Ideas About Christ's Death Surveyed : Growing Minority: Jews Responsible

[Trajan]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A45637-2004Apr2.html

Ideas About Christ's Death Surveyed
Growing Minority: Jews Responsible
By Alan Cooperman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, April 3, 2004; Page A03


The percentage of Americans who say Jews were responsible for Christ's death is rising, particularly among blacks and young people, according to a nationwide poll taken since the release of Mel Gibson's movie "The Passion of the Christ."



The poll released yesterday by the Pew Research Center in Washington is the first statistical evidence that the movie's box-office success may be associated with an increase in anti-Jewish feeling, although social scientists cautioned that cause and effect are not clear.

In the March 17 to 21 telephone survey of 1,703 randomly selected adults, 26 percent said Jews were responsible for Christ's death, up from 19 percent in an ABC News poll that asked the same question in 1997.

The increase was especially pronounced among two groups. The portion of people younger than 30 who say Jews were responsible for killing Jesus has approximately tripled, from 10 percent in 1997 to 34 percent today. The portion of African Americans who hold that view has doubled, from 21 percent to 42 percent.

-snip-

Egads .... Might we admit these 'facts' cannot DEFINITIVELY be associated with Gibson's movie to the exclusion of other possible causes ??? ... This could commit a false cause fallacy (Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc), since there is no direct correlation between THAT movie, and the sentiments indicated during polling ....

I am no fan of "The Smashin of the Christ", and as an atheist, I reject the major premisses of xtian theology, but I greatly doubt ONE movie is the direct cause of such a shift in public sentiment, even as that shift is in itself troubling ....

[ogminlo]

1. Those people were always anti-Semite.

This movie just reminded them. And besides, if these "Christians" had a clue about their own faith, they might recognize that Jesus had to die in order for Christianity to exist. All part of the plan. And they are also probably forgetting that even 2000ish years ago there was politics, and that the Jews don't bend to the will of a singular mother-brain...

These are the lowest common-denominator types who are bigots anyway, and these polls just let them say so with an excuse; "oh, it's all the movie's/media's fault!"

[FloridaPat]

2. Who do the other 75% believe killedJesus? As long as I can

remember, the Jews have always gotten the blame. That was the Christian justification for trying to kill the Jews for the last 2000 years! The fact that he was tried in a Roman court for breaking a Roman law and killed by the Romans seems to have been left out of any school teaching I've ever had - having been raised Catholic, which I am no longer.

I distinctly remember the Pope forgiving the Jews for this crime somewhere in the 60's.

[MasonJar]

3. Both were culpable; Jesus was a Jew. Many forget that.

[smartass]

4. Scapegoating....A favorite pasttime of Christian church.

Disgusting.

[Vitruvius]

7. The Romans killed Him -- with some Jewish collaborators/traitors

providing a fig-leaf. When the Jews rebelled about 50 years later and tried to throw the Romans out, they killed all the collaborators they could catch.

The Romans killed Jesus -- with some assistance from their local puppets. And the puppets got what they deserved when the Jews rebelled. The Crucifixion was a Roman atrocity from start to finish.


P.S: I think it was Tacitus, a Roman historian and military man, who said that "The one crime (that) Romans have never been accused of is that of showing excessive mercy to (their) defeated enemies." Even the better grade of Roman was often disgusted by the brutalities of Empire.

Even as many of us are disgusted by American imperial brutalities in Iraq, Nicaragua, Vietnam, and thruout the 3rd world. Empires are brutal, cruel, and criminal -- without exception.

[He loved Big Brother]

5. I'm sick of hearing about Jesus.

[54anickel]

6. Uh, gee do you suppose it has something to do with more people

attending church and reading the Gospels now than before 1997. Remember that 9/11 brought a lot of new people as well as seldom attenders into the churches. Then let's not also forget the huge rise in TV evangelists and there's "Left Behind" book series. Not to mention Shrub's push for Armageddon and Christian Crusade.

No, the movie had little if anything to do with it. :eyes: