More religious miscreants

August 5, 2011 • 10:15 am

The Gainesville Sun reports that the goddies are vandalizing cars that sport evolution emblems such as Darwin fish.  After having Darwin emblems repeatedly removed from their cars, biologist Brian McNab and science historian Betty Smocovitis now report that the vandalism has escalated: both have long nails driven into their tires.  Relevant to yesterday’s question by David DiSalvo, has anybody reported atheists vandalizing cars sporting the Jesus fish?

And this, from UPI, is unbelievable.  I present the story in its entirety:

WASHINGTON, Aug. 5 (UPI) — The U.S. Air Force has halted a presentation for missile launch officers on the ethics of nuclear weapons because of objections to its religious content.

The Military Religious Freedom Foundation said it was approached by 31 officers upset by the briefing, CNN reported Thursday. Chaplains at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California had been doing the briefing for almost two decades.

“There were several things that they found disgusting,” Mikey Weinstein, who founded the watchdog group, said. “The first was the fact that there is actually a slide that makes it clear that they’re trying to teach that, under fundamentalist Christian doctrine, war is a good thing.”

Weinstein said he and others in the foundation were “literally blown away” by some of the slides. One quoted Revelations describing Jesus Christ as a “mighty warrior.”

The Pentagon canceled the briefings last week. Senior Air Force officials said they did not know of the content.

I hate to nit-pick here (LOL!), but Weinstein was figuratively, not literally blown away.  Literal blowing-away is what would happen if those Christians got their hands on the button. Beyond that, I’ve always heard that some fundies are in favor of nuclear war, but I haven’t actually seen that in action.

h/t: Steve

78 thoughts on “More religious miscreants”

    1. They’re called “fundamentalists” because their brains are in their fundaments.

  2. I admit to have occasionally being tempted to deface or otherwise tamper with a religious bumper sticker, but I always refrain when I remember that I am not an asshole.

    1. Pity you’re not religious, cause then you could do the vandalism and then go and get forgiven. Oh well, you’ll just have to keep being a decent person.

  3. I’ve had my Darwin fish trashed twice. The first time I figured maybe it was just an accident… someone caught their coat on it or something. But after the second one was pulled off I recognized it for what it was. Further evidence that morality does not find its roots in religion.

  4. Why do so many Christians have missing consciences? Driving nails into people’s tires? Actually, I’m sure there’s a Bible passage supporting such action, and a Bible passage against such action! Such intolerance!

    1. Ah, yes — I believe it’s Fred 8:37 you’re referring to:

      But those mine enemies, who place lizard emblems upon their iron chariots (which are abominations unto themselves for they thwart My Father’s who Art in Heaven’s Willies), drive spiky stabby things into the wheels, in a manner reminiscent of the torturous execution I will gladly reluctantly undergo shortly for thy sake so though might be comforted by the eternal screams of thy family members who will burn forever in the lake of fire.

      It’s one of the Apocrypha, though, so not all Bibles contain the passage.

      Cheers,

      b&

  5. Defacing someone’s car is adolescent which goes a long with being a fundamentalist. These are the same people who think that bumper stickers stating things like “real men follow jesus” aren’t offensive. Someone should make a bumper sticker with a the caption THE SECRET GOSPEL OF MARK and put the same phrase under it. I am sure that they wont like it but really that is what personal relationship with jesus would be. You cant have one with an omnicompotent being even if it existed.

  6. I’ve always heard about this problem with Darwin fishes, which is why I don’t have one.

      1. I think it depends on how nice your car is and where you live. I won’t do it either. I do put them on guitar cases and such.

        1. Perhaps what is needed is a bumper sticker: “This car used to have a Darwin fish on it but a morally deficient Person of Faith vandalized it.”

        2. I am emotionally attached to my car (red Mini cabriolet with supercharger) and though I live in a nice Australian suburb it’s a risk I don’t feel like taking.

  7. In May of 1983, the National Conference of Catholic Bishops produced a pastoral letter directly addressing some of the issues that arise from having nuclear weapons. It includes thoughts on the use of nuclear weapons as a deterrence as well as the use of nuclear weapons during wartime. It is worth reading even if you aren’t Catholic. One quote:

    We do not perceive any situation in which the deliberate initiation of nuclear warfare, on however restricted a scale, can be morally justified. Non-nuclear attacks by another state must be resisted by other than nuclear means. Therefore, a serious moral obligation exists to develop non-nuclear defensive strategies as rapidly as possible.

    Full text at http://www.usccb.org/sdwp/international/TheChallengeofPeace.pdf

  8. Back in the eighties, the Wisconsin Tourism Board printed bumper stickers with their then-current slogan “Escape To Wisconsin”. A number of people edited these with scissors to read “Escape Wisconsin”. My bumper sported “Escape To Sin”. One day, while parked in front of my parents’ house, I looked out to see something wrong with my car. On closer examination, I found that not only was the bumper sticker missing, but religious tracts had been glued – glued! – to the windshield and driver’s side window. A local church had been having a picnic at the park across the street, and their people had been annoying the neighborhood by canvassing door-to-door while waiting for their animal sacrifices to cook.

    I later solved the problem of bumper stickers by buying sheets of that flexible magnetic material (it was made for covering air vents), applying the stickers to them, thus making them removable. When I was parked in a dodgy area, I could just peel them off, throw them in the trunk and put them back later.

    1. I do not like that strategy. Hiding your opinion in the trunk of a car because some jeebus lover might be offended, strikes me as exactly the wrong way to deal with the problem.

    2. I remember seeing at least one car with “Escape to Sin” on it. Was that you? I laughed my ass off.

      1. Could have been. I was driving a blue Pontiac Phoenix back then.

        @GBJames – Yeah, well try explaining repeated acts of vandalism to your insurance company. Their bottom line is a far more vengeful deity than anything from the bible.

        1. Well, that’s a more difficult argument to counter, I’ll admit. In my case, the damage has always been to the fish, not the car itself. And the fish are cheap to replace. I keep a spare ready for the next time a loving Christian removes mine.

          1. Medium blue with black interior.

            On the vandalized Darwin fish – how are they attached? If it’s an adhesive, doesn’t that mar the paint when it’s removed?

          2. Automatic or stick?

            Double-sided tape. Yes it would mar your finish if someone wasn’t careful. Evolvefish makes a magnet for it, I believe.

          3. I suppose it _could_ mar the finish, although the tape has less adhesion to the paint than the paint does to the car. The vandals might scratch the finish, especially if they pried it off with a screwdriver or something like that.

            In my case there were no scratches and if there had been any damage where the tape was it would have been covered by the replacement fish.

          4. Actually if you attach the stickers or fish with a magnet, probably they’ll just pull them off, less damage unless they’re really vicious.

            A few years ago, though someone was saying his car was damaged because he had a ‘coexist’ sticker on it (the kind with all different religions symbols embedded).

            [Fortunately no one has ever damaged my Betty Page sticker]

  9. The US Air Force is a notorious hotbed of Christian fundamentalism, much more so apparently than the other branches of the US armed services.

    1. That’s because when you’re up there, you’re so much closer to heaven, don’t cha know.

      1. I expect it has more to do with the brain damage attendant on constant low g turns, I assume someone has done work in this area.

    2. My Goodness, I always thought Major “King” Kong in Strangelove was a caricature!
      Now I am a little more frightened.

    1. That’s terrifying. The odd thing is, by using the Bible to justify war, all this does is add further support to the fact that religion does not have anything real to say about morality. It’s just another argument for secular and humanistic values. Of course, that’s me and my ‘anti-war’ perspective, which obviously fits in with neither the military nor Christianity.

      Plus – it’s just weird. Do people really believe this stuff? I mean – really?

    2. I would. But only to take it for my self.

      I’ve only just recently added a FSM to my car. It was given to me by Catholic friends, believe it or not!

      1. Speaking of FSM, the young fellows who moved into the duplex next door to us have been flying a FSM flag. It is great. They replaced some tea-bagger types. The neighborhood is improving!

  12. Relevant to yesterday’s question by David DiSalvo, has anybody reported atheists vandalizing cars sporting the Jesus fish?

    I know it’s happened at least once.

  13. It’s probably worth a look into the degree to which fundamentalist Christianity has come to influence the US Air force Academy.

  15. Counter-anecdote: I’m writing from Colorado Springs, home of the US Air Force Academy, Focus on the Family, New Life (Ted Haggard) Church, etc. Fundie ground zero, in addition to where the remains of NORAD are (plus the Space Command).

    A few years back, my boss and I invited a fellow public health researcher to our neck of the woods to give him a tour of the environment where our infamous HIV network study was conducted. We were driving around, showing him the “strip” (Nevada St., center of town) and telling him about the extreme fundie nature of this town and the ubiquity of Jeebus-fishes everywhere you look.

    Just then, a pristine BMW pulls out in front of us with a fish on the back which says: “Jesus is a C*&t”. Without the asterisk and ampersand, obviously. The fish was not a “sticker”; it was a fully-fledged raised-chrome installed fish-thing, just like something that would have been installed at the dealership. There’s no way it was installed at the dealer’s, because they are all fundies.

    There wasn’t a single scratch, no baseball bat marks, no screwdriver marks, no sharpie remnants, nothing. An absolutely pristine car.

    That was the day that I started believing in miracles.

      2. I’ll try again: “Jesus is a &un*”.

        (Jesus is a tuna?)

        OK, this is tougher than I thought.

        “Jesus is a C&n*”.

        (Jesus is a cent?)

        Closer, closer… almost there…

        3. Which reminds me:

          A guy is in the window seat on a jet when who should sit down next to him but the pope. The pope pulls out the in-flight magazine, reads a bit, and then starts in on the crossword puzzle. He works on it for most of the flight but is getting visibly more frustrated.

          Finally the pope turns to the guy and says, “Excuse me, my son, but I wonder if you could help me out here. I can’t quite get this answer.”

          “I’ll try, your Holiness,” the guy replies.

          “What is a four-letter word for woman that ends in U-N-T?”

          The guy blushes. “Hmm, gosh, um, hmm. Um, let’s see. How about …. ‘aunt’?”

          “Oh, yeah,” the pope replies. “Say, do you have an eraser I can borrow?”

    2. sasqwatch – we left Dobsonville for the saner climes of Boulder, and I would echo your sentiments re COS and the AFA. Google ‘Air Force Academy and fundamental Christians’ and one will find many instances of fun-die craziness at the Academy.

      Personally, I thought your HIV studies were powerful, not infamous!

      1. Thanks. It’s kind of wild that 20 years later those data are still informing many fields… stochastic modeling of disease networks.

        I am quite aware of the shenanigans that went on up there at the AFA (e.g. rapey parties and Christo-fascist coercions so bad they had to get some “sophisticated theologians” up there to put out the fires [restore law and order, presumably]).

        Having been on the inside of the public health scene, I also know many instances of crossover between the good men of god around here and the seamiest places and times… It seems like you are as likely to see some of these guys on their knees in the bushes in Palmer Park a few years back (when we had a problem there) as you would on their knees in church. …or with a parishioner on their knees in church… or in a glory-hole bookstore, or molesting kids in Jesus camp to un-gay them… the list goes on and on.

        Absolutely NOTHING surprises me anymore.

    3. Maybe the car was so pristine because it was brand new – in which case the vandals hadn’t had the opportunity to do their thing yet.

      1. I had considered that. And of course, it’s possible. Still… the AUDACITY of having such a car with such a permanent fixture.

        I still shake my head from time to time when I think about it.

    4. Sasqwatch, I think that I also have seen the BMW that you are describing. Those xtians have some ridiculous and patently absurd stickers for their vehicles. The sticker that I find more irritating than most of the others is the “NOTW” series, Not Of This World. They certainly are not dealing with the current state of reality, but as much as I dislike it, the xtians keep interfering with my world.

      1. I just read on another thread (the one admonishing Xtians to behave) that swearing (in some kind of coherent context) is OK.

        The thing said “Jesus is a Cunt”. These were no Christians, methinks. They were an affront to Christians. A little Googling reveals what I think might be the origin of the phrase in the form of a masturbating nun linked to above (I originally thought some militant Wiccan crystal-fem cult might have been responsible, but no – It turns out to be extreme metal from Suffolk England.)

        Anyway, the car was pristine and being driven around in public. Would be interesting to have a time lapse of the exterior. Perhaps it was an experiment.

    2. At the risk of daveau’s wrath: God needs defenders to put the jebus fishes on if they are removed from debumpers.

  17. fund: To provide monetary support for. amental: Lacking demonstrable cognitive and/or rational capacity. ism: The practice of [*].

    Ergo, fundamentalism == the practice of providing monetary support for entities lacking demonstrable cognitive and/or rational capacity.

    1. Gaaah. So of course I, having botched simple HTML markup in the course of posting the above, Am Not Helping.

  20. Onward christian soldiers, marching as to war. with the cross of jesus going on before. They have always been waring and killing in the name of god. This is nothing new; it only emphasizes the mentality of these people brain washed from the cradle. Some are very intelligent people, at times, but they negate that when placed in the presence of the non-intelligent FAITHFUL;its the herding instinct of cattle who follow the judas steer to distruction of themselves and want to take a few non-religious with them. They always do these things in the presence of another idiot to show how FAITHFUL they are to the GROUP (mob). From now on I refuse to capitalize, god, jesus, allah, & christ but I can only do this with words not violence.

  21. I hate to nit-pick here (LOL!), but Weinstein was figuratively, not literally blown away. Literal blowing-away is what would happen if those Christians got their hands on the button.

    Jerry, what would falsify your claim? Would this?

  22. I never did it, but I wanted to have little magnetic feet made up that I could put onto people’s Jebus Fish… But it was ALWAYS part of the plan that they be magnetic and this removable without damage – would that count as vandalism?

  23. Re bumper stickers, I keep expecting to see one that reads:

    I comment on YouTube
    and I VOTE

Comments are closed.