The Vision Forum is one of those backward organizations promoting a “biblical patriarchy” — they’re full of pious, patronizing claims about fathers raising daughters with good moral values, and it’s clearly all about tightly controlling women’s sexuality. A site called Rethinking Vision Forum is all about pointing out their hypocrisy and weirdness, and they have a recent post highlighting a biblical patriarchy CD. Take a look at the cover.
What is she doing? She’s reaching down to the man’s crotch; he’s looking down at what she’s doing; and creepiest of all, there’s a bearded older father figure watching sternly. And then, when you look at the original painting, you discover that it was intentionally photoshopped to put the woman into this suggestive position.
It’s supposed to be a “parable about the hearts of fathers and daughters”. I don’t think I want to know what the connection between the father-daughter relationship and voyeurism and public handjobs might be, but I suspect that no matter how twisted and kinky the interpretation, it’s probably got a biblical justification.
Hmm. I don’t see a woman reaching for a man’s crotch, I see a woman offering her hand to be held, while lowering her eyes demurely. Which is suggestive of submission, but not of hand-jobs.
…but a comparison with the original is indeed revealing. They’ve taken a painting which depicts a woman with power over a man, and turned it on its head. Sleezy.
Photoshopping for Jeebus. We’ll hear more about it.
Well, looking at the original painting, it’s clear that in the photochop (ahem) she’s stabbing him in the junk with a broadsword… How this relates to biblical patriarchy is unclear… unless this is some sort of ritual circumcision…
A weak female (is there any other kind) would have trouble lifting the knee length chain mail high enough with one hand to give a hand job with the other. I don’t want to think about a hand job with chain mail between the hand and the job.
What do you call this? art-mining?
I saw this yesterday and still my reaction is one of “BWAHAHAHAHAAHAHA!!!”
I’m sure they meant it to appear that she’s holding her hand out to him, but people aren’t seeing that and I’m for anything that causes laughter and mockery until I remember that they are misogynistic shits destroying the lives of girls and women, at which point I get too angry to laugh.
yeah, in my dirty mind she is offering her hand to the guy. no “handjob” (maybe checking size but that doesn’t fit either ;) )
Why, she’s only fondling his sword!
Speaking as a graphic artist, the rearrangement makes a little sense, considering the square aspect ratio. I like the gamma adjustment they did. There was a lot of detail lost in the shadow areas that they pulled back into the image.
That said, I’d have chosen a different painting as a starting point, something that had a landscape orientation instead of portrait. Maybe they didn’t have the budget to acquire the rights.
Leave it to Christians to manipulate something culturally neutral and make it perverse. With my daughter I try to help her develop a sense of self-worth and determination that she should let no one try to manipulate her into doing anything of which she herself would be ashamed or uncomfortable. No doubt the biblical patriarchy CD drones on about purity and disappointing poor Jebus. I want my daughter not to engage any behavior that would disappoint herself.
Looking at the original painting, and the at the Photoshopped image, she’s not giving him a handjob, she has just run her sword through his scrotum. I don’t think that’s what Vision forum had in mind.
So, she is circumcising the man with her sword?
Ouch.
She’s reaching for his crotch, and he’s wishing someone would invent the can opener.
I think they simply rearranged the figures to fit the square CD cover. It wouldn’t look good with the guy’s head just barely above the bottom border, and a big gap in the middle, so in the doctored arrangement he’s looking down at her (lovingly we’re to assume). I don’t think what they did here is so bad.
That said, their apparent “mission” to flood conservative families with unthreatening (i.e. non-sexual, macho, patriarchal and smarmy) stuff to drag the American family back into the early 19th century, of course loving and keeping all the nice electronic toys of the 21st, is expectably hypocritical.
I have no idea how all that business is entangled with the undoubtedly tax-exempt ministry they’re associated with. I’ve yet to hear of a religious business that never did anything questionable with a considerable sum of money.
While there are some rather interesting suggestions here about what exactly the Vision Forum was trying to depict here, I feel the need to offer yet another one.
And yes, it’s an insanely bizarre and perverse one. Rather deviant and to some, probably rather disturbing.
Here goes:
The original picture was altered .. to fit the square dimensions of a CD cover! And all the sexual (and other) implications of that alteration were completely lost on the pious folks over at the Vision Forum!
Yes, I know. I’m weird.
They were trying something new. Trying to bring back the passion of the first days.
this one’s better
I’m pretty sure she’s holding one…
Thy Rod and thy staff they comfort me.
Ah .. just noticed that Felix (#13) beat me to my twisted observation. Good to see I’m not the only perv here, though!
Felix- they could have altered it to be square and still kept her in a pose of “blessing” him. They did it specifically to make him physically taller and towering over her, so instead of gazing down at him she’s casting her eyes down in a classic subservient pose. This is only minorly about making the image square; the intent is clear and vile (regardless of the unintentional humor of hand placement.
A print of “The Accolade” hangs at my Friendly Local Game Store (TM). Before reading PZ’s post ,I only had the glance at the picture to think Awwww Fuck, now what are the fundies doing?
I just got up, so the sexual innuendo was lost on me at first. I need coffee.
I’m also too groggy to tell the difference between a forward slash and a back slash. Sorry about the superfluous italics.
Felix #13
Naive is a word that comes to mind.
Have you looked at any of their other stuff, at the “mission of the vision”?
Sorry, but they’re long past the benefit of doubt and innocent layout reasons.
Wow, you are naive, or you’re not a very good apologist. Lying for Jesus isn’t so bad, no. Lying for Allah or lying for Stalin, now those are just terrible.
We’re to assume he’s looking down on her lovingly, yet we’re not to assume the same if she were looking down on him?
They could’ve chosen another image, if this one’s content wouldn’t fit a CD cover. Cropping it or adjusting the colors is one thing; but creating an altogether fake version of the image is a whole different level of deception. It’s certainly no coincidence that the way they’ve changed it just happens to reinforce their patriarchal propaganda.
The original is one of my favourite paintings, and Edmund Blair Leighton’s art one of my favourite artists.
Their destruction of one of his works seems oddly apparent if you’re familiar with his paintings. While quite romanticized, he imparts real emotion and power to almost all the characters he paints, male and female. I can think of several other works that would have produced a more appropriate image without necessarily mocking the original work, though: ‘Till Death Do Us Part’, ‘The Dedication’, ‘Abaelard and his Pupil Heloise’, ‘Tristan & Isolde’, ‘Courtship’, ‘Signing the Register’, ‘Singing to the Reverend’, ‘The Question’… all could have taken on the appropriate creepy-sexist vibe without quite so much effort.
Their butchering and complete misrepresentation of the original work here is disgusting. Then again, perhaps it’s for the best that they chose a painting where the original had to be so grossly manipulated as to avoid any suggestion that the original artist might have shared their misogynistic views. I do hope that folks will take a look at the original, look up the original artist, and perhaps take some inspiration from his works.
I suppose copyright has expired? Sigh.
The original painting depicts a queen conferring an honor (the painting is titled “The Accolade”) onto one of her subjects. There is no way that the alteration, which completely reverses the depicted power arrangement in favor of the twisted misogyny this group promotes, could be accidental.
@Carlie, yeah it does look that way. But I’m not sure that’s what they intended. Perhaps they simply didn’t see this aspect. Perhaps they did it on purpose.
I suspect something in the middle: they did it automatically without thinking about it, simply because their trained perception had to put the male above.
If the male was at the same height, they would both be looking down at their feet. I suppose that could be a decent posture when they were taking a marriage vow, both looking down at their wedding rings or something like that.
consciousness razor
You shouldn’t be drinking that much coffee. Relax.
But that’s the point: it’s only natural for the male to be dominant over the female. It’s the only right way to be. Anything else would be wrong to the point that it has to be redone to make it correct.
As well as the whole power reversal thing, I think it’s a shame that they’ve cropped out the most interesting part of the painting. Look over to the right in the original: that boy appears to be the knight’s page or squire, and his eyes are on the guy he sees every day, not the babelicious queen. He looks like he’s seeing his own future, the day when he graduates to knighthood. The man behind him, with his hands on the boy’s shoulders, is perhaps his father (is there a family resemblance?), and looks more apprehensive. He’s old enough to take a more rounded view of knighthood: where the boy sees adventure and chivalry and privilege, the father sees violence and the risk of early death.
Or maybe I’m reading too much into the work of a middling painter who just wanted to peddle faux history to the gentry.
As for what “they” did to the painting, I’m guessing that the Vision Forum hired a professional for the job. And it’s possible that this professional was a little subversive in how they handled it…
miserybob says:
Pedantic, I know. But the sword in the famous painting is longsword, not a broadsword.
FFS holy mother of FSM when the Pre-Raphaelites were too progressive for you, you need to just admit you’re kind of fucked up!
WTH, I start clicking, and end up reading about Elsie Dinsmore on the Wiki.
Wow, I need to snap back to reality now.
Nope, I’m of the appropriation = art line of thought. So to take a famous piece of art by an artist who made his whole career romanticizing history really says something about how you view: Reality, art, history, and other people’s rights.
Basically this is a “Fuck you! This is how the world will look if I can have my way with it and it doesn’t matter what I have to do to get it that way” statement.
This has to be intentional. If they had to photoshop that much to get it on a CD cover then the simplest thing to do would be to pick a different painting. The fact they manipulated it so much indicates they knew what they were doing.
Calmer than you are, dude.
Seriously, what the fuck? “They just had to get it to fit on a square CD cover”. Sweet monkey gods, that’s just wrong. They certainly weren’t trying to make it look sexual but to deny they were deliberately changing the message the picture gives is either naive, ignorant, or downright malicious.
Algernon:
One Internet on its way to you for this!
When something requires direct intentional action and you wonder what the intent was, a good place to start is usually the the end product.
btw, fitting it into new dimensions is so trivially easy that it is absurd to think that someone changed the composition for any reason other than to achieve the effect that they did.
At first I said, “She’s not grabbing his crotch, she’s holding her hand out to him!” Then I saw the original image and went, “Ooo… Wait a minute. That’s not cool!” Deliberately taking an image that shows a woman with power and making her look as if she not only has no power but wants no power…sneakysneakydirtydirtyrabblerabblerabble!
Original work
After resizing to fit it on the DVD case
Ok, now I’m never going to be able to watch Toroto again….
Totoro even…
Nobody should fuck with Miyazaki like that!
My education in literature says beware the “intentional fallacy.” We’ll never know what their intention was, although it’s fun to speculate. The amusing result could be accidental, although certainly reflecting their sexist prejudices. It does show a remarkable lack of awareness. Who let that go out the door? Could it be people so protected and cloistered that they never heard of masturbation, much less “hand job” or “French polish”? Having gone to college with Southern Baptists, the answer is yep. My bet is no one at Vision Forum noticed the suggestive detail.
I’m actually surprised to see that nearly everyone else’s thoughts went to the “hand job” explanation. To me, it was obvious that she was checking him out for size. Especially with that title directly above: “Sleeping Beauty and the Five Questions”. Makes sense, right? I mean, Sleeping Beauty isn’t going to give out hand jobs to just anyone. She’s gotta have standards, I’d think.
That’s just kinda all sorts of bull. We know what their intention was based on what they represent. Their intention was to create a picture where a woman is submitting to a man, and they did that by editing a picture where a man is submitting to a woman.
The appearance of a sexual act was inadvertent, the deliberate change in power dynamics was not.
Yes, I think Brian has figured it out.
One of the five questions must be “how big’s his johnson?”
So it’s the Fisher King and not Lancelot?
(Took years before “wounded in his manhood” finally clicked into place in my little brain. I don’t know if the euphemism is more obvious in English.)
re Totoro image
I want an erase feature for my memory.
Carlie @ 29,
No, no, no, no! I’m sure you know that’s not quite how it works. The man makes all the important decisions, such as who to vote for, & which religion to follow. The woman makes the minor decisions, such as what to have for supper, where to go on holiday, whether or not to have a pet, & so on.
Except nowadays, the men don’t even get to make those important decisions.
This must be that “symbolic ceremony” that happens before the “mutual foot washing”.
Just thought I’d post to point out that this picture has been used on a CD cover before – by Roger Hodgson of Supertramp, and no cropping or photoshopping was necessary then. Take a look: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rites_of_Passage_(Roger_Hodgson_album)
If I remember the Sleeping Beauty story accurately, she ought to stay away from pricks.
Seriously, though, Sleeping Beauty is creepy, even in its lighter version, where the prince awakens her by a non-consensual kiss. There are pre-Grimm versions where the “hero” rapes her in her sleep, impregnating her. Shrek it ain’t.
lol
>yeah, I remember a version where she wakes up from the pains of labor. :-/
Alverant (@ 35.) & others are correct. They went far out of their way to use this image in this way. Their manipulation fits their purpose (Tabby Lavalamp @47.). That their image contains implications beyond the overt message that they intended establishes one of my principle criticisms of Christianity. Christians are supposed to, in establishing a relationship with the Divine Jesus, become as in Romans 12:2 – “And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what [is] that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God”. We instead see repeated examples of those who are supposedly ‘transformed’ revealing their carnal selves despite obvious repression.
Johndavidmyself (@ 18.) : wickedly funnnnnny !
It looks like they were trying to show the woman in a lower position than the man, bother literally and figuratively. It’s a massive failure at subtly.
@Felix
Your writing this off as “perhaps an accident” is disgusting. These men treat girls as chattel
whowhose virginity must be held on to and “protected” until her father deems fit to bestowherit to his chosen successor. The husband’s job is to fillherthe incubator with his seed so as to make as many children as God will grant him. The photoshop job is meant to illustrate this ideal. No accident.I find myself surprisingly offended by this. It’s an attempt to alter art (and, by extension) history. It’s denying a representation of a woman in power and it reminds me of the newspaper that photoshopped Hilary Clinton out of an official White House paragraph. Ugh.
D’oh. Photo, not paragraph. Move along, nothing to see here.
robro (#45) says:
You don’t give them enough credit. I’m sure there was probably at least one person who caught onto it. However, are they going to reveal themselves to be “tainted by the World (or Devil)” by exposing that they know about hand jobs and other non-reproductive sexual acts? I don’t think so. Better to feign ignorance and go along with he crowd.
Felix @27:
Did you not bother to check the link about who Vision Forum is? From their mission statement:
Do you seriously think that they made her submissive-looking either unintentionally or just out of culturally default man-should-be-taller instincts?
That was my automatic thought too. Her hand seems kind of far away to be doing anything very manipulative. She doesn’t look very impressed, though.
She’s just said, “Looks like a penis, only smaller.”
Hmm. Comments locked, on everything. Maybe I should have been more tactful in pointing out that even some of the stuff that wasn’t addressed by the forum could be interpreted by other passages as incorrect. See, I didn’t realize this was an “ally”, i.e., someone that wants a less insane, but never the less “Christian” version of things, to be the “center” of the world. So, I may have said a few things that annoyed him/her, resulting in, all of the sudden, no commenting allowed.
Basically, its nice that someone is addressing the crazies in this case, but ripping the stink weed out of the corner of the “garden” doesn’t change the fact that there are an awful lot of other weeds in it, which are chocking off the rest of the plants. My own initial comment was merely pointing out that the Bible said something in contradiction to the assertions being made by the “vision” bunch, which the site owner hadn’t addressed. They came back with, “What does that have to do with anything?”.
I will, readily, admit though that I should have, perhaps, been a bit more cautious in commenting there. But, you don’t expect to have people close comments, who are reasonable, as a result of pointing out that 100% of them cherry pick “something” out of the thing, or, later, when they argue for the absolute incontrovertible nature of those things, that you can’t use the Bible to prove itself, without other sources that show those things really happened. Things didn’t proceed well after. :(
I think she’s stuffing a dollar into his jockstrap.
I’ve seen this photoshop before, and it still looks to me as if she’s sneaking a peek
I’m simply glad I have no idea what Totoro is. :-)
I suppose sometimes ignorance is bliss.
:-S
:-S
ARGH!
:-D :-D :-D
This is a pointless comment and should be deleted.
Kagehi – Are you posting on the wrong thread? Because your comment doesn’t seem to make much sense.
Nothing wrong with Totoro, although I’m sure the kind of folks who’d go for this nonsense would consider Totoro Satanic or at the very least heathen.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Neighbor_Totoro
Algernon,
Thread won!
tim gueguen: Check the links at #41.
It looks more like a pimp-hoe relationship to me.
According to the Vision Forum’s doctrine, that is what the father-daughter relationship is supposed to be like. It’s just that when she gets to a certain age, he has to sell her to another pimp.
I followed links to the Vision Forum website. What jumped out at me was the offer for sale of a set of books – The Elsie Dinsmore series. 65 or more years ago, a neighbor of my family loaned me several of the Elsie Dinsmore books. One thing I remember about them was that Elsie’s father gave up smoking cigars when he was informed that the habit would lead directly to strong drink and drunkenness. But a main thread of the stories was a defense of slavery, as practiced by the Dinsmore family – a ‘benign’ form of the practice, of course.
This isn’t much different from the ‘Purity Ball’ movement – which pushes for abstinence until marriage – along with very stringent rules in regards to any relations between the girl and a prospective suitor – they are encouraged to not even touch until the marriage ceremony is over . . . these sorts of movements border on the extremely creepy, especially with otherwise normal ppl being so passionate about it – they don’t see the psychological damage that occurs when someone else has such a strangle hold on something that is natural.
The girls are encouraged to first basically fall in love with their father’s and then to transfer that love to a suitable suitor who it is hoped will be just like dad – that is just wrong!
They are ensuring that a generation of children will be basically fucked up when it comes to relationship skills – the world isn’t a vacuum – shit happens – and you these parents have done nothing to equipped their children with realistic skills.
I just can’t get over the fact that in the original picture, she has a sword, meaning that she seems to have stabbed him. And he’s gazing down at the sword that is now buried in his torso.
That’s nightmare material.
I like the version of “The Accolade” at http://www.flickr.com/photos/9553360@N02/3227013486/
Is that all there is…to a penis?
Is that all there is?
@ Molly
It’s only suggestive of hand jobs, look at the angle of the sword she’s holding in the original painting!
While Dad looks on approvingly. *shudder*
When I got married, my father tried to tell me that it was his right as the father of the bride to watch the bride and attendants dress. (He probably already had Alzheimers, but that just brought the creepy out into full view.) This would totally fit his sick ideal world fantasy.
(He was fond of telling approving stories about honor killings too. Good thing he died when the Spawn were four and they never knew him.)
@Ing
Best resizing ever. :D
How about a very simple hypothesis: the folks at Vinson Forum are, collectively, number than a pounded thumb.
I certainly wouldn’t put this level of deception past an organisation of this nature.
However, I’d also wager that this group is so hardline in their beliefs that they wouldn’t even consider starting from that source material, even for the purposes of the inversion we see here.
—
My guess at the more likely scenario is:
– They asked a graphic designer for “a medieval scene with a lady being all demure and subservient to a knight”
– The designer spent 30 seconds on Google Images with a search for
"medieval knight lady"and grabs the second result (try it yourself)– Says “Meh, close enough”; moves the knight up and crops for CD cover proportions
– Collects an easy paycheck
—
(That’s not to say I’d be surprised if it turned out to be a deliberate corruption of the original…)
She stabbed him. This is how a powerful woman checks for size: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6eTTaY1a6M
@kagato
You’ve missed the prominent place of the “Patriarch” in the pic. This was deliberate.
Sir knight, thou hast a pox upon thy privy parts. Thy days as a deft swordsman are at an end. A future as a cunning linguist is beyond thy grasp. Go thee with the old doctor who stands at the door, and beg of him pills of strong mercury. Never return to this place, for thou are not worthy of me.
This is from the blog brokendaughters, written by a woman raised in such a family:
How much more direct a link has to be drawn?
@Ibis The more I learn about these people – the more I understand why she is stabbing him. After that she is gonna stab the rest of the jerks in the room.
And the jury is gonna say “I would have stabbed them too, only sooner.”
Kagehi (65) —
I happen to be acquaintances with a few of the people who run Rethinking Vision Forum. My understanding is that comments are turned off for two basic reasons.
#1 The website is intended to be a resource not only for people like us, who detest Vision Forum and everything it stands for, but also for people (especially women) who are part of the broader Patriarchy/Quiverfull movement and are potentially questioning it. Since it is aimed at a broad, diverse audience, which includes both Christian and non-Christian members, my understanding is they felt it would be better to simply rule out any potentially explosive arguments.
Remember, it’s aimed partly at fundamentalists. A Pharyngula-style comment, whatever the substance, could potentially send a person who’s considering leaving P/QF back into it. I guess they just didn’t want to risk it.
#2 The website is a group project. The people who write for it are also a diverse set of folks, from new atheists to mushy evangelicals. Turning off comments also helps keep tension among them low.
Ibis3@83
True, it definitely could be. It certainly fits in with their “fathers & daughters” theme very well. I’ll concede the inclusion of the Patriarch is likely deliberate.
But I’ll note the Patriarch hasn’t actually been moved to keep him in shot; only the Knight has been repositioned.
The Knight couldn’t be any further away from the Lady or the sword would be exposed, and you shift the picture to the right or you reveal the throne behind the Lady (and her position of authority over the Knight).
It’s absolutely a shitty Photoshop job of a classical picture rearranged to enforce a particular (repugnant) worldview.
I’m just less certain that it’s a deliberate selection of a “powerful woman” picture with the intent to reverse its meaning.
I guess I have more faith in the laziness of graphic designers than the deep cunning of these religious misogynists. :)
Not really. I was throwing out some speculations to be discussed (more like shredded). Yeah, given the actual philosophy behind the whole organization, I concede they almost certainly did it in full intent of switching the power structure of the painting. I’m about as convinced of it as I am that no gods are going to obstruct my path to the citizens office (or anyone else on Earth doing anything, ever). Not absolutely certain, but about as much as one can honestly be. It’s true that a disingenuous apologist could have delivered similar explanations to mine, which of course their flock would lap up without looking twice.
Kagato (#93) says:
They did alter him, though. They greatly changed the shadow/highlight balance of the area of the background he was part of, sharply increasing his prominence in the scene. The effect is localized, too, as the shadow/highlight balance of the queen and knight were not nearly as greatly changed. If the knight had not been moved up, there would’ve likely been a nasty seam from the image manipulation.
@ Brian # 46
Not the only solution of course. To me, it looks like a Viagra advert. “Sleeping beauty” is her opinion of whats going on with his loins.
And the “five questions”? Well the first one is: “Do you suffer from erectile disfunction?”
ckitching@94:
There is a “seam” where the colours have been adjusted — there’s a diagonal gradient from the top right corner to the knight’s shoulders, and that change in shadow doesn’t appear in the original (as far as I can tell).
I had a quick play and it’s simple enough to reproduce. For the Photoshop literate, they’ve dropped the red level, and bumped the overall levels a bit. The levels in the old man’s corner, probably twice as much.
This is an odd usage of this work of art. I usually see this painting used as an illustration in books & websites about Arthurian Legends. I think it is supposed to be Gueneviere & Lancelot when used in that context. Many of the legends surrounding the mythical Arthur, his knights & the Round Table were metaphors for chastity in marriage. A strong theme of purity permeates the grail mythos. If you consider putting a woman on a pedestal & bending a knee as giving her the dominant position, then I guess you could read this as her having the upper rank. As many commenters have already mentioned, the romantic depictions of medieval life portrayed by the pre-rephealites wasn’t very feminist & more in keeping with Victorian sentimentality than historical accuracy.
Not sure how this art ties in with the themes of Sleeping Beauty? I guess they’re similar in a damsel in distress motif but they could have found other artwork/illustrations that directly illustrate that fairytale.
Epic fail, but it was fun reading all the Freudian analogies!
:D
The original painting is from 1901 and depicts a scene set somewhen in the Middle Ages. Apparently the “good old times” were not good enough for Rethinking Vision Forum.
(On the other hand, they are indeed called “Rethinking Vision” — kinda reminds me of an unwholesome ex-brother-in-law I need to photoshop off froms some family photos…)
I messed up the names, sorry. Rethinking Vision Forum are the folks doing the good work here — I should have wrote Vision Forum only. Sorry about that!
Ok, I can see the reasons given as legitimate. The specific person who actually posted in reply to mine though gave the usual, “Well, we can keep talking, if you just accept that X, Y and Z are true.” In other words, they wanted me to pull a bus out of the hat, and accept that their *certainty* about some things was more reasonable than the evidence against them. Very few people here would take well to that.
Turning the comments off, directly after this back and forth… was spectacularly bad timing, since it looked like what you usually get from nearly all religious oriented sites (i.e., closing down the discussion, the moment someone challenges an assertion). I am glad to see that this wasn’t the case. I don’t really like seeing people do that. One site did that to their system, relating to religious clause related news he posted, based on, “It seems to be mostly a small number of the same people, arguing.” I thought it was a bad idea, not the least because one of the people arguing was one of the crazies, and her willingness to engage, at all, was a positive, in that it put her in a position of having to defend some pretty stupid things (she was a Catholic, so every time something related to that came up… lol).
The situation with this one is a bit different, and.. on recognizing that, I would certainly have been a “bit” more tactful.
Well, that’s perfectly normal, up to the age of 6 or so.
@Kagehi – I run the Rethinking Vision Forum website (I’m the webmaster), and it’s like the other commenter here said. I myself am an atheist myself and am in full agreement with you, but (a) most Vision Forum minded people will simply shut down and side more firmly with VF if they start getting told off regarding the issue by an atheist; and (b) many of those who have written the articles on the site are themselves Christian, as atheists usually laugh derisively at the likes of Vision Forum and see no reason to write out real, thought out arguments against it (which I totally get).
You said: “Turning the comments off, directly after this back and forth… was spectacularly bad timing, since it looked like what you usually get from nearly all religious oriented sites (i.e., closing down the discussion, the moment someone challenges an assertion). I am glad to see that this wasn’t the case.”
It actually wasn’t your comments that made me realize that the ability to comment doesn’t really add anything to the goal of the site. Some pro-Vision Forum individuals began posting on the articles, for example, being extremely condescending to one author who admitted that she works and has a child by accusing her of abandoning her children, etc, etc. So I decided that comments from the two extremes – pro-VF individuals and atheists who see the whole Bible as ridiculous – wouldn’t help those in the middle who are inclined to possibly buy into the image presented by Vision Forum.
I’m sure I have seen this photoshop job before too, along with a comparison to the original, but I don’t remember where it was being used.
Maidentheshade:
Well, Guinevere was unfaithful to Arthur with Lancelot. Some versions of the legend portray her in a very negative light.
Sleeping Beauty is idealised because she’s inert. She exercises no will of her own. She’s “dead to her self”. She waits patiently until her patriarch allows a prince/knight into the castle to claim her. This hand-over moment is what is depicted in the ‘shopped picture. I imagine if they could have found one where she’s actually asleep with a knight standing over her and her father there to give him the go-ahead, they would have. Or maybe not, because the thing is, the girl must know her place, she must submit and be aware of her submission or it’s just not as good.
Felix | 11 September 2011 at 12:26 pm:
Because resize was much too hard. Surely much harder than carefully cutting the young man out of the picture, shifting him up a good way, and carefully pasting him back in.
In order to do it by accident they’d have to have been both smart enough to do the intermediate level photoshop yet dumb enough not to know they can simply re-size via novice photoshop skills.
Seriously Ctrl T, drag, accept, add layer for the title and logo…that’s it.
That’s like me winding up with a picture of Mary blowing Jesus because while I was skilled enough to do the sculpture, I wasn’t enough to get the intended pose of her washing his feet.
EUREKA! We’ve hit a massive vein of Renoir!
Are you sure you want to use the phrase “massive vein” whilst we’re discussing a picture of a woman inspecting a penis?
you’re right
“LOOK AT THE SIZE OF THAT PICASSO MOTHERLOAD!”
I looked at the picture you have here and my first thought was “That picture is wrong”. I then realised it is an editted version of the one my wife has hanging on the wall.
I’m going to withhold judgment until I find out what the five questions are. I’m hoping they’re trying to bring back the Celtic tradition of using riddle-games as a courtship tool, e.g.
I’d approve of that. Although I don’t know how you’d stop suitors from just looking up the answers on the Internet.
Thing is …
You could actually make quite a nice romantic image out of that bad cut and paste, without the hand-jobby implications.
If Knight McKnighterson was placed a couple of skootches further down, he wouldn’t loom over Her Ladyship quite so … loomingly. Her hand would be reaching out to touch his heart, not his groin. Shoop in the fingers of his right hand, holding hers, and it looks like she’s shyly averting her gaze (again, not staring at his GROIN) while he lifts her hand for a kiss, just as a polite knight might.
But then, you’d have to not be a mysogynistic god-bothering patriarch.
“SHOW ME THE MONET!”
She’s obviously checking out the pommel on his pork sword.