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.
I thought Catholics prayed to gOD, not Godwin.
Joe, PROVE it. Prove that Catholocism is true. PROVE IT. That is all atheists really want. PROOF. Every proof I’ve seen is either circumstantial, heresay, or illogical. Prove like a boss.
Thank you, good night.
Apparently you all missed the purpose of this comic. It was NOT damning all religion, it was damning the extremists that are included in his examples. He wasn’t stating every catholic, christian, muslim was like that, he was saying that you suck at your religion if you ARE like that. If you are a violent, extremist, hypocritical, etc religious person he was damning you. He then stated at the end that if none of the examples applied to you then carry on because it makes you happy, just stop stop pushing it down other people’s throats. He also phrased it in humor and used several exaggerations, but the main point was that if you are one of the religious people that make it harder to live in this world unless you believe the same thing as them, then “you’re doing it wrong”.
It’s really not that hard to grasp.
So…
“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?””
Treating a BELIEF as a personal preference (a.k.a. an OPINION) is stupid… and you back it up with a clear indisputable FACT… I think you are a shoe in for any character in that comic. The whole notion of FAITH is that it is unknown… if it was known it would be called FACT. So yes, saying “I believe and what I’ve been taught by people who have researched this matter, is that we…” would be better than stating “IT IS A KNOWN FACT THAT THE RESURRECTION WILL HAPPEN!” since that is merely your and many others opinion.
Yes I’m Christian, raised Catholic… and still find it funny.
Okay so let’s get this straight. The Oatmeal is wrong for making a satire comic about Catholicism, but you can blatantly recite uneducated rhetoric about Muslims? Some of you Catholics wonder why people consider you ‘holier than thou,’ now you know.
I just laughed and laughed endlessly at the whole thing.
1. This comic is a hilarious JOKE. Get the f*ck over yourselves.
2. The whole “sexuality” part isn’t about HAVING sex. It’s about your SEXUALITY. As in, being straight, bi, or gay. Most Christians who happen to be gay are VERY uncomfortable about coming out because they know homosexuality isn’t accepted by their religion. You entirely missed the point of that panel.
3. Refer to #1
*sighs* All right, I’ll bite.
On the topic of religion: I became a born-again Christian in my early teens. I went to church frequently, got baptised, the whole nine yards. As I got older and continued my journey of self-discovery, I would always get brought back to something that felt like an indisputable axiom: no one truly knows what happens after we die. Thus, I found myself taking solace in the believe that all beliefs and opinions – spiritual, religious, atheist, New Atheist, political, and moral ones – are constantly touted as fact and the only thing that validates anything that we believe at all [outside of the realm of rational thinking and supporting evidence] is our conviction. Our ‘gut instinct,’ if you will. To me, there is subjectivity in everything. Our human history will show that our societal beliefs have changed more than the celestial seasons do. Every time we establish something as ‘right,’ it eventually becomes ‘wrong.’ So do I believe it is ridiculous to believe in a master architect/creator of our existence when everything on this planet – natural and synthetic (or man-made, if you will) was created? No, not at all. I think we all believe everything has an origin so why are we killing each other over something no one has been able to establish conclusively?
On the topic of the webcomic: I don’t believe for one second that The Oatmeal’s webcomic was anything Like an attack on organised religion. I’m a fan of The Oatmeal and everything he does is done with extreme doses of wit, sarcasm, and gross exaggeration. His intent is not to maliciously offend anyone but rather to look at things objectively complete with an absurd sense of humour. I understand the author of this post took extreme exception and offence to The Oatmeal’s work but as I went about reading this reply, I couldn’t help but feel that the author was merely trying to form a negative opinion of someone based on a single webcomic. I’d invite Joe to read the rest of his work in order to gain an understanding of why The Oatmeal is popular. Every comedian has his/her style and the way ‘How to suck at your religion’ was done is very central to the way Matthew Inman writes. At the end of the day, he’s allowed to express his opinions however he sees fit. He chooses to take rather serious situations and make them funny. I found the author did the exact opposite with the piece I just read.
PS: “Should parents not pass their political, ethical or moral views on to their children as well?” Everyone’s ethics and morals differ. In the grand scheme of things, there seems to be only one constant that we all can agree on: do unto others as you would have one unto you. In other words: live peacefully, love profusely, harm no one, hide nothing. But should we impose our political and religious beliefs on our kids? I say: absolutely not. A parent’s job is to guide, not dictate. Imposing something as personal as our beliefs our political and religious beliefs on our children is – in my opinion – unethical and immoral, solely on the grounds that children have the unalienable right to believe whatever they want to believe. It’s not a parent’s job to dictate what a child should believe.
And before you ask: I’m a proud daddy to my three-year old daughter.
That’s all I’ve got. Thanks for listening.
Has anyone noticed that not only the Catholics are represented in this comic? I haven’t seen outrage from the Jewish community on how they’re represented, not to mention anyone else for that matter. Now, I did notice that he did use Christian/Catholic references more often than the others, but people of that faith are more known to be conservative when it comes to change more than others and most people can give more examples of that happening with Christianity/Catholisism than with other religions. He’s not pointing the finger at catholics, but at religion in general telling people of faith to chill out with sticking their religion in other people’s faces. All people have the right to believe what they want to believe and think how they want to think. I think he was just trying to make a simple point. It’s awesome if you are part of a religion, but you don’t have to be a jerk about it. BTW, did anyone notice that he mentioned atheists as well? Just throwing that out there.
9. the answer is (a)
Mostly, I think that, while The Oatmeal’s comic was mostly either targeted at a rather small subset of Christianity, if not a straw man, it was generally within the realm of license for making a joke, so I didn’t take it too seriously.
I do agree that section #5 was pretty ridiculous, as what parent realistically is going to respond to an honest question by their kid by pretending they don’t believe anything? How does acting like you don’t believe anything remotely controversial convey anything you’d want to pass on to your children?
“Profane, lewd, and blasphemous, all at once” Nice, my kind of stuff then.
Penn Jillette has shared his opinion on a lot of subjects, and he opened my eyes about proselytization. He pointed out that if someone truly believes in eternal damnation, it would behoove them to shout the truth from the rooftops. I no longer begrudge someone trying to save my soul.
Therefore the base message in the comic is something I disagree with. Keeping your beliefs to yourself isn’t really the right way to go. By all means share them. Convince people your way of thinking is correct. Just please, make sure that laws are based on secular reasoning. I think it’s important that religion and politics remain separate as the best protection for people of all faiths and none.
While I reject the idea of any gods, and don’t believe in a soul, I do believe in good and evil. I do believe that America has a system that enables those of us with different beliefs to not only live free, but work together to better ourselves and the society we live in.
Alright guys. Where at all did Oats identify himself as atheist. All this webcomic said was you need to not be an asshole or extremist. He even said if you’re just a clutch religious person who doesn’t infringe on other’s rights then that’s great. Really you’re blowing this all out of proportion. Hyperbole is HYPERBOLE. Deal with it.
In regard to, “If sex is just no big deal, recreational fun, then adultery’s no problem, right?” and other like comments:
Morality and Religion are not synonymous. Religion has proven itself throughout history that morals have nothing to do with it. Catholicism in particular has many historical moral failings which i will not get into here otherwise we would be here for hours.
Anyway, the point is that fanaticism is so prevalent now that it is often confused with religion and religion itself is so diluted that people become religious for completely backwards reasons. Fanatical religion should be separated from real religion. The Oatmeal simply articulates it in a manner in which the general population can understand it.
If you are truly religious TheOatmeals statements should have no effect on you; however, if you are not, apparently you write a 3 page paper on why its wrong.
I really think many people are missing the point here, including the author of this post. The comic is about not forcing your beliefs on other people and/or society, and if you do you’re an ass. Nowhere in the comic does it say the author or its followers are atheists. Yes, that is pretty much what happened to Galileo when he declared his findings, but although he recanted he didn’t mean it at heart. Yes it is the parents job to raise their children, but the comic implies that it isn’t their position to force their political/religious views unto them. And whats with the sniping? This article is trying to be a serious rebuttal to a HUMOROUS COMIC, however the blog’s author still willingly falls to the same level he accuses The Oatmeal of being at. I’ll stop there with the critique, otherwise I’d be typing for days.
Just realize the comic does stretch beyond its message in certain panels in order to make a humorous read, but also realize that each one does have a small crystal of truth in it. You think he just came up with his stuff? It really happens, not in EVERY situation, but if you say it doesn’t you’re lying not only to others but you’re lying to yourself.
And before somebody calls me a blasphemer or an atheist, I’m neither.
Leave it alone, its a comic strip. If you find it offensive then get over it, and don’t act like churches of all religions around the world don’t bash on other organizations.
I was raised Non-Denom Christian until I began to argue with my father about no one being able to answer my logical questions. I was forced as a teen to read the Bible from front to cover. Every word. Which I did…twice. Took me four and a half years to finish two versions. I still had questions. Questions that no one could answer without just saying I should have faith. Damn my logical mind. My daughter will be able to make her own choices without having it forced on her. She can believe how I do, as an atheist or she can believe any thing else she wants and I will fully support her decision. The Oatmeal is hilarious and I’m a huge fan of the entertainment value found on his site. We can all argue our own points, but could you argue for the opposite? This article is the epitome of what I dislike in regards to organized religion… It’s a comic, laugh it off, enjoy life. If you can’t do that, then what is your religion doing for you besides making you entirely too serious? The comic is just that, a comic. If you’re offended, how about “turning the other cheek?” or “if you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all?” Did your God defend his religion when Satan tested him? I think not. He refused the tests, not submitting to the taunt to prove his religion due to true faith.
You can’t argue with any religious person guys; they have an unbeatable trump card: “faith”
No matter how nonsensical their argument is, when asked a question they cannot answer, you will hit an infinite loop. Example below:
how do you know god exists?
don’t you see the birds and the world and the sun and everything that is?
but that doesn’t prove anything, how do you KNOW?
I know because I feel his goodness, etc etc
OK, but how can you show someone who might have never seen your religion before that he exists?
I show them everything that is, and explain that God made it.
Once again, HOW DO YOU KNOW?
I have faith.
Faith = believing without knowing.
Cannot argue with these indoctrinated people. Don’t even try guys.
Okay, I’m going to break it down to you: you repeatedly use the word “true” when speaking about religion. But “true” can only make any sense if there is also the possibility of “false.” Now, sadly, religion is always, without exception something that simply defies reason and logic. Therefore there is no way to determine whether its claims are true or false, the concepts themselves do not apply. It’s DOGMA. You don’t “know” God or the Immaculate Consumption or the invisible pink unicorn to be true, you merely *believe* that. (That’s not to say that the human capacity to believe anything is not something amazing and worthy of contemplation.) You’re not even participating in an argumentative discussion because you build your conclusions on a premise that is nothing but dogma.
Science is built upon falsifiable hypotheses rooted in empirical observation. Religion is rooted in “well, it’s true because I say so.” And that is why it’s dangerous and indeed immoral to force your religion upon others.
Am I the only one who thinks it’s hilarious that Catholics (who can “think for themselves”) are searching the internet and writing to other bloggers for words they can use to respond to The Oatmeal’s post… a WEB COMIC, mind you!
i’ll be honest, this comic pretty much hits the nail on the head. i’ll admit, i’m spiritual, but i’m also pro-choice. it’s a woman’s right to choose, life doesn’t begin at conception because the “life” is just a sperm and an egg in the same uterus. had it not been for stem-cell research, my father would never of had a chance for a bone marrow transplant. Jehovah’s witnesses are as annoying as they are relentless, and quite frankly, if you people on this site are going to bash anyone, bash the people at the WBC for making a mockery of your religion. there, i DARE any one of you people to respond and call me out for speaking the truth!
That first paragraph is awesome. Don’t read it, take our word for what it is. This really is a Catholic blog.
I love how a comedic website can really stir up a 100% serious counter-debate, as well as a booming amount of discussion. If this rustled up your jimmies, just remember that its all in good humor. Just another reason why I love Matthew Inman and his great sense of humor. 🙂
Ha, nice way to remove my comments. Want to throw me in prison till I recant too?
This is an asinine response to The Oatmeal. The Oatmeal creates his comics to first entertain HIS crowd. If you fallow The Oatmeal, then your sense of humor better be as controversial as this comic is. If you’re not, then guess what? Don’t agree with it. But don’t act like your sense of humor is better than anyone else. You can disagree with his look on religion, and the rest of us have the right to look at you and assume that his comic struck a little too close to home to you, thus you being so outraged at the comic and the author himself. Get off your high horse, and laugh for once. If you take everything so seriously, then you’ll be unhappy. And his outlook, in my opinion, is spot on. Everything he mentions is common sense. He’s not saying, “Don’t be Catholic, Muslim, Christian, Jewish, etc.” He’s saying, “Follow whatever you want, as long as you’re not A.) shoving it down peoples throats, B.) Hurting other people in the name of what every deity/deities you choose to follow”. That doesn’t seem to be bashing to me, it sounds like what a sane person would expect of anyone. What’s sad, is that we have to point it out to people, and they STILL get pissed off about it.
Inman will be thrilled with this response to his comic and will have a field day with it. In fact, although Catholic, I got to your article because Inman encouraged his readers to take a look at it. I am Catholic. I posted that comic to my facebook because it was really funny. I never even imagined that anyone would take any of his extreme views seriously.
If you had ever read anything else from the Oatmeal you would know that 1) all of it is opinionated — this is what makes it funny — his extreme and rabid point of view. 2)he LOVES it when people take him seriously and argue with him and he usually rips them totally to shreds. I mean he is writing a comic – -since when did comics have a standard of truth about anything?
I can’t wait to see what he does with your article.
This blasphemy is ridiculous. How dare he deny the power of the Omnisquid! These hethens shall forever drown in the Molluscalypse!
This blasphemy is ridiculous. How dare he deny the power of the Omnisquid! These hethens shall forever drown in the Molluscalypse!
Holy CRAP did you miss the point of the entire comic. It wasn’t the author’s best or funniest work, but the point is, if YOU in YOUR PERSONAL RELIGION judge people, would rather see them dead or hate themselves than feel loved by you for who they are RIGHT NOW. If you are spreading bigotry or hatred of any sort, then YOU’RE DOING IT WRONG. Jesus wasn’t sucking at his religion, He didn’t want to kill any one or hate on them. The author wasn’t hating on Jesus. So If you’re taking offense at the comic maybe you need to stop and re-assess and try to be a little more like Jesus and suck a little less at your religion.
Holy CRAP did you miss the point of the entire comic. It wasn’t the author’s best or funniest work, but the point is, if YOU in YOUR PERSONAL RELIGION judge people, would rather see them dead or hate themselves than feel loved by you for who they are RIGHT NOW. If you are spreading bigotry or hatred of any sort, then YOU’RE DOING IT WRONG. Jesus wasn’t sucking at his religion, He didn’t want to kill any one or hate on them. The author wasn’t hating on Jesus. So If you’re taking offense at the comic maybe you need to stop and re-assess and try to be a little more like Jesus and suck a little less at your religion.
This article is against all odds, even funnier than the Comic itself.
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“1.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.”
So at my Catholic school, the Priest was lying when he said “you will go to hell as you haven’t been baptised”?
“They bully us precisely because we’re not the violent, intolerant psychos that they pretend we are”
I agree. There’s no cases of catholics killing others due to their beliefs – I mean, except for abortion clinics.
You should be ashamed of your religion. Right now, the Irish are fighting the Vatican over its acceptance and tolerance to child abuse. The Vatican is consistently finding loopholes in THEIR rules, so they avoid answering the Irish politicans directly. And all the while, they simply moved abusive priests from one area to another.
I was taught that to be truly Christian, you had to embrace your faults, yield them to God, and ask His forgiveness. Yet the very top of the hierachy continues to deny any wrong-doing. Children really are our future – instead of worrying about how any of us educate our children religiously, I suggest we get the Vatican to accept its faults, ask for forgiveness, and put a program in place to stop the kiddy-fiddling. From the outside, this appears as an institutional acceptance of child molestation!
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I’m sorry, but this blog just angers me. Some of the thoughts expressed were laughable. I have many Catholic friends who read The Oatmeal’s stuff and they don’t find offense with him. If you want I can go sentence by sentence and show the problems with this post. Maybe then you would be able to see your mistakes on the matter. Some of my problems with this post are not religious related at all. A lot of them are grammar/composition based.
“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?”
Also
“They bully us precisely because we’re not the violent, intolerant psychos that they pretend we are.”
So in turn, you’re trying to say that all Muslims are violent, intolerant psychos…otherwise Atheists (or anyone) would be bullying them as well.
Also, it’s cute how you use guilt to mask your own thinly veiled intolerances. You shame anyone for being intolerant of your own self declared good-natured views, while your previous argument condemns any other view point about abortions. It’s almost as if these issues are black and white to you and your view is the ONLY right one. However, you did say “murder is bad” in your 3-step breakdown on procreation…so how can I argue with that.
I came here because I can smell the mad from a mile away…
I think this web-comic (although a bit crude) is very smart in it’s own way. It sends a message about how people can get carried away with their religion and making it inconvenient in other’s lives and sometimes even their own.
Good job, Oatmeal. You fucking genius.
Good day Joe, I enjoyed reading your article although we disagree on many things, which I was trying to get into a little more elaborately but scrolling up and down I accidentally clicked on a reply link and lost everything I was typing, so I just thought I’d mention what I’ve noticed when trying to have a respectful conversation/debate among friends and family that identify themselves as “Christians”. I use quotes not to belittle but because that is usually all I’m given when asking others what religion they identify with, which, as you point out in your fist point, there is a significant difference between Catholics, Evangelicals, Protestant and Mormons (whole other discussion), not to mention all the other branches. Now I’m assuming that from your title “A Catholic Reply…” that when you use the words “Christianity” and “Christian” in your post you are referring to Catholicism but I think you can see how the interchangeability of those words can muddle the discussion. Personally I found the comic pretty funny, some parts more then others, the Scientology part was probably my fave with the Jews on bikes a close second, and I can also see how it could be offensive, which is pretty much on par for what I feel the Oatmeal puts out, ie. “How to Name an Abortion Clinic”. I guess what I’m trying to say, is when I saw it I read it as a web-comic, exaggerated points of view based on a grain of, sometimes contextual, truth. I don’t care what your religion, can’t we just get to a point where it’s “live and let live”, “let he who is without sin…” and “can’t we all just get along?” Anyway, thanks for the read and take care.
Just two quick points (I read your post, thank you very much):
1. In #5 you state “… if the Resurrection is true, that claim is false”. You cannot prove that the resurrection is true, hence the claim is not false.
2. In #3 and #9 You state that human life begins at conception. This is the thing you have to be a Christian (or religious of some kind) to believe. If you are not, and have some knowledge of biology, you’d come to the following conclusions. Is the fertilized egg a living thing? Certainly. Is it a person whose rights we need to respect? No. Comparing fertilized eggs with children is… let’s just say it’s extremely strange. Without even a rudimentary nervous system there is no possibility of feelings, hopes, or thoughts, the things that make it wrong to put someone with them into a gas chamber.
The reason I can’t believe in god is that his plan – such as it was – was complete crap.
1) Create the Universe.
2) Create life.
3) Get annoyed at life for not following rules/listening to Satan(who I also created)/eating fruit.
4) Give man free will.
5) Get pissed off that free will is being taken literally and people aren’t doing what I want them to do.
*Time Passes and no one gets into Heaven. God is lonely*
6) Bored of being lonely, decide to ease up on the moral laws I’ve forced on everyone.
7) Decide to come down myself and give folk the opportunity to ask me to forgive them for transgressions to my moral laws.
8) They crucify me.
9) Aha! But I give them the opportunity to still seek my pardon by believing in me. Didn’t I already do this earlier? Shit.
It’s a crap plan, distinctly un-godlike and nothing more than a whole bunch of man-made hooey. If god really was what you think he is he’d have thought of all of this in advance, but in which case it would all be predetermined and you might as well not have been born because the end result would always be the same. Unless, of course, your god is some sort of sicko who likes watching people faff about until their inevitable doom.
Either way, not a deity worth worshipping.
You use the word “irony” a lot, the Oatmeal has a great post explaining what irony actually is – maybe you’ll enjoy it more: http://theoatmeal.com/comics/irony
The last I heard, this is still a free country and we can all say what we please. This means you don’t like something, then don’t read it. Seriously. For the rest of us who are not so uptight about our beliefs that we can’t recognize a joke when we see one…the comic is actually funny. Irony of ironies, it’s pointing out that SOME people with certain religious affiliations who fail to live as they preach are being hypocritical. If that’s not you, then move along. If it IS you, then maybe some humor can get you to see the error of your ways. As one of the first sentences of your rebuttal was that the comic was “really offensive” and you advised your readers to “just go ahead and skip it,” I doubt you have any interest in understanding that his entire point can be whittled down to the last line: “Carry on with your religion! Just keep it to your *bleeping* self.” And if “this webcomic simply doesn’t enrich the discourse, or advance the debate in any positive or meaningful way,” then why post a long-winded, thought-provoked reply? I’m honestly curious.
Hi Joe. Love your blog and I’m glad you responded to the Oatmeal’s “comic”. Keep up the awesome work.
For the millionth time, the Bible (and the Torah) approve of induced miscarriage (abortion) in the case of adultery.
The Bible is pro-choice.
Reasons you came to this site at all….
[ ] You care about this blog.
[X] The Oatmeal mentioned it.
Can’t we all just get along?
So wait, uh… You believe your views are true, or that your own religion is true. That’s fine. But you can’t say that it IS true, or that it could be objectively true, although that seems to be what you’re alluding to. “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.” When did the author ever state that life was meaningless, and how does your description of living a fulfilled life thanks to religion not fall under “coping” with what happens to us as humans in this existence? Plus, the author never targets a specific religion, he’s picking on these single incidents not because they describe or accurately represent that religion, but because they DID happen, and a lot of them probably because certain people were (the point of the comic), being “bad at their religion” either by taking it too seriously and harming others or otherwise creating a discomfort even perhaps within their own religion. Who knows. And at the very end, he even says that if your beliefs aren’t hurting anyone and it improves your life and none of the comic applies to you, then fantastic, the comic isn’t about you, directed at you or criticizing you in any way! So I fail to see what this has to do with you exactly, unless by responding to it and stating that your own beliefs aren’t only “subjectively nice” but somehow objectively true, then you’re actually falling into one or more of the panels yourself. After all, we’re just human, everything we think we know is just that, speculation, theorizing… so unless you aren’t human, you should probably not take this attitude of being the only person who can see the truth and having to enlighten us all. But thanks for the effort.
You entirely missed the point.
Religion is like a penis. It’s fine if you have one, it’s fine if you’re proud of it, but please don’t wave it around in public and shove it down mine or my kids throats.
I read most of your rebuttal and quite a few of the comments, and it seems to me that many people have missed the point of this comic. The comic stands as a deliberate exaggeration of traits exhibited by people who DO suck at their religion:
There are religious leaders who say those who don’t follow the same creed are going to hell. There are religious leaders who would rather hinder science than see it contradict their faith.
Many parents only inform their children of their personal religious beliefs and prevent them from making their own educated choice of which religion to follow (and some continue to enforce their religion on their children, even if said children no longer wish to practice it).
The author encourages teaching multiple views for what happens after death and allowing the child to decide what to believe, which relates back to the crayon argument because they have used the various colors and chosen which one they like most.
Many people use religion to attempt to enforce their views of sexuality.
Many religious people are intolerant of other religious beliefs.
Some people do unfortunately vote for people based solely on their religious appeal, and as a result end up voting against their best interests.
People send death threats over any number of ‘depictions’ of Mohammed, including the censored rectangle from the South Park episode.
There have been many people who killed themselves for their religion, many of whom have also killed other people in doing so.
At the end of the comic, the author reveals that the world (and religion) would be better off without the people who do these things, but also that there ARE people who do good things thanks to their religion. He does NOT critique religion but instead takes aim at the practitioners.
I wanted to thank all of you for Feeding the Trolls. Author of this article is pretty funny. Long live the internet, Long live The Oatmeal.