A Kinder, Gentler Crucifixion

I wrote this blog quite a while back, but, for some reason or another, never published it. I sort of liked it, so, here it is. My daughter is now fourteen and has yet to see the film. I'm hoping we can sit down together with my wife next Easter to watch it.


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Mel Gibson is set to release his new version of “The Passion of The Christ.” The skuttle-butt is, that he has deleted/edited the more graphic scenes out to make the movie more agreeable to the young and/or squeamish.

Now, I'm not about to accuse Brother Mel of going belly-up to the critics or grossly coveting the almighty dollar. I sincerely will give him all the benefit of the doubt I can muster.

I realize this movie has been criticized for its graphic violence and nauseating bloodshed. My very own ten year old daughter, by my choice, has yet to see what I would call the greatest feature film ever made.

Still, it’s so entirely hypocritical of the nay sayers who decried this movie because of its purposeful intensity. The very fact that they have such a problem with the blood and gore shows that they, because of their darkened hearts, missed the whole point of the affair.

Christ suffered one of the most violent, painful deaths ever devised by man. We can never fully realize what must’ve been the indescribable agony of one so unfortunate as to die by crucifixion. Much the worse, He was abandoned not only by His closest friends, but also by His Heavenly Father. Our revulsion at the depiction of what was surely only a fraction of the suffering that Christ must’ve endured is understandable, but to have an inkling of it’s value, requires closer scrutiny than most are willing to invest.

I’ll never forget how jovial we were before entering the theater and how somber we were upon our exit. I remember smiling wryly as I saw the blithe faces of those who were waiting their turn at the viewing. I thought, “Just wait. You’ll be changed soon enough.”

Brother Mel, I think, gave us only a passing glance at the passion that Jesus suffered for us poor sinners. I fear a sanitized version of the film may only weaken it’s impact and undermine the disturbing quality that made this not just a film, but an experience. I know that I was certainly disturbed by my viewing of The Passion. I wouldn’t have had it any other way.

Is Data Human?

I've always loved Sci-Fi movies and television shows. One of my regulars was "Star Trek: The Next Generation." It had great characters like Captain Picard, Warf, Councilor Troy, "Number One" and Data.

Data was always a personal favorite of mine. He was really nerdy, but in a cool way, I thought. As you know, if you followed the series, he was so intelligent and so human that he was even made an official Star Fleet officer. Still, it was a constant struggle for him to understand the human emotions that he, (with the exception of one memorable plot line,) could never experience. His "Pinocchio Complex" would often keep the plot interesting between action sequences.

We've seen this theme in "The Terminator," "I, Robot," "Bicentennial Man" and others. Non-human leading characters who express pseudo-human qualities that blur the boundary between man and machine. This is a concept that has been perpetuated throughout the entertainment industry for a long, long time.

These are not the first movies to examine the fine line that sometimes seems to exist between humanity and artificial intelligence. Does a machine that relates intelligently and, perhaps even, emotionally have a soul? Is it sentient? Has it consciousness? If something approximates humanity in such a convincing manner, how can you say it's not human? They all ask the same question in different ways: What defines a person?

It's funny, in a non-funny way, that these people seek to obscure the difference between man and machine by saying that if it seems so human, it must be human. Yet, they are the same people who will argue that a baby, in spite of everything about it being human, is nonhuman simply because it is unborn.

Beclouding what qualifies as human is a device used by those wishing to devalue the life of the "undesirable" have used for at least the last century. If you don't know what constitutes life, if life its self is somehow subjective to the prospective of the observer, how can we really say it's wrong to dispose of those lives that don't fit whatever criteria the majority or even an elite minority deems worthwhile? Simply put, we can't!

That, good people, is all pat of the plan. Get rid of those who don't fit and who can't defend themselves. The unborn, the old and feeble, the poor and the uneducated. Who's next?