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.
While I like TheOatmeal for the most part, he can be a little over the top, and like everyone else, can oversimplify and generalize. He expressed, in his way, some of the frustrations we have with some religions and their fanatics. This response was well written, but also full of generalizations and opinion. I was impressed with your response until you compared the questions,”What happens when you die?” to “What’s 3×3?”. Here is a quote from your response to something TheOatmeal wrote: “In what world are those two ideas parallel, or even comparable?” Look in the mirror. Really? You’re comparing arithmetic to the afterlife? No one, in any religion, any where on earth, knows for sure what happens when you die. It is inherently impossible to know. If you tell another person that you ‘know’ what happens when you die, you are lying, and I’m not sure there is any religion that promotes that.
Right, I am a sixteen year old girl from The UK and I’m quite…torn over the arguments based here. I feel that both “arguments” or “sides” are far too extreme to be judged upon by yet another extreme “side”. I have recently finished a course of Religious Studies at GCSE this year and learnt a lot about Christianity and Buddhism, we were always taught to say “SOME Christians feel abortion is wrong because…” Or “Christians MAY believe that the death penalty is wrong because…” No two religious believers are the same as no two atheists are the same so we should not group them together I agree.
Religion is something that people do sometimes(look I’m not dealing in absolutes, I’m not a Sith) depend on, with the advancement of technology and knowledge many feel less need to depend on it. Atheism is something that some people who are frustrated at their lives turn to as they cannot in their own minds believe that there is a greater power at work. I see a councillor twice a week because I have serious bouts of depression and I can’t believe that God would intend for me to feel so much self-loathing and deep hatred for myself, just to point out I don’t “cut” or “self-harm” I deal with my problems my own way, talking to people. I tried religion and it did not work out for me as it simply frustrated me. I know I’ve gone off on a little ramble here but what I’m trying to say is that people will ALWAYS have opinions and if they’re stubborn enough or simply pig-headed they will not listen to your views but there are people out there who will so find them and ignore the ignorance of others.
The Dalai Llama once said “The essence of all religions is love, compassion and tolerance. Kindness is my true religion.” He then went on to say that it doesn’t matter who you worship or believe in as long as people are kind then that is what religion is all about(Kind of paraphrased that bit but the message is clear).
I disagree with both sides, Religion should not be mocked, simply challenged and inquired about, it should be learned from not shunned. On the other hand atheism is not a bad thing, if people want to choose their own paths and not think a divine creator, karma or whatever else controls them then why not let them be free to make their “mistakes” and let their consequences catch up with them, be it heaven, hell, purgatory, a lower rebirth, HIV, Pregnancy, jail time etc.
This article is just as bad as the comic in the sense that it’s retaliating to something, stooping down to it’s level, “Turn the other cheek” or “An eye for and eye, tooth for a tooth.” Whatever you believe as an atheist I feel that this is just someone trying to cry out for attention because their Religion has been mocked. There are more important issues out there in this world, if I had retaliated to every taunt, sneer and tease I have ever received in my life I would be a bitter, bitter woman. I just wanted to voice my opinion just as you have done, agree or not I am happy to listen to your views as you have mine. Thank you.
We all have our opinions on everything. My parents never force any thing on me NEVER I’m perfectly fine without religion,and my parents are OK with that.
Based off of what you put in your personal complaint about the comic, you’ve proven to the world how narrow minded you are. You are too focused on the issues and finding ways to bend them into your own particular view of the comic. What you seem to fail to notice is that the comic is not poking fun at just Catholicism, but the similar fundamental structures ALL religions seem to share and how hypocritical religious people can be. I’m not bashing on religion myself, since I am catholic and have been raised in a diverse religious community full of LDS, Jehovah Witnesses, Protestants, etc. The point is, is that EVERYONE is at fault. You’re a part of the group of people he’s referring to. Its like we’ve gone back in time to the Scopes Monkey Trial with the whole debate of ignorant fundamental Christians versus educated urban people. It doesn’t take a genius to understand his comic and its use of satire. I’m 17 and I recognize this. Grow up. Seriously.
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I have an Aunt on my husband’s side who divorced her abusive husband years ago. Now the abuser is remarried to this catholic woman who wants him to go though a catholic annulment. The church has been harassing our Aunt and other family members. They are not atheists, they are christians that want to be left alone and put his abuse and thievery behind them. This annulment business is pure evil, especially to divorced couples who had children together.
I was unfortunately raised catholic and my father thought it was fine to abuse his family because the priests told him he was going to heaven no matter what. I am now an atheist and glad I left this sick, disgusting cult.
The catholic church has done so much damage to people and ruined their lives. That you even have the audacity to to go after a webcomic and ignore the child rapes, nun abuse, and BS excuses to stop life saving stem cell research show how much a sicko you and those who agree with you really are.
The comic was hilarious. You talk about attacking strawmen in your rebuttal but I can’t help but think you don’t know what a strawman argument is, because you just assert it without explaining how you think it is.
Here I’ll show you how a strawman argument really goes…your “faith” gets challenged with logical fallacies in your beliefs. Instead of addressing them, you start by saying most new atheists are attacking strawmen because they go after evangelical xtians and Catholics are not them. You created the athiest straw man, you had him attack a red herring argument against claims the cartoon was not making and then you declared it was the other side that was attacking strawmen.
Instead of just copy pasting large sections of old arguments, why don’t you just deal with a couple of really easy ones?
1. Do you believe in Original Sin?
2. Do you believe Adam and Eve were really persons and were really the first humans on earth?
3. How old would you estimate the earth is?
4. Why would a creator god put his masterpiece on a pretty ordinary rock in the outer spiral arm of a fairly normal galaxy and make over 95% of the rest of the Universe something that’s great at making black holes and supernova but not so much for life?
5. Why would a creator god make the Universe the size it is?
6. Do you know approximately how large the Universe is or how old it is?
7. Do you literally believe that the waffers and wine given at mass turns in to the body and blood? Do you literally believe it’s the body & blood of JC?
8. Do you believe that your creator god answers prayers? If you do, can you give an example where something was obviously a prayer? Perhaps a miracle.
9. Do you believe in the immaculate conception literally?
10. Do you believe in heaven? Can you give a brief description of what “heaven” would consist of and if possible could you explain where we might find it? Is it a physical place? Are there lots of clouds like early Catholics thought because we didn’t know what clouds were?
11. Do you believe in the Rapture?
12. Do you believe that Mary ascended to heaven in her physical body?
13. Do you believe JC resurrected from the dead? Why?
14. I’ll assume you’ve read your OT and NT thoroughly, so…Do you literally believe that a man lived inside the mouth of a huge fish for 3 days and 3 nights?
15. Do you believe in the bodily ressurection in 3 days and 3 nights? What day was JC crucified? What day was he ressurected? Can you count the days and nights?
16. Last one (for now) If god created adam and eve and they had cain and able, exactly who did cain and able have their children with?
I look forward to your replies (minus the strawmen and logical fallacies)
While maybe not ALL religions or religious people are radically insane, the Oatmeal DOES make some valid points.
1. the churches DO preach to not judge, yet they judge all who do not follow their religion or accept Jesus will burn in hell. What about Buddhists? Jewish? Hindu? You REALLY think all those people will go to hell?
2. Galileo and other scientists WERE told to stop experiments because their findings contradicted church doctrine. Same with Stem Cells today. The fact is there are some Stem Cells out there that were collected from fetuses, aborted or stillborn, that are just SITTING THERE in a freezer. useless to create new life but they CAN be used to advance science! Yet because of the Churches, we cant use them all because of the term “Stem Cell.” And what about ADULT Stem Cells? Those are from adults not babies? Cant we use them?
3. I agree that some panels like this were simplistic in their representation of religious people and how to teach it to their children. I am not against taking kids to church and telling them about religion. But dont FORCE them to be religious. Let the kids make their own decisions as they grow up. Thats all I think some of these panels are saying.
4. Religions DO preach abstinence and to not accept sexuality at all. Its asinine to think that abstinence is the solution to teen pregnancy. Condoms and sexual education are. I mean, more often than not, teens WILL have sex. Why not protect them from dangers of STDs and pregnancy with a simple condom? Why do the churches insist on sexual repression of people? Teaching your kids to not be immoral is good, but repression leads to more immoral sexuality later in life.
5. lol. Rabbis on bikes… but seriously, forcing religion on others is not cool. if people want it, they will seek it. and while people CAN change thanks to religion, it should be THEIR choice.
6. Killing in the name of your religion? I think we can all agree if THAT is what you think a religion is about, you ARE doing it wrong. I am glad Christians dont kill those who dont agree (even though most will say we will burn in hell anyway). But yeah, those who kill in the name for any type of god should be ashamed of themselves.
Religion should be about improving peoples lives and giving hope to people who have none. I dont mind religious people. But do NOT take it personally when the fallacies of religion are shown. The Oatmeal did an over the top comedic take on religion, but he wasnt far off in my opinion.
No time right now to detail my opinion on all of this, but let me start at #1. I think the oatmeal makes a valid point here. True it’s not as cut and dry as the comic says, but according to the Vatican counsel (The way I understand it anyway): Any person who has read the gospel (or has been informed of the Gospel or taught the gospel), and based on their own judgement chooses to not become a Catholic: Will go to hell, regardless of how good of a person he/she may be. Please tell me where I’m wrong here.
Blind faith is no small requirement. For most people it’s not even a choice to force their mind to believe something for which their is no proof or even solid evidence. If an Atheist (or any non-Catholic for the sake of this argument) is to believe that God created him/her the way they are, then they’re also to believe that He made his/her mind work in such a way that is incompatible with the Catholic faith. So Atheists are designed to go to hell? Tell me there’s not room for doubt.
“Never declared anyone in hell.”? Granted the church at the time was not collectively known as the “Catholic Church” however it existed under the same Papacy system based in the Italian city-states that survived to this day and still answers to a pope and many other traditions that can be traced well before the Italian Renaissance. I would like to point out the Indulgences the Papacy extorted from its flock in order to guarantee their place in heaven after they died. Indulgences and other Papal abuses are why Martin Luther (claiming still to be a staunch Catholic till the bitter end)called for reform and in the end was booted from the church in “The Edict of Worms” . Indulgences were ended in what is known in many historical textbooks as the “Counter Reformation” but the existence of Indulgences proves that the Catholic church did in fact declare people to be hell bound. I’d also like to breifly say a few things concerning the Catholic Church and Gallileo. Gallileo did stubbornly persist his writings be published but the church had firmly established the theory of the Earth being the center of the universe and being heavy with “sin” as the truth. Their reasons for banning Gallileo’s works and putting him on house arrest weren’t so much religion based as they were political. The church still held a lot of power in the lives of their God-fearing subjects. Secularism however was spreading and so the church was losing its influence and profits. Gallileo’s theory questioning their established rule of the universe would further unhinge their hold on their followers as information became more readily available and thanks to previous events such as the creation of Calvinists, humanists, and the horror of the 30-years war people had already been questioning the Church’s power. Gallileo in spite of his house arrest still managed to smuggle out copies of his banned books to many interested readers.
What I got out of this comic was “If your religion makes you happy, yay! If your religion denies you things, ohnoes! If expressing your religion makes OTHER people UNhappy, either your religion sucks or you do! If expressing your religion denies OTHER people things, either your religion sucks or you do!” The Oatmeal typically relies on gross exaggeration and narrow examples when actually making a point. Do you find The Oatmeal’s comics about web design, movie theatres, and dolphins equally fallacious, or merely satirical (and perhaps a bit angry)? The Oatmeal typically SUMMARIZES complaints and as such, calm and rational and most importantly EXTENSIVE intercourse are not going to make it into the actual comics. Things like laughing at commenters for saying “intercourse” are.
Actually stem cell research has nothing to do with “killing babies” and a simple Google search can show you that. You can’t take the time to create a rebuttal without having all the facts. Stem cells are harvested from the placenta and embryonic fluid of a birth. Stem cells are also harvested from bone marrow. In no way are stem cells harvested from aborted fetuses.
I just really hate how people get so railed about this. I read the comments they are always in the opposite corners. Here is a new word. Empathy : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empathy
I like how you relate stem cell research to what the Nazis did. You do realize that the catholic church supported the Nazis right? My parents did not teach me to have an opinion about “god” or the lack-there-of but let me formulate my own views based on facts, you know from real books. Tying recreational sex to adultery is making wild baseless accusations just like you accuse the comic of doing. “As a society, we freely try to convince each other of specific worldviews” yes but how about theists try to do it without threats, bombings, wars and other acts of terror. There are militant muslims and militant christians but no militant atheists. “If there really were a “Christian Taliban”” There is, for hundreds of years various sects of the christian faith killed, tortured and terrorized all free thinkers and people of differing faith, there is a reason we call ’em the dark ages. Your response to this very clever web comic just goes to prove how right the author is, and how ridiculous and bass ackwards you theists are
Best part of this all is, it gets you God Squadders to twist your little panties all up in a big, sweaty Catholic wad.
That, and the Oatmeal’s author shared THIS post on his FB page. So expect more like me. Soon.
~Joe
“You can’t prove the existence of God. You have to take it on faith. Which is just a valid a proof that he/she/it doesn’t exist as it is that they do.”
“Never declared anyone in hell.”? Granted the church at the time was not collectively known as the “Catholic Church” however it existed under the same Papacy system based in the Italian city-states that survived to this day and still answers to a pope and many other traditions that can be traced well before the Italian Renaissance. I would like to point out the Indulgences the Papacy extorted from its flock in order to guarantee their place in heaven after they died. Indulgences and other Papal abuses are why Martin Luther (claiming still to be a staunch Catholic till the bitter end)called for reform and in the end was booted from the church in “The Edict of Worms” . Indulgences were ended in what is known in many historical textbooks as the “Counter Reformation” but the existence of Indulgences proves that the Catholic church did in fact declare people to be hell bound. I’d also like to breifly say a few things concerning the Catholic Church and Gallileo. Gallileo did stubbornly persist his writings be published but the church had firmly established the theory of the Earth being the center of the universe and being heavy with “sin” as the truth. Their reasons for banning Gallileo’s works and putting him on house arrest weren’t so much religion based as they were political. The church still held a lot of power in the lives of their God-fearing subjects. Secularism however was spreading and so the church was losing its influence and profits. Gallileo’s theory questioning their established rule of the universe would further unhinge their hold on their followers as information became more readily available and thanks to previous events such as the creation of Calvinists, humanists, and the horror of the 30-years war people had already been questioning the Church’s power. Gallileo in spite of his house arrest still managed to smuggle out copies of his banned books to many interested readers.
The point of the article are made by the written questions, not the content of the drawings. To try to argue any points based on the cartoons is laughable, they are purely comical stereotypes.
Now, read the article again without looking at the drawings. Did you answer yes to any of the questions? If so then try and argue why answering Yes is OK. In my opinion, if you answered yes the you ‘suck at your religion’
The problem with “Life begins at conception, even science knows this” is that it’s false. Eggs are as alive pre-fertilization as post, they just don’t grow. Without that life already existing the DNA provided by the father would do nothing. Even if you want to claim genetic differences – whoops, the eggs don’t have the same genetic makeup as their mother, either. If you use the argument that completing the genome makes them viable – they’re not viable until well into the pregnancy. Good on you using a near-term baby to rail against the horrors of stem cells too – for obvious reasons, that’s a lie.
“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.”
So… you are implying thaT Muslims tend to be violent and intolerant psychos and that´s why cartoonists are afraid of them?
That´s exactly the kind of arguments that make religous people a nuisance to non-religous people.
You profess tolerance but can condemn and insult any other religion any time you like, because “my religion is the true one”… come on!
For your reading pleasure: http://bit.ly/Qftv9e
Oh, COME ON! It’s a JOKE! You should have stopped with, “It’s a webcomic, don’t take it so seriously!”
Lighten up!! Man…. this country has gotten SO high strung nobody can take a joke anymore. Everyone has to be so “politically correct” about every darn thing.
LIGHTEN UP!
I’m with Courtney…. I’m a Christian and thought it was funny!! And before everyone condemns us to Hell…. I just want to say, Hey, Courtney…. only God can judge how bad a Catholic you are… but at least you have a great sense of humor and enjoy life! Mazel Tov!
It’s impossible to have a meaningful, stress free dialogue with a believer. No matter how intelligent or well educated they are,their critical thinking ability dissolves in their belief. Belief is the enemy of reason, without exception, and it’s frustrating. It’s so frustrating in fact, that free thinkers do often turn nasty. We mock, scold, accuse and berate the believer, hoping I guess for that glimmer of understanding to register in them. While I personally find willful ignorance offensive, I could ignore it, if only that ignorance didn’t color every other aspect of the believer’s thinking. Belief informs their political views, their moral behavior, their social values. That’s not only very sad, but it’s also a little frightening.
1. Christians love to judge anyone and anyone who does not hold the same view as themselves; I see this on a daily basis in all walks of life. True, not all christians are judgemental pricks, but it is still rife- especially in Amercia & 3rd world countries.
2. False- whilst Galileo was not entirely accurate with his findings, atleast he was trying to move forwards and challenge the backwards dogma of the church with regards to how the universe functioned and was created.
3. False- a collection of cells is not ‘scientifically’ considered life; you poop more cells down the toilet each day. When the embryo develops a nervous system you can consider it a living creature- before that is is not sentient.
4. Believing and knowing are two different things; forcing a belief onto a child too young to fully comprehend what they are being taught ( not told, taught- falsely ) is damaging in the extreme. This is how religions operate, by seeking to influence those who are not yet able to form their own conclusions from an objective viewpoint- get ‘e, while they’re young as it were. It is a parents job to educate their child and prepare them for the challenges they will face ahead of them- it is no ones right to brainwash their kids into believing fairy stories.
5. Your lack of comprehension is only reflective on yourself, not the comic; I understood the point perfectly well. Again you insist upon your viewpoint being the only correct one with absolutely no way of backing it up other than ‘the bible says so’- unsupported claims are not fact. Trying to say that basics maths is not solid because someone questions the bullshit nonsense that christianity likes to cling to is stupid I think you’ll find- you don’t need a time machine to understand and prove basic maths.
TBC
6. Comparing sex to adultery is laughable- they are not the same thing; you are showing your desperation and indignation at having your foolish dogma challenged. There is a well documented history of the church interfering with peoples personal lives by making ridiculous rules for it’s members to follow; what happens in the bedroom is no ones business so long as it is not illegal. Ofcourse, the bible also says women should marry their rapists- but that’s just fine and dandy because the bible say it so no one questions that. If catholics were allowed to use condoms then there wouldn’t be such an issue with AIDs and other STDs, but thanks to centuries of the church meddling with culture there is still a stigma around using such contraceptives- way to go people.
7. Keep your bullshit beliefs to yourself is the message, especially when any non-superstitious, objectively minded individual can see that they are bullshit.
8. Faith should remain a personal thing- it does not need to be taught in schools as though it were 100% truth and fact; it clearly is neither. If people are given the choice to look further of their own accord, when they are old enough to draw their own conclusions, then they should be allowed to take up or reject religion based on their own feelings. I do not need loonies knocking on my door asking to talk to me about my religious views. The comic was not singling out catholics as it happens either- it’s just easier to draw a dog-collar sometimes as it is a well known symbol.
9. You need to visit the ‘bible-belt’ of America some time then, as you clearly don’t understand the mindset of many voters. I’ve seen first hand accounts of people who worked behind the scenes for churches and how the people they worked for were only interested in power and influence ( there’s a shocker- the church like to have power of people and influence their lives and thinking… ).
10. False- this comic is about religion in general- it is not specifically targeting christianity; your reading and reasoning ability must be extremely poor if you think otherwise. The comic makes a fair point however that same faiths have such ridiculous rules that you can’t even make a picture without loonies trying to kill you. The point being though that it isn’t worth dying to make a point about how poisonous and dangerous some religions- there are other ways ( and even then they will take out a fatwa on you- hint hint ).
11. False- the comic only condemns followers of ALL faiths if they are frothy mouthed loonatics who do not understand or follow the teachings of their faith; how many people join the army and go to foreign lands to kill other people, yet call themselves christian ( christians do not believe in killing, ever- they would rather die than fight back ). That is what the comic is making a point about; again you fail to grasp it’s message at even the most basic level.
12. Profanity is part of language, deal with it. Faith in its purest sense does not need to be organised, does not need to force itself onto other people via brainwashing or social influence etc etc, that is why the comic rightly suggests people keep their faith to themselves.
I think it’s safe to say this is just another article by someone who has suffered butt-hurt after having their life-view challenged; you *think* religion is true, that is your problem- without the aid of a timemachine you are totally unable to prove it however so you just insist it is still true, knowing that is also impossible to prove otherwise ( impossible to disprove a negative ).
Your conclusion compounds this; you don’t like what someone has observed about your faith, so you dismiss it. The truth of religion is that it is not true, and that is what you can’t deal with when presented with just a few of the innumerable flaws in your ideology.
Be thankful the cartoon didn’t touch on the sex scandals rocking your priesthood, another timely Catholic reality.
I am an atheist first of all, and I wanted to say that I liked this article. I respect Christians that can reasonably defend their religion and I hate that the Oatmeal has insulted so many, so blatantly, for their religion. I expect that comedians will at times exaggerate to make humor, and sometimes it takes thick skin in order to just laugh and move on. However, through twitter, I have realized that the Oatmeal is simply mean-spirited to Christians. You have my support.
I’m not a religious person whatsoever, and I frankly don’t really care, but my belief is non-believers can’t prove the absence of God anymore than those who believe in God can prove his existence. We argue over this topic all the time, and yet we don’t have any true knowledge about it. We’re just arguing over our own interpretations of something we don’t understand.
3×3 is 9, That is a mathematical fact and is indisputable. The idea of physical resurrection is not even agreed upon by Christians, which make up a religious minority internationally. It is a pagan belief which was adopted by the church because in the dark ages the average churchgoer was incapable of understanding the concept of the spiritual Resurrection actually propounded by Jesus of Nazareth. It is in no way based on anything other than the blasphemous idea that the dead will have all of their flesh and skin returned to them and then rise as zombies as a reward for worshiping a man instead of a woman.
This post actually proves the author of the webcomic right, no matter how offensive it is and how crude the language used is. It’s the very fact that religious people can’t understand that most of other people don’t want to hear about their SHIT. They just don’t!
While you believe in whatever, it’s not just some crazy mumble jumble to you. It exists and you want to prove its existence to everyone, while being blind enough not to see the subjectivity of this existence. Well anyways, it’s your call.
What I got from that is that atheists are like comedians who only have jokes where the punchline is “Your mom’s a whore!”
And then they don’t know the setup, so they keep saying the punchline and queing the laugh track.
And calling you stupid if, uh, you don’t get the ‘joke’.
HollyJollyFace is right. Chill. No one is attacking you.
Why be so offended? If all the examples that have to do with Christianity were changed to some other story, similarly believable on the face of it, would you want to jump to the defense of that religion? I think not, I think maybe then you’d be able to see the hilarity.
As is, you’re so caught up in defending yourselves that you don’t see there’s nothing you NEED to defend yourselves from. Just be good Christians, as described at the end of the comic (surely you agree with those criteria!), and peace be with you!
It seems that most commentators here forget that it is impossible to do anything more than speculate about the nature of the divine, the origins of man’s unique intelligence and self-awareness, and the details of the creation of life. I would venture a guess that the Oatmeal author’s purpose was to expose the illogical behavior that easily arises from closed-mindedness rather than from any specific religion. Killing or persecuting any human being, and devaluing his or her existence in the process, is wrong, and it is ironic how many people, throughout history and presently, defend such acts with religion, especially when every single religion holds “compassion” as one of their core values.
I can easily show a child what 3×3 is by putting nine apples in front of him/her. I cannot present to that child solid evidence of what happens after death because such evidence does not exist.
I am sure that as a christian his comic sounds ridiculous.
But bear in mind that as an atheist reading your response also sounds ridiculous.
It is very sad that you feel the need to waste all this time responding to something that was intended to be humorous.
I’d like to post a detailed rebuttal of this post, but I’m too tired from having rebutted these same points 18543856 times. So here’s the medium version:
1) “But the other view is that religion describes something, and Someone, utterly real… the very ground and sustenance of reality, in fact.”
How the fuck do you objectively and scientifically prove that any claim made by Christianity or any other religion is true? Many religious people pick and choose which parts of religious scripture they will consider factual and which are just metaphors and allegories. For example, if the Bible is full of stories that combine the literal and the figurative, how do you objectively decide which parts are fact and which are fiction? If you want to defend religious claims as objectively true, you have to follow the scientific method. Nothing is real simply because a lot of people subjectively feel that it’s real. In the past, the Earth wasn’t flat simply because a lot of people believed it was based on their casual observations. Those that believed otherwise had to prove it through experiments, scientific observation, logic and mathematics. The same should hold true for religious claims that seek to be taken as fact. Truth can’t be based on dogma, only on logic.
2) It’s fine to base your morality on a certain religion, but why would you have to? Any ethical principles that serve to advance the well-being of human kind can be logically explained and understood. Understanding why something is morally acceptable or unacceptable is a much stronger basis for accepting an ethical principles than simply accepting it because of it’s supposed divine origin. I know not to kill or steal because I know that if killing and stealing were acceptable, so many people would do it that we would all be worse off. I know that these practices are harmful because I understand the negative effects they have on human kind. All that is needed to arrive to a sound and commonly accepted code of ethics is logic and empathy. Since religion is based on belief rather than logic, and since it has no monopoly over the concept of empathy, I find it redundant and inferior when it comes to building a common code of ethics for all of humanity.
Religious scripture is also often contradictory in the ethical principles it promotes. For example, the old testament condones the treatment of women as inferior to man in some cases, but in the new testament, Jesus is described as someone promoting a very egalitarian society, even when gender is concerned.
3) Parents should mostly teach children how to learn, not what to learn. They should teach critical thinking and reasoning skills. They should provide children with information on all the world views out there, religious ones included. Tell your kids WHAT and you believe in and explain WHY you believe in it through logic, then let them make up their own minds without forcing your views on them. As I mentioned before, all kids need to be taught in order to form a sound code of ethics is logic and empathy. If they have those two tools, they’ll figure out the rest naturally.
4) I have no problem with religions trying to convert me as long as they don’t do so aggressively and as long as they use reason. My problem is with religious persuasion that is not filtered through reason. Also, religions should do this on a leveled playing field, meaning that no religion should be given priority to advertise itself (like when the state decides to offer religious education as a school subject based on around only one religion).
5) My criticism of religion does not mean I have any negative feelings towards all religious people. It simply means that I think they are all wrong, some more than others. I do however have negative feelings towards religion in general as it hinders the development of reason by promoting the acceptance of claims as true without a proper rational examination.
HA! Catholic defense, that’s a good one, dude! But you might wanna chill a little, some idiots don’t understand the art of trolling. I mean, they ought to- it’s just ridiculous to think the most powerful organization in the world needs defense from people being mean to them on the Internet. But not everyone has as much perspective as, say, you and me.
Can everyone stop arguing? We are all allowed to have an opinion. Didn’t the Lord say to turn the other cheek? To love even when hated? Even if you don’t believe what someone is saying that doesn’t make it wrong or bad it just makes it their opinion. When the writer of the Oatmeal made this comic it wasn’t about bashing religions, it was just his opinion. When he said keep it to yourselves he meant don’t yell or tell people that they are wrong or bad for not having the same opinion as you. Yes, as Christians it is important to evangelize but that means to be loving, kind, and caring to who ever we meet. In church there is even a song that goes “they will know we are Christians by our love”. Where is that love now? So please don’t get mad at each other for just one comic and this one response they are both different views on the same subject.
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IT’S. A. COMIC.
BUT, I have to commend you on proving every one of his points by putting up your lengthy diatribe about why you are right and everyone else should fall in line with your way of thinking or face the wrath of misinformed people who worship imaginary sky creatures. Maybe spend your time doing something good for the world (isn’t that what you claim your sky creature wants you to do?) instead of trolling internet humor sites.
I am Christian. My step father was Catholic, my mother was agnostic, and I went to many different styles of Christian churches in my life, from Catholic, to Pentecostal, from Mormon to Seventh Day Adventists.
While to you these statements seem blasphemous, to me I see a sad truth. I have seen or heard of people dealing with the sorts of “Christians” pointed out in this comic. I have had the minister stand up in the middle of a Christmas Eve program and tell us how our families are going to hell because we’re not trying hard enough to covert them. I have had people in churches shun me because I had a medically induced abortion, despite the fact I was given no choice by my doctors, since it would kill me to continue. I’ve seen children abandoned for being gay, or atheist, or pregnant. I’ve seen couples that married only so they could have sex without feeling horrible about it.
While we are called to witness to others, why is that so many of us, who believe in free will, feel we must take that from others. Why is it, that with all the translations, and mistakes and contradictions, people feel the need to force the Bible as an absolute truth to end all truths down others throats.
I do believe that you have missed the point completely. He is saying that if you are not one of the extreme examples he has pointed out, that great, do what you want, but that if you are one of those examples, there may be issues you should look into.
And just for fun. A video of the same bent that I liked as well. http://youtu.be/gNtnN_DiP3o
I have a religion and i found the webcomic funny, what is more funny is that YOUR post made the webcomic ever more accurate…
OMG, this is almost as funny as the original…almost..oh no..hang on-it’s sad. You just don’t get it. In this response,you just pretty much proved everything that comic said was right and also totally missed the point.
An Atheist.
So basically according to Joe; generalization of Christians bad, generalization of atheists good. Every point you make where you speak about atheists you speak as though you have met every single one of us and that we have a consensus on our view of religion. You sit and say “popular among atheists”, I am an atheist and a firm believer in “live and let live” and oddly enough 80% of atheists I know share this view. Just because those with certain opinion are most vocal DOES NOT make it popular among atheists. You sit here and pretend to be well spoken and fair when in fat you are the exact opposite. You are guilty of the exact thing you accuse the Oatmeal of doing, but because you do for “God” you and other Christians say it’s right. And to all the atheists that sit claim that religion is “shoved” down your throat…. what are you doing right now? Shoving your non-belief down Christians throats is the exact same thing, just because you don’t do it for “God” doesn’t make any different. The world is an ugly enough place, I don’t need to make it worse for others by alienating them based on religion or lack of it. In the words of Charlie Chaplin “You have the love of humanity in your hearts. You don’t hate, only the unloved hate. Only the unloved and the unnatural.”
I have a religion and i found the webcomic funny, what is more funny is that YOUR post made the webcomic ever more accurate…
http://theoatmeal.com/blog/charity_money
Pick your battles, brainwashee.
One thing I’d like to point out is that like what The Oatmeal has mentioned countless times (specifically in reference to the Tesla/Edison arguement)that he often uses HYPERBOLE to emphasize his humour. What he draws is merely an exaggeration of what he actually believes. Also, what he illustrates are merely his views on religion. Just like you have your own views. I agree with the comment that Cameron Miller left previously: “He merely criticizes those who use religion and hinder/inconvenience/harm others. He’s not saying that all religions are inherently wrong, he just says that children should be presented to religions and choose that which makes the most sense to them (if they choose one at all).” When religion becomes an excuse for negative or forcable actions, then it becomes a problem, but more specifically, the problem lies with that person. He is trying to say that people should be responsible for their own decisions and not rely on what one person (or millions of people) believe a a basis for their choices in life. (Ex: views on abortion and sex). I personally would raise my children to be open minded to many beliefs and views and to choose the one that resonates most with them.
Also, I disagree with your view on the matter of “Where do we go when we die?”. Every religion has a different version of what happens to humans when they die. To be fair, you said “IF the resurrection is true” which it means it can’t be directly proved, unlike math, which has been scientifically proven and documented. It doesn’t mean people aren’t free to believe in it though.
As for abortion, I agree that abortion is not a matter of religion, but there are also conflicting views of when embryos are actually concidered “people”. While you believe it happens at the point of conception, other religious groups and socities believe differently. It all depends on what YOU believe is right.
So to conclude, I think The Oatmeal was just trying to be funny and that what he wrote is his point of view. If you don’t like it, you don’t have to read it, share it, or even show it to your children. Personally, I think you have bigger fish to fry and bigger threats to your beliefs in this world than one webcomic artist.
I believe that we are all free to believe what we want and the choice to read what we want to read. Personally, I will continue to read The Oatmeal because I think he is funny, not because I believe 100% in what he says. As for your blog, i don’t think I will be back here again. No offence, I just don’t like what you write.
Here is the fallacy of catholicism. Why would a loving caring god let an innocent 9yr child, who was raised to respect and trust a priest, be sexually violated in his own house by his own clergy? Then if this priest tells this child that “If you tell anyone you will go to hell” This child lives years with the psychological scars for years and then finally sees then only way out for some reason is to take his own life therefore ensuring his soul goes to hell (I know that recently the Catholic church has reevaluated their views on certain cases). I just seems that if this is true then god is not truly omnipotent. The god I was raised to believe in (Roman Catholic)would never allow his own representatives to sodomize an innocent child in his own house or worship. This is what really pushed my away from the church and it kind of makes me sad because I harbor no malice for a higher power or the church just their teachings.
It’s a comic not an ‘attack’ its simply expressing a point of view as are you – the ‘believer’. If you do have a strong believe, then show it through strength and conviction, rather than defence and emotion.
I have my beliefs and I am confronted daily by those that do not share it. I simply don’t care, because my beliefs remain regardless of what is said and I value my time too much to write a diatribe telling someone why their opinion is wrong.
To quote Bill Hicks –
Bill Hicks: [imitating them] “Hey buddy, we’re Christians, we don’t like what you said.”
Bill Hicks: [in his own voice] I said “Then forgive me”.
Remember kids – jesus was all about love. I don’t see any on this page.
To the Oatmeal – keep up the good work, we humans need to be engaged to grow.
Beatiebhoy
I am Catholic and admit that, just like the Bible, I didn’t read all of your text (the original comic and the reply above). I took it as funny though (The Oatmeal) and just believed it as the truth, since it was…. At one point in my scanning, I thought I saw the word “pee pee” and laughed out loud and on scrolling back to see it, I didn’t. Welp, it was just like in the Bible: text hidden between the lines…
I love The Oatmeal. Amen.
This article is really lacking understanding of somethings crucial.
1: There’s an extreme amount of hyperbole.
2: Math and favorite colors aren’t comparable. Nice hypocracy, calling out “incomparable” examples, and using an even worse one yourself.
3. You’re a fool
4. Parents don’t normally give children the OPTION to choose their belief. You BELIEVE in God, then you are His follower. How can you say that you are a true advocate for God when your belief was chosen for you? Just like you’re supposed to CHOOSE to love your neighbor as yourself. If God didn’t want us to CHOOSE to love Him, he wouldn’t have given us free will. What good is it if we don’t use it toward Him?
5. You’re still a fool
6. lol
As I commented elsewhere:
“Carry on with your religion!*
*Just keep it to your f***ing self.”**
**(unless you are the Oatmeal)