Back in 1970, someone applying for the job of babysitting the eight year-old version of myself left one of Jack Chick’s hateful religious tracts on my mother’s sofa. They were tiny comic books using bewilderingly inane and deplorably bad arguments in an attempt to convince ignorant bigots to adopt his form of mindless reactionary religious extremism. I read that comic and found it repugnant, illogical, idiotic, and beneath my intellect even at that young age. I have since read many of his tracts, and they have only gotten worse as I grew up. I made fun of a number of them in the Erroneous Association of Evolution and Racism during Darwin Day one year, and I tore apart my favorite of them, the one called “Big Daddy” on an episode of The Bible Reloaded. One of these tracts, called The Traitor claimed that all the gods of the Hindu religion were actually created by the Christian version of Satan. I found that one tucked under my windshield wiper in the late 1990s. I called the distributor to complain about how inaccurate, ill-informed and insulting and false that accusation was, but the distributor happened to be Answers In Genesis, and they don’t care about accuracy or accountability or honest integrity in general. I honestly think my call to AiG and their myopic and thoughtlessly prejudiced response was the catalyst that first started me down the road of anti-theist activism.
Jack Chick was a graphic artist who lived his delusional life in lies, prejudice and paranoia, promoting racist, sexist credo-specific bigotry against everyone smarter than him, or who understood things better than he did: which is pretty much everyone since he was really impressively fucking stupid -even compared to other creationists. He was so bad that Chick Publications is recognized as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
So now I hear that this creepy old dogmatic fucktard has finally stopped breathing at 92 years old. I’m unapologetically glad about that. His death makes our world a better place. I think that everyone who believes the way that he did should show solidarity by burying their faces in the sand and holding their breath until Jack Chick breathes again. Because our world just doesn’t need anyone like that -making life irritating for everyone capable of rational or compassionate. thought.
There are some, I’m sure, who will find my eulogy of Chick disrespectful and harshly worded. To them I say that I could rephrase this, but if I am to be completely appropriate, then the way I’ve already written this is as polite as it’s ever going to get. Jack Chick was one of the skid marks in the tighty-whities of my generation, and the world is a better place now that he’s not stinking it up with his fecal fallacies anymore. Welcome to oblivion Mr Chick, where you will rot without grace in a reality that never had a god in it, and where none of your lies ever came true. The only sad part (for me) is that the moment your brain shut off, you were never able to know how wrong you were about everything you ever said. You never even had the chance to be disappointed, and are blissfully unaware of your eternal failure, you miserable awful piece of shit.
