I swear to the disco ball that I just thought of this video three days ago:
and wondered when I might get a reason to post it (more than just “It’s Tom Waits!”). I didn’t have to wait long.
A chocolate sculpture of Jesus Christ that’s caused an uproar after it was scheduled to be displayed to the public in a Manhattan hotel’s gallery during Easter week will no longer be on exhibit, New York City CBS television station WCBS-TV has confirmed…
Cavallaro says Catholics shouldn’t be offended by the chocolate creation. “I’m doing it as a celebration of Christ. It’s food, it’s nurturing, it’s sweet, there’s nothing menacing about it,” he told WCBS-TV. “It tastes great. I love it and it’s all about taste for me — if I can taste it before I can touch it — on a religious object, on an inanimate object, on anything.”
Yeah, Catholics weren’t offended in the least. Right, Bill Donohue?
“This is one of the worst assaults on Christian sensibilities ever,” said Bill Donohue, head of the Catholic League, a watchdog group. “It’s not just the ugliness of the portrayal, but the timing — to choose Holy Week is astounding.”
WORST ASSAULT EVER! Worse even than the crucifixion itself! As for the timing, according to the web site, Chocolate Jesus (known as “I Did It, Daddy”) was created in 2005. Takes awhile for the outrage to build sufficiently, I suppose. (Although I haven’t discovered where else the sculpture has been exhibited.)
There is no word yet as to what Cavallaro plans to do with the sculpture now.
Yeah, it’s a mystery.
91 Responses to “Oh, for the love of sweet chocolate Jesus”
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Oh, for crying out loud!
Okay, is the chocolate Jebus hanging in 100 gallons of pee? Then what the hell is BillDo upset about?…
Apparently Bill Donahue is upset because the chocolate is anatomically correct……..how disgusting.
“the chocolate is anatomically correct”
…I mean, Jesus is suppose to be human, to experience the same feelings and temptations of humans in order to atone for our sins. But not THAT human…
BillDo is a moron…
Christ on a cracker?
Why am I reminded of the joke about the young priest who was nervous about giving his first homily …
… so he asked an older priest for advice. The older priest said, “you’ll be fine so long as you aren’t nervous — so to calm down, you should have a sip of whiskey before the service”.
After the mass is over the older priest approached the new priest and said:
“about you’re sermon. first — I said a sip of whiskey … not the whole bottle. And:
(2) they were the 12 Apostles, not Jesus’ homies
(3) she’s venerated as “the Virgin Mary”, not “Mary with the Cherry”
and
(4) at the last supper, Jesus said “this is my body” … he did not say “eat me!”
*
Apparently Bill Donahue is upset because the chocolate is anatomically correct - Christie
Anyway, yet more proof that these so-called Catholics so obsessed with teh hot gay sex, etc., are, as was pointed out by another commentor either here or at Feminste, guilty of the docetic heresy — the idea that Jesus was not really fully “of the flesh”. Interestingly, you know what major world religion maintains the docetic view of Jesus? If you answered Islam, you would be correct! I wonder what the likes of Donohue would say if you informed them their theology is more Islamic than Catholic (not that there’s anything wrong with that)?
It cracks me up that a chocolate Jesus is heresy, but a freakin’ chocolate cross is a-okay.
(sings) I don’t care if it rains or freezes/ as long as I got my chocolate Jesus…
What’s it filled with? Anyone? Amanda?
Kind of funny that people assume that it was a recent sculpture, and that it has never been on display before.
And about the song, watching the video made me realize that that performance was from the tour wherein I saw him in concert for the first time. I recognize that big iron ring by the drummer. Amazing concert, made better that despite the fact I was dirt poor, hadn’t eaten for a couple days, I managed to get to the concert and some guy bought me a couple beers.
Most amazing singer/songwriter of our time, in my not so humble opinion.
Chris, I’m pretty sure I know what it’s NOT filled with (vague reference to Amanda’s problems with her description of Jebus’ “nascence”…) Say no more…
You’re own. Chocolatey. Jesus.
Someone who tastes real sweet. Someone to eat.
See, the only way I think I could really enjoy Jesus is if he were chocolate. So you know, they lost a potential convert there.
Threatening people over a naked candy Jesus… how is this better than what the muslim fundamentalists were doing after those Danish cartoons?
I’m glad Donahue and these polemicist pseudo-Christians werent around in the Rennaisance. If they hate the chocolate Jesus image what they would have done to the marble statues and frescoes.
Huh. I wonder if the chocolate Jesus is supposed to say something about how we celebrate Easter with candy in the shape of bunnies and chicks, but nothing that represents “the reason for the season” (of course, the bunnies and the chicks do just fine at representing the *original* reason for the season, but that’s neither hear nor there).
It seems to me that there are interpretations where this sculpture is very strongly *pro*-Christian.
And for the life of me, I can’t think of how it could be seen as *anti*-Christian. It’s a sculpture made in an unusual medium. And? It’s probably not going to be eaten, or it would have been by now (2005? I imagine that it’s a touch stale). There is no animal excrement involved. What’s the fuss?
*Here* nor there. Dammit.
-It cracks me up that a chocolate Jesus is heresy, but a freakin’ chocolate cross is a-okay. -
Really. I had a friend in grade school who’s ultra Jesus-freak parents would only buy the chocolate crosses, not the bunnies on Easter ‘cause those Satanic little bunnies were distracting from the ‘reason for the season’. Nothing says respectful veneration like tearing off a hunk of the ol’ rugged cross and chowing down. I bet if they sold little milk chocolate Jesuses on the Easter aisle at Wal Mart, they’d be a huge hit with the bible thumper crowd…
Two things:
1) Why the hell do they always quote Donohue? I get it. He’s grossly outraged a lot. But only by “secularists”.
2) Tom Waits is the coolest person to ever exist on earth. Just had to let it be known. And the passive tense is intentional.
What Seraph said. Bunnies and eggs are nice pagan symbol; the Christians should be concerned that they are celebrating, not Christ’s resurrection, but the festival of a German goddess. Chocolate Christ is *much* more appropriate for those who do not want to be pro-pagan.
As for me. I’m going to enjoy my egg much more this year, knowing I’m enjoying a completely different symbolism as well as some damn fine chocolate.
Perhaps this video clip will help answer your question. It’s what I think of whenever Donohue’s name comes up.
Some more Tom Waits…
Walking Spanish:
…Slim him a picture of our Jesus
Or give him a spoon to dig a hole
What all he done ain’t no one’s business
But he’ll need blankets for the cold
They dim the lights over on Broadway
Even the king has bowed his head
Every face looks right up at Mason
He’s walking spanish down the hall…
Just had to throw that in. I love that song.
What is wrong with Donahue? Is he outraged about everything? How does he feel about these products?:
http://chocolatefantasies.com/religious.htm
I mean, these people (to use a right wing canard) just want to be offended. Nothing will please them. What, exactly demonstrates that this was “manifestly intended to offend” christians?
Someone should mail a gross of these: http://chocolatefantasies.com/crucifix.jpg to the esteemed Mr. Donahue.
This reminds me of the repellent Rudy Giuliani’s campaign against the painting, by Chris Ofili, THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY at the Brooklyn Museum about 8 years ago, because the artist included three lumps of elephant dung in it. One, sliced in half, formed one of her breasts, and the other two rested on the floor, and supported the painting, also representing the virgin feet.
I went to see the painting and concluded that it was a clearly devotional work, not intended disrespectfully towards the subject. Ofili claimed to be a church-going Catholic, and it seemed to me that he was in the long line of those who have used vernacular artistic traditions and symbolisms to express patriarchal monotheist themes. The dung, he said, is an African theme, referring to the life-giving earth. The turds were like more elliptoid footballs, dried, and shellacked and were hard to recognize as excrement. The virgin had a brown complection and looked obviously African. I suspect Giuliani thought she ought to look as Italian as the women depicted in the reproductions and knock-offs of renaissance art that appeared in many a Catholic home in the forties and fifties.
Giuliani, who had a mommy-fixation, became incensed at the painting, and tried to cut off city funding to the museum. Polls showed him unpopular on this, and this was more or less at the time New Yorkers began to really tire of his antics. (His caddish treatment of Donna Hanover came a little later.)
At the museum, the most vociferous protesters were the followers of the late Veronica Lueken, the seer of Bayside. Funny. I don’t remember the egregious Donohue. Maybe he hadn’t taken over the Catholic League yet.
Oh, I don’t care if rains or freezes
‘long as I have my Chocolate Jesus
Displayed in the lobby of my hotel
(yeee-haw!)
It’s lovely and brown and it can’t be sweeter
On display from Lent ’til Easter
Risin’ from the gallery of my hotel!
Most amazing singer/songwriter of our time, in my not so humble opinion.
Um, Leonard Cohen? Hallelujah to that.
The picture of Cheese was perfect.
“I LIKE CHOCOLATE MILK!!!!”
Funny how these Real Christians get all upset about Jesus being a food-item…yet, for many, the bread and wine (and/or grape juice) is transubstantiated into body and blood.
Maybe if he’d made the statue out of WonderBread, it’d be okay?
What’s it filled with? Anyone? Amanda?
Pray God it is filled with that stuff that comes in Cadbury creme eggs.
*drool*
Chocolate Jesus, communion with bread - what the fuck is the difference? It’s disgusting and scandalous to eat chocolate Jesus, but, hey, let’s go partake of the body and blood of the lord with the Host and the Chalice?
What’s wrong with these people?
Jesus is probably laughing his ass off.
What I want to know is this:
Is the problem that it’s a depiction of Jesus, or is it that this particular Jesus is brown? Would there be as much of an outcry if the statue was made of white chocolate instead?
No more Chocolate Jesus…
According to Pandagon, they managed to force the hotel that was going to display the Chocolate Jesus to take it down.
But Auguste at Pandagon did find a YouTube video of Tom Waits singing “Chocolate Jesus”.
It will have to do, I guess….
Jesus is probably laughing his ass off.
Um, no, Kyso K went empirical on him …
Seriously, don’t you think all those devout Latin American Hotel cleaners would have done something about it if it were truly offensive to Catholics? Sheesh.
Jesus frequently appears on tortillas in S. Texas. Why would He object to chocolate?
Once my Irreligious Church’s non-profit starts rakign in the dough BAM! fifty foot chocolate statue of our lady Cthulhu - so that we may eat her before she eats us first among all of the heathen monkeys!
What is Donahue’s position on Jack Chick’s Death Cookie comic btw? Anyone know?
How about his position on catholic americans being imprisoned and seperated from their families in Texas and Massechusetts?
EVERYONE has their hypersensitivity groups, and as a Catholic I’m ashamed to have Team Donohue as mine.
Of course, freepers and lgfers only care about hypersensitivity from those that fit their mold.
Mmm, Tom Waits.
I’ll be in my bunk.
The Donovan is outraged because ChocoChrist is naked. See, women can’t be priests because they don’t have penises like Jesus, but His peep must never never never be seen except in His baby pictures where it’s just so cute… As we saw during the “DaVinci Code” freakout, Real Catholics defend Jesus’s virginity as rigidly as His mom defended hers. Repeat after me: SEX IS EVIL!
That theology-by-mail course is finally paying off.
It’s not sacreligious it’s sacrelicious.
That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
Donohue is outraged? Sounds like somebody needs to take a big bite of some yummy, chocolatey, Jesus goodness!
Thank you for the Tom Waites video. I have got to listen to more of him. And on a totally unrelated note, does the man have a picture in his attic? Because I swear that he hasn’t aged a day since 1985.
Clio, he’s living his life in reverse, like Merlin in the Once and Future King. So he was born old, and is growing into it.
Y’all really need to google the Catholic League press release on this one, where Donohue says that the people at the gallery are lucky that Christians don’t cut peoples’ heads off.
Should you be wondering where the death threats came from.
“Threatening people over a naked candy Jesus… how is this better than what the muslim fundamentalists were doing after those Danish cartoons?”
Because people DIED over the Danish cartoons, that’s why. It is just plain stupid to equate Christian concerns with Islamic concerns, because the Islamic concerns result in the deaths of many, many people. No one will be killed over this. Guaranteed. But, real people died because of the Danish cartoons.
There is a real and important difference between “extreme” Christians and “extreme” Muslims. Extreme Muslims kill lots of people. Extreme Christians say things that make you on the Left really mad. As for me, I’d rather be really mad that really dead. Just a personal preference. Equating the two ignores reality in the 21st century.
Guess I might as well add this:
I’m glad Donahue and these polemicist pseudo-Christians werent around in the Rennaisance. If they hate the chocolate Jesus image what they would have done to the marble statues and frescoes.
In the UK during the Reformation, many Protestants very similiar to Donahue smashed a lot of Christian art because it was, in their view, blasphemous. Donahue is very like them.
Donohue is an opportunistic right-wing media assassin, no doubt, and an antisemite.
But if you make a statue depicting the dick of a revered figure, you will get blowback. If they put up a statue of John Kennedy with his dick out, I would protest it as offensive. Not sick the government on them, but express offense at the mockery.
Frankly, the inability of some of the commentors here to get this makes me doubt their maturity and common sense. It’s not like we liberals are not on notice.
good point Jersurgislac. “In the UK during the Reformation, many Protestants very similiar to Donahue smashed a lot of Christian art because it was, in their view, blasphemous. Donahue is very like them.”
Prototype zealots should be seen as outliers but the media presents them as mainstream. Prototype zealots like Donahue defame the Catholic Church. They make the church less appealing for moderate peace-loving Catholics in the mold of the late Father Drinan.
Has Donohue explained anywhere what element is the “worst assault on Christian sensibilities”? I would guess that it is the fact that Jesus is depicted as much closer to his actual skin color, and not that of Surfer Christ like in most Anglo art.
I don’t believe that it is because Jesus is depicted as naked. I seem to remember lots of Renaissance art where Jesus was shown as naked during the Crucifixion and afterwards.
Finally, the only reason Donohue’s minions haven’t killed anybody is because they don’t have to. They consider themselves the dominant culture and can get their rocks off just by bullying everyone into doing what they want. They get their “scalps” without actual bloodletting. I agree, it is an inexact analogy to compare the Muslim and Christian extremists in their effects. But their eliminationist rhetoric, their outrageous outrage, their insistence that everyone bow down to their version of Invisible Sky Man, makes the Taliban and the Talivangelists cut from very much the same cloth. I would guess that once people stop knuckling under to Donohue’s threats, then the thugs will come out and people will die. It is a matter of time only.
Mmmm — even better than Big Butter Jesus
They’re making all this fuss over milk chocolate?
Now if it were dark chocolate with a hazelnut filling, that would be worth a religious war or two.
OK, first off, why would the crucifixion be an “assault on Christian sensibilities” when it was, um, sort of a prerequisite for the entire Christian faith to begin with? Jesus had to die as the final sacrifice to pay for mankind’s sin, then he resurrected to prove he was God’s son, blah blah blah, so on and so forth.
Secondly, can I ask a real dumb question? What’s up with the religion-mocking? I know if you’re an atheist it’s all the same to you, but this shit makes no sense to me because of the role religion plays for so many people, giving them hope where they otherwise have absolutely none. Because I don’t see all these people mocking religion going out of their way to do something about the poverty, the deprivation, the job losses, the bewilderment over cultural change that happens too fast, the destruction of families (real destruction, not Heather Has Two Mommies), etc. Even the liberals don’t seem to be helping much here. “Oh, let’s legalize abortion. Let’s raise the minimum wage to a level that a mom with three kids STILL can’t live on.”
Yeah, that helps. Thanks. And then you mock the one thing that keeps so many of these people going (and I can’t deny it–lately, although I’ve been Neopagan for many years, I’ve been looking for some intangible something spiritual that I can lean on for myself, because I have precious little else either), which is tantamount to pouring gasoline on them when they’re already burning.
These idiotic so-called “religious” leaders like Donohue are leading the, erm, hue and cry but they’re the ones speaking. A lot more people out there are offended or would be offended about this if they knew. And yes, they would take it as a personal attack. Rightly so.
The left is also really good at attacking religious people who are obviously not following the edicts of their own faith, and violating it in such a way that they oppress others. Fine. But I don’t think the left goes far enough in that vein–you divert too much energy saying nasty things about people’s deities and prophets. The former is a noble pursuit, the latter is just bullying.
I mean, if you had anything meaningful to offer as an alternative to said gods and prophets that would at least help people cope with the lives they have to live now, never mind whether those lives might be improved by any revolution you might ever foment (and I doubt the left in the U.S. ever will–it seems just as vested in the culture as the right is), that would be one thing. But all you offer is a path leading to despair because… there’s nothing there for these people. Absolutely nothing. Just deafening silence. And it isn’t like if they abandon religion today, all of a sudden they’ll be making enough money to live on, have enough food to eat and have their families suddenly turn healthy and functional. Atheism is no more a cure-all than religion is. Religion just feels like one.
I should also add that Marx’s statement about religion being the opiate of the people can be taken two ways.
“Religion is an addictive recreational drug,” because opium is an addictive recreational drug.
OR
“Religion is a painkiller for the wounded,” because opium is a painkiller for the wounded.
I rather think he meant the latter. Most of the left thinks he meant the former.
Not only is Bill Donahue’s hue and cry over “My Sweet Lord” ridiculous politics, but it’s bad Catholic theology in terms of the incarantion of Christ and the fullness of his humanity, which includes Christ’s penis (the Chrenis?). A fuller discussion from an art and theological perspective is over at my place (ArtBlogByBob.blogspot.com).
Sorry for the Posty McPostPost. One more point: Although many liberals are very good about opposing fundies (in particular) who violate their own religious tenets, I’ve noticed a disturbing trend on the left in which liberals dismiss religious abuse because, quote, “it’s their culture.” I must emphasize that not everyone on the Left does this, again, but enough do to constitute a problem.
There’s also the minor side point that we get all caught up in superficialities such as women in Islam being required to wear hijab–it’s just a piece of cloth, people! But bring up things like FGM and “oh, that’s their culture.” WTF.
Dana, I don’t see it as the one thing that keeps these people going. I see it as a lie that keeps them AND US enslaved.
Mocking religion when blowhards start bloviating about stuff that is truly not inconsistant with what they profess to be their faith is utterly fair game in my book. It isn’t the core religion that is being mocked here anyway - a crucifix is either a symbol of Christianity or Catholocism and it’s material is immaterial OR it is a graven image that would have appalled Moses.
BillDo yammering on about blasphemy when we are regularly regailed with tales of the devout finding the same image in foodstuffs is fair game. BillDo yammering on about blasphemy when the core ritual of communion is proxy cannibalism is utter folly.
If you are going to scream nasty about such things, at least GET YOUR OWN RELIGION STRAIGHT or face the consequences of ridicule.
What Ms. Kate said. Plus, I don’t see that religion itself is being mocked–it’s not like this is a cartoon Jesus with a big sign saying “Eat Me!” This is a realistic Jesus who just happens to be made out of chocolate. What I see is BillDo and his followers who happen to make a cushy living out of creating controversy where there’s none. These modern day Pharisees are far more dangerous to religion than the art they attack.
Yes, liberals don’t do enough, but they do a heck of a lot more than BillDo and his gang. If BillDodos provided free day care for that harried mom with three kids, then she’d have enough to live on, once the liberals raised the minimum wage. Of course, that would invole the Billdos in actual work, not the fun death threats and the ego boosting media stories, so they’d rather squawk about stuff like this.
Watergate wrote:
‘Because people DIED over the Danish cartoons, that’s why. It is just plain stupid to equate Christian concerns with Islamic concerns, because the Islamic concerns result in the deaths of many, many people. No one will be killed over this. Guaranteed. But, real people died because of the Danish cartoons.
There is a real and important difference between “extremeâ€? Christians and “extremeâ€? Muslims. Extreme Muslims kill lots of people. Extreme Christians say things that make you on the Left really mad. As for me, I’d rather be really mad that really dead. Just a personal preference. Equating the two ignores reality in the 21st century. ‘
“Extreme” Christians also once carried out the Crusades–as a Catholic I don’t feel that we should entirely their responsibilities. And sure, it doesn’t still go on today and I don’t think there should be any “reparations” for their past actions (the funny thing is I was just watching an old Saved By The Bell where Jessie, the “liberal activist” character of the show, basically became a stereotype in telling the black girl Lisa that she’ll do all sorts of “reparation” and it just annoys Lisa,) but some Catholics continue to subtly praise the wrongs of the Crusaders through their actions. For instance, many Catholic high schools use the mascot “Crusaders,” when many others do fine without doing so (i.e. St. Ignatius in Cleveland and Villanova U in Philly use Wildcats, Notre Dame Irish, etc.)
Watergate - so glad to see you didn’t get the point of my post. But since you mentioned “extreme” Christian violence versus “extreme” Muslim violence, I would think then that you would condemn as just as barbaric as suicide bombings and sectarian revenge killings, the bombing of abortion clinics, the murder of doctors, the murder of homosexuals and the cover-up of an epidemic pedophilia scheme, right?
Or do you only recognize violence when it’s committed by brown people in the desert?
Lemme guess… you believe in a secular government for Iraq, but not for America. You condemn the treatment of women under the Taliban and remind people of Saddam’s rape rooms, but vote against access to birth control and legal abortion, do nothing about domestic violence, complain about how women are taking men’s jobs that they don’t deserve, hate Title IX, repeatedly refer to Hillary Clinton as a “bitch”, and could only date or marry a woman who’s less intelligent than you, who makes less money than you do. I bet you defend the GITMO and Abu Ghraib rapes and prisoner torture.
Trolls are so passe’ on this site.
It’s beyond time for Donohue’s two-bit Midtown outrage shop to be taken the fuck down. It just takes one person with the guts and access to stand up to him, itemise every disgusting statement, mention his $300k pay packet, and be prepared to shout him down on cable teevee.
Oh, and the Boner of Jesus is, of course, a topic of Renaissance art.
Should you be wondering where the death threats came from.
I’d say that’s a veiled threat — ‘nice head, shame if anything happened to it’ — that deserves to be reported as such, with NYPD paying a visit to Donohue’s Outrage Shop.
Sorry, meant to say “entirely alleviate their responsibilities” in the previous paragraph.
Extreme Muslims kill lots of people. Extreme Christians say things that make you on the Left really mad.
Er, no. Basic category error, Watergate. Extreme American Christians have a much longer and more extensive record of killing people than extreme American Muslims.
Dana - you equate “the left” far too much with atheism/skepticism. Most liberals ARE religious, though granted, there is a much larger percentage of freethinkers/brights/skeptics/atheists/agnostics etc. among the left than the right.
I don’t think it’s at all counterproductive to really dig on any person of faith to defend their faith against scrutiny or criticism. We need extreme voices in favor of rationalism, and most atheists would say we have far too few.
Though you’re a neopagan, many people of faith do not understand or refuse to recognize that religion did not enlighten itself. Commence unnecessary lecture: Its practice became more humane over time with the development of science, mass public education and the evolution of a cultural (and globally growing) ethic that stressed equality, democratic participation and (in most cases) individual liberties. But none of these are religious values. They’re secular values which have been co-opted by religious people as time has gone on, as they’ve either found it to their benefit to adopt these values, or were forced to do so as society changed around them (organically, or via legislation/court rulings). End unnecessary lecture.
I think it’s important that atheists like myself and every other skeptic out there constantly remind the religious of this truth, and to do it in every way possible. The problem we always run into is that there are SO MANY very good people in this world who do practice some sort of faith, and insist that their faith is the basis for their altruism or insist that the secular values I mentioned above are largely reinforced by their religious beliefs, that the message atheists are trying to get out into the world is perceived as almost insulting by their liberal religious allies because it can come off as very aggressive to people sensitive about their faith. All atheists are saying is that we 1) need to break up religious tribalism; 2) we need to develop a common language outside the realm of religious dogma to express moral values; 3) humanism is the basis for the morals we should follow when we go into a voting booth; and 4) that we need to constantly scrutinize all claims of faith-based “knowledge” that so often otherwise lead to violence and intolerance. Yeah, many of us do think it’s ridiculous for someone to claim that my sky fairy is real and someone else’s isn’t, or that all sky fairies are real yet somehow their powers or domains don’t clash or interfere… You know the drill. Most of the time when I talk like that in a public domain or to friends, it’s just venting. I don’t think I’ve ever expected to turn a religious liberal toward agnosticism with arguments like that. But the use of that language is therapeutic and it keeps the religious on their toes. We’re not going to let religious people off the hook so easily. I say that because I actually listen to the fundies and they scare the shit out of me. These people are impervious to reason. And when a fundie tells me it’s his religion that informs his belief that homosexuals should be stoned to death, it’s hard for me to respect a liberal who tells me that it’s his religion that informs his belief that we should have universal health care - even if I happen to agree with the liberal. If interpretation of any holy book or religious dogma can be so extremely contradictory among adherents of the same religious sect, how reliable is that text or value system? How credible is it? How good is it? Religion is always what we make of it. And when, for example, there are 33,000 different sects of Christianity in just the United States, all making different claims about what Jesus does or does not want us to do, I’m wondering what kind of hold on reality these people have. That’s why I find it hysterical when people suggest that atheists have nothing to fall back on or live in despair or, as you put it, “have nothing to offer”. Of course we do! It’s called humanism. And it’s very real. We look to actual living human beings for hope and love. And it’s much more reliable than the sky fairies for a value system.
I do know that there are religious people out there who also call themselves humanists. I’m still trying to wrap my brain around that one. And at the very least I hope you remember that were it not for extreme voices like atheism always pushing the bounds of what religious beliefs (or lack thereof) come to be accepted in society, it’s unlikely you’d be able to acknowledge yourself in public as a neopagan in an overwhelmingly Christian country. It’s more likely you’d be harassed, threatened, abused or killed. I don’t think religious liberals sometimes remember how important it is to have atheists out there, fighting battles alongside you (and of course, vice versa).
Yeah. “Worst Assault EVER!” I think I can top it. Any reason why Jesus having a chocolate penis is bigotry against Catholicism, instead of Christianity in general? Not that it’s either, but it looks to me like Bill Donohue is getting involved in matters that are not what his organization is supposed to be for. Sometimes, I just love watching him flail his arms through the air and scream at the top of his lungs. People should start trying to tick him off on purpose.
Extreme Muslims kill lots of people. Extreme Christians say things that make you on the Left really mad.
Like when the Catholic League issues a press release that says, “All those involved are lucky that angry Christians don’t react the way extremist Muslims do when they’re offended—otherwise they may have more than their heads cut off”?
Yes, because it gives Christians so much of a moral high ground when they say, “Well, we could cut your heads off if we felt like it!”
And before you get on your high horse about what those extreme Muslims do that extreme Christians don’t, I suggest you look at the respective body counts of the (Catholic) IRA and the (Protestant) Orangemen in Northern Ireland. Though I’ll grant you that they don’t generally behead people, except as a byproduct of blowing them to pieces.
Al-Qaeda adopted the IRA’s tactic of timing their bombings so the rescue workers who respond to the first bombing are injured or killed in the second round, but that only proves that al-Qaeda is worse because they’re Muslims, right?
Dana brought up the famous Marx remark about religion being the “opium of the masses”, and ventures a thought somewhat common now among religious liberals and radicals — that religion is a consolation for the sufferers of an unjust society, and not just a soporific served up by the ruling class to keep the masses quiet. This latter is supposed to be the standard leftwing view of faith.
Neither interpretation of Marx is quite right. Actually, Marx took religion very seriously, but, on the other hand, those religious people are mistaken who try to construe this famous remark as conventionally favorable to faith, as if Marx was like the well-meaning, and mildly socially concerned midwestern Protestant preachers of my childhood.
In fact, Marx begins the discussion with a comment that “… die Kritik der Religion ist die Voraussetzung aller Kritik.â€? (“… the critique of religion is the presupposition of all critique.)
(This text is available at:
http://www.ml-werke.de/marxengels/me01_378.htm )
He goes on to argue that religion is fantasies that people create in response to their experience of the world. This idea was pretty current in the circles he had frequented. Feuerbach had written a book about it. (Still worth looking at if you want to have a good sense of faith.).
Skipping over several elaborations of this theme, we find Marx summing up his view of religion as alienation. Religion:
“….. ist die phantastische Verwirklichung des menschlichen Wesens, weil das menschliche Wesen keine wahre Wirklichkeit besitzt. Der Kampf gegen die Religion ist also mittelbar der Kampf gegen jene Welt, deren geistiges Aroma die Religion ist.â€?
(“…. is the phantastical realization of human essence, because human essence [that is, in capitalist society] has no true reality. The struggle against religion is also, mediately, the struggle against that world, whose spiritual aroma is religion.).
And then the famous statement:
“Das religiöse Elend ist in einem der Ausdruck des wirklichen Elendes und in einem die Protestation gegen das wirkliche Elend. Die Religion ist der Seufzer der bedrängten Kreatur, das Gemüt einer herzlosen Welt, wie sie der Geist geistloser Zustände ist. Sie ist das Opium des Volkes.�
Which means:
“Religious misery is at once the expression of real misery [also means poverty — a complex nuance] and a protest against that real misery. Religion is the sigh of the overstressed creature, the emotion [inadequate English equivalent] of a heartless world, as it is the spirit of spiritless conditions. It is the opium of the people.�
Not a crudely anti-religious rant, but not an endorsement of faith either. But a way of thinking about faith that we need to think about seriously.
[…] PS: Apropos of a certain recent sculpture, Pandagon has a link to Tom Waits’s “Chocolate Jesus.” This entry is filed under Blogwhoring. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. 4 Responses to “And a blast from the past.” 1 Darla says: March 31st, 2007 at 5:08 am Curse you, Doug. Like I have time to play around YouTube. […]
Unfortunately, the Lab Gallery at the Roger Smith Hotel has removed the Chococrhist statue. Call the hotel at 800.445.0277 to protest.
I can’t see the video - what’s the song? Link, anyone?
Actually, I find the voicemail box for Matthew Semler, at the Lab Gallery is full. But you can email him at rogersmitharts@rogersmith.com.
“The Lab Mission Statement
THE LAB (for installation + performance art) is a New York based, converted storefront turned fishbowl producing 30+ fast paced performance art and installation exhibitions annually. Aimed at furious midtown foot traffic, THE LAB’s programming is designed to confront modern relationships between art and audience and seeks to force interaction between high energy, “outropsectiveâ€? exhibitions and nearly 25,000 daily passersby. It is THE LAB’s goal to reach out through the glass and capture, fascinate, amuse, bemuse, soothe, shake and satisfy any and all who pass within eye or ear shot of the corner of 47th and Lex.”
It’s true that Christian extremists rarely kill people - why would they, when all they have to do is threaten to kill people to get them to behave as the Christian extremists want?
I dispute that atheism is no more a cure-all than faith. After all, one aspect of atheism (and you can include agnosticism and other forms of skepticism and the like in here) could be put as, “There are reasons things happen, and we can figure them out, and then solve problems because we know how things work,” where certain faiths blow things off with, “Oh, it’s all just part of God’s plan,” if they don’t outright deny key aspects of reality, which denial they want to force on EVERYONE, not just the members of their little cults, and, furthermore, discourage their followers from any sort of the critical thinking that is, in fact, absolutely necessary in order to solve problems and keep all our nice little technological wonders running. So in that respect, atheism is more likely to lead to solutions than certain faiths. Fortunately, there are many people who are aware that they can have their religious beliefs AND thinkin’ skills, too.
And now look at this:
http://chocolatefantasies.com/religious.htm
and this one, encouragelingly whiteass, and I guess it takes an orthodox position on the question whether the savior had kids:
http://www.halfbakery.com/idea/White_20Chocolate_20Jesus_20with_20Liquid_20Cherry_20Center
“Religious misery is at once the expression of real misery [also means poverty — a complex nuance] and a protest against that real misery. Religion is the sigh of the overstressed creature, the emotion [inadequate English equivalent] of a heartless world, as it is the spirit of spiritless conditions. It is the opium of the people.�
Interesting. In context, it comes across as Marx saying that religion is like an addiction — it’s what you use to soothe your everyday pains when you can’t think of any other way to combat them. Am I reading that correctly?
It’s true that Christian extremists rarely kill people…
I would argue that Christian extremists are running the U.S.A. right now and they ARE killing lots of people.
Ain’t religion grand?
Even the liberals don’t seem to be helping much here. “Oh, let’s legalize abortion. Let’s raise the minimum wage to a level that a mom with three kids STILL can’t live on.�
Yeah, that helps. Thanks.
Uh, legalizing abortion helps people who need abortions, actually. Which is a whole fucking lot. If you don’t have a uterus, I would request that you shut the fuck up about how trivial you think abortion is.
Secondly, if religion comforts you, then be religious. If you think life without your myths is empty and meaningless, by all means cling to them. Most atheists aren’t all that interested in disillusioning you, but in stopping assholes like Bill Donohue from using religion to control people, make themselves feel important, and pollute the public discourse with their ugly, defiant ignorance.
I have a hoax in mind, and I’d like to share.
The goal: get these arsehattus anti-gay and catholic wanker league types to get all in a snit about something that clearly does not exist.
The plan: find a vacant dentists office in a large office building.
Create a pseudo organization with contact information and phone numbers and the like. Use the phony address.
Advertise discrete reproductive services for gay women that make it possible to create a child with two mommies - two biological mommies - using advanced reproductive technologies. It could be even more miraculous - two daddies with an x chromosome from a surrogate mother (or from a sister or mother). Oooh the fun!
Start issueing press releases on the reproductive breatkthrough that makes it possible for two parent families to be biologically related.
(better yet - quietly put out word of the hoax to the target community so they know it isn’t a real thing - just fake).
Wait for protesters. Get people to dress up in gender-expression stereotypes and have them mince and barge by in character. Remember - this would be an empty office they would be trying to protest!
Bonus points if some ninny asshat like Flatley owned the building and drew heat from BillDo Bagbutts and the ArticleHate/AssResistance types. It would be really funny to have the press cover a protest at a place that didn’t exist and see these asshates hauled off for harassing people.
It’s true that Christian extremists rarely kill people…
Somebody likes strange fruit more than chocolate.
Bonus points if some ninny asshat like Flatley owned the building and drew heat from BillDo Bagbutts and the ArticleHate/AssResistance types. It would be really funny to have the press cover a protest at a place that didn’t exist and see these asshates hauled off for harassing people.
Would you donate a fraction of your writing ability to me?
I would love to have it.
I have a hoax in mind, and I’d like to share.
Please. Do. It.
Also, for New Yorkers: call the NYPD switchboard and report Donuthole for his threats. Then call the Archdiocese press office (212-371-1011 Ext. 2997) and ask for an on-the-record statement on whether the Archbishop supports Donuthole’s actions.
Regarding those who brought up the whole communion issue:
Many a Protestant would indeed be just as aghast at the notion that the bread&wine/grape-juice they had for communion was to be considered the body&blood of Jesus as they would be at the idea of a chocolate Jesus … the idea that any comestable would be Jesus, to many a Protestant, reeks of “Popery” and the Whore of Babylon. So for a Protestant to complain about this and accept communion would be no hypocrisy as the latter, to them, is not necessarily considered to be Jesus.
I imagine Catholics might be upset too — they get very picky about what can and can’t be Jesus and their codes are very specific about this. As the Talmudic Rabbis would have put it if they were Catholic and called on this “full disclosure and explicit statutes are a fence against hypocrisy”.
But as to Donohue getting upset about this — I know Catholics. Some of my best friends are Catholics. And believe you me, Donohue is no Catholic. As others have mentioned before and I mention above, he and his ilk are heretical Docetics who, in seeking to return to some earlier Golden Age of Christianity(TM) are no different than the “New Testament Christian” crowd amongst the Protestants. It’s natural that, even though they claim to be members of a Church considered by said fundie Protestants to be the corrupt Whore of Babylon, that they would cleave unto these fundies politically as their reactionary views, tinged with various heresies are the same. I know very well some very conservative Catholics with whom I would disagee about most all “social issues” — but even these people find Donohue to be a warped “cafeteria Catholic”, obsessed with sex and picking and choosing Church teachings in a most, as my conservative Catholic friends would put it “Protestant” manner.
Boy, I can only imagine the reaction if someone made a balls-out sculpture of, say, King David.
I dunno. Why do some evangelicals still “blame” the Jews for “killing Jesus”?
Are you talking to the author of this post? Because if you are, then your comment lost relevance right about there.
but even these people find Donohue to be a warped “cafeteria Catholic�, obsessed with sex and picking and choosing Church teachings in a most, as my conservative Catholic friends would put it “Protestant� manner.
I know a lot of rather intolerant protestants in my own family who would be upset over the chocolate crucifix, but only because it represents yet another statue for Catholics to worship.
Someone on this blog (Auguste?) said it really well; the price of religious freedom is that other people are allowed to laugh at your beliefs. As a basically religious person, (can’t help meself) this seems like a no-brainer. What better testament of faith than to deep down decide it’s ok that some people laughing their asses off at you? If you can’t take that little human problem without a complete freak-out is that belief system really doing what it’s supposed to do?
And I don’t think chocolate Jesus was a walk in the park to make either. Nicely done, and I’m sorry it’s down.
My bad, Ms. Kate. I’d always thought of lynchings and murders of GLBT people as just plain old hatred of difference, not specific to religion or Christianity, though I suppose many of the murderers in those cases are/were Christians whose religious beliefs lead them to commit murder.
http://www.strangefruit.org/
I don’t think I said that, but I sure wish I did.
“There is a real and important difference between “extremeâ€? Christians and “extremeâ€? Muslims. Extreme Muslims kill lots of people.”
That’s what we keep telling the people of Iraq. I still can’t figure out why they roll their eyes a lot.
I don’t know why I didn’t remember this earlier, but the scientific name for chocolate is “theobroma cacao,” which means in English “food of the gods.” There can’t be a more appropriate medium for a sculpture of Jesus.
Mnemosyne, you ask:
“Interesting. In context, it comes across as Marx saying that religion is like an addiction — it’s what you use to soothe your everyday pains when you can’t think of any other way to combat them. Am I reading that correctly?”
That’s part of it, but also, he’s saying that religion expresses, in and of itself, the alienation that comes out of the experience of living in the society. So faith is, yes, an addiction, but to something that comes out of the problem the experience of faith functions to palliate.
Another way of looking at this is to see patriarchal monotheism as what Durkheim called a “collective representation” of the society — in this case capitalism — in which we live. Of course, modern society, organized around — alilenating — relations between people with money as the medium of exchange, also created family structures in which men were particularly dominant, and in which fathers served as the experiential basis for the notion of the father god.
Of course, now that capitalism has gone a few steps farther and significantly undermined this family structure, the father-god concept is less supportable and discussions like those on Pandagon become more and more likely.
Penny, a friend of mine who was a devout born-again Christian and radical liberal punk used to say that she felt bad for people whose faith was so weak that it could be damaged by laughter, and that if God didn’t want us telling jokes on him, he wouldn’t have given us a sense of humor.
She loved my revival preacher faith healing imitation
Boy, I can only imagine the reaction if someone made a balls-out sculpture of, say, King David.
Best. Comment. Evar!
Watergate:
That’s actually a fake and purely superficial difference. Between the two groups, the core beliefs and the rhetoric used to express them are precisely identical, excepting only a few largely irrelevant differences in terminology. In the long run, a few tens of thousands of religiously-motivated killings over the course of a quarter century means very little, especially when you consider that we’ve managed to slaughter almost 700,000 Iraqis in less than a decade.
It’s certainly not as if extreme Christians don’t want to kill lots of people, and it’d be patently ridiculous to claim that murdering homosexuals and abortion doctors isn’t relgiously motivated. No, the only real reason that “extreme” Christians haven’t slaughtered hundreds of thousands of “infidels” right here in our own backyard is because deep down, they don’t think they can get away with it.
Although to be fair, they probably could.
As a follower of Jesus and an artist, I was naturally interested as soon as I heard about the controversy over “My Sweet Jesus”. When I first heard about it, it sounded like there was a lot of potential for some very offensive material, but then I saw the sculpture and heard what the artist had to say about his intentions. Now i’m just scratching my head trying to figure out what is the matter with it. The only thing that I can see is even remotely offensive is that Jesus has no loin cloth, but even that is just historically accurate.
I think that those who say that this is the worst offense ever to the Christian faith are people that either just want attention or serve a very small god. My God is above offense, you can thumb your nose at Him any way you like but He will still remain just as dignified as He was the day He created the world.
If anything I think this sculpture is just a reminder of how our nation has taken the most gruesome event in history and added so much sugar and polish to it that we’ve forgotten what really happened that day. On that day Jesus (God in flesh) chose to let himself be beaten and humiliated so that we could never say that God does not understand our pain. Then when He had fulfilled every prophecy (to prove that He was really God) He gave up is spirit as the complete and total payment for ALL sin. Now if that was where the story ended then Jesus would just be in the same category as Mohamed or George Washington, great men of history, but Jesus was more than just a man. After rotting in a grave for 3 days Jesus did was no man could do, and by His own power brought himself back from the dead proving that there was nothing more powerful than God. That is a story sweeter than chocolate.
Though I am not sure the artist completely thought through what he was trying to convey with his chocolate Jesus, I am glad he made it for the simple fact that it makes people ask questions, and that is what good art does.