In America, the easiest place to find this ancient symbol is on the back of cars.

I would have thought that in America the easiest place to find this ancient symbol would be inside churches, particularly Catholic churches. I haven’t seen a Jesus fish or a Darwin fish on the back of a car in years (although there has been an uptick in brake light housings held on by electrical tape). Maybe the Elaine/Putty theological dispute on Seinfeld began the end of the trend.

“IXOYE”? No, Jonah, the Greek word for fish is not “ixoye.” It is, in fact, ichthys. See, Jonah, the Greeks use a whole different alphabet to write their language. So their letter that looks like an X is really “Chi,” pronounced like the “ch” in “Bach.”

My favorite Jesusfish variation is the one with the curly Hebraic letters spelling out “Gefilte.”

Alex, I’ll take “Author’s write their own life summaries for $200″:

It’s a courageous pose without consequence.

As Christians are a minority in this county and lack even the simplest rudimentary shelters where they can congregate

If God had meant there to be obscenely large mega-churches with football-field-sizedparking lots he would have created them.

[. . .]the false bravado it represents. It’s a courageous pose without consequence.

Oh, gee, Jonah, like “THESE COLORS DON’T RUN” or “terrorist hunting licenses” or “LOVE IT OR LEAVE IT” or, dare I say, yellow ribbons?

It’s mighty nice of these wingers to show such care for the feelings of others. First, Roger el Simon chews out Obama on behalf of black people. Now, Goldberg expresses outrage on behalf of people whose deep religious convictions are best expressed through a plastic fish.

Coming soon: childless Virgin Ben espouses the virtue of people who care enough to post warning signs that their minivan has a Baby on Board…

The Darwin fish is a response to the perceived smugness of the Jesus fish. It goes around in a circle.

Tbogg doesn’t disappoint.
But then Goldberg doesn’t either- Serving up the softballs.
Liberal fishism.

LA Times, suck on this.

I just wonder which is the bigger stretch: Fitma to Darwin fish in 10 paragraphs? or Mussolini to me in one book with a smiley-face?

My brother has a T-rex eating the fish on his bumper.

Run, don’t walk, to this:

John Derbyshire’s take down of Jonah’s Save the Fish column. A fellow Cornerite rips him a new one.
Oh what a beautiful day this has turned out to be.

Ok, so I still can’t figure out this advance comment stuff. Here’s the link for you all to cut-n-paste while I read up on this newfangled computer thing

http://corner.nationalreview.c…..AxNDhlMjU=

Jonah doesn’t know the difference between a courageous pose and a joke. It’s sad, really.

I like the FSM fish best, though the Cthulhu fish is also very nice.

You had me at “magnum dopus.”

You had me at “magnum dopus.”

Me too. Someone should really catalogue all the words and phrases Tbogg has coined.

My favorite Jesusfish variation is the one with the curly Hebraic letters spelling out “Gefilte.”

Ah, yes! When one of the local rabbis in town spotted that on the back of our priest’s car (we gave it to said priest for Christmas one year) he begged and pleaded for his own. So now both the priest and the rabbi have one, and I’ve been asked by several other people how to get one. The “gefilte” Jesus fish shouldn’t annoy Jonah — after all Jesus was Jewish and isn’t gefilte fish a Jewish dish?

Doughy, of course, was unaware that in Turkish society, the fish actually stands for “Meet me behind the dumpsters in five minutes. Bring some hummus.”

I find Darwin fish offensive. First, there’s the smugness.

As I said at No More Mister Nice Blog: because there’s nothing smug at all about sending a message to the world that says “I’m saved and you’re not…SUCKER!” Nope, that’s definitely not smug…

I may come up with an erect Darwin fish with a fishing pole and a Jesus fish on the end of the line. Followed by a family of Darwin fish with a Jesus fish on a platter. Would that be the true last supper? I mean, the man DID say eat my flesh and drink my blood, or somesuch, didn’t he?

John Derbyshire’s take down of Jonah’s Save the Fish column. A fellow Cornerite rips him a new one.
Oh what a beautiful day this has turned out to be.

Christ-on-a-crutch, is there a bigger windbag out there than Derbyshire?
Shorter Derby: I’m not sure what I think, but I think the Darwinists are being meanies.

It’s actually worse than that:

IXOYE is what he sees when he looks at the Jesus fish…but what he sees as O is actually theta (a circle with a horizontal bar through the middle) and makes a “th” sound (i.e., not a vowel), while the E is actually sigma (s), also not a vowel. At least the “Y” is vaguely close…

ΙΧΘΥΣ is the real spelling.

Did you read the same comment I read? Here’s how Derbyshire ends his comment:
“…my main point of disagreement with Jonah is the implication in his piece that I should not engage in intra-tribal mockery, even of the borderline ill-mannered kind, until I have first made a clear declaration of my attitude toweards the hostile tribe in the next valley. Does everybody have to have an opinion about everything?”
He’s making it pretty clear he doesn’t see any reason to be offended by a Darwin fish. Yes, he’s a conservative on NRO – as is Pantload – so he goes out of his way to be nice and throw all sorts of caveats around, but to get from that to the point of his post was to agree with Doughy and criticize Darwin fish displayers shows a pretty sloppy reading of what he wrote.

“Christians persecuted by the Romans used to draw the Jesus fish in the dirt with a stick or a finger as a way to tip off fellow Christians that they weren’t alone.”

Now it’s used widely by appliance repairmen, other businessmes and politicians to scam money from the faithful.

There’s also nothing smug about writing a book called “Liberal Fascism”, and putting a smiley face with a Hitler moustache on the cover. Nope, nothing smug at all.

I’m guessing Jonah would really, really hate the one The Mrs has on her car (a dinosaur eating a Jesus fish) and the one on my car (with a Darwin fish … um … “hugging” a Jesus fish … from behind).

I don’t consider either “smug.”

I do, however, consider both admittedly and proudly-made cheap shots at the self-righteous asshats who insist on displaying their religious beliefs on their sleeves, car bumpers, or anywhere else.

I demand Jonah condemn the hypocrisy of those who put Jesus fish on the back of their cars next to the “Mazda” name. Seriously, WTF? Why are you even driving a Mazda? I don’t have a “Blessings Be” sticker on the back of my Toyota Christ, fer pity’s sake.

As to the lame anecdote about the business card, hey, if you and the guy trying to communicate a concept to you don’t share a language, there are these things, we call “symbols”, that sometimes can do that better than flowery declarations of faith through a megaphone. Either Jonah’s a bigger fool than I ever thought, or he thinks men are so terrified of being found out that they covertly communicate where their toilets are through that occult design known as the Stick Figure. I can only imagine his confusion over the stick figure on the other door. Since he’s not part of the club, he obviously wouldn’t know what it means at all, ’cause of all Teh Secrecy.

The world must be a vast, confusing vista of vaguely-sensed hidden codes to Jonah.

In every cheap Biblical film epic I’ve ever seen, the persecuted Christians’ secret high five usually consisted of a cross being scratched in the dirt. And Christian outrage coming from a guy named Goldberg? Choice! (I know; the Orcan Mommy, the one that excreted Doughy from some hole in her nether regions back when, was not a heathen, like the Jew she married. Jonah’s a bi.)

The image of that tub of corn syrup dancing with Dervish’s in Turkey still has me reeling.

the Flying Spaghetti Monster on the back of my car says “Fuck You Jonah, You Piece Of Shit”.

Really.

He’s making it pretty clear he doesn’t see any reason to be offended by a Darwin fish. Yes, he’s a conservative on NRO – as is Pantload – so he goes out of his way to be nice and throw all sorts of caveats around, but to get from that to the point of his post was to agree with Doughy and criticize Darwin fish displayers shows a pretty sloppy reading of what he wrote.

CvilleBob,

Not a sloppy reading, I understand your point (and his). I was just making a general observation along the lines of this quote, i.e. why all the caveats and the windbaginess (is that a word? let’s ask Derby). The caveats ARE the issue here. Even when these department store mannequins realize they are wrong, they still can’t come right out and say it. That’s my point. It has to be couched in, “well, it is still verrrry rude”. But, you are right, this is a small victory.

Perfect, Ruthie.

what jonah is too young/clueless to know is that the commercially produced silver fish decal wasn’t originally an expresion of christian faith. it was an endorsement of creationism that first appeared in the ’70’s. (no pretext about intelligent design back then.)

so the darwinian fish aren’t gratuitous sneering, they are a response to the pre-scientific pig igonrance of the faithful*.

the best counter-fish i’ve ever seen has …
a fish
containing the word ‘darwin’
and the fish has feet
and the forefoot is holding a wrench

—
*apologies to any pigs reading this post.

also it occurs to me that the correct title for this entry should be ’so long, and thanks for all the …’

oh, never mind

We have a Jesus fish that says “& chips” – Darwin, schmarwin, nothing beats a good fish-and-chips with malt vinegar!

Next to my Darwin fish is a bumper sticker that proclaims “We have the fossils. We win”

Smug my ass. Remember, all religions are fairy tales.