Need Some Good Rebuttal to This Cartoon

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Ok this was posted on FB by a friend of my daughter who is quite sour on Christianity at the moment. My daughter’s friend’s dad is a fundamentalist pastor and she has left the faith and is very bitter toward her upbringing. This cartoon got me to thinking how I might respond or rebut the sentiments in this cartoon. I have some ideas and a pretty good sense of salvation history. I loved Scott Hahn’s book “A Father who Keeps his Promises” that laid it out very nicely and i am going to have to go back and re-read his book. But I thought I would throw this cartoon out to the wonderful and knowledgable apologists on this forum to see how you might answer this. Here is the link to the cartoon: theatheistpig.com/comics/2012-03-02.jpg

Sincerely Deeny
 
It just rhetoric and bombast. False caricatures, insulting “man in the sky” language. I wouldn’t bother. I might just tell them they are way off and that a better summary of the Bible would be How God Loved the World. But the arrogant emotion in the sentiments of that cartoon are indicative of someone who is not willing to think rationally. They are more likely upset by some moral teaching, and now they have to bash the former “spouse” they just dumped.
 
No I don’t think the child (she is actually a young woman at the age of 23) is ready for a formal discussion or that I should actually meddle at this point. She is my daughter’s friend not mine. This was more of a mental exercise for me. Thinking how I might respond, also what I might say to my own daughter.Sometimes my own daughter raises questions so I am always looking for clear and precise ways to respond. It was more to increase my faith and understanding.
 
I never understand the ‘man in the sky’ thing. God is incorporeal and not in the sky, but beyond creation. Don’t respond, just ignore.
 
Many people have never read the Bible and there is a wonderful saying out there that goes, “Be careful how you act; you may be the only Bible somebody reads.”

It’s worth discussing.
 
Young people tend to rebel at some point in order to establish their own identity in the world. Sometime this takes the form of rebelling against what their parens hold most dear (besides them of course!) Good friends can be a stabilizing influence during those periods. I hope your daughter can be that for her friend. MK’s (Minister’s Kids) can have kind of a tough time, being overly “good” during the time an adolescent normally rebels, only to have issues later. Pray for her, and if she hangs out at your house, try to have some non-confrontive discussions with her, recognizing her need to establish her own brand of spirituality.

This is necessarily incomplete, because I don’t really know any of you. I will keep you all in my prayers. Stay hopeful.
 
These things aren’t really worth spending a lot of time on. When you actually come into contact with individual atheists, you can minister to them as their needs suggest, with the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Arguing with some cartoon artist’s stupidity isn’t worth it.
 
I’d ask them if they thought that up all themselves, or if their mommy helped them with the big words.
 
I see two issues. The cartoon. And the young friend’s efforts to come of age.

She is a pastor’s kid (PK). I can imagine the possibility that she felt she had no freedom to think for herself and was forced to walk a tight line of behavior. I understand her desire to rebel, to search for her own way, any way opposite from the restrictions she felt, rightly or wrongly. We can only pray that she does not do something really stupid and that eventually she will come to realize the true goodness of trying to follow Christ.

As to the cartoon. Cartoons are meant to poke fun: To take a point out of context and state it in way that is opposite of the true intent. Ha. Ha. The opposite of P.O. is LOVE. God loves us so much that He allows us every opportunity to love Him in return. Every opportunity to ask for His help; to ask for His forgiveness and Mercy when we mess up.

Only a closed mind, that chooses to reject God, would see Him the way the cartoon does.
 
We once listened to a serpent and look what happened… why should we listen to a pig now?

😃
 
The cartoon begs the question. If you assume the Bible is BS, you’ll believe the pig. If not, why on Earth would that little four panel comic give you some amazing world-beating revelation? A simple, “Uh, the pig has no clue what he’s talking about,” should suffice.

When asked what the Bible really IS about, that’s when you point out to him that he can read it whenever he likes!
 
Marc I understand your sentiment but this girl has probably read the Bible many times over. She is 23 and the daughter of a fundamentalist Pastor. She is rebelling - I get that. But it is not out of ignorance of the Bible. She is just reevaluating what she has been taught and it all seems senseless to her now. She believes her parents instilled a sense of fear in her as a child that she was going to hell for any little infraction. She now has a bunch of liberal friends who her parents disapprove of and are telling her they will be going to hell. This is a child who in her Valeditorian speech gave a invitation to accept Christ (Ex fundamentalist will know what I mean about that) But since college has totally rejected Christianity and her upbringing.

I was referring to the concept behind the cartoon that God is heartless- I wanted a response to why did God create Adam and Eve in the first place? The cartoon assumes God created them knowing they were going to sin and that he was going to punish them. It wants an answer to why did Gid create them just to have to punish them. That is the mind set. The thinking is that God created man for punishment. We know that is wrong and I believe the young lady knows that is wrong too and she was lashing out. In another post she wrote this
"“Dad takes daughter into the kitchen…
Dad: Say you love me by the time you are 11 or I will burn you alive inside this oven.
Daughter: Dad, please don’t! I don’t understand. Don’t you love ME?
Dad: Of course of I love you. Can’t you see it is your choice if you do or do not burn in this oven? I am offering you a way out.
…
No loving father does this. No such choice is really love. Such a choice is really just sadism on the part of the father. This is all about the dad’s choice.”
The cartoon was BS, I realize that.([this is the link to the cartoon so you don't have to scroll up to find it again) ](http://www.theatheistpig.com/comics/2012-03-02.jpg)I wanted to know how you would go about in a simple and loving way to explain why the cartoon is incorrect. In other words how to explain salvation history in a more loving and truthful way. The reason he created Adam and Eve even if he knew they were going to sin and all those further down the line were going to sin etc. She now sees the whole premise of Christianity as senseless. So my initial query was to gain insight on how to explain it so that it made sense. I realize a person in her mindset is probably not open or receptive to such a discussion. i was merely trying to formulate how I might explain it if I ever had to. I get it in my mind but I am not always good at thinking fast on my feet and sometimes am less than articulate in getting my point across. I was trying to gather from others how they might approach explaining in simplistic terms the whole of Salvation history.
 
deanarrca said:
"“Dad takes daughter into the kitchen…
Dad: Say you love me by the time you are 11 or I will burn you alive inside this oven.
Daughter: Dad, please don’t! I don’t understand. Don’t you love ME?
Dad: Of course of I love you. Can’t you see it is your choice if you do or do not burn in this oven? I am offering you a way out.
…
No loving father does this. No such choice is really love. Such a choice is really just sadism on the part of the father. This is all about the dad’s choice.”
Click to expand...
The choice is full and complete union with God, or total separation from God. It should be obvious, given the nature of God, that there is no in-between. The oven analogy fails because the girl does not want to go into the oven, but in reality every person who ends up in hell WANTED THAT, PREFERRED THAT OVER BEING WITH GOD.

Of course being without God, without love, is a horrible fate, but we see people trying to live that way here on earth.

God is offering us the one and only choice that matters, and he allows us the free will to make the choice. Every person in hell, if transported to heaven, would demand to go back to hell.
 
deanarrca said:
Marc I understand your sentiment but this girl has probably read the Bible many times over. She is 23 and the daughter of a fundamentalist Pastor. She is rebelling - I get that. But it is not out of ignorance of the Bible. She is just reevaluating what she has been taught and it all seems senseless to her now. She believes her parents instilled a sense of fear in her as a child that she was going to hell for any little infraction. She now has a bunch of liberal friends who her parents disapprove of and are telling her they will be going to hell. This is a child who in her Valeditorian speech gave a invitation to accept Christ (Ex fundamentalist will know what I mean about that) But since college has totally rejected Christianity and her upbringing.

I was referring to the concept behind the cartoon that God is heartless- I wanted a response to why did God create Adam and Eve in the first place? The cartoon assumes God created them knowing they were going to sin and that he was going to punish them. It wants an answer to why did Gid create them just to have to punish them. That is the mind set. The thinking is that God created man for punishment. We know that is wrong and I believe the young lady knows that is wrong too and she was lashing out. In another post she wrote this
"“Dad takes daughter into the kitchen…
Dad: Say you love me by the time you are 11 or I will burn you alive inside this oven.
Daughter: Dad, please don’t! I don’t understand. Don’t you love ME?
Dad: Of course of I love you. Can’t you see it is your choice if you do or do not burn in this oven? I am offering you a way out.
…
No loving father does this. No such choice is really love. Such a choice is really just sadism on the part of the father. This is all about the dad’s choice.”
Code: 
  The cartoon was BS, I realize that.([this is the link to the cartoon so you don't have to scroll up to find it again) ](http://www.theatheistpig.com/comics/2012-03-02.jpg)I wanted to know how you would go about in a simple and loving way to explain why the cartoon is incorrect. In other words how to explain salvation history in a more loving and truthful way. The reason he created Adam and Eve even if he knew they were going to sin and all those further down the line were going to sin etc. She now sees the whole premise of Christianity as senseless. So my initial query was to gain insight on how to explain it so that it made sense. I realize a person in her mindset is probably not open or receptive to such a discussion. i was merely trying to formulate how I might explain it if I ever had to. I get it in my mind but I am not always good at thinking fast on my feet and sometimes am less than articulate in getting my point across. I was trying to gather from others how they might approach explaining in simplistic terms the whole of Salvation history.
Click to expand...
Okay, you’re asking a different question then I originally thought. The quick answer to why the cartoon is incorrect is because it’s a logical fallacy-it begs the question because you would only believe the pig if you assumed in advance that what he said is true,. So the cartoon is useless as any sort of argument.

Now, why did God create Adam and Eve if he knew they were going to sin? That’s a different question entirely, and to answer it fully would take a lot of in-depth analysis. Here’s the ultra-quick version: What would have been better, existing or not existing? God decided that existing was better than the other option. The rest of history is just the consequences of existing 😃

Of course, it’s completely illogical to say that it would be better or worse “not” to exist because if we don’t exist there’s no better or worse, so that’s a nonsensical thing to say.
 
deanarrca said:
I was referring to the concept behind the cartoon that God is heartless- I wanted a response to why did God create Adam and Eve in the first place?
Click to expand...
1) God is perfect love, and love is the very nature of the Holy Trinity.

2) God did not need to create the universe nor anything within it.

3) God chose to create the universe and everything within it as an act of love.
Love has a natural desire to share itself beyond what is considered necessary,
therefore the universe and everything within it was created by God as a free act
of his love, and not because the existence of creation was somehow necessary.

4) God created humans in his image and likeness to participate in the virtue of love
and therefore the meaning of life is to love God and one another.

5) God could not create us as perfect beings (and therefore incapable of sin), because only God is perfect.
Note that (according to the definition of divinity) God is not only perfect but also eternal,
and a created being, such as a human, is not eternal, and therefore not God,
and therefore not perfect. In light of all this, in choosing to create us,
God chooses to create people who will love, but in an imperfect way.

6) Although our love is imperfect, it can achieve a kind of perfection in heaven,
but in order to enter heaven one must first accept God’s gift of salvation.
The cartoon assumes God created them knowing they were going to sin and that he was going to punish them. It wants an answer to why did Gid create them just to have to punish them. That is the mind set. The thinking is that God created man for punishment.
Click to expand...
Every parent knows that eventually their children are going to break their hearts. Therefore, should they abstain from having children? I think most people who elect to become parents will tell you that the love and joy of having children outweighs the heartbreaks, so why should we question God’s motivation in creating us?

Moreover, let us consider the whole topic of “punishment” for sin. Salvation is a gift of love and like any gift of love it must not be forced upon the intended recipient. The intended recipient (i.e., humans) must be free to accept or reject the gift of salvation.

Acceptance of the gift of salvation is easily done: the sacrament of baptism. Moreover, the Catholic Church believes that there are other, extraordinary ways that God bestows saving grace (depending on the circumstances). On the other hand, mortal sin which is freely and knowingly committed acts as rejection of the gift of salvation.

Rejecting salvation also entails rejecting God and everything God is: life, love, justice, peace, joy, fulfillment, etc. Therefore, by rejecting God one consequently embraces the absence of these things. Hell, therefore, is a place of death (what theologians call “the Second Death”), bitterness, hatred, sorrow and no possibility of fulfillment of one’s very meaning of existence (to love God and one another). Many theologians see the fiery description of hell in the Bible as a symbolic way of describing the terrible existence of a human who is completely deprived of all the things which are found in the nature of God.

In light of everything I’ve stated, hell is not so much a “punishment” for sin, but a destination a sinner freely chooses to take. Basically, such a person is telling God, “Leave me alone!”, and that is exactly what God does (when time has run out for this person to change his heart and mind).
In another post she wrote this
"“Dad takes daughter into the kitchen…
Dad: Say you love me by the time you are 11 or I will burn you alive inside this oven.
Daughter: Dad, please don’t! I don’t understand. Don’t you love ME?
Dad: Of course of I love you. Can’t you see it is your choice if you do or do not burn in this oven? I am offering you a way out.
…
No loving father does this. No such choice is really love. Such a choice is really just sadism on the part of the father. This is all about the dad’s choice.”
Click to expand...
No, it is about true freedom and about the reality of who & what God is. If God gives us the choice to accept or reject salvation, but then forces everyone to go to heaven anyway, then salvation is not a gift of love, and human freedom is a myth.

Furthermore, I will once again point out that the nature of God encompasses such virtuous things as life, love, justice, peace, joy, fulfillment, etc. Rejection of God is consequently a rejection of these things. My challenge to people like the young woman in question is to come up with a realistic consequence of the total rejection of life, love, justice, peace, joy and fulfillment without ending up with a description of some type of hell. In my experience, they usually fail to come up with a scenario which actually represents the total rejection of godly virtues. Those that don’t end up formulating a scenario which mirrors something that is already an established Christian belief.
She now sees the whole premise of Christianity as senseless.
Click to expand...
The question for her is, “If you were God, what would you have done differently?” Sooner or later, her alternate plan for human existence will end up violating the concepts of freedom and/or love, and therefore will be even more senseless than what she perceives Christianity to be.
 
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