Originally posted by Segador
Rule 34 and 35, it was inevitable...

What does that mean? I'm not claiming it means nothing, I just want to know.
Still, it begs the question, if somebody else can make cryptic statements, how come I, even tho I promised to elaborate on points I was making, was censored for not posting within the understanding of the mods concerned? Er... ever hear of preparing your ground before going into battle?
Of course, you'll be looking to delete this also, but:
Just because an artist, like the 1 under discussion, has something to say which any particular individual doesn't understand, does not mean that those of us who can understand art cannot appreciate the subtleties of their message. In this particular instance, the man is a professor of art. He gave his reasons: it was a critique on practices of the christian church. If people dont understand what "critique" means, is that any more his fault than that I dont understand what the above quote means?
Obviously it means something &, rather than jump to any conclusions, I'd like to hear from the author. At which point, I will evaluate his/her response, taking into account my previous experience & their credibility, before drawing a conclusion. Just as anyone who views the work of a professor of art ought to. I mean, seriously, does anyone here really imagine that a Stanford professor does not know what the word "critique" means?

My point about black, white & grey was that, if we are prepared to think a little further than polarised opposites, simply placing a concept on a scale somewhere between good & evil, ie grey, limits what we can do with that concept. There's a whole rainbow+ pallet of various hues, which we can also apply the greyscale to, as required. I agree that some things are just wrong, but isn't it also necessary to find out what shade of wrong they are?
For eg, why is it wrong? How did it happen? Is it a pulsing scarlet that indicates it'll probably happen again? What can I do that isn't some other colour of wrong to prevent or ameliorate further instances? Does the recognition of this wrong indicate anything else which, although not the same shade, is also wrong, even tho it's not considered "dark charcoal grey" by most people? In this instance, I've been trying to get people to put down the pencils & pick up the paint. Tell us exactly why being offended is wrong. I'm open to the idea that I'm mistaken, b/c I may also have to re-evaluate my position on related issues.
We must then consider that, to many people, attempting to use our minds to their full capacity in this manner is "black", or "moral relativism", never quite getting that one can consider anything in the finest detail without drawing any moral conclusion, simply to understand it. A shade of grey may need to be applied later, when the understanding gets used in a particular circumstance, but do you see what I mean? Its a vicious circle of dumbassery!
I agree that there are some absolute gems, nevermind pearls, of wisdom in the NT. What I'd like to know is why the best bits are those most frequently ignored? IMO, its b/c a great deal of Abrahamic religion runs counter to human nature. Thus it causes the frustrations & neuroses I mentioned. People then look to scripture & use a passage, most often out of context &/or twisted to suit, to justify the bad behaviour that results from being unhappy.
This artist has critiqued some such causes of unhappiness.

(Cont from above)
What I'm on about is the internal equivalent of producing an academic thesis. We could just devote a few paragraphs to each idea & then draw a conclusion. Trouble is, by doing so, we must assume that a reader (or ourselves) can see the relationships between all the ideas under consideration, but, since the whole point is to synthesise new meaning, obviously we must connect the most important dots along the way, or it'd take a polymath genius to understand our conclusion (this was my MO 1st time @uni). Thus we also reduce the impact of our conclusion.
The trick is to group ideas together & then use a paragraph of recapitulation to form a concept. Then through successive layers of such, to arrive at a conclusion based on the recaps, but pointing out the connections between the ideas from different sub-groups which are the 'new meaning'. This is the process of logic: each successive layer of argument is based upon irrefutable previous stages.
We must take responsibility for teaching ourselves b/c, once out of school, nobody else will or, indeed, can (unless they've an agenda & we let them).
A religion which states as its fundamental position that there will & can only be 2 outcomes from the sum total of our lives, ie heaven or hell, & that, @some point, for reasons beyond our control, the creator of the world will end it, so our only hope is to be on the "right" side (& dont get me started on the psychological concomitants of that!), cannot but promote polarised thinking, which is the antithesis of reason.
Therefore, as a human who wants to proceed through life using reason to understand my emotional self & take account of all my needs, I'm happy to see the opposition kicked in the teeth, as it were.
Still, criticism does not automatically spring from hate. My kids get my opinion full blast when I feel they need it. I dont hate them. They're, naturally, just idiots . Still, a few times, I've had to concede that I didn't know the full story...

Originally posted by Bunken Drum
My kids get my opinion full blast when I feel they need it. I dont hate them. They're, naturally, just idiots .

If I can relate to anything you have said, it is this. My own father was a military man and while I hated the criticism at the time, I look at the rest of my own generation and those coming after me and thank God and my father that I had the dad that I did.

You are right, I was offended by the post way back where you had mentioned placing Jesus in an even more sexualized position. I wasn't bothered much at all by one of your later comments. I don't remember where it was and I don't really care to look for it.

I wouldn't say that indifference is the opposite of love or hate, but the absence of both. It would be better described as the opposite of passion. You can have passion for something but it could be either good or bad. Having passionate love is another way of saying a very emotional and strong love. Anyway, I wouldn't place indifference on the line of hate vs love or turn it into a triangle. To be honest I'm not sure where indifference would go in that illustration.

Certain actions can be truly neutral though and be "indifferent". I can walk by you on the sidewalk and not say a thing but that doesn't mean that I hate you or love you or have any thoughts about you what-so-ever.

If I'm understanding you correctly, and I may not be as you seem to be much more educated than I, you are saying that an action that may be a dark gray in one scenario may be a light gray in another and therefor the whole graph/illustration is a completely worthless and harmful if anything. Everything is relative.

I don't believe everything is relative, but I'll admit that a whole lot of life is. Paul was fully aware of this when he taught about the strong and weak Christians. Christians who embraced the liberty afforded them by God's grace might eat all kinds of foods that others considered to be forbidden. It would be perfectly acceptable for them to eat those foods by themselves or in the presence of others who had no qualms about it. It would be wrong for them to eat those foods in front of Christians who considered it to be sinful though, as it would undermine an already weak faith and cause divisions and misunderstandings among the people. Heck, killing people is one of those issues that many dont understand ajnd have a hard time grasping. It is completely different for a soldier to kill in wartime or for an executioner to follow orders and carry out a judge's sentence than it is for a man who just goes out and murders somebody he doesn't care for. Context can alter an actions place on the white/gray/black scale. I don't think this makes that illustration useless, but instead simply goes to show that we need wisdom and understanding to know when actions would be deemed appropriate or when they wouldn't, if they ever are at all! A hearty laugh and big grin are entirely appropriate at a child's party, but no so much at your mother-in-law's funeral.

Was Jesus not human?

Im sure the artist understood what would be brought upon his work before creating this. Was it in good moral judgement ? Probably not. But who are we as people to discriminate art, imagination, free will, or what-ever it is you want to call it? As screwed up as it is do not try to suppress the imagination. Turn your focus onto something more important.

The lithograph, on display since Sept. 11 at the tax-funded Loveland Museum Gallery in Loveland, Colo., is part of an 82-print exhibit by 10 artists who have worked with Colorado printer Bud Shark. It includes several images of Jesus, including one in which he appears to be receiving oral sex from a man as the word "orgasm" appears beside Jesus’ head.

Why are we funding art?

Because art and expression are an integral part of freedom of speech.

God gave everybody a neck so you could look the other way.

~Keeper

Sounds to me like Prof. Troll is successful troll. (And trolling as an art has little to do with the internet, it's just made it a lot lot easier and thus more prominent in that regard.) The art wasn't about the art, but what buttons he could push with certain people and in turn how much they would respond. The fact that he actually managed to get grant money for it was icing on the cake.

If only people would only learn to ignore stuff like that...