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Religious Billboard - do you find this offensive?

Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/national/3172085/Religious-billboard-provokes-wrath-mirth

Make sure you click next on pics to see the billboard before it was painted over.

What are your views on it?

Tbh, I find it funny. Funnier that it was put up by a church. But being raised Catholic (well, not at all strictly), I can see how it would be rather offensive.

Comments

  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/national/3172085/Religious-billboard-provokes-wrath-mirth

    Make sure you click next on pics to see the billboard before it was painted over.

    What are your views on it?

    Tbh, I find it funny. Funnier that it was put up by a church. But being raised Catholic (well, not at all strictly), I can see how it would be rather offensive.
    anyone want to take up the issue on freedom of expression?

    http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/muslim-terror-suspect-tries-to-assassinate-danish-cartoonist-1856173.html
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Religious people in sense of humour failure shock.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    More than anything I find it an odd way for a Church to try and get people talking about Christ and going to church.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I thought it was pretty witty to be honest - here's some more details including an interview with the vicar responsible, Archdeacon Glynn Cardy -

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/8417963.stm
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    .
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I would give you this apart from the fact that it was the church that put the poster up in the first place....
    However it was religious folks who promptly spoke of 'offence', and who without doubt sprayed paint all over it.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    So we can be pretty certain that some religious people have a sense of humour and some don't?
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    jims reply is perfect, +1
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Why do some people want to draw big pictures of white joseph and mary? I'm not buying it. I would probably deface them too, but only to colour them in, I don't understand their intentional message and I don't care so it's neither offensive or inoffensive.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    What would the reaction have been were it a defacing of a Muslim poster?
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Try it and see?
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    What would the reaction have been were it a defacing of a Muslim poster?

    Relevance?

    Christians deface Christian poster... who cares, really?
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Well maybe he meant it would be seen as all racisty and antiMuslim, and then somebody might blow something up.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    grace wrote: »
    Well maybe he meant it would be seen as all racisty and antiMuslim, and then somebody might blow something up.
    If that's what he meant he would have simply been parroting Daily Mail garbage, really.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Obviously people must care a lot to deface a poster. It's just a display of information / opinion in a way. Just the same as words. I've learnt that if I don't like what I read... read something else!! Same with pictures. You don't like a picture, look away.

    Some people obviously had so much time on their hands though... to go to the shop and get some paint and some big paintrollers, sneak out to the sign and vandalise all over it. I think that's a bit sad, when instead you know they could have spent that time doing something good like painting over tagging in deprived neighbourhoods or something. But oh no.

    Oh and because I'll probably get brought up for it, I guess tagging is different because it specifically causes more social damage (I guess you could class 'hate propaganda' under the same umbrella) whereas what legitimate claim of harm does this cause?
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Jesus Christ,

    Bickering about g*d in this day and age? The one true perpetually absent occasional father figure? Structure to many people's desperate lives? I´d say the proof was in the pudding, that being the primordial shit we all belong to.

    I really hope the religious pipe down soon, so we can all un-tether ourselves from the dark ages and actually progress from the historical and cultural rut it has got us in to.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Makes me wonder, is when you think of the advance of computing in just 50 years, going from first flight of man, to first landing on moon etc.

    How far would technology be if it wasnt for the dark ages.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    darkages.gif
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    that graf's a bit random though, do we really measure the scientific advancements of the egyptians as comparatively low as that?
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    They were great at using what they had - but Egptian science didn't really change very much over the 3,000 or so years that their society was around. However it's a bloody short line for a 3,000 year old civilization that effectively ran a lot longer than 250 years - bear in mind the great pyramids were what? 2500 BC?

    Plus, got question if the Romans were twice as 'advanced' as the Greeks, given they didn't really move forward a lot from the Greeks. Maybe around civics and society, but scientifically?

    Anyway, I'm waffling now I'm back the office for the first time in weeks :p
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Maybe I could look back if I make it to 100 years old and think of all the technological advancements made in my lifetime, then realise that would have been a few hundred years ago if the dark ages hadnt happened.

    The example being the Tollans in Stargate SG1, seems their history closely matched ours on earth, except they never went through an a equivalent of the dark ages, leading to more advancements in technology. Plus seemingly being a more benevolent race of people.

    </sci fi references>
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Back on topic for a second, I found it quite amusing, and glad to see that religion can still poke fun at its self instead of needing an atheist to do so.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Oh and just to drag this off topic one more time, I'm afraid my History nerd side won't let this go :p

    It's worth noting that the idea of a 'dark age' is seen as pretty inaccurate these days - and especially the idea that this was, as it's been used here, a 'Christian dark age'. To suggest that the supposed period of decline was the result of Christianity, as opposed to the collapse of pan-European civil system under the Romans isn't born out by much evidence.

    Scholars from the 14th century popularised the term because of the difference they perceived between late Latin writings compared to those from the height of Roman life. The term was further expanded to refer to the lack of written history and demographic decline during the period between the Roman Empire and the High Middle Ages.

    This entirely ignores the history of the Byzantine Empire in the East as well as the growth of early Islam. The term is therefore little more than a description of the early period of post Roman life in the western nations that had been ruled by the late Roman Empire.

    If used at all now, it tends to be used to describe a relatively short period of Western European development - between the 5th and 10th century AD.

    The key elements that defined the idea of the Dark Age were the drop in population and the end of widespread trade across long distances. Again this had more to do with the end of the overall civic government from Rome than anything particularly 'Christian'.

    It's also important to remember that the term was an important propaganda tool during the religious conflicts of the 16th and 17th century in Western Europe. Especially painting it as a period of corruption and decay under the Antichrist in Rome. But that's nothing more than religious and war propaganda. The same can be said for the way the Enlightenment viewed the Middle Ages, needing to prove that an age of religion must have been regressive compared to the Age of Reason.

    If used at all now it's as an impartial description for a period with little written evidence, dark simply because we don't know a lot about it. However that's pretty redundant now as modern archeology continues to fill the gaps about the Early Medival Period.

    To be honest a more accurate graph would be a continuing increase in advancement that steepens as it moves to the right. To think that development simply vanishes between Rome and the Renaissance is simply not borne out by any modern evidence.

    [/nerd end]
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    That graph is baltantly Eurocentric, considering that the Chinese/Japanese and Islamic civilisations were at their peak at the time. Also a lot of centuries old philosophy, mathematics and early science was preserved by the latter culture. Ironicaly if it wasn't for Muslim preservation the later day Christian church would not have access to Aristotle or Plato which influenced a lot of Christian theology.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Jesus Christ,
    I really hope the religious pipe down soon, so we can all un-tether ourselves from the dark ages and actually progress from the historical and cultural rut it has got us in to.

    :rolleyes:

    Why should they? They/we have as much right to a voice as you do.
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