OMG....the Christians are rioting!!

[sirs]

NOT

But shouldn't they be?  Of course not.  THAT's the point, that so many on the lunatic left fail to grasp

‘Piss Christ’ returns to New York along with ‘Piss Moses’
September 27, 2012 by Howard Portnoy

Midtown Manhattan has been the scene of much religious reflection and blasphemy of late. One act of solemn reflection took place at the 140-year-old Central Synagogue on 55th Street, where Jews assembled on Wednesday to observe Yom Kippur, the holiest day on the Jewish calendar. While they prayed, a few blocks away a man who has called the state of Israel a “malignant cancer” prayed as well—for their and its destruction. In his speech before the United Nations General Assembly (video here), outgoing Iranian “President” Mahmoud Ahmadinejad asked God to bring “a new order” that “will do away with … everything that distances us.” If the intent wasn’t clear enough, he later explained in an interview with the Associated Press that he expects that Israel will soon become an “historical footnote.”

Today the blaspheming continues at the Edward Tyler Nahem Gallery on 57th Street, where the state-sponsored “artwork” Piss Christ goes on display for a month. The work, in case you missed the controversy that swirled around its debut in 1987, consists of a photograph of a crucifix floating in the artist’s urine.

The week has been noteworthy not only for its anti-religious acts but for the conspicuous inaction on the part of those whose faiths were defiled. Jews chose not react to Ahmadinejad’s incendiary remarks by storming the Permanent Mission of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the United Nations in New York or by burning the Islamic flag in the streets of Manhattan. Christians did not fire bomb the D.C. headquarters of the National Endowment for the Arts, the government agency that funded the creation of Piss Christ, or demand that its artist, Andres Serrano, be “cut up into little pieces” (the fate suggested by one Muslim protester for the maker of the anti-Islamic film).

One more act of religious reflection was a speech on Tuesday by President Obama, also at the U.N. In it he observed:
The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam. But to be credible, those who condemn that slander must also condemn the hate we see in the images of Jesus Christ that are desecrated, or churches that are destroyed, or the Holocaust that is denied. Let us condemn incitement against Sufi Muslims and Shiite pilgrims.

This effort at rubbing an all-purpose balm on the “hurt religious feelings” (to borrow a phrase from the U.S. Embassy in Cairo) of practitioners of all faiths fails on a number of fronts. James Taranto has a spot-on analysis of the problems inherent in this sweeping apples-and-oranges pronouncement for those interested in pursuing it further.

But the best way to see the folly of Obama’s outreach and its disconnect with reality is through a litmus test of sorts proposed by Mario Loyola at National Review Online:
Find an enterprising young artist willing to create a ‘Piss Mohammed’ version of Serrano’s work, and ask the museum to hang it right next to the Piss Christ. It could be part of a ‘Piss Religion’ exhibit. If the gallery declines (as it surely would), then perhaps one could gather together a small group of Manhattan atheists to march ‘piss portraits’ of Mohammed and his fellow deities/prophets right up 1st Avenue past the United Nations, in homage to the First Amendment.

Every last person who complains will have to explain why they said nothing during the 20-plus years that the revolting Piss Christ has been touring art galleries around the world. They will be forced either to treat Islam and Christianity the same (i.e., stop trashing the latter) or finally admit the cowardly truth, which is that their degree of respect for any given religion is proportional to its proponents’s [sic] propensity for violence.

The same test could be easily applied to putative remarks along the lines of Ahmadinejad’s screed that disparages Islam in like fashion and calls for wiping Mecca off the map.

[Christians4LessGvt]

Pam Gellar & Michael Coren Discuss Islamic Death Threats & Hezbollah's Bulgaria Suicide Bomber

[sirs]

If we're going to be consistent and "fair", should we not be pushing for a ban on anything said/done that would be derrogatory towards Christ & God?  How about just God?  Boy oh boy, are there alot of swearwords that would suddenly become "illegal"

I mean, if we're actually considering banning similar acts regarding Mohamad.  What would be the difference, right?  They're both the central icons, to their respective religions

[Christians4LessGvt]

Don't blame video defend free speech!

SIRS....where is the ACLU?

[Plane]

If everyone is smart , there will never be a "Piss Mohammed".

This is the advantage that Islam has , it places no value at all on freedom above dignity.

[Xavier_Onassis]

It would be a violation to make an image of Mohammad. People recognize Jesus. Mohammad images are unknown. I suppose he wore some sort of turban or head piece, Jesus robes and sandals.

You could have a "Piss Koran", I suppose, but I would keep it in the back room of the museum.

There is a reason South Park chose to portray Mohammad as a bear. Why risk being blown up just to get a few yuks from the viewers? Who wants to be a martyr for comedy?

Muslims are nutty about this stuff. They need another 100 years of evolution. But I really don't think it will take them that long.

[Plane]

The anchient Jews and Jesus himself did not encourage artistic depiction of persons either.

All the pictures of Jesus that you have ever seen are artists concepts, more or less inspired by devine guidence , and more or less looking a bit like the artists best sponsors.

I don't worry at all that a disrespectfull depiction can cost Jesus anything, what Jesus has to offer will be the same forever.

What is really bothering the Islamic world is that the West doesn't seem to respect them , the angryest of them can't imagine that God is unable to defend himself if he were really feeling the need, but they might get the respect that is due to a danger , if they can seem dangerous.

[Xavier_Onassis]

There are Jesus images that date as far back as the Third Century. Jewish art generally did not portray human figures, as that was too close to the idols used by other religions. There are pictures of Jesus that date as early as the third century.

[sirs]

...and yet you don't see any mass rioting by any Christians or Jews, or any other religion for that matter, when Christ is pissed on, or their God is used as a derrogatory slur

[Xavier_Onassis]

There is only one "Piss Christ".
There is more to this work than the moron right wingers understand. Read what the guy who made it claims he was trying to say with it.
I personally think it is a rather stupid idea, but it was not done to offend Jesus or religion, simply to shake up the believers, just as Dali and Picasso did in their day.

 No one runs about peeing on crucifixes. It is not perceived as any sort of problem.

[sirs]

There is only one "Piss Christ".

The point being that if there were even one "Piss Mohammad", we'd see riots galore, all across the Middle East, regardless of what the artist was "trying to say"

This is the point that the lunatic left, can't understand....or chose not to

[Plane]

Well suppose I am an artistic sort.

And I want to shake up the world.

Then I make an artwork, so prone to offend,
that some deaths are likly, predictable.

As an artist am I responsible for the deaths that were so easy to forsee?

Do I work against my rights if I use my right to do wrong?

[Xavier_Onassis]

That is simply up to you.

It is really quite difficult to create artistic works that are both artistic and seriously annoying at the same time.

There are many useful statements that art can make that does not hack people off.

There is no way anyone could see that stupid trailer as artistic in any way.

The Piss Christ thing was clearly offensive, but it was  sort of a satire on the Church's use of the slogan "Blood of Christ". There is a movement here in Miami by some Haitian churches that encourage people to stick red bumperstickers on their cars that read "Blood of Jesus" or "Sang de Jesus".  I have no idea whatever what the purpose of this is, why other drivers would be inspired by reading this sticker to do, at least. I do not find it annoying, but it does seem rather silly. Anything silly is subject to satire.

Piss is simply another bodily fluid. As I recall, the artist was somehow making a statement about the relation between Christ and various bodily fluids. If you google the artist's name, you will find more information about his motives and what he claims that he was trying to say with his works.

I though the"Piss Christ" was rather silly, as was the thing with the elephant dung and St. Mary, but I hardly think either was worth getting upset about. I don't think that it was deliberately intended to portray the Christian religion as invalid, as was the silly anti-Mohammad trailer.

It was more a statement about the way people regard religious SYMBOLS, rather than religion itself.
 

[Plane]

Yes, it combines a symbol of respect with a symbol of disrespect.

At this point in history we Christians in the West are relitively wealthy, we do not feel the disrespect of others as much of a problem.

Hasn't always been like that , when we didn't have anything but the hope of respect we were more touchy.

[Xavier_Onassis]

When I visited Ecuador, I went to most of the museums. One was dedicated to Simon Bolivar's mistress and fellow revolutionary general, Manuela Saenz, who was actually the wife of some Englishman. After Bolivar died, she ended up selling pastry made by her and her loyal Black ex-slave on the streets of Guayaquil. She died in poverty.

The museum was in a house the commandeered for a couple of years. There were all sorts of letters, period furniture and memorabilia in this museum,, and one entire room filled with crucifixes, which was what Ecuadorean sculptors seemed to have an obsession for. There were at least fifty of these grisly, suffering, bleeding, wounded crucifixes in this room, from the top of the 12 foot ceilings to the floor. On the facing wall, there was a collection of US coins, a popular sort of thing now that Ecuador uses dollars and our paper money and coins (there are Ecuadorean nickels, dimes, quarters and half dollars as well).

When I returned to the hostel, I was talking with the girl at the desk, and said that I thought I had seen enough bloody crucifixes to last me for a long time. She said that Ecuadoreans had great respect for religion and did not understand why los extranjeros did not. I said that it was a shame that the sculptors did not use a bit more originality, since they obviously had such great talent, and could have used it better in something less repetitive. After all, Walt Disney did not remake "Steamboat Willie" 50 times.

A girl from Spain who was listening in told me, surprisingly, that she agreed with me. Spain has a cult who thinks that dying Jesuses are the only real art form as well. It explains why Dali did so many truly weird crucifixes.

 I don't think the girl at the desk had ever been to the Manuela Saenz museum. But no doubt the fifty crucifixes would not have had the same impression on her that it had on me.

Ecuador is probably the most Catholic country in Latin America.
At one point, in 1873, Gabriel García Moreno had the Republic of Ecuador strip all non Catholics of their citizenship and rights  and dedicated the Republic to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

http://latinamericanhistory.about.com/od/thehistoryofecuador/p/08GGMoreno.htm

He was noted for his opposition to corruption. He collected taxes efficiently and sent a lot of money to the Vatican. On the other hand, in those days, you could actually own a lifetime contract on an Indian, and sell it if you wished. It was sort of a capitalist form of slavery.

 Eventually, the opposition got tired of him and he was killed by a mob wielding machetes.

It looks like Rafael Correa is going to be the very first Ecuadorean president to actually complete his term. He is likely to be reelected as well. He is a leftist who has dedicated himself to improving the lives of the poor and seems to have done it better than anyone other than perhaps Lula da Silva in Brazil.