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A Fish Tale

Question:

BTW I guess my response is more effective than your since I got you all riled up.

 Yeah, sure.  Whatever you say.

Response:

 Yeah, sure.  Whatever you say.

I couldn’t agree with you more

Response:

Well, jkearns, whoever you are, you didn’t get as much feedback as I was expecting, but I wanted to pass on that I really enjoyed your piece. That kind of perspective is too often missing from these dry, syntactical discussions that tend to happen in here. Thanks for sharing it. Ed Smith – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Damn, there was a red snapper in that tank? Aren’t those pretty big fish? This one was.  One of the biggest of all time, in fact.

Response:

Typical theistic tripe.  Are you saying that you’re a fish?  I can believe it but where didget a computer?

Typical atheistic tripe.  Questions of this intellectual caliber are not worth answering.

Response:

Typical theistic tripe.  Are you saying that you’re a fish?  I can believe it but where didget a computer? Typical atheistic tripe.  Questions of this intellectual caliber are not worth answering.

typical theistic trip. Reponse of this intellectual caliber are not worth responding. (would the next theist continue this silly thread?) Yang #28

Response:

- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Typical theistic tripe.  Are you saying that you’re a fish?  I can believe it but where didget a computer? Typical atheistic tripe.  Questions of this intellectual caliber are not worth answering. typical theistic trip. Reponse of this intellectual caliber are not worth responding. (would the next theist continue this silly thread?)

Yes, but he wishes you’d learn a little in the way of English grammar before your next post.  By the way, if my response isn’t worth responding to, why did you respond to it?

Response:

Yes, but he wishes you’d learn a little in the way of English grammar before your next post.  By the way, if my response isn’t worth responding to, why did you respond to it?

me fail English? that’s unpossible (like you never mess up). BTW I guess my response is more effective than your since I got you all riled up. Yang #28

Response:

Typical theistic tripe.  Are you saying that you’re a fish?  I can believe it but where didget a computer? — http://www.javanet.com/~jasp/asmaul1.htm         behind the curtain, I am a.a. atheist number #1041, conspirator #26       the all powerful GOD!"

Response:

 "I will open my mouth in parables,     I will utter what has been hidden since the foundation of the     world." [Matt. 13:35] [...]     Others, however, including Emuh – a very conceited fish, if I may say so – and Russell the Red Snapper, were scornful of these fish. [...]

Damn, there was a red snapper in that tank? Aren’t those pretty big fish? Lisa —

Response:

Damn, there was a red snapper in that tank? Aren’t those pretty big fish?

This one was.  One of the biggest of all time, in fact.

Response:

 "I will open my mouth in parables,     I will utter what has been hidden since the foundation of the     world." [Matt. 13:35]                                 The Fish-Tank                                 a cautionary tale     Once upon a time, there was an aquarium.  To the fish who lived in it, it was a vast place. Indeed, they had yet to explore the whole of it.  The aquarium seemed a very well-appointed place to the fish.  The water was warm, there were many interesting and beautiful things to look at, and every day or two, food would suddenly appear in the water. No-one knew where the food came from – it was a great and outstanding mystery – but they knew that they could not have survived without it.  Every now and then – it was very sad – a fish would die, and would be mysteriously removed from the tank.  Though the fish were deeply grieved by these losses, they retained a hope that, somehow, the dead fish had gone to a better place.  Others, indeed, scoffed at this idea, claiming that death was at best an unknowable mystery, but probably held nothing more than oblivion in store.  But these latter were in the minority.     The fish in question – some of them – were remarkably intelligent. At least, they were convinced of their great intelligence.  Sooner than later, it occurred to them to ask questions like "Why is the aquarium like this?  Where did the water come from?  How did all these interesting and beautiful things in the tank come to be?"  Learned fish came up with answers to these questions, and as fish culture matured, these answers were elaborated into complex theories. One school of fish – among them Eltot-sira (an ancient goldfish) and his pupils, which included a later school started by an angelfish named Tommy, told a story that most people agreed with. They held that somebody – a person, though not a fish – had made the aquarium.  The Great Aquarium Designer, or GAD, as they called this person, had made the water, the first fish, and all their surroundings.  Gad was the one who supplied them with their food – some called it their "daily bread", though it wasn’t usually bread, and not all received food every day.  Gad was the one who made sure the water stayed warm, and that the dead fish were removed from the tank. Clearly, Tommy said, this proved what a kind and loving fellow Gad was. Many thought this proved that dead fish went to a far better place.     In fact, Tommy was one of the most learned of an old and well-known school of fish.  This school held a strange theory.  Their theory was that Gad had somehow or other made himself into a fish!  Gad, it was said – or his fish-form – had told a particular group of fish (but these were now long dead) all about himself, how he made the aquarium, why he had made the fish, and what they ought to do.  Gad also promised that those who believed him would be with him forever after death.  But those who refused to believe him must go to an awful place, a place of unending desolation and suffering.  The name of this dread realm was Austin.  Tommy and his fellow believers held that they knew all these things because the fish to whom Gad had spoken had handed down what Gad told them to others, who passed it down to others in turn, and so on.  Much – some of them said all – of the important information was held to be written down in a big book, written by those to whom Gad had spoken.  Apparently Gad told them to keep a record, in case people forgot, and make sure the record was preserved intact.  Strange as this theory was, many believed it.  But it had to be admitted that many things about this account were more than a little iffy.  Many thought the whole business was nonsense.     Tommy’s school was not the only one which held that Gad had spoken to fish on some occasion or other.  There was a fish named Kutam who held that Gad – or rather, a strange, very un-fishlike being sent by Gad – once spoke to him while he was alone in a deserted part of the tank.  Kutam held that said being told him all that fish needed to know about Gad and his plans, and he, too, wrote it all down in a book (but the book was not as big as Tommy’s people’s).  It seems – so Kutam said – that all Gad wanted from fish was that they speak nicely to him five times a day, give money to the poorer fish, visit a certain fish-city once in their lives, and do certain other things (all of it was written down in Kutam’s book).  If only they did these things – so Gad promised, according to Kutam’s book – after death Gad would give each of them a great house, and as many young girl-fish as they could possibly want.  You can probably understand that the latter did not appeal so much to the women-fish (well, most of them, anyway).  The men-fish, however, were highly pleased to hear this, so pleased, in fact, that they stopped calling Kutam by his name, and called him "The Praised One" from then onwards.  Kutam was pleased with this fine-sounding title, and told his men to go forth and spread the word.  This they did with great gusto.     I wish I could tell you all the strange theories these fish had, but I don’t have the time.  A few of the others should be mentioned, however.  Some of the fish held – I do not know how, so don’t go asking me, either – that Gad was the fish-tank.  Some of them even worshipped the tank.  A few of them seemed to think that the answer lay in little shiny things called "crystals".  They held that Gad (or the gads – some thought there was more than one aquarium-maker) could be contacted with crystals, or by various ceremonies involving rocks and plants.  Why this should be they are not sure – or if they are, they cannot explain it too clearly.  Some held that the fish-tank did not really exist, and the way to realize it was to stop thinking about the fish-tank. Of these, some combined this idea with the notion that everyone was Gad, or a part of Gad, or perhaps a wrinkle on Gad’s face (no, I don’t know what that means). Some people seemed to think that Gad could be seen by smoking hallucinogenic weeds, or by eating mushrooms, or by getting to know lots of girl-fish very closely.  There was one group – followers of a fish whom they call the Enlightened One – who seemed a bit more sensible than the rest; they held that it didn’t matter if there were zero, one, a thousand, or infinitely many Gads.  However many Gads there might be, they evidently didn’t have much interest in fish, and were best left alone.  These fish believed that the best thing to do was to stop wanting Gad, or for that matter anything else. If only you stopped wanting anything, they said, you wouldn’t need to worry about these things! But most fish continued to believe in a Gad of some sort, or at least that it was worth our while to seek Gad.  After all, they said, what good was living, if you didn’t want anything? Might not a fish just as well be dead?  So just about everybody agreed that some wanting was good, and that wanting Gad and searching for him was worthwhile.     Others, however, including Emuh – a very conceited fish, if I may say so – and Russell the Red Snapper, were scornful of these fish.  "What nonsense!", they said. "Anyone can see how ridiculous this ‘Gad’ idea is."  They believed that either the aquarium and the water had always existed – on their own – or that these had one day appeared on their own, from nowhere.  At first, people took great offense to this idea.  It made no sense, they said.  How could water and aquarium come from nothing?  How could an aquarium have always existed? And even if the aquarium had always been, who gave them food? What kept them warm?  But the fish who held to the no-Gad theory were firm.  They developed elaborate theories, theories according to which the spontaneous appearance of food, water, and all else was a consequence of the "laws of the aquarium".  What these "laws" were, and how they came about, one was not allowed to ask.  A fish named Ayer declared that such questions, and a great many others, were "meaningless".  He and his followers did not give a reason why they were meaningless.  He merely said that they were meaningless.  But he said it very sternly, and made fun of those who disagreed, and the Gad-believers learned to be afraid of Ayer and his kind.  A fish named Sigmund joined in the battle against the Gad-fish.  He declared that their only reason for believing in a Gad was their need to believe in a kind and loving aquarium-designer.  He, too, did not give a reason why anyone should believe him.  But many did so anyway.     By now the fish were thoroughly confused.  Many held that there was no use arguing over the matter.  They were tired of discussing such difficult things, you see. Some said that there was no real truth of the matter.  Perhaps, as long as the fish didn’t argue, they could all agree that the aquarium was whatever each one wanted it to be.  These fish – the Anti-Aquariumists, I call them – thought their solution to be very clever (in fact, the strange thing is that all the fish think they’re very clever).  They pointed out that this way, fish like Tommy and fish like Russell could get along without any quarrels.  In fact, both Tommy-fish and Russell-fish became very angry with those who said this.  They thought it was stupid to say that there was no real aquarium. They said, "Either there is a Gad, or there isn’t.  Either the aquarium came about by itself, or it didn’t.  One – and only one – of us is right."  But the Anti-Aquariumists pursed their lips sternly, looked down at their opponents, and said, "How can you be so mean! Shake hands, both of you, and stop acting like this!"  I am not sure if they heard what was being said to them.     In any case, the fish are no closer to agreement now than they were in Eltot-sira’s day.  Stop by the aquarium someday, if you can, and listen to them talk.  They’re a funny bunch.  Be sure to bring a little fish-food, though.  All the arguing makes them

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