God Isn't Dead?

I saw the movie last night and thought it was really bad but provocative. Did anyone else see it? Apart from the fact that it was blatant Evangelical Christian propaganda, simple minded, faulty in its basic premise, and gave way to much prominence to Duck Dynasty and a Christian rock group, I thought it possibly had some redeeming social value in getting me to think about what was wrong with it? What do you think?

 

God cannot die!

 

I agree. But the phrase "God is dead", as used by Friedrich Nietzsche, maintained that the concept of God has become obsolete and irrelevant in the moderen (i.e., 19th century) world. "God is Dead" theology in the 1960s similarly suggested that the concept of "God" had become laden with so much excess baggage that Christianity needed a replacement. My post refers to the recent Christian box office hit about a Christian college student who must successfully defend God's existence and relevance before a militantly atheist professor at the risk of flunking his philosophy course. I'm interested in people's reactions to the film, specifically: Could it happen? Is it a fair portrayal of dilemmas faced by Christian students at secular colleges and universities? And how do the arguments pro and con stack up? What did you think of the movie's message and impact, pro & con?

 

I didn't see it but I do think that even though Christianity does appear to be losing its grip it is certainly not time to stick a fork in it. I think a lot of Christians hype up there supposed persecution. Their beliefs get called in to question sure but I don't think it qualifies as persecution.

On the other side of that I think that Christians forget that they can also dish it out. For example I put an add on craigslist in an attempt to form an occult study group and literally had life threatening emails sent to me by Christians that were enraged by my audacity to even try such a thing in their town. I had people ask to attend and show interest only to discover by looking them up on facebook that they were Baptist preachers. Others simply replied with "when and where"...I thought I finally had some serious interest only to find after further dialogue that they just wanted to know where they needed to go to assault me.

The one person who was truly interested was a college girl, I had to email her and tell her that the study group wasn't going to happen and I explained to her what was happening. She told me that she was sorry to hear it and that her very Christian family had told her all her life about the persecution of Christians but she said she never experienced any of it until the day she told them she did not believe in Jesus. Her friends and family all treat her differently now.

I live in the bible belt so I wasn't shocked to hear what she had said. I myself get comments sometimes because of a ring I wear with a pentagram on it. I am often asked if I am a Satanist and if I sacrifice animals. I always reply with "no, burnt offerings, animal sacrifices and blood atonement is your god's thing.".

 

Thanks. I've been thinking I started this topic on the wrong site, since most self-respecting atheists and agnostics wouldn't be caught dead at the movie. The audience at the showing I went to were Christians and very enthusiastic--lots of applause. Your story about the girl with family problems is familiar to me, also, in the Bible Belt. One of the sub-plots in the movie involved a Muslim girl who became a closet Christian and was beaten and thrown out of the house by her father when he found out. But I know of similar stories in which kids were thrown out and disowned by fundamentalist Christian families for being gay or losing their faith. In fact, most of the atheists I know had really bad experiences with parents or preachers telling them they were going to hell for doubting.

What disturbed me most about the film was the FOX news, Bill O'Reilly- style "them versus us" mentality that feeds into the culture wars. I'm a Christian and the product of secular public education from grade school and high school through public university. The stereotype of liberal atheist profs has some basis in reality, but most made an effort at objectivity, and they would have been fired and/or sued if they ever tried to shove their beliefs down students' throats the way the professor in the movie did. Something as extreme as the movie situation couldn't happen at a public university because of the First and Fourteenth Amendments, and I doubt that it could happen at a private college or university in the real world either. The film had a long trailer of lawsuits brought by some Christian organization alleging infringement of students' religious rights, but nothing said about the details. Of course, the movie situation had to be exaggerated for dramatic effect. Otherwise, it would be a box office flop.

 

Back when I was a Christian myself I had a humanities professor that hated my guts because I answered all of her questions through a Christian filter. It was engrained in me and I was just doing what came naturally to me and it irked her badly. I have since gone through a very bumpy evolution and have moved away from Christianity and consider myself a kabbalistic magician. It is essentially ancient mystic Judaism and gets its understanding of the universe by understanding the kabbalistic tree of life and how it works. I still believe in a creative force...that is divinity. I also believe in the angelic realm and they are the threshold humanity has to cross in order to be manifested into physical beings. I believe in the Garden. It is layered over top of our physical plane and this is the realm of faeries and such. We were once in the garden but were kicked out for bad behavior and have since taken physical form by being pushed down through malkuth across the angelic threshold. Physical form is the outer most representation of the spirit or inner realm. Jesus to me was a kabbalistic magician that climed too high up the abyss(the angelic overworld that exists in the inner realms) and it caused him to get nailed to a tree. He was just a man though. Deities are all real but are separate from Divinity. They are simply a natural part of the fauna here from the inner realms that have interacted with humanity, especially when humans still had the ancient esoteric wisdom to do so.

Essentially my take on Christianity is that they have some of the players right but haven't been able to separate the man made dogma from the real esoteric meat. However, just those few differences in philosophy alone can and does quickly create the "us vs them" phenomenon that you mentioned earlier. It seems to be the way humans are wired. I can sometimes get Christians to humor me until I get to the part where I claim jesus was a mortal man and a magician. Then the line gets drawn pretty quickly. I am guilty of the same thing and prefer to be in the company of magicians and occultists to Christians but I think as a species we let these differences and preferences reach an unhealthy level when we try to control the things which are different from us. Most of it is due to ego and insecurity I think and any belief system can and does have it's offenders.

 

I'm not particularly shocked by the claim that Jesus was human and used magic. Christians accept that He was fully human, as well as divine. As a human, I think of Him as, among other things, a hassidic mystic wisdom teacher who used shammanistic practices sometimes involving magic to perform healings and exorcisms which sometimes didn't work (e.g, in his home town of Nazareth; Mark6:4-5) They didn't work where skepticism was high or faith was low, possibly indicating that hypnotic suggestion was needed to cure essentially hysteric or psychosomatic illnesses. I'm surprised at your characterization of Jesus as kabbalistic, since it's my understanding that much the kabbala came much later, in the Middle Ages. But the Sepher Yetzirah and the Ten Sefirot might have been available in Jesus' time.

 

It found it's way into text and became more accessible in the middle ages but the folks responsible for doing so did not invent kabbalah. It was a closely guarded oral tradition before that. It's origins are a widely debated and confusing topic with many varying attempts and schools of thought trying to put a date on it.

This link has some decent information on it you may enjoy if you get a moment to read it.
http://www.qabbalah.de/qabbalah_introduction_westcott.htm

 

Thanks. I'll check it out.

 

I haven't seen the movie...and I won't, to tell the truth, unless I'm dragged to it by the powers that be.

Anyone who has been around here for a while knows I do, yes indeedy, believe in Jesus,
God and yes, even the Holy Spirit. The Grand Triumphirate is how I consider it, I guess.

I believe Jesus was human and yet divine. Yes, I believe all of that. :2thumbsup:

Yet I find much room for interpretation and a possess heavy interest in facts.

I've been interested in the Kabbalah for years, and until the public fiasco with Madonna it has been a closely guarded magical belief system open Only To Jewish Males. Sure, a person could find out bits and pieces; but, this knowledge is more closely guarded than Bilderberg's.

Like Mothman said, the origins are greatly debated; but, it is known/accepted only certain men (young men) were accepted into the study of it, and the initiates had to go through (and pass) tests and be highly recommended and/or related to current members. It never occured to me that Jesus was not a practitioner of Kaballah. Why wouldn't He be?

 

Blow your trumpets, Gabriel.

 

i beleive there is something close enough to it, that, like lao tsu said, whatever you think it is, its something else, and baha'u'llah said, when two people argue about religion they're both wrong.

as for the station of jesus, that is not different then that of moses, mohammid, krshna, buddha, lao tsu, abraham, noah, kulkulkan, zoraster, the 18 begats in the book of numbers, adam or whatever else first man has been called which really meas first man, to have been chosen by the same god-thing, whatever it is, to be channeled by. and that's what each personage responsible for the existence of every major belief, remembered, forgotten, or still followed, real or mythical was, just some human, choosen more or less at random, when the time came, as it does every thousand years, give or take a few hundres, by this god-thing, to be channeled by.

and that's it. there is or may be something, or a committie of them or a machine or anything, whatever it is. that we don't need to know, nor pretend to know, anything at all, about it. its just there, whatever it is, meaning well, and seldom if ever taking a direct hand in anything.

what i don't believe in, is the need nor likelyhood for ANYthing to be infallable, nor for this god thing to be at war with anything, nor the existence of anything for it to be at war with.

it does give great loving hugs, but leaves it entirely up to ourselves to extract our ceribral cortex as a species from our collective anus.

and i have some serious doubts as to the probability of its having the slightest desire to be worshiped.

we live in a universe who's reality is statistical and diverse. one in which absolutes, while not absolutely excluded, are far and away more the exception then the rule.

i also do not believe in condemning innocent invisible people, on the basis of what not so innocent human people pretend, believe or imagine themselves to know about them.

 

I think you're starting to make sense.

 

I think he's been making sense on here for years. This movie is clearly an evangestical message in the most typical subjective christian tradition and seems very annoying in their approach to tell people with opposite views that they're wrong... which makes me think you would maybe appreciate it, relaxxx :biggrin:

 

It is predicted that by year 2050 religion will for the most part be dead and will only represent a very small minority of people (like 1% of global population)

 

another propaganda movie by Satan to alienate people from God..you would not catch me dead watching it..

 

Another one for the culture wars

 

You mean like a prophecy? :mickey:

 

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One can only hope