Healthy Skepticism
Oct. 26th, 2010 02:57 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rinueHaving never seen it before, I have twice this week noticed line drawings of a T-Rex eating a Christian fish, which I find delightful because - T-Rex on a rampage! I'm no longer 11, but some things do not get old.
I have always liked the Christian fish (a.k.a the Icthus Symbol), although unfortunately not most people who wield it. (Which has more to do with my feelings about the proper role of bumper stickers than anything else.*) Where the cross symbolizes the resurrection, which is a nice thought but not particularly relevant to the day-to-day, the fish symbolizes the altogether more practical miracle of the loaves and fishes, and was used as a secret identification code between Christians during a time when to be a Christian was criminal. In other words, the fish is about social justice, both fairly distributing resources and recognizing the hidden needs and support of those around you. As such, it more accurately represents my own faith.
Similarly, I like the semiotics of the Darwin fish; apart from being clever (which goes a long way), it elegantly embodies either of two not-mutually-exclusive viewpoints: that the theory of evolution has supplanted the need for belief in a creator god, and that one can integrate a belief in both science and religion, as in fact Darwin did. Both (or all three) beliefs are eminently acceptable and well expressed in the graphic.
The truth fish eating the Darwin fish, on the other hand, is nonsense with a poor grasp of symbology, Christianity, and evolution. As though anyone believes evolution dogmatically and in the face of evidence.** As though the Christian faith is about rejecting the truth of the senses. Even Jesus in the wilderness says "get behind me, Satan," not that the kingdom he offers doesn't exist. The truth fish is pure uninformed bullying nastiness.
Fish-eating T-Rex, though. Fish-eating T-Rex could mean that attempts to pretend away dinosaurs have subsumed Christianity and made it a small and vanishing faith. Or it could mean that T-Rex is on a rampage and eats anything in his path. As someone who just ate far too much for dinner and is uncomfortably full, I certainly identify.
Ciro and I ate at Cafe Brazil for possibly the last time. Our first night as a couple was spent talking in the alley behind Cafe Brazil, a liminal railroad-tracked space. This was somewhat coincidence and somewhat inevitable; we've both spent a lot of the last decade there. I usually don't feel as though leaving a place is momentous, even if I'm unlikely to return; travel now is so fast and communication so instant that nowhere really feels far away. But this move feels different, like we're getting on a boat to cross an ocean, back when that meant months of travel at such expense as to be unrepeatable. In this case, it feels strange to think we will be back next year, presumably, to premiere Hayseeds.***
*Entertainment or beautification only, never bragging or lecturing. It's not fair to a captive audience who can neither talk back nor, in a practical sense, leave the road to avoid you. I see it as terribly rude, even when I agree with, for instance, the candidate a sticker supports. A notable exception is the HRC sticker, which seems to extend a hand and say "whoever you are, I recognize you as human."
**I know from whence I speak; in my younger days, I had many creationist friends who gradually became less creationist after enough calm but firm explanations of why the lack of a fish-cat hybrid was not a smoking gun against evolution. I get that evolution is not intuitive, but it's testable and consistent. Unlike, say, old testament God. Which is not a knock on him; it's just not what he was about. I've never rated the conflict between religion and science; one is concerned with how and the other properly confines itself to why.
I'll grant that I am often able to believe two contradictory things at once, including being able to see that they are and are not contradictory. Last week, Uncle Rex found an object which according to him was a message from the universe telling him everything would be ok, and I know it was not cosmic coincidence because I placed the object where he would find it, not more than a week after offering it to him openly, which he has forgotten.
And yet, am I not part of the universe? Is he not going to be fine? I can be comforted by a tarot reading and find it true and also find it random nonsense. I am skeptical of the existence of ghosts and skeptical of my own skepticism concerning same. This is perhaps best termed "science mind," and is a capability of most humans, but some don't seem to realize they're doing it and others are threatened by the whole concept when they notice. I can't imagine not noticing. Or I can, but I'm sure it's not accurate.
***Another factor for me is the erasure of memory I had to do post-Patrick as I discovered more and more areas where I'd been deceived or openly lied to about events. Eventually, I figured I could either obsess over trying to put things straight and realign my memories of what happened, inquest style, with interviews and evidence, or that I could just place all memories in which he was prominent into a big "not verifiable" box and stop building any connections to or conclusions from that data. Which was a big chunk of time. The way it felt is well represented in these stories by people not me, although my experience was less dramatic. I doubt even that it happened, since it seems so implausible and overreactive to dismiss everything in that way. It makes me sad that I can't look back on the good times or continue loose acquaintances met through him, because one has to question how much they were real. Hence safer to categorize as noise rather than signal. So Dallas for me embodies not just a layering of memories and associations, but a deliberate erasure of same, which adds an anxious surreality to much of my experience of the city, a muddy smudge of ground-in pencil lead.
I have always liked the Christian fish (a.k.a the Icthus Symbol), although unfortunately not most people who wield it. (Which has more to do with my feelings about the proper role of bumper stickers than anything else.*) Where the cross symbolizes the resurrection, which is a nice thought but not particularly relevant to the day-to-day, the fish symbolizes the altogether more practical miracle of the loaves and fishes, and was used as a secret identification code between Christians during a time when to be a Christian was criminal. In other words, the fish is about social justice, both fairly distributing resources and recognizing the hidden needs and support of those around you. As such, it more accurately represents my own faith.
Similarly, I like the semiotics of the Darwin fish; apart from being clever (which goes a long way), it elegantly embodies either of two not-mutually-exclusive viewpoints: that the theory of evolution has supplanted the need for belief in a creator god, and that one can integrate a belief in both science and religion, as in fact Darwin did. Both (or all three) beliefs are eminently acceptable and well expressed in the graphic.
The truth fish eating the Darwin fish, on the other hand, is nonsense with a poor grasp of symbology, Christianity, and evolution. As though anyone believes evolution dogmatically and in the face of evidence.** As though the Christian faith is about rejecting the truth of the senses. Even Jesus in the wilderness says "get behind me, Satan," not that the kingdom he offers doesn't exist. The truth fish is pure uninformed bullying nastiness.
Fish-eating T-Rex, though. Fish-eating T-Rex could mean that attempts to pretend away dinosaurs have subsumed Christianity and made it a small and vanishing faith. Or it could mean that T-Rex is on a rampage and eats anything in his path. As someone who just ate far too much for dinner and is uncomfortably full, I certainly identify.
Ciro and I ate at Cafe Brazil for possibly the last time. Our first night as a couple was spent talking in the alley behind Cafe Brazil, a liminal railroad-tracked space. This was somewhat coincidence and somewhat inevitable; we've both spent a lot of the last decade there. I usually don't feel as though leaving a place is momentous, even if I'm unlikely to return; travel now is so fast and communication so instant that nowhere really feels far away. But this move feels different, like we're getting on a boat to cross an ocean, back when that meant months of travel at such expense as to be unrepeatable. In this case, it feels strange to think we will be back next year, presumably, to premiere Hayseeds.***
*Entertainment or beautification only, never bragging or lecturing. It's not fair to a captive audience who can neither talk back nor, in a practical sense, leave the road to avoid you. I see it as terribly rude, even when I agree with, for instance, the candidate a sticker supports. A notable exception is the HRC sticker, which seems to extend a hand and say "whoever you are, I recognize you as human."
**I know from whence I speak; in my younger days, I had many creationist friends who gradually became less creationist after enough calm but firm explanations of why the lack of a fish-cat hybrid was not a smoking gun against evolution. I get that evolution is not intuitive, but it's testable and consistent. Unlike, say, old testament God. Which is not a knock on him; it's just not what he was about. I've never rated the conflict between religion and science; one is concerned with how and the other properly confines itself to why.
I'll grant that I am often able to believe two contradictory things at once, including being able to see that they are and are not contradictory. Last week, Uncle Rex found an object which according to him was a message from the universe telling him everything would be ok, and I know it was not cosmic coincidence because I placed the object where he would find it, not more than a week after offering it to him openly, which he has forgotten.
And yet, am I not part of the universe? Is he not going to be fine? I can be comforted by a tarot reading and find it true and also find it random nonsense. I am skeptical of the existence of ghosts and skeptical of my own skepticism concerning same. This is perhaps best termed "science mind," and is a capability of most humans, but some don't seem to realize they're doing it and others are threatened by the whole concept when they notice. I can't imagine not noticing. Or I can, but I'm sure it's not accurate.
***Another factor for me is the erasure of memory I had to do post-Patrick as I discovered more and more areas where I'd been deceived or openly lied to about events. Eventually, I figured I could either obsess over trying to put things straight and realign my memories of what happened, inquest style, with interviews and evidence, or that I could just place all memories in which he was prominent into a big "not verifiable" box and stop building any connections to or conclusions from that data. Which was a big chunk of time. The way it felt is well represented in these stories by people not me, although my experience was less dramatic. I doubt even that it happened, since it seems so implausible and overreactive to dismiss everything in that way. It makes me sad that I can't look back on the good times or continue loose acquaintances met through him, because one has to question how much they were real. Hence safer to categorize as noise rather than signal. So Dallas for me embodies not just a layering of memories and associations, but a deliberate erasure of same, which adds an anxious surreality to much of my experience of the city, a muddy smudge of ground-in pencil lead.
