Chick Tract: Movin’ on up!
Saturday, May 3rd, 2008Oh, Chick. You should have stayed under that rock you crawled out from. How is this tract idiotic? Let me count the ways:
1. The theory of evolution has nothing to do with abiogenesis, the beginning of life. The theory of evolution explains the diversity of life.
2. “Science” doesn’t know things. Humans know things because of science.
3. Jack Chick is desperate to paint “scientists” as some kind of unquestionable all-knowing authority figure because this is the only concept of human knowledge that he can understand. The only thing that separates “scientists” from the rest of us is their investment and expertise in the subject. Anyone can use the scientific method, anyone can examine the facts and draw their own conclusions.
4. Scientists do not claim that individual frogs have ever changed into monkeys (or individual fish grown human legs, or anything else that Chick implies). Individuals do not evolve, populations do. (And populations don’t go “poof” and change from frog to monkey either.)
5. The attempt to reduce humans’ entire evolutionary history to goo -> “pollywogs” -> fish -> frogs -> monkeys -> us is laughably simplistic and just plain moronic.
6. “Humanism” is an ethical philosophy. It has nothing at all to do with evolution, and this is frankly the strangest misuse of the word that I have ever seen.
7. For Pete’s sake, individual monkeys don’t just “lose their tails” and become apes. See 4.
8. Textbooks are not religious texts. They often have mistakes, as I’m sure any teacher will gladly tell you. They get corrected from edition to edition to reflect changes in knowledge on the subject. Only an idiot believes something just because it is written in a book.
9. Evolution is not a religion, it is a scientific theory. It makes specific, falsifiable predictions about how the world works, and it is regularly amended to reflect changes in knowledge.
10. Darwin was a spear-throwing caveman who hunted dinosaurs? WTF?
11. There is nothing genetically or practically superior about blond hair, blue eyes, or light skin. Does Jack Chick think there is?
12. You cannot derive an “ought” from an “is”. The fact that nature tends to eliminate “weak” individuals does not in any way imply that it is our job to do so.
13. Evolution and morality do not have anything to do with each other. Evolution is a scientific theory that explains the diversity of life. Human behavior is a separate subject.
14. There is no god… therefore I can become a god? That makes no sense.
15. Atheists do not believe that they are gods. This is yet another attempt by Jack Chick to see atheism through the lens of “religion” because that’s the only way he understands things.
16. Lying and cheating leads to becoming a god? Does that mean lying and cheating is what Jack Chick thinks gods do?
17. I skipped most of the Chickian “have you ever heard of Jesus?” bit because it’s always the same thing in every tract. Wacko strawman atheist has never heard of Jesus or Christianity and gets witnessed to by an angelic, perfect, moral Christian and learns the error of their ways, or not. I really doubt you would be able to find a person who has grown up in any Western society without ever having heard of Christianity, or who hasn’t ever heard the Jesus story. Furthermore, to those of us who don’t already believe it, it’s not any more convincing than any other fairy tale. Sorry.
18. Jesus is not “banned in schools”. Christian students can read their Bible and pray in school all they want. What they can’t do is coerce the non-Christian students into participating.
19. Atheists don’t “hate god” as an entity any more than you “hate” the tooth fairy. There is no love lost between many atheists and the god character that is depicted in religious texts, but you’d be pissed too if people were constantly harassing you for not worshipping Heathcliff, Iago, or Draco Malfoy.
20. Believing nonsense doesn’t make a person “inferior”. Most of the time, it just means that they don’t care to critically examine that part of their life. They can be and usually are perfectly rational about other subjects. Unfortunately, that does not seem to include Jack Chick. I haven’t ever seen him be rational about anything.
Tags: Atheism, Jack Chick, Stupid
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3 Responses to “Chick Tract: Movin’ on up!”
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This is kinda cool, its like being able to give you a tract even though I’ll never meet you.
-Jim
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Jim: Sorry, but tactics like that would only be effective if I already believed in a god. A fictional character’s opinion of me is irrelevant. As a humanist (unlike Chick, using the term correctly!), I base my morality on what is beneficial or harmful in reality.
Since we’re sharing links, here’s one for you! The God Simulator
May 3rd, 2008 at 9:50 am
Perhaps you should subject other Chick tracts to your treatment — I would suggest “Big Daddy?” for starters, but that’s been done to hell and back by now, of course. Number 16 in particular ftw. I think I love you.