Well, Christianity- it's anti-sex, largely anti-women.....i mean we worship a guy FOR CHRI....
8)
A note about the violence: if everyone is raising such a stink about how The Passion is so violent, why wasn't there a massive uproar over Kill Bill, where there were apparently fountains of blood spewing out of people's bodies? (I haven't seen it myself but I do intend to soon.)
I saw a photo of Christ on the cross from the movie on the front page of the National Post and He's totally covered in blood. Wow. It makes me really think about the guys back in the Philippines who actually get their hands and feet nailed when they do their reenactments of the Crucifixion.
The Gosples/NT have/has been searched up, down, backwards and forwards for error, contradictions, etc. for nearly 2000 years. There are no flaws. The closest you will come is with the book of James and the direction it takes on works righteousness. Had there been distinguishable errors in the text, this conversation wouldn't be necessary.
Get over it.
The pagan (and I use that term VERY loosely) media buried this movie. Only Drudge gave it the coverage it deserved. Once it was apparent that the buried coverage couldn't damage the movie's marketing (remember NOT ONE of the major distributors would touch this film) the Anti-semetic/violence spin was brought out to damage the movie further. But to no avail---in an industry dominated by the sexually confused and Christ-hating bigots who yearly bring us such cinematic jems as American Pie and Jason vs. Freddy, who expose grade schoolers to Janet Jackson's, hip tit at the stupor bowl---and are loath to shy away from necrophelia, insest and cannabalism as major themes for big-budget movies....it's just a teensy-weensy bit assine to bitch when a movie is made depicting the life of Christ---and how offensive it is to sell mugs bearing the likness of the movie's branding.
Contemplate this deeply the next time you're at a Marylin Manson concert.
I saw the film tonight, at a 10:05 pm showing here in Dallas. The first 45 minutes are very good, though they are laced with a great deal of anti-Semitism (not enough that the priests are all evil, they're also shown haggling over the 30 shekels, beating up Jesus before delivering him to Pilate, demanding that Jesus be executed for no reason, displayed as hordes of angry, hook-nosed monsters). Pilate is displayed as damn near blameless, which is absurd, and totally contradicts what we know of him from history ? and the precepts of logic, which recognize that only a Roman governor could order a crucifixion, and he's not going to do it because the locals don't like some guy's theology.
The film goes astray when it gets its most violent. There is nothing in the text of the Gospels to support the slashing of Jesus's flesh into ribbons during the scourging, his falling every four feet (it seems) during the carrying of the cross, or the notion that he carried his entire cross instead of just a crossbeam, as was Roman practice. The pools of blood sopped up by Mary are not Biblical, but based on the deranged ravings of a Catholic saint who was a big fan of the Opus Dei-style practice of corporal mortification. There is no way someone could have been ripped to shreds like Jesus was in this film, bled like he did, and still live long enough to reach the end of the day.
Jesus' suffering was torturous, but not to this extreme. This was practically a pornographic level of violence. But Gibson fails to add context to Jesus, he fails to in any real way bring the audience to a clearer or better understanding of Jesus, or his nature. All we know is that he went through a lot of pain, and we get a few sound-byte style "best of" quotes from his teachings to this disciples. We don't get to search for his divinity with him, we don't feel his isolation from his supporters and his God. This is not <em>Last Temptation</em>. This is not half the film, half the testament to Jesus that <em>Last Temptation</em> is.
The movie's best moments are the scenes with Mary ?_we really feel her pain, her agony, more than we feel Jesus', because it is far more real. It's not taken to the absurd extreme that the scourging in particular is.
The film also does well with the crucifixion itself, the only point where the violence seems to be real and where the intercut flashbacks really lend context and depth. We get the connection between the crucifixion and the Eucharist in a way that the other flashbacks just don't connect.
The Satan character was interesting, but vanished in the third act, when she should have been most present and tempting, but perhaps Gibson was afraid of the potential comparison's to <em>The Last Temptation of Christ</em>. And he should be.
Gibson's film is no doubt precisely the film he wanted to make. But it's shallow where it should be deep, gorey where it should contemplative and in the end little more than the sum of its scenes. Folks looking to know and feel the humanity, and the conflicted divinity, of Jesus would do better renting the Criterion DVD of<em> Last Temptation of Christ.</em>
[B]The Gosples/NT have/has been searched up, down, backwards and forwards for error, contradictions, etc. for nearly 2000 years.
And countless contradictions have been found. Good Lord, the very chronology of John completely clashes with that of the Synoptics. None of the Easter Morning accounts line up next to each other. They can't all be mutually true, claiming at different times different people being the first to learn that the tomb was empty, and in different ways.
The Bible is not inerrant. It may be divinely inspired, but it was human-scribed, and any intellectual Christian faith will have to grapple with this. You can't wish the human origin of the texts away, or package up the contradictions into a pretty black box and ignore them ? not if you want your religious faith to have any real depth.
Quote:
The pagan (and I use that term VERY loosely) media buried this movie.
You live in a fantasy world. This movie has been on the front pages of major newspapers for months and was a lead story in every major news and entertainment magazine this week. It's everywhere.
Quote:
Contemplate this deeply the next time you're at a Marylin Manson concert.
I don't think Marilyn Manson has much of an audience anymore. You might want to join us in the 21st Century.
I should dress up as Jesus or Barabbas and go to one of the Friday night shows...LotR or Star Wars fan style, mouthing all the words at the garden of Gethsemane or whatever.
I should dress up as Jesus or Barabbas and go to one of the Friday night shows...LotR or Star Wars fan style, mouthing all the words at the garden of Gethsemane or whatever.
I should dress up as Jesus or Barabbas and go to one of the Friday night shows...LotR or Star Wars fan style, mouthing all the words at the garden of Gethsemane or whatever.
The pagan (and I use that term VERY loosely) media buried this movie. Only Drudge gave it the coverage it deserved. Once it was apparent that the buried coverage couldn't damage the movie's marketing (remember NOT ONE of the major distributors would touch this film) the Anti-semetic/violence spin was brought out to damage the movie further. But to no avail---.
Wow .. .
anyway, you're wrong: the marketting campaign WAS the claim that "jewish groups" were saying that the film was Anti-Semitic . . this came out BEFORE the movie was even close to release, and came out because Milf Gobson wanted it too . . .
He thrived off of the uproar caused by the bad press that he caused!
It is a well known tactic: "any press is good press"
Especially when it works because it drives a wedge between two communities . .
and that, sadly, is the real Anti-Semiticness of this movie: the manner in which fear of Anti-Semitism and/or its actual undercurrent were exploited by Milf Gobson for the purposes of getting exposure . . . shows that he is a mean spirited PR whore
and as far as his mean spiritedness: anyone who makes a 45minute flagellation scene and then says that that is the religion of love must have a mean spirit
Neither side is right or wrong here. Just a bunch of hot air which is what we always get when dealing with religion.
as for
Anti-Semitism- Personally I have no problem with Jews but where the bleep does the ADL get off telling me who I can like or dislike. If I choose to dislike Jews that is MY choice not some damn movies(I don't buy the crap that movies make you racist in any way...bollocks)
Christianity- Geez after so many re-writing of the Testament..can "anyone" be sure just what the original meanings are? Probably not.
Mel Gibson- If "I" had sunk millions of my money into a film...I'd probably welcome a little negative press. Hell that beats bankruptcy anyday.
I'm going to watch this movie...just as I will watch Schindlers List for the story. I try not to politicize my life too much and frankly don't need others trying to dictate my feelings to me.
The Gosples/NT have/has been searched up, down, backwards and forwards for error, contradictions, etc. for nearly 2000 years. Get over it...The pagan (and I use that term VERY loosely) media buried this movie...in an industry dominated by the sexually confused and Christ-hating bigots...and how offensive it is to sell mugs bearing the likness of the movie's branding.
And then of course, there's the issue of translations. The Bible has been translated from Classical Greek, to Ecclesiastic Latin to English, and in the act of translation, there have been many, many errors. Yes, we now have translations from the original Greek texts, but even still there's the issue of the translation itself. As I learned myself when I took Ancient Greek, even the best translations can result in a major shift in the meaning and style of the original source text.
And of course there's the debate about cool little things like Q, and the issue that some of Paul's letters most likely weren't even written by Paul himself, but were added on much later. And also the issue that the tail end of The Gospel of John was also not written by the author of John, but someone else, again, much later.
I highly recommend to everyone the book "Is The Bible True?", a concise and broad look at a lot of recent academic controversies surrounding scripture, such as the Dead Sea Scrolls.
As a Christian, I believe that the Bible is a wonderful, beautiful document, but at the same time, I'm not blind to the fact that, sadly, like many things, it has been subjected to some of the flaws of human nature.
Re: the "Pagan" media -- as others have so politely pointed out, you're quite mistaken. Again, this is the reason why many Fundamentalist Christians simply infuriate me. The media is, in many ways, flawed, yes -- but the idea that modern society is victimizing and plotting against poor ol' Christianity is complete garbage. Whether or not you believe in separation of Church and State (and I by the way do very much), Christianity is the de facto religion of the World's Most Powerful Nation -- and you're not satisfied with this? Perhaps you are looking forward to a day when the United States follow's Utah's example and becomes a theocracy.
Quote:
Contemplate this deeply the next time you're at a Marylin Manson concert.
After seeing "Bowling for Columbine", I gained a newfound respect for Marylin Manson. He said that he actually would have listened to Harris and Kleibold (the two teenagers at the heart of the Columbine shootings), would have listened to what those two kids had to say...and I think he meant it.
Not one Fundamentalist Christian, in my experience, ever expressed any sympathy, or any desire to *truly* understand what the real problem was, and why Harris and Kleibold did what they did. They didn't mention anything about opening a meaningful dialogue or establishing some sense of mutual understanding. And you know what? I don't think they even bothered to care.
Comments
Originally posted by ShawnJ
Well, Christianity- it's anti-sex, largely anti-women.....i mean we worship a guy FOR CHRI....
A note about the violence: if everyone is raising such a stink about how The Passion is so violent, why wasn't there a massive uproar over Kill Bill, where there were apparently fountains of blood spewing out of people's bodies? (I haven't seen it myself but I do intend to soon.)
I saw a photo of Christ on the cross from the movie on the front page of the National Post and He's totally covered in blood. Wow. It makes me really think about the guys back in the Philippines who actually get their hands and feet nailed when they do their reenactments of the Crucifixion.
Originally posted by Messiahtosh
Dont give away the ending.
Oh thats OK. I already read the book.
The Gosples/NT have/has been searched up, down, backwards and forwards for error, contradictions, etc. for nearly 2000 years. There are no flaws. The closest you will come is with the book of James and the direction it takes on works righteousness. Had there been distinguishable errors in the text, this conversation wouldn't be necessary.
Get over it.
The pagan (and I use that term VERY loosely) media buried this movie. Only Drudge gave it the coverage it deserved. Once it was apparent that the buried coverage couldn't damage the movie's marketing (remember NOT ONE of the major distributors would touch this film) the Anti-semetic/violence spin was brought out to damage the movie further. But to no avail---in an industry dominated by the sexually confused and Christ-hating bigots who yearly bring us such cinematic jems as American Pie and Jason vs. Freddy, who expose grade schoolers to Janet Jackson's, hip tit at the stupor bowl---and are loath to shy away from necrophelia, insest and cannabalism as major themes for big-budget movies....it's just a teensy-weensy bit assine to bitch when a movie is made depicting the life of Christ---and how offensive it is to sell mugs bearing the likness of the movie's branding.
Contemplate this deeply the next time you're at a Marylin Manson concert.
silly.
Yeah Drudge is a real Saint.
http://www.threatalertjesus.com/
Originally posted by dmz
Honestly.
The Gosples/NT have/has been searched up, down, backwards and forwards for error, contradictions, etc. for nearly 2000 years. There are no flaws.
Check out some recent thread in AO. Plenty of them show evidence of flaws. You should read about them sometime.
I saw the film tonight, at a 10:05 pm showing here in Dallas. The first 45 minutes are very good, though they are laced with a great deal of anti-Semitism (not enough that the priests are all evil, they're also shown haggling over the 30 shekels, beating up Jesus before delivering him to Pilate, demanding that Jesus be executed for no reason, displayed as hordes of angry, hook-nosed monsters). Pilate is displayed as damn near blameless, which is absurd, and totally contradicts what we know of him from history ? and the precepts of logic, which recognize that only a Roman governor could order a crucifixion, and he's not going to do it because the locals don't like some guy's theology.
The film goes astray when it gets its most violent. There is nothing in the text of the Gospels to support the slashing of Jesus's flesh into ribbons during the scourging, his falling every four feet (it seems) during the carrying of the cross, or the notion that he carried his entire cross instead of just a crossbeam, as was Roman practice. The pools of blood sopped up by Mary are not Biblical, but based on the deranged ravings of a Catholic saint who was a big fan of the Opus Dei-style practice of corporal mortification. There is no way someone could have been ripped to shreds like Jesus was in this film, bled like he did, and still live long enough to reach the end of the day.
Jesus' suffering was torturous, but not to this extreme. This was practically a pornographic level of violence. But Gibson fails to add context to Jesus, he fails to in any real way bring the audience to a clearer or better understanding of Jesus, or his nature. All we know is that he went through a lot of pain, and we get a few sound-byte style "best of" quotes from his teachings to this disciples. We don't get to search for his divinity with him, we don't feel his isolation from his supporters and his God. This is not <em>Last Temptation</em>. This is not half the film, half the testament to Jesus that <em>Last Temptation</em> is.
The movie's best moments are the scenes with Mary ?_we really feel her pain, her agony, more than we feel Jesus', because it is far more real. It's not taken to the absurd extreme that the scourging in particular is.
The film also does well with the crucifixion itself, the only point where the violence seems to be real and where the intercut flashbacks really lend context and depth. We get the connection between the crucifixion and the Eucharist in a way that the other flashbacks just don't connect.
The Satan character was interesting, but vanished in the third act, when she should have been most present and tempting, but perhaps Gibson was afraid of the potential comparison's to <em>The Last Temptation of Christ</em>. And he should be.
Gibson's film is no doubt precisely the film he wanted to make. But it's shallow where it should be deep, gorey where it should contemplative and in the end little more than the sum of its scenes. Folks looking to know and feel the humanity, and the conflicted divinity, of Jesus would do better renting the Criterion DVD of<em> Last Temptation of Christ.</em>
Originally posted by dmz
[B]The Gosples/NT have/has been searched up, down, backwards and forwards for error, contradictions, etc. for nearly 2000 years.
And countless contradictions have been found. Good Lord, the very chronology of John completely clashes with that of the Synoptics. None of the Easter Morning accounts line up next to each other. They can't all be mutually true, claiming at different times different people being the first to learn that the tomb was empty, and in different ways.
The Bible is not inerrant. It may be divinely inspired, but it was human-scribed, and any intellectual Christian faith will have to grapple with this. You can't wish the human origin of the texts away, or package up the contradictions into a pretty black box and ignore them ? not if you want your religious faith to have any real depth.
The pagan (and I use that term VERY loosely) media buried this movie.
You live in a fantasy world. This movie has been on the front pages of major newspapers for months and was a lead story in every major news and entertainment magazine this week. It's everywhere.
Contemplate this deeply the next time you're at a Marylin Manson concert.
I don't think Marilyn Manson has much of an audience anymore. You might want to join us in the 21st Century.
Kirk
Originally posted by Eugene
I should dress up as Jesus or Barabbas and go to one of the Friday night shows...LotR or Star Wars fan style, mouthing all the words at the garden of Gethsemane or whatever.
Do you know them in Aramaic?
Kirk
Originally posted by Eugene
I should dress up as Jesus or Barabbas and go to one of the Friday night shows...LotR or Star Wars fan style, mouthing all the words at the garden of Gethsemane or whatever.
Originally posted by Outsider
Oh thats OK. I already read the book.
me too, turns out the devil did it
Go Kirk.. Go Kirk... Go Kirk.
Originally posted by dmz
The pagan (and I use that term VERY loosely) media buried this movie. Only Drudge gave it the coverage it deserved. Once it was apparent that the buried coverage couldn't damage the movie's marketing (remember NOT ONE of the major distributors would touch this film) the Anti-semetic/violence spin was brought out to damage the movie further. But to no avail---.
Wow .. .
anyway, you're wrong: the marketting campaign WAS the claim that "jewish groups" were saying that the film was Anti-Semitic . . this came out BEFORE the movie was even close to release, and came out because Milf Gobson wanted it too . . .
He thrived off of the uproar caused by the bad press that he caused!
It is a well known tactic: "any press is good press"
Especially when it works because it drives a wedge between two communities . .
and that, sadly, is the real Anti-Semiticness of this movie: the manner in which fear of Anti-Semitism and/or its actual undercurrent were exploited by Milf Gobson for the purposes of getting exposure . . . shows that he is a mean spirited PR whore
and as far as his mean spiritedness: anyone who makes a 45minute flagellation scene and then says that that is the religion of love must have a mean spirit
Neither side is right or wrong here. Just a bunch of hot air which is what we always get when dealing with religion.
as for
Anti-Semitism- Personally I have no problem with Jews but where the bleep does the ADL get off telling me who I can like or dislike. If I choose to dislike Jews that is MY choice not some damn movies(I don't buy the crap that movies make you racist in any way...bollocks)
Christianity- Geez after so many re-writing of the Testament..can "anyone" be sure just what the original meanings are? Probably not.
Mel Gibson- If "I" had sunk millions of my money into a film...I'd probably welcome a little negative press. Hell that beats bankruptcy anyday.
I'm going to watch this movie...just as I will watch Schindlers List for the story. I try not to politicize my life too much and frankly don't need others trying to dictate my feelings to me.
Originally posted by Outsider
Oh thats OK. I already read the book.
Originally posted by Kirkland
And countless contradictions have been found.
Nonsense. (But then God did ask Cain where his brother was...darn......there goes my theology)
Don't take on subject matter that you cannot handle.
Originally posted by dmz
The Gosples/NT have/has been searched up, down, backwards and forwards for error, contradictions, etc. for nearly 2000 years. Get over it...The pagan (and I use that term VERY loosely) media buried this movie...in an industry dominated by the sexually confused and Christ-hating bigots...and how offensive it is to sell mugs bearing the likness of the movie's branding.
Some links from ReligiousTolerance.org:
http://www.religioustolerance.org/inerrant.htm
http://www.religioustolerance.org/ine_none.htm
And then of course, there's the issue of translations. The Bible has been translated from Classical Greek, to Ecclesiastic Latin to English, and in the act of translation, there have been many, many errors. Yes, we now have translations from the original Greek texts, but even still there's the issue of the translation itself. As I learned myself when I took Ancient Greek, even the best translations can result in a major shift in the meaning and style of the original source text.
And of course there's the debate about cool little things like Q, and the issue that some of Paul's letters most likely weren't even written by Paul himself, but were added on much later. And also the issue that the tail end of The Gospel of John was also not written by the author of John, but someone else, again, much later.
I highly recommend to everyone the book "Is The Bible True?", a concise and broad look at a lot of recent academic controversies surrounding scripture, such as the Dead Sea Scrolls.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...books&n=507846
As a Christian, I believe that the Bible is a wonderful, beautiful document, but at the same time, I'm not blind to the fact that, sadly, like many things, it has been subjected to some of the flaws of human nature.
Re: the "Pagan" media -- as others have so politely pointed out, you're quite mistaken. Again, this is the reason why many Fundamentalist Christians simply infuriate me. The media is, in many ways, flawed, yes -- but the idea that modern society is victimizing and plotting against poor ol' Christianity is complete garbage. Whether or not you believe in separation of Church and State (and I by the way do very much), Christianity is the de facto religion of the World's Most Powerful Nation -- and you're not satisfied with this? Perhaps you are looking forward to a day when the United States follow's Utah's example and becomes a theocracy.
Contemplate this deeply the next time you're at a Marylin Manson concert.
After seeing "Bowling for Columbine", I gained a newfound respect for Marylin Manson. He said that he actually would have listened to Harris and Kleibold (the two teenagers at the heart of the Columbine shootings), would have listened to what those two kids had to say...and I think he meant it.
Not one Fundamentalist Christian, in my experience, ever expressed any sympathy, or any desire to *truly* understand what the real problem was, and why Harris and Kleibold did what they did. They didn't mention anything about opening a meaningful dialogue or establishing some sense of mutual understanding. And you know what? I don't think they even bothered to care.
Would you?