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Merged Chick Tracts

The complete tract if you have the stomach for it:
http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/1094/1094_01.asp

It's like he's never met anyone who works hard and has a healthy lifestyle but still likes to have a few glasses of wine with dinner sometimes. You're either a teetotaler or an alcoholic about to die of liver failure. There's no middle ground here.

What did you expect? It´s Jack Chick - he doesn´t know what middle ground IS!
 
The complete tract if you have the stomach for it:
http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/1094/1094_01.asp

It's like he's never met anyone who works hard and has a healthy lifestyle but still likes to have a few glasses of wine with dinner sometimes. You're either a teetotaler or an alcoholic about to die of liver failure. There's no middle ground here.

So, when is Jack Chick going to do a strip on Noah? (Gen. 9:20 - 24):

And Noah began to be a husbandman, and he planted a vineyard. And he drank of the wine and was drunken; and he was uncovered within his tent. And Ham, the father of Canaan saw the nakedness of his father and told his two brothers without. And Shem and Japheth took a garment and laid it upon both their shoulders and went backward and covered their father's nakedness. And their faces were backward and they saw not their father's nakedness. And Noah awoke from his wine and knew what his youngest son had done to him.

Or when will he do one on Jesus? (Jn. 2:1 - 10):

And the third day there was a marriage at Cana of Galilee; and the mother of Jesus was there; and both Jesus and his disciples were called to the marriage. And when they wanted wine, the mother of Jesus said to him, "They have no wine."
Jesus said to her, "Woman, what have I to do with thee? My hour is not come yet."
His mother said to the servants, "Whatever he says to you, do it."
And there were set there six water pots of stone, after the manner of purifying of the Jews, containing two or three firkins apiece. Jesus said to them, "Fill the water pots with water." And they filled them up to the brim. And he said to them, "Draw out now and bear to the governor of the feast. And they bore it.
When the ruler of the feast had tasted the water that was made wine, and knew not whence it came (but the servants who drew the water knew it was water) he said to the bridegroom, "Every man at the beginning sets forth the good wine; and when men have well drunk [i.e. "have gotten drunk"] then that which is worse; but thou hast kept the good wine until now."

Or when will he do one on Paul? (1 Tim. 5:23):

Drink no longer water, but use a little wine for thy stomach's sake and thine often infirmities.
 
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Anyone else find it "amusing" that the way he shows Jesus on the cross is like form the Mel Gibson movie, I don't recall it looking like that before PotC came out.
 
Or when will he do one on Jesus? (Jn. 2:1 - 10):

And the third day there was a marriage at Cana of Galilee; and the mother of Jesus was there; and both Jesus and his disciples were called to the marriage. And when they wanted wine, the mother of Jesus said to him, "They have no wine."
Jesus said to her, "Woman, what have I to do with thee? My hour is not come yet."
His mother said to the servants, "Whatever he says to you, do it."
And there were set there six water pots of stone, after the manner of purifying of the Jews, containing two or three firkins apiece. Jesus said to them, "Fill the water pots with water." And they filled them up to the brim. And he said to them, "Draw out now and bear to the governor of the feast. And they bore it.
When the ruler of the feast had tasted the water that was made wine, and knew not whence it came (but the servants who drew the water knew it was water) he said to the bridegroom, "Every man at the beginning sets forth the good wine; and when men have well drunk [i.e. "have gotten drunk"] then that which is worse; but thou hast kept the good wine until now."
I understand that many fundamentalists interpret "wine" to be "grape juice" so that Christ does not come off endorsing alcohol. I know that seems to go against the bible quote, but....

I like the part of the tract where a few drops of whiskey in a spoon cause a child to eventually become an alcoholic. Talk about powerful! Talk about homeopathy!
 
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It's like he's never met anyone who works hard and has a healthy lifestyle but still likes to have a few glasses of wine with dinner sometimes. You're either a teetotaler or an alcoholic about to die of liver failure. There's no middle ground here.

Here's the thing though: I don't completely disagree with this particular tract. Sure, the religious hogwash is hogwash but alcohol does some real damage to the country. But this tract, and the attitude behind it, isn't helpful.
 
True, alcohol does cause real damage and there are some people who should be abstaining completely. A relative of mine is pregnant, and she didn't drink very often to begin with, but now she's not drinking at all. Also people who've had an alcohol or drug problem in the past and people who have certain medical conditions and/or take certain medications shouldn't be drinking. But Chick just ignores the many people who can have an occasional drink without a problem.

The "religious hogwash" comment reminds me of my other objection to this tract. Alcoholics don't need medical treatment or anything, they just need to accept Jesus as their saviour and everything will be fine. :rolleyes: Never mind that withdrawal can be dangerous for someone with a serious drinking problem. At the least, it's going to be very unpleasant. Also, I'm not a medical professional, but it's been suggested that many people who abuse alcohol are actually self-medicating for a mental health problem, so this needs to be addressed in their treatment. The solution to alcohol abuse is a little more complicated than a prayer.
 
Wow. So now we can add alcohol to the list of subjects that Jack Chick knows nothing about.
 
There was a guy on Vashon who was deeply into the Temperance thing, went around the country reenacting Billy Sunday's sermons, and ran for President as a Prohibition candidate. He was also a landlord, and if you were one of his tenants you could find him prowling around your home, checking to make sure you weren't drinking on his property or entertaining men or anything sinful like that.

He died of a massive stroke a few years ago. Maybe a little wine would have helped his blood pressure?
 
I understand that many fundamentalists interpret "wine" to be "grape juice" so that Christ does not come off endorsing alcohol. I know that seems to go against the bible quote, but.... (snip) . . .

Which is total crap, since, in the original Greek, the word is oinos, which is a one to one translation: oinos = wine. Furthermore, when the steward of the feast says that most men serve the good stuff first, then the poor wine after everyone has "well-drunk," the word translated in the KJV as "well drunk" and in the RSV as "have drunk freely," is methuo, which means. "To get drunk." So, the steward of the feast is actually saying, "Most men serve the good stuff first, then the poor wine after everyone has gotten drunk."

Welch, who founded Welch's Grape Juice, was an abolitionist and temperance activist, who came up with a pasteurization process to keep grape juice from fermenting into wine. He advocated grape juice communions. He would have been happy with the Presbyterian church in which I was active in my high school years. There communions consisted of grape juice and white bread.
 
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It's like he's never met anyone who works hard and has a healthy lifestyle but still likes to have a few glasses of wine with dinner sometimes. You're either a teetotaler or an alcoholic about to die of liver failure. There's no middle ground here.
Yeah, it's like he's never met anyone who works hard and has a healthy lifestyle but still likes to snort a few lines of cocaine with dinner sometimes. :rolleyes:

And before you cry foul, realize that alcohol and cocaine are not that different on the addiction scale.

The "religious hogwash" comment reminds me of my other objection to this tract. Alcoholics don't need medical treatment or anything, they just need to accept Jesus as their saviour and everything will be fine.
Can You Cure Yourself of Drug Addiction?
"A survey by Gene Heyman, a research psychologist at McLean Hospital in Massachusetts, found that between 60 to 80 percent of people who were addicted in their teens and 20s were substance-free by their 30s... the majority of soldiers who became addicted to narcotics overseas later stopped using them without therapy."

"Is it possible to cure yourself of addiction without professional help? How often does that happen?
Of course it's possible. Most people recover and most people do it on their own. That's in no way saying that everyone should be expected to quit on their own and in no way denies that quitting is a hard thing to do. This is just an empirical fact...

How do addicts stop on their own?
They have to be motivated."​

The message is clear - the most important factor in breaking any addiction is willpower. If a person is religious (74% of Americans) then appealing to their faith may be a winning strategy. Of all the Chick Tracts I have seen, this one is the least offensive. Sure, he's still promoting his fundamentalist view of Christianity, but it's better than telling alcoholics that they are helpless victims of their own brain chemistry.

I'm not a medical professional, but it's been suggested that many people who abuse alcohol are actually self-medicating for a mental health problem
True, but for many of them alcohol becomes the cause of their mental health problems. Everybody has their ups and downs, and even people with healthy minds experience situations where being a little drunk might make life more bearable. The problem is that once you discover the power alcohol has to make you feel better, it's too easy to reach for the bottle every time you feel pain.

The problem with drugs is that they short-circuit the brain's system of pain and reward. Instead of being motivated toward positive behavior, drugs simply kill the pain message and leave the cause untreated. The sufferer then has to keep taking more and more of the drug in order to feel 'better', when in reality they are the same or worse. It is an example of how Man's superior intelligence and technological skills can actually do him more harm than good.

Plasticity of Addiction: a Mesolimbic Dopamine Short-Circuit?
"addiction occurs because drugs of abuse are able to take control of normal brain reward circuits that provide reinforcement of behaviors related to survival (e.g. food, water and sex). While natural rewards activate the reward circuit until the survival-related behavior is learned, drugs of abuse continue to stimulate the circuit upon repeated exposures."​

Chick just ignores the many people who can have an occasional drink without a problem.
Yes, but why not? He's not speaking to those who are able to have an occasional drink without problem. Nobody knows how they will be affected by alcohol until they try it, and there is no compelling reason to drink, so a strategy of total abstinence is not such a bad idea. If nothing else, it would eliminate the problem of teenage drunkenness which seems to be endemic in our society.

I grew up in environment where alcohol was a big part of the culture, and it caused a lot of harm (my cousin was killed by a drunk driver). As a teenager I made the decision to resist peer pressure and avoid drinking altogether. Even now at age 57, I won't drink more than half a glass of wine because I don't like what it does to me. I have not suffered any great loss for this act of willpower, but I have avoided all of the bad effects that many of my friends suffered from alcohol.

However not everybody has the willpower to go against social norms, and many don't realize they have made a mistake until it's too late. If Jack Chick can help people avoid alcoholism by appealing to their faith then I say good on him. The Bible may not be true, but it isn't completely worthless.
 

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If Jack Chick can help people avoid alcoholism by appealing to their faith then I say good on him. The Bible may not be true, but it isn't completely worthless.
In Chick's hands it's worse than worthless! Have you not read it?
"I didn't have a chance. At seventeen both Mom and Dad died as drunkards and both are down in Hell."
"How can you say such a thing?"
"Because God's words tell us, no drunkard shall enter the kingdom of God."
* 1 Corinthians 6:10.
This is vile stuff.
 
So Jack, which is it?

Panel 32 said:
God's words tell us, no drunkard shall enter the kingdom of God.

or


Panel 38 said:
[To be saved,] just believe Jesus died for your sins, and that he rose from the dead, and receive Him as your personal savior.
(Emphasis in original for both)

Chick says Jesus will "take your thirst away," so I guess no Christian has ever gone back to the bottle. :rolleyes:

As to the more important part: Fang appears only in the first panel, and he looks kind of strange . . . is he drunk too? That's great; I don't think Fang's ever gotten to play a drunk character before.

There's a cat in panel 4, who appears disappointed that he won't be able to eat Byron III's corpse - is that TCWNIDK (see posts 1047-8)? It appears to be. I wonder if that's his white kitten on the Dumpster or whatever it is. Ha, TCWNIDK got busy! Looks like him in Panel 33 also, although that would probably make him a rather old cat.

Overall, not bad, despite the brief Fang appearance. Amputees in the snow, ladies with hatchets, preachers pelted with rotten eggs, lots of action. On an A through F scale, I give it a 39, because the scale is just as crazy as Jack is.
 
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So Jack, which is it?

Originally Posted by Panel 32
God's words tell us, no drunkard shall enter the kingdom of God.

or

Originally Posted by Panel 38
[To be saved,] just believe Jesus died for your sins, and that he rose from the dead, and receive Him as your personal savior.

(Emphasis in original for both)
...

Well, there's an easy fundie-logic work-around for that- no true drunkard can be an actual believer in Jesus because no true believer would be a drunkard. You see? Sort of a double circular "no true Scotsman" back-flip that's designed to keep out of heaven those you'd rather not see there, and make sure only right-thinking folks like yourself get in.
 
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Well, Jack has a point with this one.
Sadly it gets lost because, as usual, he is several parsecs over the top.
The Sally Army does good work - and a substantial portion of it is financed from donations collected in pubs. Nobody in the Salvation Army wants to eradicate drink. They do want to eradicate the abuse of drink.

Funnily enough, my old man did slip me whisky in my milk when I was only ten days old - which may be why I'm a beer / cider drinker who rarely touches spirits at all. It certainly didn't start me on an inevitable slide into alcoholism.
I had a bottle of IPA this evening. I also had ice cream. I wonder which is more hazardous to health?
And then I went out and read a Christian tract online! Dangerous stuff, booze, right enough.
 

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