going to get too deep into the Noah Flood ridiculous bullshit thing since I’ve covered it quite a bit elsewhere and it’s kind of a tangential point in this Tract, but: How was all of this — getting a guy to build a boat of impossible size, flooding the whole fucking planet, putting the animals (billions of animals, two of every kind) into some kind of stasis where they wouldn’t need any food or water and wouldn’t attack each other or fuck or have any other biological urges, then having eight people repopulate the entire human race and somehow canceling out (or perhaps not) all the effects of their incestuous reproduction — how was that any easier than, oh, say, snapping his omnipotent fingers and getting rid of all the “bad people” and their false idols? What an irrational shithead.

Semiramis was also, according to her “biography”, fed solely by doves as a baby after her mother killed herself. Hey, I know! Let’s all believe a bunch of bullshit myths and legends and use it as a basis for persecution of other people! That will make everything just awesome.

By the way, for anyone interested, all this Semiramis crap came about in some theory by protestant minister Alexander Hislop written in 1853 in which he linked the Semiramis legend with the Christian mythology. Yep, they’re strict Biblical literalists, those fundies. All the way back to 1853. Apparently, according to Hislop, Mary is Semiramis, and any adoration or worship of Mary is thereby worship of Semiramis, therefore Catholics who pray to Mary are all pagans who worship a pre-Christian, polytheistic fraud-goddess. Or something. In other news, The Matrix can be easily linked with the story of Jesus, so if you accept Neo as your lord and savior, it’s basically the same thing.

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“Baby for sale! Anybody want this baby? I’ll start the bidding at fifty gold pieces. Does… I can’t see any of you, the sun’s, like, directly in my fucking eyes, here. You’re all going to have to call out your bids.” OR: “Baby-Toss! Whoever catches it gets to keep it!” OR: “Who wants to drink this baby’s urine? Gather ’round!”

So if you removed these icons and people prayed directly to their gods, would that be okay, since it wouldn’t literally be idol-worship?

Even by Chick Tract artwork standards, those are some really shitty statues.

Truth is, nobody does. The people they’re trying to convert/control, for the most part, aren’t going to be thinking about what Mrs. Christfuck from down the street thinks about the anal sex they’re about to have, or what Mr. Godcunt would have to say if he knew about that abortion they had a few weeks ago. Even people who agree with them don’t care: They’re all too busy wondering why people aren’t taking their views unquestioningly to heart.

Which, I guess, explains Jack’s little fantasy world, here, where people are all so easily converted: In a perfect (in Chick’s eyes) world, everyone would immediately heed anything a fundamentalist had to say, because they would give a shit about what the fundie thought. This is one of the significant differences between the Chickverse and reality.

Which, I guess, explains Jack’s little fantasy world, here, where people are all so easily converted: In a perfect (in Chick’s eyes) world, everyone would immediately heed anything a fundamentalist had to say, because they would give a shit about what the fundie thought. This is one of the significant differences between the Chickverse and reality.

“Haw haw haw,” thought the wicked little urchin, “now I can carry out my ultimate plan of cloning some random old man wandering around a museum!”

Old man must have the mentality of a bird or something, repeatedly walking into the glass door. *THUNK* “Why can’t I…” *THUD* “…get OUT of…” *THWUNK* “…I don’t…” *THUDK* “…dammit!” *THWUD*

Uh… what, exactly, is the old man looking for or at? “Okay, Buddha, lift up the skirt: Random junk inspection.”

blasted

“Here, lay on the floor with me and stroke the carpet like I’m doing while I quote from the Bible.”

“He’s talking about idols and statues.” WOW NO SHIT HUH

I’m assuming this bald dickhead is some kind of curator or official of the museum. So while they’re sitting here having this retarded conversation, the old man in the back, there, is going around with an X-Acto cutting all the crotches out from all the paintings for his “private collection”. Good thing it’s all just crappy pictures of goofy, stereotypical natives worshiping wooden pelicans, and — what the hell are those, anyway? Looks like… a snowman pole-vaulting, two clowns fucking while standing up, and a gift box on a cloud.

Yep, that omnipotent being, who can fashion anything from nothing, sure paid a hefty price by having his corporeal form tortured and killed. Scaling this down, if I decided that clipping my fingernails was the only way I could forgive someone for something they did that I didn’t like that was kinda my fault in the first place, it would make me a fuckin’ hero.

Why does this version of the 3:16 panel always make me hungry for slow-cooked pork shoulder?

“but then!”

Yep, building mansions in heaven for the rest of time. Thanks for your sacrifice, Jesus! Now, if you don’t mind, we’ve got, like, thirty million empty lots, here, that need enormous mansions on ‘em for all the incorporeal souls, for some reason. (*stack* *mortar* *stack* *mortar* *sigh* “…Me-dammit.”)

What the… I was right! Look at that guy, it’s like he’s inspecting all the crotches in every painting in the place.

Is it just me, or does the silhouette panel and their positioning therein give the impression of an impending blowjob? Hope she rolls down her condom-hat first. A lot of fundies are reformed something-or-others — never know where this guy’s been.

If the defense attorney intentionally throws your case because you didn’t stroke his ego enough and in a really specific way before the trial, then yeah, this is an accurate analogy.

“Look out — here comes another hairball.”

“Mmmm, washing things with the blood of a tortured man to avoid infinite punishment. How beautiful.”

That’s right, everyone, it’s an “impossible goal” to be a good person, so don’t even bother! The devil and his followers all want to put an end to human suffering, to CONTROL you! Don’t listen to them! Good works are evil tools of manipulation!

Speaking of impossible goals, how about that abstinence, huh? Yep, fundamentalism sure doesn’t have any impossible goals it expects people to abide by.

And no, it’s not easy. In fact, anyone with a fuckin’ shred of morality would rebel against a God this terrible and cruel, if he actually existed. Making one’s self complicit in this insane, ridiculous, oppressive, invasive, harmful way of living and of interfering with the lives of others is an atrocity that anyone with a conscience would be hard pressed to commit. So with all due respect, Jack: Fuck you, your friends and family.

Er… isn’t fundamentalist Christianity… uh… a religion?

THEY’RE NOT PRAYING TO THE STATUES THEY’RE PRAYING TO THE oh fuck it I give up.

“Meditate on ideas”? What about “accepting Jesus as one’s Lord and Savior”? Doesn’t one have to kind of, uh, meditate on that idea?

Hold on, I’m confused: Why are so many fundamentalists so adamantly attached to all these bullshit traditions, guidelines, laws, etc? Why don’t they allow gays the right to marry? Why do they shit themselves into a tizzy over abortions? Why don’t they want people to be allowed to watch porn and jerk off in their own homes? Why are they so upset when two consenting adults engage in sexual activity outside of a strictly marital relationship? What? The? Fuck?

I mean, I’m assuming Jack’s corollary here is that you should only reject all the laws and rules and regulations and traditions of other religions. But this right here argues against everything Chick and other fundamentalists seem to stand for. How can they possibly reconcile their beliefs about banning gay marriage, outlawing abortion, etc, with this belief that the laws and traditions based in religion are all bullshit chains of oppression? I don’t… I… I just… I… I… I… *brain explodes, implodes, ties itself into a knot, rolls off a cliff, explodes again*

That’s a pretty arbitrary assessment. You could say that about basically any other religion: “This isn’t religion, it’s a LIVING RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD”. Bible Christianity is a fucking religion. Eat me.

What’s weird about this Tract is that this woman seems to share the fundamentalist view nearly exactly, only she ends up getting converted in the end anyway because she doesn’t believe “the right way”, meaning she accepts Jesus as her Lord and Savior and all that but she also uses a set of beads to remind her to pray. There’s this weird hypocrisy going on in that she acts the same way proponents in other Tracts act, but there’s an implication throughout of condemnation of her behavior.

So by the logic expressed earlier, Jack apparently thinks that when people are praying using a rosary, they’re actually praying to a plastic string of beads. “The Lord is my plastic bead — I shall not want.”

So how does this whole “finding God through objects” thing apply to Jack’s whole operation? “It doesn’t count if you’re reminded to worship Jesus by some object. That’s just religious junk. Uh… unless it’s a Chick Tract! HURRR”

“He told her. And the base of her skull exploded. And this is what she prayed…”

Nothing but faith? THEN FUCKING STOP IT ALREADY WITH ALL THE MORAL FUCKING GRANDSTANDING YOU STUPID ASSHOLE

COME ON

I can’t think about this anymore. I’m afraid I might accidentally stumble onto the Anti-Life Equation.

Until next time, if this fucking thing doesn’t give me some kind of embolism.