April 16, 2001
I'm going to start this one off by saying that I have no problems with any of the world's religions. They may have different ideals and different ways of expressing their faith, but all things considered, relgion isn't detrimental to a society.
It's the people who practice religions that can cause problems. Take the most blatant display of Christian evagelicalism and (in my opinion) anti-Semitism I've seen in quite a long time.
The guy who writes the comic strip "B.C." is obnoxiously Christian. And I have enough of a problem with that simply because B.C. markets itself as a children's comic -- I don't think anyone should be allowed to force their views on a kid who's barely old enough to read. You want to touch on theology, save it for the more adult-geared strips like "Rex Morgan M.D." or any of that other schlock that nobody reads. Leave the kids alone.
But I swallow down my bile with B.C. because the strips are usually fairly innocuous, even when he's being preachy. If a kid of a non-Christian faith reads most of his religion-oriented strips, a parent can simply explain it as a part of the writer's beliefs, and that the family believes differently. In essence, no harm no foul.
The Easter 2001 strip was, to be blunt, way the hell over the line. I don't make a habit of getting offended for people but in this case I'll make an exception.
The strip shows a Jewish menorah fizzling out one candle at a time. The captions for each panel are snippets of what are allegedly Jesus Christ's last words as recorded in the Christian New Testament. The final panel, in which the last candle has gone out, transforms the menorah into a cross.
Now I'm no expert on the Jewish religion, but showing one of the more important symbols of the religion being snuffed out by the Christian god's words is probably an insult at best. On top of that the whole of that day's strip seems to perpetuate the "Jews Killed Jesus" theme that keeps anti-Semitism alive in mostly-Christian countries today.
Am I over-reacting? Personally, I don't think so. But I'm sure that if some devout Christian ever reads this I'll get a nice little piece of hate-mail. If I do I'll be sure to post it. And what's my point in all this? That the world would be a better place if we all just kept or gods to ourselves and stopped trying to show everyone else why they're wrong.
