The Question Box

Sunday, December 05, 2004

Question #7

This post was removed because my intentions were not clear.


posted by brien at 12/05/2004 05:26:00 PM

15 Comments:

  • are you catholic?

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 12:11 AM  

  • no, protestant

    By Blogger brien, at 1:09 AM  

  • What do you have against fox news?

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 1:47 AM  

  • Good thing I didn't ask what the Holy Spirit would be asked in a press conference. Everything is your fault Brien.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 2:53 PM  

  • I would agree Jesus was liberal in his time, but I think a lot has changed since then. Also I don't think liberals necessarily dislike Jesus.

    I don't have anything against Fox News more than I have against any other news station. The point of the cartoon was to demonstrate that Fox will pretty much favor whichever candidate represents the republican party. I singled them out because they claim to be fair and balanced, and that's really not true. Facts and opinions don't mix.

    By Blogger brien, at 3:22 PM  

  • I received a couple complaints about this story, mainly because the message behind it seems unclear. This is partially due to my inferior writing ability and also because I tried to make too many points in a short story. Someone reminded me about the damage done by “A Modest Proposal,” so I will try to break down everything that could be unclear and explain it here.

    I.) Is Jesus a character of satire?
    Yeah, I guess so. Is this irreverent? Yeah, probably. But I think the ends justify the means in this case because it is how I attempt to illustrate one of my main points. If Jesus is mentioned on TV he appears the same as in this story – as a big joke. The Catholic channel even does this when the let Benny Hen do a pledge drive. My intention was to show that I think this is wrong.

    II.) What’s the big picture?
    The media was my primary target here. I hope this much was painfully obvious. The first point I wanted to make was how superficial and frivolous most of the media has become. Because airtime and the front page have to be filled with something people are frequently exposed to something they shouldn’t see or to something they shouldn’t care to see. Second, I don’t think the news room is a place for opinions. When you distort facts with opinions the real news becomes increasingly similar to the tabloid news. I already talked a little bit about this. Through exaggeration, my goal was to show that the questions asked by ‘real’ journalists were not that different from questions asked by tabloid journalists.

    III.) What was Jesus doing running for congress and what did you mean by “carpentry is a lot harder than it was back in the good old days […] he told me most people that aren’t good at anything just run for important political positions”?
    This statement was meant to be an allusion to various comments made by the media that suggest religion is old-fashioned and obsolete and should be replaced by science. In reality, they are two very different things. I don't think one can replace the other. Because Jesus could not keep up with the advances in technology he had no practical skills and ran for congress, which is meant to attack many of the politicians that I feel are incompetent.

    IV.) What did you mean by “Well, you did already wrongly execute the Son of God, but what are the chances of that happening again? Come on, am I right, or am I right?”
    Obviously I don’t think Jesus would say this at all; it sounds like an extremely absurd response. With the statement I was mainly criticizing conservative Christians that support capital punishment. I don’t think that is what Jesus taught.

    V.) What did you mean by, “you can pretty much interpret the Bible any way you want. Pick and choose away! That’s why God made it so vague!”
    I don’t think Jesus would say anything like this either. This was aimed at people who essentially change the meaning of the Bible to suite their arguments, particularly the media and special interest groups (i.e.- gay rights movement, Christian veganism movement). The irony in this remark by Jesus is that Christians (i.e.- those that support capital punishment) probably ‘pick and choose’ verses just as much as those attacking Christianity (i.e.- freethought movement, the media).

    VI.) What did you mean when Jesus didn’t want to say how well he knew John Kerry and President Bush?
    I don’t know anything factual about the relationship that these two men have with God and I don’t really think that is an issue. What bothers me is when politicians play the ‘Jesus card’ in hopes of winning the votes of conservative Christians. I think we saw this more than ever in the most recent presidential election. Kerry actually delivered a message in a predominately black church one Sunday morning. But both of them sat in the front row of Chuches and on the campaign trail, saying, “Look at me, I’m a Christian!” The fact is you don’t know anything about how devote a politican is – it’s between him and God.

    Hopefully that clears some things up. Let me know if you have any other questions.

    By Blogger brien, at 3:44 PM  

  • I got what you were saying.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 8:26 PM  

  • Do you think that it is possible that Jesus might be mocked in this story? Should Christians make fun of Christians(capital punishment thing)?

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 12:04 AM  

  • Does people are "exposed to something they shouldn’t see" mean you are against freedom of the press?

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 12:58 PM  

  • Have you ever seen the movie natural born killers? It took senseless gore, violence, and murder to the extreme to show how appalling it really is - and how the media made it out to be cool and exciting and everything else it’s not. THE WHOLE POINT was to show that Jesus is mocked constantly on TV, on the radio, in the newspapers, and in movies but people just shrug it off like it’s no big deal because they have become so desensitized to it. Maybe the story I wrote made you mad. Good. It should make you mad. Because what happened in this fictional story happens every day in real life. This implication was the purpose of the story. I’ve already removed the story though, because I don’t want people to think it was meant to be something it was not meant to be, and from what I’ve gathered only about half of the readers understood my intention.

    By Blogger brien, at 1:30 PM  

  • Well I feel freedom of the press isn’t any more important than an individual’s right to privacy. Personal affairs that don’t affect others are not a matter the press should be concerned with in my opinion.

    By Blogger brien, at 1:38 PM  

  • If ya ask me, you shouldn't delete one of your posts just because you think someone might be offended by it.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 9:11 PM  

  • Haha can't please anyone can you Drew. But if the purpose of the post was to make a point, and if that point is being misconstrued by a good number of people then I think it is wise to either delete it or completely revise it. Also, it may be an indication that your purposes were not as clearly as you initially intended. As far as taking it down because it is offensive to others, I think that is something that is up to the individual writer. If you were extremely confident in what you wrote, and with that felt that you should stand by it, then don't take it down (but be prepared to try and convince people of your point). But from talking to you, I think you weren't sure of it in the first place so the string of negative feedback may have been an indicator that your qualms were true.

    And to put my twenty cents in. I personally don't think the post was in a good taste even if it were done to the exactness of your intentions, Also in its present form, and possibly idealic form, I don't think that it would get the points that you were trying to make across clearly. I truly was offended by it, and I appreciate you having the consideration to take it down. Like I said, if you're going to make a satire about the misportrayal of Jesus and religion, and the frivolity of the media, don't include Jesus as part of the satire (in that he is portrayed in a negative way). Jonathan Swift was abhorred at the mistreatment of the poor in Ireland... He didn't go out and show how disgusting it was by slapping beggars on the sidewalk.. that would renege on his orginal purpose. I kind of felt the same about your post. Anyways... I thought I would try my hand at beating the horse a bit before it keeled over and died. C ya @ Christmas
    -Chad

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 1:36 AM  

  • Man, looks like i missed out on something awesomely controversial. Guess i should check you're blog more often.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 11:12 AM  

  • For the record, I didn't remove the post because I thought some people were offended. I removed it because my intended message was either unclear or widely misinterpreted. In such a case I felt there was no reason to leave it up. And even worse, if people took it for the opposite of what I intended, then I’ve only done more damage in an area I was already concerned about. So I decided to cut my loses.

    By Blogger brien, at 7:13 PM  

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