Jack Chick (http://www.chick.com) is a Christian fundamentalist who writes delightful comics he calls Tracts. These are self-contained stories wheich usually feature either the conversion of a doubter to a TRUE BELIEVER or some poor sap getting chucked into the fiery pit.

And they're hilarious. The man's essentially an unintentional parody of what he's trying to represent.

for example, Jack Chick explains the filthy lies of evolution with a completely logical and unbiased argument! (http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0055/0055_01.asp)

There's a ton of this stuff on the site, Go check it out yourselves.

I prefer the Cthulhu Tract (http://www.geocities.com/tribhis/cthulhutract.html)

Thanks for the link, AMaster! Now that I have a point of reference, a whole bunch of jokes and avatars I've seen online suddenly make sense. I've encountered many Cthulthu jokes and references before, but never really got them.

Regarding Jack Chick, this one (http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0046/0046_01.asp) about dungeons and dragons is a personal favorite of mine.

I liked the one about evolution, but the one about Dungeons and Dragons was way off base. The Cthulu one was hilarious too.

Everyone has some understanding of the truth, but it takes looking into to determine what they got right and what they got wrong...

Ah yes. I remember reading these silly tracts. Not to mention they're factually false, I at first found them funny, until I realised that in them he suggests that everyone who doesn't share his particular brand of fundamentalist Christianity, in all likelyhood 'Premillenial Dispensationalist Dominionist' (sort-of) Christianity (my take, anyway), will not be saved and burn in hell, and deservedly so. These tracts are used in an attempt to to aggressively convert and missionise. In intellectual arrogance it's easy to not take kooks like Chick for full. I think that's a mistake.

Looking at his moronic and vile (to use stark understatement) Catholicism tract, what bugs me most, is that other Christians are not other Christians. To Chick they're not Christian enough and good only for converting. If they don't convert, they're doomed. There's zero tolerance. He's as close as one can come to be Christian Takfiri (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Takfiri) and not hilarious but dangerous.

I agree with Ragusa. Moronic, vile, dangerous and zero tolerance. I don't find this type of tract funny but repulsive.

In my opinion, ridiculing Jack Chick will do a lot more to neutralize his threat than taking him seriously would.

Gee the whole site is pretty extremist, they denounce just about everything in existence; he's written entire books about how to contradict other religious texts (I mean sure, but given the all the stuff in the bible it's really just a case of the pot calling the kettle black).

A few gems on his site

The vast majority of Muslims don’t really know much about their own book, the Qur’an. They are just taught to memorize it. Because memorizing a text would never help someone understand it. At least the vast majority of Christians are able to memorize their sacred text *AND*....wait - scratch that entire last sentence.

After much prayer, he[Chick] made the decision that, no matter what it cost him personally, he would publish the truth that Roman Catholicism is not Christian. He did it because he loves Catholics and wants them to be saved through faith in Jesus, not trusting in religious liturgy and sacraments.And here I was thinking that the term "Christian" would include Catholicism.
He's a fanatic!

When I read to the bottom of the Cthulhu Tract and saw that it had been made by Discordians, I can't say I was surprised.

It's worth noting that Kent Hovind, the supplier of the "proof" that evolution is false, is a fervent Young Earth Creationist who even other creationists think is nuts.

I used to think that idiocy like this was laughable, until I realized just how many people take them very, very seriously. That argument against evolution? As factually false as it is, there are a lot of people who swallow it as capital-T Truth.

Surprise, surprise - I agree with Nakia! :lol: :roll:

Ahh...I remember my first witches coven. Those were the days.

I have to say, the D&D one is pretty absurd. I haven't had the time to look at any others.

Hehe. That was funny. Especially the last part, where he tries to bind us to christianity. LOL. I follow christ, but not in that way. :)

Chick is a representative of a more specific Christian sect that is a discredit to Christianity. They preach hatred against even other Christians (like Fred Phelps does). Look at what he says, but take it with a grain of salt. The basic message is there, but it gets lost in the lies, misrepresentation, hatred and other un-Christlike behaviours he is prone to. By Matthew 7:2, I dread his turn at the Judgement seat...

Jack Chick is an effective weapon against Christianity. I can't imagine anyone picking up one of his fliers and thinking 'yeah! Right on!' unless they already agreed with it. Can't even see it working for really ignorant people, because they don't sound convincing - they sound like a parody.

I agree with Rags, Nakia, Rally and Gnarf that 'wacky Jacky' has been an unsettlingly dangerous 'loose cannon' for the decades he's been throwing out these evangelical 'tracts'. :bad:

...but one can't help but laugh at the absurdity of paradoxes like this on his site:
Religion can't save, only Jesus can! :skeptic:

And I found the following to be quite head-shaking:

Can a Christian be a mason? (http://www.chick.com/bc/1998/mason.asp?FROM=Masonryinfo)
Here are actual case histories of what happened when a Christian tried to be on both sides of this fence.

Clicking on the link above takes one to a page written in a narrative style recounting the funeral of Mr. Chick's uncle who happened to be both a Baptist and a Mason.

Then there's a quote, which apparently is cited from a book by William Schnoebelen who himself quoted two Masons...I think, since the page merely puts double-quotes around single sentences without providing these statements any context in how Schnoebelen was using them, so why not just quote Pike and Mackey directly? Ah, right, risk of accusations of plagarism... :bad: Eh...it's pretty clouded and messy - maybe a longer series of indented quotes may have been clearer... :(

And then, just to strengthen this argument beyond a single 'case history' (aka first-person recounting of an experience) we get more instances:

Two other friends come to mind. One was a "pillar" in a Southern Baptist church. His Masonic ring and Masonic Bible were prominently displayed. But when the conversation wandered into spiritual things, he would soon divert the subject.

The other was a salesman who called where I work. He came in joyous one day, radiant with a new-found faith in Christ. On a later visit, he mentioned how he had joined the Masons. We watched his zeal for Christ fade over the next few months as his enthusiasm for Masonry increased.

And that's the entirety of the 'case histories' about these two gentlemen. I personally would like to know who the 'we' is in the third 'case history' - I assume Jacky's co-workers, but it would be nice to get some direct quotes from them to confirm their agreement with Mr. Chick. :(

Okay, I'll grant that "from early childhood, it was obvious that Jack Chick had an ability to draw" but I'm not sure whether I'm troubled that he was not also blessed with an ability to write, or relieved he wasn't! :bad:

...but one can't help but laugh at the absurdity of paradoxes like this on his site:

Quote:
Religion can't save, only Jesus can!

Technically, it's true. Just most Christian faiths teach about Christ, so it prepares us to be saved. We are not truly saved until the last day...

In my opinion, ridiculing Jack Chick will do a lot more to neutralize his threat than taking him seriously would.

"In Iran, we have no homosexuals..." :confused: