Tuesday, June 10, 2014

Movie Note: God's Not Dead

All right, I broke down, went to the dollar theater and saw God's Not Dead. This is the movie that had a budget of about 2 million dollars and managed to rake in 60 million and the box office. Though I'm a Christian, I will admit to having an aversion to so-called "Christian Entertainment." It tends to be preachy and poorly produced, and I don't want to be preached at for two hours, I want to be entertained.

But I was curious.



Anyway, the idea is that an atheist philosophy professor wants his class to write "God is dead" on a piece of paper (extra credit for lower-case 'g') and sign it so that they can dispense with any discussion of Him in the class. He's what I like to call an Evangelical Atheist, who is interested in propagating his disbelief in as many others as possible.

Anyway, one student refuses and the professor tells him to either drop the class or prove God exists. There are a number of intertwining stories and they all end almost exactly the way you expect them to. There's little to no surprise, but as far as I'm concerned, the acting was pretty good, it wasn't particularly preachy, and It was an enjoyable way to spend a couple hours.

It's probably not going to convert anybody, but if the box office is any indication, there;s rather a market out there for movies with values that don't involve shooting people and boinking everything that moves.

It should be streaming soon, and on DVD, so, if you're so inclined, and want to see something Christian in nature, Go for it.

By the way, if you want to see any clearer indication of the disconnect between the public and the mainstream media, at least as represented by the movie critics, you need look no further than the difference in ratings between the critics and the audience on Rotten Tomatoes.

People are hungry for something that reflects more traditional values. I hope we get more well made stuff.

Also, [spoiler alert] the professor tends to rely heavily on scientists for his proof of the non-existence of God. This is not atypical, but I don't understand the concept: Stephen Hawking may be the smartest man ever to draw breath, but, frankly, his numbers are mostly incomprehensible to me and I have to take it on FAITH that the people who DO understand them are representing them accurately. 

With so much of science happening today in theoretical fields, we have to have a whole lot of FAITH in the purity of motive of the scientists that are presenting them to us. And with the fact that so much of the whole climate change/global warming/let's-go-back-to-the-stone-age-environmental-wacko-stuff is a hoax and a fraud, I am not all that kindly disposed toward taking theoretical scientists at their word.

In addition, I have a problem with this: By causing his students to write "God is Dead," he expects them to take on faith that HE is correct, while offering no proof of his thesis. This is not uncommon on college campuses. I've spent enough time there to know. Oddly, the only religion (other than Evangelical Atheism) that is welcome on today's campus is Islam. The lefties on campus will fall all over themselves trying to prove themselves less "Islamophobic" than thou. The irony is, of course, that Islam is the only major religion that truly wants to force their conversion. But then, liberals don't understand irony, right Alanis?

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