Movies

The Walking Dead: Zombies, God, and What Makes us Human

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I recently finished the third season of the Walking Dead. I have always been a big movie guy, not much of a television watcher. I like the punch of a two hour story that has it all, including rich characters, human drama, with climax and resolution. It has a very satisfying sense to it, like eating a good steak dinner. However, I have grown to appreciate television series as the best writing that is out there these days in storytelling. The advantages of this medium is more about the characters. Its purpose is to get you to love the characters so much that you want to see them go through their extended journeys. So the focus on movies is more on the story and the focus of television is more on characters. Of course there is much story going on in a series but it is more drawn out and takes much longer to achieve its character arcs and resolution. A series is more like engaging in a new diet. It takes more patience but you see the effects down the road and they can be more lasting. But this is why I think it has a more powerful influence on our cultural values. Because the longer you saturate within the worldview of a narrative, the more affected you are by its values. This is why television is also more dangerous in its ability to saturate viewers in the worldviews of its storytellers for a longer period and change their values and worldview so widespread through the emotional immersion.

So I try to be careful what I immerse myself in regarding these television narratives. I have found though that The Walking Dead has been quite a positive extension of the positive values of zombie movies, along with a few cautionary dangers to be aware of.

First off, many people already have a hard time with zombie stories. They think they are just a glorification of blood and gore and should be rejected as dehumanizing. Not true. Some are. But not all. In fact, the very essence of the zombie story is as a cultural critique of social values that dehumanize us. They explore the moral question of what makes us human? What gives us dignity? How are we any different from animals? What keeps civilization from falling apart into anarchy? These are all VERY relevant and important issues in our morally relative culture of naturalism and atheistic evolution. I have written about this elsewhere in an article on the value of the horror genre as morality tales that address the reality of evil, our sinful nature, and social injustices, and in a blog post of World War Z.

The Walking Dead is very simply the story of a band of refugees in a post-apocalyptic scenario of America overrun by zombies. The lead character, Rick Grimes, is a cop who leads the multicultural group that contains a proper diversity of men, women, black, Asian and sometimes “other” people on a quest to find a safe habitation, first in the American South and then in the Midwest.

They are in fact looking for a home, a place of safety and order in a world of chaos. A primal urge in all of us. As they scavenge for survival, they encounter various groups of other survivors whose values come into conflict with their own, as they themselves struggle to maintain order and authority within their ranks. Otherwise they will end up killing each other, just like the zombies around them.

The power of a zombie story is that it strips down our outward mask of values that we wear in society. When we are faced with survival our true natures come out and for too many of us, that is an ugly nature indeed. This is not imagination. This is reality. Many people’s true selfishness comes out when they are forced to choose between saving themselves and helping others. The Walking Dead (TWD) shows that when we no longer have law and order keeping society in line, some of us will struggle to create a new structure and others will lay aside their moral veneer and seek to exploit and use others for their own survival. This is an incarnation of the moral challenge that who we are is determined by how we behave when no one is watching us, or when we think we won’t have consequences for our behavior.

But it is more than that. It also is about the question, “What makes us human or civilized?” In season two, Rick’s group finds their way to a farmhouse that has been happily untouched by zombie attacks. But it’s owned by an old geezer. Now, in the outer world, its pretty much a free for all scavenge fest. Nothing is owned by anyone anymore, except those who can protect it with violence. Now at this safe haven, do they respect the old man’s authority because it is his own property, or do they just take him over? Is there such a thing as private property in such a lawless state? TWD proves that you must respect private property as a foundation of civilization, and you must respect authority, or you end in chaos. In season three, they commandeer a prison that provides the first real rest and security in a long time (with all its fences and locked bars). The irony being that it was a place that was used to keep monsters in, now it is used to keep them out.

Early on, Rick says, “This is not a democracy,” as in we must have a leader who has strong authority over the group or they will fall apart. And for most of the show, this proves true. Until Rick himself starts to break from the strain, and is challenged by his best friend, another cop, Shane. Rick is a mental leader, and a man of strong ethical emphasis. He even continues to wear his uniform and hat for quite a while. But Shane is more the “muscle” and earthy pragmatic man who seeks to lead by doing the dirty work that no one else wants to do, but must be done. He is not a survivalist, but he is more of a survivor mentality. He is willing to give up on those who are weak in order to survive. Rick however, tries to balance the needs of the individual with the needs of the community. To be a man of justice, but also compassion. He tries to keep a high value on the dignity of others. But survival bears heavily on his ethics and he becomes a harder man as the series goes on. He also almost breaks down mentally at the death of some significant characters in his life. He eventually softens and includes the group more in the decisions when he learns his lesson that he needs his followers as much as they need a leader.

Through many episodes the people are faced with difficult life situations that place the two ethics of survival and sacrifice in conflict. Should they go back to save one person if it jeopardizes everyone else? Should they keep searching for a little lost girl when doing so also endangers the rest of them? Can they kill their beloved if they “turned” into a zombie? By and large, those who would stress survival over sacrificial helping of others tend to be the least humanized and we see that we must maintain an elevation of human life if we are to maintain our own dignity, society and sanity. Those who maintain the ethic of sacrifice for others are sometimes killed, but always the ones upon whom “civilization” continues to grow. This is of course assuming that the zombies are truly no longer “human” so the killing of them is NOT the same thing as killing a human. They are undead. They are more like rabid animals to be put down because they destroy living humans. This is more self-defense than anything. But we will talk about that in a minute.

Suffice it to say that this elevation of civilization being founded on us maintaining the Christian ethic of self sacrifice for others rather than the evolutionary ethic of survival of the fittest is something that makes this show so important. Because humanity is still so thoroughly evil we still have a strong contingent who believe that there is no absolute morality, we only “socially construct” morality to control others. Might makes right. Sure, these relativists may not all be Kim Jong Ils or serial killers, but they are university professors and “scientists” and sociologists teaching kids these values in a world of constant evolutionary change. Our modern universities are breeding zombie nihilist kids, because teachers and professors deny all moral absolutes (with the exception of their Leftism of course) and with it all religion as patriarchal fascist control, but they themselves are behaving as if there are moral values of civility and such. But the next generation becomes more consistent and starts to live consistently with those relativist values. They start to behave as if there are no moral absolutes. It’s that simple really. And thus we have the growing zombie apocalypse thanks to public education and the universities.

In season three, they run into another walled community, Woodbury, that is led by a benevolent dictator, affectionately called The Governor. On the outside, he is a nice Southern gentleman who also rules as a benevolent dictator, but in reality, he is a dark violent soul. Their “Bedford Falls” of happy suburban life contained within a walled perimeter turns out to be a police state underneath of human experimentation and gladiatorial games with zombies for cathartic violence. But the Governor also seeks to kill Rick and his band.

But here is where I would like to encourage all Christians to support this series by watching it. This setup of the Governor and his little town is the classic Hollywood scenario of an outwardly happy traditional suburban world with a dark underbelly that almost always includes a Christian religious element to it. The usual revelations would be that they pray as they kill people, or the Governor uses “right wing” religious rhetoric because he wants to set up a theocracy.

BUT THIS NEVER HAPPENS IN THE SERIES!

There is not an ounce of religious rhetoric from the survivalists or the Governor! I could not believe it. I applaud the writers of the show for not exercising the typical bigotry and hatred of Christians that network and cable writers so often display.

It is pathetic to me that the bigotry and discrimination against Christians and their faith has become so ubiquitous in Hollywood storytelling that I get excited about a series just because it doesn’t attack Christians!

But there is more to it than that.

In fact, God has an increasingly positive role in this series. In the first season, there was only one sequence where they stumble upon a church with a few zombies sitting in the pews looking at the cross of Christ up front. Okay, that’s a funny irony. But it pretty much just became a scene where Rick prays to the Christ statue for some help, while having a hard time believing he is there. Okay, That’s fair. Of course, we all question God with serious tragedies. Some cool possibilities. But unfortunately nothing ever really came of it. In fact, I remember thinking that it was not a very honest portrayal to have people in this life and death lifestyle and none of them really be dealing with the whole God and suffering and evil thing. You don’t have to be a believer to acknowledge that when you face death, you at least wrestle with God. Also, the fact that there was a crucifix in a Baptist church showed the ignorance of the writers about Evangelical faith. But that is forgivable.

Anyway, in season two, they meet Herschel, the old man with the farm, who read his Bible and kept his family members who had turned to zombies penned in his barn. He was unwilling to kill them because he thought they were still human. Okay, you could say that this is a kind of critique of Christian’s elevation of the sanctity of life to the point where they give something dignity that does not deserve it according to these story tellers. Plus he was a pacifist, an unlivable worldview in a world of pure survival. So I was thinking, uh oh, here it is, the stupid Christian stereotype coming.

BUT IT DIDN’T HAPPEN! I am very glad to admit I was wrong twice on this account.

Herschel had a traumatic experience that got him to overcome his pacifist silliness and false views of zombies and he ends up in season three as the moral conscience that keeps Rick in line when he starts to sway. Herschel even describes himself as “losing his way” by being out of line with the Bible. I was blown away. In fact, the whole series is an incarnate argument against pacifism and left wing theories about the “goodness” of human nature and the need to “understand” evil instead of condemn it and strike it down. The zombies are not the only ones who will keep coming to eat you until you destroy them. The villains like The Governor will not stop in their lawless pursuit of killing the good and controlling everyone else until you put them down — as in permanently — as in with a gun.

Take that you immoral gun control advocates who seek to arm the evil and disarm the good.

Not only that, but Herschel’s faith becomes a little more positive element when he quotes the Bible to unruly Meryl, a man who is sure to become a Judas in Rick’s group. Both Meryl and Herschel had a limb cut off, Meryl cut his own to save his life in the first season, and Meryl had his leg chopped off because a zombie bite in the leg would have turned him if Rick had not cut it off in time. Meryl quotes Matthew 25 to Meryl: “And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell.” This is a powerful metaphor for the seriousness of sin, but also for the power of repentance for Meryl, and he sees this. It would be nice if season four brings some kind of redemption for a rather brutal and bad man. We shall see.

Well, there’s a ton more of course, but I will end with my one caveat of caution. While TWD does not have a whole lot of zombie violence, there is some in every show, and it is not a pretty sight for those of weak stomach, since the only way for zombies to be fully stopped is by cutting off their heads or smashing their brains in. TWD is quite responsible in not becoming gratuitous. But we should be careful of the amount of such violence in our entertainment diet, even if it is morally appropriate violence. Because too much of a good thing can be bad. It may even have the very effect the storytellers intend to avoid: A tendency to dehumanize real people in our world.

But that is a small caveat to an otherwise powerful and morally rich tale of survival and sacrifice that lands decidedly in the camp of Christian values for civilization.

So far. We shall see about season four. After all, we all know what happened to 24.

Mud: Amazing Movie of Male Liberation

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Southern Coming of Age Romance. Young Ellis and his friend Neckbone are two young boys living in the impoverished Arkansas off the Mississippi river. While exploring a small island on the river one day, they stumble upon an old boat that has mysteriously found itself way up on a tree. They soon discover it is being inhabited by a fugitive named Mud, played with brilliance by Matthew McConaughey. Mud is on the run from a pack of vigilantes. It turns out he has a troubled life of pursuing his childhood sweetheart, Juniper (Reese Witherspoon), a beautiful white trash woman who cannot seem to stay committed to Mud. She is a floozy who keeps sleeping with bad boys, and then gets in trouble and runs to Mud to protect her. Well, this time, she was beaten up pretty bad, and Mud went too far. But they have agreed to meet up at a certain date in this certain town to run off together. Now Ellis and Neckbone are going to help him reunite with his beloved Juniper and ride off into the sunset.

This movie is refreshing and bold mythic storytelling. It is an extreme rarity: A tale of Male Liberation. Hollywood is flush with Feminist tales of female liberation: Thelma and Louise, The Stepford Wives, Little Black Book, Mona Lisa Smile, Erin Brockavich, The Color Purple, The Help, The Hours, Portrait of a Lady, The Piano, and on and on.

The typical scenario in feminist “romances” is that women interact with all the possible negative stereotypes and cliché’s of men (no quality men seem to exist in this delusionary agenda), only to find that she has allowed herself to be defined by men and discovers that she doesn’t need men, she just needs a vision, a career or some other thing that gives her meaning other than a man. In other words, she can be just like a man and get her meaning from what she does.

As untruthful as this worldview has proven to be in the real world, and despite all the millions of women’s lives that it has ruined by making them think they can be like men, only to discover too late that they are not and are left with crushed desires for a family and relationship, I still actually like watching feminist movies. I still think that stereotypes exist because they are based on real existing patterns, and there are too many abusive and selfish men in this world who use women and do not sacrifice themselves for love. I enjoy feminist movies because I want to be more sensitive and understanding to women and their condition and nature and even how they are unfairly treated at times.

But I still want to keep my testicles, thank you.

And the feminist narrative is not an honest narrative precisely because it is a victim myth. It shifts the blame onto men and society, as well as denying nature and biology. But the only blame women in these narratives have is – now get this – that they have accepted their “oppression.” The classic justification of victim theory: The denial of one’s own true moral failure.

Actually, like Mud, many of us men are incurable romantics who want to be the knight in shining armor that rescues a woman and provides for her safety and happiness in this world. Yes, we do exist. And men can be used just as much by women as in the reverse. And they often are. But the difference between feminist movies and a men’s liberation story is that the male liberation narrative, like Mud, is a more honest self-aware narrative. It doesn’t shift the blame onto women, it only acknowledges “bad” women, while admitting men’s own flaws. This is not only more true and honest, it makes for better storytelling and richer more complex characters – as opposed to negative clichés of feminism.

So, in Mud, you actually have the manipulative female, but you also have all the classic negative males. But here’s the twist, both the men and women all have both good and bad traits. No one is completely bad. But no man or woman is completely good either. Let me explain.

The protagonist is not actually Mud, but the young boy Ellis. This is a male coming of age story that for once isn’t about “losing your virginity.” Mud becomes the mentor hero that Ellis looks up to because Ellis is falling “in first love” with a young lady in town, and he is drawn to Mud’s romanticism and heroic desire to protect Juniper. The problem is, Ellis’ love interest is another young version of Juniper who Ellis uses his brawn to protect, only to discover she is manipulating him. So as Ellis looks around him, he gets advice from his father that “love will not last” just as love in his marriage did not last (And by the way, his wife is not depicted as the problem either). He sees the betrayal of Juniper, and you would think even Mud would learn a misogynist message that no woman is worth it. But that is not the answer in this story. Both Mud and Ellis remain romantics in realizing that they were just fools to fall for the wrong one. They still believe in love.

And why? Because a woman needs a man to believe in, but a man needs a woman who believes in him. We need each other. And to give up on that would be to become cynical and lose the hope of true romantic and chivalric love. In other words to become feminist or egalitarian.

Ellis’s dad is a struggling man of low employment whose marriage is crumbling because he feels less of a man for not being able to maintain the family riverboat and therefore his fish business. He has his bitter drinking bouts, but AMAZINGLY, he does not degenerate into the classic cliché wife beater! Not once does he become violent. It is an honest dealing with what many men struggle with. I ask you, when was the last time you ever saw a Southern out of work hick who was NOT a wifebeater in a movie? And this is not a very good example of a father in his lack of communication. But we see that he does love his son, and that he has a high value of ethics on not stealing. These characters are wonderfully fascinating and rich characters with flaws and good qualities. We are after all, fallen splendor.

Neckbone is living with his uncle, a kind of industrious slacker played with fantastic nuance by Michael Shannon. This guy hasn’t grown up. He’s in his thirties probably, still plays in a rock band like a high schooler, is not sexually sensitive to his girlfriend, and is not a great influence on Neckbone. BUT he is amazingly ingenious in creating a diving suit with lights to get clam traps in the river as well as repairing good junk he finds and makes it usable again. He provides the wisdom of the film when he says, “This river brings a lot of trash down it. Some of it is worth a lot of money. Some of it is junk. You gotta know what’s worth keeping and what to let go.” When he discovers his nephew might be getting into trouble with Ellis, he doesn’t act like a Nazi but he does keep an eye on his nephew and warns him about being responsible.

Then, Sam Shepherd plays an ex-marine sharpshooter who raised Mud and tries to stay out of everybody’s business like the classic curmudgeon. But when his shooting skills are needed to stop the bad guys, he’s there, baby! Like a MAN!

Then you have Mud. Not the best of male examples for a young boy. BUT he knows it. His story begins with a rather selfish bargaining chip of getting the boys to help him rebuild the boat to escape outta there, but ends with him endangering his own life to save Ellis from a snake bite. So the man has to grow up as much as the child. And the most telling and mature wisdom in this film comes when Ellis and Mud are saying goodbye and Mud can see Ellis’ pure heart for love and he tells him “You’re a good man, Ellis.” And Ellis responds by saying that Mud is a good man too, but Mud says, “No. No, I ain’t.” WOW. What feminist movie would admit THAT flaw in their heroine emasculators? This is the honesty of male liberation. Mud knows and admits his flaws and seeks to overcome the flaw in himself, the real moral flaw, not the blameshifting psychological flaw.

I would say that my one big complaint is that Mud never chooses the true moral choice of turning himself in for the crime he did commit and that quite frankly spoils an otherwise fabulous morality tale. But no story is perfect. And we must be able to “know what’s worth keeping and what to let go.”

I could go on. This movie was a refreshing and satisfying story so lacking in today’s blockbuster morrasse of male juvenility.

The Mortal Instruments: A Dualistic Story of the Supernatural Without God

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Action horror. Hot girl realizes she’s both Harry Potter and Luke Skywalker in a Twilight World of battling werewolves and vampires. (In this movie, zombies “don’t exist,” so right off the bat you know it is an inferior horror film)

The movie starts out rather well with a very cool sequence of Clary, a young artist high schooler I think, learning that she has a secret identity she is not aware of. Her mom is hiding her true identity to her, she can see demonic and angelic things others cannot, and demons in the form of earthly creatures are after her.

As soon as the mythical background starts to be explained, everything becomes very jumbled and hard to follow. She eventually learns she is a “child of the Nephilim.” Though this is never really explained except I think it occurs when someone drank from a chalice cup that an angel Raziel offered at the Crusades. Didn’t make much sense to me.

So this is why she can see the spirit world, because she is half-human, half-angel. It’s a Nephilim story! And all the demons, vampires and other monsters want to find that magic cup that Clary’s mother has hidden, while Clary has the location embedded in her memory somewhere. Although I couldn’t remember why drinking from the cup was so wanted by the villains. I think it was because that would make them half-angel? Oh, I don’t remember, it was just kinda dumb.

So, normal humans are called “Mundanes” because they can’t see the spirit world (The American word for “Muggles” – Give her a break, you gotta call them something and it’s gotta reflect the fact that they are blind to one half of reality). Vampires and werewolves are called “downworlders” because they inhabit the world down here. And the good guys are “Shadow Hunters,” which are Nephilim who kill demons. If you know anything about the Biblical Nephilim, none of this makes any sense. But if you want to follow a cool Biblical fantasy tale about the Nephilim, check out this cool series. Meanwhile, Clary realizes she has the ability to tattoo runes on herself that bring powerful enchantments to stop demons and other stuff.

So the worldview in this story seems to downplay angels to almost non-existent. Sure, the evil arch-villain Raziel was an angel, but the heroine’s helper ally, the shadow hunter Jace, a scrawny effeminate kid who is somehow able to topple big bad bulky muscular guys, explains that “he’s never seen an angel.” So, I’m sure they are there in the series, but not in this movie. But when they retrieve weapons from a church, Clary asks about the religious reality behind their battle. Jace explains that they “know no religion,” and they could just as well hide their weapons in a mosque or a buddhist temple or Hindu temple. He then says he doesn’t believe in religion, he “believes in himself.” Then when Clary learns about the history of the evil angel Raziel, she is told by a master shadow hunter that they are engaged in a battle of good and evil, “a war that can never be won.” In other words, the world is a Dualistic eternal battle between opposing good and evil that are pretty much equal and always in conflict – hey, just like Star Wars! Just like Eastern Dualism! And then she realizes whose daughter she is and you go, “Hey, just like Star Wars!” Okay, sorry I spoiled it for you. You won’t miss anything cause it’s all rather vapid.

No reference whatsoever to God occurs in this story of supernatural demons and AWOL angels. It’s another riduculous attempt to hijack the mythos of Judeo-Christianity and to exorcise the most essential element, God, while keeping the corpse of the imagery and trying to resurrect it with occultic spells and magic. BTW, I have no problem with having occultic elements in the story per se, but the context determines their meaning and in this world, there is some abstract impersonal force that is actually quite boring because it has no personality and no metaphysical sense to it.

Okay, there is one tiny waaaaay ambiguous cool reference to God when we discover that the musical genius Bach was a shadow hunter and playing his music uncovers demons because it makes them go mad and they reveal themselves. Bach was a Christian who wrote music to God’s glory, so that could have been meaningful in its proper context.

One cool statement at the ending sums up the reality of spiritual awareness. Clary is sad and scared that “I don’t see the world the same. I see demons and angels.” To which Jace responds, “The world is the same. You’re just different.” That does sum up the reality of spiritual enlightenment, even if it comes in the context of a contradictory dualistic worldview.

Jobs: Visionary as Obsessive Narcissistic A$$h*!e Changes the World

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A biopic about Apple. What? You thought it was about Steve Jobs? Well, it is – technically — but watching the movie gives one the impression that it is more about the image and concept of the innovative company than about the human Steve Jobs, which as I understand is accurate, because he was not very human to people. However, of all the options of what story to tell, I think they chose an interesting one, because the theme of Jobs’ life as expressed in the movie is about his vision of changing the way we see computers into one that the product should be a natural extension of the individual. So it would make sense that this two hour commercial for Apple follow the same paradigm as the product to capture that essence.

And that thematic approach is what brings transcendence to the movie. It’s about something bigger than Jobs, a way of seeing the world, of changing the world. It’s sad that that “something bigger” was ultimately only a business and a product which cannot give true spiritual meaning or purpose to life.

As a Mac enthusiast myself I was fascinated to see the “story” of the spirit of that venture and of Steve Jobs. That is what a biopic is supposed to do, capture the spirit, not necessarily the historically accurate details of someone’s life. And I think writer Matt Whitely and director Joshua Michael Stern do an excellent job of painting the portrait of that artistic entrepreneurial genius.

They follow him with brief episodic moments of his college days dropping out of the “system” of college, his experimentation with drugs, his original pairing with Steve “Woz” Wozniak in his father’s garage to make the first Apple computer, and on up through his firing from Apple, it’s demise, and Steve’s recapture and reconstitution of Apple into the greatness it originally was.

The bulk of the story is told through the business/entrepreneurship angle, but what little personal human narrative they bring in is rather poignant about the character of this visionary entrepreneur who changed the world.

In the very beginning, we get the faintest glimpse of the fact that his birth parents had given him out to adoption. He wonders with anger “who has a baby and throws it away like it’s nothing?” Of course, this would be prophetic for him as he proceeds to use and cut through every friend he has on the way to the top and throws them away like they are nothing.

Because of his growing obsession with doing something great, he tramples over everyone who ever helped him. When he just gets going, he gathers together neighbors and friends to help build the business and then fails to give them options when the company goes public, while later screaming at Bill Gates for stealing his operating system (they chose not to depict how Steve hypocritically stole the operating system from Xerox). He gets a girl pregnant when he was just starting out, and then proceeds to throw the baby away, as he was thrown away, by denying his paternity and telling the girl, it’s not his problem, “it’s not happening to me.” (Which as an aside, is technically the completely logical consequences of the feminist abortion movement that tries to take away the male’s choice in having the child and then hypocritically tries to force that responsibility back on him through alimony laws.) At one moment in the story, Woz, the very guy whose idea the Apple personal computer originally was, leaves the company and tells Steve, “It’s not about the people anymore for you. It’s about the product.” Again, something that Steve apparently embraced.

But all this megalomaniacal pathos is balanced by some truly memorable proverbial wisdom that Steve spouted about being an inspiration for the odd balls, the rejects, the nerds, who can change the world, and the belief in the limitless possibilities of the human imagination. Not just better, different. There are the required references in there to the 1984 Apple campaign and Job’s statement to Scully, Exec at Pepsi, about not being known for selling sugar water but for changing the world.

We humans are complex creatures of good and bad, and visionaries are too often larger than life exaggerations of that complexity, so the movie is a fair portrayal of such ambiguity and inconsistency. But in the end, it is ultimately a very sad and tragic tale of a man who “changed the world” and provided inspiration for hundreds of millions, while losing his own soul in the process.

But it all got me to thinking about what I call the Salieri Syndrome. For years, I have struggled with the apparent fact that world changers and visionaries and great artists and intellects etc. on the whole tend to be the worst sort of human beings. They tend to sacrifice other people to their “higher cause” in the name of helping people. In short, it seems greatness so often lacks goodness.

Remember Salieri from Amadeus? How he wanted to do great things for God and how God made him mediocre while blessing the infernal monkey Mozart with the highest of musical gifts? Or like Steve Wozniak, who was gifted with the idea but not the greatness to make his idea change the world, while the selfish narcissist Jobs got the job done, and all the glory. How many of us have had youthful desires to change the world, to do something great, something significant with our gifts and lives — but to also be a loving human being, and dare I say pleasing to God? – only to see that users, manipulators, and a-holes seem to be the ones who achieve the most success in their field or change the world. It’s almost as if the two are mutually exclusive. The good are rarely the great, and the great are rarely the good. (Yes, yes, yes, I know there are always exceptions, plenty of exceptions. I am talking here of majority, not absolutes).

Perhaps it is a delusion to seek the combination of greatness and goodness. Maybe that’s like saying I want to be both proud and humble. When you get to the second half of your life and like most people, you either haven’t achieved your dreams, or you realize you never will, you re-evaluate your priorities. You start to think, maybe, just maybe, loving people instead of using them for our purposes, our “dreams” or our “higher causes” changes us, and that’s the world most in need of changing.

The Host: Socialism Kills the Individual Spirit

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A flaccid futuristic dystopian morality tale about Collectivism vs. Individualism. Another kind of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. If it were not for the phenomenally talented acting of Saorise Ronan, this movie would be terribly boring and tepid. As it is, it is only boring and tepid. How the heck do you say that name? “Seer-sha Ronin.”

Okay, the wonderful Saorise plays Melanie, one of the last people left on earth who have not been taken over by a parasitic alien population that gives you shining blue irises. Evidently, these aliens are called “souls” and they are ethereal but physical glowing tentacle little things that you insert into a human by making a cut in the back of their neck. The alien then embeds itself in the human host and takes over the consciousness. The human soul is still there, but it becomes dormant as the new being takes over.

But these are not the evil malicious soulless beings of the traditional Body Snatchers fame. These are actually nicer than humans. In fact, the narrator at the beginning of the film states that “the earth is at peace, no hunger, no violence, the environment is healed, and everyone is courteous to all. Our world has never been more perfect.” There’s just one problem it isn’t our world anymore. So no matter how nice they are, they are still invaders who are stealing our home. AND they are without emotion and physical passion. In other words, this is the worldview that believes that we can only find harmony by using reason and denying the passions of humanity. Maybe a metaphor for the Enlightenment.

Melanie gets caught and has a “soul” implanted in her. But she is a rascally independent spirited individual, who is not easily suppressed, and she fights in her mind with the being that has taken her over, named the Wanderer, or Wanda. The government or collective or whatever it is, has agents who seek to hunt down all the last remnant of humans in order to finalize their colonization of the planet. So they want to use Melanie to track them down by exploring her memories, not accessible to the Wanderer Wanda. Melanie fights back and is able to touch something in the heart of this “soul” being, and Wanda decides to escape the compound and find the humans to help them. Or something like that.

A small group of humans are hiding out in a secret cave in the desert led by a strong leader, Jeb, (William Hurt), who says, “This isn’t a democracy, it’s a dictatorship. A benign dictatorship.” So the obvious comparison is that human society is the opposite of the aliens, it is individualistic but led by strong leaders and has passion and emotion. It’s messier and more dangerous, but it is our humanity and we cannot deny it. Messy freedom is more desirable than safe control. Which is the same theme as the director’s other films The Truman Show and Simone. This is an important theme to him obviously.

But this is a deliberate parable about the danger of collectivist thinking (like socialism, leftism, communism). At one point, an alien says to a human, “You think the loss of your will is too great a sacrifice, but we have to think of the common good.” To which Melanie responds, “Call it what you want, this is murder!” Murder, that is of the individual soul, the freedom of the individual as it sinks into the collective.

Melanie finds the secret human group and they divide over wanting to kill her or keep her alive. Since she might be a spy or she might betray them. So the whole thing is set up to be a moral dilemma that wrestles with our identity as humans. And this is the problem with the movie: Because so much of the struggle is an interior dialogue between Wanda and her host Melanie, you have long lingering shots of Melanie’s face contorting through the inner debate as we hear it in voiceover. This kind of inner monologue does not work well with movies in such an extensive fashion, because it becomes less dramatic and more mental. HOWEVER, as I said, Saorise is such a talented actor, that she made it tolerable.

Wanda begins to prove herself by helping the group, saving someone who tried to kill her, and falling in love with one of the human guys. So the whole thing is about learning to love and accept the “Other.” From fearing them as hostile to seeing they are just like us capable of the same loves and fears and goodness as well as badness. But the moral problem comes when they realize that to release the aliens from humans, they can’t seem to keep either alive in the process. So how do they free Melanie? Are they any different from Wanda’s colonial race by slaughtering her people? It’s a good moral dilemma that carries interest despite the otherwise lame drama.

The whole thing looked pretty low budget with cheesy TV action. I’ve seen better TV action actually. And there were a lot of goofy holes that made me cringe. Like the humans putting on sunglasses at night to hide their pupils after they have been pulled over – like they’re not going to be told to take them immediately off. And then there’s the fact the Melanie does not want to tell the humans that she is inside with the alien still. You see, they believe that the old person is totally gone and taken over. But they aren’t. Then why the HECK would she not want to tell them that she is inside still? Especially if they might kill her because they believe she is not there anymore!!! Argh. Obviously to keep the plot going or there would be no moral or dramatic tension. And then there is the kissing. Obviously written by a woman because it is through the kiss that the inner Melanie is brought out. When she kisses her old boyfriend, she gets angry for him kissing the body that is in control of by someone else. Oh, it’s all a bit too silly. But kinda cute. Chicks will like it.

The silliest of all is the liberal mindset at the end when we discover that you cannot remove the alien from the human “by force. It can only be captured by kindness and love.” In other words, if they just coax the little things out, they’ll come out and everyone lives! Oh puhleeze. And then when the evil alien Seeker who has been trying to find the humans becomes violent herself, but is captured, rather than killing her, the good alien says, “There has been too much death. Not death, exile.” So they send her to another planet deep in space – WHERE SHE CAN “VIOLENTLY” TAKE OVER ANOTHER SPECIES OF CREATURE. And it is violence, even if you do it nicely and softly. Because the point is that it is violence against the individual. This is the stupidity of liberal thinking about judicial punishment. Liberals think that if we just treat evil and violent offenders with understanding and “put them away,” in exile of jail, we will fix the problem. But the reality is recidivism, repeat offenders who are simply released to commit their violent crimes on someone else. And that is exactly what this movie was unwittingly affirming is to release evil upon someone else other than “us.” THAT is barbaric cruelty. The barbarism of unintended consequences of liberal thought.

The cure in this story unfortunately is worse than the disease. It perpetuates the very violence it seeks to decry by not fighting evil with force.

Elysium: A Preachy Apologetic for Obamacare

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Marxist Utopian Tale told by Greedy Hollywood Capitalists. Coming from writer/director Blomkamp, whose District 9 was agitprop for illegal alien activism, and Matt “Elmer Gantry of Leftism” Damon, one should expect it. I have to hand it to Blomkamp, he is a cunning propagandist storyteller.

It is the story of Max, played by Damon, an ex-con trying to go straight with a job in a futuristic dystopian overpopulated, polluted Los Angeles in an overpopulated polluted planet…

Right there, you have to stop and face the fact that the Population Explosion Myth is a pernicious lie that is intended by social engineers to redistribute power and wealth with themselves in power of course. From Malthus to the laughably ridiculous Paul Ehrlich, who is still shamefully treated as an “expert” in the media, this view still finds its way into belief systems of the ignorant and uneducated. Ehrlich was prophesying 40 years ago of mass famines, no natural resources, and billions of overpopulation, all by 2000! Wow, what a respectable scientist – and a prophet! Or should I say, “profit” since he became one of the “evil rich” promoting his lies. And they still give this destructive man a voice in the media.

Okay, I digress. So, back to the movie — all the poor people are left to fend for themselves and be exploited by corporations down on earth without sufficient healthcare. Meanwhile all the rich people have fled to a giant space station in the sky called Elysium where everything is a rich foo foo party and they have magical medical machines that heal every disease or disfigurement known to man (A tree of life metaphor). Of course the evil rich people want to keep those magical medical machines to themselves and don’t want to share them with all the poor people below. So they blow up any spacecraft of “illegal immigrants” trying to get to Elysium for their cures.

Everything goes wrong for Max in the oppressive system of clichés below. He’s just a guy trying to get back on his feet, but he is a victim of police brutality by robot cops who have no law or justice programmed into them, he is given no understanding by a robot government parole officer for his extenuating circumstances, and he is rejected as disposable waste by the company that employs him when he is a victim of radiation poisoning at his plant.

So he is going to die in five days. It’s no wonder he becomes a revolutionary! Elysium is simply a Classist Socialist parable that inspires more hatred of the rich. I wonder if those Hollywood filmmakers, like Damon would like it if a bunch of illegal aliens besieged his mansion to have access to his excessive riches for healthcare. I. Think. Not. Which is why this kind of stuff is just hypocrisy masquerading as concern for the marginalized. I don’t see Damon or Blomkamp giving up their wealth to help heal the world’s poor. Oh, right, they are preaching about it, so they are exempt. Oh, that makes the poor feel better. Yep, that is the definition of hypocrisy. Kinda like receiving Arab oil money to make a movie libeling fracking. Oh, this darkness runs deep.

It’s a pretty cool sci-fi action premise that enables Max to wear an exo-skeleton suit to give him superhuman strength in a transhumanist world where technology is integrated into the human organism. And I must say, Damon’s character is an excellent vulnerable hero who you really wonder at times if he is going to get out of the jams he gets into. That is good storytelling. In a morally bad story.

But the plot turns on the fact that the evil chief of security on Elysium, played by Jodie Foster as a strangely accented slick, cool headed, and dictator-minded villain, plans a coup where she will take over Elysium under a “national security crisis” in Rahm Emanuel and Eric Holder fashion. But in order to do so she must get the special program that will reboot the computer system of Elysium with her as the new president. The only problem is, that program has been stolen and downloaded into Max’s brain. So she sends a vicious bounty hunter after him, and thus an exciting chase movie.

Max gets up to Elysium, but his plan, with the help of the “Resistance” is to download the reboot but do it in such a way as to make ALL PEOPLE ON EARTH citizens of Elysium. This is because citizenship is what keeps them from getting their grubby little hands on the magical medical machines which will, in the words of the Resistance, — I kid you not – “Save Everyone.”

This is a Christ Story. But remember, not all Christ stories are Biblical. In the movie, early as a child, Max’s Mary-like Mother tells him he is special and has “one thing he was born for.” So, Max ends up giving his life to save the planet to heal all people. Isaiah 53:4-5 says that Messiah carried our sorrows and was beaten up for us so that by his death, we are healed.” Elysium is an example of how the Christ story is subverted by another religion of Leftism to twist it away from relationship with God to a revolutionary heaven on earth. If you really want to see the end result of this false religion you want to read The God That Failed by Koestler.

It is also important to note that the movie does unwittingly show that the act of redistribution is always founded on violence. Can anyone say Karl Marx?

The very notion of utopian magical medicine that will save everyone is of course the dog whistle for nationalized healthcare. On the surface it seems like such an obvious compassionate thing to do. I mean, shouldn’t we pull down the rich and redistribute their wealth so everyone can have healthcare? Don’t you care about the dying children? Should the rich have care that the poor do not?

Well, actually most of us do care about the dying children and good healthcare, which is why nationalized healthcare is evil, because it actually results in less healthcare for all at higher costs, less quality, and hurts the poor most of all. We are already seeing the horrible heinous effect of socialized medicine in Europe and now the US. In America, because of Obamacare, health insurance is skyrocketing, people are losing their insurance — almost as many people will be uninsured under Obamacare as before it — intrusive government control breeds disincentive for medical research which is already resulting in less medical advances, which means worse care for ALL, not better care for all. Even some leftists are admitting that there are death panels to ration healthcare which means less health care for all, and especially the elderly and the poor. You see, the rich will always get the best healthcare, but now, Obamacare is creating the very disparity or gap between the rich and poor that it claims to break down! And those selfish bastards who created the laws are exempting themselves from it because they KNOW it will not be good for them (just like those rich on Elysium). Socialized medicine results in worse medicine, less people provided for, and the poor are hurt worst of all.

THE FACT: The profit motive in medicine created the best medicine in history for the most amount of people and more specifically for the poor like never before. Socialized medicine destroys that. If you care about the poor like I do, you should be against socialized medicine. Does this mean there aren’t problems? Of course not. It ain’t perfect. Does this mean we should be for the rich having the best care alone? Of course not! They will get it no matter what. What it does mean is that if you take away the profit motive from medicine in the name of socialist utopian lies about everyone getting healthcare, EVERYONE WILL NOT GET IT, and the government will control it and you will have worse care for less people at higher cost and the poor will be hurt the most. What kind of person would want that kind of world?

Bottom line: If you care about the poor and about the best medicine for all, you should support free market medicine with profit motive, because that is what helps the poor and provides the best for most. But if you believe in government controlled healthcare, you support hurting the poor and worse medicine for all, while feeling as if you care.

2 Guns: Kant Vs. Nietzsche Knockdown! 2 Good Not 2 See

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A great action buddy cop flick about two undercover agents who stumble upon corruption in the CIA, the Navy, and the DEA, and pretty much everywhere. I have not seen such a rewarding and funny action film like this in a long time.

Denzel is Bobby, an undercover DEA agent working on a sting to get a cartel head, and Mark Wahlberg is Stig, an undercover Navy op trying to redeem his own bad past so he can get accepted back into the military, by stealing drug money stored in a bank. The only problem is, they don’t know who each other really is. So when they pull off a bank heist, they get into real hot water when they discover it’s the CIA’s dirty money. So now, they have the drug cartel, and dirty DEA agents, and dirty CIA after them. Don’t worry, I haven’t told you anything that isn’t in the trailer.

Which is kinda too bad cause it does spoil the movie somewhat. On the other hand, it’s no surprise because it is standard Hollywood cop action stuff that shows two good guys with moral flaws who are forced to realize those flaws and overcome them to become righteous peace officers.

The chemisty between Washington and Wahlberg is phenomenal. Bill Paxton kicks A with a brutal performance as the CIA heavy. Washington plays the straight guy who is a good guy turned cynic and Wahlberg the squirrely jokester idealist. Their playful banter, in the midst of gun fights, fist fights with each other, and torture by the bad guys, is standard action movie fare, but rings with much more authenticity than the cardboard Schwarzenneger type lines because it is character driven, not merely “trailer moment” soundbites.

What I found most interesting was the personal redemption of the characters. Bobby is a cynical older DEA agent who has been working so close for so long to the scum underworld of drug cartels that is starting to affect him. He has a Nietzschean philosophy of “whatever it takes” to take down the bad guys. This is the sort of belief that results in an “ends justifies the means” approach to justice. It reduces justice to power. You have to do whatever it takes to achieve your goal or you won’t get it because the world is so corrupt or evil. And the corruption in all the government agencies in this story seem to support that notion. The problem is that it makes him willing to discard Stig in his effort to catch the bigger fish, AND it spoils his ability to trust anyone enough to love them, such as his love interest, Deb, when he says, “I want to love you” as a way of saying he can’t bring himself to trust enough to do so. Of course, there are moments where we see that Bobby does have a soft spot for good that he cannot escape, such as when he kisses a little baby in the midst of a bank robbery (a unique hilarious moment) and when he saves a Mexican coyote from drowning as they cross illegally into the US. But to find his redemption he has to face his lack of morality as embodied in Stig.

Stig, on the other hand is an upbeat idealist who wants to serve his country by being an honorable member of the military, the Navy. His problem is that his idealism blinds him to the corruption that he is serving, in the form of his superior who is using him for criminal purposes and his Admiral who throws Stig under the bus for the sake of protecting a good image of the Navy. Okay, when you’re surrounded by this much corruption it’s hard not to go solo to clear your name from being a panzy for a conspiracy theory. But he maintains his commitment to a military ethos as he fights the bad guys. There is a significant moment in the film where Bobby confronts Stig looking for a righteous solution with, “You think there is a code. There is no code.” The implication is that there is just the nihilist struggle for power by self interested persons. Everyone is corrupt. But Stig replies, “My code saved your life,” as indeed it did because of his willingness to do what is right even if it harms himself. And in the end, Stig’s morality changes Bobby and brings him back in the family of man.

This is the argument between teleological ethics and deontological ethics. Teleological ethics uses morals as a means to an end of achieving one’s purposes. Which means there is no ultimate right and wrong, only what we create for our use. It results in relativism and the ends justifying the means. If we accomplish what we want (which we define as “good”), then how we achieved it is right and acceptable. But deontological ethics say that there is a moral code that transcends our self interest to which we are accountable. Something is right or wrong regardless of what we want.

So for example, in our current climate, those who believe in teleological ethics or the ends justify the means believe that it is okay for the government to use the IRS to persecute political enemies if they can consolidate their political power, or for the NSA to violate individual liberties if we can catch more terrorists. But those who believe in deontological ethics believe that the high office of the president of the United States (and the head of the DOJ and IRS) does not give justification to violate the Constitution, our transcendent political ethical standard, no matter how much good you think you will achieve according to your politics.

Or in the current George Zimmerman trial, the race hustlers and grievance peddlers denied all the evidence of Trayvon Martin’s criminal guilt and all the evidence of George Zimmerman’s innocence and right to self defense, and even encouraged through their code words and dog whistles in the media to destroy Zimmerman. And they created a false picture of Zimmerman as being white, so that it would be a case of white racism against a black (see here). Why? Because they believe their cause of crying racism and black victimhood is so right, that it doesn’t matter if they destroy or kill an innocent man as long as their “higher cause” is achieved. That is teleological ethics. The ends justify the means. Whereas, those who believe in deontological ethics believe that even though it was a tragedy for Martin to die, we must follow the rule of law and evidence which exonerated Zimmerman, and justice should not be denied anyone just because their race is Hispanic or half-white.

The Wolverine: Eternity is a Curse if You Have No Meaning

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After seeing the previous abysmal Wolverine movie, I almost didn’t go to this one. I am just so tired of these superhero sequels that are boring trash. The first ones are often very good, Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, Spiderman, and the sequels tend to be typical Hollywood stupidity: Bigger more ludicrous action sequences and many many more villains, too many villains. Yeah, that’s the ticket!

Well, not The Wolverine. This one is far better than the first, not just in terms of interesting action but in terms of character and personal drama. The premise is that the Wolverine is hiding out in the forest, grumbling about how he doesn’t want to be the Wolverine, I think because it only ended with him killing his beloved. Okay, makes for a reluctant hero, I guess, which is more interesting. But anyway a Japanese chick in a sexy Japanese school girl’s outfit and a samurai sword tracks him down to bring him to a billionaire Japanese businessman, Yashida, who is dying. Turns out, Wolverine, whose real name is Logan, saved Yashida when Logan was a WWII POW in a Japanese camp near Nagasaki, and Yashida was a guard. It was the fateful bombing of Nagasaki with “Little Boy,” the atomic bomb.

So Yashida has spent his company’s millions developing a way to free Logan from his immortality, make him able to die as he would like. To be able to love, marry, have kids, grow old and die with his loved ones by his side. This is what makes the theme interesting. Because Yashida knows that somehow Logan feels that his immortality is miserable, that “eternity can be a curse.” Logan is described as a Ronin, a samurai without a master, and he’s “destined to live forever with no reason to live.” Yashida says, “You seek what all soldiers do, an honorable death, and an end to your pain.” His pain being evidently his loneliness because as another says, everyone he knows dies, not just through murder, but naturally, as he lives on well past them.

So the Wolverine’s journey is one of discovering meaning and purpose after facing the despair of loneliness and meaninglessness of immortality. This is a quite rich theme to explore and is what makes the movie rise above with transcendence. Logan is a man with gifts to help others but who is a selfish man wanting to be left alone. He has lost the only thing that gave him hope, his beloved Jean from a past movie.

So he is like the Existentialist Superhero who has faced the angst of looking into the Abyss and realizing that life has no meaning because everything dies and is gone and forgotten. So the very thing that all of us would consider the most desire blessing, to live forever, is actually a curse if it is not shared in community, if it is not used to save others.

Here is what I find fascinating about the movie…

SPOILER ALERT: The ultimate villain of the movie is not the mutant Viper, a sexy poisonous mutant who seeks to kill Wolverine, but the very man whom Logan saved, Yashida. Yashida is old and dying and wants take what Wolverine does not want, his immortality so he can live forever to pursue his selfish goal of power. This is akin to the Garden of Eden, where God banishes the primeval couple because if they were to eat of the Tree of Life and live forever in their evil state, there is no end to the amount of destruction that would result.

Two selfish loner men, one who is good and one who is bad fighting over eternal life. When they are locked in a battle at the end of the movie, Yashida tells Logan that Logan has decided that “life without end can have no meaning,” but Yashida has concluded that “It’s the only life that can have meaning.”

Here’s the tricky part. Usually, you put the philosophy that is destructive into the mouth of the villain and we see where that belief ends in terms of consequences. In this case, it might be that those show seek to find eternal life are destructive. But sometimes, the villain is partly right and the hero has to learn from the villain what has been twisted. So in this case, Logan actually learns that he is wrong, and that his eternal life does have meaning if it finds purpose and redemption in serving others instead of solitary selfishness, like the villain would prefer.

This reminds me of a very powerful argument for the meaning of life being found in there being an afterlife. If there is no eternal life, if we all are food for worms, if all we have is what happens in this life, then this life truly has no meaning or purpose, and we are all fools wasting our time. No matter what we think or do, no matter what meaning we try to create or find, there is none transcendent of living itself, and all our “meaning” or “purpose” is a self delusion, created by us to make us feel better.

But only if there is a transcendent eternal life can this life have objective true meaning. Things in this life can only have real meaning if they are rooted in something transcendent to this life. If there is no afterlife, then even eating, drinking and being merry is a waste of time because in the end you are nothing, less than zero, and not even a blip of existence on the timeline of eternity. This life has no real objective meaning whatsoever if there is no eternal life.

A side note I find interesting is that Yashida is a reflection of a very real mentality in some of the older Japanese generation that was saved from total destruction by the West, which they continued to hate even after they lost the War. These few Imperialists still believe in their racist superiority and if in power, would do all over again what they attempted in 1941. It shows you that saving evil people doesn’t necessarily change them into good people. Another insightful moral truth.

R.I.P.D.: Evil Must be Punished or There is No Justice

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Men in Black with evil souls instead of aliens. Or Ghostbusters 2013. Ryan Reynolds plays Nick, a cop who finds himself killed in the line of duty and winds up on R.I.P.D. the Rest in Peace Department of “heaven” or whatever it is. They need his skills to help catch renegade evil souls called, Deados, who have escaped the big sucking wind tunnel to the afterworld, in order to hide out on earth in disguise among the living. What Nick, and his veteran partner, Roy, played by Jeff Bridges as a rascally western style sheriff, soon discover is that the evil souls have their own planned apocalypse, and can I say, it ain’t bringing heaven to earth.

Nick discovers he has about a hundred years to help the RIPD, or “take his chances with judgment,” of which he is not too sure he will do well. So he jumps at the chance. The partners have to hunt down the dark souls, whose presence is revealed by their decaying effect on their living quarters. Electricity flutters, and homes fall apart or are covered with grossness and slime. Their own spiritual decay is manifested in them looking ugly and monstrous, but they are able to disguise themselves as normal humans. Their true natures come out when offered Asian or Indian spicy food (I don’t get that one, but you gotta have some rules for the world you create).

Unfortunately, Nick, himself is not a clean soul, as he was involved in taking a little from the coffers of captured criminal gold when he was alive. But he does it only to be able to bless his wonderful loving wife, who means the world to him. Living on a cop’s salary is a temptation to skim.

So, if they can capture the souls and bring them back into a purgatory like holding cell in the sky, then they will eventually be brought to judgment.

Nick’s journey is one of being able to let go of his wife, and redeeming himself since he was taken at too young an age and would be unable to clear his name to her because he wants to right his wrong. But as his partner reminds him, no one dies at a good time, it’s always an inconvenience for our plans.

The bad guys’ plan is based in something called the “Staff of Jericho,” which has ancient roots in the Old Testament times, but it is not really explained so it becomes a mere plot device similar to Ghostbusters. But the point is that it is an ancient pagan religious device that does evil through the spiritual world. In this sense, the picture painted by this movie is a kind of Christian worldview against paganism.

But it’s really more of a Christian worldview subverted by cosmic humanism.

This movie was a mixture of good laughs, warm romance, humanist redemption and SFX. I love the premise. It’s very clever. Because it is an unavoidably spiritual premise, there is unyielding talk of hell and eternal punishment for “bad people.” This is one of those narrative and ethical “proofs for the existence of God.” You cannot tell satisfying stories and you cannot have a moral or ethical universe that does not include real punishment and reward. C.S. Lewis argued that the notion of punishment, far from being the “unfair behavior of a cruel god,” who “casts people into hell,” the notion of punishment is what actually gives meaning and dignity to the human on both a societal level and by extension a spiritual one. If you do not punish a being, then you are denying them the essential dignity to choose good or evil. You are saying that they cannot but do what they do, whether through psychological or internal chemical manipulation or whatever. To punish is not to be cruel at all (if done justly of course), but to affirm that the being could have done otherwise and had the inherent dignity and capability to do so. To freely choose to do good or evil is the thing that dignifies humanity. If we are but victims of our social groups or scientific natural causes, then we are mere puppets to be socially engineered by the elites. And guess who those elites would be? You got it. The privileged ones who believe in those views: The scientific materialists, naturalists, socialists and other totalitarian utopian left wing radicals (to whom the only “evil” is a God who judges – and his followers).

But if there is a God who punishes or judges, then that means he made us with the inherent dignity and power to do right. Our choice not to do right does not make us diseased or sick, but evil. A God who does not punish or judge evil is the most cruel and unjust being possible because billions of innocent victims are denied justice and recompense in favor of the criminal evildoers getting away with it.

Thus the saying, “Compassion to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent.” In justice, if you do not punish evildoers, you are punishing the victims (which includes the family and loved ones of those victims). No, worse, you are torturing them by allowing the evildoer to escape justice which intensifies and magnifies the loss of the loved ones for the rest of their lives. It’s like torturing the victims.

Ah, if there was only a way in which our spiritual crimes could be paid for AND we are forgiven, only then can justice and peace embrace. Now, who could be that perfect mediator to fulfill both justice and grace? Who can save us from this body of death? Thanks be to…

Do I digress?

And that is where this movie falls apart. Since the only taboo in some studio movies is GOD, the filmmakers ditch the only logical and reasonable reality of a personal God who judges and replace him with a “universe that judges in its ultimate wisdom.” The universe in this movie is a godless one. It is a pantheistic view that makes the entire universe as if it is the supreme being. Which is ultimately unsatisfying from a story perspective, because now you have a personal story of personal beings who are interacting not with an ultimate person, but with an impersonal abstract force or accumulation of natural laws. BORING. They could have easily used the generic term “God” which would still mean whatever most people wanted it to mean anyway, but it would have been a more satisfying story with a personal connection. Depersonalizing the deity is suicide for storytelling and theology. Impersonal forces do not “judge,” only personal beings do, because “judgment” is an ethical notion between personal beings.

Another half and half movie. Half good stuff about judgment for our deeds on earth, half terrible stuff about a godless pantheistic universe.

And another thing in this movie: What happens when a bad soul doesn’t want to go back in supernatural handcuffs to the “holding cell” to await his judgment? Well, then the RIPD has guns with special bullets that annihilate the soul, destroy them forever. Do not go to Hell, do not collect one hundred dollars, just straight into oblivion of non-existence.

So I got to thinking. The souls who have escaped are all obviously evil, as evidenced by their manifestation. So, if they are going to go to judgment anyway, what would you rather want (as an evil soul), eternal torment or non-existence? And it seemed to me that I would rather cease to exist than suffer forever under punishment. So from the perspective of a spiritual criminal, getting blown away by the RIPD might actually be preferable to judgment.

But from “the universe in its ultimate wisdom” perspective (Ahem, God’s perspective), it seems to me that annihilation would be the ultimate devaluation of human worth because the lack of existence makes the human worth nothing, while continuity of existence, even in judgment, maintains that the human is in the image of God and therefore has eternal value. Kind of an extension of what I was saying about punishment above.

OR would the devaluation of the human into nothing be the ultimate judgment? I can see why some might see it that way. But then again, would God devalue his own image in a human being? I kinda doubt it.

But whatever the case, we do have the promise from God that “He will render to each one according to his works: to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life; but for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury” (Romans 2:6–8).

And if you want to see if anyone can actually attain this “righteousness,” go here.

The Conjuring: Got Demons? A Little of Jesus Goes a Long Way

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Demon horror. Supposedly true story based on an incident in the 1970s about the most horrifying experience of two paranormal investigators, Ed and Lorraine Warren. The Perron family with five girls enter their new farmhouse out in the rural area (of course) only to discover it is haunted by evil entities. They hire the famous Warrens to figure it out and so the confrontation occurs. That’s pretty much it. Pretty much the usual haunted house story with creaking boards, slamming doors, birds flying into windows, dogs seeing spirits, cold areas, rotten smells, and the usual exorcism scene. But I’m not being negative. These things must all be there and the filmmakers do very well in telling this rich “true” story. It’s a good solid horror film with good creepy moments and good character development, with solid performances by Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson, as well as Lili Taylor.

It’s a kind of origin story for all those Ghosthunters we have nowadays with their fancy electronic equipment and pseudo-scientific means of detecting ghosts and whatnot. But in the 70s, they were just starting out, so we see them setting up an analog reel to reel recorders and flash still cameras with thermostats to catch any change in temperature. And of course, a super 8mm camera. It was a clever homage to today’s more developed scene.

I went to this film with high hopes because I had read it was written by Christians who seemed to express in an interview how much Jesus was the answer to addressing demonic entities, unlike 90% of these supernatural horror movies that only have religion to show how powerless it is against supernatural evil. Okay, maybe 80%.

Well, I can’t say I was entirely satisfied, but kind of pleased. I’m conflicted. This is a mixture of good and bad elements.

The Warrens are depicted not so much as Christian believers as pragmatic users of religion. They believe demons are real, and they have connections with Roman Catholic church for exorcisms and blessings, but they appear to fight evil entities, they do not seem to call upon God in faith. They don’t pray or exhibit anything that illustrates they are true believers. This is a fine distinction, but stay with me.

Now, I don’t pretend to be an expert in fighting demonic spirits and don’t want to be. But it seems to me that as I read in the Bible, demons are mostly cast out in the name/power of Jesus Christ by his faithful followers (Acts 16:16-18), but sometimes even unbelievers can do so by appealing to Jesus (Matt 7:21-23). It’s usually pretty simple, and usually a verbal casting out, as opposed to exorcism, except for more difficult cases that may require prayer and fasting (Mark 9:14-29). But those who are not followers of Messiah can be possessed or even beat up when they try to exorcise demons (Acts 19:13-20).

In the movies, I realize religious relics like crosses and religious rites like exorcisms are much more filmic and visual, but I have always had a problem with the Roman Catholic rite as presented in these films. And it’s used in The Conjuring as well.

Here’s my beef: It seems to create a picture of sympathetic magic, whereby a demon’s power is subdued by proper ritual engagement. You’ve all seen it, and its in The Conjuring as well: They read off a bunch of Latin ritual texts as if saying magic words are where the power lies, rather than the actual appeal to the living God over that spiritual being. It makes it appear that the victory is in some ritual action than in the faith of the believer. That would be magic.

In this movie, the mother is possessed by a demon that wants to get her to kill her daughter. When they start reading off the magical words in Latin, and sprinkle holy water on the mother, it brings out the demonic presence and we see all the typical (not bad, and not stupid, but definitely typical) demonic special effects that take you out of the story and make it only a movie. You know, the special demonic pupils, the face that looks like Linda Blair possessed, and the ability to do levitation and move everything in the house. Unfortunately, the moment that happens, I no longer believe the story and just know I am watching a movie with special effects.

But in this story, they overcome the demon ultimately by saying something like “I command you to go back to hell” and then speaking to the mom underneath by saying, “Don’t let it take you over, remember your love for your children.” In other words, no appeal to Jesus Christ.

So the picture it paints is more one of self-salvation than faith.

Nowhere is anyone depicted as being in relation to God. Religion is a weapon, but not a relational reality. God seems to be more of a tool. We can fight demons and win if we use the right magical weapons. It is good that they show the religious means of battling this demon and they do make reference in the movie to suggesting the girls be baptized in order to protect them, and these are all technically allusions to faith, but without any content. The problem I had was that these were all in context, rituals of sympathetic magic, rather than pictures of faith in context. God is a tool more than a person.

But then again, since it is coming from Hollywood, it’s better than the usual, which is to ignore God altogether.

I should probably be more positive about this positive portrayal of the Christian religion here, but I think the reason I am not all gaga about it is because not once in the entire story did I ever hear the name Jesus Christ appealed to. If you know me, you know I don’t like most Christian movies, so I am not calling for that kind of artificial tripe. What I mean is that in truth, the only way to battle demonic entities is going to be by faith and the power of Jesus Christ, specifically, not in “God” generically. In real life spiritual warfare like this, from what I understand, it is the blood of Jesus Christ that is appealed to that overcomes demons (Heck, even Arnold got it right in The End of Days when he won through faith over human strength).

In this movie, they do say, “In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,” at the beginning of the exorcism, and that weakens my argument somewhat, but I would argue back that it is spoken like magical words. I don’t know what is being said in Latin, (so that is meaningless to us if we do not understand what is being said.) The Warrens use crucifixes around the house, but only because it pisses the demons off to have religious icons. Again, magical tools, not spiritual faith.

At the end of the film they have a super that says, “The devil exists. God exists. Our destiny hinges on which one we follow.” Not bad. Kudos.

But I still got the sense from this film that it was more about magic than faith.

Okay, here’s another strike against my negativity: The story depicts one of the original evils as being rooted in a witch from the Salem trial! Of course, in the Hollywood delusionary universe, witches don’t exist except as lies created by Christians in order to persecute. Well, here, we see that is a lie itself. Witchery is real and it is evil. Sorry, all you pagans. I know you’ll be the next in line to sue me for discrimination — And call me evil.

So, in many ways, the Christian religion is portrayed positively and I applaud them for that. But it is certainly ironic that He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named in Hollywood is not Voldemort, but Jesus Christ (except as a cuss word). You just can’t use those two little words positively. Even when you make a movie that takes demonic spirits as real, God forbid you ever mention the one most relevant name to that reality. It’s the one name that actually has the power to crush evil spirits and therefore is the one name that must not be uttered by Hollywood, Government, Education, Science, Leftism, the Democratic Party (unless they are likening their candidate to him) and demons.

Hmmm, those ladies doth protest too much methinks.

Here I go, violating the Separation of Church and Hollywood: Evil spirits, I cast you out in the name and power of JESUS CHRIST and his blood shed on the cross for the atonement of sins.