An anti-religious (and specifically, anti-Catholic) webcomic is making the rounds on the Internet right now. It’s part of a webcomic called The Oatmeal, and is called “How to suck at your religion.” I have to warn anyone clicking that link that it’s really offensive: profane, lewd, and blasphemous, all at once. Honestly, if you don’t have some reason to read it, just go ahead and skip it (and this whole post). Whatever your religious views, this webcomic simply doesn’t enrich the discourse, or advance the debate in any positive or meaningful way.
You would think that something this over-the-top would cause even non-religious people to balk at posting it on their Facebook feeds as indicative of their own views. Apparently not. I’ve already gotten two e-mails from people who had friends share it, and who wanted to know how to respond.
There is a temptation to say, “It’s a webcomic, don’t take it so seriously!” But the truth is, while it’s supposed to be funny, it’s also supposed to make a serious point. In my view, it fails on both counts, but I’m really only concerned about the latter. Nearly every panel raises a different argument against certain types of religion, with most of the vitriol saved for Catholicism. Each of these arguments collapse on closer inspection, and it’s clear that the sheer quantity of arguments cannot overcome the dearth of quality of any given argument.
So here are my thoughts, by panel:
- The first panel depicts a Catholic priest (with a Roman collar) confidently damning all those who don’t belong to the Church. This is just a lazy straw man. While She’s canonized thousands of Saints, the Church has never declared anyone in Hell. On a related note, one of the obnoxious things about atheist attacks on Christianity is that they act as if Catholicism and Evangelicalism / Fundamentalism are basically the same thing. On of the things that Dr. Mark Gray said, in the article I linked to last week, was that: “It’s interesting that so much of the rhetoric of New Atheism seems to really be directed at Evangelical Christians—those specifically who take the Bible literally word for word. Many New Atheists seem to think anyone who is religious holds similar beliefs. Yet, this cannot be equated with the mainstream Catholic point of view.” If you’re going to argue against something, it helps to at least understand the thing you’re arguing against.
- This gets the Galileo affair completely wrong. A much-needed corrective here, or a thousand other places, for those who actually care enough about the facts to check them.
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Jewish twins kept alive at Auschwitz
for the sake of human experimentation.
Were those who opposed this barbarism “anti-science”?This also grossly misrepresents why Christians oppose embryonic stem cell research (and falsely accuses us of being against all stem cell research). But I suppose the author has to misrepresent the Christian view, because otherwise, it makes a lot of sense. If human life begins at conception (which, scientifically, it does…. and is the only reason embryonic stem cell research is even possible), we’re talking about doing medical research that profits off of mass killing. This has been done before, and those who opposed it on moral grounds weren’t “anti-science,” and aren’t today. The term you’re looking for is pro-life.
- So… religion is fine, unless you actually believe in it? Should parents not pass their political, ethical or moral views on to their children as well? What parts of parenting would be left if parents were to avoid passing their views on to their kids? The irony here is that silence is itself a statement. Avoiding any mention of God to your kids sends as clear a message as talking about God: specifically, it tells your kids that God’s existence is either untrue, unknown, or unimportant. Because if you knew Him to exist, surely you’d share that knowledge, right?
- This next section is probably the worst, because it’s just an incoherent argument. A kid asks, “Dad, what happens to us after we die?” The author compares providing the Christian answer to this question with correcting your kid for having green as a favorite color. What?? That just isn’t a coherent argument. In what world are those two ideas parallel, or even comparable?
According to the webcomic, good parenting is to pretend to be agnostic, and say that “no one really knows for sure.” Of course, if the Resurrection is true, that claim is false. So to be a good parent, you apparently have to deny the Resurrection and embrace agnosticism, treating beliefs about the afterlife as mere matters of personal preference like having a favorite color. This is just… stupid. There’s just no other way of describing it. Imagine if we treated everything that way. “Dad, what’s 3 x 3?” “No one really knows for sure. What do YOU think 3 x 3 is?”
- The idea that a religion is bad if it gives you “weird anxieties about your sexuality” is naïve. What I mean is that sexuality is much more powerful and truly awesome than the author lets on. If sex is just no big deal, recreational fun, then adultery’s no problem, right?
Of course not. Agnostics and atheists have “weird anxieties” about sexuality, too, precisely because sexuality is powerful, and can cause a heck of a lot of damage when treated carelessly and casually. Everything from broken hearts and broken homes to rampant STDs and AIDS to millions of unplanned pregnancies and abortions would seem to have made all of that really clear by now.
- Religion is bad if you believe enough to try to tell other people that it’s true. Why, exactly? As a society, we freely try to convince each other of specific worldviews all the time, including really speculative ones, like political worldviews. Why is all of that positive, healthy democracy, while treating religion the same way is evil?
The author specifically advocates that good religions are ones that make it hard to join. Again, why? If having the right relationship with God is the best thing, not only for me, but for anyone, then trying to prevent others from that right relationship would literally be about the worst thing that I could do.
- This just grossly misrepresents Christianity. As I said before, if you’re going to argue against something, it helps to at least understand the thing you’re arguing against. In Monday’s post, I mentioned that one goal we should have in inter-religious dialogues and debates is to be able to describe the other person’s position in a way that they would recognize, and acknowledge as their own.
Needless to say, that’s not what happens here. Instead, there’s mockery and sneering of a ridiculous distortion of Christianity: mocking beliefs, in other words, that no Christian actually holds. Edward Feser has a great response to this sort of cheap shot, showing that this same asinine approach could be used to make science look stupid (provided that no one bothered to listen to scientists about what they actually believed).
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Do you need to read the Bible to know
that killing him is immoral and unethical?I don’t think anyone votes based solely on religious beliefs. I also don’t think that being against abortion is a “religious belief.” The belief consists of three propositions: (a) human life begins at conception, (b) the intentional ending of innocent human life is murder, and (c) murder is bad. Which of these beliefs requires being a Christian?
- Invoking the Muhammad drawing controversy is just a reminder that the reason Christians are targeted for this mockery instead of Muslims is that smug atheists are afraid of Muslims. They bully us precisely because we’re not the violent, intolerant psychos that they pretend we are. If there really were a “Christian Taliban,” folks like this would be too afraid to mock us, as they are with Muslims. So in this sense, all of this is a beautiful reminder that, for all our faults, there really is something to Christianity.
- In condemning killing for religion, the author conflates it with “hurt[ing], hinder[ing], or condemn[ing] in the name of your God,” right after a lengthy tirade condemning Christians. Not even a hint of irony.
- Good religion is apparently placebo religion, and it’s okay only as long as we keep it to ourselves. The author then indulges the mandatory use of profanity to show us how calm and reasonable he is.
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| Raphael, Adam and Eve (1511) |
In Scalia’s dissent from Lee v. Weisman, he accused the majority of treating religion as “some purely personal avocation that can be indulged entirely in secret, like pornography, in the privacy of one’s room. For most believers it is not that, and has never been.” This really does capture two competing views of religion.
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| Lucas Cranach the Elder, Head of Christ Crowned with Thorns (1510) |
One view, the view taken in the webcomic, is that religion consists of a set of ideas that we latch on to, not because they’re true, but because we happen to like them. Because our religious views aren’t objectively true, but just subjectively nice, they’re as personal (and insignificant) as our favorite color. It’s just a way of coping “with the fact that you are a bag of meat sitting on a rock in outer space and that someday you will die,” and that all existence is utterly meaningless. But someone who takes this view of religion can’t even be reasonably described as religious. After all, they’re essentially saying, “I know religion isn’t true, but I wish it was.”
But the other view is that religion describes something, and Someone, utterly real… the very ground and sustenance of reality, in fact. What’s more, knowledge of this Truth is the most important knowledge we could possess – the only knowledge that makes an eternal difference, while all other knowledge fleets or fades. But beyond even this, a relationship with this God, our God, enriches our life here on earth, filling it meaning, not as some delusional placebo, but in the way that a story takes on new profundity when you can hear the author explain why he wrote it that way. This is the only view of religion worth taking, since this is the only view of religion that treats it as true, rather than just a nice idea: that is, it’s the only one of the two views worthy to be called “religious.”
Beneath all the smugness, profanity, blasphemy, and sneering hipster irony, the webcomic falters in the face of this: true, substantial, real religion. The comic can mischaracterize and distort, but in the face of actual Catholicism, it’s silent. It has no coherent or compelling answer in response to the Catholic claim. Snark simply has no retort to truth.
Update: Marc Barnes (Bad Catholic) responds to the same webcomic, quite wittily.
Update: Thanks to all who have commented so far. I obviously can’t respond to every one of you, but I’ve written a follow-up post responding to some of the general trends that I’ve seen.
Joe was trolled. Joe trolled the Oatmeal readers. The Oatmeal readers responded by posting more what they thought were inflammatory trolling posts, to which Joe, and his cronies responded. Thus the circle of trolling was complete. Mostly though, Catholics have to lighten up. Sure you’ve been to the wall the past few years with the whole bad priest thing, and the Sanduskey case has brought these thoughts to the surface, but really the way to respond to antagonism, to which no response is needed is no response. That’s that whole turning the other cheek thing, only in this case, the first one was never hit. But none of this was about facts, it was about causing a response, trolling for a response, so it was a success by all parties.
Oh my god, this article is pretty much the same as The Oatmeal’s comic. This is a fight no one is ever going to win but still, I will give my opinion. I have been brought up in a Christian family, not a very devoted christian family but a Christian family and I have been to a catholic school from kindergarten to my last year of high school and I study religion as one of my core subjects and have exams for it that count for my university entrance rank yet I still find myself opposed to Catholicism. I believe that people should be able to have a religion and gather in church together and do the other things that religious organizations do but I don’t agree with them projecting their beliefs on other people and influencing things so much that other people are prevented from doing things that may be not in their religion as such but in their spirituality, such as being homosexual, bisexual, transgenderal etc. I think this is what the oatmeal is trying to highlight in his comic, he just simplifies it and generalizes it because it is after all only a comic and is intended to be comical. Instead of using the example of parents forcing their children’s favourite color maybe the example of parents forcing their children’s choice of career would be a better example. The author of this article contradicts himself when he says that an answer to a multiplication sum is some how the same as answering a question about the afterlife after making the very point that favourite color and religion are not compatible arguments. How is times tables anymore compatible? Also, in this argument the author states that his beliefs are real and true, inadvertently saying that all other religion or beliefs are untrue and fake. This is doing the exact thing that he is claiming The Oatmeal did with atheism. Like I said, no one is ever going to win this argument.
So, Given this article has got most of its attention from the oatmeal posting it… and also given the fact both of these topics could be classed as SEO’ systems…
Wait.. I’ve forgot what I was going to say… OHH I know… Extremism in either view is bad… Case closed.
You have to take the comic with a grain of salt. His job is to be funny, to make every day things into something humorous, and sometimes have a message in there as well.
I will say, the panel with the kid asking their parent about the afterlife can be very accurate. I stopped going to church when I turned 18 because I didn’t go for myself, I went because I felt like I had to. I don’t need a god to be a good person. There is a HUGE difference between teaching your kids what your beliefs are, and making them think it’s the only option. If I ever have children, I will teach them what I know. I will teach them to be respectful, forgiving, honest, hardworking. If they decide to follow a certain religion, I will be more than supportive. If they don’t, I’ll support them through that as well.
You have to learn for yourself what you believe. It’s no one’s decision but yours. And if your beliefs are different than that of your parents, so be it. Hopefully they can respect your choices.
I heard you suck at your religion.
Sorry, but really. The Oatmeal is for laughs, sure, but… you suck at your religion for real. I NEVER comment on blogs (I think this is actually a first), and I agreed with The Oatmeal’s final words on saying do it if you’re helping others…
But, you missed the point.
“What’s more, knowledge of this Truth is the most important knowledge we could possess”.
Yeah, but only if it’s actually true. If it’s not true you’re building your life around Bronze Age myths and morality while living in the 21st century. Since there’s no more proof that God exists than doesn’t Agnosticism is the only honest position. You can’t say with any level of certainty whether there is an afterlife much less a heaven or hell to go to. You can ask the question, “what if it’s true”, but the problem is every other religion can ask that same question and there’s no more evidence for one faith’s veracity over any other.
Furthermore don’t mistake a responsible outlook on sex for a repressed one. I have friends who are both Mormon and Catholic and they have some pretty outwardly fearful aversions to even jokes about sex. They were brainwashed pretty bad. Watching unmarried adults kiss or hug visibly bothers them.
Also,
“Jewish twins kept alive at Auschwitz
for the sake of human experimentation.
Were those who opposed this barbarism “anti-science”
may or may not be one of the most offensive things I’ve read today.
well written article. the problem i see right away is that the Oatmeal isn’t attacking believers, it’s attacking people who care more about following a status quo or FALSE piety than Christ (or other religious icon). in fact, he indirectly praises people who believe for a reason and practice what Christ Himself (or other religious icon themself) preached. if you are familiar with the Oatmeal, that is his style of making a point- going hilariously (in my opinion) overboard. in this case his point isn’t ‘religion is stupid’ it’s ‘stupid people can’t use their religion as an excuse for their stupidity’ or ‘live your life based on your actual beliefs, not based on what someone says people who believe (x way) should mindlessly do (y thing)’
you are all idiots.
I am a Catholic and I can tell you that Strawmen are EXACTLY what you are doing… not what Inman does.
But let me clarify something for you… apparently the only thing you did not take time to read was THE TITLE and if you did, you simply did not apply it to the reading of this GOOD COMIC.
title says… and let me put it in capitals so you can read it better: HOW TO SUCK AT YOUR RELIGION… or if you need thing a bit more clear:
IF YOU ACT LIKE ANY OF THE PANELS BELOW BECAUSE OF YOUR RELIGION, YOUR ATTITUDE SUCKS.
As most Catholics do not act in that way, he is not insulting us.
one tip:
LEARN TO READ AND BE MORE HUMBLE
The Oatmeal is in the business of cranking out laughs, and if you’re not interested in his business, don’t peruse of his goods. Simple as that.
My parents and grandparents tried to raise me Catholic. I was sent to weekly CCD classes and received first communion. I stopped believing when they told me that stories like Star Wars, Lord of the Rings et al were false, yet the fanciful tales they told were absolutely true.
Really think about it. The world was created in 6 days? ALL of it? With no proof other than a book that says so? Jesus healed people by laying his hands on them? Because they Bible says so? No other books from the time confirm this? A man rose from the dead, made tongues of fire dance over the disciple’s heads, angels appear and all of this is true because one book says so?
Sorry, it’s all fairy tales to me.
As a person raised Catholic, I was even an alter boy as a kid, I can tell you that these “horrible comics” ring very true. That is why I am now no longer a part of any religion, in fact, I’m an atheist. Sure, I’m gonna burn is your imaginary “hell”. Whatever, get over it. You people are proving the point of the cartoon with this ridiculous article. Get over yourselves, its a stupid internet joke. If you don’t like it then you take yourselves too seriously. Why do you care? Can’t you simply be happy with your own fantasy world and leave everyone else alone? This is why YOU SUCK AT YOUR RELIGION!
religion is fuckin poison. it should be wiped clean from the world forever. it can’t help us in any way shape or form and all it does is poison rational thought, science, progress, morality, ethics, philosophy, and everything else. it can do no good.
As a person raised Catholic, I was even an alter boy as a kid, I can tell you that these “horrible comics” ring very true. That is why I am now no longer a part of any religion, in fact, I’m an atheist. Sure, I’m gonna burn is your imaginary “hell”. Whatever, get over it. You people are proving the point of the cartoon with this ridiculous article. Get over yourselves, its a stupid internet joke. If you don’t like it then you take yourselves too seriously. Why do you care? Can’t you simply be happy with your own fantasy world and leave everyone else alone? This is why YOU SUCK AT YOUR RELIGION!
The fact that many religions resemble each other, but are all apparently individually correct, just blows my mind. Such an obvious logical fallacy can only be accepted by those who cannot think freely. People bound by insecurity, a weak mind, the need for an explanation of life, and/ or those unfortunate enough to have been born into a brainwashed religious family. They will defend their opinion to the end, but not everyone can be right. I prefer to not choose any religion and live my life untethered to a set of rules or commands. Whether I go to Hell, Nirvana, or just rot in the ground, my educated mind will remain logical and sensible to the day I die.
Ima get of the computer now and play some ultimate. Peace, no matter what you believe
As a person raised Catholic, I was even an alter boy as a kid, I can tell you that these “horrible comics” ring very true. That is why I am now no longer a part of any religion, in fact, I’m an atheist. Sure, I’m gonna burn is your imaginary “hell”. Whatever, get over it. You people are proving the point of the cartoon with this ridiculous article. Get over yourselves, its a stupid internet joke. If you don’t like it then you take yourselves too seriously. Why do you care? Can’t you simply be happy with your own fantasy world and leave everyone else alone? This is why YOU SUCK AT YOUR RELIGION!
Ok I saw this response posted on Facebook and, considering how much I enjoyed the original webcomic, I can’t help but respond in turn. I’ll just jump into the authors points.
1. Let’s not split hairs here. All versions of Christianity explicitly state that the ONLY way to heaven is through the Big JC. It isn’t simply semantics to say that the implicit side of that argument is that those who don’t adhere to this route, don’t go to heaven. So where do they go? Hmmm what other realms do Christians believe exist in the afterlife? (yes, limbo which is so much nicer than hell!).
2. Galileo? Nice try but it’s hard to take anything seriously from an organization that has “catholic” and “education” in the same sentence. The fact is that you can nit-pick particular examples all you want but it is undeniable that Christianity (historically in the powerful form of the Roman Catholic Church) was actively involved in the suppression of anything that threatened the established dogma (rational thought certainly qualified). That is, when they were not pillaging the “holy land.”
3. Pro-life huh? Is it “pro-life” to prefer the “life” of a single blastocyst (a three day old human embryo) over that of a 5 year old girl with 90% burns over her entire body? These are the types of preposterous and wicked results that are yielded from the established Christian position on the “sanctity of human life.” If that doesn’t get you, and you continue to support the notion that this blastocyst is so magically important, consider this; there are over 100,000 cells in the brain of a fly, compared to the blastocysts’ 150. But I know, I know, blastocysts cells are magical!
4. The problem with your conclusion is this; you don’t KNOW he exists. Rather you choose to believe this. Do you know why a child is deemed to be unable to have sex or write a will? It is because our society has (rightly) concluded that children lack the ability to consent to such things; in other words, they cannot make these decisions because their brains are too underdeveloped. If they can’t make those decisions they surely cannot make the supremely important “decision” to believe in something that they can neither, hear, taste, see or feel. An instruction to a child that a god unequivocally exists is a flagrant exploitation of a child’s inherent naiveté and their unbridled trust in their parents. For those who still don’t agree try looking at it this way; Is it right for Scientologist parents to teach their children from the cradle that such beliefs are valid? Don’t you think that if this child grows up to be a Scientologist it would have nothing to do with choice and everything to do with undue influence placed on them at an early and formative age? And, by the way, not mentioning a belief in God does not implicitly instruct the child not to do so in the future, it simply reinforces a position that ALL religious people should take (and most claim to do): “You can choose to believe whatever you wish, this is simply the truth that I have found”. Besides wouldn’t your religion be stronger if all the believers got to that point through careful consideration rather than obedience to their parents?
5. (A) I think you are failing to appreciate the nature of a parents answer to the question “What happens after we die?” Assuming that this parent is not a member of the undead, I can say with confidence that, however wholeheartedly he believes in his/her answer, the ultimate truth of the matter is, he doesn’t know what happens. He has adhered to a belief system, but he doesn’t truly know. Considering that there is a wealth of potential theories as to what the actual answer to this question is (theories as diverse as the colors in the box of crayons), telling a child outright that their theory (the child’s) is that we go to heaven, IS akin to telling them that their favorite color is purple. No one has given this child an opportunity to come to their own conclusions about either decisions in these scenarios.
B. Resurrection = 3X3? I note that you undercut your own argument by admitting “if the resurrection is true, that claim is false”. Quite right! However, one would never say “IF 3 times 3 equals 9…” Multiplication is a demonstrable fact; the resurrection (however hard one believes it) is not. Therefore, an answer of “no one knows for sure” is an entirely appropriate response for the believer and non-believer alike.
6. The subject of this section was “weird anxieties about your sexuality”; operative word being weird. Would it be weird for a man to have anxiety over his extra-marital affair? Of course not! He made a commitment to one person and is now engaging in secrecy, betrayal of an important and emotional commitment, and he is likely lying to his spouse. That sort of anxiety is warranted and is, therefore, not weird. Further, the source of the anxiety is not a 2,000 year old book; if that book did not exist his anxiety would still, for all the foregoing reasons (betrayal, secrecy, lying, etc), remain. Now weird sexual anxieties, those would be things that have no grounding in common sense or reality. And those, the Catholic church has in spades! No birth-control, no sex for pleasure, no gays, etc. Oh and let’s not forget the lovely tale of the first man and woman, which taught the valuable lesson that we should be ashamed of our nakedness…because when God made us he forgot to include a little blue suit for boys and a little pink dress for girls and being naked reminds him of his oversight? Am I close?
7. I think that the missed point here is that this panel is not intended to show that “religion is bad if you believe enough to try to tell other people that it’s true.” Rather, the point is that all this proselytizing ultimately comes off revealing insecurity in a religion’s own beliefs; i.e. the more people who believe the same as you, the more your belief is affirmed. Now maybe this isn’t the reason that you wish to “save” others but the point is that such aggressive conversion attempts do give off this impression.
8. Clearly you were offended by this panel. I get it. It definitely was intended as a sardonic rehashing of your cherished beliefs. However, take away the unnecessary hyperbole and you are left with the bare bones beliefs (i.e. a God (male evidently for some reason) created us, a virgin gave birth to a man-god, this man-god was murdered with the consent of his god-father/full-god self, he then comes back from the dead, etc). The point is that if you’re going to hold onto such beliefs, then own it! They’re weird, oddly specific, not in line with the observable universe and, most importantly, improbable. Just like Scientology! Could they be true? Of course. But so can Scientology by that rationale. And, by the way, while you could very easily make any scientific claim appear as foolish as Christianity’s, this does not in any way affect this claims’ accuracy. Science can be observed, tested, duplicated, and confirmed. Religion cannot. Its legitimacy relies solely on the strength of its adherents; when they die out, so does the religion (really! Ask the followers of Zeus and Hermes…oh wait! There are none!)
9. You are correct; being against abortion is not a religious belief. But neither is being against gay marriage and contraception. For that matter, being for gun rights and unregulated capitalism isn’t either, but that doesn’t stop the VAST majority of self-identifying “Christians” from voting in-line on these issues. It also doesn’t stop them from making valid religious arguments to support all these positions.
10. Are you saying that the fact that you wouldn’t murder me if I drew a picture of Jesus right now indicates that “there really is something to Christianity”? Well I can do you one better; You can go ahead and draw a picture of Christopher Hitchens and, you know what, I won’t kill you either! Sounds like there’s something to atheism as well!
11. Conflation? Not really. More of an identification of one awful thing that is done in the name of religion followed by a few other examples. This is often referred to compiling a list! And from your apparent insult at having killing conflated with “hurting, hindering, or condemning,” are we to assume that you will not have such a horrible practice confused with the other wonderful things that Christians do in the name of religion (hurt, hinder, condemn). Hmmm…interesting argument. Let’s not forget though that Christians have a long history of killing in the name of what they believe; this should not be overlooked simply because, at this moment in history, such actions have gone out of vogue amongst the true believers.
12. I’ll take placebo religion, which gives the believer the confidence she needs to make it through her life without imparting negative consequences on society, any day!
In closing I’d like to address two final points.
Firstly, while I wholeheartedly agree that religion describes something real (which is why claims that religion and science occupy two separate and unconnected fields are patently ridiculous), this is precisely why all religious people basically take the view that you find so abhorrent “I know religion isn’t true, but I wish it was”. Actually I would rephrase that to “I don’t know whether my religion is true, but I wish it was.” The fact is that no one knows which religion, if any, is true. Knowledge requires more than belief; it requires proof. And while you being raised in a Christian household and identifying with the messages of the Bible and being assured that it has been indisputably verified to be accurate may seem like great proof to you, I have a feeling that these very same reasons that an Muslim might have to believe in the Koran wouldn’t qualify as “proof” in your book. The truth is both you and the Muslim are wrong with regards to proof and the basis of “belief.” You both have many good reasons for wishing to believe, unfortunately none of them qualify as knowledge. You know how I’m sure that you don’t know what happens after we die? Because I don’t know and you’re not dead. Speaking for profundity, one of the most profound things a person can admit to is that they do not know. Speaking of smugness, one of the smuggest things a person can claim is that out of all the humans that have existed and out of all the religions that have been propagated on this earth, you have found the correct one! My stars what luck you have!
Secondly, please proof read. This isn’t intended to be an insult; rather it’s just a huge pet-peeve of mine. I would especially stress this advice where the writing in question is intended to be a scathing criticism of someone else’s apparent ignorance.
I would like to point out to you that this is exactly what the author of The Oatmeal wanted by writing this comic. He wanted to get you angry because this is what many people on the Internet do today. We call it “trolling.” Also, I think you should realize that the author of The Oatmeal just recently had a very large debate with someone who was offended by a comic and the author of The Oatmeal was clearly the victor. Not only did he keep the website up unscathed, but he also donated a lot of money to charity doing it. He merely wanted to get you upset.
He made a commit about people who suck at their own religion. There are extremist in every religion and they are usually the most outspoken and most memorable. He wasn’t saying that religions are bad or suck, only people who do the mentioned things (and in my experience as a Catholic, there are, especially among my family). I was lucky enough to find a church that embodies the good points of the bible and isn’t judgmental (in my hometown, that wasn’t an easy task).
I think the comic should be taken as a what-not-to-do in your religious beliefs (which I think it was meant as), not a religion bashing.
And about the forcing your views onto other people, I totally agree. The more I was pushed to believe something (people would come to my residence), the more I strayed away. It was my cousin who gently showed me the good in her life created by God that redirected me back to Christianity. You can’t force feed religion and hope it works, you have to show God’s love through your actions and one day it will stick.
Oh Chistians…
1. That’s a horrible argument. The Church says that people who commit “mortal sins” go to Hell. Sure, they’ve never explicitly said “this (person|group of people) is in Hell”, but if you’re denying that it’s implied, you’re being intellectually dishonest.
2. Putting someone under house arrest for the remainder of their life for promoting an unpopular opinion (and being a jerk about it) is slightly better than putting them in a dungeon, I suppose.
3. You can’t answer a philosophical question (such as when life begins) with science.
4. You don’t know that God exists. (I don’t know that he doesn’t.) If people didn’t indoctrinate children with religion as absolute truth before they were old enough to ask questions, religion would die out (or be marginalized) very quickly because it’s a lot harder to sell to a rational adult than a child, the idea that we all descended from a woman who was created from a guy’s rib.
5. Granted.
6. See #4. Unless you personally witnessed the Resurrection, you don’t know that it happened. You’re trusting a 2000-year-old chain of people saying it did, then passing that on to your kids as absolute truth.
7. Perhaps sex wouldn’t be as big a deal to people if it hadn’t been overhyped by religions for thousands of years. And perhaps there wouldn’t be so many unwanted pregnancies if religious groups weren’t hell-bent on preventing people having easy access to contraception.
8. Granted.
9. The core of the story is correct, is it not?
10. Yeah. The gay rights movement would like to have a word with you about people voting based on religion.
11. If you weren’t so wrapped up with your persecution complex, you would have noticed that he was criticizing Islam, not Christianity.
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OMG, this is almost as funny as the original comic…almost..oh no..hang on -it’s sad. You just don’t get it. In this response,you just pretty much proved everything that the comic said was right and also totally missed the point.
An Atheist.
Now, I have to laugh at this. The fact alone that you believe the entire post is about Catholics is egotistical and untrue. Sure, he posted a single picture of a Catholic religious symbol, but does that mean the entire article is about Catholicism? No! What really irks me is the fact that you decided to pick on Muslims in the tenth panel. How is it that you find it to be a “Muhammad drawing controversy”, when no such thing was ever mentioned? How is it that out of so many religions in this world, you decided to pick on them? Are you so close-minded that you believe that Muslims are in fact “violent, intolerant psychos”, as you say you are most definitely not, because you make a very good point of drawing on that. And since when is anyone afraid of Muslims? Let me make a wonderful point for you; I am an Agnostic, not even Atheist, and yet my Best Friend of ten years is a devote Muslim, with a powerful family in my community. There is even a whole community of powerful Muslims in my town, of which I gladly have dinner with once a month. And you should be ashamed of yourself for attacking a peaceful group of people during their most sacred month. This is Ramadan, and you don’t deserve to speak so lowly about them. Also, how is it that Christians specifically seem to think all Muslims are bad because of the actual Taliban. Yes, the Taliban is a horrible thing, and I hope they all rot in Hell for what they’ve done. Even the Best Friend would vouch for that, knowing that these people are not really speaking for what Muhammad would ever want. It makes me laugh that you think an entire religion is bad because of a few idiots. This is why I will never raise my children in religion, so they don’t have to deal with this insane controversy.
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This was almost as funny as the webcomic, but for all the wrong reasons. <3 oatmeal
As an atheist let me make something clear: your faith is meaningless for the purposes of this discussion and every other. It is actually significantly less relevant than your preferences. “I like salty things” is a factual assertion that you are competent to assert. “God exists” is something that you have no evidence of and, in fact, the more faulty argument that absence of evidence in combination with the persistence of belief somehow stands as evidence of this notion is contrary to basic logic. I know I’ve not convinced anyone who believes that because you fundamentally dismiss logic but I feel every once in a while it is important to say this clearly: Your primitive superstition is not recognized as anything but that and will be treated accordingly. It will be dismissed out of hand because we have heard it and explained its irrelevance before. We think less of you and are less likely to lend credence to any inference you make or leap of logic you take because you have eroded any benefit of the doubt we may otherwise have given you. These are serious issues that deserve exacting examination; your treatment of logic is akin to saying that blackout-drunk people are to be preferred as drivers in whiteout conditions.
I wonder what do you all do or think when your love ones is struggling for survival lying in bed in hospital? What are you doing when you mother is lying critically in hospital? Do you pray or you do something else? One thing that life teaches me during impossible too difficult time is that my mind ceases to think and my heart goes all out praying to God to save the day. I know God does not see my color or even care about my past behaviors, but why me? Why do I get so lucky? There is a saying in Bali Hindu that goes like this: one day a group of blind men walks up and found a huge structure. the first blind man touches and feels and said “this thing got a long long body, it must be a snake!” the second blind man walks up and touches the rear side and said “you’re wrong it has a huge flap it must be a giant bat!” and the third blind man walks up and touches the other end and says “no it’s not it’s a huge big ass mountain it’s a huge ball!” and there goes the argument. not knowing the structure in its entirely as described as an elephant in which each blind men touches and feels from their own side point of view. all of these blind man are correct and are also wrong. the entire “structure” was not able to be exposed because of each point of view being the most correct one. So what do we get from this story? Do you have any idea? Remember when human said there is no other continent but then discovered America? Remember when human said there is only Earth and then discovered several planets in the universe? Now what happen when the first and second blind man died and had no generations and only the last blind man remained? The last blind man would go on and preach that the structure is nothing but a huge big ball (elephant’s ass) and pass this knowledge down to thousands of generations. Do you think that is the entire truth? Are we even able to know the entire truth in this era? The bottom line of this is that what ever truth you hold today it might not be the truth of tomorrow so this goes for every religious point of views even including non-religious point of views. Perhaps in this era we will never see the other side or maybe we will.
I think you should view his webcomic as something that is indicative of the perspective of many people in the Western world. Don’t worry about what you think it says about us as Christians, personally my identity is not affected by what The Oatmeal portrays, but take the lesson it offers in understanding their perspective. This is what many of them think of us. To be honest, responding as you have done is just going to look like more evidence to them.
I find it ironic that those who consider themselves the most Christian act the least like Jesus Christ.
I find it ironic that those who consider themselves the most Christian act the least like Jesus Christ.
I find it ironic that those who consider themselves the most Christian act the least like Jesus Christ.
I find it ironic that those who consider themselves the most Christian act the least like Jesus Christ.
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DID YOU KNOW THAT IT IS NOT A HUMAN BEING UNTIL IT EXITS THE WOMB???? ITS NOT A CHILD IT CANT FEEL PAIN IT IS PRETTY MUCH BRAIN DEAD! The Church does nothing but keep man in the dark age, without religion especially Catholicism technology and medical advancement would be lets say atleast 500 years farther along than it is now. If you think that abortion is wrong, then id like to also mention that using a condom is on the same stage, if you think it is wrong to abort a fetas because it is “potential life” than it is just as wrong to block the sperm from reaching its goal, i understand that some Catholics do not use condoms for this reason, but then again most people against abortion do/would use a condom. So put your picket signs away with blown up images of bloody fetas’ (that are really only the size of a small rodent) and let man, and the brain that NATURAL SELECTION has given us develop further. Rather than inhibiting our advancement. Also do not say Natural Selection is a process created by god, that is garbage and you know it.
“””One view, the view taken in the webcomic, is that religion consists of a set of ideas that we latch on to, not because they’re true, but because we happen to like them.”””
Precisely, and that is the way it is – it’s called faith because it’s not knowledge.
So much wrong with this response, but this may be what bothers me most about religion – the assumption that believing something to be true makes it true. It’s maybe slightly more intelligent than covering your own eyes because you don’t want to be seen by others, but you hear bullshit like this from adults, not small children.
You make some good points here, but I’d like to add a few of my own in rebuttle:
3. Just a small note that I think it’s totally unfair to make this out to be like women are going around getting knocked up and having abortions JUST to feed stemcell research. Come on now. In fact, I’m pretty sure that a lack of sexual education in the schools is the reason so many young teens are confused when it comes to practicing safe sex, and let me tell you, it’s not the atheists who are rallying against it! You can tout abstience all you want….teens will still be making poor choices and getting pregnant long after you give up. Better to educate and reduce the aborion rate altogether, don’t you think?
4. “What parts of parenting would be left if parents were to avoid passing their views on to their kids?” – Avoid is a nasty word. No parent should “avoid” talking to their child and you are incorrect if this is how you think atheist parents operate. You misunderstand – atheist parents lay out the options and give children the opportunities to make informed choices for themselves. This is what The Oatmeal is trying to convey.
5. You don’t seem very convinced yourself that the Resurrection is real – “Of course, if the Resurrection is true,…”. Also, a good parent WILL force their child to think for themselves instead of just regurgitating answers for them like Wikipedia. Therefore, asking a child what THEY think 3X3 is, is a great opportunity to evaluate their methods of reaching a conclusion and offering support and help along the way. How else are children supposed to learn?
6. You don’t have to have any affiliation with the Church to know that cheating and adultery are wrong. You also don’t need the Church to babysit you while you go through puberty and guilt you into feeling like it’s something to be ashamed of. But it does anyway, and the result of that are masses of confused, sexually frustrated teens caught between normal biological development and the threat of eternal damnation.
Also, that picture you have up of the fetus labeled “Do you need to read the Bible to know
that killing him is immoral and unethical?” – that baby is at or near term and is WAY past the cut off date at which abortions can be legally performed, so that picture is completely inaccurate and just serves to sensationalise the whole debate against pro-choice. Maybe you too, should do some research before laying waste to atheists.
Dear Author,
respectively, I disagree with 90% of your written argument. I also suggest not using the same logical fallacies that you accuse the comic of. It makes for a poor counter argument and invalid inference.
I don’t think this is directed at Catholics, It seems to be directed at certain types of religious people. The “you like green” section made laugh so hard it hurt. My father got religion when I was a fourteen, the rest of the family already had a religion and it wasn’t his. He forced us to get baptized in his religion and within about two years we moved out, we were still in our teens. He insists we are still part of his religion and we chose to join it of our own free will. We told him we did it to get him off our backs but bailed the house because he kept escalating the duties he wanted us to take on. I love to travel but I’m not globetrotting on a bicycle to preach a farcical religion to desperate people. Dad also insists that I love cabbage, I don’t. When I visit and he makes cabbage and blackeyed pea goulash, he gives me ultimatums. “You’re not leaving the table until you eat it!” Thankfully I’m 35 and always keep the keys to my car in my pocket. I’m not kidding.
Pretty sure point 10 is both a little bit anti-Muslim, and also contradicts what you said in point 8. Not even a hint of irony.
Your arguments against the comic continually make the claim that “it misrepresents Christianity”…by this you apparently mean YOUR interpretation of what true Christianity (or Catholicism) is. This is just absurd. The fact is that there are LOTS of self-identified Catholics (priests or otherwise) who believe that not following Christ means you will go to Hell….They also think that scientology is a ridiculous religion and they believe that SHOVING their religion down other peoples’ throats is not only acceptable but REQUIRED of their belief system. Its a facile trick to try to invoke complex scriptural arguments as to why these are not ‘true’ Christian beliefs. But the only defensible definition of a Christian, is someone who believes that they are a Christian. You cannot deny that there are LOTS of people who do so who believe EXACTLY what this comic is lampooning.
Ah well, Anonymous has struck and the haters of all things just for the fun of it are now running rampant. Trolls will be trolls.
All I got out of the original comic was that Inman must have been visited or seen one too many street corner preachers and door-to-door evangelists. It came off as pretty angst-ridden and angry, and of course the hypocrisy of the entire thing “Don’t tell me what’s what, I’ll tell YOU what’s what.” As for the final set of tag lines… well… it just smacks of “I don’t care really what you believe at all, just go away.” He could have left it at that really and been far less rude or blatantly dishonest. It wouldn’t have come across as easily either if he wasn’t speaking in English, a language notoriously horrible in how interchanged the words are used/abused. Oh well.
Unbelievers will be unbelievers and they’ll mock and joke all they want. Its the nature of faith and literally any opposing view point, and the trolls just have a field day with the whole “imaginary friend” jibes. But don’t tell them they’re being intolerant as well… we apparently the Christians were the first to draw blood so its clearly CLEARLY an acceptable rebuttal to mock and dismiss. Just don’t you dare even TRY to tell them their might actually be a God or that there is something spiritual in this world… that’s shoving your ideas down their throats!!
Hypocrites.
Well done Joe, well done.
TL;DR
Religion doesn’t correlate with Ethics
This article is most absurd. All religions have extremists as well as those who are none religious. Christianity is a wide spread religion due to the Crusades. Non-christians were murdered. Of coarse this was so long ago. Saying there are no “psycho-Christians” is just rediculous. The Crusades should be a huge reminder the violence the Christians are capable of and that of Hitler. Athiests too, Athiests are constantly targetted for being in leguae with satan becuase a few of them murder. Just as Christians have, Catholics, Jews, Buhdists, Hindu, Norse, Muslim, ect. Religion appart is hatred. What about all the Gay-bashing that Christians commit. The United States is founded upon equal opportunity not Christian Tradition. Why not look towards the true Gods: Odin, Vi, or Borr. Religions thousands of years before the existance of the hippie christ make little or no sense. HAIL ODIN! Perhaps Jesus was a propagandist, he was nailed with large nails, and it must’ve taken a large Hammer to put him there…. ODIN? Yeah it was him. Norse religion is considered Mythology but there is so much more to believe in. The Oatmeal is awesome. And I actually Agnostic so I was joking about the Odin shit above. Also Keep in mind not every Muslim is a closed minded terrorist. Every human is an individual and will follow in the footsteps of others to determine they’re feeling towards religions. Also Bulliten 5 was a retarded answer FYI, he was choosing to use Fact or Opinion as a rhetorical comment. Someone having a favorite color is not much different to someone accepting they’re own believes. It’s opinion or what makes more sense to you. However is your retardism you used 3 X 3 as a similair argument, this is a fact since it could be proven. Saying Jesus exists using the bible as proof, is as legit as saying a Spiderman comic is proof of Spiderman’s existance.
You’re welcome for a great an awesome responce.
For Hate mail on how I’m stupid, satanic or for the probably many spelling mistake please email me at [email protected] I don’t really use the email so I’m not worried if everyone decides to sign me up for spam or anything. But seriously Hail Odin and have a wonderful night.
This article is most absurd. All religions have extremists as well as those who are none religious. Christianity is a wide spread religion due to the Crusades. Non-christians were murdered. Of coarse this was so long ago. Saying there are no “psycho-Christians” is just rediculous. The Crusades should be a huge reminder the violence the Christians are capable of and that of Hitler. Athiests too, Athiests are constantly targetted for being in leguae with satan becuase a few of them murder. Just as Christians have, Catholics, Jews, Buhdists, Hindu, Norse, Muslim, ect. Religion appart is hatred. What about all the Gay-bashing that Christians commit. The United States is founded upon equal opportunity not Christian Tradition. Why not look towards the true Gods: Odin, Vi, or Borr. Religions thousands of years before the existance of the hippie christ make little or no sense. HAIL ODIN! Perhaps Jesus was a propagandist, he was nailed with large nails, and it must’ve taken a large Hammer to put him there…. ODIN? Yeah it was him. Norse religion is considered Mythology but there is so much more to believe in. The Oatmeal is awesome. And I actually Agnostic so I was joking about the Odin shit above. Also Keep in mind not every Muslim is a closed minded terrorist. Every human is an individual and will follow in the footsteps of others to determine they’re feeling towards religions. Also Bulliten 5 was a retarded answer FYI, he was choosing to use Fact or Opinion as a rhetorical comment. Someone having a favorite color is not much different to someone accepting they’re own believes. It’s opinion or what makes more sense to you. However is your retardism you used 3 X 3 as a similair argument, this is a fact since it could be proven. Saying Jesus exists using the bible as proof, is as legit as saying a Spiderman comic is proof of Spiderman’s existance.
You’re welcome for a great an awesome responce.
For Hate mail on how I’m stupid, satanic or for the probably many spelling mistake please email me at [email protected] I don’t really use the email so I’m not worried if everyone decides to sign me up for spam or anything. But seriously Hail Odin and have a wonderful night.
Hi Joe,
I think you interpreted this comic with a bit too much prejudice. The title “how to suck at your religion” is not a stab at all people with religion, it is a stab at the people who go about it wrong. Most of these arguments can be made about atheists as well, such as their tendency to teach their children about evolution and no other ideas, or their tendency to ridicule other systems of belief. When it comes to having crazy beliefs, you yourself showed that the evolutionary theory and quantum theory sound crazy as well. It’s not about saying that Christian beliefs are wild and far-fetched, it’s asking people not to judge other beliefs based on what little you know, because your beliefs will always sound just as crazy.
I don’t believe that Matt hates Christianity or most people who practice it, he most likely just has the most experience with Christian people because it is a common religion in his area. I, and I’m certain Matt, have met plenty of wonderful Christian people who respect our beliefs the way that we respect theirs.
And before you say that Matt has no respect for those beliefs – I suggest you look at a few more of his comics. Caricatures are his job. They’re what he does. I’m sure he doesn’t honestly believe that all people who misuse semicolons are idiots, or that printers were sent from hell.
Anyway, I don’t expect you to suddenly think that Matt is awesome. I just want you to know that there are educated, respectful people out there who genuinely found this strip incredibly funny. You calling it “Shameless Popery” is an insult to those of us who enjoyed it. Stop being so defensive of your religion. We all know it’s wonderful.
Right, let’s go through this comic, “panel by panel”.
1) The point that you missed (which is surprising, given how incredibly obvious it is) is the hypocrisy the preacher is saying. Just to help you along, it’s the part where he says, ‘Don’t judge people’ (I’m pretty sure that’s in the Bible somewhere) and then immediately judges people.
2) You’ll excuse me if I don’t accept a biased source, since I “actually care enough about the facts to check them”. The Wikipedia article on the subject (which cites its sources) finds him accused of being “vehemently suspect of heresy”, his works were banned from being published, and he was sentenced to house arrest for the rest of his life. The fact that his arrest was ‘comfortable’ (and, hence, the Oatmeal uses hyperbole) is not relevant to the point.
3) Human life -doesn’t- begin at conception; that’s a contention you need to prove. A zygote is nothing more than a bundle of cells until the point at which the foetus into which it develops gathers self-conscious (or, at the very least, the neurological structure to feel pain) – not something which can revoke a woman’s right to choose what happens to her own body. Invoking Godwin’s Law doesn’t help your cause (mainly because the Jews on which Mengele operated were not experimented on for medically valid reasons, did not give consent, and perhaps most importantly were fully developed human beings with the ability to appreciate suffering). The term you’re looking for is ‘anti-choice’, not ‘pro-life’.
4) This point flew straight over your head, too. You do not impose your views on children too young to make up their own mind on the subject. If you do force your political, religious and moral views on your children, I feel sorry for them. Let them choose. It’s in the title of the panel.
Also, you don’t know God to exist; ‘know’ means ‘have a justified, true belief of’. Show me the (extra-Biblical) justification, please.
5)”According to the webcomic, good parenting is to pretend to be agnostic, and say that “no one really knows for sure.””. Yes, that’s exactly what good parenting in, because then the child can make up their own mind on the subject rather than having their parents pretend that what they believe is objective fact. Because you don’t know that the Ressurection is historical fact like you know that 3×3=9. No matter how strongly you believe, that’s the case.
6) Pray tell, what ‘weird anxieties’ do atheists and agnostics have, on the level of preventing pre-marital sex just because, condemning homosexuality and stopping masturbation?
(cont)
(cont)
7) “Religion is bad if you believe enough to try to tell other people that it’s true. Why, exactly?” Because just telling isn’t enough.
8) It exaggerates in places (oh, no! Hyperbole for humour’s sake!), but I’m struggling to find the parts where it’s actually incorrect. The other point of the strip (which you deigned to ignore) was that the Christians earlier satirised Scientology in exactly the same fashion as Inman does. You really do miss these points about hypocrisy, don’t you?
9) The sad truth is that people do. As for your proposition, a usually entails a religious belief. This isn’t always true – there are atheists who are anti-choice – but it’s a good indicator.
10) Yes, the fact that Christians don’t firebomb cartoonists who depict Jesus means that Christianity is true. That logic makes perfect sense.
11) I don’t see the irony. You need to explain these things, rather than just dogmatically stating them. We’re not six-year-old children, you see.
12) Yes, that seems about right. The world would be a better place if the preachers would stay at home or in church instead of on the street corner or in government.
In short, if you wish people to take your beliefs seriously, justify them. If you wish to criticise a piece of work, read it properly. Reading it with a bias (“Aha! He didn’t target my specific denomination, in this piece talking of all religions, but referencing Christianity due to the prevalence of that religion where the writer lives, because he’s just so afraid of how true it is!”) makes you look like an idiot.
But since you’re a Catholic, Inman could instead have kept the same title and just shown a picture of the Pope defending child rapists. That’s one way to suck at your religion.