Comments (32)

Several of my grown children have advised me
to cease and desist. I agree. This discussion,
without an impartial manager, has descended
into a disconnected and irrational discussion.
Good luck to all participants. I am out. CCS.

Sorry hon, but "balanced" is the last thing we care about when seeing a movie. Like all true believers (how's that for unbalanced!) you figure what you believe in is all the truth there is, and nobody else need bother with anything different.
You have the only true knowledge of what balanced means, anybody disagreeing with you can just take it up with whatever gods you happen to believe in.

Let's see, all catholics are sympathetic to the spanish inquisition. I never heard that one before.

And those Catholics who were not sympathetic, those Muslims who are not sympathetic to the Taliban, those Christians who are not sympathetic to the fanatics among them - what are they doing about trying to balance the freaks in their midst?

Certainly none of us outside the particular holy building or institution are going to have any influence over the freaks. Where is your balance now?

The dictionary has a nice overview of exactly what
"balanced" means: Let us remember that
the original context of this discussion began
with the arts; films that run over two hours;
sufficient length to make any statement and
develop any plot and enhance any theme:
1) being in harmonious or proper arrangement or
adjustment; proportion
2)poise, composure
3)to estimate the relative weight or importance of a thing
4)to serve as a counterpoise;to counterbalance
5)to be equal or porportionate
Here are several historical examples of
an unbalanced view that has harmed many people:
To portray Hitler as "doing the Lord's work"
as he frequently claimed in his 12 years of rule
To portray all Catholics as being sympathetic
to the Spanish Inquistion.
To portray all Jews as greedy money lenders,
etc.etc.
To portray all Muslims as members of the Taliban

Yeah, you know, I was going to convert to Islam from a lifetime of simple atheism, but then I had to repeatedly pgdn through Moody's diatribe and I realized: I don't believe any of that crap. I didn't have to read it, I could smell it from here.

I did go see No Country for Old Men this past weekend, I have to say it had a stronger effect on my than any of the religious nonsense I read here. I mean, I finished the movie didn't I?

Btw, long-winded as I am, if we can't have moderators, can we have a posting-length-limit? I'm really not so fond of the idea some of these folks posting four-plus screens of spam might owe me a new scroll-wheel in future lives, this is quite enough, thanks. :)

If you want people to read what you say, Moody, not cutting and pasting spam would help. If I want random tracts, I can google them, thanks very much.

And if that's not clear enough: let's put it this way.

Admittedly, I do not have the highest regard ever for your particular view of the world.

But *mine* does not in any way involve any misapprehension that causing you and yours any grief whatsoever is of any benefit to myself, my people, or the universe.

This also means, sorry, seems whoever demands I control the film industry left me out of the loop.

You want to scream and wail whenever a movie depicts something you don't want to see... don't come crying to me.

Frankly, a show like 'Charmed' cribbed a few ill-understood ideas from Wicca and we get blamed for 'corrupting the youth.'

It's got fricking *Biblical demons and angels in it,* people. The central message is 'Don't do anything with the Powers. 90210 Will Result.' Just cause they said 'Book Of Shadows' doesn't mean it's Wiccan.

I've seen it a couple times. Put 'magic' in a show slightly short of Seinfeld in terms of people being conflicted about sexuality and interpersonal honesty, and Wicca is not what you get.

So, I say, Balance?

Honesty?

A disadvantage of religious people demanding people kowtow to the RNC platform or be called traitors, and call it Christianity, is...

Well, over.

You want 'balance, Carole, there's a funny thing about 'balance.' It involves orienting to something outside your head.

:)

"Pagan Place: It is not a question of denying
that there are abusive, hypocritical and
extremist elements in Christianity; it is a
question of intellectual honesty and balance."

So, in your mind it's 'balanced' to freak out about a wild notion Harry Potter relates to Wicca more than any other story written in England, but to cry foul when someone illustrates how certain forms of Christianity have gone bad... as seen in the writings of the time... ever?

What 'balance' are you looking for, here?

That's an honest question. Christian censors will tell me to my face that my religion has something to do with heavy metal music Christian kids make with symbolism that only Christians care about... (I'm massaging my own forehead, here. You don't get to deal with the kids who *believe* what they're taught about Wicca in church, and *want that.* Gods. "They told me in Church this is secretly about Satan! Show me the Satan! I'm a vampire! " Guess who gets to deal with that. It'd be funny if it weren't so... not funny. For anyone.)

It's not 'balanced' when you teach kids that your angels-and-devils-world is 'all goodness there is,' and then tell them they're 'damned' for having sex drives or minds of their own, and scream and wail to exclude all other viewpoints.

Your own kids keep vandalizing your churches, and there's always a great hue and cry that hits the national newswires about some doofus suspecting Pagans, but it's always hushed up when they catch who actually did it...

People to whom *Christians* taught that there was some unholy power to be gained by screwing up where people go to pray.

Just occasionally, one of your kids'll come up expecting the likes of me to *approve* of that sort of thing. Heads so full of Fundie-conspiracy theories that they don't *believe* me when I present the rather more boring truth of it.

Doesn't help that such authorities as the Catholic Church will continue to insist in mild terms that such conspiracy theories *are* true, at least on a religious level, which, in turn, Fundies' kids are taught to see as literal...

You talk about 'balance,' but your idea of 'balance' is 'unquestioning of my premises, and defamatory toward other premises,'

Frankly, you deny that the stuff that was apparently depicted in that film 'There will be Blood' *should ever be depicted.*

But, not having seen more than a trailer, I tell you, what you appear to be wanting to censor... If I can judge a movie by its trailer and the Fundie protests I've just been exposed to..

Happens.

Balance is...This is one movie about one set of characters.

Bad stuff does happen in Christian contexts. I'm too Irish to know otherwise. I wish it weren't so, happy as I am in the Lady's sight, but it does happen.

Speaking it is not an 'attack.'

Many wish to claim this is a 'Christian Nation with a Christian heritage.'

Bad things have happened here. Most vociferously in the name of Christianity.

This is a story written before 1920.

Call it heritage.

Do not look away.

And stop telling our kids I'm some wellspring of Satanic power. It's annoying. If you didn't also have a burr up about preventing any positive mention of Wicca as anything *but the Satanic conspiracy of your own belief,* I would come to your schools and bore the crap out of your rebellious youth about world mythology and what Wicca actually is. :)

Well, they'd be bored if they wanted devilish powers and all the other stuff you teach them you're afraid of. ...At the expense of good, real, and whole living people I happen to be part of. :)

You want *balance?* Look me in the eyes before you tell me what your 'balance' is. So happens I know from balance.

(Apologies if this double-posts.)

The ‘Stench of iSLAM’ is all over Borat OBAMA, et al!

OPRAH WINFREY is a ‘Sucker’ or SHAME on Her, a ‘Conspirator/Sympathizer, et al’ or promoter of iSLAM “AL TAQIYAH“ (infiltrate non-Islam Nations, Communities, Government… AND ‘ANY-GAME GOES“?

Please See Pre-Apocalyptic [un] holy Quran/Koran for instructions of the “ISLAMIC-ZIONISM, not JEWS, to take over the World by Proxy, spying, using people etc.. @

Any Koran/Quran: SURA: 2:161, 3:28, 16:106, 8:12, 4:95 et seq!

Obama's "Islamic-COUP-d'etat by proxy, in the Non-Supremeist White-House is almost fooled a lot of US, not-ALL, at becoming the Islamic ‘Black-House” SUPREMISTS!

Malcom X's Daughter is on the Rise for Islama BAMA:

DOWN with 'Nation Of iSLAMica" BLACK-ISLAMIC-AMERICAN(s), not Good NON-iSLAMIC unsuspecting BLACK-American-FOLK!

Much of what you perceive to be anti-Christian hysteria is in actuality an anti Christian-hysteria. Many of us compare Christianity to Astrology because they are both primitive belief systems, but you seldom hear us malign belief in Astrology because - they aren't hysteric about it.

You don't like the movies, don't watch them. You don't like things people who aren't Christian do, don't do them. How much more simple can this be?

To put it clearly: We are against Christian Hysteria, we would choose to ignore you as we ignore the Astrologers, if only you would let us.

Pagan Place: It is not a question of denying
that there are abusive, hypocritical and
extremist elements in Christianity; it is a
question of intellectual honesty and balance.

I am opposed to dishonest and extreme depictions of any group,whose aim is to provoke outrage
and hate, and that would include Christians,
as well as Muslims, Jews and any other group
that co-exists on the planet. We once had
defamation of character and slander laws in this
country which have fallen by the wayside.

As for the individual who compared Christianity
to astrology, he should be aware that astrology
is forbidden to Jews and Christians who take
their scriptures seriously; not embraced. King
Saul lost the throne of Israel for seeking
help from the Witch of Indor.

I dunno, Carole: if you think there aren't extremist and abusive elements in Christianity out there... and haven't been, well, you're just not looking.

Frankly, certain people's harping on and whining about some 'Anti-Christian' agenda in everything that doesn't present your religion as always the unquestionable solution to everything is pretty amusing to me.

The same people that complain about such movies are also the ones who want to ban Harry Potter movies for *not* condemning *my* religion, which has little to nothing to *do* with such films.

the Excalibur that Lafayette Hubbard had begun with.

Hoffrau

the cigarette and alcohol company of Turkey, established by Ataturk in 1920s has been purchased by British American Tobacco BAT Company.

is the Husband of Daughter of Williams Bush in relation with BAT Company? He is the son of a tobacco company, as far as i know.

and the alcohol beverage of Turkey has been purchased by a company in Texas. have you tasted a glass of beverage, sheer liquid with water turns to white.

what are these about OSCAR with sword? at least i wanted to speak of worths and how they are verbalized.

http://web.splashcast.net/web_watch/?code=FKOH2857KH

"Hillary Speaks For Me"

in Istanbul, there is a village in the European part of the city, Mecidiyekoy.

Mecidiye is "from Megiddo" and "koy" is village. MAry of Megiddo, from Her Megiddo.

http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/daisy_khan/2008/02/im_not_saying_barack_obama_is/all_comments.html

Levent Alkan:

CCNL, Israel is so tough on Turkey, in the Bible Anadolu is known as the GArden of Eden, and Euphrates is one of the two rivers from GArden of Eden, according to Bottle of Armageddon, one of seven bottles.

the sixth bottle dries up the river and gold comes out. do you know what is wet hypophysis gland? do you know the Prophet under the River Bank of Euphrates?

February 23, 2008 7:20 AM | Report Offensive Comments

Posted on February 23, 2008 07:20

Concerned The Christian Now Liberated:
Levent, Levent, Levent,

Like I said, it is very unfortunate that Ataturk did not eliminate Islam from Turkey and the surrounding territories.

February 23, 2008 7:27 AM | Report Offensive Comments

Posted on February 23, 2008 07:27

Levent Alkan:

do you know Mary of Megiddo? the sixth bottle from the bottom is the second bottle from the top. the sixth from the top is the second from the bottom.

and the second bottle from the bottom is known with water and compassion. the hormones secreted in the glands are also known as oil and essence in the bottles.

http://www.classicsnetwork.com/showcreativeprint.asp?IDNo=1234

you know the water of olive while processed for oil is not edible and it is poisonous. what is a battle?

yesterday there was a news on the newspaper that this water is now usable and harmless after a process, a new accomplishment and the scientist has been granted a patent.

there may be Honey and Milk in the Bottles too.

CCNL, did you hear about the plane crash in Venezuella And Mountains, the country that did not approve Kosovo, for they accepted it was a USA intervention?

Peru had not approved Armenian bill and there was an earthquake. i am about to appreciate military intervention of Putin in Kosovo.

February 23, 2008 8:12 AM | Report Offensive Comments

Posted on February 23, 2008 08:12

Levent Alkan:

NATO of Israel is always NATO of Israel, and Turkish Army in Northern Iraq is also a NATO case, what shall NATO dry in North Iraq?

February 23, 2008 8:14 AM | Report Offensive Comments

Posted on February 23, 2008 08:14

Levent Alkan:
Concerned Liberated

Islam is known with Israel, after Ahmet prophet was poisoned and His Grandsons were tortured.

i shall ask you whether you know about porks? porks that mate with their mothers and live in their waste, that farmers wipe out once in a while?

porks in the Bible that Christ put His knowledge on them and threw down the Hills? the new and true faith He put on Israelians? Breath of Christ that made Earth mixed with Water a Dove?

February 23, 2008 8:47 AM | Report Offensive Comments

are gooses "eagles in water", Hoffrau?

http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/starhawk/2008/02/on_barak_obama_and_religion/all_comments.html

Levent Alkan:

rythme rhythm rhythmus
rhyme and thymuse

Condaliza Rice has a GRay jacket
and tight pants with silver stripes

Her jacket has one button above her belly
and the jacket is a beautiful butterfly

for a month, Butterfly is in the sky of this city, Bursa
two stars in the left, two stars in the right and three stars in the center

she says Williams Bush is able to concentrate
and speak in rhymes and he has juiceful thymuse gland, he is healthy.

New York Philarmony has been in North Korea for a concert
Los Angeles is the New Jerusalem for Scottish Phoneician Native American Mediterranean Whisky MAn

Lafayette Hubbard is known with Change, as Obama speaks of.
Oprah Winfrey is known with Tom Cruise

HArmonic Convertgenes is after death of Hubbard, in 1987 till 2012
the central intelligence has canceled protection for Obama in the meetings

Lafayette sounds similar to Dodi El FAyed of Egypt Finland and LAdy Diana
Dustin Hoffman, John Travolta and Nicole Kidman are making movies

language is of the highest value for members of Scientology
Adolf Hitler was a painter and Cartoons of Sleeping Beauty in German belong to Hitler.

any leading group based on languages and dictionaries suffered one subject
they didnt heal as many as possible but tried to reach and access to every one to spread the word.

in stead of groups, i invite any one on Earth to unite any word and technique
for the growth of each of humanity on Earth. basicly, this is the intent of the groups

especially in the previous century, hollywood movies could not retrieve the virtues and moral values back
that the actors and actresses gave from their spirituality and flesh.

this is the vital point, also for the authors who write in public
particularly those who write virtues and moral values in public with literature and signs.

especially in religious publics, the actors and actresses were captured
and they must take themselves back. these are sometimes the vital veins.

and they want religions canceled or healed.

February 24, 2008 5:18 AM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on February 24, 2008 05:18

Levent Alkan:

"Williams Bush is able to dance, he danced more than usual in Africa, he has not lost sense of rythme, i can prove this."

this is from a news about Williams Bush and Condaliza Rice.

"harmonic convertgenes" is from Harmonic Convergence.

in case the groups take spiritual guidance from saints and prophets (they are not dead and they are present today) all shall be better. let you be visited and let you communicate in magnetics.

did anybody see the body of Ahmet prophet? has there been an exhibition? has there been any medical check for the body of Ahmet prophet? where is His Hospital?

under the feet of mothers and wherever we humans step on Earth?

February 24, 2008 5:29 AM | Report Offensive Comments

Soja said:

"I did see the film 'Atonement.' The acting and film itself was fantastic. But the moral far too harsh:"

More harsh then 10's of billions of people suffering from birth to death (and then for all eternity) because a girl who didn't know the the meaning of good and evil ate a piece of fruit that gave her the knowledge of good and evil......?

I did see the film 'Atonement.' The acting and film itself was fantastic. But the moral far too harsh: a thirteen year old girl atoning a lifetime for the consequences of an act born of sexual jealousy, especially since a fifteen year old should have borne the blame for it as well.

Religion is so yesterday. Any attack on this superstitious claptrap is fine with me. Religion has all the credibility of astrology, or palm reading.
It is what Bertrand Russell called the monster at the gate, preventing us from moving ahead into a new golden age...and that it must be destroyed before we can move ahead on into it.

I'm with you Johnny B Goode.

CAROLE CAMERON SHAW:

I understand your distress at the way "Christianity" is portrayed in the movie "There Will Be Blood," but in point of fact there are such churches full of such loonies. Perhaps the screenwriter's intent was to show that there was no redemption from madness either way.

Some of the craziest persons on the planet preach and pray in asylums called churches. Get out of the house and go find them. Then you'll understand why so many persons despise what they conceive Christianity to be.

Rarely going to films, I read several reviews of
this one, including a long synopsis before I
decided to go. I did see "Atonement", also
recently, and thought it was a powerful and an
effective work of art. Sorry about the missed
title and also sorry I missed the fact it was
based on an early novel. Nonetheless, I stand
by my comments, which are not taken from other
sources, and I doubt if the novel approaches the
anti-Christian hysteria of the film. It was
because it sounded interesting that I went
in the first place. However, no one warned of
that which I have already identified. By the
way, for the record, according to the Hebrew
Scriptures. there must be blood, for ultimate
redemption, so I have no problem in dealing
with moral themes that include blood and death.

Rarely going to films, I read several reviews of
this one, including a long synopsis before I
decided to go. I did see "Atonement", also
recently, and thought it was a powerful and an
effective work of art. Sorry about the missed
title and also sorry I missed the fact it was
based on an early novel. Nonetheless, I stand
by my comments, which are not taken from other
sources, and I doubt if the novel approaches the
anti-Christian hysteria of the film. It was
because it sounded interesting that I went
in the first place. However, no one warned of
that which I have already identified. By the
way, for the record, according to the Hebrew
Scriptures. there must be blood, for ultimate
redemption, so I have no problem in dealing
with moral themes that include blood and death.

"Juno" chronicles how a totally individualistic girl disrupts the status quo by doing whatever the hell she wants when fate strikes her a bit of a bum hand."

For those who have not seen JUNO- a review can be found at this link:

Juno and the Culture Wars
How the movie disarms the family values debate.

http://www.slate.com/id/2180275/pagenum/all/

I found JUNO to be socially significant. The story of abortion as a convenient answer to an unwanted pregnancy has yet to be played out.

Found in yesterday's news:

"An artist killed herself after aborting her twins when she was eight weeks pregnant, leaving a note saying: "I should never have had an abortion. I see now I would have been a good mum."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/02/22/nartist122.xml

Carol-

I would suggest you look at the story as a moral parable, not as how one ought to act, but a warning to guard your soul against greed and arrogance and the corruption that both cause. The point of the novel was that wealth can not redeem you, or make you a better person. And of course, oil drew out the worst and destroyed them both.

Carol-

I would suggest you look at the story as a moral parable, not as how one ought to act, but a warning to guard your soul against greed and arrogance and the corruption that both cause. The point of the novel was that wealth can not redeem you, or make you a better person. And of course, oil drew out the worst and destroyed them both.

I don't believe in Free Will. Who does God say won?

purplemartin.

you accuse carole of c&p. please provide a link.

Carole, I think it's called "There Will Be Blood," not "There Must Be Blood." It's based on 1920's Sinclair Lewis novel called "Oil!" so you should probably blame him for the plot.

And, by the way, you'd have a little more credibility if you didn't just cut-and-paste most of your input from other sources (the part with para returns resulting in a half-column is cut-and-paste. The full column lines are, I assume, yours).

I have recently seen the highly recommended
film "There Must be Blood". The critics have not
been honest by obscuring a major theme of
the film: which is a hideous parody of Christian
redemption and the atonement of Jesus Christ,
which is central to the Christian faith. The only
comporable propaganda that comes to mind were
the twisted Nazi characterizations of the Jew.
The plot is contrived and recontrived. The
protaganist is forced to repent and ask for the
"imaginary" redeeming blood of Christ rather than face jail for a murder. The antagonist, a brutalized son of an abusive, Christian father, dies, repudiating God,while begging for an economic lift in the oil business, having swapped his cruel misunderstood atonement for a glass of Johnnie Walker. The hero's work is now finished. He has abolished hypocrisy with brutality and murder.
The film says more about those who wrote and produced it than anything else. Sadly, I would guess they all come from, or know of, very messed up Christian families; and as always, the tortured theme of a rejecting and hateful father figure emerges. In many ways, it breaks the heart.
As a Christian, I am deeply offended by the
dishonesty and violent theatrics of the film.
"Atonement" should receive any prize over
this contrived striptease of humanism and
an ill conceived, dishonest depiction of redemption that has stood the test of time.
If this is American film genius, then that
which wss once a great thing of excellence, has
become a destructive vessel of the black arts.

I have recently seen the highly recommended
film "There Must be Blood". The critics have not
been honest by obscuring a major theme of
the film: which is a hideous parody of Christian
redemption and the atonement of Jesus Christ,
which is central to the Christian faith. The only
comporable propaganda that comes to mind were
the twisted Nazi characterizations of the Jew.
The plot is contrived and recontrived. The
protaganist is forced to repent and ask for the
"imaginary" redeeming blood of Christ rather than face jail for a murder. The antagonist, a brutalized son of an abusive, Christian father, dies, repudiating God,while begging for an economic lift in the oil business, having swapped his cruel misunderstood atonement for a glass of Johnnie Walker. The hero's work is now finished. He has abolished hypocrisy with brutality and murder.
The film says more about those who wrote and produced it than anything else. Sadly, I would guess they all come from, or know of, very messed up Christian families; and as always, the tortured theme of a rejecting and hateful father figure emerges. In many ways, it breaks the heart.
As a Christian, I am deeply offended by the
dishonesty and violent theatrics of the film.
"Atonement" should receive any prize over
this contrived striptease of humanism and
an ill conceived, dishonest depiction of redemption that has stood the test of time.
If this is American film genius, then that
which wss once a great thing of excellence, has
become a destructive vessel of the black arts.