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God's Not Dead (2014)
Horrible and awful anti-atheist hit piece
Wow, how bad can this be I thought before I started watching it, and I wasn't disappointed. You have the humanist reporter badgering the poor Ducky Dynasty star about duck hunting, You have the atheist lecturer who for someone reason makes everyone sign a note agreeing "God is Dead." The student who refuses to sign, Josh Wheaton, it later tells some pastor that of the 80 or so people in there, none of them have really heard about Christianity? Really? None of them have heard about Christianity and Jesus? Did they wake up from a 2000 year coma? Wheaton in his debate about a god states that the Big Bang is evidence that the Bible got it right, because the Big Bang has a beginning to the universe and the Bible has a beginning. But Genesis is not about a Big Bang 13.7 billion or so years ago. It is a story of about 6000 or so years ago a deity making a flat earth that rested on pillars. A story where the sun and stars are made after light. Where insects don't have the right amount of legs. Hardly a representation of Genesis.
Second, those fundamentalist Christians who like this movie, do not believe there was a Big Bang. So is Wheaton arguing for an old earth Christianity or even Deism (a god as a first cause) and if so, doesn't that go against the beliefs of those who pay to watch this movie?
Josh Wheaton by the way, is asked by a fellow student, who created or what caused the bible? An excellent question by the way. Of course the response to this by theists/Christians is always, their god is uncaused. Really, what evidence for this exists? None. Wheaton asks, well aren't atheists burdened by the same question, what created the universe, just as Christians/theists are burdened by what created or designed a god? This is a part where I feel like slapping my head with my hand. We know a universe exists. It is there. It is all around us, in fact, we are in it now. We don't have the same knowledge of a god. One can always put in place of a god and say greenish invisible pink elephant with the paws of a lion. If someone says, who created this strange being, I guess someone like Wheaton could always respond, well doesn't the universe (which we know exists) need a creator, just like the greenish invisible pink elephant with the paws of a lion? See how silly this gets? Wheaton later states that Stephen Hawking is using circular thinking when Hawking writes, "Since there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself out of nothing." No, that isn't a circular argument. It is stating that a cause, that being gravity, inevitably leads to a universe. Maybe Hawking should have stated it that way, but the way he wrote it is more poetic, but means just the same.
Wheaton, quoting a Christian apologist states that evolution happened to fast at one point, which I think he means the so called Cambrian Explosion, though that is not mentioned in the movie. Actually the Cambrian explosion still took many, many millions of years for its' relative quick pace of evolution. Changes in the environment plus competition can favor great evolutionary change. For example faster antelopes lead to faster lions which lead to faster antelopes. If antelopes had no predators it wouldn't matter how fast or slow they might be. The competition in the early Cambrian favored fast (in terms of millions of years) change.
The "evil" atheist professor, played by Kevin Sobo has a great line in the movie. "The most committed atheists were former Christians who took the blinders off". I was never a Christian, but a lot of atheists were Christians and like Neo from the Matrix, they come to understand that the Matrix (like a god) is a delusion.
Of course Wheaton states in one of his debates that without a god, there can be no basis for morality. Leaving aside that the bible tells of a very, very, very immoral god who commands killing disbelievers and even so called disobedient children, there can be no basis for morality with a god. Is morality the whims of a god? If so, no absolute basis. Does a god use reason & empathy to derive moral rules, than a god is not necessary. Just any being who can utilize those tools.
The professor in the end, Kevin Sabo, is basically killed by Jesus/God. See a car hits Sabo and a guy demands that Sabo find Jesus before he dies, than instead of say, give first aid. See Jesus put this guy who prays with Sabo by Sabo after he gets hit. Maybe Jesus could have placed a paramedic there instead, but that's just me.
The fact is that every atheist in this movie is an jerk who finds religion before they die. It is just a straw-man attack on atheism and atheists. Kevin Sobo seems not to be able to answer the weakest arguments by this student. But I am sure the movie was beloved by many on the Christian right-wing.
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Christmas with a Capital C (2011)
Another awful anti-atheist bashing film
Awful, simply awful. The atheist who returns to the town after 20 years, seems like an embittered and angry man, out on a personal vendetta against the heroic Christian mayor.The premise is that the mayor is building (and using some city funds) to build a stand outside of the town's city hall, for Christmas. There will be Christian decorations displayed along with more secular Christmas decorations. So this evil atheist type files an injunction to stop work on this stand.
Now, atheists aren't the only people who support keeping government and religion untangled, many Christians (though usually not evangelical types) also favor that. Atheists aren't out on personal vendettas against some Christian mayor or politician when we do so. Also, the "Merry Christmas" banner is moved because of this injunction. Frankly, no atheist has ever objected to a "Merry Christmas" sign, even in front of a courthouse.
In fact, I don't know if any church/state or atheist group would even object to this stand, unless it solely has Christian symbols. Atheists just want neutrality or at least, an open forum. Have Christian symbols such as a nativity scene, fine, but allow a display of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
The Christian mayor in one scene recites the free exercise clause of religion, which for some reason makes this evil atheist type, say touché. That seems to imply the atheist knows he is violating the free exercise rights of the residents, but there is of course no free exercise right to have the government put up a display, even if not centered around Christian images solely.
This movie was produced by people who seem to have never met an actual atheist in their lives. Full of fear and straw man. If I could give a negative star, I would.