Passion about The Passion

I've made comments about Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ film on and off since starting this blog, and I have to say that this thread about the movie at the IMDB just floors me. The utter ignorance with which both sides are arguing their points is really nothing short of amazing, but this is exactly what passes for "intellectual debate" these days - a bunch of uninformed yahoos yelling at each other on a message forum (as opposed to a bunch of uninformed yahoos yelling at each other on TV.) I'm beginning to think the Neil Postman was right. Debate really is dead.