Piss(ed) Christ(ians)

C

chimpkin

C'mon, get happy!
Registered Senior Member
(Subtitle) Or...are Christians really so much better than Muslims after all?

When New York artist Andres Serrano plunged a plastic crucifix into a glass of his own urine and photographed it in 1987 under the title Piss Christ, he said he was making a statement on the misuse of religion.

Controversy has followed the work ever since, but reached an unprecedented peak on Palm Sunday when it was attacked with hammers and destroyed after an "anti-blasphemy" campaign by French Catholic fundamentalists in the southern city of Avignon.
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/201...no-piss-christ-destroyed-christian-protesters

So, while this was merely a mob act of vandalism, this reminds me (and my wife) about those cartoons...you know, those cartoons:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jyllands-Posten_Muhammad_cartoons_controversy

What interested me though was this comment by the publishing newspaper's culture editor:
The modern, secular society is rejected by some Muslims. They demand a special position, insisting on special consideration of their own religious feelings.
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Who does that remind me of...

http://www.yuricareport.com/Dominionism/ChristiansSueForRightToHate.html
The legal argument is straightforward: Policies intended to protect gays and lesbians from discrimination end up discriminating against conservative Christians. Evangelicals have been suspended for wearing anti-gay T-shirts to high school, fired for denouncing Gay Pride Month at work, reprimanded for refusing to attend diversity training. When they protest tolerance codes, they're labeled intolerant.
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And I just love the irony here...

By equating homosexuality with race, Baylor said, tolerance policies put conservative evangelicals in the same category as racists ..."Think how marginalized racists are," said Baylor, who directs the Christian Legal Society's Center for Law and Religious Freedom. "If we don't address this now, it will only get worse."
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Aw, makes my heart just go out to those poor Christians:bawl:.

But what about the religious rights of others?
http://onfaith.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/eboo_patel/2010/02/religious_rights_for_christian.html

Recently, WallBuilders, Inc., whose founder David Barton has been a guest on Fox's "Huckabee," among other venues, filed an amicus brief in a case in the Ninth Circuit. The brief argues that the religion protections of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution should be limited to Christians, or, at most, monotheists because, in the founding era, the word "religion" meant only Christianity or, at most, monotheism.
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So...while I'd agree Western society where the Christians are is more tolerant...but the fundamentalists aren't the majority.

Do you think they'd leave the rest of us be if they were?

I find it really annoying that they claim superiority , yet behave in similar types of badness, varying only in degree... in many cases...in which case where's the superiority?

It really, really strikes me as an incredible case of cultural chauvinism.
 
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But then being a Christian and a hypocrite are synonymous.
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I couldn't agree with that.

.I've met people who really seem like Christlike Christians...they were usually trying to help the sick, feed the hungry, and defend the downtrodden.

Not trying to stop other people from living their lives. Go figure.
 
chimpkin said:
I couldn't agree with that.

.I've met people who really seem like Christlike Christians...they were usually trying to help the sick, feed the hungry, and defend the downtrodden.

Not trying to stop other people from living their lives. Go figure.
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Were they? Did they really 'sell all their possessions, and give the money to the poor'?

See, this is a direct instruction from Jesus, yet Christians own houses and cars. That is hypocrisy.
 
from what i know of christians, they tend to be die-hard capitalists which is quite opposite of christ. i also see much of their charity to be an apologetic system for another system they support. it's kind of like someone taking most from you directly or indirectly and giving you some of it back.
 
I see your point Chimp.

I have thought about this lately. I don't think this primitive hate and bigotry has to do with Christianity or any other religion. I think it has to do with low IQ and the more primitive sides of human (animal) behavior. Homophobia is just that, fear. Fear of the unfamiliar. It's basically this same fear that also feeds racism and all other sorts of irrational hatred towards other people. The more primitive brains are more susceptible to basic instincts like this.

This is why not all Christians are out there in the streets protesting against homosexuality. There are a lot of highly intelligent christians. It's just that primitive people are attracted to religion because religion makes life easier to understand. These primitives tend to be louder and more visible. That doesn't just go for christians either. It's usually like that. Not all tea partiers are christians for instance.

The thing religion does is, it offers an excuse for hating on gays if you interpret it in the wrong way. A religion that was supposed to be about forgiveness and love for your fellow man can easily be turned into a tool for herding fellow simpletons into hating on the gay people.
 
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phlogistician said:
Were they? Did they really 'sell all their possessions, and give the money to the poor'?

See, this is a direct instruction from Jesus, yet Christians own houses and cars. That is hypocrisy.
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Don't be ridiculous. You're making completely unreasonable demands. You can be a good person without giving everything you own away and become poor yourself. You're making the same mistake that the some of Christians are when interpreting their holy book.
 
birch said:
from what i know of christians, they tend to be die-hard capitalists which is quite opposite of christ. i also see much of their charity to be an apologetic system for another system they support. it's kind of like someone taking most from you directly or indirectly and giving you some of it back.
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Generalising and untrue.
 
The controversy about the 'piss-christ' artwork has generally concerned whether or not tax-funded museums should mount art exhibitions that appear designed to outrage those very same tax-payers. There haven't been the same kind of objections to showing the work in private galleries. I don't believe that the artist has received international death-threats or anything like that.

Breaking the art-work was an escalation, but kind of a minor one in an instance like this when nothing of real value has been lost. This piece of art is almost entirely conceptual, just a crucifix in a bottle of urine. So get another crucifix and drop it in another bottle of urine. Artwork restored.

Since this thing is conceptual art, the real interest lies in the ideas swirling around it.

You know, the more I think about it, the more I find that I kind of like the piss-christ sculpture or installation or whatever it is. It really does raise a valid theological question about whether God was tainted by his plunge into the world of humanity and sin. The crucifix in urine seems to symbolize that. If God's incarnation in Jesus wasn't tainted, then why all the revulsion about dropping a crucifix in urine?

But whatever theological symbolism was intended, this thing also comes across as an act of provocation. It fits very well into a whole class of "transgressive" artworks, artworks that are designed to cross boundaries and to gore sacred cows.

The thing is, if an artwork was intended from its inception to be "outrageous", then the artist and his/her supporters shouldn't feign shock (and inevitably superiority) when the viewing public is (predictably) outraged. The public's reaction is an integral part of the art concept, a necessary part.

So I don't really have anything against a crowd destroying the piss-christ incarnation. It was written into the script and quite possibly the response that the artist originally intended.

Nobody was hurt. Nothing valuable was lost. It was all just part of the play, the artistic analogue of the crucifixion. (The timing of these events so close to Easter is fitting and fortuitious.)
 
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chimpkin said:
But what about the religious rights of others?
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Which suggests that for all practical intents and purposes, religiousness is a matter of politics.


I find it really annoying that they claim superiority , yet behave in similar types of badness, varying only in degree... in many cases...in which case where's the superiority?

It really, really strikes me as an incredible case of cultural chauvinism.
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Controversies around the application of the First Amendment abound:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
— The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution

The First Amendment was written because at America's inception, citizens demanded a guarantee of their basic freedoms.

Our blueprint for personal freedom and the hallmark of an open society, the First Amendment protects freedom of speech, press, religion, assembly and petition.

Without the First Amendment, religious minorities could be persecuted, the government might well establish a national religion, protesters could be silenced, the press could not criticize government, and citizens could not mobilize for social change.
[...]

The First Amendment ensures that "if there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein," as Justice Robert Jackson wrote in the 1943 case West Virginia v. Barnette.

And as Justice William Brennan wrote in New York Times v. Sullivan in 1964, the First Amendment provides that "debate on public issues ... [should be] ... uninhibited, robust, and wide-open."

However, Americans vigorously dispute the application of the First Amendment.

Most people believe in the right to free speech, but debate whether it should cover flag-burning, hard-core rap and heavy-metal lyrics, tobacco advertising, hate speech, pornography, nude dancing, solicitation and various forms of symbolic speech. Many would agree to limiting some forms of free expression, as seen in the First Amendment Center's State of the First Amendment survey reports.

Most people, at some level, recognize the necessity of religious liberty and toleration, but some balk when a religious tenet of a minority religion conflicts with a generally applicable law or with their own religious faith. Many Americans see the need to separate the state from the church to some extent, but decry the banning of school-sponsored prayer from public schools and the removal of the Ten Commandments from public buildings.

Further, courts wrestle daily with First Amendment controversies and constitutional clashes, as evidenced by the free-press vs. fair-trial debate and the dilemma of First Amendment liberty principles vs. the equality values of the 14th Amendment.

Such difficulties are the price of freedom of speech and religion in a tolerant, open society.

http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/about.aspx?item=about_firstamd
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phlogistician said:
The one furthering the spread of AIDS by preaching that condoms are against God's will? How is encouraging people to get sick and die in any way Christ like?
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Well it is true that high risk sex is high risk sex and that usually dont include condoms...keywords "risk" and "high".
 
Art is powerful. It stirs emotion . I like Piss Christ. I think I understand it too. My interpretation is how it makes a mockery out of people that worship Jesus like you would an Idol. Instead of worshiping charitable attributes by picking up the cross and following you bow down to an image of a man that lived a charitable type life . Living vicariously by Christ instead of picking up a cross and carrying it your self . For example . The carpet layer knows how to get on his knees . He actually does something when he is forced to his knees by the will of creation . Pretty much mandatory type action for a carpet layer. Jesus Idol Worshipers get on there knees and say some words usually so other pompous people can here them . That is it. Now every one feels good and we can go back to honking at people in traffic , cutting em off , or taking there parking space. Raping there daughters and sons . Enslaving the women and telling Poor Man he is dirt. Ya glad my church is the mountains , cause I can do all that stuff every day even on Saturday and Sunday
 
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