Why I don't want to see the Passion of the Christ in the cinema:

[changeling]

"[I]t's a phenomenally brutal film that has little to do with Jesus' ethical teachings." - dragonscholar commenting on this entry, which you should definately go and read.

You know what I think is important? Getting out Jesus's message of forgiveness and tolerance. I think the world needs that more than a Jesus-branded gore fest. Also, if people could focus on the part where Jesus said that a good Pagan was better than a bad Christian (well, he woulda said Jew, but y'know.), that would be spiffy too.

Comments

[semplice.livejournal.com]

agreed. In fact, I'm sure I could argue that not wanting to see it makes me a good Christian, somehow.. *g*
If nothing else I won't feel like hunting down Mel Gibson and torturing him?

This is why I hate Easter. It means too much and it's all too sad and serious and it hurts to think of anyone suffering... at at church you hear it every year. I don't like it. I certainly don't want to WATCH it. Sure. Go remind us of how we killed our saviour, you fantatical Christians. Yes. We really need to be proud of that and make a movie out of it!

And God sends you to hell for not being christian (and not believing in him???) then he can damn well send me there too. if hell exists. Which I'm not all that convinced about.
Anyway. *g*

[delirieuse.livejournal.com]

Well, I'm a Pagan, and so Easter is all about the fertility of the land. And Eostre, the goddess of the spring. That's where the eggs and the rabbits come from. *shrugs*

I think it's a shithouse god who sends people to hell if they've tried to be openminded and love others and so forth. And as Billy Joel says, "I'd rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints."

[irradiatedsoup.livejournal.com]

Word. People get caught up in dogma and forget the basic teachings of Jesus. I'm a (Liberal. Ok, very Liberal)Catholic fyi and to a a point I understand what Mel Gibson was trying to do, but I think he got lost - Jesus said the most important thing, above all commandments was that we 'Love one another', he didn't say "Thou shalt put my gory death onscreen for preachy entertainment value".

But I will see it. Because I'm weak way too intrigued by the hype and I can't properly judge it without seeing it. It will just depress me though, so I shouldn't. GAH. Jesus didn't like brutality of any sort, brutality onscreen as some sort of ...tribute makes me squirm. The reason Christ did what he did was to help others. To absolve human sin, -To, as you said promote tolerance and forgiveness. Cheeseball as it sounds, I actually think if he'd had the millions of dollars Gibson had to make this movie he would have given it to help people who can't afford to go to the cinema, rather than give an interesting point of debate (and religious tensions) to the middle class. But the again we're living in a world where one several of our most influential leaders have no qualms about dropping bombs all over Iraq, but want to ban homosexual marriage so personally, I think Jesus wouldn't be overly happy at the state this world at all.