Rex Murphy
Rex Murphy:
To be a serious Christian in modern Western culture is to be the favoured easy target of every progressive thinker and every half-witted comedian. It is to have your sensibilities and your deepest beliefs on perpetual call for taunts, mockery and desecration. At a time when all progressives preach full volume for inclusivity and sensitivity, for the utmost care in speech when speaking of others with differing views or hues, Christians, as Christians, are under a constant hail of abuse and disregard. There is nothing too low or too vulgar.
10 comments:
I guess constant criticism and mocking of your religion is just the Christian's cross to bear.
So far,you've done well, no riots in the streets,as members of other religions have done, no murders of infidels to mar your record.
Maybe you're just too damned civilized for your own good.
I like Russell Peters' comedy routines,but agree with Rex Murphy on this one.
Casting Pamela Anderson as Mary is ignorant and offensive.
Now if Peters wants to prove his worth as a daring comedian,let's see him do a skit featuring Mohammed,with Ezra Levant playing the role.
Waste of a read. Rex Murphy, as usual, has nothing intelligent to add to the conversation. It's simply a comedic christmas special. Nothing more. Turn the other cheek. Don't be offended. Everyone's beliefs are up for ridicule. That is the beauty of the freedom of speech you love so much. Or have we forgotten this central tenet of our political faith because now the ridicule is aimed at us?
And spray-painting obscenities or blasphemies on a church wall -- nothing more than exercise of freedom of speech?
And what about defecating inside a church building -- just some more harmless fun? Protected speech, maybe?
The point of Rex's article is the unevenness of this. The inequity of it. Let the comedians lampoon Islam and Mohammed equally, and then maybe we can talk. It is not edgy and progressive; it is cowardice.
That's my speech.
dmorris writes: "I guess constant criticism and mocking of your religion is just the Christian's cross to bear."
-- Well... compared to the traditional cross-bearing Christians (starting with Christ) have had to endure... I'd say "criticism and mocking" are easy to endure.
dmorris writes: "So far, you've done well, no riots in the streets,as members of other religions have done, no murders of infidels to mar your record."
--By "you" here I assume you mean Christians here and now, as of... very recently. Since there have in the past been riots in the streets, murders (or burnings) of infidels, and so on. It's easy to find no marred record when one is highly selective with their history.
It seems strange that you'd "find no marred record" of Christianity if one (rather widely accepted) Christian belief is that we are all sinners.
-anon1152
"To be a serious Christian in modern Western culture is to be the favoured easy target of every progressive thinker and every half-witted comedian."
--I can't comment on "half witted comedian[s]". But... every progressive thinker? I find that hard to believe. “The left” has never been fully "secular." "The right" has certainly never been fully religious. Though the NDP today is officially secular, it is far from atheistic or non-Christian or un-Christian. And the NDP’s origins are hardly non-Christian: Tommy Douglas was a Baptist minister. Current Ontario NDP MPP Cheri Dinovo is (apparently) a United Church Minister. Many of my early teachers were, shall we say, left of centre and Christian... I realize these are only a few examples. But they are surely enough to suggest that "every progressive thinker" targets Christians. Unless you want to argue that they are not *really* Christians...
"Something as inconsequential as a Christmas special, for example, will have — almost as an essential element, it being “Christ’s” birthday after all — something determinedly offensive to Christians"
--I can’t help but point out that he is saying that “a Christmas special” is “inconsequential”… even though it involves both “Christ” and “special”?
"The casting [of Anderson as Mary] is so, so clever — getting a lewd exhibitionist to play Mary, to call in a pop-culture tart to play the very Mother of God."
--Is she being a lewd exhibitionist during the show? The photo available for Peters and Anderson on the National Post article that you link to has them dressed very conservatively…
"There was another example in the now nearly defunct occupy movement..."
--This I find interesting. Another example of what? I think he has assumed much. Perhaps too much. Or at least… not provided evidence for the claim.
He provides an example of some people here who are upset at the state’s attempt to stop an allegedly religious ceremony. He has no examples of outrage at the incidents he mentions. Pamela Anderson playing the virgin Mary (outrage at who she has been or who she is, not outrage at the actual show… which may or may not have anything in it to be outraged about); and the defecating in St. Paul’s Cathedral incident. Which I admit I hadn’t heard about before.
I did find this article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/nov/21/occupy-london-camp-eviction-bid
So apparently, the defecation was used as one of several reasons to evict all of the occupiers (no attempt to find and punish the defecators, apparently).
In the case of the “sacred flame” and of the “occupiers”… we see the state trying to stop people from doing… something. In the former they are trying to stop people from performing a religious(?) ceremony. In the later they are acting to facilitate the religious ceremonies of others.
Sorry. I feel like I just spammed you. And I quoted parts of the article you linked to that you had not quoted...
Thank you for pointing out the Rex Murphy article, by the way. I can't say it made me happy. But I am glad that I read it.
As a Pagan, I am deeply offended by what you blasphmers have done to my tree of fertility and my solstice celebration of life energy. This Jesus-come-lately has no respect for other people's traditons.
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