Welcoming His4ever, Our First Actual "Chick" Chick!

Great Debates
61

Chick’s tracts footnote alot of claims like that to books published by his company. I suppose the citations for those claims are in those books, if there is any evidence to back them up, which I doubt. He appears to be taking the speculation of writers for his publishing company as sufficient to support an argument, hoping that people will be lazy and just take his word on it. Since I’m not about to buy one of those fundie books from his company, I’ll never know for sure, but so much of what is claimed just has to be speculation because there couldn’t be a legit source for it.

Anyway, I don’t wanna be too hard on His4Ever, who admitted to being unable to defend this faith as well as desired. Of course, if the questions keep coming, that skill might improve.

62

First off, I think God’s sentiments (spred the ‘faith’) are in Jack’s Tracts, but I hardly think His words are. Chick (as has been stated several times) is either delusional on a lot of issues, ill informed, or a liar. It’s easy to say that Chick tells the truth when you do not know the entire set of facts.

Christian Literature. I sincerely hope you do not include Chick’s Tracts as literature. Are you sure your sources aren’t bias? Perhaps they are all on Jack’s book of the month club. What literature have you read about Catholics? I’m not suggesting they all lie, maybe some of them are ill informed.

What are you saying? That we should question the meaning of scripture? I don’t see why something that is as eternally important as salvation, the bible, and God’s plan are not worth a little debate.
I do think you are setting a good example though; a lot of Christians (mainly fundamentalists) I come across seem to take my questions as a personal affront.

63

That it is. That it is. Thanks. It’s been that kind of day.

His4ever-sorry, saying “I know someone who knows someone who…blah blah blah” isn’t exactly a reliable source, is it? Yes, there ARE Catholics who are superstitious enough to believe in healing relics. So what? That doesn’t mean Catholic doctrine supports these beliefs-it means people don’t always understand things, or make mistakes.
And if I’m not mistaken, right BEFORE the verse that says, “I do not know you, get out!”, it says, “Why do you cry, Lord Lord, but not practice what I teach?”

Doesn’t it say, “Whatsoever you do to the least of them, that you do unto me?” If we do NOT do as Christ taught, what’s the point of having faith? It’s faith WITHOUT works, and it is dead, as it says in James.

And do you honestly believe, that it DOESN’T matter what we do? After all, if someone believes in Christ with all his heart and soul, but murders, lies, rapes, cheats, steals, etc-do you really believe he’s going to be “saved?”

64

If someone truly believes in and knows Christ in their heart, they shouldn’t have the desire to murder, lie, cheat, steal, etc. If people continue to do these things then there’s no change in their lives so perhaps they really don’t know Him. When He comes into someone’s heart, there should be a change. For some a bigger change of lifestyle than others. It matters what we do as christians but that’s not what saves us.

65

I’m having trouble getting this to post. I’ll try one more time. Thanks for the compliment. I do happen to be a Christian fundamentalist but I don’t take your questions as a personal affront. I just become aggravated at myself for not being able to answer for the Lord as I should. It’d okay to debate and discuss things but I believe there is an absolute truth and it’s the same for everyone. I don’t believe in this “create your own reality” stuff or “you have your truth, I have mine”. Truth is truth even if no one believes it. I can say the earth is square and you can say it’s oval but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s round, does it? People want to pick and pick at the Bible and ask questions like “why do you think your interpretation is correct” and they go round and round and in the meantime some of them could be dying and going into eternity without Christ. Some people think that as long as they can find “contradictions” or find something to pick apart that they don’t have to do anything about the salvation issue. That’s my opinion anyway. As for Chick tracts, I like using them and have been for quite awhile. It’s obvious that a lot of people here have had a good time making fun of them. That’s their privilege, I guess. I have to go. If this doens’t post this time, I give up.:confused:

66

His4ever, I have a couple of serious questions.

I am a badly lapsed Episcopalian, but I still hold faith. I’m also a regular guy who goes about his business while trying not to cause harm to those around me.

I have accredited decrees in Engineering, and I consider myself to be a christian. I don’t see any conflict between Faith and Science. Do you?

You have stated that you believe the Bible is the Word Of God. Which version? Why?

Why is the Q’ran or the Torah wrong? What about the Hindu Vedas? Buddist writings?

Do you really believe that you can “answer for the Lord?”

I’m not trying to give you a hard time, but I just can’t understand what you’re really trying to say.

67

Guin, I get your point–that Chick claims Stalin learned about communism in a Catholic seminary, whereas he was actually a student in an Orthodox seminary–but I do feel the need to clarify something: neither the Russian Orthodox nor the Georgian Orthodox church have ever supported communism. Stalin may have learned about communism from his fellow students, but certainly not from the priests who taught him, nor as part of the seminary curriculum.

His4ever, Catholics don’t worship images of Mary or the Saints anymore than Orthodox Christians worship icons.

68

I believe this is correct, although there are other verses which provide support. Christopher Wong’s Scriptural Cheat Sheet lists several.

However, I’m still awaiting with interest the reply of His4ever to Polycarp, regarding

69

But wait a sec, I’m a raving atheist, yet I have no desire to murder, lie, cheat, steal, etc. I’m faithful to my boyfriend (yes, I’m gay), I tell the truth, and I do my best to be a decent, ethical being.

What do you make of that?

70

His4ever

Go out to a bookstore, or hop on Amazon, and buy The Catechism of the Catholic Church. It’s statements from the Catholic Church ITSELF on what the Church says about Christ, God, etc. Go. Read it cover to cover. Use a highlighter, mark up passages you accept and those you confuse you.

When you’ve done that, you can seriously debate with Catholics what their church’s policy is. In the meantime, your arguments will, like it or not, be based entirely on hearsay, which does allow us to dismiss them.

In the meantime, I’ll throw the whole of the Catholic faith at you, summed up in a few sentences…the “fundamentals” if you will:

We pray a variant of that every Sunday. Except for the part of “the holy Catholic Church,” I really don’t see how a fundamentalist can pick that apart.

71

Res’s quoting the Apostles Creed brings up something that puzzles me: about once a month, the b/f and I go to a Pentecostal church with his parents. It’s the only fundamentalist church I’ve ever been in, and I wonder why they never say the Creed, never pray the Lord’s prayer, and never take communion.

And fundamentalists want to explain this to me?

72

I agree, and I apologize profusely to His4ever if I came off as hostile. I’m just curious as to how the minor errors contained in the tracts themselves are treated, or if some people are even aware of them at all.

73

In Chick’s universe? Three words for ya: HAW HAW HAW!

74

gobear believing that faith in Christ will make one moral doesn’t mean that you have to believe that lack of faith in Christ makes you immoral. It does force you to say if someone is immoral then they don’t believe in Christ. Of course you get the problem of how can you really judge what is going on inside of someone.

My biggest question is exactly what it is that makes people who haven’t accepted Jesus unable to enter heaven. It looks like Origional Sin but why should I be stained by it? After all I’m not from your tribe, in the garden I did no crime. It seems to me that God could have made a more accesable plan for salvation than what Chick presents and for some reason didn’t.

As a related question what about people who never heard about Christ or only heard about it from people who present it horribly. It seems like God is willing to risk a whole lot of people going to hell on the idea that those who believe in him can effectively spread the message. Given the number of fundementalists to others I’d say that God either made a mistake or doesn’t really care.

The above problems are based upon God according to Chick, at least how He seems in the tracts.

75

The Book of Frink, Chapter 5:10-11

10: and HE preached unto the mighty throng “For who is the geek among you, who names Doctor Who.”
11: “Or is the greater geek he who challenges the geek and makes right what the geek hath spoken?”

Though to be fair, I also spotted the “tartis” error.

76

To be fair, I think they put more in it than simply “belief”, as in thinking to one’s self “I believe” or saying it aloud. After all, which part of the mind needs to affirm that belief, and would you have to think the sentence “I believe” or think the idea, or what? I imagine they’d say there’s something more subtle to it, but I don’t really know.

That seems to be one of the greatest problems with not just Chick, but evangelical protestantism in general. From Chick to every preacher who ever came to Speaker’s Circle here at the college to every evangelical I ever asked, all believe that the only bar to heaven is to hear the word of Jesus and salvation and not accept it. Well, there’s the problem as you point it out. If someone tells a Chinese peasant about Jesus and salvation, but tells it so unconvincingly that nobody could possibly be swayed, how could you expect the peasant to adopt Christ? Even if the Christian position is explained really well, it’s our tendency to give more weight to the words of people in our own community, so the Christian message might be dismissed for that reason as well. Neither of those are cases where the peasant could really be faulted for disbelieving, but nonetheless Chick and the evangelical protestants will toss the peasant into everlasting flames with the pomp and circumstance of “Go now and depart from me!” Is that goodness?

If I were the Christian god, and the rules were as Chick tells them, I’d have my truths instantly recognizable within each person. Clearly that isn’t the case, since most of the world rejects them. Evangelical protestantism is tainted, IMHO, by that flaw amongst others.

77

You forgot:

12: “With the phone booth, and the scarf, and the revolving CAST, glaven!”

78

Hi His4Ever, welcome aboard! & prepare to disagree with this fellow Christian G

Some comments on comments above-

RE the changes in Chick’s artwork- as I understand, most of the cartoony ones are his; the more realistically drawn ones are usually his associate’s Fred Carter- sorta a ‘ghost artist’.

I used to hand them out at high school in the 1970’s when I was
much Fundy-er S (I’m an Evangelical neo-Universalist C’tian now), until he started being either the pawn or co-conspirator
(I think pawn) of con-artists- John Todd, “ex-Grand Druid of the
Council of 13 in the Illuminati”; Alberto Rivera “ex-Jesuit priest”;
and Dr. “Rebecca Brown”- mentor to “ex-Witch, ex-Bride of Satan
Elaine”. (Good exposes of all three of these people are on the Net.)

RE The Jews & Fundy C’tians- without bringing the End Times prophecies into this, God promises Abraham in Gen 12 that his
descendants will bless all nations & that God will bless those who are good to his descendants & curse those who mistreat them.
Paul in Romans 9-11 declares that even tho most Jews do not recognize Jesus as Messiah, the Jewish people still have a Divine destiny to come to Jesus which will bring all people into their full Divine destiny. While Protty anti-Semitism has arisen, for the most part C’tian anti-Sem has occurred in Catholic & Orthodox areas.

Btw, Chick will probably take the recent US Catholic Bishops call
NOT to evangelize Jews as evidence of their anti-Semitism- they are denying Jews the opportunity to hear of the Messiah Jesus. G

RE Noah’s Ark logistics problem - Young animals in hibernation
would solve some difficulties of space & feeding. Then again, I
believe the Flood was limited to the Eurasian-African area where
humans dwelt, not the Earth areas unreached by humans, so
Noah only had to store the local animals.

Finally, by “Evangelical neo-Universalist Christian”- I mean that I believe God gives His Life to all humanity thru Jesus Christ; every human will have every opportunity to trust God/Jesus (whether in this life or the next); & that when God/Jesus’s Love & Justice comes upon all humanity at the End, most- perhaps all people will respond in love & trust, with all that is not consistent with God “burned away”- a psychologically & spiritually intensely painful experience but one necessary for healing & wholeness. I acknowledge the possibility of exceptions as some may choose never to love & trust God & thus when His Love/Justice burns out all that is opposed to It, there may not be anything left of these people. Of course, it is that Burning which has been misread as
Eternal Torment in Hell (which is a very sad misreading of the words of Jesus & John the Revelator; it is nowhere in the Old Testament or Paul’s letters).

79

I have said the Creed before, but when we say “the holy catholic church” it is not talking about the Roman Catholic church. The word catholic means universal. It’s talking about Jesus’s univeral church which is all those on the earth who have believed in Him as Saviour. Of course, I expect you to pick this apart but so be it

80

You’re missing what I’m saying. I didn’t say that non Christians or atheists couldn’t be nice people. What I said was no true Christian is going to desire to do those things. When Jesus comes into a life, He changes it. You may be a decent, good person but the Bible still says these things don’t save, only Christ saves. And if you’re asking what I think of homosexuality (don’t take this as a personal attack, I’m talking of behaviour), I agree with what God says about it. He calls it an abomination and against nature. Leviticus 18:22 and Romans 1:26-27. I spoke of this in another thread about the methodist church accepting homosexuals. If you want to read it , you can go there. I know you’re going to blast me but I have to say what God says “Thou shalt not lie with mankind as with womankind.” And before anyone brings this up, I’ll go ahead and say that there’s no such thing as a gay christian nor does God make people gay. It is a choice. God can’t make a person gay, to do so would be to contradict His own word which clearly condemns it. God won’t contradict Himself. The Lord would tell the person with the homosexual tendencies the same thing He told the woman taken in adultery, “Go and sin no more”. And NO I do NOT hate homosexuals so please don’t put that label on me. I’m simply sharing what God says on the subject. There are homosexuals who have accepted Christ and come out of that lifestyle, just as any person who’s being sexually immoral comes out of that lifestyle when they come to Christ.