The Binary Circumstance

Andrew Sullivan complains bitterly about Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ.

I repeat that there is something deeply disturbed about this film. Its extreme and un-Biblical fascination with human torture reflects, to my mind, not devotion to the message of the Cross but a kind of psycho-sexual obsession with extreme violence that Gibson has indulged in many of his other movies and is now trying to insinuate into Christianity itself.

In the area of theology there are no objective referents, there is no science. It’s all about what you make up in your head. Religion by its nature is masochistic because it separates the human mind from what is real and verifiable, and forces it into a world of terror, the terror that comes from relentless self-doubt, and the torment that results from wanting to know what cannot be known. Religion is an appetite that can never be satisfied, a knowledge that can never be acquired. It denies human beings the world we have evolved to live in, replacing that world with one that doesn’t exist. It is a rejection of the life that exists in favor of one that does not exist, the antidote to existence.

Sullivan quotes from an e-mail:

I have been a Christian for most of my life. I have done a lot of missions work and, I’ve felt, have served Jesus well. I have thought of myself as a pretty good person who never did anything terribly wrong. But I did do something terribly wrong. I am complicit in, and responsible for, the savage murder of an innocent man, of my Lord. My faith demands that I accept this truth. I am equally complicit with every other person who ever has, and ever will walk this earth.

This same e-mail goes on to say:

This Passion brought that point home with me in a totally new way. I’ve always known Jesus’ death was terrible. Always knew he died for me. But never really thought through just how horrible and terrifying it must have been. Watching this movie was, to me, like being there as a witness to the act. As one complicit in His death, I might as well have been one of those shouting “Crucify!??? I might as well have spat on Him, laughed at Him, placed the crown of thorns upon His head, and driven the nails into His hands. It was for my sins that He embraced the cross and willingly paid the terrible price. All my life I have taken Christ’s sacrifice for granted without ever really considering the true cost of the cross in terms of the brutal and savage pain I inflicted upon the Savior. That is what I find most disturbing. It’s also why I can never be the same after watching The Passion of The Christ.”

No, you were not there. No, you did not kill the Christ. There is no scientific evidence that you were born an evil sinner and no evidence that this bloody ritual absolved you of your sins. This is all made up. Made up by evil people who want you to believe that you are evil. You are not guilty of crimes you did not commit. You are guilty of torturing yourself and those around you today, not two thousand years ago.

Gibson, Sullivan and the Christian author of his e-mail are all deeply disturbed human beings who, depending on their chosen form of crying-for-attention, waste entire movies, blog postings, and e-mails describing their narcissistic, self-centered, sadomasochistic fantasies. That is all they are describing. Nothing more. They teach us nothing about reality and everything about what is wrong with human minds that are divorced from it.

It is grandiose to believe that you can have knowledge of the unknowable and depressing to want what you cannot have. Grandiosity and depression are symptoms are narcissism, a self-loathing that invites others to hate themselves as well.

There is nothing that can be known about things that don’t exist. Period. End of story.

It’s time to stop pretending that religious people are sane. They are not!

The MarginalRevolution tells us what the future might bring. Warning: It’s not pretty.

“…the U.S. government [is] effectively bankrupt”
“…when rational gloom sets in, the U.S. economy will likely ‘go critical.’”
“…the decline and fall of America’s undeclared empire will be due not to terrorists at our gates nor to the rogue regimes that sponsor them, but to a fiscal crisis of the welfare state.”

Who is making these wild statements? Is it a “not-to-be-trusted”, liberal economist like Paul Krugman or Brad DeLong each of whom have warned of an impending “fiscal train wreck” and “fiscal catastrophe”? No. The statements are from Laurence Kotlikoff, one of the most world’s most prominent economists, and Niall Ferguson, one of the world’s most prominent historians – both are whom are considered to be conservatives (more on that shortly).

It’s a good post. Please read it.

I discovered MarginalRevolution through The Agitator.

According to the official Chuck Palahniuk web site, Chuck’s gruesome short story “Guts” is published in the March issue of Playboy magazine.

See my post on the body count associated with readings of “Guts.” Also, my account of the night he read it at Seattle’s Town Hall.

Buy fun, useful items at my Cafe Press Store.

Today the California Supreme Court declined to issue an immediate injunction to block same-sex marriages. The injunction had been sought by the California Attorney General, Bill Lockyer.

At the prodding of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Attorney General Bill Lockyer asked the justices to intervene in the emotionally charged debate while they consider the legality of the marriages. But the justices declined, and told the city and a conservative group that opposes gay marriages to file new legal briefs by March 5.