Italian museum displays crucified frog sculpture, Christians riot, demand restrictions on free speech -- no, wait...

I could have done without seeing that picture ...

The West is just begging fate to return it a seriousness of life that the rest of the world is burdoned with.

This happened in a Western country so there is one group we can count on to feel offended: animal rights activists.
How about Sesame Street lovers? They CRUCIFIED KERMIT!

Christians are rightly offended but what those who seek to provoke our anger don't understand is that our religion is about more than symbols. Every church in the world could be leveled and every Christian site in the Middle East could be razed but Christianity is strong enough to withstand all of it. It withstood even the murderers that poured out of Arabia fourteen hundred years ago. Only one person in five is a Muslim, despite the Muslim conquests.
It shows how insecure Muslims are that Islam can't stand up under a movie, a book or some cartoons that aren't seen by a whole lot of people. There can be no questioning of Islam or its founders. The archaeology that goes on in Jerusalem is absent in Mecca and Medina. Why? Because Islam is not strong enough to cope with anyone seeking to learn its history. Christianity has coped with worse than this stupid frog. It can't be killed by childish taunts. This frog isn't worth losing your temper over. Ignore it and it will go away. That's a lesson Muslims would do well to learn.

The pope was wrong to get "angry" (if in fact he was, which I doubt) over this. It's all part of the Puerile West, the colored ribbon mentality. So what. Victim ideology, that is to say offense taking and mau mauing, has been ascendant since the 60's. It is the bastion of weak minds and criminals. Margaret Thatcher and Sarah Palin are the most manly men in the world today.

I'm just confused. What is this "artwork" supposed to mean?

It looks like something a child, who could use some therapy, would put together.

Ugly green (plastic?) frog. Egg in one hand, beer in the other (at least, I'm guessing that's supposed to be a beer mug). Cross made of cheap wood, probably something prefab from a hardware store.

This does not incite my anger. It merely confuses me on the subject of modern art. I remember seeing better shoebox diaramas, in third grade.

Now Benedict, have another beer and calm down.

Bolzano's Museum if you research it is mostly supported by the province of Bolzano and thus believing Catholics are FORCED to pay to degrade their most sacred symbols. This is why the Pope has every right to speak up for his flock. When art museums take down exquisite Mughal miniatures made by Muslims because they show Muhammad (even veiled) and other Muslims are 'offended ' by this. There is a serious discrepancy in 'sensitivities'.

It is the same issue as the crucifix in urine or the Mapplethorpe exhibition. It was the NEA funding these with OUR money that was intolerable.

When a 'performance artist' decades ago mutilated himself, video-taped it and called it 'art' any attempts to shock since then become anti-climatic. Western art has reached the pathetic babbling impotence of Clare Quilty.

This isn't art, its crap from from some alcoholic teenager on a bender.

And when a museum accepts this sort of butt dribble it tells me its time for the people running it to retire.

That said, Christians will rightly ignore this garbage rendered by a talentless fool.

Not all images of something being crucified are necessariy depicting Jesus, are they?

Two criminals were crucified alongside Jesus, by all acounts.

All that needs to be said is "It is not Jesus. It is a frog".

This present Pope seems to get it wrong every time to me, at least.

I find the image offensive because it portrays cruelty to animals, which I abhor.

I'll live with it though.

Stephen Gash-

You must have gone to collej to be that clever and stoopid wid words.

I think most of the comments here are upset about the frog art but missing the point of the original posting - Yes this is offensive to some, but the museum went ahead anyway.

Now then, would the SAME museum and SAME directors hang art just as offensive to Muslims? What would the reaction be if they did, vs. the reaction from Christians to the frog cross?

(I would suggest leaving the cross, but replacing the frog with Mo' - there's a LOT more that could be read into that as a piece of art, AND would start a real dialog on Islam vs. Christianity)

What disturbs me most is not that the Lord of Love is being defames (which he is), but rather that the artists so juvenile in their concept and down right chunky in the form of the sculpture. If their going to mock Christianity artistically, at least make some good art in doing so. I don't mean to be glib in saying this. The art is just plain bad art.

Has Secularism's creativity and skill been reduced to something that you'd look for at an amusement park?

Now the Marxists had some talented anti-God humanist art. While it had a false horizon of a communist human utopia, at least it had a horizon. What I fear most about Secularism is not really its anti-religion, but rather that it has no wide horizon. It reduces humanity to a permanent adolescence and offers little more that a permanent pathos interrupted by the occasional tantrum. Where is the vision?

Not all images of something being crucified are necessariy depicting Jesus, are they?

Two criminals were crucified alongside Jesus, by all acounts.

All that needs to be said is "It is not Jesus. It is a frog".

This present Pope seems to get it wrong every time to me, at least.

I find the image offensive because it portrays cruelty to animals, which I abhor.

I'll live with it though.

Posted by: Stephen Gash SIOE England at August 31, 2008 12:54 PM

If this were an attempt to be cruel to animals then PETA would be on this like "white on rice."

Although I am not a Christian, it is clear to me that this piece of ... "art" ... is intended as a slap in the face to Jesus, the founder they say of Christianity. (Jesus never identified himself as Christian as far as I know, but okay ...)

Christians, if they really do believe in Jesus as a diety, should be angered -- no, outraged -- and would be within their rights to demand an apology from the museum for this intentional provocation, in my opinion.

Having said this, I also realise that most Christians don't care a hoot about Jesus and really don't belive Jesus as being a real diety of any kind.

If they did, this childish insult to Jesus would never be brandished before the world in a museum.

Perhaps W.C. Fields had it right -- everyone has to believe in something; I believe I will have another drink!

It seems that contemporary art has a mandate to offend those that they deem inconsequential. Inanity. Art without thought. Bad art. Passionless and lacking humanity. Ad nauseam.

I am a man of no faith and yet I find this offensive. It just seems arbitrary and without substance. A cruel gesture by a shallow person.

Oh, where are the Van Goghs of yesteryear?

Witness:

I, too, will have another drink.

I never go near modern art galleries anywhere for tthe simple reason that there's no art in them. I'd probably agree to join a riot aver that insult to the meaning of words. I'd like to see this cretinous 'artist' have a go at commenting on Islam, if he had the guts.

I never go near modern art galleries anywhere for tthe simple reason that there's no art in them. I'd probably agree to join a riot aver that insult to the meaning of words. I'd like to see this cretinous 'artist' have a go at commenting on Islam, if he had the guts.

witness,
It's not so much that Christians don't give a hoot about Jesus as a deity but how many times do you want them to rise up in anger? Stupid pranks like this one don't deserve a response.
The best one that can be given is a refusal to patronize such establishments. Why dignify their idiocy with any attention? Ignoring them will have more impact.
I wouldn't ask the museum for an apology. It means nothing. You've already given them what they want: more publicity.

Hmmm..... a crucified frog? Is this some sort of animosity towards Christ and the French? If the French, shouldn't it have a white flag in one hand?

I'd heard rumors that the Air Force had lost one of the bodies from the Roswell crash. Now I know what happened to it.

Witness,

I give a hoot about Jesus. I don't give a hoot about stupid worldly commentary, like this "art".

Jesus wouldn't blow a gasket over it, nor will I. People don't have to have hissy-fits over this silly, inane garbage to be good Christians.

It's Muslims who behave so, over Mohammed and I, for one, have no desire to emulate Muslims.

As a devout (and militant) Christian, I find this distasteful. I also find it distasteful because I like frogs.

However, despite the so-called artist's intentions, there is no reason to assume the frog represents Jesus. The Romans crucified thousands of men and even a few women. So did the Japanese and the ancient Persians. The Muslims have also crucified hundreds of people, some this past year.

However, I don't think there is any historical evidence that any of these groups have ever crucified an amphibian. With that in mind, this "artwork" is just silly.

Where's the bold, brave artist who will depict Mohammad hanging on one of the crosses he so happily commanded for others? Now THAT would be 'pushing the boundaries'

This "work" bears about the same relationship to real art as Islam does to real religion.

Where's the frog rage?
Where's the demands to ban frogs (from French restaurant, for example)?
Where are the protests outside embassies with "Those who crucify frogs must be beheaded" placards?

Surely without these Christianity cannot be a religion of peace.

I agree that this a very amateurish artistic attempt, either secular or none, to convey some kind of message. I also think that most people who acknowledge Jesus as a special, divine entity have a broader understanding of their connection with him than to take serious offense at this kind of sophomoronic self-expression.
Having had gone to a parochial Catholic grammar school in the 1960's, I remember a lot of us kids having some very good laughs over aspects of Catholicism/Christianity. I still think a lot of our jokes and pranks, some done during Mass or other services, were hilarious; furthermore, I think that my irreverent and wicked sense of humor was developed and honed during these years and that this was a good thing. Authority figures who set themselves up as easy targets were the subjects of the biggest jokes.
Today, I regard myself as someone who places my understanding of God on a high priority level. I think most people eventually come to their own conclusions about everything, including their spiritual/religious beliefs or lack of. So be it.

The way Christians look at it...."it's gonna be rough".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Burning_(Seinfeld_episode)

Perhaps having a display next to this piece of a frog in a turbin having its way with a tadpole would round out the history lesson.