Ahhhhh, Paris (for these purposes please pronounce as Pair-Ree in your head). History, culture, food, art, landmarks aplenty, and people with an understanding of not just their history, but of the games they are currently hosting.
The Olympics date back thousands of years. According to historians, the first written observation of the games owes to the Greeks and dates back to 776 BC. Note that BC - before Christ - that will be important here. They began observing time in Olympiads - the time between games, choosing every four years to honor the Greek god Zeus. Throughout time and space, the games have ebbed and flowed depending on who was ruling the roost.
From the official Olympics site, In 393 AD, the Roman Emperor Theodosius I banned the Olympic Games for religious reasons, claiming that they encouraged paganism. They were not revived until the modern era.
Yes, religious ass knotting goes back a fur piece, as they say.
The games were not revived until 1894, spanning a single week in June in Paris, France. At the end of that week, the International Olympic Committee was born. Under their guidance the first official games took place back in their home of origin, Athens, in 1896. And on we went. Women were finally allowed to compete in 1900, events were added, dates broadened, etc.
But everything goes back to a time when we puny humans invented gods and goddesses for every single thing we could not understand. The tides? A god named Poseidon. Love? Bring on Aphrodite. The harvest? Paging Demeter. What comes next? Let's hear it for Hades! Hermes? No, not the god of impossibly expensive handbags. He reigned over fertility and livestock and music. Someone to wrangle them all? CEO Zeus.
All of these gods have their equals in Roman mythology. Because that's what we humans do. We invent, we borrow, we steal, and we warp to our best interests and likings.
Regardless, the Olympics have a rich and storied history. From competing in the nude to blood offerings of 100 oxen - the games were about paying tribute to the gods, especially Zeus. No Jesus. No apostles. Nada.
Fast forward to the opening ceremonies broadcast from Paris on Friday. Encompassing everything and everyone from Lady Gaga to Celine Dion to Snoop Dogg, there was spectacle aplenty, a bacchanal for the eyes. Including what has firmly knotted the asses of Christians for the past 48 hours.
A tableau that included drag queens (clutch pearls!), a runway, and a French actor painted blue and depicting the Greek god of intoxication and revelry, Dionysus, was quickly grabbed onto (along with those pearls) as mocking The Last Supper.
Let's recap. Remember the reference to BC - BEFORE CHRIST? Leonardo Davinci painted The Last Supper between 1495-1498, looooooooooooooog after Dionysus was tearing it up in de BC clerb. And it is not a photo, for Christ's sake (all pun intended). It is a depiction, an interpretation of a story. As real as this depiction:
The artistic director for both the opening and closing ceremonies, Thomas Jolly, flatly stated, "It was not my inspiration." Adding, “There is Dionysus (Philippe Katerine painted in blue) who arrives on this table. He is there because he is the God of celebration in Greek mythology. The god of wine, which is one of the jewels of France. He is also the father of the goddess Sequana, who is connected to the river, the Seine. The idea was to have a pagan celebration connected to the gods of Olympus."
“You will never find in me a desire to mock and denigrate anyone. I wanted to make a ceremony that repairs, reconciles and reaffirms the values of our Republic — liberty, equality, fraternity.”
That the IOC had to come forward and do the rote 'apology to those who were offended' just speaks to how lame this manufactured controversy is.
Christians have never behaved well when they receive pushback, but that victimhood mentality has reached a zenith of late. The inability to understand that what they believe is not what anyone else has to believe ignites in them such a fire of self righteous indignation and cries of discrimination that all one can do is laugh. And vote to keep these people out of office.
And their hypocrisy is stunning. They constantly pass around truly laughable memes and pics of Trump depicted as Jesus on the cross, refer to him as being sent by God, and buy his Bibles (hypocrite, party of MAGA, your table in Hell is ready), yet that is not heresy? That is not offensive to their God? That doesn't break one of the big Ten, you know the one about having no other gods before me?
And now this. There has been a complete break down of characters depicted in that performance making its way around the web. Shared to refute/educate the victimy whiners demanding our athletes be brought home over what they do not understand. Even Congress' own Moses, Mike Johnson, has been out there posting about how depraved we heathens are and how offensive that tableau was.
Here's the rub though. As with all their bullshit and lies, when refuted, broken down for them, explained in detail why they are wrong - they do not apologize, admit their misunderstanding, appreciate the information. They do one of two things:
Double down. Because victimhood is so much better than admitting you were ~gasp~ wrong.
Act like they never bleated their bullshit to begin with. Rearview mirror it. MAGAts are the ServPro of politics. Like it never even happened.
For the record, The Last Supper has been parodied and sent up repeatedly through the years. Most notably when The Sopranos was at its height.
How about these?
Offended? They have all been around for decades.
And what about this one? From the Trump as Jesus chapter in the Book of Magat:
You people are out there openly worshipping an adulterer, criminal, rapist - treating him as the Second Coming, yet you see no problem with how you have taken Christianity, drenched it in MAGAtry, and made it a complete, and frankly repulsive, laughingstock. This is why we deride you. This is why people are leaving your churches. This is why you are not taken seriously. Because you are not serious people. You are professional victims who think that being told to keep it to yourself is some form of discrimination, yet inserting the Ten Commandments into public schools is divine.
This is who you worship. A narcissist who has never had any need or desire for your religion until he realized that he could easily play you by using it. You constantly mock President Biden, who actually attends church each week, yet have no problem with your spray tanned succubus who attends his golf course each week.
The Olympics did not mock your painting anymore than did Bugs Bunny and the Smurfs. But you'll believe anything that allows you to cry victim. Honestly, the next painting should be of all of you, a sea of red hats around an orange, festering diaperload called The Last Sucker.
I do believe this is where the phrase 'And Jesus wept' belongs...
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