Sadly, the answer is yes. Okay, maybe not about the part of looking the other way no matter how terrible of a crime if someone asks Jesus into their heart, but the other really horrible stuff, yes. Fortunately, its a relatively small number of people.

Naturally the instant I read your comment I went to find it. Is this really what they believe?

Ugh!

Earlier I said that “Angels” is my favorite Chick Tract – that was only because I was not aware of “There Goes the Dinosaurs” which has the extremely awesomely hilarious theory that Dinosaurs were in fact aboard Noah’s Ark but went extinct due to there not being sufficient oxygen from plants after the Great Flood which made them slow and easy for humans to kill to eat brontosaurus burgers. While that theory alone is great – and when I was a child, I wish I would have heard it because it would have been so much fun to see how that Bible School teacher who told me that dinosaurs went extinct due to not being on Noah’s Ark would have reacted to it.

But my absolute favorite part is the drawing of the typical college professor discussing why dinosaurs went extinct holding a picture of a dinosaur watching a comet across the sky and saying “yipes” – Haw Haw!

But the real reason why “There Goes the Dinosaurs” is now my favorite Chick Tract is that it returned my love to them after I made the mistake of actually reading his most infamous tract “Lisa” which turns out to be approximately 583 trillion times more tasteless and offensive than any description of it can possibly convey. It actually upset me to the point where I felt physically ill. Please, no matter how curious you might be, do not read it under any circumstances!!!

In fact, many of them truly missed the point – especially when one considers that Chick Tracts themselves may well qualify as a parody – since at least according to Wikipedia Jack T. Chick took his style almost entirely from “Tijuana Bibles.” The humor of Chick Tracts comes from their air of absolute certainty, the loopy ideology, and the fact that Jack T. Chick feels the need to add footnotes to explain things that tend to be pretty obvious. Thus, most of those tracts totally missed the mark – simply because they missed what makes the Chick Tracts such works of anti-genius.

Having said that, the MST3K does Dark Dugeons was absolutely priceless, I laughed quite a bit at the anti-Goth/industrial music tracts (I dock the guy some for using Jack T. Chick’s artwork rather than drawing his own, but at least he had the right “I am absolutely right and if you disagree you with me you are wrong” attitude), the Church of the Subgenius is as always delitefully weird (and much closer to the feel of a true Jack T. Chick tract), and Christians and Crusaders was a good idea but poorly executed.

You really do need to find a copy of “Devil Doll?” – it is by far the best Jack T. Chick parody I’ve seen. I’m guessing that due to copyright reasons its not available online

While I have been unable to find the Goose Gander tracts, I did come across these gems:

http://foo.ca/wp/chick-tract-satire/

Incidentially while I seem to misplaced the most recent actual Chick Tracts which someone was kind enough to leave under my windshield wiper I do have a copy of a devilish deliteful parody of same entitled “Devil Doll” – Aron especially should seek it out because he would no doubt appreciate the fact that the “Goose Gander” religious tract (a dead ringer for Chick Tracts including the same loopy beliefs) which is used to convert the teenager involved a Satanic college fratnerity cult. The main way to tell its not a real Chick Tract is the fact that real Chick Tracts do not tell people to bow to Virginia Beach four times a day to pray.

As a caveat, please don’t interpret my comment as an endorsement of anything Chick (even ahhhhhh! Chick-fil-A). I view Chick Tracts in the same category as Little Black Sambo, where there is cultural value mostly as a cautionary tale. Plus I dig the art.

I have been on a tear, writing short ghost/horror stories (more like vignettes — this is something I always get interested in doing at this time of year into fall. This year I am actually following through in my spare time). I think that I DEFINITELY need to check out these Chick things to come up with some highly ironic twists for my tales of darkness. Thanks to you and Erika, too!

Yes, I’ve gathered from your and aadila’s posts that they are not parodies — I threw that line in because we have some rather literal minded readers, such as Annie, on another thread, and I didn’t want her to think that I thought so (apparently, I failed, if you thought so).

I return to my original suggestion to those whose homes are frequented by religious folks just itching to deliver the word of God (re: strange religious tracts): let wasps or bees nest near your front door. This has managed to keep me religious-tract-distributor free — at least as long as I stay in the house or near the front door.

They are really afraid of wasps. Me, not so much. I go about my business, and the wasps go about theirs, and we’re cool in a fine, symbiotic relationship involving my providing a nice nesting spot, and them providing security services!

* unless Jack T. Chick is in fact the most brilliant satirist in all recorded human history

‘Angels’ is probably my favorite tract as well. And I think you first turned me on to the infinite humor of Jack Chick with that exact tract in an earlier post.

I wonder what he thinks about the Jewish Jehovah?

I mean, if Allah’s a ‘Moon God,’ what does that make Jehovah? The god of corned beef sandwiches*?

*Incidentally, the God of Corned Beef Sandwiches would be AWESOME.

Try a web search for “The Tycoon”?

If that fails, I think we’ll just have to chalk it up as a demon.

Its good to hear that people are calling out Barton for his lies and distortion. Too bad that for his audience it won’t make a difference. The fact is his books would still be required reading in Teabagi high schools and the fact that mainstream historians condemn it merely adds to the appeal.

Did you know that in Utah the law at least used to require teachers in their public schools to teach that the founding fathers of the U.S. were divinely inspired by God.

Someone is funneling a lot of money to the Christian Right – that enables them to get their message heard and appear numerous despite being a small minority of Christians.

Anyway, in general I prefer Jack T. Chick’s everything which someone in the past found to be fun is evil and going to send you straight to Hell tracts. My favorite probably is the one (“Angels”) which says that playing in a Christian rock band will cause you to die of AIDS because Satan controls the music industry (actually, maybe he’s on to something since the music industry is controlled by large corporations – perhaps Jack T. Chick is actually a Communist!).

I also admire the fact that Chick Tracts exist in some sort of time warp which makes many of them charmingly outdated. I especailly like that Jack T. Chick somehow thinks that teenagers are still playing Dugeons and Dragons and listening to heavy metal music – which I’m pretty sure really hasn’t been a concern since I was in elementary school. In fact I am convinced that Dugeons and Dragons existed solely to scare children because outside of one Futurama episode I’ve never ever heard anyone mention Dugeons and Dragons outside of church where of course they said it was Devil worship which would cause you to kill yourself in a ritual sacrifice to Satan after perhaps killing your parents first (just like the Chick Tract says!). Apparently he also thinks that Black people are still running around wearing big afros and listening to disco music (wait, was that even the same time period?) judging by his “aimed at Black audience tracts.”

Bryan Fischer is a loathsome man. I am hoping that, perhaps, he may face some of the marvelous reversals for his lies and bleatings as the hideous David Barton. (It’s adjective day, folks — so I am doling them out). If some of you don’t yet know, David Barton’s Christian publishing house is shutting down production of his latest fantasy work on Thomas Jefferson (painting him as, in fact, a devote Christian), after — wait for it — finding that this Best Selling Non-Fiction book is indeed highly fictitious! Apparently, in addition to other historians, who have grumbled about his misrepresentations for years, this time, several well-known Christian historians have had enough and blew the whistle on Barton.

This is heartening to me–even though I am not a Christian. The gentlemen who spoke out (and apparently, others are now piling on), said that they were going so in part because the scholarship was so misleading and bad that they were concerned that it could hurt the reputation of other, serious and reputable Christian scholars.

Good for them — as it is good for anyone to point out willful falsehoods, whether they emanate from the Right, Left, or somewhere else.

I have in the past said that I wish that reasonable Christians would begin to speak out against the abuses and misinformation spread by the likes of Fischer and Barton. I know that many Christians don’t agree with these guys. Perhaps now that other, well-respected Christian historians have taken a swipe at Barton’s outrageous lies and misrepresentations, some will consider taking a swipe at Fischer’s as well.

Criticism is typically considered a lot more valid when it comes from within a movement or organization, rather than from without.

http://www.chick.com/reading/t.....016_01.asp

If you can’t download it once, it might just be bad luck. But twice or three times…

In fact, in many ways hardcore fundamentalist Christianity is the perfect religion for the rich and powerful – both to keep people in their place and to justify greed since according to the fundamentalist theology faith is all that is required to get into heaven. That removes any sort of works requirement or requirement to help the poor and downtrodden.

Historically all one really needs to know about the ethics of fundamentalist Christianity is that John D. Rockefeller was a fundamentalist Baptist and the major bankroller of fundamentalist Baptist churches.

Personally, I’m a Christian Socialist :)

I think its Satan’s fault ;)

Go ahead and check out the Chick Tract on buddhism above, called “The Tycoon”. As a buddhist I can say without reservation it doesn’t offend me, it just makes me laugh. I actually agree with him about venality in religion, but this is not exclusive to buddhists. It’s not accurate about Christianity either.

Especially the part about “Reincarnation is a LIE!!!”.

How strange, since St. John the Baptist was, according to Christ, as referred to three times in the Bible, the reincarnation of Elijah (Matt 11: 12-14). And I thought the scriptures were infallible, Chick?

Also I would like to point out we don’t “bow down to Lord Buddha”. We put aside our ego, drop everything so to speak, and one ritual form that takes is prostration, but we don’t worship the buddha image. It’s just completely ignorant to think that.

Of course, I learned very quickly as a child what happens when you fail to suppress your laughter at that sort of thing (especially in Sunday School and Church) when you have parents who followed the [very bad] parenting advice of James Dobson. Ouch! :(

Salient points all. Just the other day a kindly neighbor worried about my soul’s very likely trajectory toward perdition left a little pamphlet on my door warning that when things go bad, it could be a demon.

Such things as divorce, job loss, and other maladies were covered. Apparently if this happens once it might just be bad luck, but twice or three times? Well, we all know what’s behind that…demons.

Aron, it is all part of the Satan Transitive Principle. Since everything bad equals Satan than it necessary follows that everything bad equals each other.