Posts Tagged ‘religion’

Fail All the Way Around

Tuesday, April 19th, 2011

Dwight and Ann Althouse (among many others) are reporting on the vandalizing of a photographic print of Andres Serrano’s Piss Christ in France. (I’m not going to go into a history of the piece itself, whose heyday of controversy was before most of today’s college seniors were born; I suspect my readers can Google as well as anyone.) The attackers have not been apprehended, but there has been much speculation that they were disgruntled Catholics, though the proof of that is entirely conjectural. Assuming this is true (and not, as Althouse suggests, an inside job), this is like a perfect storm of fail for the attackers:

  • Destroying other people’s property is wrong. Even if you disagree with them. Even if they’re asshats. (I have no idea if Serrano is an asshat or merely an attention whore.) These are the tactics of left-wingers and jihadists, not thinking members of western democracies.
  • Andres Serrano is known for Piss Christ, and…um, hold on…let me think…uh, prints of Piss Christ. The guy had his 15 minutes of fame and slipped back into well-deserved obscurity, until you morons came along and gave him another 15 minutes. You’re doing it wrong.
  • Despite Instapundit’s observation that Christians are just following the examples of Muslims in suppressing blasphemous art, this attack will not actually achieve that end. This is possibly the best possible thing you could do for Serrano’s career. Indeed, I suspect legions of starving left-wing artists all across America have leapt from the futons in their parents’ basements at the news to boldly start working on art offensive to Christians, or at least fill out grant proposals for same. Destroying such art doesn’t intimidate anyone. No, as Islamists have proven again and again, you have to kill people to intimidate others into silence. Not that you should do that, and I’m in favor of the death penalty for killing your fellow countrymen for reasons of political ideology. Then again, this took place in Europe, where they’ve abolished the death penalty. Stabbing a blasphemous artist to death on the rue de martyrs would get you three hots and a cot for life…or until the state has to empty the prisons because they’re out of money.
  • So whoever did was either a very stupid religious believer, or a very smart guerrilla marketer…

    The Texas House Speaker’s Race Religion Kerfluffle

    Monday, December 6th, 2010

    Since the topic has gotten to Fark, I thought I would clear up the whole “Republicans oppose Straus because he’s Jewish” myth, a myth entirely based on one dumbass (or one plant) sending out email. (The truth is, Republicans oppose Straus because he’s not conservative enough.) In particular, I’d like to point out that those who say that Republicans haven’t condemned this religious bating are wrong:

    Reps. Warren Chisum and Ken Paxton, conservative Republicans who’ve launched long-shot bids to unseat House Speaker Joe Straus, on Wednesday condemned campaign e-mails that have introduced candidates’ religions.

    E-mails, some of unknown origin, have surfaced in recent days that mention Straus’ rabbi and underscore the Christian faith of his leading critics in the House Republican Caucus. One e-mail promises that “Straus is going down in Jesus’ name.”

    “I repudiate that in the strongest terms,” Chisum, R-Pampa, said in an interview. “That is not what this is about.”

    Chisum later issued a release saying, “No one working with me on my campaign for speaker has anything to do with such tactics,” which he called “deplorable.”

    Paxton, R-McKinney, released a similar statement.

    “There is absolutely no place for religious bigotry in the race for Texas speaker,” Paxton said. “It is just as shameful for anyone to imply that I would ever condone this type of behavior. My campaign is singularly focused on a message of providing proven, dependable conservative leadership to the Texas House.”

    That was way back on November 18, people. If you’re going to repeat a liberal smear, how about one that wasn’t already debunked three weeks ago?

    Frank Tipler Offers a Mathematical Proof of the Existence of God

    Thursday, December 10th, 2009

    Or more accurately, notes toward such a proof.

    Interesting stuff, though as an agnostic, I don’t technically have a god in this fight…