Oh, Please.
1 April 2008 by Bob
I’m really surprised that the LA Times would print such bullshit. After commenting on the recent movie Fitna, this idiot says the following:
Recently, however, it seems as if Jesus fish have become outnumbered by Darwin fish. No doubt you’ve seen these too. The fish symbol is “updated” with little feet coming off the bottom, and “IXOYE” or “Jesus” is replaced with either “Darwin” or “Evolve.” I find Darwin fish offensive. First, there’s the smugness. The undeniable message: Those Jesus fish people are less evolved, less sophisticated than we Darwin fishers. The hypocrisy is even more glaring. Darwin fish are often stuck next to bumper stickers promoting tolerance or admonishing random motorists that “hate is not a family value.” But the whole point of the Darwin fish is intolerance; similar mockery of a cherished symbol would rightly be condemned as bigoted if aimed at blacks or women or, yes, Muslims. As Christopher Caldwell once observed in the Weekly Standard, Darwin fish flout the agreed-on etiquette of identity politics. “Namely: It’s acceptable to assert identity and abhorrent to attack it. A plaque with ‘Shalom’ written inside a Star of David would hardly attract notice; a plaque with ‘Usury’ written inside the same symbol would be an outrage.” But the most annoying aspect of the Darwin fish is the false bravado it represents. It’s a courageous pose without consequence. Like so much other Christian-baiting in American popular culture, sporting your Darwin fish is a way to speak truth to power on the cheap. [...] The Darwin fish ostensibly symbolizes the superiority of progressive-minded science over backward-looking faith. I think this is a false juxtaposition, but I would have a lot more respect for the folks who believe it if they aimed their brave contempt for religion at those who might behead them for it.
So, pointing out the stupidity of a religion that could actually result in your death? Good, respectable. Pointing out the stupidity of a religion that maybe won’t kill you — but, alternatively, and more than likely, would exclude you from traditional financial, familial, professional, and social dynamics? Now, that’s just offensive and disrespectful.
1 April 2008, on 2:54 pm
While all you atheists may find this funny, God does not. The fish is a sacred symbol of Christ and God will not be mocked. You need to accept Jesus into your heart and beg forgiveness of God for your sins or you will surely perish in the eternal fires of hell.
Will you please, like I just did today, give yourself to God and ask forgiveness of your sins before your souls are lost for eternity?
1 April 2008, on 3:15 pm
I might be inclined to consider this point, just as soon as chrisitans as a whole decide to give back all of their borrowed myths and appropriated holidays, and relinquish their unearned stranglehold on societal ethics. Not to mention giving up on forced school prayer,
and firing all of the government paid chaplains.
A good place to start, given the nature of this complaint, would be to remove their divisive and offensive symbols and slogans off of our money, out of our flag salute, and off of the courtroom walls. The next step might be
for them to start refusing government handouts that are paid for by all of us.
When our government has been returned to its secular origins and society is actually open to secular ideas and ideals, I might be willing to listen to such complaints. I can’t promise to take them seriously, but I might listen.
Until then, there is only one thing I can say to such hypocritical whiners: Grow the fuck up, you pathetic, ignorant, thieving little bitches!
1 April 2008, on 3:26 pm
Exactly. I mean, do I really have to be constantly assaulted with crosses around the necks of just about everyone I see? And he’s claiming that doesn’t symbolize smugness?
1 April 2008, on 4:10 pm
Bob is right. The godly folk certainly peg the meter on the smugness issue. Only the most arrogant rectum, for example, would forcibly expose me to a sermon one, two or even three times during course of my short daily commute.
I’ve never found myself on a subway car with anyone screaming passages of The Origin of the Species in my ear.
1 April 2008, on 4:12 pm
Typical neocon response.
“H-h-how can you even think of criticizing Christianity when Islam is much, much worse!”
And as for “false bravado” and posing without consequences, Jonah Goldberg, Benji Shapiro and the whole lot of those chickenhawks who extol the virtues of the war in Iraq while not volunteering to serve are perfect embodiments of such statements.
1 April 2008, on 5:15 pm
After letting myself simmer down for a moment, I went back and re-read the entire article. So many flaws, I don’t know where to begin.
His main idea is that sporting a darwin fish on your car in America is just as wrong and offensive as attempting to politically demote 1.5 billion people to subhuman status. The reader is supposed to believe that jokingly telling christians to “evolve” is on a par with restricting their immigration, forcing them into integration classes, and attacking their culture by lumping all of them in with the worst of them. Right.
Even his direct comparisons are way off the mark. I think he reads too much meaning into such silly symbols. Atheists borrowed a heavily used, commercialised symbol that millions of christians carelessly stick on everything. They put a humorous spin on it, and made it their own. Christians have been assimilating symbols and the entire cultures behind them for centuries(including the so-called “Jesus” fish itself)except generally without the sense of humour. He compares this simple symbol reversal to calling all Jews “usurers.” Even if you grant him a partial point here on principle, questioning the ruling christian paradigm is hardly the same as taking another shot at an often abused minority. Such vicious abuse these christians suffer for their Lord and his plastic crap!
Goldberg never even really addresses the issue he started with. Is this movie a needed look at radical Islam, or just the work of a pinheaded racist who wants all the darkies out of the Netherlands? Maybe both? Don’t bother asking; you’ll get no opinion from Goldberg. Just some whining about a completely unrelated issue.
From the article:
“But the most annoying aspect of the Darwin fish is the false bravado it represents. It’s a courageous pose without consequence. Like so much other Christian-baiting in American popular culture, sporting your Darwin fish is a way to speak truth to power on the cheap.”
I suggest a long look in the mirror, asshole. You were writing about a controversial film, but ended up bashing a powerless minority instead of offering any genuine insight.
One more from the article:
“It’s not that secular progressives support Muslim religious fanatics, but they reserve their passion and scorn for religious Christians who are neither fanatical nor inclined to use violence.
The Darwin fish ostensibly symbolizes the superiority of progressive-minded science over backward-looking faith. I think this is a false juxtaposition, but I would have a lot more respect for the folks who believe it if they aimed their brave contempt for religion at those who might behead them for it.”
I am no fan of Islam. It is as bad now in some places as chrisitanity was just 3-4 centuries ago. Mr. Goldberg wants all of us to go after the “real villians,” who are conveniently thousands of miles away, living in a culture that neither Goldberg nor our leaders care to investigate, understand, or help in any way that doesn’t involve racism and genocide. To hell with confronting the idiots and theocrats in MY OWN COUNTRY, let’s go get those evil muslims!
In Goldberg’s clumsily veiled opinion, secular progressives are cowards because we try to balance our outrage with careful consideration. We are also apparently cowardly bullies because some of us make a little fun of the most powerful people in the world.
Once again, we are told to sit down and shut up in our own free country, and blamed for not having all the answers to the world’s problems yet. As if Christians and Jews in the West have done anything other than enrich themselves off of the conflict and cause more problems.
It’s funny. Muslims, Jews and Chrisitians are responsible for pretty much the entire middle east mess, and the rise of radical Islam. Yet secular progressives show the greatest desire to end these conflicts peacefully, for the benefit of all. Not that we’ll get any credit if we do.
1 April 2008, on 5:30 pm
above, #4 Tommykey writes:
‘Typical neocon response.’
“H-h-how can you even think of criticizing Christianity when Islam is much, much worse!”
(endquote)
Yep.
Unfortunately this is not far removed either from Sam Harris’s line or Christopher Hitchens’s these days.
Yeah, it (Islam) is worse, but that doesn’t mean Christianity gets a free pass. And who has much more power and influence (and therefore capacity to F*CK me over, or try to) where *I* live…yeah, that’s what I thought.
Honor killings in Pakistan or Saudi Arabia–horrible as they are–that’s someone else’s problem, not my country’s. Here we deal with Operation Rescue-style fanatics, Dominionists, homophobic bullying Jesus freaks, etc.
If we had a 9/11 event every other day, and Muslim suicide bombers in our streets, rampant vigilante beheadings for blaspheming Allah or Mohammed, etc., then I might change my mind, but until then…and if any local Muslim commits a so-called honor killing in my home county, I’d vote for the death penalty if serving on that jury and convinced of the prosecution’s case.
Goldberg is just a lying gas-bag.
And what a butt kisser, too:
“Like so much other Christian-baiting in American popular culture, sporting your Darwin fish is a way to speak truth to power on the cheap.”
…And so taking the same logic, for the Christian sporting a Jesus fish is a flashy way to wear your faith on your sleeve without any serious commitments/sacrifices or really trying to understand their own religion?
oo00oh…take that beam out of your own eye, eh, brother?
Slightly OT, I don’t sport a Jesus fish on my car, but I do have a chrome Peace symbol which has gotten my car egged more than once by my fellow countrymen in the dark of night while I slept. While it’s possible the offender was also a fellow atheist, I kind of doubt it, somehow.
1 April 2008, on 5:36 pm
Technically, the Darwin fish isn’t an attack on christinsanity but, rather, on science denial. Yes the fish has been appropriated for this message and yes those who deny science are, in general, religious of one stripe or another. I mean, just because I’m declaring “I’m NOT an idiot” on my bumper doesn’t necessarily imply that you are. It might but not necessarily. You know, if the undesired shoe fits, blame your feet, not the cobbler.
1 April 2008, on 6:12 pm
Yeah! Um - what Neil and Raindog said.
Mr. Automatic-Free-Pass-for-My-Religion is also freely disregarding the fact that many secularists/atheists/humanists do criticize Islam and especially its nasty fundamentalist sects and adherents on a regular basis as well, but I for one don’t see Muslim symbols (what are they, anyway? Is the crescent-and-star a widely accepted symbol for all the branches like the cross is for xianity?) anywhere around me, at least not on a regular basis (although I do realize that may not be so for other regions of the country, like where Star lives, for example). I therefore have very little reason to flash a counter-sign to it.
On the bright side, I saw my first FSM-fish symbol “in the flesh” on a car bumper this weekend, in Hollywood, Florida - whoo-hoo!
1 April 2008, on 8:08 pm
Folks, rules are rules.
[1] They can display their symbols.
[1a] They can whine, plead, curse, berate and propagandize for the placement of their symbols on government-owned property.
[2] Anything that indicates our beliefs is not to be displayed. (After all, people are sensitive.)
Seems simple to me.
1 April 2008, on 8:53 pm
Jonah is the whale. What a dickwad.
1 April 2008, on 9:18 pm
Religion is profane and ridiculous.
He wrote an article on why a bumper sticker is offensive because it mimics his “magic jebus fish” bumper sticker?
And this guy walks around unsupervised?
1 April 2008, on 9:26 pm
Wasn’t the “Jesus fish” symbol stolen from the symbol for a pagan fertility goddess’s genitals? The christians just took it and flipped it 90 degrees. Voila, a “fish.” Heh heh.
I always laugh whenever I see one of those stupid “Truth” fish eating a Darwin fish. The driver of the car is advertising to the world what a completely oblivious idiot he/she is. “Hey everyone, I ignore conventional facts and reality in favor of a fairy tale! Take that, you meanie Darwinists!”
1 April 2008, on 11:59 pm
All great responses so far. Jonah is clearly an ass. That “usurer” thing he cited was a false analogy. I know he didn’t come up with it but he cited it. That analogy is not the same as the Darwin fish. The analogy would be, literally a Darwin star. I mean, the Genesis story is Jewish. It’s yet another thing, like the damn fish, that the christians usurped. In fact, that might be a proper analogy to the usurer star, a usurper fish.
2 April 2008, on 12:37 am
April Fools, Spirula! (#1) You can’t fool me! LOL!
2 April 2008, on 12:55 am
I mean, the Genesis story is Jewish. It’s yet another thing, like the damn fish, that the christians usurped. In fact, that might be a proper analogy to the usurer star, a usurper fish.
Yeah, and the Jews usurped it from the Babylonians and Sumerians, who probably usurped it from somebody else before them.
Also, there’s already been at least one Muslim honor killing reported in Detroit. There’ll be more to come.
2 April 2008, on 2:26 am
Wow, I cant believe how direspectful you all are - didn’t you notice that you all typed lower case t’s? That looks just like the Jesusitanis’ symbol! How intolerant and bigoted of you! Oh no, now I’ve done it too! What a black hole of morality this thread has become…
Seriously though, I am no Rosie O’Donnel and anyone who knows me knows that I sure as heck don’t reserve my critisim of the superstitious abandon of rational thought for these fish worshipping jesusheads. At risk of sounding like I may have a corner of common ground with the cockblocker who shat out this stain on the LA Times papers, I do appreciate that I live in a country dominated by modern christianity rather than modern Islam! The best trait of modern american christianity is that it is relatively washed down and secularized in comparison to other religions in history and elsewhere globally - which doesn’t say a damn thing about christianity in and of itself. Obviously, we should be more secular a society, and there is work to be done to make this happen.
Just watched Fitwa on youtube… warning to those who don’t want to see beheadings. I must say that I think the producer of the film is getting a raw deal by much of the press… I mean it would be politically expedient for an atheist to try and block any historical film about the atrocities that happened in the USSR (although Stalin was not inspired by literal interpretations of an atheist holy book, but bear with me…), but I as an atheist would advocate for rational rather than atheism. Sorry for getting off track, but someone mentioned the lack of discussing of this controversial film, so I thought I’d give it a go.
Great post though bobby - priceless example of a lack of thought. “Evolution of religious bigotry” give me a fricken break.
2 April 2008, on 2:31 am
CORRECTION TO COMMENT 17
I meant that as an atheist I would advocate for rational rather than cencorship through death threats. Sorry for the fuckup.
2 April 2008, on 9:51 am
I think you missed who the author was - Jonah Goldberg. The same imbecile that published the book “Liberal Fascism”. He lives on publishing tripe like this. He, as do fundies, invents his own reality and insists that it is superior to the one actually transpiring around him.
Don’t take him seriously. By the same token, the LA Times for carrying him should also not be taken seriously.
T
2 April 2008, on 2:10 pm
the original jimmy dean:
The netherlander who put that thing together is a neo-nazi style racist.
2 April 2008, on 3:02 pm
Christianity doesn’t own the rights to the fish as a symbol. As others have said, they usurped it themselves. Anyway, it’s not the cross the Darwin symbol is playing on, so what’s the big deal?
Hear, hear!
Now, I must go order a Darwin fish for my car.
2 April 2008, on 3:36 pm
He’s just now writing outraged pieces about Darwin fish? What next, he’s going to complain about that commercial where the old lady shouts “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up!”???
2 April 2008, on 4:34 pm
Marc-Goldberg probably would, if there was any money involved.
But just like with this article, all one has to say in reply is:
“Where’s the Beef?!?”
Between his ears, I’m thinking.
3 April 2008, on 1:54 am
You know, I actually agree with Goldberg, and will henceforth, as a sign of contrition be replacing my Darwin fish with a full bumper-sized image of “piss-christ.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piss_Christ
3 April 2008, on 2:01 am
“Darwin fish are often stuck next to bumper stickers promoting tolerance or admonishing random motorists that “hate is not a family value.” But the whole point of the Darwin fish is intolerance;”
Goldberg is comparing intolerance of people to intolerance of irrational beliefs. How can this even get past the modestly skeptical individual? Way to compare apples to oranges, you fatuous fuck-face.
3 April 2008, on 2:26 pm
Everything the author of that article has said about Darwin-fish-displayers is true (or even truer of people who slap Jesus fish on everything.
3 April 2008, on 9:18 pm
I live in a town where a lot of the local merchants display Jesus fish in their yellow page adds. Isn’t that considered taking the lord’s name in vain? Isn’t this what Jesus threw a fit over with the merchants in the temple? These people are cheapening a “sacred” symbol by parading it around, simply to push their wares.
Somehow, I doubt we will find Mr. Goldberg up in arms about this.
7 April 2008, on 3:31 pm
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21 April 2008, on 11:40 pm
When my sons stayed home for middle school because of failing grades and bully problems, I woke up to find myself in the morass of homeschooling jebus people all around me. If they weren’t calvary chapel people they were mormons or church of christ or catholic or whatever dumb ass jesus shit they were into. and i can tell you that the strangest thing about these people is how convinced they are that they are persecuted. Oh! How they whine and cry when someone tells them to shut up about jesus! how they freak when they see people staring at their “Turn or Burn” tshirts! They have a mass delusion that the country is crawling with atheists ready to imprison them for their jebus faith. Hey, i have an idea….