"So, if there's no God, who changes the water?" - New Yorker cartoon of two goldfish in a bowl

In a poignant reflection on faith, existence, and the absurdities of life, a New Yorker cartoon featuring two goldfish pondering the absence of divine intervention has sparked a thoughtful conversation about the nature of reality and human understanding. The simple animated exchange between the fish—innocently framed yet profoundly resonant—asks: "So, if there's no God, who changes the water?"

At first glance, the humor derives from the mundane anxieties of aquatic life juxtaposed against existential crises. But the whimsical premise cuts deeper, prompting a reexamination of how humankind ascribes agency, purpose, and even divinity to routine occurrences. Just as the goldfish assume some omnipotent hand maintains their environment, many people project similar expectations onto higher powers, interpreting catastrophic or ordinary events alike as evidence of divine will.

The Inspirited Schools of Thought

Some theologians argue the analogy underscores a theological argument against a "hands-off" God—one who might set cosmic forces in motion but remains indifferent to specific outcomes. The late Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, writing on free will, once questioned whether an all-powerful yet absent God is truly meaningful. "Does He care that I struggle with doubt? Or is He just the one who filled the bowl?" a student recently joked at an interfaith forum, reflecting on the cartoon's durability.

On the flip side, secularists see an ironic validation of human agency. Instead of cosmic explanation, they say, water changes in real life come down to human action—those beholden neither to prayer nor revelation but measurable, profane tasks. A marine biologist might murmur about nitrogen cycles and filtration, dismissing supernatural justification. But dismissing the human yearning for explanation feels inadequate, critics argue, since even scientific inquiry stems from that original question: Who—or what—shapes our reality?

Culture Wars for Gills

The cartoon inadvertently entered the broader culture wars when it resurfaced in debates about intelligent design. A Texas school board member tried (and failed) to include it in evolution versus creationism curriculum debates, arguing that it atheistically undermined objective purpose. Conversely, progressive church leaders appropriated the image for stewardship campaigns, repositioning the goldfish plea as concern for ecological responsibility—"We are the hands that change the water now," framed an Episcopal bulletin.

Beyond religion, the image tapped into anxieties about automation. A tech journalist noted parallels to AI developers grappling with emergent AI behavior: "If no programmer coded it, who ‘changed the water’ in the algorithm?" Whether observing fish bowl systems or deep learning systems, humans resist accepting systems working without discernible intent.

What About the Fish?

Despite hundreds of religious and philosophical analyses, the cartoonist privately revealed the original draft showed the second fish replying, "The human, obviously," to compose an unsent rebuttal message: "The joke stops being funny when you realize you’re the water change." It seems the truest interpretation remains unspoken—sometimes questions are more important than answers, especially when, in our tiny bowls of understanding, we mistake routine for revelation or expect divine justification for life’s small mercies (or irritations).

By the time the New Yorker ran a follow-up with the same fish contemplating existential dread after encountering a Tetra Pak carton ("What even is plastic?"), the original water-changing cartoon had evolved into something greater—an intimate epitaph to human folly and accidental wisdom. And perhaps the true miracle, the cartoon implicitly argues, isn’t who changes the water—but that any of us care enough to ask.

Moreover, the continued resonance of the image underscores how its impact transcends the sum of its irreducible parts: simple line art, single-panel sequence, and dialogue that could fit on a post-it note. The fish’s concern remains because it mirrors our own: for continuity, intervention, or even some fleeting reassurance that nothing we experience occurs by sheer chance. The serious attention given to such a casual graphic demonstrates our ceaseless quest to import deeper meaning into everything—when sometimes, the profoundest answer remains as everyday as reaching for the fish food.

(Via New York, Philosophy Today, Christian Science Monitor, Reddit’s r/dankmeme archives)