Wednesday, February 08, 2006

More On Jesus Christ

VonJobi and DJB mentioned their familiarity with the image of a Laughing Christ. Made a little search and found this, though I couldn't attribute its origin:
Laughing Christ

But I do have the following images that I have kept for quite a bit:
HeMan XT
This he-man looking Christ reminds us of the movies we have seen. Do the names Jeffrey Hunter and Robert Powell come to mind? Or even Max Von Sydow? Do you remember when the movies about Christ started showing his face? Before then, his face was never seen on screen. Reminds one about the present egregious violence world-wide connected with the Danish cartoons.

But guess what?

Sometime ago, scientists using all possible technologies then came up with a mosaic of Christ, as he would have looked based on factual findings about that bygone era.

And this is what they came up with:
Real XT
Not a very pretty sight.

I don't recall any perceptible protests or street marching and burning from fellow Christians.

And as my puny contribution to the raging cartoon controversy, I will borrow words from Mr. Daniel Pipes, who knows a thing or two about Muslim affairs and history, since they echo my own personal sentiments:

The key issue at stake in the battle over the 12 Danish cartoons of the Muslim prophet Muhammad is this: Will the West stand up for its customs and mores, including freedom of speech, or will Muslims impose their way of life on the West? Ultimately, there is no compromise: Westerners will either retain their civilization, including the right to insult and blaspheme, or not.

More specifically, will Westerners accede to a double standard by which Muslims are free to insult Judaism, Christianity, Hinduism, and Buddhism, while Muhammad, Islam, and Muslims enjoy immunity from insults? Muslims routinely publish cartoons far more offensive than the Danish ones. Are they entitled to dish it out while being insulated from similar indignities.

The deeper issue here, however, is not Muslim hypocrisy but Islamic supremacism. The Danish editor who published the cartoons, Flemming Rose, explained that if Muslims insist "that I, as a non-Muslim, should submit to their taboos...they're asking for my submission."

Peoples who would stay free must stand unreservedly with Denmark.

6 comments:

  1. what's happening is very disturbing. what's the solution? that non-muslims offended by muslims should also start riots when their religion is insulted? where will it all end?

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  2. Thanks Amadeo for posting these. I'm gonna let others know because I suspect this image of the Laughing Christ is a great favorite of many people. I guess there's another one of him as BIKER type of guy.

    To Vonjobi: Maybe everyone on both sides will have an "Art Armageddon", then have a gigantic belly laugh at how impossibly ridiculous everybody's intolerance is...and peace would suddenly reign on earth in the catharsis of self-recognition!

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  3. I think that's why I love the Laughing Christ, it made me relax about Christianity...

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  4. Thanks, Dean and VonJobi:

    As I hypothesized in another later blog, people exposed to an egalitarian society like the US change. Especially where assimilation is encouraged and made possible.

    Yesterday, I read a guest commentary in our local community paper here in Tracy by a Muslim group condemning the cartoons as disrespectful to Islam.

    Well and good. It is their opinion. And their right.

    But they did not go ballistic or engage in any violent action.

    They write letters to the editors like everybody else.

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  5. Thanks for your kind comments on "Hiawatha" but I think this comment belongs on your blog in this post--

    When you went to high school and studied the Song of Hiawatha, did they tell you Who Hiawatha was supposed to be in Longfellow's long poem?

    (Hint: there's pix of the Suspect here!)

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  6. HaHa. But knowing the Jesuits, their required or recommended readings normally had moral or ethnical components in the ways selections were made. Thus, we also had Moby Dick, Red Badge of Courage, and even Max Brand's westerns.

    I did a little search and found that the 1997 movie version may have purposely depicted Hiawatha as a representation of Jesus Christ.

    But then again, Longfellow was also reported as having admitted that the poem's meter (and maybe the story?) may have been patterned after a known Scandinavian legend.

    But what has remained with me all these years is Hiawatha's pursuit of the giant sturgeon. Thus in the few fishing trips I have participated here, we have searched for sturgeons and have come to know of their comparatively long lives and their being bottom-feeders. Thus, not clean foragers. As a food source, they are quite expensive here and part of the reason for this is the difficulty in catching them.

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