The Faith & Religion mega Thread

Originally Posted by H_TeXMeX_H The ending is particularly ridiculous, I walked out when I saw that.

I tend to walk out after the ending of most movies whether I enjoy them or not.

Personally I enjoyed 2012 - Sure the whole thing was ridiculous but it was a good action movie. It is much the same way as I felt about the Bourne movies. The one Bourne book I read was so full of real world "that wouldn't ever happen" scenarios I didn't enjoy it at all. However my ability to suspend disbelief and enjoy something for the 90-120 minutes the average movie takes especially when it is otherwise a good action flick is somewhat higher.

P.S.
The world DID end! Everything you think you're seeing is simply your mind trying to make sense of the void that surrounds it now.

I can only suspend my disbelief when they don't try to make it plausible, or it is not meant to be taken literally or seriously.

The main reasons why I didn't like 2012 was the bad acting and the absolutely ridiculous ending.

The main reasons why I didn't like the Bourne movies was bad acting and the use of handycam. I see more and more movies made by trying to save money or impress the audience by hiring the neighbor's son Jimmy to grab a handycam and film the whole movie with it, instead of a professional camera and crew.

* SPOILER * !!!

The part I'm talking about are the arks. Come on now, who the hell thought of this ?
I was expecting spaceships or flying vehicles ... but arks ... wtf !?
That's when I walked out, pretty close to the end I think.
It doesn't even make sense from a religious POV.
Anyone who has read their bible knows that God promised never to do another flood.

I also find the "handycam" style of film-making impossible to watch. Whether I'm looking at hack home-movies from relatives, or yet another movie that's trying to ape Blair Witch Project, the end result is that it makes me nauseated ... and I get the heck out of that theater and sneak into the one next door.

There are, frankly, a lot of movies that get released these days in which both the cinematography and the editing are (whether intentionally or not) "execrable hacks" that will not earn my ticket or my popcorn.

Originally Posted by H_TeXMeX_H * SPOILER * !!! The part I'm talking about are the arks. Come on now, who the hell thought of this ? I was expecting spaceships or flying vehicles ... but arks ... wtf !? That's when I walked out, pretty close to the end I think. It doesn't even make sense from a religious POV. Anyone who has read their bible knows that God promised never to do another flood.

It makes no sense to do spaceships or flying vehicles, from a perspective of physics (can't carry enough cargo), finances (exhorbitant expense), and politics (the purpose is to save the most people within limited resources).

And why should a work of fiction be bound by what the Bible says?

Originally Posted by SL00b It makes no sense to do spaceships or flying vehicles, from a perspective of physics (can't carry enough cargo), finances (exhorbitant expense), and politics (the purpose is to save the most people within limited resources). And why should a work of fiction be bound by what the Bible says?

If they wanted to save the most people they would have dug a big bunker ...

Originally Posted by H_TeXMeX_H If they wanted to save the most people they would have dug a big bunker ...

Bunkers leak, so they're not the best idea in a flood. They're also not very mobile.

This is the sort of bunker you'd really want... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3EAJex1RVo might as well enjoy yourself if you're locked inside. Esp as most of the contents would be made of Jesus...

Originally Posted by acid_kewpie This is the sort of bunker you'd really want... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3EAJex1RVo might as well enjoy yourself if you're locked inside. Esp as most of the contents would be made of Jesus...

Plausible, in case you don't trust the gubmint with your life in case of apocalypse. You can make a bunker waterproof, and resistant to a certain amount of pressure. I would dig it into a mountain and make a large vault door, kinda like...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQPGJSIq3ys

Originally Posted by H_TeXMeX_H I can only suspend my disbelief when they don't try to make it plausible, or it is not meant to be taken literally or seriously. The main reasons why I didn't like 2012 was the bad acting and the absolutely ridiculous ending. The main reasons why I didn't like the Bourne movies was bad acting and the use of handycam. I see more and more movies made by trying to save money or impress the audience by hiring the neighbor's son Jimmy to grab a handycam and film the whole movie with it, instead of a professional camera and crew. * SPOILER * !!! The part I'm talking about are the arks. Come on now, who the hell thought of this ? I was expecting spaceships or flying vehicles ... but arks ... wtf !? That's when I walked out, pretty close to the end I think. It doesn't even make sense from a religious POV. Anyone who has read their bible knows that God promised never to do another flood.

Interesting how differently we see things. I agree about the acting in 2012 but totally disagree with it in the Bourne movies which I thought were very well done for the most part. I'm not sure what you're talking about with the handy cam - those movies seemed well done to me and nothing like the Blair Witch Project home movie feel.

Additionally I was happy to see they had something unexpected at the end of 2012 - All along I had thought they were going to go with spaceships. As to calling them "arks" I don't think they intended that to imply the flood in the movie had any religious significance but rather were just using the name from the only analogous situation most known to Western people (as opposed to other mythologies). It is much like someone saying "as old as Methuselah" when speaking of someone's age - they're not actually implying someone has the extremely long life of a biblical patriarch (over 900 years) but simply using hyperbole to suggest somebody is very old as compared to other living humans. They say Methuselah because most Western people even if they don't read the Bible know he is reported to have been the longest living human. 2012 isn't the first movie (or even book) to use "ark" to denote the concept of gathering together enough life (animal and often plant and even microbe) to restart life after a cataclysm or even start life anew on a new planet. It is a fairly common theme in several sci-fi stories I've read or even seen in movies or TV shows.

Bad acting detracts from things but all by itself doesn't kill it for me. Except for one or two exceptions I thought most of the actors in Babylon 5 shouldn't be allowed to even do HS plays let alone a TV series but despite that I did watch the show because it had a good story line.

Originally Posted by H_TeXMeX_H Plausible, in case you don't trust the gubmint with your life in case of apocalypse. You can make a bunker waterproof, and resistant to a certain amount of pressure. I would dig it into a mountain and make a large vault door, kinda like... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQPGJSIq3ys

I heard this great quote from a civil engineer once: "Waterproof just means it's harder to get the water out".

"Everyone is coming to terms with the fact that there are still thousands and thousands of morons walking amongst us, after they weren’t magically spirited into Heaven just because an old lunatic assured them they would be."

http://newsthump.com/2011/05/23/morons-still-here/

Originally Posted by MensaWater As to calling them "arks" I don't think they intended that to imply the flood in the movie had any religious significance

Right, so they built things specifically called arks to survive an apocalyptic flood, put people and animals on it, and this has no religious meaning or ties ? Sorry, but I don't buy it. The very notion of apocalypse is a religious notion.

As for Bourne movies, the first movie was decent, but not my style, the others, I think maybe Ultimatum for sure had handycam, I tried to watch it, then I threw away the DVD.

That's a fairly pedantic definition of apocalypse and doesn't match all dictionary definitions of the word:
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/dic...ord=apocalypse

While one definition makes it clear the word originated in JudeoChristian texts other definitions make it clear that it is used in a broader sense to mean devastation on a grand scale (e.g. nuclear war, comet strike, the sun going nova). These are things that can happen without divine intervention.

Similarly one of the definitions of ark is "A large, commodius boat".
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/dict.asp?Word=ark

Words have origins and ascribing meanings to current usage based only on origin doesn't even rise to the level of sophistry.

Would you suggest that anyone that calls someone a "quisling" for a treasonous act is somehow confused and believes that person to actually be Major Vidkun Quisling of Norway even though he died in 1945? Wouldn't it more reasonable to assume despite its origin as that person's surname that they are in fact using its current meaning of "traitor"?

This reminds me of a feminist essay I read in college in which the author tried to imply that people that use words regarding fornication as a way of showing how they wish to harm women. Thinking of it led me to this copy:
http://www.bhcc.mass.edu/LanguageLab/Four_Letter.pdf
She clearly left her premise to try to make her BS point and nearly everyone in the class I was in that discussed this essay (both men and women) agreed she had done so. The part that got me the most was her assumption that people today somehow seemed to know the esoteric etymology of the "f" word and when using it meant they wanted to beat on women.

Originally Posted by H_TeXMeX_H I don't think you've said anything interesting or useful in this thread or others.

I honestly don't care if you find what I've said interesting or not. I participate in discussion only if it is interesting for *me* or if there's a chance of learning something useful, otherwise I leave. Take it or leave it. Nobody forces you to answer, by the way, so if you do not enjoy discussion you're free to leave or ignore me.

Originally Posted by H_TeXMeX_H I challenge you to make and support an argument with facts,

Doing so typically results in a week of forum squabbles with no outcome, no interesting discussion, and no new information. I'm not interested.

Originally Posted by H_TeXMeX_H I do care about the consequences of those beliefs.

Exactly which consequences? I can't predict the future, for example, and it is unlikely that you possess such ability.

Originally Posted by H_TeXMeX_H I do not deny that there may exist good, religious people, but I think it is in vain, because the system they support is bad, so in the end two rights don't right a wrong.

You should be more specific. What system and what is "bad"?

Originally Posted by H_TeXMeX_H However, I do prefer to avoid religious people, because I don't trust them, as I don't think they can think and reason properly, at least from what I've seen.

If this data is correct, there's only 150000000 atheists in the world and 800000000 "non-religious" people. So you'll have to avoid 5 out of 6 (or 6 out of 7) people. Have fun trying to do it.

Originally Posted by H_TeXMeX_H I would also have to take into account historical accounts, even tho I don't believe much in history either, I know they are force to be reckoned with, a violent, dangerous force.

Your problem that you're thinking in "black and white". In your understanding things are either "good" or "bad", "reasonable" or "nonsense", while typically everything is a mix of those opposites.
Even if you do take history into account, the picture is not obvious. Religion, as anything else produced both "positive" and "negative" outcomes. IN the end, everything "good" and "bad" could be probably traced to individual people (pope that launched crusades, for example), so (IMO) if there were no religion something else would be used instead of it. (AFAIK) USSR was officially an atheistic country (they did a pretty good job blowing up churches), and that didn't make much of a difference. In my opinion, problem is not with the religion, but with individual people (leaders). In the end every religion is most likely just a set of legends, rituals and traditions (which may or may not be correct), and nothing else. People, however, have a power to misinterpret information in the way they want, and force other people to believe it. Give power to wrong people, and they will use ANYTHING to justify another war. I do not have enough data to judge religion - christianity alone is very old and would require a large historical study in order to understand its impact. I can, however, judge actions of individual people.

Anyway, I won't argue with you - in the end, all of this doesn't matter.

Due to disruptions caused by volcanic ashes, the judgement day has been postponed until the 21st October 2011.

Thank God for that. There's a Dream Theater gig in London in July. I'd kill myself if I were to miss it.