Pirate ,

Son , why don't you just relax and let Dad run your life --either that or let that anti-sex man and woman couple that thought they could have a baby by only praying--which Pinky mentioned with disapproval--- run your life for you ?

Just think how beautiful it would be if they ran your life , Pirate son .

Dirka dirka!

heateddebate.tribe.net/thread...4299cc0

This is what happens when people need the Shekinah to grant its presence to them in the Bronze Age, but insist it's female. More to do with form, than gender.

Vital spark of heav’nly flame!
Quit, O quit this mortal frame:
Trembling, hoping, ling’ring, flying,
O the pain, the bliss of dying!
Cease, fond Nature, cease thy strife,
And let me languish into life.

Hark! they whisper; angels say,
Sister Spirit, come away!
What is this absorbs me quite?
Steals my senses, shuts my sight,
Drowns my spirits, draws my breath?
Tell me, my soul, can this be death?

The world recedes; it disappears!
Heav’n opens on my eyes! my ears
With sounds seraphic ring!
Lend, lend your wings! I mount! I fly!
O Grave! where is thy victory?
O Death! where is thy sting?

Alexander Pope

JASON POSTED : I've been a silly little ninny who has stalked Loki across many a tribe for years now. I have problems accepting that others are comfortable with their sexuality, which I gravely disagree with. I love Loki's penis, and I hate Loki's penis. Posting for these many years about Loki's penis keeps me from my lost little unloved dangling grey question mark. I'm riddled with guilt and personal conflicts, you see, and in time-sharpened Christian persecution, I will wash my own sins clean by burning another, if only a straw man, in my place. My tedious posts will drone on and on, and at best provide a fleeting, casual sort of entertainment for all of those other social regressives tap-tapping away in their long, lonely, nights.

RESPONSE : Jason,
go feed
tha homeless,
or get
a
cat.

Adam ,

Please read the longer recent reply post shown above and present a critique line by line , when you get a chance .
I'm interested to see how the dialectic will develop .

Jason
<<<Andre Serrano with the garbage shock art of crucifix immersed in urine , artists who smear canvas with excrement , Mapplethorpe and ghasty photos of men in lurid black leather clothing with sado masochistic imagery and urine , all sorts of provocative hideous fare >>>

I challange you to provide evidence that anyone was harmed by these exhibits. What detriment befell you as a result of these exhibits? I am about to post a photo that will shock and amaze you. Since you seem to know or be privy to what others are thinking, I challange you to tell me what my art will contain. It would of course take a psychic ability to ascertain the thoughts, feelings and emotions of a fellow human. So tell me unequivically, before I post this, what are my intentions? Because when i post it you will pretend to know what my motivations are. So if you are that kind of psychic, lets hear it. It is easy to look at the end result and read something into it. I want to see your reading before viewing the image. Base it on what you know of me.

Did you EVER consider that Andre Serrano intended to depict the act of crucifixion as a piss poor analogy to mankinds behavior? How dare you take art and define it then turn to mandate your definition as final. How dare you? You see a cross in piss and automatically assume IT HAS TO MEAN piss on Jesus. That is part of the mental illness you suffer Dude. I see PISS ON TORTUROUS EXECUTIONS! How dare you choose for me. Did he come out and disclose EXACTLY what he was attempting to convey? Hell no!!!! You assume, and as on many fronts, you assume WRONG....

Jason
<<..>>
ADAM POSTED :How can you determine with absolute certainty what or even IF someone is fantasizing when observing a depiction of rape? Did you ever stop to consider it is the degree of the artistic talent in the image, or how the artist captures the expression of *GASP*? Or that the image induces heartfelt empathy with the victem? Art IS NOT only for personal gratification of sexual urges. Why is it that you can not see past these imagined atrocities?

RESPONSE : The artist has a duty... an obligation...that IF they are presenting a depiction of rape in a work of art to foster empathy for the rape victim ... then to make an explicit disclaimer that spells it out so that the information is plain as day, so to speak ...that such is the intention behind the work of art ...and spelling it out that they in no way endorse rape or accept it--- *not *even partially accept it .Otherwise they leave the prospect for ambiguity/ambivalent thinking to creep in .And intentionally supporting ambiguity/ambivalent thinking (even to a tiny degree) is horribly evil .
If rape is depicted in a work of art then it should, ONLY be for the purpose of inducing in the audience of that artwork a 100% NONequivocal total opposition to rape , never even a tiny bit of weird/ambivalent acceptance of it .
ADAM POSTED :By your analogies of rape scenes depicted, people would be drooling over murdering someone on the cross in torturous death. Perhaps the observer of the rape depictions find redemption that is equal to your dying tortured Jesus.
RESPONSE :HOW in the universe could they find redemption in observing an artistic depiction of rape ? (I hope it isn't some amorphous self-help sort of catch all notion of it being a "growing experience" ...in the manner that Pinky might be wont to postulate) .
Sir, the argument I raised in the previous post was that the analogy that you proposed between rape and the depictions of a crucified messiah , was a false analogy .The vector of meaning from (a) the image to the theme represented in an artwork depicting an act of rape , is a totally different context from (z) the vector of meaning from the depiction of an image of what is ostensibly the figure of Jesus on a cross & the theme that crucifixion is supposed to evoke .
With Jesus on the cross--- the ostenisble purpose of the image is to call to mind (of the observer) the redemption of mankind --the purging away of anti-virtuous tendencies by the sort of new precedent/ alteration in the relational status of humanity to God, as a result of that act of sacrifice by Jesus being done.
The image of Jesus on the cross ostenisbly is supposed to evoke *not* feelings of weird , voyeuristic sadistic fun in the agony of Jesus , but , instead , an appreciation for how Jesus was able to overcome the state of affairs of wicked leaders who would crucify him by remaining faithful to God and kind to people --even in the face of horrible death . It is the transcending of despair..the sort of despair that an unjust and agonizing death like crucifixion might cause , that the image is supposed to get people to cherish, NOT the death and agony itself ...but the transcending act which overcomes it . Of course that insight calls for an explanation of what is meant by faith .
Faith being a trait similar to hope ...an kind of inductive trust in the reliability of God and, hence , of that the ultimate virtuous goals of God-- will *not* be permanently thwarted . According to the best of Christian soteriology, Jesus had such faith in God the Father and , hence, acts as represenative on behalf of mankind , by being a human as well as having a Divine nature --which are separate but work in tandem ...(I kinow that the text is getting long winded ...bear with me...I'm trying to find a more brief way to sum the matter up) .
ADAM POSTED :How could you possibly know what compels an observer of art?
RESPONSE : It is incumbent upon an artist to *choose* (and I mean freely choose) to NOT take the approach of saying to the observer , interpret it anyway you want to ...but instead to make the proper interpretation clearly explicit .
Also, the artist has a duty to create a work of art in such a way that no unethical thinking nor activity is recommended to the observer.
(Please understand what I propose, by the above proposition I'm *not* advocating censorship . What I'm advocating is that , by dint of people fessing up to what is right and , hence, being consistent about it , they should *freely choose* to make sure that no content of what they present in a work of art , is contrary to ethical principles . )
Artworks should be either ethical , or at least neither unethical nor ethical (like someone with a painting of simply sky and clouds becuase they like the shape and colour which would not in and of itself have any active ethical nor unethical ramifications) , but the artist should never present any content which intentionally promotes mischief ...that which is inherently contrary to ethics ..
(If they do so , I certainly do *not* advocate censoring them nor arresting them or anything of that sort ..but they should be encouraged to feel guilty ...and please understand that the people I'm exhorting to feel guilty are people who ,say, glorify rape, murder, greed, and other bad states of affairs in art , the exhortation to feel guilty is NOT necessarily directed at gay people ) .
Moreover, as a corollary, to the above insights , the content of a given work of art cannot be both ethical and unethical in the same aspects . It can be neither, or one or the other, but it cannot be both, because the ethical and unethical ARE mutually exclusive .
ADAM POSTED :Do observers of old west art depicting cowboys getting shot off of a horse fantasize about shooting someone off of their horse or do they envision being shot off their own horse?
RESPONSE: That is a good question . That calls to mind that it is worthwhile ethically for the maker of a work of such Western art to leave a record somewhere stating what the right interpretation of the imagery is and the import of why it was made .
ADAM ASKED: Is the observer of a rape depiction fantasizing about raping the victem or are they empathizing with the victem? Your assertions make no sense and have no foundation in fact.
RESPONSE: The obligation is for the artist to make it clear to the observers if they are fantasizing about raping the victim OR empathizing with the victim .There should never be any of that ambiguity/ambivalence about whether they are fantasizing about raping the victim or empathizing with the victim . Those who claim it is soemhow okay to leave it ambivalent about whether they are fantasizing about raping the victim . Ambivalence about which it is they wish to convey is evil ...murky thinking ...MTV era postmodernism ..
It is *not* possible to both fantasize about rape approving of rape and yet at the same time empathize with the victim, anyone who claims they are just is strobing between two thoughts wavering ...with two themes which are incongruous with each other . They have a mishmash ...a squishy amalgam of incompatible thoughts if they support such ambiguity .
Rest assured if an artist *does* fantasize about rape..and such fantasy is the motive for them making a work of art depicting rape ..that such a motive is evil and , hence, totally worthless ...and the work of art then has no intrinsic value of an ethical sort .
If an artist , in contrast were, to only and 100 % WITHOUT any tiny , even partial ambivalence do it as a cautinoary tale to encourage people to be rigidly *against* rape ... and were to make that motive 100 % explicit to the observers that , then and only then ... would such a work depicting it have any merit .
<<..
RESPONSE: First of all , it should be described as an ideology rather than a philosophy . NOT every ideology or outlook on some topic merits being called a philosophy---despite the popular misnomer of using the term "philosophy' in such broad terms . Philosophy requires a systematic linear approach .>>>
ADAM POSTED :And your point is???? The professionals call it a philosophy, but we can change that to suit your desires if necessary. Let us call it an ideology. What facts besides those you have imagined and dreamt actually exist? In the context you utilize this term, there are large numbers of people being this specific way. I challange you to post a link to mass numbers of people doing this postmodernistic activity.
RESPONSE: Let me present you more data on that in a subsequent post , hopefully tommorow , since yours truly must get some sleep since I have an appointment in the morning .
<<..
Thus, he sets a new spiritual precedent for humans being merciful as opposed to vindicative . >>>
ADAM POSTED :What evidence do you have that shows with absolute certainty that absent this event mankind is likely to be vendictive. I would also like to see the conclusive evidence that before this event there was absolutely NO MERCY ever shown by mankind and that mankind was absolutly vendictive before this. When you realize this is bullshit and you know I can show you mercy prior to this event, why would you ever portend to purport that mankind would totally abrogate mercy if this even had not happened? Do you not realize the fallacious nature of this kind of idiotic rhetoric?
RESPONSE: I certainly did NOT wish to propose that no mercy had ever been manifested prior to Jesus being born or dying on the cross . Instead, what I suggest is that by the act of him showing mercy while on the cross , even to those who reviled him , set a precedent in human history for more mercy being a tendency to cultivate in vaster numbers . Granted that was not always borne out by the church when people who claimed to be Christians did reprehensible acts in the name of the church (like the Crusades and the Inquistion being a bad laspse away from such quality )...but still the seeds of a more merciful disposition were broadcast to *potentially* greater numbers of people apparently , then in eras prior to the coming of Jesus ...that it is not to suggest that a disposition to mercy prior to the arrival of the messiah was scarce, but , instead, that the precedent which Jesus set , amplified it even much much more .
The recording of the act of him showing mercy , helped to enhance the precedent , inasmuch as people via the texts which ostensibly chronicle the act (given the premise that the events portrayed in such texts are veridical...and whether that premise about the historical factuality of the written about events is ore isn't veridical could be argued elsewhere...I'm stating given that premise) ...that chronicle of the narrative of how he showed mercy even to those that reviled him while on the cross...the factor that people can over time read about it and embrace the ethical upshot of that recorded act, does potentially ENHANCE the potential for the tendency towards cherishing mercy to spread to more people .