…and this is a 
Fear the philistine
Category: Art • Creationism
Posted on: March 10, 2008 2:28 PM, by PZ Myers
I am reminded of the whole host of intellectual failings of creationists: it's not just that they reject modern science, but many of them tend to be brain-damaged peckerwoods who are also incapable of viewing literature and art without squawking in horror, unless maybe it's a tasteless photorealistic airbrushed Aryan Jesus, or perhaps some cookie-cutter landscape from a hack like Kincade. For a truly sickening example, just look at Ray Comfort's latest blog entry. He's reacting to a documentary of Gustav Klimt, which describes his work as "sensuous" and "obsessed with women", which are all marks of Satan in Comfort's book. He ends his recitation of the description of the eroticism in Klimt's paintings with this:
If you too enjoy gazing at the naked female form, you don't have to go to New York to see similar works. You can find them scrawled on the walls of most public rest rooms.
I know there are lots of good artists around, but they generally don't scribble on restroom walls. Does this look like something you'd find on a bathroom stall?
Does this make you think of pornography?
Here's a gallery of art by Gustav Klimt. There's a good reason he's a famous painter — this is wonderful stuff. Ray Comfort, two-bit rednecked ignoramus that he is, sees none of it, and is so freaking dishonest that he doesn't dare show his readers any of Klimt's actual work … so instead he does his own crude rendition of "The Kiss" to illustrate his screed, and just so you don't miss his point, he crudely slathers wicked words all over it.
I think you might find Comfort's work in a seedy, filthy restroom somewhere, but not Klimt's.
Just so you don't think this battle is all about nothing but esoteric arguments over details of the interpretation of rarefied biological data, I can't imagine a clearer example of the broader field of the struggle. This is a war over all of Western culture. What do you want? Klimt or Comfort? Science or lies?
Comments
Wow. Comfort's rendering is just sickening. As an artist, I feel the frustration at some people's opaque view of artwork. My own mother is a perfect example of that type of person (I love her dearly, but at a distance) and I sent her a self portrait and the first thing she noticed was that I wasn't wearing a shirt. I'm not sure she moved past that.
And I prefer Klimt and Science. :)
Posted by: Kcanadensis | March 10, 2008 2:36 PM
Sounds to me like a Feature, Not a Bug™!
Posted by: Bill Dauphin | March 10, 2008 2:37 PM
Love that look of discomfiture/horror on his female/kiss recipient drawing, tho'...
Now I wouldn't want to imply he drew that from life or nothin'... Like, say, maybe because that's usually the reaction he gets... It's just... interesting.
Posted by: AJ Milne | March 10, 2008 2:38 PM
Jeez, I hate to be too snarky PZ, but hey,. I'm a guy - under 70 years old - almost everything reminds me of pornography! I do make an exception for Ray "Banana Boy" Comfort though - he reminds me of snails, landfills and illegal dumping.
Posted by: J-Dog | March 10, 2008 2:39 PM
Hmmm. He saw someone nekkid oncet. And has been terrified of humanity ever since.
Posted by: humbert dinglepencker | March 10, 2008 2:40 PM
Comfort's blog entry makes a great deal of the artist having had affairs or fathering out-of-wedlock children. Thus, the art is tainted.
Yet another example of their complete inability to separate a person's work from their life. If Darwin was a "racist," then his theory MUST be wrong. And now, if Klimt was a scoundrel -- then his art is bad. Particularly ironic with artists.
It's no wonder one of their first accusations against ideas they don't like is that it's a "religion." That's all they see.
Posted by: Sastra | March 10, 2008 2:41 PM
If Ray's eyes cause him to sin, then why doesn't he just cut them out, like the baby Jesus says to?
Ha! He's going to hell 'cause he doesn't have the balls to follow Jesus's advice. And there won't be any Klimt in hell, just back issues of Hustler from 1986.
But only the articles! *Shudder!*
Posted by: Brownian, OM | March 10, 2008 2:42 PM
I also like how his woman is the one falling off the cliff, not the man.
Posted by: MyaR | March 10, 2008 2:44 PM
You that old saying, "You can always be useful as a bad example." And here we have Ray Comfort. He has created a nice analogy for the hatchet job they do on the concept of evolution. Just place Klimt's version next to Comfort's supposed equivalent. The only way to make it more accurate would be to replace Comfort's version with a stick figure with boobs and horns.
Posted by: Monado, FCD | March 10, 2008 2:45 PM
Oh, PZ. I just recently cut Ray out of my blog subscriptions... must you tempt me to go back to that pit?
Posted by: Aaron Golas | March 10, 2008 2:45 PM
Yet another example of their complete inability to separate a person's work from their life.
Except of course, when it's a non-Christian pointing out the hypocricy of some bigwig preacher. Then it's all "to err is human; to forgive divine" and other apologetic bullshit.
Posted by: Brownian, OM | March 10, 2008 2:45 PM
brain-damaged peckerwoods...
It's not even that. A lot of these folks are affable, upright citizens who work, pay taxes, raise children, etc. They're not deranged or mentally challenged. They just simply have no interest in the fruits of the creative imagination. They may not be actively banning/burning books, but they certainly wouldn't ever actually read one. They may not be actively trying to get Michelangelo's David to put on a bathrobe, but they certainly wouldn't ever think of stopping by an art museum of a free afternoon. They may not be calling their local movie theater to protest the showing of The Golden Compass but they certainly couldn't tell you who Martin Scorsese or Orson Welles are. It's just a vast incurious--indeed suspicious--nature these "regular folk" have about art in general that confuses and indeed frightens me. Inbred hicks are one thing, but the average American who's never read a book, seen a movie besides Titanic or Forrest Gump, or been to a museum of any kind, that disheartens me. Comfort is just a garden variety anti-intellectual religious know-nothing; if it's not about God, it's somehow anti-God. Believe me, like a lot of you, I'm related to some of these people, so I speak from experience.
Posted by: Will E. | March 10, 2008 2:46 PM
Can I combine Comfort and Science? I'm sure we could ease some of the complaints of animal welfare groups if we started using subjects that were clearly not intelligent, feeling organisms.
Posted by: Patrick | March 10, 2008 2:48 PM
I think Comfort's piece is unintentionally hilarious - that is, if its purpose were a scathing lampoon of Comfort-type "values" it would be really funny.
And what's wrong with liking to look at human bodies, anyway? We should get turned on by chickens or trees or something?
Posted by: Joolya | March 10, 2008 2:48 PM
At first, I was pissed off, but let's face it, it's pretty funny how utterly repressed and woefully clueless Ray Comfort really is. It's like the mushy-headed dope hit the Third Grade and just stopped dead in his tracks as far as learning or developing is concerned.
As for his "painting," I think it betrays not only his utter ignorance, but it also shows his near-crippling fear of women.
Posted by: Dan | March 10, 2008 2:53 PM
Re: the placement of words in Comfort's art...don't you hate those Immorality STDs? The moral, upstanding Christian STDs are the ones to go with. You know, the ones that spread because of abstinence-only education and the treatment of something natural and beautiful as something filthy.
Posted by: Patrick | March 10, 2008 2:54 PM
Are you talking about the same Ray Comfort who thinks a cloned, sterile banana is evidence of intelligent design?
Posted by: Doug | March 10, 2008 2:56 PM
Fear the philistine, indeed. What a putz.
Has this guy ever been to a museum? I can only imagine what this idiot's house looks like...
Posted by: Bob | March 10, 2008 2:57 PM
Hmm, fearful of women's bodies, loudmouthed moralizing Christo-conservative, obsessed with bananas...
looks like we got a real closet case on our hands here.
Really, though, the "moralizing Christo-conservative" aspect would be sufficient evidence unto itself.
Posted by: minimalist | March 10, 2008 2:59 PM
I think it's a great idea to ignore the artistic creations of adulturers and folks that beget kids out of wedlock and so forth. Because there goes (ostendibly) most of the Psalms and Proverbs, for starters.
I'm not a huge Klimt fan, but I do like Goya, who was called before the Spanish Inquisition (why was he not expecting this?) for painting a female nude. What probably really irked the church, though, was his habit of creating etchings that criticized the church and upheld Enlightenment ideas, such as the one that reads, "The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters." Exhibit A: Ray Comfort.
Posted by: Greg Peterson | March 10, 2008 2:59 PM
I think calling Comfort a Philistine would be an insult to Philistines.
I suppose he would object if I were to share an audience with him, and tell them to never read the Bible or Thomas Aquinas or anything like that, because you can hear similar spiritual advice from the filthy guy on the subway platform.
Posted by: Rey Fox | March 10, 2008 3:02 PM
Someday, I am going to write my movie (but not until I get the kid's book written). I am going to do a "realistic" movie of Genesis, kind of like what Mel Gibson did with the Passion. I am going to stay as true to the Bible version as possible. Of course, that means that, before the fall, Adam and Eve run around naked and there is no shame in it. No, no fig leaves from me, at least not until after the fall.
I want to hear the objections. Will the Christians put up with the nudity on the grounds that "it is true to the biblical story" like they did with the violence in the Passion?
I am still debating with myself whether I should include a sex scene. I mean, A&E did have sex before the fall, right?
Posted by: Pablo | March 10, 2008 3:02 PM
"I think it's a great idea to ignore the artistic creations of adulturers and folks that beget kids out of wedlock and so forth. Because there goes (ostendibly) most of the Psalms and Proverbs, for starters."
To say nothing of rendering the Gospels and New Testament rather suspect. Sins of the Father and all that jazz.
Posted by: Patrick | March 10, 2008 3:03 PM
So what do you think? Closet-case or projection?
Come on everyone, let's hear your thoughts on this one.
Posted by: Whodunnit | March 10, 2008 3:04 PM
Of course, that means that, before the fall, Adam and Eve run around naked and there is no shame in it. No, no fig leaves from me, at least not until after the fall.
From what Dame Judy Dench says, you should seriously consider Daniel Craig for Adam.
Posted by: MAJeff, OM | March 10, 2008 3:10 PM
Closet-case or projection?
Are you kidding? A sex-fearing God-bot with a moustache like that?
He's so deep in the closet he's tripping over last season's shoes.
Posted by: Brownian, OM | March 10, 2008 3:10 PM
He's so deep in the closet he's tripping over last season's shoes
He hasn't even made it up to the 1970s platforms!
Posted by: MAJeff, OM | March 10, 2008 3:11 PM
$50 says Ray's got Eric Prydz's "Call on Me" on DVD hidden in the toilet tank.
Posted by: Brownian, OM | March 10, 2008 3:13 PM
@Pablo (#22)
How are you going to run the creation stories, and the two Noah's ark stories? In split screen?
Posted by: IanR | March 10, 2008 3:21 PM
As for his "painting," I think it betrays not only his utter ignorance, but it also shows his near-crippling fear of women.
hmm, I found his art quite revealing. Note how he interprets the expression of pleasure on the face of the woman in the original, as pure fear and revulsion in his own rendition.
It not only reveals his fear of women, it reveals his fear of what he might DO TO women.
IOW, it shows how he feels women should be afraid of HIM.
These people, who often squawk about how their can be no morality without fear of god, are literally speaking from personal experience; they know what horrors they would unleash upon their fellow citizens if they weren't artificially "leashed" by their own delusions of an all-powerful deity.
Frankly, I find his artwork just as important from a social commentary standpoint as Klimt's.
I'd like to title it:
Fear
Posted by: Ichthyic | March 10, 2008 3:22 PM
Godwin's Law warning.....
Wasn't it the Nazis who went on and ON about "degenerate" art?
Including Klimt, AFAIK.
Posted by: G. Tingey | March 10, 2008 3:23 PM
"Yet another example of their complete inability to separate a person's work from their life. "
Man are they going to be PISSED when they find out about Da Vinci.
Posted by: Niobe | March 10, 2008 3:27 PM
How does Comfort know that the people portrayed in "The Kiss" aren't married? Then it's ok!
Please excuse me now while I go scream about Elliot Spitzer for awhile.
Posted by: Carlie | March 10, 2008 3:30 PM
Where does one begin with someone like Comfort? My first reaction to the buzz killer types of the world is "fuck off and mind your own goddam business, eh?" But they wont fuck off. They flit around and do more stupid and annoying shit like this ass-hattery. Why oh, why oh WHY do they have to mis-represent everything in life that they don't like? Why are they such nannies? Why do they think that their propensity for lying about EVERYTHING makes them better people? Who with any sense at all reads what they have to write, listens to what they have to say and agrees?
It doesn't take an art critic to look at the face of the woman in the Klimt and see the EXACT OPPOSITE of the Fear and Loathing in Comfort's "work." I see warmth, contentment, comfort (ha!) mixed with desire and a bit of lust (and there's nothing wrong with a bit of lust in my book nudge nudge wink wink say no more!) maybe, but nothing even close to what Comfort's does. I wonder if when he looks at the Klimt if that is what he really sees? Is the fear of sex so ingrained in him that what he sees is completely distorted from what normal people see? Is it like anorexia, where the image in the mirror looks fat, no matter how thin the person is?
Does he hate and fear women and sex so much that all he sees is hatred where there is love?
So when I quit worrying about what might actually be wrong with him and his ilk, as if there might be something positive to do about them, I come full circle to "Fuck off, and mind your own goddam business, eh? You don't like naked pictures, don't look at 'em, and shut up about it while you are fucking off because you are harshin my mellow with all your chatter."
But because he STILL won't stfu about it, he needs a swift kick in the arse - maybe it will dislodge his head.
Posted by: bybelknap, FCD | March 10, 2008 3:31 PM
Ichthyic you beat me to it!
Posted by: bybelknap, FCD | March 10, 2008 3:33 PM
Yes yes yes!!! I'd love to see that. :-)
Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | March 10, 2008 3:34 PM
I just don't get it. Both figures in "The Kiss" are fully clothed, and in the work there is nothing, I mean absolutely nothing, that says the two are not happily and monogamously married to each other. Heck, the woman is even on her knees, in a nicely subservient position that should make fundies pleased.
Man, just the hint of sexual pleasure, no matter how Biblically-sanctioned, seems to set some people off.
Posted by: Tulse | March 10, 2008 3:35 PM
Oh, my, what a clueless loon.
He has altered the expressions and composition to mean something entirely different from the original painting, and it's scary. I fear for him if he actually sees the menace/implied rape in his cartoon when he looks at Klimt's original.
I can't say how relieved I am that he (apparently) hasn't gotten around to doing a parody version of The Three Ages of Woman. I love that painting, and a Comfort-ized rendition of nude Grandmother is something I'd rather not contemplate.
Posted by: Sarah_D | March 10, 2008 3:39 PM
Will (#12) wrote:
I agree with the rest of what you said, but I dunno, scrawling 'fornication' and 'immorality' in big block letters ANYWHERE seems like the act of a deranged person.
Posted by: Ryan F Stello | March 10, 2008 3:41 PM
Somehow I think the 'Comfort-able' versions you would find in restrooms would feature two men.
And, while a self-portrait, it wouldn't be a painting. More like 'performance' art.
Posted by: Vic | March 10, 2008 3:44 PM
Ichthyic you beat me to it!
I'm probably going to catch flak for saying this, but I actually wish, that if this is an actual example of Comfort's artistic expression, he go off and produce an entire gallery of such revealing pieces.
one of the values of art is as social commentary, and Comfort's art (if it is his), cannot be denied as having much value from that standpoint.
Like most evangelicals, they simply can't help but show their true selves in one form or another.
so I say, go at it, Ray. show us another self portrait.
Posted by: Ichthyic | March 10, 2008 3:46 PM
I know that phenomenon :-)
Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | March 10, 2008 3:48 PM
"Imorralty"? How about anti-intellectualism?
Posted by: miller | March 10, 2008 3:51 PM
I just don't get it
you will if you put yourself into Ray's head.
this is an artistic form of the creobot's most common form of communication:
projection.
evangelism and fanatical religiosity is driven by fear, not love, if that helps you at all.
Ray is simply projecting his own internal fears onto everything he sees and hears. The words printed in the accompanying blog entry match the picture quite well.
Posted by: Ichthyic | March 10, 2008 3:52 PM
yes, because michelangelo's sistine ceiling, one of the most famous christian works of art, has no naked female forms in it. clearly it is equivalent to a restroom wall.
Posted by: arachnophilia | March 10, 2008 3:53 PM
I was actually surprised to see that Comfort even stumbled upon Klimt by accident, much less actually knows about him. Though I doubt his audience will relate, or even care, about his hilarious "take-down" of Klimt. They probably have yet to get over Harry Potter.
Posted by: Michael X | March 10, 2008 3:56 PM
yes, because michelangelo's sistine ceiling, one of the most famous christian works of art, has no naked female forms in it. clearly it is equivalent to a restroom wall.
Well, it that's those damned crazy Catholics who got up to all that nonsense. You know how evil and idolatrous they are. I mean, are they even Christians?!
Posted by: Will E. | March 10, 2008 4:09 PM
(what does the ",OM" in some people's names refer to???)
Posted by: Joolya | March 10, 2008 4:10 PM
(what does the ",OM" in some people's names refer to???)
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/molly.php
Posted by: Ichthyic | March 10, 2008 4:14 PM
The best illustration (no pun intended) of a straw man argument I've ever seen.
Posted by: Hank | March 10, 2008 4:15 PM
Ichthyic said:
you will if you put yourself into Ray's head.
this is an artistic form of the creobot's most common form of communication:
projection.
evangelism and fanatical religiosity is driven by fear, not love, if that helps you at all.
Ray is simply projecting his own internal fears onto everything he sees and hears. The words printed in the accompanying blog entry match the picture quite well.
Quoted for truth.
Posted by: Holydust | March 10, 2008 4:17 PM
@will e.:
the ironic part is that if you know any art history, michelangelo also painted the front wall of the sistine chapel, which was a depiction of the last judgement. exactly the kind of fire and brimstone mr. comfort is so fond of.
what's ironic? well, cardinal carafa didn't like it. too many naked people. he accused michelangelo of obscenity and immorality, and the nudity was covered up. i believe the restoration has since restored the painting to its original naked form.
all this, of course, will be lost on mr. comfort.
Posted by: arachnophilia | March 10, 2008 4:22 PM
Word.
I couldn't wait to share this post with Mr thalarctos, because I wanted to see his "WTF?" expression at the juxtaposition of Comfort with Klimt--I, for one, never saw that choice of target coming.
Mr t's reaction was very gratifying, but turns out I learned way more than I expected--he was actually already familiar with Comfort pre-banana, having been raised fundie. (He and his whole family are feeling much better now.)
Apparently, one of Comfort's evangelism schticks is to start out with "Do you think you're a good person? So you think you're good? Really? Well, have you ever told a lie? So, do you still think you're good?", and to keep on tearing down the person from there. Mr. thalarctos knew him mainly from that kind of evangelical tactic; bananas and Klimt, on the other hand, he's learned about here.
After getting a glimpse of the artistic "vision" Comfort's cartoon shows, I gotta say, learning about his deploying that kind of psychological abuse wasn't quite the surprise it might have been under other circumstances.
Posted by: thalarctos | March 10, 2008 4:24 PM
Someone keep him away from the Rodin. He might have a heart attack.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Kiss_(Rodin_sculpture)
("Rodin indicated that his approach to sculpting women was of homage to them and their bodies, not just submitting to men but as full partners in ardor. The consequent eroticism in the sculpture made it controversial.")
Posted by: kmarissa | March 10, 2008 4:25 PM
Someone keep him away from the Rodin. He might have a heart attack.
really?
that gives me an idea...
Posted by: Ichthyic | March 10, 2008 4:29 PM
To be fair, a lot of Klimt's sketches border on the pornographic. Not in the legal sense of having no merit beyond titillation, but they are both explicit and focused on the erotic.
By the way, if you're in NYC, you should check out the exhibit. It's really, good. And the gallery cafe does an awesome apple strudel.
Posted by: Ginger Yellow | March 10, 2008 4:34 PM
G. Tingey wrote:
"...Wasn't it the Nazis who went on and ON about 'degenerate' art? Including Klimt..."
Yes, yes it was. And for reasons all not that different from Comfort's, though marginally more nuanced. Heidegger did give them tips on "proper" art, after all--the creepy bastard.
Posted by: JJR | March 10, 2008 4:36 PM
"The Kiss" looks very much like the style of a painting that sold awhile back for the most money ever, but being a total art philistine myself I can't remember what that painting was or who did it, only that it was a woman and it was gold. Was that by Klimt?
Wow, I sound spectacularly stupid.
Posted by: Carlie | March 10, 2008 4:41 PM
*scratches head* Damn, that Ray guy needs a grip. I mean... I'm sorry but that art isn't even hot.
I seen art that was way more realistic and wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy more naked and hawt action. I mean, at least they looked like people. I don't like that Gustav's artstyle.
Posted by: Michelle | March 10, 2008 4:43 PM
Comfort's rendition actually portrays Adam and Eve, note the Fred Flinstone attire worn by the man. The scrawled imprecations hide the family dinosaurs in the background.
Cut some slack for Comfort's cartoony hack-work, it's not his medium. Comfort's true ouvre consists of soft-porn videos of curly-tressed, non-threatening boys fellating bananas.
Posted by: Longtime Lurker | March 10, 2008 4:44 PM
... and hitting "Post" on the way to opening a new window to google it before posting confirms my self-assessment. However, SCORE for me! Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer, $135 million, by Gustav Klimt. Ha!
Posted by: Carlie | March 10, 2008 4:44 PM
personally, i don't really like Klimt's paintings (his drawings are better), but for probably the exact opposite reasons as Comfort.
as an art student, and member of the human race, i find it absolutely fucking awful when extremist nutjob views infringe on people's ability to like good things. bloody weird, awfully sad. what a way to waste your own humanity.
Posted by: alex | March 10, 2008 4:45 PM
Man, don't knock graffiti artists. Some of them are really good. Just like the difference between "crops" and "weeds", the difference between "art" and "graffiti" is just a question of where it shows up.
That said, yeah, I would actually like to see more of Ray Comfort's parodies. That one's pretty illuminating. (And that man is SO closeted it isn't even funny. Fear of sex? Fear of women? A weird thing for bananas? And Jesus Haploid Christ, what about that moustache!)
Posted by: octopod | March 10, 2008 4:49 PM
Comfort and Hitler, two failed artists trying to attack true genius. Just pathetic. I wouldn't sell him any of my art even if I were starving (not that he'd buy it).
Sorry for the reference, but Tingey brought him up.
Posted by: Dahan | March 10, 2008 4:49 PM
I suggest Ray take a little stroll around the inside of Saint Peter's in Rome if he would like to see some real porn and snuff artwork.
Posted by: Dan | March 10, 2008 4:49 PM
It is my imagination, or does the man in Comfort's version kind of look like he's holding a banana? I mean, I guess it's supposed to be cloth, but...
Posted by: kmarissa | March 10, 2008 4:53 PM
I'm sure he would like Andy Warhol's banana though.
(There's one here - certainly an evolutionists worst nightmare. I wake up screaming at night over bananas...or something)
Posted by: AlanWCan | March 10, 2008 4:55 PM
So is reading the 'Song of Songs' OK? It was written by one of those biblical guys who got in trouble for fornication.
Posted by: Ruth | March 10, 2008 4:55 PM
hey guys, lets give credit where credit is due. those cartoon's on ray's site are not drawn by him, but by another person -- richard gunther: http://christianessays.freeservers.com/
i doubt ray has an artistic bone in his body.
Posted by: arachnophilia | March 10, 2008 4:56 PM
It is my imagination, or does the man in Comfort's version kind of look like he's holding a banana?
By jove, I think you're right.
he is both grasping an banana and a female with his right hand, and she obviously knows that he is about to drop her in favor of the banana.
Posted by: Ichthyic | March 10, 2008 4:56 PM
@Octopod: Yes. Lots of graffiti artists are really good. But I have a massive problem with the "graffiti" part of the deal.
...But about the non-good graffiti artists... Someone should teach them how to draw an anatomically correct erect penis. Seriously.
Posted by: Michelle | March 10, 2008 4:57 PM
hey guys, lets give credit where credit is due. those cartoon's on ray's site are not drawn by him, but by another person -- richard gunther:
how did you figure that out?
I'd like to see a link directly to the rest of the "art".
is that somewhere amongst the rubble of that site you linked to?
Posted by: Ichthyic | March 10, 2008 5:00 PM
I am going to do a "realistic" movie of Genesis, kind of like what Mel Gibson did with the Passion. I am going to stay as true to the Bible version as possible.
Problem; There are two differing accounts in Genesis. Are you going to have man created before the animals (Gen 2) or after (Gen 1)? Was Adam created before Eve (Gen 2) or were they created at the same time (Gen 1)?
And remember your source is inerrant! You must get it right or you will suffer the dire consequences of something or another.
I think you should use Rabbinical lore rather than the Bible. That way you get to do cool special effects as God builds The Virgin (wife #2) in front of Adam and you get a real strong female character in Liith (wife #1).
Posted by: Sarcastro | March 10, 2008 5:01 PM
Switching from Klimt for a moment, there's a painting by Edvard Munch that could be of some poor sod reacting to Ray Comfort's world-famous Banana-In-Hand Seduction Technique™...
Posted by: Dave | March 10, 2008 5:03 PM
fair enough, arachnophilia--you're correct that we should be accurate about these things.
I still think, though, that posting it on his blog with the implied equivalence to Klimt's work means the cartoon fits securely within Comfort's artistic "vision" wrt love, eroticism, men and women, etc.
If he can look at both pieces, and cannot see that the cartoon he posted is 180 degrees away from what Klimt is expressing, then Comfort's inner world seems to me to be a very scary place that I don't want to get any closer to. (I did go look at it after arachnophilia's correction, to make sure that I got it right this time.)
Which reminds me: Once again, PZ, thank you for reading these things so that I don't have to!
Posted by: thalarctos | March 10, 2008 5:12 PM
I would not be surprised if Comfort is demonstrating the art of smoke screen piety common to many evangelicals; rail against some "sin" to give the impression of fostering their warped brand of moral virtue while secretly engaging in the very same deviant behavior.
And yes Ray, thanks to the wonderful processes of evolution which have shaped the female body into the profoundly beautiful work of art it is I love looking at the naked female form. If you find that offensive then it's your loss. Besides, most of the time when I go to a public restroom the main anatomical graffiti I see are dicks which will, from now on, make me think of you.
Posted by: Todd | March 10, 2008 5:48 PM
in fact, the Nazis created an art show entitled "Degenerate Art" which was later recreated in this country - I saw it in DC many years back. They took famous works of art and did everything they could to undermine and ridicule the artist's vision. They hung some of them upside down; others with vile captions (e.g., "This work insults German womanhood."), and still others they created their own parodies of.
Many of the artists left the country after that show, and some committed suicide.
If it walks like a fascist, and talks like a fascist, maybe it is a fascist.
Hillary
Posted by: Hillary Rettig / The Lifelong Activist | March 10, 2008 5:54 PM
I just masturbated to the Comfort version.
Posted by: Turd Ferguson | March 10, 2008 6:03 PM
That Richard Gunther site...I took a look at one essay, and the stupid, she burns.
Aaaargh. There is a continuous range of wavelengths in the spectrum!
Posted by: PZ Myers | March 10, 2008 6:09 PM
But his picture has eight colors in it. How'd he do that?
Posted by: idahogie | March 10, 2008 6:15 PM
Pablo @ #22
Could you try and get Jack Nicholson to play God, and do it in his "mad mode" all wild eyed and tussled haired. Extra points if you can get him to hold and axe and hiss "here's daddy" in a super evil voice to Jesus. (ok I know JC isn't in Genesis but artistic linence and all..)
Posted by: Bride of Shrek | March 10, 2008 6:16 PM
If you too enjoy gazing at the naked banana form, you don't have to go to New York to see similar works. You can find them hanging by the urinals of most public men's rest rooms.
Posted by: Janine, ID | March 10, 2008 6:17 PM
Wait now, I learned in elementary school that there were only THREE primary colors, and I could make any color of fingerpaint by mixing those together. Yet again, our public schools are lying to our children!
Posted by: kmarissa | March 10, 2008 6:17 PM
I feel somewhat vindicated for observing that fundy-types really seem to go for teh tackeh (like Kinkaid and Wyland.) Mr. "Painter of Light (TM)" is raking it in by selling his designs for needlepoint and scrapbooking! Sorry, but you cease to be eligible for artist status when you trademark a catchprase, IMHO.
Can I vote for both?
Posted by: dwarf zebu | March 10, 2008 6:21 PM
"Modern Europeans have words for the seven basic colours of the rainbow, whereas other societies have from two to eleven."
(Steven Pinker I think explores this in "The Language Instinct" or "Blank Slate")
What a dumbass. I read a couple of those essays, too, and it's hard to believe people can be so easily gulled.
Posted by: Greg Peterson | March 10, 2008 6:22 PM
Note that Comfort does not indicate that the image is not an actual Klimt rendering.
Posted by: defectiverobot | March 10, 2008 6:24 PM
Only 7 colors??? That's the most absurd thing I've ever heard. I could say there's only 3 colors because monitors use Red Green and Blue to show the "millions" on my screen.
Buncha fucktards.
Posted by: Stevie_C | March 10, 2008 6:39 PM
"If you too enjoy gazing at the naked female form, you don't have to go to New York to see similar works. You can find them scrawled on the walls of most public rest rooms."
Typical of someone who doesn't particularly enjoy gazing at said form, and doesn't make the difference between beauty and ugliness..
Posted by: Christophe Thill | March 10, 2008 6:41 PM
Comfort reminds me of a gent who lived in our county. Every few months, this geezer would send a letter to the editor. And it didn't matter what he started out with, it always came down to: Society is doomed because we let wimmen show their ankles! The horror!
Anyway, I suppose everyone knows one of these hemorrhoids, they just pop up in different venues. Ignorant and proud of it.
Posted by: True Bob | March 10, 2008 6:50 PM
Comfort is a Neaderthal who would prefer Coke cans over Chiam Soutine.
Posted by: danley | March 10, 2008 6:52 PM
Ray Comfort is perfectly happy with junk painted with toilet paper of a covered bridge made exactly to the dimensions of his couch.
I bet he's offended by greek and roman sculpture. PAGAN NAKED DEITIES! BLASPHEMER!
Someone send him the Mapplethorpe book. The one of flowers... just to fuck with him.
Posted by: Stevie_C | March 10, 2008 6:58 PM
This is also the reason why Christian bookstores have the aesthetic sensibilites of a wombat's asshole. They make the world into a fabricated hell of carved angels, Cracker Barrel kitsch and domesticated piss. Their music sucks ass too. I've never heard a good Chris