Monday, December 3, 2007

Where religion enters, common sense leaves

Before you even ask, prom was great. I don't think I've ever exhibited such cam-whore-ism before but it was still fun. And respect to Amoz for understanding that when your Dad drives all the way to Shangri-La hotel to pick you up at eleven at night, you do not just tell him to turn around, thank you very much, because you've decided to go for the post-prom party. Sheesh. Pictures will be up on my facebook account. :) Even managed to get a picture with Sam- one of the most camera-shy guys I know (As opposed to Jing Wei who's actually a bit of a girl when it comes to taking photos. Which is the polite way of saying he's a bit of a cam-whore). And the food while paletable was definitely dissapointing considering we paid 98 friggen bucks. Oh well.


The main reson I'm making this post though is about the Golden Compas movie coming out. No, I'm not going to watch it but not for some religious reason. It's because I've read the book and I just don't feel like coughing up money to watch some director's interpretation of the thing in film. That and I don't think Daniel Craig's that cute. No, what really gets me is the way the Christian church is (once again) responding to a movie/book with anit-Christ elements. Years ago when His Dark Materials was just a book, they did nothing, said nothing. Now that it's a movie, they're out condemning it in force as anti-Christ. Which acts as excellent publicity and makes even more people buy the book and watch the damn movie.
You'd think after what happened to with the Da Vinci Code (and to a certain degree, Brokeback mountain) they'd have learned. The only people who'd listen and not support this 'evil, evil' thing are the Christians who are least likely to be taken in by any such messages (Though if you're the kind of person who'll parrot these beliefs without actually having read the thing to formulate your own opinion, you might actually be gullible-read:stupid- enough to be taken in...) For everyone else... put it this way: if you were a start-up writer who didn't want to take the risk of engaing in a major advitising campaign to publicise your work, make sure one of your reviewers mentions it has anti-Chirst elements. After that, sit back and let the church do everything for you.

Okay, that's not technically true but I really don't understand why there's this huge fuss about the Golden Compas. Firstly, there's nothing particularly obvious in the way it's anti-Christ. So the angels are gay and god dies. Big whup. Nowhere in the book is anyone led to believe that this is anything other than purely fictional. And that Christians assume saying "oh, it's anti-Chirst" is going to make their non-Christian friends not watch the movie... well. The term I'd like to use here is "very special kind of stupid". Why should they care? Frankly I'm a Christian, I've read His Dark Materials (not for awhile though. If anyone could loan me a copy of The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass, I'd be grateful), The Da Vinci Code and Brokeback Mountain and I have to say: so what? These authors are entitled their views and any thinking individual should be more than able to realise they're writing fiction. Why do Christians then insist on sullying themselves with denouncing these works and making themselves look- unfortunately- stupid?


Were that I knew.

Ironically, are all the dungeons and dragons type novels then not anti-christ too? Oh yes, they're fictional but they propagate a world without god and the existence of other dieties. Sacralige! They too must be burned!

Yay. Go stupid. (waves pompoms)

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