I DETEST THIS FILM ..WITH A PASSION [Christopher Hitchens on the Passion of the Christ]

The Mirror ^ | February 27, 2004 | Christopher Hitchens

[Oberon]

Watch the movie again and again.

I'm not sure I'll have it in me to do that, even though I'm a Gibson fan and a supporter of the film.

[Qwinn]

"That's a ridiculous straw man. No one who gets listened to by ANYBODY makes a claim like that. You're ginning up nonsense to create some false sense of equivalency."

Wow. I've read the implication of current day Christian guilt for either the Holocaust or pogroms in at least 4 reviews of the Passion so far in the last week.

Methinks you haven't read too many of them.

Qwinn

[carton253]

And I have seen churches with the sign up "The Jews Killed Jesus".

Where have you seen these signs? In what cities? What types of churches?

[HopeSprings]

Didn't anyone catch the part where Hitch says it took him ages to get a pirated copy of the film? That says a lot about the man right there. Why should we heed the words of a man who steals a movie about Jesus?

[Qwinn]

You're an all or nothing kinda guy, aren't you?

I can believe that Jesus was a real person, and that the events of his life as listed in the Bible are generally historically accurate, and still not be convinced of his divinity.

Qwinn

[Americathy]

"Republicans are Nazis" is stupid, but it is most definitely not the same as a statement like "All Christians are responsible for the Holocaust."

Agreed that they don't make the statement directly, but the connection is made. The idea is put forth that the right, conservative or Christian or both, if it leans more right turns into Nazis. I have been told Hitler was a Christian, so "how did you Christians let that happen?" Hitler was a pagan who invoked the name of Christ and then called himself "the Christ".

Besides, as I have said, I have never heard true Christians blaming Jews for the death of Christ, they know he made that sacrifice of his own free will.

[Cronos]

Didn't anyone catch the part where Hitch says it took him ages to get a pirated copy of the film? That says a lot about the man right there. Why should we heed the words of a man who steals a movie about Jesus?

Dang, I totally missed that, here it is for all:
It took me ages to get around the ban and get hold of a pirated copy, and I was writing for the Hollywood issue of Vanity Fair

[BSunday]

principally appeals to the gay Christian sado-masochistic community:

What a total moron. Clueless. Just clueless.

[Americathy]

Boy, I'm impressed you can speak Latin - I lost that a long time ago!!! But I did recognize it and understood a lot when I heard it, even without reading the subtitles.

[sauropod]

1) Isn't Hitchens an atheist?

2) The Nazi party wasn't built on belief in a "Jewish Conspiracy." It hated Jews and tried to exterminate them, but there was a lot more to that evil movement than a Jewish Conspiracy. cf. Ominous Parallels, by Peikoff.

3) Hitchens only reported part of the sign the Denver preacher put up. There was a bible verse also on the sign.

I think that sign was ill advised on the part of that particular church, but Hitchens twists the sign into something it wasn't.

Shoddy reporting Christopher.

[elli1]

ARE there any speakers of modern Aramaic?

According to Google, there are approx. 400,000 speakers of modern Aramaic located in small communities in Turkey, Syria, Lebanon & other places in the ME. For all practical purposes, it is a dead language though. I wonder (don't know) if Biblical era/ Jewish scholars understand the language (like Latin?) and if Gibson chose those languages because they would be understood by the scholar community?

[Qwinn]

I suppose you haven't seen any of the MASSIVE attacks claiming that Pope Pius XII was "Hitler's Pope" and actually assisted Hitler, despite the fact that Einstein said that the Church was the -only- entity in Europe to stand up to Hitler, and despite the fact that a prominent Israeli scholar cites that the Catholic Church saved over 700,000 Jews?

I've actually spent literal man-days defending Pius XII against that charge. There have been multiple books about it. Yes, Catholics in particular have been accused of being co-conspirators in the Holocaust many, many, many times, and the debate still rages. Just because you didn't happen to be paying attention doesn't mean that it didn't happen.

Qwinn

[sauropod]

Oh no. In this "review" he's a fool.

[AppyPappy]

But Jews did kill Him, make no mistake.

And Republicans elected Hillary to the Senate.

[Cronos]

400,000 don't make it a dead language! Thanks! I really do think that if there's one thing we lack as a nation it is knowledge of foreign languages. A good start would be to bring back Latin to the classrooms -- it has been shown that those studying Latin grammar etc. are better at Maths and definitely able to pick up Romance languages much faster.

[AppyPappy]

I can believe that Jesus was a real person, and that the events of his life as listed in the Bible are generally historically accurate, and still not be convinced of his divinity.

There is no evidence outside the Bible and direct relationships that Jesus ever existed.

[Sam Cree]

"But Jews did kill Him"

I believe it was Romans, at the behest of Jews. However, are the particular individuals guilty of deicide, asking for capital punishment, murder or nothing (or what), in your opinion?

[Cronos]

He gave some interviews to a Spanish newspaper where he said something like "homosexuals are disgusting, they're gross, they have sex BACK THERE

Ok, so what? They do have it BACK THERE.

[Moby Grape]

There is a thread at FR telling of the Gibson reception on Leno...type in GIBSON and LENO in the search....

[jboot]

"I see this posted on this thread: 'However, who lead Jesus to the Roman authorities?'

"I'll stop short of calling these things anti Semitism. But they make me very very uncomfortable."

Matthew 27:1-2
Now when morning came, all the chief priests and the elders of the people conferred together against Jesus to put Him to death; and they bound Him, and led Him away and delivered Him to Pilate the governor.

I trust that you will also stop short of calling the Gospel anti-Semitic. Or of calling Christianity anti-Semitic as well.