can I eat the big toe?
I feel slightly bad that I didn't write in support of the Chocolate naked Jesus Figure "my sweet lord" whose display in a NYC hotel's art gallery has been stopped.
Businesess in NYC can, with impunity, use Buddha heads in bars, spas or other completely non-religious contexts, and New Yorkers seem to be savvy enough to realize that these decorative elements don't somehow invalidate Buddhism. Some Buddhists, my Mom among them, probably would be a little skeeved by the practice, and she'd certainly have a problem with a chocolate naked Buddha. Probably such a statue would have been taken down just like the "my sweet lord" was.
What exactly is the problem though? A chocolate Buddha would be quite in keeping with the Buddhist tenant of impermanance: when Buddhists offer flowers at Buddha statues, they are making the point that all things, like the pretty petals, are subject to decay. Nakedness just emphasizes the corporeality of the human form. A chocolate naked Buddha would be a fitting embodiment of Buddhist ideas.
"My sweet lord," probably doesn't have any such theological justification in Christianity, and yet why would anyone object to its being displayed? It's not "Piss Christ", (which itself I'd argue was a rather intriguing image, and not the same as, say, putting a Jesus figurine in a urinal). Chocolate is made from Cocoa, whose scientific genus name "Theobroma" means "God's Gift". Nakedness is, well, the original sinless state in Eden. God's own form, if one takes literally that God created Humans in hir own image.
Sigh. People jump so quickly to see theological insult where none might be. God, assuming sie created anything, created shit and shit-beetles people. It's only the puny minds of Homo sapiens that think that chocolate or nakedness could insult Jesus, or those who follow his teachings.
OK, I'm not as naive as all that. This is about power. The Christian community tests and demonstrates their cultural power by getting the exhibit closed. Perhaps it's fortunate that the non-christian community doesn't care enough to flex their power. Perhaps it's unfortunate that we let a good idea get sentenced to death and buried in the name of religion.
Businesess in NYC can, with impunity, use Buddha heads in bars, spas or other completely non-religious contexts, and New Yorkers seem to be savvy enough to realize that these decorative elements don't somehow invalidate Buddhism. Some Buddhists, my Mom among them, probably would be a little skeeved by the practice, and she'd certainly have a problem with a chocolate naked Buddha. Probably such a statue would have been taken down just like the "my sweet lord" was.
What exactly is the problem though? A chocolate Buddha would be quite in keeping with the Buddhist tenant of impermanance: when Buddhists offer flowers at Buddha statues, they are making the point that all things, like the pretty petals, are subject to decay. Nakedness just emphasizes the corporeality of the human form. A chocolate naked Buddha would be a fitting embodiment of Buddhist ideas.
"My sweet lord," probably doesn't have any such theological justification in Christianity, and yet why would anyone object to its being displayed? It's not "Piss Christ", (which itself I'd argue was a rather intriguing image, and not the same as, say, putting a Jesus figurine in a urinal). Chocolate is made from Cocoa, whose scientific genus name "Theobroma" means "God's Gift". Nakedness is, well, the original sinless state in Eden. God's own form, if one takes literally that God created Humans in hir own image.
Sigh. People jump so quickly to see theological insult where none might be. God, assuming sie created anything, created shit and shit-beetles people. It's only the puny minds of Homo sapiens that think that chocolate or nakedness could insult Jesus, or those who follow his teachings.
OK, I'm not as naive as all that. This is about power. The Christian community tests and demonstrates their cultural power by getting the exhibit closed. Perhaps it's fortunate that the non-christian community doesn't care enough to flex their power. Perhaps it's unfortunate that we let a good idea get sentenced to death and buried in the name of religion.