Comment post #1

Okay, my first case of post-cheating by putting up comments I made at another site. Maybe there's not a real good point to this, but I find, especially when I'm in a funk, that I do much better at responding to statements than originating one. Maybe because what someone else has said gives me something to focus on, I don't know. Doesn't matter.

Anyway, poster child for dipshits Jonah Goldberg had a column in the Los Angeles Times recently, noted at Orcinus, in which he declared the little car attachments displaying fish with feet and saying "Darwin" to be an "offensive" display by people who think they're better than Christians. It was typically petulant and whiny, punctuated by the bizarre assertion that he could take the people with Darwin symbols more seriously if they would attack Muslims. My comment:

I grew up Roman Catholic and while I was aware of the fish symbolism, I do not recall a single occasion when I heard it referred to as, what did Goldberg call it, "a cherished symbol" of Christianity. The only truly "cherished symbol," at least in my upbringing, was the cross.

(Sidebar: According to what I've been given to understand, Goldberg has the origin wrong. It did not arise from the loaves and fishes miracle but from Jesus' saying that the first apostles - who were fishermen - would henceforth be "fishers of men." Thus, as a Christian you were among those who had been "gathered up" into the faith. And, of course, there was been religious symbolism using fish long before Christianity.)

Which means, as would be obvious to anyone less insecure in their socio-political beliefs than Goldberg apparently is, the Darwin symbol is in no way a "mockery" of the fish symbol, although it is in some ways a response to it.

A critical point which Goldberg - naturally - leaves out is that the popularity of the fish symbol as bumper sticker and car magnet arose in conjunction with the increased assertion of right wing Christianity; it's meaning, in that context, was not simply "I am a Christian" but "I am a fundamentalist Christian" with its associated belief in Biblical inerrancy.

The Darwin symbol was a way of answering "I believe in the Bible" with "I believe in science." That is a positive assertion of belief and can be considered a negative attack only in the very narrow sense that any expression of a different conviction can be regarded as such.

Just who is attacking who is illustrated by the "truth" pin [illustrated at the original post]. "Darwin" - shorthand for evolution (and thus most all of modern biology) - is to be swallowed by capital-T "Truth," such "truth" being something that no scientist (or anyone who understands science) - distinctly unlike the fundamentalists - would ever claim to know.

By the way, in the course of checking on my memory re: fish symbolism, I can across a fun site about "the fish wars." This is the link.

Doesn't it seem that for people who act like they have "Get Over It" tattooed on their foreheads for all others to see, right-wingers are awfully quick to gripe and sniffle about some imagined offense? I've called them whining crybabies; someone in comments at the Orcinus post used another phrase I like: drama queens of the right wing. I think I'll be using that.

Footnote: You can read David Neiwert's post and all other comments at this link.