Quote:
Originally posted by urgeok
the fish sign the christians use is sometimes accompanied with PAX inside which i believe means Peace and/or Jesus.
I'm a bit rusty on my religious studies :)
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Love to copy & paste
The fish outline is a logical symbol for the early Christian church to adopt. Fish play a major roll in the gospels. For example:
bullet Mark 1:17: "Come after Me, and I will make you become fishers of men."
bullet Matthew 12:40: "...Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth."
bullet Matthew 14:17: "And they said to Him, 'We have here only five loaves and two fish.'"
bullet Luke 5:6: "And when they had done this, they caught a great number of fish, and their net was breaking."
bullet Luke 24:42: "So they gave Him a piece of a broiled fish and some honeycomb."
bullet John 21:6: "And He said to them, 'Cast the net on the right side of the boat, and you will find some.' So they cast, and now they were not able to draw it in because of the multitude of fish."
bullet 1 Corinthians 15:39: "All flesh is not the same flesh, but there is one kind of flesh of men, another flesh of beasts, another of fish, and another of birds."
Some Christians believe that a second link between their religion and the fish symbol is seen in the Greek word for fish (ichthus, spelled: Iota Chi Theta Upsilon Sigma). That is an acrostic for "Jesus Christ, of God, the Son, the Savior" [Iesous (Jesus) CHristos (Christ) THeou (of God) Uiou (the Son) Soter (the Savior)]. An acrostic is an "arrangement of words in which the first letter of each line ordinarily combines with others to form a word or words or the alphabet." 1
The Apostles were often referred to as "fishers of men". Followers of Christianity were called Pisciculi; the root of this Latin word is "fish". The symbols of "sacremental fish, with wine and a basket of bread represents the Eucharist and the Last Supper in Christian art." 2 The symbol was simple to draw and was often used among Christians as a type of password during times of persecution by the Roman government. If two strangers met and were unsure whether each other was a Christian, one would draw an arc in the earth like:). If the other were a Christian, they would complete the symbol with a reverse arc: (), forming the outline of a fish.
In modern times, the fish outline symbol is experiencing a comeback. It is commonly seen in the form of a bumper sticker or casting mounted on the trunk lids of cars. The body of the symbol may be empty, or may contain a name ("Jesus" or "ICTUS"). This has inspired some Secularists, Atheists and promoters of the theory of evolution to mimic the Christian fish symbol with one of their own. It usually has "DARWIN" in the body of the fish, and little legs underneath. This has prompted "fish wars" between supporters of the secular and religious symbols. Reference 3 contains a humorous expose of the battle between the Darwin and Christian fish. It displays some new species such as the "Evolve Fish" (a fish with "EVOLVE" on its body and a wrench in one of its forepaws) and the "Shark Jesus Fish" (a shark that eats all types of Jesus Fish).
We also found a satirical essay "Experts concerned about backward Jesus fishes" which suggested, with tongue in cheek, that fish swimming to the right is "a duplicitous tool of Satan, the Lord of Lies...Our children are viewing these fish and are losing their grip on morality....These backwards fishes, and all their inherent evils could destroy a society." 13