Quoting Anthony Ensolen, “reduction is a prerequisite to cruelty”. Here I maintain a list of cases where Christians were summarily reduced as a prerequisite to the cruelty coming our way. Had this been any other demographic, the offended person would be given voice and his own news program:
Movies
- Chappie – I was watching this movie on a trip back from Japan to kill time. It seemed pretty interesting theme on Artificial Intelligence/Robots/Consciousness but I started to get that “social engineering” feeling when the villain mentioned his “Church” and at a couple points crossed himself as Catholics are known to do. A partially visible cross with corpus on it showed about his neck. The religious affiliation of the bad guy had absolutely no relevance to the movie—just another cheap shot by Hollywood for reduction purposes–the prerequisite to cruelty
- Falcon Rising – starring black American martial artist Michael Jai White. The villain, a corrupt police officer who wears a large crucifix is symbolically killed off with same—Falcon grabs it off his chest and thrusts it into him. The movie on its own was a total piece of crap and I don’t know why I let my brother talk me into watching it.
- King Arthur – Somewhere in the movie was a plot about the origins of the legend in the waning centuries of the Roman Empire in Britannia. But the director was too busy revising history to make the Catholic Church look corrupt and bad (probably should have waited to the Renaissance). All the good guys were pagan with the exception of Arthur who was portrayed as Christian but ascribing to the heresy of Pelagianism. This would have escaped the low information viewer. And of course the “evil” church had the good and rational Pelagius excommunicated and executed when in fact not much is known about Pelagius other than Augustine debated him and regarded him as saintly. But far be it from Hollywood to let truth cloud a good story or an agenda. We watched over an hour of the movie before decided it wasn’t worth another second based solely on other considerations like entertainment value.
- Bad Asses – The first of the series, Bad Ass, was quirky, funny and not laced with a “message”. It was R rated for language, but I liked it because it was atypical. The sequel with Danny Glover was similar but not as good. The third installment was the typical crap, stereotyping Southern culture and painting the Duck Dynasty types as bigoted red necks. I turned it off after 20 minutes. If the shoe were on the other foot, the movie would have been condemned soundly.
Politics
- Little Sisters of the Poor – Obama’s affordable care mandate for contraception to bully the charitable organization that treats dying patience. Maybe we should call them Little Hussies of the Rich? Click
Science
- See my earlier post on Nat Geo’s cheap shot at the bible here.