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.
Atheism is a religion with followers just as good and bad as any other belief.
This comic is not the worst depiction of religion I have ever seen, and it appears responses and reactions to it are cropping up only because it was a popular comic.
Like Pokemon or Harry Potter before this, the comic exists solely for itself and the fans. Your responses are clearly not aimed at the author or his group because they don’t take the work seriously. When you come at them with a serious response, they just laugh.
If you are going to engage something like this and make it your equal, then you should probably engage it on the same battlefield. Make a comic that argues his points, rather than writing a critique on something that no one takes seriously.
Otherwise you just strike your audience as reacting and giving equal weight to something that really shouldn’t matter. Have a good time with it… laugh, poke fun, and get your points across without looking like a tired, old, man yelling at kids for their shenanigans.
The Oatmeal is hilarious and it followed point on. It wasn’t against any Institution of religion just the people who grossly misrepresent it. You have to read it in context. That’s why its called How [you can]/to suck your religion not you know your religion sucks.
Troll bait post. Congrads. You finally got someone to view your blog. The Oatmeal rules and others drool. Don’t. Take life so serious.
I thought this was an intriguing critique up until this moment:
“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.”
Calling something “stupid” doesn’t make for a credible rebuttal. Matthew Inman often uses HYPERBOLE and HUMOR to voice his opinion, to which he is entitled. To automatically assume that he is literally equating beliefs about the afterlife to a favorite color is quite a stretch.
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God is just an imaginary friend for grown ups. Life is too short to waste any time sitting around reading a book that was written by men and edited by the church to reflect what they select as correct.
Matthew 10:22 (NIV) says, “You will be hated by everyone because of me, but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved.” It just becomes more and more evident, doesn’t it?!
Its a comic that’s supposed to be funny and have a point. You cant discredit it because of the details that are added for humor while ignoring the major points it makes. Everyone knows that all Christians are not the same. Just like I hope you know all atheist are not like Crawford some of us came from Christian backgrounds and remember what it was like to believe in something that didn’t make sense. Anyway a few things Id just like to tell you
1. Atheist’s for the most part are not afraid of any religion. research “Draw Muhammad day” if you want proof of that. Christians are just talked about more because we know more about them because we used to be them at one time. And our family, friends, countrymen/women are for the most part christian and we want them to see the world as we see it because its beautiful.
2. The favorite color thing is perfect to me because there are thousands personal views/colors to chose from so why would you force your child to believe any one when it doesn’t matter anyway.
3. I’m done there is no three I could keep doing this all day but there’s really no point i’m going to be late for work and you don’t care. I loved this comic personally but I remember going into god defense mode when people joked about my religion so anyone reading this I urge you to go watch theramintrees videos on youtube His videos are not offensive or meant to be funny Its a better way to understand how we think.
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There is no god~ what part do you not get?
There is no god~ what part do you not get?
You say: “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 this is circular reasoning. (because I say it is true and real, does not in fact make it true or real) This idea, along with the faith dilemma is what holds religions together. Your arguments are no better than Oatmeal’s.
Did you just call Muslims “… violent, intolerant psychos …” Because I’m pretty sure you did.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/7771818/Butt-Hurt-Report-Form
Here you go. 🙂 Hope you feel better soon.
I don’t see how claims about the supernatural should have any effect on the natural world around us, yet religious literalists almost always claim that their own set of beliefs means that they must.
The parties of God have consistently hampered human progress throughout history. It is such a rampant problem that even now, the Catholic Church has successfully prevented much legitimate research on embryonic stem cells, advancement in evolutionary biology and the teaching of it in schools, and multiple other forefronts of our growing body of science. It seems like the Church intends for us to live in a backwards, un-Enlightened Dark Age where contraception is more evil than the AIDS epidemic (the Pope’s official position), the world only six thousands years old (spitting in the face of the branches of paleontology, seismology, evolutionary biology and numerous others) and us all dedicated to a life of serfs and abject slaves in service to an unfalsifiable, horribly totalitarian God, living out our days in the hope of a divinely ordained armageddon where only the faithful are saved. What a horrible position to want to be in, let alone force on children.
In what way could one ever believe that the pursuit of scientific knowledge should be lesser than these doctrines? What society has ever detrimentally been affected by having too much truthful, replicable, testable knowledge? The detriment of a society is achieved by the pervasion of dogmatic credulity in the place of rational skepticism.
So. Wait.
“Whatever your religious views, this webcomic simply doesn’t enrich the discourse, or advance the debate in any positive or meaningful way.”
And then in the same post you managed to refer to all Muslims as “violent, intolerant psychos” of which all “smug atheists are afraid of.”
That sounds completely productive. Bang up job.
Most of your arguments are logical except for one. In the fifth argument you act as if we “know” what actually occurs in the afterlife. It is defined what 3×3 is but you act as if the “afterlife” is also defined. I find it more logical to tell your child that you don’t know instead of relying on your self centered beliefs and forcing your child into believe the same (as you are the authority figure, anything you say will be defined in their minds). What happens if the afterlife isn’t the same as you described to your child. Is it better acknowledging your lack of knowledge or is it better to lie to them?
Wow – way to miss the point!
If your religion improves your life and encourages you to help others – you’re doing it right!
If your religion causes you to behave irrationally and hurt others – it’s a bad thing!!
Left Catholicism half a lifetime ago and never looked back!! 😉
To blogger, The comic is titled “how to suck at your religion” not “why religion sucks.” The entire point of the strip is to condemn being evangelical, not being religious. In response to your assertion that Matt says the only way to talk to your kids about religion is to act as though you’re agnostic is incorrect. More of an “I believe this but it’s not the only one and is based on blind faith.” And don’t tell me religion isn’t blind faith because it is. All any religion is is an idea. There are benefits to it and many of the teachings of Jesus should be heeded and are good lessons about life. I myself am atheist but I do not dismiss all teachings of the bible because many of them teach one how to better themselves. I do not however agree that people should be told by their parents that the god they believe in is the correct one period. This doesn’t give the child much choice on their beliefs because they are given one point of view very early on and when presented with something completely different they are more likely to stay with the one belief they have known for years. informing the child about the numerous religions that exist and let them decide for themselves.
All right, I was raised Catholic and my mother is a Baptist, while my father remains Catholic, I know the bible front to back, though I believe it to only be a book. I put the label of Agnostic-Atheist as my religion, mainly because I quit believe in your god as a child, but I do believe there is a higher power. Just not your god.
But to the point: The comic is merely that, a comic, meant for humor. If you view his entire website, and the other comics, you’ll see the artist is merely out for humor and enjoyment. People tend to over react and take things too seriously, as you have done.
You go on bashing the artist throughout the entire article, which I read despite it’s unjustness, talking about judging and whatnot, when you did exactly that.
And you claim that all Christians are good people and Catholics aren’t as bad as people portray them to be, well, explain Westboro Baptist Church who picket military funerals and made a scene at the hospital where the survivors of the shooting in Colorado are healing. You also went on about abortion, isn’t it true that Catholic condemn aborted fetuses to Limbo (or whatever they call it these days)?
People can bash my post however much they wish, but it won’t bother me. You may have been offended by the comic, but being offended is of no one’s fault except your own. Becoming offended by something all depends on how closed your mind is. As long as you keep it closed, anything that is supposed to be humorous towards all, will offend you and you will continue making yourself look like a complete idiot by making these silly blogs bashing someone else.
The world is full of things people dislike, there isn’t a thing we can do about it. If your god is real, then he created everything on this planet, including the things you dislike. And don’t throw up that Satan did that, because once upon a time, Satan was Lucifer, one of your god’s favourite angels, whom he created. By the bible, your god created everything, and forgot to give Adam and Eve the knowledge of right or wrong. He planned for them to disobey and for the human race to turn out the way it did.
Also, I’m always reading about religious groups saying so-and-so is taught, not natural, the only thing that is taught is hate. Continue spreading it the way you are and the whole world will come to its knees and the human race will become extinct.
Take a moment and think outside the narrow minded box you’ve trapped yourself in. Maybe if you all did that, you’d realize that you are the problem, not the answer.
I don’t understand why you should get THAT upset about a web comic. I studied humors a bit and humors supposed to help you deal with things that, if you’re trying to talk about it seriously, it would just really hurt everyone. So I don’t see why we can’t talk about religion using humor…it’s a hard subject, really.
I’m a moslem myself and I still think that bit about a prophet’s caricature is hilarious and straight-to-the-point.
I think if your religion makes you angry about a lot of things, then what IS the point of having a religion in the first place?
We’re not in the Dark Ages anymore…come on…
Unfortunately the Internet has been taken over by immoral lunatics (including the Calvinists), crazy atheists with no sense, the homosexual mafia, the abortion lobby, and 13 year old kids who barely even know how to tie their own shoelaces.
Seriously, the Internet has become essentially a piece of worthless filth, aside from certain online stores.
Atheists: They care so little about God that they fill Christians’ comboxes.
And, for that matter, consider Fr. Barron’s take on the online atheist phenomenon.
Hee hee don’t you people have anything better to do? The Oatmeal is only guilty of having a sense of humor, and THIS author totally missed the point because no matter how smart you are, religion makes you alogical.
There is a spectrum of fundamentalism, but almost every religious person is on it because they believe LITERALLY. This is ignorant. The Resurrection? It’s clearly a symbolic concept. All of religion is. Bingo, you suck at your religion.
It is very interesting that although you condemn the author for making a simple connection between enforcing a child’s beliefs and their favourite colour, which I found a very clever way of putting it simply, you simply do the exact same thing by comparing why a child should not be allowed to decide for themselves what they believe and simple math. tsk tsk
As an atheist, I simply believe that all religions are an insult to your ‘God-given’ intelligence, and as ripe for parody, ridicule and sarcasm as any other belief system. You know, at its heart, physics has some pretty weird beliefs (like the uncertainty principle and virtual particles popping into existence to pass on forces), but at least its propositions are open to debate and disproof. I’m pretty sure most religious people didn’t get there by investigating religious possibilities, but through indoctrination or the cathartic relief religion provided them from serious stressors in their lives. Gee, but it’s nice to feel certain.
1) While the person in the comic does have on a catholic style collar, it’s very biased of you to notice that and not the fact that the alter in the image isn’t. It looks quite similar to the alter from the Southern Baptist church that I grew up attending that regularly preached about how damned everyone who disagrees with their interpretation of Christianity is.
2) That should be Copernicus, not Galileo.
3) I’d love to hear the official stance on fetus in situ. If life begins at conception because the cells begin to grow, is removal of the malignant fetus murder as well? How pro-life will you be if you were afflicted with fetus in situ, because from your belief since it was conceived, and grows, it must still be alive, right?
4) We encourage our children to push the boundaries of science, math, language, etc… but not religion. God forbid a child seek answers outside of their parents religion. The point was not “Don’t talk to your kids about God” but “Encourage them to seek their own answers and form their own beliefs, not follow yours blindly”.
5) My own father told me I was going to hell because I didn’t agree with the “Once saved, always saved” dogma he was raised on. Hmm.. makes you think, doesn’t it?
6) Religions use lies and exaggerations to keep people in line with their beliefs. Social norms about sexuality and lies by authority figures are not the same thing. Oatmeal addressed lies by authority figures. It happens and instead of spinning your reply to act like he was talking about general sexual hang-ups perhaps you could have addressed the actual point?
7) I highly doubt the comic author was saying you cannot air your beliefs in public during an appropriate conversation, but the door to door gospel junk IS lame. If and when I’m looking to try something new, I’ll let you know, and until then I don’t care how awesome your heaven is, or how penance works, or when your daily mass happen.
8) Technically the explanation was correct, using modern terminology/slang. Just accept the fact that it sounds bogus when the language used is flippant and modern. You know the people who call things cheap shots right? The ones who don’t have a better argument.
9) I will put money on it that someone, somewhere, at some time HAS voted based on religion. While it’s not the #1 factor for most people, it certainly plays a role. If it doesn’t, why hasn’t a single non-Christian ever had a ice cube’s chance in hell of achieving the presidency?
10) Actually I’m pretty sure that was included to point out that Islam is no better in the tolerance area than Christianity, and in some ways quite worse. It really isn’t all about you, you know.
11) The drawing was intended to poke fun at the completely ignorant behaviors of some fringe groups and zealots. I think it succeeded. It’s one thing to commit suicide because of your beliefs… and it’s entirely another to murder in the name of your God. There’s nothing ironic about the bloody stains on history like the witch hunts, the crusades, the inquisition, the current Muslim zealots jihad, human sacrifices throughout history, and the many other disgusting massacres perpetrated in the name of deities. It’s not funny, it’s just sad, and no intelligent person should stand with a religion that condemns murder unless you say God wants you to do it, then calls it okay.
12) The end bit was a wonderful way to say “I don’t care how awesome you think your religion is, I’m not interested.” In fact, you’d probably be saying the same thing if Buddhists or Hindus came to your door to convert you, or if they indoctrinated their masses to try to convert others at every opportunity. It gets old, fast.
Church of England has a Catholic origin, can any of you honestly argue that Darwin or Turing would have been more accepted in Catholic countries?
El Salvador and other South American nations have strong Catholic majorities, in El Salvador women are jailed for miscarrying, and there’s a young woman, 9 weeks pregnant in the Dominican Republic that can’t get cancer treatment that could save her life because her country banned abortion and the chemo would terminate the pregnancy. Now they both get to die. Explain the “pro-life” thought process that makes this OK.
The Catholic lobby in the US works to pass laws that affect all citizens, not just Catholics. Laws banning abortion, access to birth control, personhood amendments etc. If Catholics allowed their priests to marry and have children again, or if the Catholic Church changed its stance on abortion back to what is used to be, it wouldn’t get such a bad rap and be so out of step with the modern world.
Dear JOE HESCHMEYER,
I started to read your blog article, but then I got to your first point, where you COMPLETELY mis-represented the Catholic Churches centuries old Papal teachings. That ONLY CATHOLICS CAN GET TO HEAVEN. This has been the official Catholic doctrine for some 1500 years and yet you say it’s not true?
Do you even KNOW what the church’s teachings? Are you aware of the MANY Papal decrees that explicitly contradict your assertion?
Are you completely incompetent? or an outright liar for Jesus?
If you need references, here are some Papal quotes across the centuries http://www.bible.ca/cath-one-true-church.htm
Thankyou for showing how to truly SUCK at your religion.
Good job, Joe.
So which religion is the “one true religion”? All of them? Some of them? None of them?
Early man had multiple gods. Centuries later, monotheism came into existence. It’s only one more step to the truth. The sooner we take the last step the better off we will all be.
Most of the frames in the Oatmeal comic weren’t making fun of YOU, or of other Catholics and religious people like you; it was making fun of the religious people who do the things he illustrates in the comic. For example, there ARE Christians who condemn others to hell, even if the church hasn’t officially condemned anyone to hell. There probably WERE Christians who labeled Galileo’s discoveries heresy for decades, well after the church officially agreed with Galileo’s findings. And there definitely are Christians who know so little about stem cell research that they oppose all forms of it, not just embryonic stem cell research.
THESE are the people the web comic is mocking. These are the people who “suck at their religion”. You, Joe, probably do not suck at your religion. You are probably one of the people the Oatmeal comic refers to when it says, “Excellent! Then carry on with your religion!”
(Haven’t you ever met any other Catholics who you think misrepresent your religion and give it a bad name? Do you, like the Oatmeal author, believe that those people suck at their religion? You and the Oatmeal comic probably agree more than you think)
I think you missed the point entirely. It seems like you’re saying: 1. doesn’t apply to me/my religion, 2. doesn’t apply to me/my religion, 3. Doesn’t apply to me/my religion….etc. Well good for you! You DON’T suck at your religion. Get thee to the bottom of the flow chart.
Only one of them (#2) actually demonstrates a recognizable Catholic, and I don’t think #1 is really exclusively Catholic at all.
Sure it takes a jab at scientologists, mormons, jews, muslims, and hey, athiests too! Maybe..just maybe…the author is implying that there are some people — not necessarily you — that this applies to. The world doesn’t revolve around Catholicism or you. Just plop yourself into the venn diagram section labeled “doesn’t suck at religion” and get on with your life if it threatens you.
There is no proof of any gods,There is no proof Jesus even existed ! Where are the bloodlines from Mary & Joseph ? You mean they’re not important enough to trace? Get a life .All religions are bullshit & have nothing to do with god. Who created evil? Your god, All i know is if any asshole ever tells my kids there going to hell,they will be meeting their maker much sooner than expected. Prove there is a god or STFU!
Joe, I’m proud to be Catholic and feel fortunate to be able to have access to read blogs like yours. I find them very informative and many times inspirational. Like most (all?) Catholics, I fight temptations and sin in some way every day, and wouldn’t ever claim myself to be better than any non-Catholic or atheist. I’m sure you feel the same. Most of the 900+ comments are negative and written by people who I don’t think understand the Catholic teachings in any way. The Church does NOT hate homosexuals or women that have abortions or atheists who write snarky, sometimes unfunny cartoons. Rather, the Church would encourage those people to be prayed for and encouraged to try to get closer to Jesus themselves.
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.
Three things.
1. Give proof of religion other than a book written 500 years after the events described in it and people won’t question it.
2. If the Vatican maybe opened up it’s ridiculously large storage of information, there would be less skeptics out there.
3. In terms of ‘killing the innocent is bad,’ you (christians) tend to forget about the crusades. Y’know, the rampage of killing innocent non catholics that lasted about 200 years.
That is all
P.S.- Deleting this comment just proves that you only see, hear, and read what YOU want to. Sadly, the world does not work that way, and this article in itself already proves it, since seeing something in someone else’s perspective makes you label it as offensive and blasphemous. Everyone has their own opinion, you don’t have to agree with it, but you sure as hell shouldn’t go around saying “it offended you” or “It’s a bunch of lies.” If you don’t like it that much, you shouldn’t have made this article drawing attention to it. If you just left the comic alone, a good amount of people wouldn’t have been exposed to it, so really, this article kinda makes it worse for you in a way.
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The Vatican was allied to Nazi Germany
Later on they covered up the abuse and rape of children allowing it to continue.
The Vatican Bank launders money for the Mafia.
The strip doesn’t touch on any of that so I think it’s being terribly nice, far more than your insane and inane superstitions deserve.
All theism is stupid but Catholicism seems to go that extra mile into complete retardation as the author of this post clearly demonstrates.
Whoa whoa. Don’t DARE compare the suffering of twins in Auschwitz to embryonic research. That is vile. Human embryos do not possess the proper human capabilities to feel, or even to know. The brain does not develop in the human fetus until week four: even if your classification of human life extends to the two day old embryo used for research, human embryos would not suffer in this kind of research, because there is no brain present to suffer with. Dr. Josef Mengele, however, used small children who were very much over four weeks of age, and very capable of feeling pain. Mengele butchered these people, who were capable of living outside the womb, mind you, in the name of research. This psychopath injected colored pigmentation into children’s eyes, cut off limbs, removed vital organs, and tried to sew twins back together: all without anesthetic. He did this not because he was a researcher, but because he was absolutely insane. His research was not to help, it was used to exact power on a group of prisoners for the sole purpose of satisfying a sociopath. Embryonic stem cell research could not only treat, but CURE the diseases that take amazing people from the world everyday. Parkinsons, Alzheimers, ALS. These researchers are trying to save more people, not dissecting pregnant women without anesthesia. That’s what Mengele did. Before you compare the suffering of two groups, maybe do some checking up: organisms with brains are actually capable of suffering. Disgusting.
It… is… a… COMIC.
Stop taking yourself so seriously and learn to laugh a little. Going after the guy in a serious manner with a blog post (of all things) just gives him more fuel to rip you even harder next time. Forbes learned this the hard way, and so did Charles Carreon.
I’ve had a crisis of faith a few times in my life, and one thing I learned is that if you can’t shrug this off and be secure in your beliefs, then maybe your beliefs aren’t as strong as you thought.
it is a comic. Get over it!
Comparing stem cell research to the holocaust? Seriously? Not defending the Oatmeal comic, just pointing out your own argumentative absurdity. New low, seriously.
So our children have no choice if they want to believe in god or just commit to a different religion?
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0. Sorry to point it out, but this IS a webcomic, not an academically-researched polemic against the Church with citations for every atrocity; though there are plenty of those to go around. But I wouldn’t expect a member of your religion to be less petty.
1. Um, dude, have you ever read the New Testament? (Also, see point 5 below)
2. Let’s say the Galileo thing was all a huge misunderstanding. Which other act of global terrorism would you have preferred to be cited here? The Spanish Inquisition? The Crusades? The alliance with Hitler? The lies in Africa about condoms that caused the deaths of thousands by AIDS? The Pope-assisted perpetuation of child rape around the world for decades? The mass murdering of children in Nigeria because of the church’s preachments on witchcraft?
3. I won’t go off on a tangent about the incredible good that stem cell research can do for humankind, and could already have done if it weren’t for people like you. As for the ethical implications: stem cell research is done on clumps of about 150 cells. To put that in perspective, a fly’s brain contains roughly 100 000 cells. Everytime you scratch your nose, you’re killing more cells than are used in stem cell research. If stem cell research is comparable to murder, circumcision is worse than global genocide (which is not so bad, if we’re to follow the example set by your God in Genesis).
4. Yes, parents tend to pass their views on to their kids, often before they are old enough to make up their own minds. This is why we’d prefer as few religious parents as possible. The same applies to racist parents.
5. No, the comic does not imply “pretending to be agnostic”. It says that it’s good to be honest. An honest religious person would say “Here’s what I believe and here’s why. But my belief isn’t the only game in town and you should make up your own mind if and when you’re old enough.” Sound familiar? Didn’t think so. But I can appreciate that if you believe in hell, you’d be a hypocrite and an accomplice of God if you don’t indoctrinate your kid. Yet another example of the evils of religion.
6. Sure, everyone has sexual anxieties. However, the more fortunate of us learn to deal with them by talking to our parents and partners who make us feel better, instead of our clergymen who guilt us into either painstakingly repressing them, or becoming perverts. This might come as a surprise to you, but your Church kinda has a reputation about stuff like that.
7. You’re kind of right on this one; we all validate our opinions in not-the-best ways. But if we’re not dogmatic, at least most of us can listen to reason and correct our ways if an error is pointed out in them.
8. Either you believe in the Bible or you don’t. Please tell me what part of that speech bubble is not in it?
9. None of those requires being a Christian. What does require it is the ability to oversimplify a complex issue like abortion in such a way.
10. You play victim because the comic is “anti-Catholic” (when it’s clearly labeled as pertaining to all religions), then complain that some panels are *not* about Catholicism? You complain about blasphemy, then call Matt a coward for *not* posting a blasphemous picture of Mohammed – do the names Salman Rushdie, Theo van Gogh and Ayaan Hirsi Ali ring any bells, or are you blissfully ignorant of these tragedies?
11. Condemning a silly belief to humour does not equal condemning believers and/or non-believers to death and/or eternal torture. I’m ashamed to have to say this to a seemingly literate blogger.
12. So you insist that you keep spouting your horrible preachments and we have to just sit there and take it? Excuse me, but fuck you. Also, open a dictionary and look up “humour”.
Good job making yourself look like a humourless, up-tight Catholic. I hope your proud.
Joe, I think you should tweak the end of this post to point out that in your follow-up post you address the “It’s just a comic so you should lighten up!” response.
I believe in God, and I am on board 100% with the criticisms implicit in the Oatmeal post.