Playboy Jesus!
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Jose Saramago, Portugal’s Nobel laureate (literature) died last month. Due to controversies surrounding the censorship of his work, he had moved from his home country to the Canary Islands.
Saramago was notorious for O Evangelho Segundo Jesus Cristo (The Gospel According to Jesus Christ) , depicting a passionate personality full of doubt and flaws. The story uses the framework already set out by the Biblical gospels, but goes into detail regarding the earlier years of Jesus’ life.
At one point in the tale he becomes apprenticed to a shepherd who gives him a lesson in hedonism. Sheep are viewed as a sexual outlet, and Jesus is encouraged to make use of this. God is shown to be petty and jealous, (not unlike His Old Testament persona) and dissatisfied with being supreme deity over just one set of people. The novel concludes with Jesus’ realizing that God’s plan, and the ensuing centuries of torture, slaughter, and misery that Christianity will bring, will proceed despite his efforts. His last words from the cross are “Men, forgive Him, for He knows not what He has done.” (Wikipedia article )
Naturally his iconoclasm was unappreciated by the Catholic church, who accused him of possessing a “substantially anti-religious vision.”
He managed to piss off the Jews as well, in effect stating that they play the self-pitying “Holocaust card” to trump any assertions that they themselves are behaving in a racist or exclusionary manner. He calls them out on the racial hubris of claiming to be a “chosen people”, basically stating that he is just sick of their collective whining about how their suffering is/was worse than anyone else’s- especially the Palestinians. But I am not a Nobel laureate- here is a rant in his own words:
“Intoxicated mentally by the messianic dream of a Greater Israel which will finally achieve the expansionist dreams of the most radical Zionism; contaminated by the monstrous and rooted ‘certitude’ that in this catastrophic and absurd world there exists a people chosen by God and that, consequently, all the actions of an obsessive, psychological and pathologically exclusivist racism are justified; educated and trained in the idea that any suffering that has been inflicted, or is being inflicted, or will be inflicted on everyone else, especially the Palestinians, Jews will always be inferior to that which they themselves suffered in the Holocaust, the endlessly scratch their own wound to keep it bleeding, to make it incurable, and they show it to the world as if it were a banner.”
From a Madrid newspaper El País (as translated by Paul Berman in The Forward) on April 21, 2002
So what does this radical freethinking literary genius have to do with Playboy?
In his honor, the Portugese incarnation of the magazine has done a photo spread of Jesus (well, a dude who looks a lot like him) cavorting with topless women. While it is true that Jesus did minister to harlots and adulteresses, would it to be wrong to wish they’d gotten Johnny Depp to pose as Jesus?
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blasphemy and heresy…. my teenage angst and my adult pride. LOL But, really.
You know what has been pissing my off? Think of all the elderly who literally count on the church and its’ disciples (priests, volunteers, etc.) to ‘be there’ for them as they recede into dementia, disease and the breakdown of emotional, mental and physical hardship that our supposed health care system has assured them… ah, excuse, that’s another rant… but my point is, the old and infirm are being excised from companionship, care and their “community” because of the church turning its’ back on parishioners as they cover the cost of their pedophilia doctrine… I digress, huh? Back to the main theme already in progress…
MH, do you even consider the affect / effect that you (I and the rest of us, each individual) has on our world… and how that spreads? 6 degrees. It’s less in these days of social networking etc. We make an incredible difference… think of the effect your children have on those folks they encounter everyday. Or the smile you give to an old woman as you might hold the door for her and she smiles back, acknowledging that you have cared for her enough to be considerate. Do ya follow me here? We count, we matter, we ALL make a difference.
I sometimes wonder on how Yeshua ben Joesph would consider his effect on humanity? The good, the bad, the ugly. It’s an empirical approach. I don’t for a moment think anyone can tell us what the fellow actually thought. Demonstratively, one might think him gay or equally consider his marriage overseen by his mother as he made wine? I mean, we simply DO NOT KNOW. What we can judge is the aftereffect.
Personally…
I think the man was a rabbi who wanted to teach something new… and any one who has ‘had truck’ with the academic community realizes what kind of heretic that can label them.
Great post. I learned something …
Who was that cat who played Jesus in the movie version of Superstar?
Ted Neely? It was my favorite musical as a kid, tied with Cabaret.
I agree with your assessment that he was an outspoken rabbi with different leanings that got picked up and spun out of control (I blame Paul who was a misogynist ass).
I notice when writers try to give Jesus a human side, one not expressly written in the Bible, they get labeled as heretics and worse. (Last Temptation of Christ, anyone?)
Even as an atheist I am compassionate and considerate to my fellow creatures. I pay attention to energy flow. Good deeds/things return to you, or to your family eventually. This is not to say that is the reason for doing them, no more than the reason for religious altruism is fear of punishment.
I simply don’t need to outsource my kid’s morality to religion. We shouldn’t outsource our care for the elderly to them either, lest they be fleeced of their social security checks under the auspices of tithing/ seed faith.
That’s him! Ted Neely. It was the first play I took my little sister to. I love the arts. In Palm Beach we don’t get so much first class… as in original cast. Or even Wicked! (Of course that would be an important play on my list!)
I tend to think badly of most of the disciples … Peter gets up my ass a mile. But, weren’t they all jealous of Mary Magdalene? Yes, misogynist assholes.) I’ll tell ya Morgan, in discussion this week with my bus. partner and long time buddy, Asa, we spoke about the physics of personal energy and how quickly the turn around has become. Its as if magnetisim have found some kind of orgainic evolution we are unaware of, the strength of ‘what goes around’ has become so quick. It could be just my perceptive filter… and with the conveyance of so many humans on the planet making it so much quicker… I don’t know. This I do think; religion is behind the violence and hatred in our world. It may be difficult to lock down the genesis of this planetary toxin but it’s plain to historically observe in this Judeo/Christian/Islamic destruction of ancient world wisdom’s anchored to ecological based society (and animism; often). Indigenous communities will tell you so and I’ve spent much of my adult life living and learning in them. Or beside them. J-C-I patriarchy used religion to evolve a toxic-fear based misogynist system that exploits greed to control the planet and those who live on it. Forgetting that we ARE a part of Nature and exploiting it thinking we can control it is quintessential stupid.
I commend you and David for your choice to disallow your children to be morally servant to any of it. Frankly, I think much of it immoral. Pope anyone? In some manner, every one of us asks, ‘who am i’ ‘why am i’ … I take the search for the dynamics of eternity personally… it’s my ‘walk’ in life.
I am of mind that it’s a sacred science that one day, hopefully sooner than later, (at the rate of self destruct we can’t wait too much longer), we might all share in understanding. I’m a spiritual woman. For me there is empiricism to define my soul. To define eternity, that is my faith.
It’s a terrible thing what our society has done to our elders. I was taught to respect them as a child. They are the finest storytellers. They remember what we have forgotten and it dooms us.
The patriarchal genocide of the animistic/ earth-based religions has done nothing but harm to every living creature. I include the planet as living, though more as a system. The exploitative greed and subjugation championed by these religions, as well as their attempt to elevate man to a position above and outside the rest of the life on earth is accelerating the doom of us all.
It feels like we are on a runaway train and it is too late for the brakes to have any effect before the whole thing plummets off the broken bridge into the gorge below. Our only hope is to somehow switch the track.
I wondering what u consider ” earth based” … However, I see it as a challenge to make the difference. I work at it in demonstration. Taking the actions I can…applying brakes as you can.
I just mean the religions that have an animistic principle that respects all living things for the life energy they intrinsically have. Shinto and Native American religions, many agrarian/druidic religions, many matriarchal religions have varying degrees of this principle.
If you don’t respect the inherent value and right to existence of all life here, then you tend to view it as a resource to exploit for pleasure, profit, or sport. Patriarchal religions have only encouraged this to the detriment of all, especially women children, animals, and the earth.
Maybe she is waiting for baptism by bukkake?
I am pretty sure that polyester box spring mattresses weren’t around when physical Jesus was alive.
So that must be the holy ghost Jesus playboy (HGJP)?
Can she actually see the HGJP as he is “laying hands” upon her?
Maybe she is just having a HGJP dream.
So following Sweet Zombie Jesus! means lotsa naked chicks? Sign me up.
Praise the Lawd and pass the bong. When I saw this yesterday, I fell out laughing. I was laughing because I know the reaction from the TBFJ, that will be coming and I will be laughing all over again.
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AMEN!!!!!