Fish Symbols on Cars...and so the laughter begins

It's not a resolution, not that I don't believe in them, i'm just very very bad at keeping them. It's more of an art of seeing, a kind of concerted effort to be less of a morose cynic and more a smiling pessimist. Anyhow, whatever the bloody hell it is, I want to share a paragraph from a book I'm reading. Given to me as a gift by two wonderful humans at Christmas, the work is aptly (and some would say prophetically - for me anyway) titled 'Is it just me or is everything shit?: The Encyclopedia of Modern Life.'

Written by Steve Lowe and Alan Mcarthur it is evidently designed for anyone who thinks they have mislaid their soul in Coffee Republic...hmmm, make of that what you will. This particular paragraph concerning Fish symbols on cars though really made me smile

'Early Christians used a fish symbol to identify fellow believers during times of persecution. These days, to let people know they are really into Jesus, many Christians stick a fish sign on the back of their car. Like Baby On Board Stickers - but with God-knobs on.

In the US, these symbols have caused belief-system-related mayhem. This is because the symbols don't just mean 'I'm the nice sort of Christian who sometimes distributes hot soup to the homeless', but are more likely to mean: 'Science is witch-craft and you're all going to hell.' To underline the hard-right/anti-science/anti-abortion intent, some fish contain the word 'Bush' inside indicating that George W. is 'doing god's work'.

Incensed, humanists created their own bumper fish symbols with the word 'Darwin' inside hoping to irritate the Christian right. It worked. They didn't like it. It got nasty. Chris Gilman, the Hollywood special-effects whizz who apparently invented the darwin fish, said: 'Here's a religion about forgiveness, peace and love, but i can't tell you how many times I've heard about darwin fish being torn off of cars and broken.'

The Christians retaliated with a bumper sticker depicting the darwin fish being swallowed by a larger 'Jesus', or 'Truth', fish.

The humanists shot back with a reversed version of the sticker.

Then the Ring of Fire website produced a sticker depicting the Darwin fish and the Jesus fish forming 'what Shakespeare jauntily termed the beast with two backs' (they were at it, like knives).

Nothing will wind up a right-wing Christian more than piscine penetration faith denigration. and so it proved, with yet more car park/highway altercations.

Actually, this is possibly a good way finally to settle the evolution/creation debate: a demolition derby on the highway with the loser ending up bleeding in a ditch with bits of car stuck in them. if the Christians won, they could shout back at the twisted wreckage: 'What's that you said about survival of the fittest? I CAN'T HEAR YOU!!!'


I suppose humour (however cynical it may be) does in the end point out how ridiculously far we have fallen...God help us