Famous Words in Webcomic Form: "Zen Pencils" Gives New Voice to Powerful Ideas

Image credit: Gavin Aun Thang & Zen Pencils

Somewhere between Calvin and Hobbes, Mohandas Gandhi, and Steve Jobs, there's an Internet gem called Zen Pencils.  And it's changing lives.

At its most basic level, Zen Pencils is a webcomic, part of a genre of art and story-telling born from the unique technological and self-publishing opportunities of the Internet. (Examples range from XKCD, an innovative and sardonic comic told entirely with stick figures, to Sheldon, a three-panel strip about a naïve and rich child genius and his talking duck.)

But Zen Pencils is unique in its genre. Each beautifully crafted strip is created from a quotation by some of history’s and literature's greatest figures, including Nelson Mandela, C.S. Lewis, and Carl Sagan. The footnotes to these comics are well-researched and insightful – a great reason to read the comic in its own right.

Zen Pencils is the result of creator Gavin Aung Than's decision to make a living as a freelance artist, instead of through a graphic design job. The project went from virtually unknown to signing a book deal in a little less than three years. The entrepreneurial bent is obvious in comics like “Make Gifts for People” and “What If Money Was No Object?” The comic also seems to favor the work of famous anti-theists like Richard Dawkins and Caitlin Moran.

Most importantly, Zen Pencils is having life-changing impacts on its readers.  The accompanying blog is full of stories of readers who decided to take a leap and do something they never had the courage to do before, like take an overseas trip or start a business. Clearly these are powerful words.

Ultimately, Zen Pencils asks a new generation to wrestle with the dangerously powerful ideas that continue to shape the world, in a creative way all its own. With that idea, Axis couldn't agree more. We’re all for something that encourages an apathetic and distracted generation to leave its apathy behind and begin thinking, even when it’s hard. And it's an added bonus when that thinking leads to action and changed lives.

The best thing any parent can do throughout the journey is be there . . . to ask tough questions, to guide them, to offer wisdom, to listen to their questions and doubts, to love them, and to help them become thoughtful adults who know why they believe what they believe.

Lucas Zellers is a regular contributor to the Axis blog and a former intern.

What to Do With the Ham-Nye Debate

By now, you might be tempted to pick sides and conclude in favor of one or the other. But there's something I'd like you to know about the recent debate between Bill Nye “the Science Guy” and Ken Ham, founder of Answers in Genesis and the Creation Museum.

Nobody won. Though the debate was well conducted, civil, highly instructive, and illustrative of the struggle for Christian thought in the scientific community, nobody won.

From the beginning, this debate was not set up to declare a winner. I've experienced enough academic or parliamentary debate to know that it has a specific, complex structure and set of rules, which allow it to conclude the truth or falsehood of a given statement (i.e. have a resolution). A skilled judge could follow the arguments presented and refuted by both sides and “flow” the sum total of those arguments to either the affirmative or negative side, without any prior knowledge or bias toward the topic of debate (a concept known as tabula rasa, Latin for “blank slate”).

This debate lacked the specific structure that makes academic debate work: the topic of debate was a question, not a statement that could be declared true or false; a specific set of arguments was not presented and discussed throughout; and the speeches given were not ordered or timed so as to maximize give-and-take on those arguments.

This debate was not mud in the eye for evolutionists or a trouncing for creationists—it was never supposed to be. It was more intellectual theater than academic debate—which is probably just as well, because I've also experienced enough academic debate to know that it can be insufferably boring.  

That being the case, I'd like to present a more effective way to react to this debate: treat it as a snapshot of the tension between the scientific and Christian communities, as well as an itemized list of the most important arguments being discussed, and use it as a primer for a comprehensive self-education in this intersection of science and philosophy.

Bill's face and Ken's hands --
also very consistent throughout the debate

Rhetoricians spend a lot of time looking at what students do repeatedly, as a way of helping them realize their shortcomings and improve their technique. The process holds true here: the fundamental issues of this debate are the ones to which the speakers constantly returned. Nye constantly referred to “science as practiced on the outside,” “conventional scientists,” and “the mainstream,” while Ham referred to a perceived exclusion of creationists from the scientific community and portrayed evolution as a religion of naturalism that leads to moral relativism. Nye stressed that the creation model has “no predictive quality” and therefore no relevance to the method of science; Ham repeated that the mechanism of evolution does not introduce new information or function and therefore cannot explain the origin of man. 

Perhaps most importantly, Nye's philosophy treats the acquisition of scientific knowledge as the highest goal a man can pursue—meaning “I don't know” is a perfectly acceptable answer—while Ham's philosophy treats the Biblical account as the final and perfect answer, making scientific exploration a function of worship and divine revelation.

It's apparent from this reading that both men have a definite worldview that answers to their own satisfaction the same fundamental questions of philosophy. The war between these worldviews is being fought in battles like radiometric dating methods, geological layers and the fossil record,  Lake Missoula, the improbability of the Ark, speciation and genetic “kinds,” the Australian land bridge, the expansion of the universe, and plate tectonics. Wherever you fall on the spectrum of origins beliefs, let this debate serve as a reminder that worldviews and debates should be based on evidence. If you wish to reduce the tension between faith and science, then take some time to study these topics and follow the evidence—all of it—where it leads.

The Nye-Ham debate was fascinating and influential because it pitted the man of faith and the man of science against each other. However, reconciling them should be the aim of every scientific apologetic. They are not at odds, as this debate seemed to suggest; instead, they should be one and the same.

You can watch the Nye-Ham debate at www.debatelive.org for a few more weeks. For further reading, consult the following articles:

http://www.dailydot.com/politics/bill-nye-ken-ham-debate-creationism/

http://www.kevinbywater.com/bill-nye-vs-ken-ham-quick-thoughts/

http://www.evolutionnews.org/2014/02/the_ham-nye_deb081911.html

Lucas Zellers is a writer and speech coach working in south-eastern Ohio. He competed successfully at the national level in college forensics for two years and has earned a Bachelor's degree in comprehensive communication from Cedarville University.

What Cigarette Do You Smoke Doctor?

Isn’t it ironic when you drive by the entrance to a hospital and see a group of doctors and nurses smoking? It’s amazing how the very people who are responsible for promoting health, are the same one’s who are knowingly polluting their bodies and destroying their lungs.

Smoking wasn’t always viewed as a bad thing for your body. In fact, in 1949 when this commercial was made smoking was a status symbol, and seemed to be as innocent as eating candy. Now smoking commercials are banned, and many American’s would love to see smoking made illegal.

It’s amazing how easily deceived we can be in our culture, especially when we are misinformed. We as a culture, have been socialized into trusting whatever a person in a white jacket tells us is true. We have been trained to look at the “experts”, and follow their guidance. This is not always a bad thing, especially if your doctor suggests by-pass surgery to save your life. But this commercial from 1949 does bring up an interesting question: How many people were deceived into smoking cigarettes and destroying their bodies because a guy in a white coat told them smoking was okay?

Today, our culture is filled with “doctors” and “experts” on every subject. Think about the amount of shows on TV devoted to the medical profession. House, Grey’s Anatomy, Private Practice, ER, General Hospital, Nip/Tuck, The Listener, Royal Pains, HawthoRNe, and Nurse Jackie just to name a few! Obviously these doctor’s and nurses are just characters in TV drama, but they are still teaching us ideas about life, God, relationships, and our identity in this world. Whether it’s the idea of giving into your bi-sexual desires, encouraging a woman to have an abortion, or simply that not all lives are worth saving, these people are trying to teach us something.

Even CNN and Fox News are filled with “experts” telling us that according to them someone has messed up the way life is supposed to work in this country. Whether it’s in the 1970’s where the scientists were warning about global cooling, or today when they are worried about global warming, they all have an agenda and a message. Eugenics, euthanasia, abortion, and many other “important” medical discoveries and processes come from “experts”, but a few years later, when you turn around and look at them again, it looks a lot like a doctor smoking a cigarette.

So whats the point? The point is not that we need to go into our doctor’s offices, and question everything the stethoscope man says about strep throat. But just because a guy wears a white coat or a woman is speaking from a college platform doesn’t mean that we can simply absorb what they are saying as true without analyzing the content. See, the issue is not unanswered questions, because there will always be a new discovery of something we don’t know anything about. The issue is instead unquestioned answers, the answers that the “experts” of our culture preach that we internalize without deciding if they are true ideas or not. In 1 Corinthians 10:4 Paul says, “Brothers do not be children in your thinking. Be infants in evil, but in your thinking be mature.” We can’t just believe what we hear from an expert, just because it comes from an expert. We have to analyze what they say, to make sure what they are saying is true.

Whether it’s a fictitious doctor from Grey’s Anatomy, or a real expert from Harvard University, we must be on our guard. Trusting the experts can save our lives, but it can also give us lung cancer. Just because our culture tells us to listen to an expert, doesn’t mean we need to shut down our minds and believe everything they say.