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Today I’d like to introduce you to a new category of posts here on nule.org: reviews. (n.b. I’ve moved this from the reviews section in an attempt to make that part more serious.) For our inagural edition we’ll be reviewing a piece I picked up in the least likely of places. This is a work of literature I found in the grocery store checkout aisle stuffed in with the packs of gum. An unlikely place for a work of high literature? You betcha.

I’d like to introduce you to Sin Busters:

There’s no author credit except for the mysterious initials of J.T.C. There is also absolutely no copyright notice, so I’m sure the publishers of this fine work will have no problem with my review here.

I’ll cut to the chase and tell you in short, this work is an evangelical christian comic strip. Its entire unabashed purpose is to convince people they are sinners and that bad things will happen to them if they don’t, oh how to put it… “call upon the name of the Lord (and be saved)”. Personally I think it’s a tad more complex than that, but this isn’t about my thoughts – this is about objectively reviewing this, uh, work.

Let’s start by looking at one of the first pages of this strip:

Perhaps you weren’t aware of this, but evangelical christians are full of anti-Semitic hatred. From reading and seeing other evangelical works, I’ve noticed this trend. You don’t have to hate the Jews, but you do have to pity them and inform them that they’ll burn in the fires of hell if they don’t convert. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such hateful words on a 2.5″ by 5″ sheet of paper.

We go on for a few pages where God presents the 10 commandments onto stone tablets for his followers, then the book starts to categorically go through all the commandments and helpfully illustrates their meanings and intentions. Like so:

I’ve certainly learned a lot in this single page. First of all, the Buddha and Confucius are gods. I think most Buddhists and Confucianists would beg to differ. Second, there are “millions” of gods in India. If I get to get my own personal god, then I’m converting to whatever religion they speak of. I’m hardly a learned scholar of Hinduism, but I think that may be overstating things a bit. Thirdly a nit to pick – Allah is a word that means “God”. Does this mean God condemns herself? Nextly, I’m a guru. Specifically a programming guru and you damn well better worship me. Lastly, Tiki gods. Teehee, that brings a big smile to my face. If you want to know why download BitTorrent and get this movie.

The next page which drew my attention was one related to the fifth commandment. That’s the one about honouring the folks. That’s good stuff all around, I’d like to state before I go any further. I certainly think my parents are great (they may not reciprocate if they ever read this), so this isn’t a comment on that aspect of the book. But this image would seem to indicate that you’ll die at age 16 if you hate your parents:

Doesn’t everybody hate their parents when they are sixteen? With raging hormones and one’s evolving sense of self it seems almost inevitable. Fortunately this seems to be not literally true, and most people eventually outgrow that and realize that parents usually do what seems to be best for their children. They may even come to appreciate it.

Now on to the seventh command – one of my personal favorites. Mostly because it’s got to be the most enjoyable to break. But just as a warning, if you have sex outside of marriage you instantly get both syphilis and AIDS:

Really, why did they have to throw syphilis in there too? AIDS isn’t bad enough on its own?

There’s some good information that I’m leaving out, as this isn’t a summary, but a review. A brief recap is in order before I finish up my review here. Two things that strike me as important before reaching our next real point of interest. Just things to keep in mind as you judge this work on your own. All the Jews died in the desert because they rebelled against the ten commandments. Second, Moses didn’t even make it into heaven – apparently because he had the audacity to hit a rock. Don’t ask me.

This next page maybe also falls into more of the Public Service Announcement category than review, but what the hell:

That kid sure looks pissed off, doesn’t he? I wasn’t aware there was an evil world system that controls our schools. Last I checked the goverment controls the schools and I think it’s a darn good idea to keep religion out of them as much as possible. I’m trying to stay objective here, but damn it – it just isn’t working. Look, cover religion in schools. Honestly, that’d be a great idea if it could be done in a reasonably objective way. I wish I knew more about other religions, particularly major religions like Islam (a religion that impresses me more and more as I learn about it) and Hinduism. But our schools can’t become institutions pimping christianity. This country was founding by people who were escaping that kind of unilateralism and I refuse to accept that we must go backwards to that.

Okay, I’m feeling a bit better now. I’ll conclude this by linking to the publishing company of this booklet, Chick Publications, and with a digression stating that I really wish I owned the domain chick.com. I don’t know what I’d do with it, but that’s a good one.

Now I need to go throw this booklet out before it disgusts me any more. I should say first, that the kid gives his heart over to Jesus on the last page and becomes saved. He’s tearful, either with joy or sorrow – they seem to become the same thing in the christian world, so I’ll leave deciding which is which as an exercise for the reader.