There was an interesting discussion on NBC news this morning about the appearance of Jesus in popular culture. Matt Lauer interviewed two religious officials, one Rabbi and one Catholic Bishop.

It was interesting to me the difference between the viewpoints of the Rabbi and the Bishop. Images of the movie Dogma (Kevin Smith, 1999) kept popping into my head.

On one hand, the Bishop, the other, the Rabbi. Let me sumarize what each of them said.

Bishop:

The appearance of Christ as a more masculine figure now than in the past is absurd. Christ has traits of both women (compassion, understanding, the ability to forgive easily) and men (strong willed, outspoken, etc.). It is not necessary to view Christ as being more masculine or more feminine simply because he is neither. A change in this viewpoint would be a fundamental change in Christian Thought. The necessity of God and Christ to appear as imposing enforcers is in no way necessary for a good religious following.

Rabbi:

Christ is becoming more masculine in popular culture. It is a phenomenon in American culture that when the times get tough or we are met with adversity, we respond by getting tougher ourselves. This is the fundamental reason we are seeing a more masculine Christ figure. Christ was inherently a buff, strong man; He was a carpenter, so we know that he was strong and in shape. In today's world, we need to have a fearful God figure in religion because without it, religion does not have an effect on terrorists and others who are determined to do harm to innocent people.

Now, keep in mind that these are not my viewpoints, but simply the viewpoints of these two individuals. I just found the contrast interesting. I could definitely have listened to them for another two hours debate the subject. Let me know what you think.

I have to preface this with a disclamer.
The following topic may contain some content that all of you younger than eighteen folk cannot legally view. Please use disgression when following links and do not click on them if you are not of the legal age to view adult material.

In other news. I like how the front page of the IDS has been converted to advertisement for a porn website. The article Student Ethics to Review Dorm Website not only mentions and advertizes for the website www.teenkeira.com but it links to it from the front page.

Now it seems a little odd to me that this newspaper could publish something like this and not have issues with the FCC, or whomever governs print media. It's rediculas that this porn site gets free advertisement because the IDS decided that the URL needed to be printed in the paper. I bet after today the website's traffic picks up by, let me throw a random number out there, 38,000 unique hits. I wish I had a website that brouhgt me money who's traffic increased by that much in a day…

Oh, the Indiana Daily Student, the lows you stoop to will never cease to amaze me.

The End-of-the-Blog Rundown

Song of the Day – Beautiful Day – U2

Hero of the Day –

Quote of the Day
(discussing how to keep people from running into me while I'm reading the paper and walking)
Sara: You could just repeatedly fall down, that will get them out of your way.
Me: Yea, but then my insurance company would become suspicious after I file three claims for broken bones in a week.

Darwin Award Recipient for the Week Begining March 28, 2004
The Axis Wednesday person (must be PC here…riiight). If you don't remember him, check out this post (opens in same window).

Until the next post…
peace yo

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