Aw, Mike
Boy if Chick tracts are so gawdawful and bad and silly and hilarious... why do you attack them so much?
Well, Mike, it's kind of like those commercials from PDFA. You know, "This is your brain, this is your brain on drugs"?
A Chick tract is the epitome of the statement: "This is your brain on religion". Chick tracts belong to one of the most dangerous kinds of religion. They are meant to be distributed anonymously, in an act of cowardice. They reduce Christianity to infantile politics. They teach supremacy and division.
Chick tracts deserve to be mocked. They are among the worst examples of Christianity available to the general public.
What did the Roman soldiers do as they flayed Jesus with a cat-o-nine-tails? They mocked him. What was it that the rabble did to Jesus after they hung him on a cross? You got it... They mocked him.
What was it Brian the Dog said? "I'll be out in the gazebo, since you're already up on the cross."
Something like that.
Think of it this way: You know those times when the effrontery of idiocy is such that you feel you must lash out at it? And you know how your Christian ethic is supposed to reel that in? Well, not all people bear that ethical responsibility, so when they see something worthy of their efforts to mock, they do so. The problem is this: you're getting all bent out of shape in defense of one of the most detrimental forms of Christian fundamentalism available. Does it not bother you that your brethren in Christ should feel it necessary to exploit your savior for divisive, childish propaganda? Does it not bother you that this kind of juvenile spite "brings people to Christ"? Will not the Devil seek to deceive the righteous? What, then, of an accusing, divisive spirit that beckons people "to Christ"?
One of the benefits of not having a doctrinal or dogmatic reason against mockery is that people can weigh the merits and still choose to stoop, bearing only their own conscience instead of a symptomatic projection of conscience.
The thing is that all who are not doctrinally bound to forgiveness ought to fight fervently against this propagandous menace, and those who are obliged to forgive ought to open their compassion and set their brethren along a more appropriate road.
In the end, most can point to the Chick tracts and say, "They started it."
I mean, those things are insultingly childish. This is the kind of stuff you use to tap the intellectual dregs of society in order to fatten the rosters. It's a con job, at best.
After all, it's designed to get a pledge to Christ before a person understands what that pledge truly means.
thanx,
Tiassa