Editors, the Gauntlet,
Re: His Children Comic, April 5, 2001
In his comic strip, Derek Sweet makes three supposedly contradictory statements, none of which are actually contradictory. I will show how in fact it is Sweet’s own statements that are contradictory.
The first statement made by Sweet was, "god says: ‘thou shall not kill,’ but the crusades were filled with senseless murder!" At first, this statement does seem contradictory, but we must look at those who carried out the atrocities. They were not following God. Even though the Church originally endorsed the crusades, the atrocities were not endorsed but were condemned by the Church, so those who carried out the atrocities were not following the Church or God.
The second statement Sweet made was, "People say their god is infinitely loving and compassionate yet they accept the notion that he sends some souls to hell." Since heaven is a state of perfect unity with God, it would be against his infinitely loving nature to force those who hate God to be in unity with him.
Sweet finished with, "Theists think free will is god’s greatest gift yet they oppose a pro-choice position." The problem with this argument is that then we should avoid making murder, rape, et cetera illegal because that infringes on people’s free will. Of course, we shouldn’t do this. Likewise with abortion because it is just another way of murdering a human being. This is why theists are pro-life.