Religion
Related: About this forumAmerica's War Against Atheism Is Over
By Stephen Marche
at 2:06PM
The Edward Tyler Nahem gallery in New York City has recently decided to show Piss Christ again, in a retrospective of the photographer Andres Serrano's work. It's been almost twenty-five years since the picture first caused controversy; in 1989, Congress debated whether all arts funding from the federal government should be cut because of this one picture. The protests outside the gallery, while inevitable, have been relatively minor this time around. Almost no fuss at all. It's a sign of how the furious, raging war between the religious and secular worlds is diminishing, and being replaced by a cultural war within churches themselves.
I must say I'm glad to see the old culture war ended. The struggle between the forces of secularity and religion has been such a stupid struggle, requiring ignorance and intolerance on both sides. I say this as a committed atheist. I once heard Christopher Hitchens at a lecture seriously propose that soldiers in the American military should not have access to priests or rabbis because of the separation of church and state. What could be crueler or more ridiculous? I thought. I have never understood the hectoring tone of so many of the popular freethinking writers of recent years. I don't see why we should imitate the intolerance of the older religious orders. Escaping that screaminess was the whole point of not believing in God, I thought.
William Donohue and the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights are still worse, of course. Donohue has recently defended the persecution of the Innocence of Muslims film. He told the Guardian, "I would argue that ethics should dictate that you don't go around gratuitously and intentionally insulting people of faith. I don't care whether you're Muslim or Jewish or Catholic or whatever you might be." I can only point out that it was, at one point, massively offensive to the Catholic faith to state that the earth rotated around the Sun. Offense in this case is taken, not given. But religious people, in the Western world anyway, are growing less sensitive to being offended, at least by outsiders. That's why nobody has caused a hubbub at Piss Christ.
The real cultural war is now intra-Christianity. Piss Christ as a Catholic work of art is right at the center of this struggle. Serrano himself is a lapsed Catholic, who still considers himself a Christian. He has said, "I have no sympathy for blasphemy," and he has explained his photograph in terms that are not incompatible with mainstream Catholic theology. The photograph is an attempt to capture the physicality of the crucifixion, which has been a goal of Christian art since at least the Italian Renaissance. It was also the point of the brutal violence in Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ. The reality of the Incarnation is a key to the mystery of Christ's humanity. And yet The Passion of the Christ is shown at the Vatican, but Piss Christ is a human-rights violation. As a one-hundred-percent outsider to these struggles, I find them genuinely mystifying. What constitutes a Catholic today? The term is starting to lose its meaning as a category to me. Huge majorities of churchgoing Catholics in America disagree with the Church's stance on a wide array of social and political issues. What about the nuns who flaunt the all-male hierarchy? How Catholic are they? Politically, being a Catholic could mean anything from being a communist to a fascist. Ethically, it could mean anything from being a child molester to a saint who has sacrificed her life to the service of others. It seems to have almost no bearing on lifestyle choices.
http://www.esquire.com/blogs/culture/piss-christ-church-13267396
= new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight:
NoneDon't highlight anything
5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies
dmallind
(10,437 posts)Being snarky to religious bigots is just as bad as wanting to impose theocracy, you mean nasty atheists!
rug
(82,333 posts)Lol.
2ndAmForComputers
(3,527 posts)
rug
(82,333 posts)I have to give it to you two. You read this and one thinks of Uncle Tom and the other thinks of racist oppression. It must be horrible.
Fumesucker
(45,851 posts)More precisely I suppose I should say that a mixed race man who identifies as black is POTUS.
rug
(82,333 posts)More precisely, I suppose I should say there have already been presidents who have mixed opinions on theism.
Certainly not in the modern era..
In God We Trust.
One Nation Under God.
And so on.
Warren Stupidity
(48,181 posts)Founded byi white people for white people you might have a point. Overt racism is rejected by our society. Religiously on the other hand is front and center. One of the major political parties is openly theocratic, the other is busy covering its ass by god blabbing all over the place. No problem there, right?
rug
(82,333 posts)There is only a problem in your hyperbole.
JoeyT
(6,785 posts)one is just much more widespread than the other. How unlucky an atheist is to live in a place depends largely on the place. I could drive you to places where wearing an atheist shirt would get you beaten just as badly as being in the wrong town with the wrong skin color.
Much more widespread is refusing to hire anyone that isn't religious, though generally those people won't hire anyone of the wrong religion, which is any religion but their own. (Southern Baptists are usually the ones I see doing it.)
rug
(82,333 posts)The history of racism, not to mention the slavery which flowed from it, is a history of horror. There is no comparison. Which is not to say there is not discrimination based on a particular belief or nonbelief. But it differs vastly both qualitatively and quantitatively. It is a distasteful, at least, comparison.
Tigress DEM
(7,887 posts)Rug,
Thanks for sharing your reaction to what Hitchens said and your thoughts in general about the struggle between secular and religious. As you would defend my rights, I would defend yours as well.
The struggle between the forces of secularity and religion has been such a stupid struggle, requiring ignorance and intolerance on both sides. I say this as a committed atheist. I once heard Christopher Hitchens at a lecture seriously propose that soldiers in the American military should not have access to priests or rabbis because of the separation of church and state. What could be crueler or more ridiculous? I thought. I have never understood the hectoring tone of so many of the popular freethinking writers of recent years.
As a Christian, I don't think I'll go see this art work. Haven't been able to go watch Mel Gibson's The Passion of Christ either. It would be like going to see a movie where my brother was killed. I've watched other movies about the crucifixion, but the intensity and graphicness of it isn't something I want to hold in my spirit.
However, I know a lot of people have found that movie inspiring and maybe now that the art work is less controversial people will look at it as the artist intended.
The Catholic Church has been working to change from within, especially the nuns. I know some wonderful nuns that introduced me to the whole "peace and justice" concept. Many, including myself have left the Catholic Church "officially" but still hope for its redemption. The Church as the Government is made up of people. There are rules and guidelines and one can follow the letter of the law without ever understanding the heart of the law.
Humans are also inheirently flawed, like diamonds. Until our lives have been in touch with a great and subtle touch, be it love, compassion or God, our flaws are hidden as well as our greatest beauty.
Many people might try to play great music, but the practise of it is never as sweet as when someone who has true talent and discipline joins in. I think in terms of religion, so many put in time and effort that may not have great love in their hearts for it. Others have the heart but not the discipline. Each performs according to their own level.
Christianity is really about a personal relationship with God, so it is different intrinsically for each person. What holds me back from having a full spiritual awakening and experience in God's love is different than for another person.
Some people bang on the drum and others play flute, but when it comes together it makes sense like a good symphony.
Still I've known good souls that choose no religion and prefer a walk in the woods or climbing a mountain to clear their own head and lift their spirit. If they are for the common good and the common man, I've been able to find common ground and good conversation with them.
I think atheists and religious people are like any other group we might want to pigenhole. There are those who have their hateful ways and repent of them and those that enjoy being hateful or just have to be right - every single time. LOL.
I really think humans are evolving toward not needing to be ignorant and intolerant, but this is kind of a "last hurrah" to those qualities before we leave them behind in order to get along with each other as fellow humans because the world has become such a small place, we have to really deal with our issues or at least agree to disagree and move on.
QuantumOfPeace
(97 posts)Seems like a Pyrrhic victory for "atheism" or "secularism" to have put a value on such things.
I cannot imagine why a society is better for having been "desensitized" in this way, to borrow the author's term. I can imagine why a society is better for eventually having embraced Copernican ideas.
So it's easy to reject the author's facile comparison.
To somehow opine that we are better off, now, for having fought a "culture war" of this kind so that we can now IGNORE yet indulge the vulgar, the intolerant, the vacantly disrespectful, the libertine seems odd or just plain daft.
In fact, that doesn't seem like any kind of worthwhile "achievement".
Fumesucker
(45,851 posts)Starting a war of aggression on blatantly false pretenses?
However that was done by a bunch of (mostly) Christians and a few Jews, nary an atheist to be found in that crowd.
rug
(82,333 posts)Calling Iraq a religious war is ludicrous.
Fumesucker
(45,851 posts)
Just because I agreed with Hitchens on some things by no means meant or means I agreed with him on everything.
I don't even agree with myself on everything.
rug
(82,333 posts)"Starting a war of aggression on blatantly false pretenses?
"However that was done by a bunch of (mostly) Christians and a few Jews, nary an atheist to be found in that crowd."
If not, I fail to see the revance of Christians and Jews.
Fumesucker
(45,851 posts)I'm certainly not aware of any Muslims or atheists in the policy levels of the Bush administration but perhaps there were some, I'll concede the point if you can give me an example or two. Hell, I'd settle for a Hindu or a Buddhist even.
okasha
(11,573 posts)N/T
mr blur
(7,753 posts)rug
(82,333 posts)Welcome back.
cbayer
(146,218 posts) rug
(82,333 posts)the aggressive language of the atheists to whom he is referring in the article.
cbayer
(146,218 posts)the christian community, but I still don't get how he draws the conclusion that the *war* on atheism is over.
:shrug;
rug
(82,333 posts)AlbertCat
(17,505 posts) rug
(82,333 posts)AlbertCat
(17,505 posts)What for?
It takes nothing to refute such an uninformed claim.
rug
(82,333 posts)AlbertCat
(17,505 posts)Dream on!
Correcting baloney is not war.
rug
(82,333 posts)Do you believe there is a war on atheism?
