From: Philippe Verdy (verdy_p@wanadoo.fr)
Date: Fri Sep 28 2007 - 19:50:45 CDT
Asmus Freytag wrote:
> PS: any proposal, even for the fish, has to show usage in text. For the
> fish, I'm sure that can be found, at least if text is construed as
> "printed matter", if not exactly always in-line.
This article is a good start for the history of the Christian Fish symbol:
http://www.eureka4you.com/fish/fishsymbol.htm
It's just the basic outline, with just two crossing parentheses, the first
curve being drawn by someone asking where he recognizes the symbol, the
second one drawing the second line to draw the fish. So this would be the
representative glyph encoded, without any countless variations (may be the
fish tail could be terminated with a final vertical stroke).
So the symbol says this is a personal commitment to follow the commandments
of Jesus Christ, God's Son and Savior... The Christian cross is a more
modern creation meaning that Jesus Christ died for those who believe in him,
but we believe in its resurrection and he is everywhere with God his father,
and we can follow the same path, this is more a very demonstrative memorial
heraldic symbol than the fish which is more mystic and whose meaning is
hidden except to those that have been initiated to the message.
That's why the fish is commonly found within Christian graves rather than
outside of them, or within old constructions, on jewelry (that can be
hidden). Finding texts from the first 3 centuries AD may be difficult,
except possibly in North Africa where the first churches have most
successfully spread in the Roman Empire, without much risks of persecution.
> For the derived counter-symbols, I've only ever seen them on cars.
> You'll have to figure out the unification though.
Why unifying these countless uses? Given that there's no standard in this
case, because the possible glyphs are then countless, and your examples show
many decorations exhibiting other letters or words in them, which make sense
only in English. Even if one wanted to compose these countless logos, they
could first reuse the symbol, but would need to associate other letters in a
complex layout, something that is then absolutely not plain-text but a
bidimensional figure with complex layout. I can't figure out how you would
encode all of them distinctly and rationally within a chart.
So my main idea was about a very basic fish symbol (no idea about its wished
orientation: to the left or to the right? May be it does not matter in this
case, any glyph showing a basic fish would be convenient for the character,
unless someone demonstrates that the meaning is different, which I don't
think so, even for Christians.)
Anyway this is a possible Christian fish: <><
This is another: ><>
May be these ASCII-Art symbols are found today in some online chats and used
mystically rather than figuratively with an explicit cross, and associated
with replaceable emoticons for those Christians that recognize it. In that
case they play the same role as the original old symbol, used this time in
plain-text.
I wonder how you will draw a "Darwin fish" with a similar symbolism, without
having to write the word "Darwin" explicitly in it. Or you'll have to draw
the small feet! <¸¸><
And I wonder why you would need to hide it. Because of some US "churches"
that spread antidarwinism, reject evolution (against all scientists) and
even militate against teaching it in US schools? Do you fear
antievolutionists in US so much that you'd need to use mystic symbols to
defend science?
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