The Devil Unmasked
It’s less than two months now until the night on which the devil turns America’s children into ghouls and goblins and inspires them to viciously mutilate poor unsuspecting pumpkins with sacrificial knives. I’m speaking, of course, of Halloween. This characterization is right in line with the views of Jack Chick, cartoonist for the lord, who has devoted his life to giving new meaning to the phrase “the Sunday funnies.” In the current issue of Battle Cry, Chick talks about what a wonderful witnessing opportunity Halloween is. No, he doesn’t mean it’s a good opportunity to press charges against the teenagers you witnessed egging your house. He is referring to a clever and devious act of spiritual judo in which Christians use “the devil’s holiday” to spread the word about the being who brought us the devil in the first place, god.
When they gave her candy, she gave them The Little Princess. Now who could resist a little four year old —some people tried to give it back to her thinking she was confused and they didn’t want to take her goodies, but she insisted it was a gift from her to them and they graciously accepted the little book.
Very sneaky. You wouldn’t think a being as powerful as Yahweh would need to use a four year old girl as an emotional Trojan horse to get information into the hands of nonbelievers, but apparently he does.
After reading one of the tracts, a neighbor saw the truth about the devil’s night and threw out her carved jack-o-lantern pumpkin.
Is it just the carving? Are pumpkins inherently evil? What about pie? If god hates pumpkin pie, that’s a good enough reason to be an atheist right there. If there is a heaven, and there’s no pumpkin pie, I’m not going (not that I’d expect an invitation).
Churches and families often set out a table near the street with tracts and candy and “free-take-one” signs. One family went a little further: “Last Halloween about 7 of us dressed in white robes and sat behind a table on our porch. We had a large book “The Book of Life” on the table with our names printed on the page. We had white and blue balloons all over the post of the porch. My husband wore the gold sash on his white robe. When the children arrived we told them that they had come to the Great White Throne of Judgement and we asked them if their names were in the book of life? The children looked and looked for their names. We gave them a simple Gospel message and handed them the Chick Gospel tract and some candy. The children were very curious. Even the teens who came as every ugly and monstrous characters hung around and then came back for more tracts.”
I remember a simpler time when the only thing you had to fear from Halloween treats was pins and poison. Now, in addition to rotting your teeth, the things you pick up can rot your brain. Is this excercise especially twisted, or is it just me? First of all, who are they to write their own names in the book? That’s pretty presumptuous. Take a look in the Old Testament. God doesn’t like that. Furthermore, how deranged is it to tell children who simply came around looking for candy that they’re not going to heaven when they die unless they read a pamphlet? If my (theoretical) children told me about this when they came home from trick-or-treating, I would be seriously tempted to go beat the crap out of these people. There must be some kind of law against it.
This Halloween, if you have kids, keep an eye out for this kind of thing. If someone in your neighborhood is doing it, make sure their kids get atheist tracts (and no candy) when they show up at your house. If you don’t have kids, just proceed with your usual black mass and human sacrifices. Sorry to bother you.
~I AM~
P.S. I posted the winners to the Church Sign contest, but I forgot to mention it.
September 3rd, 2005 at at 2:11 am
Sadly, in this day and age my (non-theoretical) child will probably never be allowed to trick-or-treat unaccompanied. Those days are long gone. But, I am not sure which is worse, razor blades or brain washing propaganda.
September 3rd, 2005 at at 7:43 am
Wow. A confrontation with the book of life on Halloween night. There’s an encounter that has never crossed my mind. And it’s seriously evil to use children to sweetly pass on ideological filth. It’s right up there with the little kids at anti-abortion rallies running around with pictures of dead fetuses on placards around their necks.
September 3rd, 2005 at at 9:48 am
so where do you find atheist tracts?
September 3rd, 2005 at at 9:57 am
I don’t think there actually are any. At least I haven’t seen them. I figured people could make up their own. Actually, as the Evangelical Atheist, I guess that’s really my job, isn’t it? I’ll work on that.
September 3rd, 2005 at at 10:02 am
Nontracts
There ya go fellow Vessels of Dark Spirits.
The whole anti-Halloween thing is really too silly to even comment on. But we still should, because it’s fun.
My beef here is, these people are really upset that their children are being exposed to another religion, because they think Halloween is a religious holiday – no, not for capitalists – for pagans.
So, in turn, instead of just opting out (and helping make sure their kids not only have a wonderful childhood, but are also the absolute coolest kids in school), they push THEIR religion on the “pagans.”
September 3rd, 2005 at at 10:03 am
Oops, that link didn’t work, so just cut and paste this in your address bar:
http://www.ffrf.org/nontracts/
September 3rd, 2005 at at 10:07 am
Excellent. Thanks, DUB.
September 3rd, 2005 at at 10:18 am
You’re welcome.
Out of curiosity, I googled “atheist brochures.” Their were numerous mentions of Atheist Alliance brochures, but I didn’t exactly find an at their site ( http://www.atheistalliance.org/index.html ). In their “Library” section, there are “electronic pamphlets.”
Also, check out http://www.mybrochuremaker.com/ .
I’mma go undo my children’s brainwashing now (their born-again mother sends them to a xian school – and jacked my support up to pay the tuition).
September 3rd, 2005 at at 11:03 am
I used to do halloween, then it got boring. Now I just simulate the ends of the halloween experience by buying a bag of candy and sitting on my couch watching TV. I find I feel much more fulfilled doing this, much less unnecesary walking.
And BlondebutBright: It is my understanding that that’s the only real way to affect a culture, get at the minds of the kids. It’s slightly unmoral, yes, but that’s the only way the Christians can be turned atheist also.
September 3rd, 2005 at at 11:26 am
That cartoon is so fucking lame.
September 3rd, 2005 at at 11:40 am
Boy, am I glad I live in a liberal area. The most scandalous thing that happened last year was a city councilman handing out canady while wearing a T-shirt that said “Buck Fush”.
September 3rd, 2005 at at 11:59 am
There are some tracts available from that oh-so lovable athiest, Normal Bob Smith. They are kinda funny tracts though, and more smary-assed than serious in tone.
http://www.normalbobsmith.com/banners_fliers.html
September 3rd, 2005 at at 2:30 pm
Those FFRF nontracts are pretty good, although it seems inappropriate to hand them out to little kids at Halloween. It’d be more appropriate to hand them out to their parents and probably more effective as well; most kids will believe what their parents believe anyway (at least up to the age of 10 or so).
September 3rd, 2005 at at 2:34 pm
Delta:
Of course it’s inappropriate to hand them out to little kids. That’s my point. I’m not suggesting that people give tracts to all trick-or-treaters. I want to make sure I’m clear on that. That’s a terrible idea. My suggestion was to give them to the children of the people handing out Christian tracts to kids. The kids won’t read them anyway. At best, it will teach the parents a lesson. At worst, it will piss them off.
September 4th, 2005 at at 3:17 pm
By the way, there is no substantial proof that any Halloween candy has ever been laden with pins, razors, or poison. It’s pretty much an urban legend.
Think of all the candy wasted. Usually Mary Janes (which I happen to love) because of their shabby-wrappers (that’s the black or orange wrapped peanut-buttery-molassessy-chewy things)..
Halloween SUCKS nowadays. When I was a kid the houses WITHOUT porchlights on were the minority. Now it’s not uncommon to be on a street with only 2-3 houses handing out candy. My kids walk three miles and get about hlaf a pound of treats.
Also, in an era of declining crime rates, child abduction is no anomaly. Kids are NOT being abducted with any more frequency. A few years back it was the media’s lil’ hook for a couple months, but if you think the only times kids are getting snatched is when it’s on the news…well, I got some Kabbalah water to sell ya.
That being said, I still have a hard time just letting my kids out on their own (and, admittedly, don’t). Geesh – I used to walk to school from kindergarten on, AND roam the city. At least until the streetlights came on.
September 5th, 2005 at at 10:15 am
Perhaps we need to have the author publish these:
http://www.weirdcrap.com/chick/who.html
and distribute them in neighborhoods where we know people are handing out real Chick tracts.
September 6th, 2005 at at 2:08 pm
Don’t all those Jack Chick tracts sold…uh, given-for-a-donation- make JC a pile of money?
Not that that would mean anything to him, of course..he’s just in it for the Salvation Notches in his Bible Belt…
September 6th, 2005 at at 6:36 pm
What’s with the “Turkey Day” tract? Not only is it still perfectly legal to mention “Thanksgiving” in school (for that matter, you can protelize to your friends all you want until they tell you to STFU, Jack), but that completely biased, idiotic re-telling of the Pilgrims was not only inaccurate, but horribly racist. Squanto “miraculously” spoke perfect English. “God” provided for the pilgrims, the natives were just kinda hanging out with nothing better to do. What on earth is wrong with these people?