It's kinda funny to sit on the sidelines and hear this religion argue against that religion and hear them all cry that they're being discriminated against and everything is anti-me-and-my-special-religion. The whole "my religion is better than your religion" would be so funny (since there is no god) if it wasn't responsible for so much killing and death and pain and hate.

Religion is optional.

Why is it that non-Catholics choose to get up in arms over the religious practices of an organization that you must freely join? If you don't like it, don't join it. Simple enough.

Also, recognize that the problems of the church are at least somewhat acceptable to the lay people, or else they would join a new one.

No one is forcing Kevin Smith to remain a Catholic. In fact, he is a bigger hypocrite than the Catholic Church itself because he has HUGE dogmatic issues with the church and remains a Catholic in spite of them.

He could become an Episcopal. They have all of the ceremony and half the dogma.

He is not leg-shackled to the church.

That said, I find it interesting that the Catholic church spends more on aid to the dying, hungry, and displaced than any other religion or government on earth, but none of the Catholic detractors like to talk about that part.

The Catholic church spends literally billions to feed, innoculate, provide AIDS medication etc to the poor of the world. It spends more than it does to renovate churches, to pay for priests pensions, etc. The Catholic church is even downsizing so that it may more effectively take care of the poor. This is not the Cathedral building church of the middle ages.

Moreover, this Church for all its flaws rallied to convince (or try to) governments to "jubilee", provide debt relief to all impoverished nations. This church petitions for immigrants, legal or otherwise. This horrible, cruel, ummm, what else has it been called: medieval church, also pays for post-abortion counseling as well as pre-natal. If they really condemned women with abortions they wouldn't bother with them afterwards.

My church in particular has adopted a whole village in Haiti that we monthly keep alive with our food contributions, clothing, textbooks, and water. We do this without the Jesus as timeshare notion of forcing these people to become Catholics before they get the goodies. They get them regardless of their religion.

You don't like their stance on homosexual marriage. Fine. Don't join. You don't like their stance on birth control. Fine. Don't join. But before you write them off completely, I hope you are doing as much or more for the poor, the sick, and the dying.

All entities with people in them, are as imperfect as humans are themselves. Yes, the church is flawed, but it also contains great beauty.

...this is one thing you can't blame him for. It's really a stretch. Pretty crappy article. But this is where we're discussing this, so, a couple thoughts:

I understand they have audio tape of his little rant, but they don't want to release it, or the mugshot, or the video they shot when he arrived at the Tank. Don't all police cruisers have video cameras running at all times nowadays? I've watched enough "Cops" to wonder where THAT video is. I'd love to see it, purely as a social scientist, of course. The only thing more amusing than drunks on "Cops" is drunk celebrities on "Cops."

Does it even matter if "Hollywood" stops returning Gibson's calls? He financed "The Passion of the Christ" all by himself, which means he collected all its massive profits himself-- the dude has F-you money. It will be years before we see any meaningful effect on his career, if there is any, because with "The Passion" he turned himself into an island. He's answerable only to ticket buyers now, and although it seems like he went so far out there that he can never make it back, there have been too many recent "career-killing scandals" (Bill O'Reilly, Pat O'Brien, Kate Moss, etc.) that turned out to be literally meaningless for me to believe this guy will really be held accountable in the long run.

That is, unless they show the video on "Cops."

If you think the Jews are going to burn in hell for all eternity, you are an anti-Semite. Sorry, if it's part of your religion, you have freely chosen to follow one that condones hate.

As to the anti-Catholic bigotry, I am fascinated how those who get riled up about anti-Catholic art tend to narrowly focus on works created by Catholics. This is part of the conservative attempt to stop the reforms of Vatican II.

I wish both groups (the "love the Jews, but unfortunately they are going to burn in hell" and the "Catholics creating artwork about their personal experience with the church are anti-Catholic") would just be honest in their motivations.

I don't hate Christians or Muslims. But, as a 60-year old Jew, I damn well hate Christianity and Islam for their historical (and present) bloodthirsty ways. Mel Gibson is just another bigot; I reject him for being Mel.

Christianity has murdered and oppressed millions of my people for almost two thousand years. Islam made Jews (and others) into second-class citizens and Jews flooded out from Islamic countries to Israel whenever they had the chance. There's a reason that Christianity and Islam have over a billion adherents each: vicious cultural imperialism. When I hear the Yeats phrase, "blood dimmed tide," I think of my people's blood. Oh, and Africans and Chinese who were "converted" to Christianity, or killed trying to resist. Or women in America perceived as witches. Or "heretics" burned at the stake. And homosexuals burned as well. Jesus, this list goes on and on! Can You help me?

And although I am having quite a hard time with Israel these days, I can't help getting burned up hearing Chrsitans of all people criticizing a Jewish state for its belligerance. How many missionaries are operating in South America right now working to "save" the natives from their sexuality, their customs, their indigenous religions?