Religion In The Comics - 026

This week's installment comes from Topix Comics, Volume 5 Number 3. Published by the Catechetical Guild. Cover dated December 1946. These righteous publishers also produced other comics like Treasure Chest and some other titles featured here on RITC.







Wikipedia refers to this story as "Alleged". Some sources say the cast still exists while others say no. There are no pictures of it. Scientists have not been able to examine it. Therefore, it has all the authenticity of the Piltdown Man.
While I can accept some of the elements of the story as possible, there is one aspect of the story I would like to call BS on. It's the same BS that gets added to many stories of religious martyrs, and that's the myth that they could have saved themselves if only they renounced their faith.

It doesn't work that way, never has. If the Romans found you carrying a concealed crucifix, they fed you to the lions. When the Nazis identified you as a Jew, they put you on the train. They didn't give you a chance to opt out by converting to Christianity. When ISIS captures someone not of their ilk, it's "All knees shall bow" and off with their heads. The idea that someone would choose to die rather than tell a lie, and that's really all it would be, is ludicrous.

No one is that idealistic. People have changed their religion like they change their shirt. (I got alerted on for saying that in a previous thread) People change their faith to get married or to keep harmony among relatives. So I'm supposed to believe that someone would choose death instead of saying what their executioner wanted to hear? No way. That choice was never offered. Not to Geronimo or anyone else.

So why does this BS get added to tales like this? It's just another BS aspect of religion. The tale is compelling enough. A man is killed because of religious persecution. So why add the phony bit about being given a chance to spare his life "if only" he switches faith? I think it's a feeble attempt to add religious heroism in order to glorify their God. The same God who abandoned them to die. Now that's religious irony, and that's no BS.