Thursday, August 23, 2007

Allah isn't God in Arabic

Lil' Susy (who has quite a career profile in kid's tracts) tends to especially pisses me off. I don't know if it's how she laps up anything her misinformed Grandpa says, her eagerness to tear down observable scientific fact and replace it with superstitions and fear, or her condescension to anyone she talks to, but something about her just mashes a button.

This time she's against evil towelheads, who are actually satanic and violent. We learn this from One-Eye Grandpa, who seems to always pop in Susy's tracts and feed her religious ammunition (God's army, whatever) that may or may not actually be true.

Basically, Islam-hate based on stupid, hypocritical strawmen. See, kids shouldn't convert one another because they have no grasp of ancient customs and gobble up anything their fundamentalist grandparents say without objection. Remember, parents, misinformation starts young.
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"Hey, little girl, want some candy? Here, follow me to my van."

Why isn't Ms. Henn (see Birds and the Bees; Devil's Night) evil in this one? That's unfair. I guess she's not going to bring Muslims to school with her today, just doing homework. Where's her gay/satan-promoting? I feel robbed.

"Susan, my companion! We bring excellent news from the hand of fate itself!" "I'm over here, you guys. Just... yeah, to your right a little... there you go."

She's trying really hard to hide that grimace. It's probably because Amir is a foreign-sounding name.

Oh no! The last thing these impressionable kids need is learning that there are other religions in the world and we can, in fact, coexist without fracture.

So? Susy wants you to be fundamentalists. Shouldn't you decide for yourselves? I mean, Susy's not going to be you all your life.

6:00 PM (1800 hrs). Trenton, New Jersey. 23 August 2007.
Little Susy Residence.

"Grandpa, considering the appalling accuracy of your religious knowledge in the last few tracts, I'd like you to impart some of your encyclopedic knowledge to me. What's a Muslim? I've never seen the news before. If you'd like, I'll help you out of that giant coffee mug. It must be pretty uncomfortable in there."

-sigh- It's a shame how little compensation we give our veterans these days. This guy, however, really got the raw end of the deal. He hasn't even changed out of his waiter garb and already Susy's badgering him about Muslims. Is it too much trouble for the government to just ship some horse tranquilizer to keep Susy down long enough for Grandpa to change out of his work clothes?


You get 'em! When that ho be encroachin' on your turf, you level her.

...Because if she doesn't tell them about Jesus, they probably will never hear of him! Not a paranoid delusion after all. Especially if they're in danger of not being afraid all their lives.

"You and your little friends, I'll get you, once and for all!"

This is a mission briefing after all. "I'll tell you what I know." Oh, that's where we are! Christ Warriors H.Q.! I'm not going to bother pointing out that Allah is just Arabic for God, the stream of lies coming out of his mouth, or that most people that live in a post-modern fantasy house (what's with the couch sculpture?) should be a little more open-minded to different things. Instead, I'll just update my info stamp:

6:00 PM (1800 hrs). Undisclosed location. 23 August 2007.
"Christ Warriors" Headquarters, Little Susy Residence.


The Hadith sounds an awful lot like the New Testament. It boggles me why Stupid Susy hasn't made that parallel, considering she can already tell that two Islamic kids living a few blocks away are a threat.

Whoa, wait, that loving gaze she's fixed on pappy isn't appropriate for a kid-oriented tract. ...well, it does make the cover picture make a whole lot of sense, though.

"Listen closely, agent Susan. Pay close attention to what I say, as this message will self-destruct in 0:05 of it's completion. You must know these things to combat your so far harmless Muslim neighbors...", and the briefing goes on. "You know what you must do. Destruction sequence, engage." Beep. BOOOM

Oh, no! Susy's about to meet people different from her! Brace for impact.

Okay, two kids in traditional Muslim garb. Nothing hazardous here.
"Becky! Tashana! STOP! You aren't actually doing anything.... yet. Even though he's just telling you what you say for reference, these words are evil and spoken only by Satan-lovers! They're naughty words, just like 'fuck', 'shit', and 'vagina'." Cue hand tremors, then cue minor stroke.

Uh, they weren't actually saying anything to begin with, so no one stopped them from anything.
Good for you, Susy, you never learn without asking questions. Except, usually people don't ask questions with malicious intent.

"I'm amazed you know this! Most of the stupid, ignorant, racist fundies I talk to don't bother to talk to real Muslims, they just cobble a bunch of bullshit together and use it against us to further their hateful agendas! I'm glad you took the trouble to learn about my beliefs, but I just wish you'd used a reliable source."

No! No! Stop talking to her! You're feeding the flames! She's about to assault your religion by exploiting any missteps in your speech!

I guess his mother already knows what's about to happen, and is just keeping him from a violent, angry shitstorm. And Christians think they're being persecuted?

Are raincoats part of traditional Muslim dress for women? Most women wear hijabs, (and no, it's not mandated by the Koran to wear one, Jack), not babushkas.

What a sarcastic, condescending little shit. "He never lied! Jesus never lied either!"

Actually, considering you idiots think Adam lived for 900+ years, how far a stretch is it that he was 90 feet tall? Oh, and he got around by an all-seeing horse with three heads. And the Garden of Eden was actually in downtown Birmingham, Alabama. Am I hitting close to your stupid fairy tale yet? The fact that Susy said Adam was the first man just triggered the "ignore whatever she says next" alarm.

So? Learn that God isn't nice. If you haven't read the story of Job yet, I'll spoil it for you and tell you that basically God had a bet with the devil that Job would stay faithful even if all his blessings were removed and he was cursed, and Job did, so God won. (That should go without saying because he's supposed to be omnipotent.) But that's where the story ends, Job never gets his children or wife or property or friends back. God is love!

Ah, Chick, you racist ass. The black girl has to get offended at the notion of slaves. Having slaves was very commonplace for a huge chunk of ancient history, as was polygamy and what have you. There is a world outside yours, and it has a history that you might not like. That's the risk you take when you're born. Sorry.

Now she's got some sort of ugly snarl on her face, because she's in Fundie overdrive and her little 7-year-old body isn't an adequate container for her hatred.

Also, lifespans were very short back then, so yes, as disquieting as that is, young marriage was also common. And most Greeks (Athenians, Spartans, etc), Persians, and a host of other ancient Eurasian civilizations didn't consider themselves pedophiles because, again, standards change with time. Also gross, but true.

"His god is not the God of the Bible, even if the Old Testament is one of the holy books of Islam." Just like "gato" has nothing to do with "cat", Allah has nothing to do with God.

Oh, they worshiped an idol called the "Moon God"? I'm impressed with her bullshitting skills, and her creativity, because I probably wouldn't have thought of "Moon God" myself.

I'm not 100% on this, but I'm pretty sure that's not what the crescent stands for.Not because of this fantasy "moon god" boogeyman Chick invented to shock and awe people who don't consider idols to be tools of the devil.

Also, Susy, you seem to be a smarmy know-it-all, prove to me that this actually happened. No, the bible isn't proof. Try again. Oh, wait, Jesus ascended to heaven and left no trace of his presence on earth? Convenient. That's just a series of seemingly unlikely events that played out anyway, and not just a way for primatives to rationalize death and anything else they couldn't explain.

If she doesn't know what God is, how can she know what a god is? Idiot. I bet you'll fall for her refuting real facts with religious fantasy too. Seriously, what the world really needs is more people going against observable and proven evidence.

Nope. Man and dinosaurs never coexisted, regardless of what your vague descriptions of a giant animal make you think. And if Jesus had a hand in it, then Allah did too, because they're the same person (minus the confusing triune god idea). Mohammed wrote stuff down for god, he isn't the Muslim equivalent of Jesus. You hateful, ignorant idiot. I hate you and your buggy eyes, your lack of a lower lip, and every other grotesque feature about you because you're drawn by a paranoid freak who never leaves the house.

Only Jesus could do that because that's the condition set by the Bible. Dying for sins isn't a major factor in other religions. Some have other ways of salvation, or just teach being a kinder person. It's not how much a religion deviates from Christianity that makes it 'wrong'.

Heheh. "Came" upon Mary. That's funny, looks like she wasn't a virgin after all.
"And the child was Jesus!" What a surprise, I thought this story was going to go in a completely different direction where the baby was just some random bastard child. WOW, TELL ME MORE.

Standard 3:16. Does Chick think that putting this in every tract will convince us that it's more true somehow? Repetition=fact? The earth is flat. The earth is flat. The earth is flat. The earth is flat. The earth is flat. The earth is flat. The earth is flat. The earth is flat. Am I getting through to you? No? The earth is flat. The earth is flat. How about now? Do you believe me yet?

I'm not bothering with this one. For reasons why, just consult the rest of this dissection. Nothing new here, just reiteration of her misinterpretation of Islam.

Is that what Becky and Tashana did? I got worried, there. I lost track of the plot while we were between panels. Thank goodness, now I can still understand what's going on.

Why wouldn't you want to sin again? You just got a Get Out of Hell Free card. Go celebrate by sinning it up.

One thing I don't get about Chick is how inconsistent he is with his presentation of Christianity's tenants. Do you get judged once you die, or do you languish around till Judgement day, or what?

Also, why is it that he doesn't care if he lies about other people to demonize them? Isn't lying a sin? He has a computer, is it too much trouble to spend 15 minutes reading about Islam on Wikipedia, so you know what you're talking about and don't look like a moron?

Apparently, yes.

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well, if I'm remembering Karen Armstrong's book History of God correctly, Allah as the All-Father God did evolve out of the earlier Moon God (who had a similar name, I'm forgetting it exactly), but that's no biggie because the Hebrew JHWH evolved out of the earlier Canaanite god El (or Elohim as the plural). Or somethign like that. The point is, different culture's beliefs in a unifying All-God gradually evolved out of earlier pantheonistic deities. And from what I'm remembering of that book, in Islam it happened a lot more deliberately, again for cultural reasons. But it's been about a decade since I read that book, and the details are fuzzy.

The scary thing about Chick's "facts" in these so-called "educational" tracts is that so many Murricans actually "believe" them.

Anonymous said...

In other words, as a people's concept of a god or gods changed, so did their definition of that god and that god's personality and defining characteristics. It's hardly some evil demonic plot by Satan or anything....

Anonymous said...

Ooo... (pardon me for the multi-posting).... If Suzy is so indignant about Mohammed's 16 wives, what about King David's multi-hundred wives and concubines? Or his son Solomon's even more multi-hundred? And Jacob, the founder of the Twelve Tribes of Israel, fathered kids on his wives' slave women. (Which meant they were his slave women, because men owned their wimmin, and hence their wimmin's slaves, back then.) Or heck, even old Isaac himself, father or Jacob-who-became-Israel fathered Ishmael, the supposed progenitor of the Muslim peoples, on his wife's slave woman. So all these Big Deal Guys of the Bible had multiple wives and slaves.

Jr. said...

I'm pretty sure Susy doesn't really mind her big religious guys having many slaves, wives and concubines because her grandfather forgot to mention it during the mission (pardon the pun) briefing.

Anonymous said...

i always get a kick out of that "came upon a virgin" thing. Conception does not work that way. you actually have to come inside the right part of the woman or it doesn't work...

Anonymous said...

Well, Jr., I guess one good turn deserves another. In this case, I "turned" your stomach with my last one, and you've returned the favor :) This one went down like a serrated aspirin.

I gotta know...you didn't touch on it, but I kept thinking, why does Chick paint Muslims as a bunch of evil psychopaths out to convert everyone? It was like Little Susy stumbled onto some secret ritual like in an Indiana Jones movie or something. Does he really think Muslims behave that way??

And Susy raced to the rescue!! Such utter, utter bullshit. Muslim people don't care if you convert or not...they just want to be left alone. They're just people, like you, me, and Jack Chick, although most of the Muslims I've met aren't anywhere near as fanatical or as asshole-ish as Chick.

Lyssa said...

The notion of Mohammad as a pedophile grates, the normal BS aside.

Even in societies that practice young marriage, in most cases, sex is postponed until the girl has undergone first menses, which is key to making her a woman in a lot of societies. In the way back machine, this is likely the 11-14 range. Even then, there were cultures that further postponed active babymaking until the girl was in her later teens, as they noticed that women survived childbirth better if they had children then (ie Sparta).

I don't know the exact ways of the ancient Muslims, but a young marriage like that, to an important figure like Mohammad, speaks to me of a political marriage that wasn't going to be consummated until the girl was more mature.

It's pretty much a myth that ancient men liked bedding nine year-olds.

ZeldaQueen said...

"But that's where the story ends, Job never gets his children or wife or property or friends back. God is love!"

Actually I think God did reward Job by giving him his wealth back as well as blessing him with even more children, but it doesn't change the fact that Job had just had his life screwed with because of a bet.

As you stated, the owning of slaves, taking of multiple wives, and having a child bride were all things that were seen as common at that time. Different values. In fact, the nine year old bride was seen as a very good wife for him, since her youth ensured that she was a virgin and thus pure when they were wed.

Jite said...

origin of the crescent moon for islam http://islam.about.com/od/history/a/crescent_moon.htm turns out muslims don't like that as their symbol, preferring none!

Anonymous said...

Pretty typical of Christians to lie about and slander other religions. Chick did the same thing to Buddhism in a tract called "The Tycoon", which portrays Buddhist monks as angry, violent mystics who worship idols of Buddha, and believe that Buddha died for their sins.


B.R.

Anonymous said...

Chick. It's pretty common for Chick to lie about and slander other religions.
Also, I think you mean omniscient, not omnipotent. Which would only really count if God had suggested the bet in the first place. The real reason why we shouldn't be surprised that God won the bet is that If He'd lost, He would hardly have imparted that story to his prophets, and even if He had, the Church would probably have removed that passage.

Anonymous said...

As has been mentioned above, the 'Allah used to be called the Moon God' has some truth to it. It's an oversimplification, however.

Also, although Islam is an Abrahamic religion, Muslims do *not* worship the same God as Christians or Jews. The word 'Allah' may translate to 'God,' but the nature of the God that each religion worships is very different. Anyone from any of the Abrahamic religions will tell you the same thing.

Anonymous said...

I think the social service should arrest that grandpa for using his girl as a lure for his cult. That's minors corruption.

Unknown said...

The crescent moon symbol has been associated with Christianity and plenty of other folks. It wasn't even in ubiquitous use in Islam. Chick is an incredibly lazy scholar and just makes shit up like talking about a "trinity" of Egyptian gods that weren't a trinity.