This was originally published on the Catholic Debate Forum (CDF), but the online pictures did not turn out, so I republished here as well. Feel free to comment here on the blog or in CDF.
On Thu, Sep 20, 2012 at 5:25 PM, Scott Windsor wrote:
sw: Even if you're accusing us of subliminally worshiping a sun god - you accuse us falsely. Even when the Protestants split from the Catholic Church they did not accuse Catholicism of worshiping a sun god - this sounds like it came straight out of a Chick tract. Where are you getting your information?sw: Yep, I thought I recognized it...
sw: The term "transubstantiation" did not exist until the 14th century - AD. Catholics do not believe in "magic" here - we believe in the declaration of God Himself. Jesus Christ, True God and True Man, declares "This IS My body" and we have faith and BELIEVE Him!
sw: Lots of things are "disk shaped" - like the tires on my car, but that doesn't mean I worship my tires! Chick's argument here is so juvenile - who is really so gullible to believe these jokes?
sw: 1) The age of the communicant is a tradition of the Latin/Western Church. Eastern Rites actually participate in infant communion. Mr. Chick is simply misinformed on this point.
sw: 2) Again, we do not believe in "magic" here. Mr. Chick wants to conjure up thoughts of magic and witchcraft (another common theme he utilizes) because he knows that most Protestants are aware that magic and witchcraft are condemned by Scripture. Catholics, again, do not believe in magic - we believe in the authority of God through God the Son, whom declared, while holding a piece of bread, "This IS My body." Catholics do not rationalize their way around this very clear statement of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, we just accept it on FAITH.
sw: 3) Mr. Chick, demonstrating even more ignorance, does not seem to realize that "IHS" are Greek letters and are the first letters of the name "Jesus:"
The IHS monogram is an abbreviation or shortening of Jesus' name in Greek to the first three letters. Thus ΙΗΣΟΥΣ, ιησυς (iēsus, "Jesus"), is shortened to ΙΗΣ (iota-eta-sigma), sometimes transliterated into Latin or English characters as IHS or ΙΗC. [Disclaimer, not a Catholic site: http://www.jesuswalk.com/christian-symbols/ihs.htm]The use of this monogram or Christogram, though rare use is found in the catacombs (burial and worship place for Christians prior to the conversion of Rome) was not popularly used until the 14th century - AD - again exemplifying Chick's ignorance of history. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07649a.htm
sw: 4) I am aware of no "law" which says Catholics "must" bow down and worship the appearance of God in the Eucharist - but why would we NOT bow down and worship that which we believe IS God? It would be wholly inconsistent of us to NOT bow down and adore God Himself!
sw: 5) There are other similarities between Osiris and Jesus, namely the myth of Osiris is that he was resurrected from the dead - so based upon Chick-logic - the very heart of Christendom, the Resurrection of our Lord and Savior, is really pagan Osiris worship. The slippery slope that Chick starts upon destroys all of Christianity, not just Catholicism - IF it were true.
sw: 6) What "upsets" me is that some people actually believe in the lies Jack Chick publishes... I know, I was one of them at one time.
In JMJ,
Scott<<<
PS- The use of the images from Chick tracts is permitted through the "Fair Use" as defined by the U.S. Copyright Office: http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl102.html
A couple of comments...Chick is dangerous. I like to laugh off his nonsense but then someone pops up who actually believes his made up tripe. Here is a good, well-researched, lengthy article about Chick and many of his propaganda pamplets: http://www.catholic.com/documents/the-nightmare-world-of-jack-t-chick
ReplyDeleteAs just an aside, rarely, if ever do any Catholics see "IHS" on a communion wafer. They are usually plain or have a cross on them. And, I know enough about Egyptian history and religion to know that Isis, Horus, and Seb were never any kind of "trinity". Egyptians had many, many gods--the sun, the Nile, different animals and animals mixed together, the pharoahs, etc. Which one was honored more than the others depended on the sensibilites of the current pharaoh. None, not any, of the gods were seen as one with each other--as in three persons in one god.
Jack Chick writes from a tradition of prefudice that has come down to us straight off the pen of Cotton Mathers. Mathers believed that Catholic priests and especially those of the Jesuit order took their walking orders from the antichrist embodied in the person of the pope. Another leading light in this vien is Ralph Woodrow who updates the Matherian genre and uses history as a weapon in the same way Chick does. The findings of these fine puritans are nothing more than the same kind of fantastical story telling found in the book of mormon. They are adrift intellectualy and must find some support for thier presupositions in rumor and poorly understood third and fourth tier popular histories.
ReplyDeleteAlexis De Tocqueville in his "Democracy in America" stated that Americans are the only ones who pursue religious insanity to the extemes that we see in Chicks writings. De Tocqueville goes as far as to detail the rise of the transcendentalist movement in America which were embodied in the works of Thoreau and Emerson. The impact of this trend gave rise to the pentecostal as well as the anti intellectual tendencies found and even boroughed from Mathers.
Chick and people like him cannot be engaged intellectualy or in any other reasonable way one can think of in order to get to the point profitably. As was stated above, De Tocqueville saw it as religious insanity peculiar to America at the time, and I would dare say it still is. One can therefore only observe in wounder at whatever current developements arise within these countless religous schemes. I won't comment on any of Chick's writings beyond what I've just set down in the foregoing. It isn't worth the effort.
Ratiostudiorum
JMJ