Every now and then, you stumble across a bumper sticker that has the exact opposite impression that is meant. Mine for the weekend:
Try Jesus. If you don’t like him, Satan will gladly take you back!
I saw this and couldn’t help but laugh my ass off – I mean, seriously, who doesn’t like a guy who will always take you back, no matter what you’ve done? In 2 lines, it conveyed to me that 1) Jesus is a simpering turd who will only like me if I do exactly what he wants, when he wants it and how he wants it, while 2) Satan is a non-judgmental kinda guy who will always accept me, no matter what. Pretty much exactly the opposite of what they were trying for, methinks.
Years ago, when the fundies started feeling picked on, the fish symbol gained popularity because of its origins as a Christian symbol – during the original persecution, it was easily drawn in the dust with the foot to indicate one’s faith when a cross would have been too obvious. The use of the fish symbol on cars, etc., was a poignent way of saying, “I’m a Christian and I’m feeling besieged because of my Christianity.” I understood and respected that. Then, apparently because fundies don’t get “subtle”, they started sporting fish symbols with crosses in them, thus defeating the the whole meaning of the fish symbol. Finally, to destroy any subtlety in the symbolism, they began using fish-shaped bumper stickers of the word “JESUS”.
Well, this was a license plate frame, but still worth re-telling. There was a license plate frame on a car in my hometown which I used to see all the time driven by an elderly woman. It read “My other car is a Mercedes.”
The reputation of liberals as intolerant, preachy elitists is reinforced in their dumbassed political/environmental/I’m-going-to-tell-you-how-to-live bumper stickers.
So, yeah…they have the opposite effect.
(“Coexist,” I’m calling you out, although you are by far not the only offender…)
Reminds me of those pictures of people with signs protesting illegal aliens, complaining that they should learn English, but the signs are badly misspelled. Sorry, no idea where to find one again or I’d post a link.
I saw a bumper sticker once that was not so much misdirected as ambiguous:
JUST WHEN YOU THINK LIFE’S A BITCH
IT HAS PUPPIES
That could go either way:
(1) Man, life’s bad, and then it just gets worse and worse.
(2) Hey, puppies!
Of course, I prefer the second interpretation.
ETA:
Hey, don’t be dissin’ my favorite sticker! I have it on both cars, so there nyaaah.
Sometimes I’ll get behind a car on my way home that’s covered with all sorts of religious stickers – multiple fish, etc. One is a faded bumper sticker that reads “Hell was full, so I came back.” I don’t think that means what the driver thinks it does…
I also recently saw a pickup truck with a large cross on the back; printed underneath in fancy script was “IN MEMORY OF JESUS CHRIST”. I’m not quite sure what the message was supposed to be…that “in memory of” meme is typically used for dead people/animals.
I don’t think that bumper sticker is any dumber than any other bumper sticker. Which is to say, it’s still really, really dumb. But I did see one car with it that managed to rather badly miss the point. On one side of the bumper, was the “Coexist” sticker. On the other, “My goddess gave birth to your god.”
So, you know… coexist, but just so long as you remember that my religion is better than yours.
I saw a bumper sticker once that said “Nuke the gay baby whales now for Jesus.” I’m not really sure what it meant, but I certainly didn’t feel especially enthusiastic about either Jesus or nuking baby whales (homosexual or otherwise) after reading it. :dubious:
It’s actually meant to mock the stupidity of all “bumper sticker wisdom” in general. That you thought it was directed at Christians in particular while letting you off the hook says more about you than anything else. Sorry, you fail.
Not just that, but as was pointed out in a similar thread recently, if you have a possession worth thousands of dollars that you frequently leave unattended in public places (ie. a motor vee-hickle), you’d want to have your head read for plastering it with any remotely controversial slogans, be it far left, far right, God-bothering, atheist, or anything in between.
