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Comment count is 16
kamlem - 2015-02-15

I'm glad more christians are disagreeing with the hateful deity described in their bible. I'm not sure how they can reconcile that though.


Binro the Heretic - 2015-02-15

Hey, progress is progress. Don't knock it.

Even if they have to take baby steps, at least they're moving forward.


Rodents of Unusual Size - 2015-02-15

I was expecting something hateful and preposterous but luckily it's just preposterous.

I find myself admiring the filmmaker for at least trying to represent Christians that don't want to deride anyone who differs even slightly from their value system. It's a warming thought and gives me hope.


Xenocide - 2015-02-16

They probably reconcile it by ignoring the cruel deity part and instead reading the part of the bible with the divine guy who walks the Earth preaching love and acceptance.

Who told you that the Bible is internally consistent. Who fed you these lies.


Bort - 2015-02-16

"I'm glad more christians are disagreeing with the hateful deity described in their bible. I'm not sure how they can reconcile that though."

It's kind of the other way around. The hatred is there first; after that comes finding the Bible verses to back it up. More often than not it's necessary to go to the Old Testament to find the appropriate verses; folks who focused on the Jesusy parts of the Bible would find vastly less justification to be assholes.

Especially in the US, the fundamentalist tradition got tied to this "selective literalism" process as a way to justify slavery -- ancient Jews practiced slavery, New Testament Jews recognized it as the law under Rome, but any actual comprehension of Christ's teachings about love and compassion would immediately rule out slavery as a Christian practice. So it became necessary to come up with a more convoluted, ridiculous way to read the Bible, and ultimately subvert the good that it was intended to do. (And yes, I say that without a doubt it was intended to do good, especially the New Testament. People who say that Christianity was created to oppress people forget the environment it sprung up under -- Rome at the peak of its power. Christianity was subversive, not supportive, of Roman principles.)

In the OT, picking up sticks on the Sabbath is to be punished by death, and by the way the Sabbath is actually Saturday. The "King of the Hill" people really missed an opportunity for Arlen's Biblical literalists to go after Hank Hill for doing weekend yardwork; I really wanted to see a scene of Hank screaming and then trying to outrun a torch-wielding mob on his riding mower. (All torches were lit on Friday, again in compliance with the OT.)


kamlem - 2015-02-16

Feel free to get specific and quote the exact verses mentioning the owning of other people as property in a bad light. Slavery is mentioned several times in the new testament. I'm sure you'll find it.

For someone complaining about fundamentalist selective literalism you are sure selective in describing the teachings of Jesus as being that of love and compassion. Just what was the punishment for the grand crime of disbelieving in Christ's religious claims, say, due to an absence of evidence? What was his stance on adherence to OT laws that did not involve burnt offerings?

Still, the more Christians finally admit their deity is not omni-benevolent or a source of absolute morality, the better for the rest of us.


Bort - 2015-02-16

With regard to slavery, there are the teachings of St. Damian of Corinth, who loudly professed strict opposition to slavery in all its forms. He was promptly killed by Roman soldiers, along with all his followers, and every last trace of his writing was obliterated.

I bring up the hypothetical St. Damian to point out that you aren't going to find direct condemnations of slavery itself in the New Testamant, and there's a reason for that. Couldn't hurt to read up on Philemon and Onesimus, though:

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/2012/10/11/the-book-o f-philemon-does-not-defend-slavery/

Personally I think the author of that piece does himself a disservice by neglecting the politics of the time: any message more explicit than "Christians shouldn't keep Christians as slaves" would have been subversive. But it's really not difficult at all to extrapolate from there that slavery, period, was wrong.


That guy - 2015-02-16

Not being a bible-literalist is a good start.


kamlem - 2015-02-16

Since just being Christian often resulted in death during the time the texts that form the bible were written, I'm not sure what your point is.

Theologians are still arguing over whether Onesimus was actually a slave, and even if he were it is not much different to the "other Jews get a semi-free pass" stance of the OT, since his conversion to Christianity is conspicuously present in the story.

Not that any of this matters any more, except for when Christians assert their deity as some kind of moral dictator. Christian adherence to slavery is thankfully a domino that toppled long ago, straight onto the whole women wearing pants thing.


Bort - 2015-02-16

"Since just being Christian often resulted in death during the time the texts that form the bible were written, I'm not sure what your point is."

My point is that texts advising Christians to directly challenge Roman law were not likely to survive to the modern day, nor their authors to the next day. The 300 years leading up to Emperor Constantine were not one continuous period of Christian persecution; as in most things, the Romans were primarily interested in the people not causing trouble.


kamlem - 2015-02-16

Perhaps one day such a page will be found from someone with not such an unfortunately loud mouth, with a verse on the opposite side telling us to wash our hands before preparing and eating food.

Until then, apologists have to deal with what they have presented as evidence, while also explaining how the laws of the OT deity are contextually moral.


Binro the Heretic - 2015-02-15

I think this is a sign the tipping point has just about been reached.


Mother_Puncher - 2015-02-15

I saw an advanced screening of this. There is a pretty raunchy sex scene in it right before the assassination attempt. It seemed kind of out of place but whatever.


The Mothership - 2015-02-15

Looks like one of those really dumb movies with horrible acting and a lousy plot but it also has one of those messages, you know a moral, and you can't hate the movie no matter how hard you want to? You know what I mean.


Xenocide - 2015-02-16

This trailer seems really terrified of directly acknowledging gay people, which seems weird if you're going to do a movie about not hating gay people.

Or maybe this is actually more conservative than I think and Mean Congressman is actually talking about casting out divorced people or interracial couples or something.

What I'm saying is that this movie's heart is in the right place but it really needs a scene where Congressteen Churchgoer walks in on a sloppy nude gay makeout, nods and says "Jesus is cool with this."

Then he just stands there, watching.


Bort - 2015-02-16

We'd need two complementary scenes: one where he's condemning a heterosexual coupling because the guy is just using her for sex, and the extended gay sex scene with a Mentos-grade thumbs-up because the two of them genuinely love each other.


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