Monday, January 09, 2006

Looking away when the target is Jesus

Even Australian Left wing columnist and media pundit Terry Lane thinks Victoria's anti-vilification laws are biased against Christians

Christmas seemed like a good time to catch up on Dick Gross' revisionist gospel Jesus, Judas and Mordy Ben Ruben and to contemplate the selective application of anti-vilification laws in Victoria. The Racial and Religious Tolerance Act of 2001 makes it an offence to "engage in conduct that incites serious contempt for or severe ridicule of" another person's religious beliefs. The law has already fallen on a couple of Christians who mocked Muslims and their beliefs. I am waiting to see what happens to Mr Gross, Jew, atheist, "loudmouth" (his word) and good bloke who worries away at the phenomenon of religion.

Gross has imagined what the real story behind the fiction of the Gospels might be and it goes like this. Jesus was a vain narcissist whose charisma consisted in the fact that he was tall, handsome and blonde, standing out in a nation of the short, dark and plain. (This is Dick's hypothesis and racial stereotyping). Jesus is also a manic depressive whose periods of black despair are the famous 40 days and 40 nights in the wilderness. He is definitely mortal and no Son of God. As a miracle worker Jesus specialised in exorcisms because he didn't have to stick around to see if they were really a lasting cure for wacky behaviour. Lazarus wasn't raised from the dead; he was in an alcoholic coma and Jesus arrived just as he was coming round. Jesus is bad-tempered, manipulative and proves that he is the Messiah by self-consciously re-enacting the more theatrical messianic prophecies of Zechariah. Jesus gets angry when the disciples can't find the right sort of donkey for a triumphal entry into Jerusalem.

In Jesus, Judas and Mordy Ben Ruben, Mordy is the Sadducee narrator and the husband of the Mary of Bethany who anoints Jesus' feet with expensive perfume and then wipes them with her hair. Sitting astride the Messiah facing his feet. Read what happens for yourself. Jesus is obsessed with and deluded about the imminent end of the world, so when he goes to Jerusalem he is reckless, if not suicidal, because he thinks that the world is going to end in a week or two. In the Gospel of St Dick there is no resurrection. The idea that Jesus had risen from the dead arose from misunderstanding a garbled conversation in the tomb. In fact Mordy is the person who removes Jesus' body from the borrowed tomb and buries him alongside the only disciple who is smart, loyal and brave, Judas Iscariot, who was killed, inadvertently, by Peter. The story of betrayal, the 30 pieces of silver and suicide is concocted to give Peter a chance to flee from the scene of the manslaughter.

This book is offensive to Christians but it also has a sting in its tail for Jews. In Dick's version, the Jews could have spared themselves a lot of misery over the centuries if they had only been prepared to give up their exclusive Chosen-ness and been evangelical monotheists and racially inclusive, as Jesus urged them to be. Only a Jew could get away with writing that in the state of Victoria.

The law, of course, will look the other way in Dick's case, because he is Jewish and the novel is a privileged work of art and the target is tolerant Christians. So I am breathless for a sequel: Mohammed and Mordy go to Mecca.

Source



HO HUM! MORE DISAGREEMENT ABOUT FOOD CORRECTNESS

Not that the food fascists will care. As long as they are dictating to people, what they dictate does not interest them. But, for the rest of us, skepticism about the whole thing is the only rational response to what we read below. Enjoy a juicy steak tonight!

It might be a best-seller, but a leading nutritionist says a popular [Australian] Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) diet is baffling those battling the bulge.

Prime Minister John Howard has been asked to review the book The CSIRO Total Wellbeing Diet, on concerns from Rosemary Stanton and medico John Tickell that the diet recommends high amounts of red meat. The pair wrote to Mr Howard, saying the high meat content in the diet contravenes the government's own dietary advice. The Government's Australian Guide to Health Eating recommends consumption of 65 to 100g of lean red meat three to four times per week, but the new book advocates up to 300g of meat daily.

Ms Stanton said today the popular diet from the government-related agency, which has sold more than 500,000 copies in Australia so far, was better than the Atkins diet because it did allow a small amount of grains-based food. But she said it was confusing those desperate to shed the kilos. "They're (dieters) saying why do our dietary guidelines tell us to eat 65 to 100g of lean red meat three to four times a week," Ms Stanton told Macquarie Radio. "And yet the CSIRO diet says 200g of meat at night and then another 100g of meat, chicken or fish at lunch. What do I do? Which one do I follow?"

She said the diet was based on a CSIRO study of 100 women. Half the women were put on a red meat diet while half were put on a diet equally low in calories and equally low in fat, but with much less meat. Both groups achieved a relatively similar weight loss.

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