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https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/18/us/spiderman-art-devil-horns-nebraska-trnd/index.html

Too much terrible things in the world these days. Have a good laugh at some silliness.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/18/us/spiderman-art-devil-horns-nebraska-trnd/index.html

You had two closing tags there, so the link didn't work.

Is it just me or is spidey missing a finger?

Rock on!

 AndrewGPaul wrote:
https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/18/us/spiderman-art-devil-horns-nebraska-trnd/index.html

You had two closing tags there, so the link didn't work.

Fixed! Thanks.

Yup. If you live in America in this day and age and DONT know who Spider-Man is or what he looks like, then just go back to your cave. Very, VERY stupid person in that article.

My favourite bit is when she calls it anti-Christian, as if that's even an argument. Doesn't the US have both freedom of religion, and freedom from religion as well as freedom of speech. Kind of one of the foundations of the whole country.

This also highlights why I'd be terrible at being one of those officials that has to deal with complaints like this. It'd be impossible for me not to respond with "You're right. Our great Lord Satan compelled me to praise him by building this statue. All hail Satan!"

Slipspace wrote:
My favourite bit is when she calls it anti-Christian, as if that's even an argument. Doesn't the US have both freedom of religion, and freedom from religion as well as freedom of speech. Kind of one of the foundations of the whole country.

This also highlights why I'd be terrible at being one of those officials that has to deal with complaints like this. It'd be impossible for me not to respond with "You're right. Our great Lord Satan compelled me to praise him by building this statue. All hail Satan!"

Enlightenment with saekularistion is more of a western Europe thing.

From what I can make out, whilst the US is more religious than Europe on the whole, headbangers of this sort are simply a very, very noisy minority.

"Devils horns" have the thumbs tucked in.

Thumb out changes the meaning entirely.
(The 'horns' with thumb out is a sign-language gesture for "I love you"). Both in ASL and Auslan (the only 2 I'm familiar with).

Not sure how that translates when inverted, though. Or even whether it matters.

American "Christ-stains" (sic) don't even understand their OWN symbolism at the best of times. An inverted cross is not satanic, it's a f****** sword, as used by those crusader types.

It's actually a Cross of Saint Peter.

Allegedly he did not feel worthy to be executed in the same manner as that christ fellow, so he asked to be crucified upside-down.

Just as St Andrew went upon an X, hence the Saltire.

An upside down Latin cross, or Petrine cross, isn't a satanic symbol. In fact, that's one of the symbols of the papacy, although I suppose there's plenty of Protestants who'd say that's the same thing . It's an upside down crucifix (which is a depiction of Christ on the cross) that's used as an insult to the Church.

It's not an insult.

Catholics, inter alia, use it as a symbol of humility.

 Togusa wrote:
https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/18/us/spiderman-art-devil-horns-nebraska-trnd/index.html

Too much terrible things in the world these days. Have a good laugh at some silliness.

Geez, really? I knew there were a lot of religious nuts in god´s own country but this takes the cake.

Pfftt doesn't hold a candle to the campus preachers. Surely everyone has enjoyed that spectacle - the bible-thumping and screaming preachers on college campuses, condemning all of the students? A great place to see lesbians make out though...

 Elbows wrote:
Pfftt doesn't hold a candle to the campus preachers. Surely everyone has enjoyed that spectacle - the bible-thumping and screaming preachers on college campuses, condemning all of the students? A great place to see lesbians make out though...

About twenty years ago there was a religious fanatic in my home town, a truly disheveled personality. He stood in the town square with his wife/associate/whatever and spouted religious gibberish with a speed which would put Eddie Murphy to shame. I saw him fairly often at his preferred spot and his usual topic was the promiscuity of today´s women. He associated their crotch with a field marred by deep furrows. Another feature which I didn´t forget about him were his bad teeth.

 timetowaste85 wrote:
Yup. If you live in America in this day and age and DONT know who Spider-Man is or what he looks like, then just go back to your cave. Very, VERY stupid person in that article.

You are misreading this. The sculpture does appear to be making the devil horns sign with each hand, especially before the webs are attached.

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
Rock on!

Exactly, this guy sees it.

Its not that its clearly spidermans hands, it's the shape each hand is making. I have paid no more than casual attention to spiderman but in depictions I have seen over the years the character doesnt [usually] perform the devil horns sign while webslinging. This observation might be outdated so correct me if he now does.

Slipspace wrote:
My favourite bit is when she calls it anti-Christian, as if that's even an argument. Doesn't the US have both freedom of religion, and freedom from religion as well as freedom of speech. Kind of one of the foundations of the whole country.

This also highlights why I'd be terrible at being one of those officials that has to deal with complaints like this. It'd be impossible for me not to respond with "You're right. Our great Lord Satan compelled me to praise him by building this statue. All hail Satan!"

You should see both sides of this controversy. Part of the problem is that humanist groups have been systemically suing local authorities to remove crosses from public land. I will leave it to you to find links due to Dakka rules, a good place to look is Friendly Atheist, a website that is anything but friendly and has choice words of toxic glee to cover past and ongoing cross removal lawsuits. Not all these legal challenges work, some crosses remain due to heritage rights if they have been up long enough. Some local authorities that manage to resist get hit with a string of new lawsuits and eventually take down the crosses, which include war memorials, because they cant afford to keep paying legal fees.

That being said I have no way of knowing if the artist of the spiderman sculpture is intentionally controversial, an artist unaware of the controversy might well innocently choose that hand position for his artwork project. Without proof to the contrary I will assume so, but this is anything but a comic issue. Some cross demolitions have gone as far as SCOTUS, which must be a heavy financial burden on the local authorities that have to pay lawyers to work that far along the chain. The anti-christians and humanists are well funded and persistent. Only recently the Bladensburg Peace Cross has been defended again, this time at SCOTUS, much to the chagrin of some humanist groups who take great offence at a stone cross on public land, which is a memorial to fallen soldiers of WW1.

Christian groups in the US are not slow to notice this and if crosses come down, which include war memorials, and devil horn hand sculptures go up, even if they are purportedly something else, they might want to vocalise about it.

After all Peter Parker has done for the fair city of New York and now they just crap all over him! Outrageous!

SamusDrake wrote:
After all Peter Parker has done for the fair city of New York and now they just crap all over him! Outrageous!

Marvel is now owned by the House of Mouse and they are normally swift to order takedown notices of artwork far more uncontroversial than this. Disney is pretty thorough and they go after nonprofit Childrens hospitals for unauthorised murals. so I am surprised that Spidey doing allegedly satanic hand signals gets under their radar.

 Orlanth wrote:

SamusDrake wrote:
After all Peter Parker has done for the fair city of New York and now they just crap all over him! Outrageous!

Marvel is now owned by the House of Mouse and they are normally swift to order takedown notices of artwork far more uncontroversial than this. Disney is pretty thorough and they go after nonprofit Childrens hospitals for unauthorised murals. so I am surprised that Spidey doing allegedly satanic hand signals gets under their radar.

They might see it as bonus unintended publicity for their hell-related IP's like Ghost Rider. That or maybe its because the Mouse is the devil after all, just like South Park shows him to be....hmmmmmm.

 Orlanth wrote:
Its not that its clearly spidermans hands, it's the shape each hand is making. I have paid no more than casual attention to spiderman but in depictions I have seen over the years the character doesnt [usually] perform the devil horns sign while webslinging. This observation might be outdated so correct me if he now does.

Ah, no, from Amazing Spider Man #1, the trigger for his webshooters has been in the center of his palm and he triggered it with his middle and ring fingers together, presumably to prevent accidental discharges. Meanwhile the thumb, index finger, and pinky remained splayed out to stay out of the line of spray.

Literally from the beginning, this was how it was done. Poke around on the internet and you'll see THOUSANDS of pictures of Spider-man slinging web with this exact hand formation.

So its only the devil horns before the webs are added. Ok that clears it up a bit.

 Excommunicatus wrote:
It's not an insult.

Catholics, inter alia, use it as a symbol of humility.

That’s my understanding of the inverted cross, but my understanding is that an inverted crucifix is different. Having said that, it seems that the inverted crucifix is used as an anti-Catholic symbol by outside groups; whether Catholics themselves are upset by it is less clear.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Orlanth wrote:
So its only the devil horns before the webs are added. Ok that clears it up a bit.

The devil horns sign folds the thumb in over the middle and ring fingers. Spider-man’s web action sticks it out the side. It’s the same as the difference between a thumbs-up and a clenched fist.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Strg Alt wrote:

 Elbows wrote:
Pfftt doesn't hold a candle to the campus preachers. Surely everyone has enjoyed that spectacle - the bible-thumping and screaming preachers on college campuses, condemning all of the students? A great place to see lesbians make out though...

About twenty years ago there was a religious fanatic in my home town, a truly disheveled personality. He stood in the town square with his wife/associate/whatever and spouted religious gibberish with a speed which would put Eddie Murphy to shame. I saw him fairly often at his preferred spot and his usual topic was the promiscuity of today´s women. He associated their crotch with a field marred by deep furrows. Another feature which I didn´t forget about him were his bad teeth.

Every so often, someone takes it upon themselves to preach fundamentalist Protestantism on the streets of Glasgow. Usually they get ignored, but on one occasion, the nearby busker with bagpipes took it upon himself to stand next to him and drown out the ranting until he gave up nd went away.

 AndrewGPaul wrote:

 Orlanth wrote:
So its only the devil horns before the webs are added. Ok that clears it up a bit.

The devil horns sign folds the thumb in over the middle and ring fingers. Spider-man’s web action sticks it out the side. It’s the same as the difference between a thumbs-up and a clenched fist.

Do a google search:
devil horns sign

It shows both thumb in and thumb out and variations on thumb in.. The positions of the four fingers are what is important as they form the horns. So its the difference between a thumbs up and a closed hand.



Funny that spidey's version has several meanings.

Tom Landry Middle School Rules

 Orlanth wrote:


Exactly, this guy sees it.

Its not that its clearly spidermans hands, it's the shape each hand is making. I have paid no more than casual attention to spiderman but in depictions I have seen over the years the character doesnt [usually] perform the devil horns sign while webslinging. This observation might be outdated so correct me if he now does.

And it's basically impossible to get a spiderman toy in any decade without one of his hands in the web shooting pose.



And thats why. The web shooter is on his wrist. The button to activate them is in his palm. The 2 fingers apply pressure to the trigger.

It's not just now. He has since the 60s/70s.

 Lance845 wrote:


It's not just now. He has since the 60s/70s.

It's also debatable that this hand sign ever meant "devil horns" to begin with.

The origin of that lays in Christian criticism of heavy metal in the 70s/80s (before the earliest death metal/satanic metal bands ever came to be), and the "satanic cults" hysteria of the same period where everything "the young people" enjoyed was part of a conspiracy to convert kids to satanism.

But hey, let's take a fairly amusing thread about knee jerk reactionism, and inject some knee jerk reactionism into it. That's not ironic.

 LordofHats wrote:

It's also debatable that this hand sign ever meant "devil horns" to begin with.

The origin of that lays in Christian criticism of heavy metal in the 70s/80s (before the earliest death metal/satanic metal bands ever came to be), and the "satanic cults" hysteria of the same period where everything "the young people" enjoyed was part of a conspiracy to convert kids to satanism.

But hey, let's take a fairly amusing thread about knee jerk reactionism, and inject some knee jerk reactionism into it. That's not ironic.

Evidently you aren't paying attention. Lets take it in order.

1. Many in the Christian community are deeply concerned about cultural engineering. Crosses are being taken down and opposed symbology raised.

2. The fact that a cross is a war memorial, or a historic monument, doesn't spare it from malicious lawsuits to cause its removal, so that logically establishes people might take offense at opposed imagery even if it has a secondary meaning or purpose.
However the Churches involved have gone no further than to protest their displeasure, they haven't tried to sue anyone to ensure removal.

3. The sculptures went up without the webs initially and thus do represent the devil horns even if they also represent something else. It is relevant because the hand signals was all of spiderman that was depicted, so the type of hand symbols was therefore relevant. If you make a sculpture of a whole spiderman including web slinging pose, as shown in images from Lance845 above it is not offensive to anyone. You will notice that the controversy died down once the webs were attached.

4. It is not unfair to hypothesize that the sculpture by omitting everything else of spiderman exempt the hand signal could be an excuse to raise satanic imagery i.e how do we raise devil horns in place of crosses in public space? Pretend they are something else.
Now I don't buy this personally but with the vitriol with which cross removals have been pursued and the tactics involved. Some cross removals are especially underhand for example even if campaigns to save the crosses in courts are successful if enough lawsuits are chained together the local authority will remove the cross themselves because they cannot afford to keep spending public money to defend them. This is a very underhand 'victory' and gives merit to the idea that anything goes.

I can see why many Christian communities in America are feeling they are under pressure, they are. This is not a fight I would have picked, but I can see it as a last straw to some.
Also Dakka is largely pro-military yet while the whole thread is about having a laugh at Christian's expense, I was expecting at least some of you to notice what is going on here. Its not so much about what is going up in parks as what is coming down at the same time. A society has to gone pretty low when local authorities are being hounded by successive lawsuits until even if they win them they end up taking down WAR MEMORIALS because God-haters demand it infringes their rights to suffer to be in the same town as a cross on public land. As this is happening, multiple times, it is not hysteria.

 Orlanth wrote:
*SNIP*

The thread is about laughing at ignorance.

As to the banned topic you seem to want to rant at us about, all I can say is that you're continuing the threads purpose excellently. No one looking at the last couple years of SCOTUS precedent can with a straight face tell me Christians are at their wits end and not spark my laughter at their obvious ignorance of reality.