Chick Tracts: Charlie’s Ants

Ah, yes, another Chick tract that unwittingly illustrates the superiority of atheism and secular humanism over Christian doctrine.

In this lovely gospel story, young Charlie is trying to warn his little ant friends that the land on which they live will become flooded, killing them all.  I particularly love the fourth page, where Charlie gets frustrated that the ants don’t understand his frantic screeching at them, and beats them to death in dim-witted wrath instead.  I’m always fascinated by the inability of fundamentalists to recognize their portrayal of God as a pathetic, vindictive, tantrum-throwing child, even when it’s so painfully obvious that this is indeed their perspective of the Almighty.

Of course, we also have to point out that becoming an ant himself is not “the only way he could warn them.”  He could simply put them in a jar and move them himself.  The whole premise on which this story is told is completely devoid of logic.  Is God incapable of doing this?

Obviously, the Christian’s response is that God must allow us to have free will, thus allowing us to choose whether we want to spend eternity with him.  This dichotomy must assume that God is somehow incapable of allowing us to live forever in a way that torment us with horrible pain and agony (but also not forcing us to live with him).  Charlie could do this, if he wanted; he could move the ants somewhere safe, and then leave them be, not interfering with them further.  Why is God incapable of this?  Would Charlie really be abusing the ants by moving them against their will, thereby saving their lives, when they obviously don’t understand the entire situation?

Which leads us into another interesting fact:  While Charlie wouldn’t be willing to become an ant or suffer death for his little friends, he also isn’t the one who will flood their home and kill them all.  Despite his fear of becoming an ant and then dying, despite his almost total lack of maturity and self-control demonstrated by his punching of the ants who could never reasonably be expected to understand him, he is clearly distraught over their deaths.  God, as the tract puts it, is the one who “cannot allow sin into heaven.”  Presumably God is the one who set up the afterlife with only two places that a “soul” could possibly go, either heaven or hell.

The illustration would literally be far more accurate if Charlie stood over the anthill, declared that all the ants had to believe in and accept their god, Charlie, and their savior, the glass jar, and they would be saved.  He gives them a few minutes to make their choice, and then turns on the hose.