Jack Chick #fundie

Jack Chick #fundie chick.com

[At the end of “Gunslinger”, a tract about a hired killer who repents and goes to heaven and a law enforcer who doesn’t repent and goes to hell]

Going to heaven is not a matter of GOOD or BAD. It’s a matter of SAVED or LOST. No matter how bad you’ve been, Jesus still wants to save you! Will you let him?

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Salvation by faith-ists in a nutshell.

Sums up one of my main objections to this mindset of Christianity in a single paragraph.

And that is why a majority of people on earth, even other christians, think you and your ilk are reprehensible. And if you truly cannot see why, then YOU are the “lost” one, Jack.

…Isn’t God supposed to be omnipotent?

The Jim Carrey & Morgan Freeman film “Bruce Almighty” posits the notion ‘What would you do if you were God?’. If I were Omnipotent, I know who I would let into heaven and who wouldn’t.

Guess who has already Lost: and not just a so-called ‘Argument’, OP…?!

…and making a monkey fly out of someone’s butt and a newsreader say ‘Doodoocacapoopoo’ is affecting their so-called ‘Free Will’, so that concept never had the right to exist in the first place.

What about all the unborn murdered when their mothers were drowned in that ‘Flood’…?!

@Anon-e-moose #226969

What would you do if you were God?

That’s a good question. I, for one, wouldn’t announce it to the world, or anyone, regardless of wether I’m allowed to. I’d just live my life in peace and comfort. Sure, I’d subtly clean up pollution, fertilize African soil a bit more, make all of Russia’s WMD’s duds, help scientists find an affordable cure for cancer… But I wouldn’t interfere directly in grand ways and I certainly wouldn’t demand worship.

After all, “When you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all.”

I’d also make the rules for the afterlives far more just, and Hell NOT permanent. I see a proper Hell as more a place for rehabilitation, not needless punishment. You just stay there, confronted by all your misdeeds, until you finally and TRULY realize you were in the wrong and repented for it, and then you’re allowed in heaven.

Also, on a side note, I’d make myself more patient and wise, upgrade my looks a bit, make myself a supreme chef, and find my perfect soulmate. Wouldn’t hurt anyone to benefit a bit from the perks that come with it.

If I were god? First thing that comes to mind, anyone with more than a million ‘followers,’ every time they lie, a tablespoon of human feces flushes out their nostrils.
You still have the free will to lie, but if you lied your way to power, there’s a sudden upswing in transparency.

As to Heaven, I’d probably let everyone into Heaven. No one can possibly piss me off so much as to deserve unending and pointless torture.
Might make Nixon and his buddy that made healthcare a for-profit enterprise clean toilets for a few hundred thousand years, but still not Hell.

And I might allow one dead person to still communicate with the living. Terry Pratchett, but only to his publishers.

<@KeithInc.> #226975

anyone with more than a million ‘followers,’ every time they lie, a tablespoon of human feces flushes out their nostrils.

Okay, that actually sounds both pretty hilarious and awesome.

If I was god I would make it so that fundie Christians would respect other people including atheists.

Jack Chick was the sort of Christian who believes that being baptized and accepting Jesus alone gets you into heaven, and refusing to do either or both earns you hell. I vaguely remember a couple of them in particular which illustrate this. One of them had a bunch of people (Native Americans, I think) who were covered in black stains; the ones who accepted Jesus had the stains vanish and became happy, while the ones who didn’t kept the stains and became dour and joyless. Another contrasted a husband-and-wife missionary team with a hardened criminal; the former lead a virtuous life by Christian standards, but went to hell for being unbaptized, while the criminal was justly executed but went to heaven. Might be remembering them wrong, haven’t read any of those tracts in over a decade.

He’s not entirely unique in this. I’m kind of baffled by that particular take. One of the main purposes of religion is to get people to behave in a moral (or “moral”) fashion, but if you can be evil as you want so long as you “accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior” and engage in a particular ritual once in your life (not necessarily willingly, as many children are baptized by force) then… what exactly is the point of Heaven and Hell and “God’s Laws” and all that? Even if the criminal in the example didn’t truly accept Jesus until it was too late to avoid death row, but once he did so it somehow made him unable to do evil things ever again (which isn’t well-reflected in real life, as some of the most devout fundies can be pretty horrible people even by their own standards, and also apparently not well-reflected by this cowboy one, I haven’t seen it) it still seems rather arbitrary at best.

This strikes me as doing selfish crackpot religion in much the same way as Sovereign Citizens try to do selfish crackpot legalism.

@Zinnia #226991

Salvation by faith in a nutshell. To break it down, there are essentially three schools as to salvation in Christianity:
- Salvation by faith: All you need is to believe and repent.
- Salvation by works: Believing will not get you into heaven, your good deeds will. Heathens who do good deeds can also go to heaven.
- Salvation by faith + works: You need to both believe and do good deeds.

Chick was a hardliner of the first category except on one issue: gay people need to stop being gay even if they do repent.

I haven’t personally read any tracts that say similar things to what you describe other than this one that I’m quoting from the end of, “Gunslinger”, being similar to the second story but with a sheriff instead of a missionary couple (and having Terrible Tom repent too late to avoid death row as you mention).

So god is unjust

Jack Chick #fundie chick.com

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