You do have a point, that whatever we may think of Pope Benedict XVI's reaction to the crucified toad, it is quite mild in comparison to the Muslim reaction to the infamous Danish cartoons, or to "The Satanic Verses" or to various other things that offend their religious sensitivity.

Unfortunately, religion inherently favors extremism.  Those who believe that they are in possession of the ultimate truth about the universe we live in, and that everyone who disagrees with them is necessarily wrong, find it difficult to be tolerant of divergent viewpoints.  Why tolerate something you know to be wrong?  Surely truth is better than error.  That kind of absolutism is only workable in a society in which there is only one religion, such as Europe during the Dark Ages, or Iran at the present.  In modern Italy, this is no longer feasible.  The Pope is no longer the final arbiter of everything.  He still has the authority to rule on matters of Catholic doctrine, but other than that his opinions are not authoritative.  Few people in Europe would really want to return to the Dark Ages.

Religion is a problem in the modern world, and not just for people who may wish to create blasphemous works of art.  Whether the human race will ever attain the maturity needed to deal with this problem, remains to be seen.

I hope you are being sarcastic here...if so, then this is directed to the astute up-modders (unless they are being meta sarcastic...then I am going out to burn one) but if not...

" The fact that they are placed in the palm shows that this work is derivative of prior crucifixion pieces - more embarassingly it conflicts with the rest of the piece..i.e. gripping the mug or the egg.

As to the loincloth - completely and utterly derivative."

I assume you mean that prior crucifixion pieces also had nails through the hand and loincloths so now any future piece with nails through the hand etc is "derivative". And the fact that in an empirical world-view, a hand with a nail through it will likely lack the musculature integrity to grip a mug (or whatever you call the "hand" of a toad) creates "conflict".  

That seems to lack nuance. Or maybe I am missing something significant about nails-through-hand-crucifixion semiotics or the need for representations of only empirically possible situations in art .

Am I a great person? Hell no - by most metrics I'm pretty much an asshole. -TSlothrop

I didn't know that.  Got any links?