Christ Model Disturbs Residents

A hideous depiction of pain and suffering that has adorned the front of a church in southern England has been removed because people thought it too unpleasant. One elderly resident interviewed by the BBC said:

"I'm glad they've taken it down. It gave me the creeps when I was going past it"

Explaining the decision to remove the hideous thing, Reverend Ewen Souter told the BBC the sculpture was, "A horrifying depiction of pain and suffering."

Disagreeing with the church's decision, Reverend John Capron told the BBC:

"I think it's very difficult for us to sanitise the Christian faith and certainly to sanitise human suffering. The cross was a dreadful event; one of the cruellest events in the history of mankind. As we look at what is happening in the world around us, for example what is happening to the people of Gaza, I don't think it's entirely realistic to think that violence and horror don't happen to us. For Christians, the great comfort in the crucifix is the thought not that it represents simply, human pain but also the love of God. The God who created us is also the God who suffers with us."

Designed in the 1960s by Edward Bainbridge Copnall, a former president of the Royal Society of British Sculptors, it's made from a mixture of coal dust and resin and will now be housed at a Horsham museum; presumably away from small children.

Reverend Souter thought the oversized idol was actually scaring people off and not communicating the "Christian" message. He wanted to portray, "an accurate biblical picture of the crucifixion as a moment of hopefulness for the world, and not one of despair".

Oh for fuck's sake.

Rewind that a moment. Did he just say, "an accurate biblical picture of the crucifixion... (in the negative)"

I've seen the statue and it's a pretty nasty looking thing and fairly accurate. The malnourished shadow of a man, face contorted into screaming agony with hands nailed to the wooden cross through the palms (which is a common mistake).

I'd say it was an fairly accurate depiction of pain and suffering the early Italian army forced on anyone who pissed them off.

Modern scholars (at least, ones who don't have a religious axe to grind) now think the resurrection that is a cornerstone of the Christian faith was only added by a scribe hundreds of years after the original text was laid down. The earliest text (that we have) stops where at the point where the cave is opened and Jesus's body is missing.

The empty stainless steel crucifix that will replace this hideous throwback only serves to feed the lie that professional Christians need to keep people believing in. Tell them the truth is what I say - even if it's nasty.

Tell them that your god was an evil, jealous, murdering bastard - just like it says in the bible. I know you won't because then they'll realise you're just a bunch of bigots feeding them a crock of shit: and you'll be out of a job.

Ted Baehr is Wrong About Everything

According to Newsmax, a survey showed that 70 percent of people the UK doubted the biblical account of the birth of Jesus Christ. But, says "Bigoted" Ted Baehr, we are all, "gravely mistaken"

Excuse me while I recover from the paroxysm of laughter there.

Baehr, founder of The Christian Film & Television Commission ministry goes on to say:

"Christianity is true as well as historical, factual and intellectually sound"

Now excuse me for wondering, but where do these people get off making statements like this? It's pretty obvious that if people realist they're been sold a bottle of snake oil, they're going to go elsewhere - and that means that Baehr's network would be in trouble. He's hardly a impartial witness: quite the opposite.

He's also apparently a complete buffoon as this quote from the same article implies:

"Not only can you have complete faith in the New Testament documents and what they say about the virgin birth, divinity, Crucifixion, Resurrection, and teachings of Jesus Christ, but you can also rely on what they say about non-Christian places, people, and events, such as the names and titles of Roman government officials."

There's a small matter of several articles of pure faith in that sentence - not to mention and this is a brilliant clincher - the recent discovery that the original NT documents do not contain any reference to the resurrection. Uh oh. Sort of buggers that argument. The earliest text that we know of stops well short of anything about Jesus coming back to life, and stops at the bit where the disciples found the empty tomb.

The bit about resurrection was added later.

In more right-wing bollocks, Good News Daily reports that Disney is dropping the nauseating Narnia movies due to budgetary constraints, but goes on to say:

"The franchise stems from the classic, beloved, seven-part young fiction series THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA written by acclaimed Christian author C.S. Lewis, who defended the Faith against atheists and other pseudo-intellectuals."

So now they're saying if you don't have faith, you're dim. Oh yeah, that really works just like the straw man. Guess who wrote that... none other than, Ted Baehr. Yes folks, Baehr isn't just ignorant, he's actually a flag waving bigot to boot. He should try and practice a bit more of what he preaches.

PLOT SPOILER

If you are enjoying the Narnia books/films, then you won't want to know that they end with the children discovering they are all dead and in heaven. The lion was Jesus all the time - well who knew?

Depressing. Truly depressing.