Posted on 04/25/2004 12:10:28 PM PDT by wagglebee
With perhaps one in five Americans already having seen it, "The Passion" continues to rack up attendance records. Would you like to hear an amazing statistic? In spite of dire warnings by some Jewish groups, no Jews wending their way homewards from the synagogue have been set upon by crucifix-wielding Christians intent on wreaking revenge for the death of Jesus.
I am not being sarcastic. This truly is an amazing statistic. According to Boston police reports, the Oliver Stone-Quentin Tarantino 1994 "Natural Born Killers" inspired several imitation murders, including a firefighter killed by a man who claimed to be fascinated by the film.
Nathaniel White claimed that "Robocop" showed him how to kill five women and one girl in a year-long murder spree. Four young gunmen embarked on a killing spree, murdering four after watching the TV movie "Helter Skelter," a film about the Manson murders. The annals of American crime are filled with instances of the unbalanced and the demented acting out silver screen slashing extravaganzas.
Back in February, when "The Passion" was released, would anyone have been willing to guarantee that out of millions of theatergoers, not one lunatic would emerge with mayhem on his mind? I would have offered no such guarantee. Yet, nothing of the sort happened. What did happen is that several criminals were inspired to confess their crimes and submit to trial and incarceration after experiencing "The Passion."
Even the most hostile critic must concede that just as depraved films stimulate degenerate imitation, so do uplifting films stimulate noble behavior. That is certainly what has been happening with "The Passion." Wouldn't it be uplifting and even noble were the Jewish groups who earlier had insulted "The Passion," its maker, the Gospels that inspired it and indeed all Christians, now to issue an apology?
Wouldn't it be refreshing if those who earlier warned of anti-Jewish violence because "Gibson is spouting classic anti-Semitism" would now say contritely, "We were just plain wrong"? How about a "We're sorry" from those who threatened, "Mel Gibson's mouth has turned into a lethal weapon." Instead, what they are now saying is, "Just wait till those Muslims see 'The Passion.'"
What exactly can we expect now that a few Muslim communities are screening the film? It seems to me that we can anticipate only three possible outcomes.
Possible outcome No. 1 is that Muslim viewers decry the movie for at least two of its premises that flatly contradict Quranic doctrine. The first is that Jesus was crucified. According to the Quran, Jesus was merely a prophet and was certainly never crucified; neither did he rise from the grave. The second is the movie's stubborn depiction of a temple in Jerusalem. Islamic propaganda vehemently denies that any Jewish presence ever existed upon the Temple Mount. It is chiefly for these reasons that the movie is not gaining wide exposure among the world's Muslims. Those that do see it are quite likely to denounce it as sheer fabrication.
Possible outcome No. 2 is that Muslim viewers react to "The Passion" by waving their arms, shooting their Kalashnikovs into the air and yelling, "Yes! We knew it! Those Jews are just no good. Did you see this? They are even implicated in the death of Jesus." Presumably the consequence of this discovery would be that Muslim audiences then shake their heads sadly and say, "OK, that's it! No more mister nice guy!" Does anyone seriously suggest that Muslims in the Middle East were just about to denounce homicide bombings until they saw "The Passion"? Or would all those studious Islamic poetry scholars see the movie, abandon their texts and sally into the streets of Marseilles in order to attack Jews? How could Mel Gibson's movie possibly add to the already frenzied Islamic anti-Semitism?
Finally, we must confront possible outcome No. 3. Muslims experience "The Passion," find it profoundly moving and in large numbers convert to Christianity. Many would consider this outcome to be rather improbable, but they could be the same people who were also wrong in their predictions of how "The Passion" would impact American audiences. In any event, Muslim authorities are not quite as sanguine, which is precisely why so few are allowing "The Passion" into their societies in the first place.
And, should 1 billion Muslims convert to Christianity, I can't help wondering, would the world be a better place or a worse place?
Yes - if they took it to the same extremes that they've done with islam then we'd have to worry about the Crusades being perpetrated all over again.
Well, it would be all of those things. But it would also be unthinkable. Plus, those bozos are too busy trying to get Kerry elected to issue an apology.
And in my mind, Islam is evil. One of the reasons it was able to get going, however, was that it took Jewish ritual practice and adherence to a law that governed both religious and social behavior, and combined it with Christian proseltysing. However, it was a parody of both, using an insane, run-amok, mongrel "law" in place of the genuine Law of Moses, and bloody conquest in place of the Christian preaching and martyrdom (of the preachers, not of innocent bystanders) that spread Christianity.
In addition, its message was not to turn the other cheek and conquer by being gentle and law-abiding, but to attack and collect booty and slaves, because Allah was on your side and blood should flow if people didn't agree.
That's why it appeals to our prison population: it tells the weak and dysfunctional that they are strong and meant to be in charge, not because they are good or smart, but simply because they are more ruthless. And it tells them that their reward will be all the "things" they have ever wanted: riches and sex.
Islam arose at a time and in an area where Christianity had been severely weakened by Arianism (which was a quasi-Unitarianism that made it very easy for heresy-influenced Christians to accept Islam) and the Church had lost much of its control. The Jews had fled long before, although there were many colonies still living in the area; however, they were powerless. And the Roman Empire and its few remaining vestiges of order and authority had been gone for some time, permitting little warring tribes to seize power throughout the area.
But the long and short of it is that Islam is evil, and the Devil like a roaring lion goes about seeking whom he may devour. Islam has been knocked back several times, but not without effort. But in our modern, naive society, where Christian orthodoxy is weakened, Europe has almost vanished, and the United States itself is undermined by doubt, the Devil (aka Islam) finds a lot to devour.
Since you ask a religious question, you might read in Genesis the account of Cain/Abel, Isaac/Ishmael, and Jacob/Esau. These are three sets of brothers with father issues, and "God" issues. This motif is repeated in various ways even up to the Prodigal Son--and I believe it may figure in a cosmic way over the question of Free Will and the Problem of Evil.
Sarah shouldn't have gotten impatient, and should have trusted to God's promise of a child in her old age. She "jumped the gun" and handed over Hagar for Abraham to impregnate, but this set up a big domestic and spiritual conflict when Sarah herself bore Isaac . Hagar found herself and her child rejected, exiled and "unchosen", so her son got a consolation prize , a promise of her own from God--to bear an enormous nation, a huge population, and to be an eternal menace and a force for irrationality.
The Mohammed.
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