The Atheist Delusion

       

          According to the trailer, “The Atheist Delusion: Why Millions Deny the Obvious” (Alternate Title: “Too Complex, Therefore, God” or Alternate Title: "Science is Hard" or Alternate Title "My High School Biology Teacher is Rolling in His or Her Grave Right Now") promises to destroy atheism with one scientific question, and is premised on the fact that all atheists simply lack sufficient proof of the existence of God, and that, when confronted with that proof, will at least promise the man behind the microphone shoved in their face that “they’ll think about it.” The man behind the microphone is Ray Comfort, noted non-biologist, and also the man behind the quote "Behold, the banana! The atheist's nightmare!"

          Hilariously, this movie released recently at the Ark Theme Park in Kentucky. It immediately got terrible reviews, for which Ray Comfort blames delusional atheists, because we all know that the only thing delusional atheists want to do is fire-bomb terrible Christian movies. And also eat babies. In an article about the IMDB firebombing, Ray Comfort refers to atheists as “nasty bees,” which is hilarious. I WAS going to refer to atheists as “delusional atheists” throughout this entire review, but “nasty bees” is WAAAAY funnier.

         Anyway, here we go.

1.       This guy literally just walks up to nasty bees and asks them if they’re nasty bees? Do nasty bees give off like, a pheromone or something, like how can you tell? Is there like a “hey, how are you, do you have some time to talk about our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ?” or is it just like “Hey, so are you a nasty bee?” The people being interviewed all sort of give him this real startled-then-exasperated look, so imma guess it’s the latter.

2.       “We’re atheists because we’re not shown enough evidence for a higher power. If we were, I can almost guarantee that every atheist would immediately admit to there being a higher power.” Now, as a function of my growing up in a small, Midwestern town, then moving to a small Midwestern Christian college, then living among a small group of Mennonites in San Francisco, then moving back to a small Christian school in a small Southern town, I haven’t the fortune of knowing many nasty bees - I can come up with maybe 12 off the top of my head, with half of whom I have had some discussion of religion. But imma go ahead and call “bullshit” on that assertion. I think that a lot of nasty bees are nasty bees because they just don’t find religion (Christianity) to be personally compelling, not because they lack proof of religion’s (Christianity’s) inherent truthiness.

3.       Ohhhhh “The Watchmaker Analogy,” applied to the creation of a picture book, how original. Boy, you’re really gonna compel this basket of delusionals, aren’t you?

4.       Sudden insertion of a Ted Talk about genetics and how genes are the instruction manual for making us, us. Probably so Ray Comfort wouldn’t have to taint his mind with actual science and biology. I wonder if they paid that Ted Talker for his time. Probs not.

5.        “Do you think a book could make itself? It’s utterly impossible, right? Having something happen from nothing is crazy, right? The fact that DNA is intelligent, means there must be an intelligent designer, right?” OMGGGGGGG NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. DNA isn’t intelligent, it’s a wad of chemicals that put on some slow jams and got lucky one night.

6.       So now we just have a montage of nasty bees sort of uncomfortably being lured into conversation by Ray Comfort, whom they’ve never met, waving a microphone and camera and asking them personal questions about their faith. He’s like “Oh, so, obviously a book can’t make itself, and you’d think anyone who thought that was dumb, right? WELL WHAT ABOUT THE INSTRUCTION BOOK FOR LIFE, CAN IT MAKE ITSELF, HUH, CAN IT, CAN IT, *CAN IT*?!?!?!” And the unlucky people he’s interviewing are just like “…what… is my life right now, and why did I agree to this?” It’s also patently obvious that this guy either doesn’t know squat about DNA, or is willfully withholding information to make his point.

7.       This guy just keeps cutting-away between shots, so when someone is like “Yeah, I agree,” after he asks a different person “So do you think that because a book can’t spontaneously self-assemble, that neither can DNA?” And that’s just bad camera editing, because idk, maybe that guy was like “Yeah, I agree [that the sky is blue].”

8.       “I’m just trying to reason with you, I’m not arguing, I’m not tryna win an argument, I just want you to concede something that is absolute common SENSE!” Ok, but like, you don’t understand DNA, and you can’t argue DNA with someone else that doesn’t understand DNA, it’s not a level playing field. Also, is DNA really your most compelling argument supporting why someone should be a Christian? It really just isn’t, you know? Like, WHO CAAAAAAARES about the origin of the universe – it’s an interesting ad nauseum side-debate, if you care, but it is not materially relevant to the mission of Christians on earth, which is to not be shitty people to everyone else. A lot of them are failing at that mission, which is probably why atheists don’t find Christianity particularly compelling.

9.       Guys, seriously, we are 9 minutes and 30s into this film. It’s an hour long. Send help, I just died of an overzealous eye-roll.

10.   “Do you believe that nothing created everything? Do you like Dawkins? Isn’t that what he says, that nothing created everything?” Ray Comfort just has a bunch of out-of-context “gotcha” questions, and poses them to sort of confused and uncomfortable-looking people on the street, without preamble, and then expects them to have a well-thought-out and eloquent answer, when they’re just tryna get to the grocery store or the gym, dangit.

11.   Oh, now Ray Comfort interviews a theoretical physicist or something like that, who’s a lot more bold about saying “that’s a ridiculous question.” He’s also totally talking above Ray Comfort’s pay grade, so Ray Comfort cuts-away and explains away the physicist’s explanations.

12.   Oh god now we’ve moved on to the “chicken or the egg” argument, this outta be good. You all know, of course, that the chicken and the egg were simultaneously created on day 5 of creation, and have remained unchanged since then, which is why dinosaur bones are a trick from God sent to test our faith. Glad we’ve cleared that up, let’s proceed with Ray Comfort’s flawless line of reasoning.

13.   Corny oompah music plays while college students try to answer which came first, which really undercuts the serious nature of Ray Comfort’s line of questioning.

14.   "Evolution can’t be real because how would a chicken survive before it’s lungs evolved?" GAME OVER, YOU WIN, RAY COMFORT, THAT’S FLAWLESS LOGIC.

15.   I’m pretty sure this guy is cherry-picking his interviewees – none of them are biology majors or biochemistry majors, or even seem that secure in their beliefs, and they all appear to be on a college campus, where there should be a lot more smart people than what’s shown in this travesty of a film.

16.   “Can you think of anything on earth that isn’t fully evolved? A dog has four legs, a tongue, eyes, ears, a mouth, everything is fully evolved! You don’t see people with a half-evolved leg, do you? And this disproves evolution, and proves the Bible!” WHAAAT IS THIS MAN TALKING ABOUT OMGGGGGGGGGGGGGG.

17.   “You don’t want God in your life for the same reason a thief doesn’t want a policeman in his life! You love your porn, your premarital sex, your fornication!” OMG CHRISTIANS DO THOSE THINGS TOO, at the exact same proportion as non-Christians, in fact.

18.   God is real because the sun is not too hot or not too cold, it’s juuuuust right for tomato-ripening. FACT. SCIENCE FACT.

19.   This Just In: Nasty bees are nasty bees only because they don’t want to give up their raging porn habits. Sure says a lot about the compelling nature of the gospel message, if it can be so easily overcome by slicked-up actors performing unrealistic improvisations on the Kama Sutra.

20.   Oh yeah, wow, it just defies imagination to think that the Earth developed at juuuuust the right distance from the sun, with juuuuust the right percentage of oxygen vs nitrogen, with juuuuust the right amount of water, and a huuuuuge variety of plant and animal life, all exhibiting sexual dimorphism and the ability to reproduce. TBH, it’s more amazing that this all developed by chance than to imagine that Some Dude made it all just like how it is. 

21.   Oh, trees are here so we can build houses? Cows are here to give us meat and butter? Chickens are here for food and eggs? Sheep are here to give us wool? Plants and fruits are here for the benefit of humanity? Wow. Apparently egocentrism is the new heliocentrism.

22.   “The Bible is full of scientific facts that weren’t discovered until thousands of years later, did you know that?” I did not, because that’s not true.

23.   “If God is good, then how can there NOT be a hell?” Ok, but like, you can avoid hell by just being like “Lord Jesus Christ, plz come into my heart and save me from myself,” so it’s not like there’s not a way to weasel out of hell.

24.   Ray Comfort, with the assistance of a bunch of leading questions, convinces a bunch of college-aged nasty bees that they are all going to hell, and that they should believe in God so they don’t go to hell. If your prime directive in life is to not go to hell, and that’s the whole reason you believe any of this stuff, you’re doing it wrong.

25.   “Telling God you’re doing the best you can to be a good person, while also being an atheist is like saying to a judge ‘hey, I raped that woman, but I’m doing the best I can.’ He’d throw the book at you, wouldn’t he!?” Actually, probably not your best argument. Rapists get off real light, especially if they’re white college sports-boys.

26.   The problem right now is that Ray Comfort stands behind the camera, and you can’t ever see his face talking, so he could legitimately take a video of people smiling and nodding and looking uncomfortable, mute the sound, and then insert his own voice talking over the video, and you can literally say that “Nasty bees eat babies for breakfast, don’t they?” and the video would totally make it look like you agreed with him. I would be unsurprised to learn that he is recycling clips from one segment to another, and just voicing over them.

27.   “You’re a total stranger, why would you care about me?” “Cuz I’m a Christian, I love you, I’m not filled with hate like some of those other religions.” OMGGGGGGGGGG. Ok, wow. Christianity does not have the corner on the love-other-people market, wow. Personally, I think Sikhs have that whole thing on lock, if we're making broadly-applicable arguments, here. Also, PLENTY of Christians are filled with hate. When he says “those other religions,” I assume he’s referring to Muslims, because they're always referring to Muslims when they say nasty things like that, which is just rude, because painting everyone with the same extremist brush is actually quite intolerable.

28.   Montage of nasty bees nodding and looking uncomfortable, with a voice-over of Ray Comfort leading them through a come-to-Jesus moment, which is fine, if they feel legitimately convicted. I personally would not be swayed by these weak-sauce arguments, but other people can make their own choices.

29.   I can never get this time back. And I have a headache. No word on what that one scientific question was that was supposed to destroy atheism. 

           I can’t even with this movie, mostly because gosh, just leave them alone, already! Quit shoving your views in their faces, no one likes it when you shove things in their faces, especially if that thing is already distasteful and has already been shoved in their face multiple times. If all these nasty bees find your witness compelling, they’ll ask. If they don’t ask, you might be doing it wrong. Or they just aren’t interested. For all you millions of nasty bees out there – if you see a man with a stupid Kiwi accent and he wants to shove a camera and mic in your face, just leave. He’s not gonna listen to you, and if you do try to talk to him, he’ll supercut your words to make it look like you agrees with him. To any of my nasty bee friends who are also hardheaded confrontational biologists with a good understanding of how to argue with idiots - he’ll cut you from his dumb movie because you don’t fit the “fragile atheist” mold, and you’ll just get yourself all worked up for nothing.

This was so dumb, and quite honestly, is an insult to everyone involved. 

It Takes A Church

          Naomi Graber, my Bible & Religion bestie from back in the day at Bethel, and also the inspiration for this blog (I used to review movies on her Facebook page!) told me about this show (alternate titles "Whirlwind Relationships Are The Best Kind," "The Christian Bachelorette," and "Women Must Be Married To Access Their Full Social Capital." Apparently one of the episodes is set in Goshen, Indiana, where some of my people, the Mennonites, live and study at the nearby seminary and college. Ostensibly, the show follows a young godly churchgoing woman whose loving church finds her some godly churchgoing men to pick from, because if there’s nothing a young godly woman should ever be, it’s alone (It’s biblical – look it up); and also because it's time for the woman to stop kissing dating goodbye whether she wants to or not. Also, even though it couldn’t possibly get any better (BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE), it’s hosted by Natalie Grant, contemporary Christian music’s finest seductress of the soul (who is in no way related to Amy Grant, contemporary Christian music's OTHER seductress of the soul. It's a small genre, not a lot of players on the court).

1.       Natalie Grant, honestly, I loved your music. “I Will Not Be Moved” was my jam, back in the day.

2.       “This girl has NO IDEA that her dating life is about to be kicked into HIGH GEAR!” Yeah, that’s what every woman wants, to have everyone else choose men for her to choose from. Great story to tell your kids when they ask how Mommy and Daddy met. As an aside, my parents met on the very first day of collage. You better believe I had high expectations for MY first day. Instead, I met my second cousin. 

3.       She’s 27 and single and obviously a Sweet Sister (which is apparently what the Mormons call any girl over like, 25, because they are old maids with shriveled ovaries, destined for a life of solitude and service). 

4.       Oh god the first one is a dental student with a ponytail. “You just look at him, and he’s hot.” Not the adjective I would’ve chosen, but ok. He does have really nice teeth, I guess?

5.       The second one is a guitar teacher that plays on the worship band at the girl’s church. She had no idea that he was single, and I just feel like if your church is so big that you don’t know who’s single and who’s not, your church is too big. He also wrote a song for her. He sings it, and does that annoying thing where he sings the first five words loudly, and then the end of the phrase softly, so idk what he actually is saying. He’s also 23 – as we say in Kansas, a young’un.  

6.       Third one is a youth pastor omg. “I can’t believe that all these men are here, and they want to date me!” Girl, have some self-esteem, gosh.

7.       Another is a seminary student, omg I bet he’s Mennonite!

8.       Another one is a hog farmer, and he just looks like a Mennonite. He brought her a stuffed pig, and that’s kind of cute. I thought she said “he’s tall, he’s got great buttocks,” and I had to rewind it and put on subtitles, because I was sure that couldn’t be what was said, and it wasn’t. It was “athletic” which is also code for “great buttocks.”

9.       The church votes for which bachelors she gets to date. I just feel like, if your church is so big that you don’t know who’s single and who’s not, your church is too big to be deciding which of these guys you do and don’t get to maybe marry.

10.   The church picks Great Buttocks, Ponytail Dentist, and Young’un. I am personally pulling for Great Buttocks, mostly because he looks like he’s a Mennonite.

11.   Pastor Jim states that Sweet Sister feels like a daughter to him, and that he will protect her. Gross. Patriarchal. He also chooses Youth Pastor so that Sweet Sister can have more great options.

12.   The church gets a dance instructor to teach Sweet Sister and the Dudes how to dance, and this church is OBVIOUSLY not Mennonite, because as we all know, Mennonites don’t have sex standing up because it may lead to dancing.

13.   Sweet Sister went to Huntington College, and I know Mennonites that went to Huntington (s/o to Jonathan Brenneman!). Great Buttocks went to Taylor, and I know Mennonites who went to Taylor (s/o to Emily Fox and Joy Wahnefried!). It’s a small world, and those aren’t even Mennonite colleges.

14.   Youth Pastor totally knows how to swing dance, and I appreciate that. “Youth Pastor totally took the lead, and I appreciate and want a guy who’s gonna take the lead and take care of me!” Ugh. Nothing is sexier than not having your own opinions. Someone’s been reading too much about how the husband is the head of the family. Thanks, Apostle Paul, you misogynistic jerkface.  

15.   Sweet Sister found out that Young’un is a basically a baby, and she’s like “um…………..” To be fair, girl, given projected life expectancies for men vs women, you’d both die at approximately the same time, so you may as well go for it.

16.   “Ponytail Dentist is 185 pounds of twisted steel and sex appeal right there!” Wow what kind of church even IS this? You don’t say “the s word” unless you’re telling kids how to save it for marriage and how not-Christians have premarital sex and that is like a piece of duct tape that has been passed around and stuck to everyone’s jeans, and that’s how your soul is after you’ve had lots of un-Christian premarital sex (sticky souls are REALLY important to God, apparently). In summary – atheists are godless pieces of used duct tape, and don’t let anyone tell you different.

17.   Great Buttocks, Ponytail Dentist, and Young’un move on to the next round. Shameless “Christian Mingle” plug, because whoever doesn’t win gets a year’s subscription to “ChristianMingle.com,” which definitely did NOT sponsor the movie “Christian Mingle” (see “Christian Mingle” review on this blog).

18.   It’s apparently like, October-April in Goshen Indiana, because there are like 3’ of snow on the ground, and neither Sweet Sister nor Natalie Grant is wearing a coat, because it would ruin their outfits or something sexist like that.

19.   Pastor Jim watches Sweet Sister and Young’un throw a vase on a pottery wheel, and there is absolutely no chemistry whatsoever. 

20.   Great Buttocks tries to teach Sweet Sister pottery and it’s adorable, mostly because I want him to win. Then they pray about how bad they’re doing, and I just really wish they’d thrown in a “clay in the potter’s hand” reference, like “are you guys Christians, or not, because that was literally the perfect setup, and you just let it pass on by."

21.   Ponytail Dentist is just so confident at doing something he’s never done before, and she just LOVES that. Nothing is sexier than faking it for the benefit of another's self-esteem, amirite?

22.   Ponytail Dentist and Great Buttocks move on to the next round, and Young’un presumably goes to AMBS to date women his own age.

23.   Great Buttocks takes Sweet Sister ice skating, and I would legitimately marry any man who takes me ice skating for a first date, even though I’m already married. I freaking love ice skating.

24.   Great Buttocks did a short-term mission trip for one week and OMG SO DID SWEET SISTER INSTANT CONNECTION OMG. Full disclosure – I used to do short-term missions, and while I personally enjoyed getting to travel to another country and learn new things, short-term mission trips are crap, a waste of local resources and time, and really just serve to reinforce the White Savior Complex and Western dominance. Next time, kids, take the money you would’ve spent and just donate it to a local charity in the place that you would’ve done your mission trip – I promise it will be better spent that if you were to go down there and build a house yourself with your no skills at all.

25.   Ponytail Dentist takes Sweet Sister to a freaking pool hall.  A POOL HALL. If you took me to a pool hall for our first date, I would just leave. I’m sorry, but pool halling is second only to like, BOWLING, for bad first dates.

26.   Ponytail Dentist is a rock climber who has been to India, tents in the Serengeti, Istanbul, done medical care in Haiti, and he shows horses. Like, ok, buddy, we get it, you’re a try-hard. He is probably nice, and Sweet Sister seems to really like him, but he just reminds me of tech bros in the Bay, and I just can’t even. He probably has also been to Burning Man.

27.   Sweet Sister has to say, in front of her entire congregation, which dude she’s gonna choose to date/court/marry, and that just sounds like my literal worst nightmare. 

28.   AAAAND she chooses Great Buttocks, which is who I would have chosen, if I were on stage in front of my large church and everyone was picking men for me to go on dates with and then I had to pick one out of the bunch to date/court/marry. No "6 months later," though, so who the heck knows if she even saw the guy ever again, or wrastled pigs at his hog farm, or decided to date/court/marry him. As an aside, to those uninitiated in the ways of Christian living, dating is when you see someone special, but with no expectation of permanence. COURTING, however, is when you see someone special, but with every expectation of permanence ("why give your heart away piece by piece to different men/women, if you could do it all at once, to one man/woman?" the thinking goes). In addition, courting allows the couple to feel morally superior to everyone else, as evidenced by this book  about courting (also written by my boy Josh Harris, who has since walked back all of the profound dating advice he gave when he was 21 and had never dated before).

      

                In summary – not the worst, I guess? Definitely better than "God's Not Dead (1)," or "Christian Mingle," if that's our litmus test for how awful Christian media can get. If you like “The Bachelorette,” but don’t like all of the sleazy-sexy bikini shots, and the contrived drama, and the alcoholism, and the implied sexytimes; but you DO like bad flashbacks from that one time that your church growing up had a youth retreat where the boys and girls divided up and the girls talked about how to stay pure for marriage and how to dress to not tempt your Christian brothers into sinning FOR AN ENTIRE WEEKEND, and the boys talked about idk, masturbation and how girls owed it to you to cover up because you couldn't help yourself FOR AN ENTIRE WEEKEND, and your youth pastor told your friend that if she was holding hands with her boyfriend in public, then she must be sexing him in private; and you also like the idea of people choosing your men for you, then yeah, this show just might be for you!

      TL;DR - the Christian dating scene can get real weird real quick.

God's Not Dead (2)

     

          I’ve mothballed the blog for awhile because #MedicalSchool. However, I recently shared it with a couple friends who said they enjoyed reading it, and that maybe I should un-mothball it. Because I live for validation and praise (#Millenial), and also because I have actual free time and don’t have to feel crushing guilt for not studying every second of my life, and because I was already thinking about un-mothballing it, consider it, like our Good Lord and Savior, resurrected for the moment.

          

          The central premise of “God’s Not Dead (2),” according to the trailer, is that Innocent Teacher is asked a question about Jesus in class, which she answers, and a firestorm ignites, because if you talk about Jesus in class, everyone will want to be Jesus (kind of like how if you talk about how “gay is ok” in class, everyone will want to be gay) because that’s how the world doesn’t work. The ACLU gets all up in her face about how they’re gonna prove that Jesus isn't real (impossible – he was a verifiable historical figure), and then idk, it’s this Whole Big Thing. If “God’s Not Dead (1)” is any indication (and they share a title, so it’s not an entirely ridiculous presupposition), this is going to be terrible, with terrible characters, terrible theology, and a terrible premise.

1.       Jump straight from kids praying on a baseball diamond to someone putting up the American flag. This is a wholesome American town where they pray to the flag, because God bless America.

2.       Future Stanford Student has overbearing parents who are probably atheists because Overbearing Dad is an ambitious banker and Overbearing Mom wears yoga pants (yoga is of the devil, I think we’ve all established that, based on “This Present Darkness” by Frank Peretti, and also some things I was told once in church).

3.       Innocent Teacher argues with Other Teachers about how difficult students are a blessing, so you know she’s entirely pure, and better than them.

4.       Innocent Teacher plays super-fun games with her difficult students that mostly involve quotes from “Hamilton” and not actual history. Example: “we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal” and everyone knows that Eliza, Angelica, and Peggy sing that in the song “The Schyler Sisters.” Innocent Teacher is obviously a total hack.

5.       Future Stanford Student has an incredibly stilted conversation with Innocent Teacher about Dead Brother, who says “you wanna know how I’m so overbearingly positive all the time? JAYSUS.” And then doesn’t explain. That’s just bad evangelism.

6.       “That’s the thing about atheism – it doesn’t take away the pain, it just takes away the hope.” And that… is just so, so bad. I don’t think the screenwriters have ever met an atheist in their life, much less had a discussion about the audacity of a non-believer's hope.

7.       Future Stanford Student finds Dead Brother’s Bible, and starts reading in Colossians, and it’s all over from here. Colossians. Jeez. That’s like picking up “Harry Potter” with the 5^th book, and wondering why Harry is such an angsty asshole all the time. Except with “Harry Potter,” at least the books take a solid 5 pages to explain the plotline of the preceding 4 books. The Bible doesn’t do that.

8.      Future Stanford Student - "Yeah, Gandhi, he was nonviolent, similar to Jesus, right?" Innocent Teacher reels off a Bible verse about loving your enemy and praying for your persecutors, and talks how the teachings and tactics of Jesus influenced the nonviolent tactics of Ghandi, which they did. And then Difficult Student texts someone, and you just know it’s gonna be this Whole Big Thing.

9.       Bad Atheist Lawyer and Other Teacher seem to think that referencing a historical character in relation to another historical character goes against federal and state regulations regarding separation of church and state. I disagree. She was not proselytizing, she was not trying to say that Jesus was the way, the truth, and the life; she just said “Yeah, Jesus influenced Gandhi and also MLK, and here are words that Jesus said, to back up my claim.” Maybe she lives in the great Atheist Wasteland of like, Connecticut, or whatever, but here in the Bible Belt, that’s not out of line.

10.   Innocent Teacher, don't be rude to Good Atheist Lawyer, he's going to defend you, despite being an atheist and therefore the Mariana Trench of immorality and filth. Also, OFC he’s an atheist. Are there ANY Lawyers in Christian media that aren’t? All of my lawyer-friends are Christian, to my knowledge. I mean, that’s a sample size of like, 3, but still. But since critical fact-based thinking is bad, and lawyers are critical fact-based thinkers, stands to reason that atheists have the corner on both the lawyer market and also the Mariana Trench.

11.   Bad Atheist Lawyer tells Innocent Teacher that she can make all this go away by apologizing for her Jesus-mention, and she refuses. Honestly, this whole movie is bad, and the character portrayals are worse, but I still don’t think that what she did was legally wrong according to any state and federal laws, and since I applaud people for sticking to their guns and not bowing to popular opinion, I’m gonna back her up on this one. The rest of this movie is absolutely terrible, but she’s in a real light gray area, here.

12.   Bad Atheist Lawyer siccs the ACLU on Innocent Teacher, because that’s all the ACLU ever does, is go after Christians like a dog returning to its vomit.

13.   Bad Atheist Lawyer tells Overbearing Mom and Dad that Future Stanford Student could be part of a landmark case for separation of church and state, and that Ivy League admissions boards will just eat that up, because Ivy League admissions boards are obviously comprised entirely of godless atheists who love to eat a big bowl of Fruity Christians for breakfast every morning. Omg. Is there nothing in this movie that is not bad?

14.   Windswept Pastor from “God’s Not Dead (1)” is sitting on the jury for Innocent Teacher vs ACLU, because of course.

15.   Good Atheist Lawyer kicks a juror off because her favorite TV show is “Pretty Little Liars,” which is stupid, because that show is actually pretty damn good.

16.   Bad Atheist Lawyer kicks a juror off because his favorite TV show is “Duck Dynasty,” which is an excellent idea, because that show is dumb and full of dumb men with a persecution complex and janky beards.

17.   Atheist Newscaster covering the case (ofc she’s an atheist) states that the extremists we need to worry about are the hardcore Christian radicals. Well, she’s not wrong, that’s for sure. I personally don’t think that Innocent Teacher falls under that umbrella, however.

18.   Apparently the ACLU subpoenaed all of the sermons from all of the churches, and now OMG CENSORSHIP AND PERSECUTION OF THE SILENT MAJORITY.

19.   Innocent Teacher points out to Good Atheist Lawyer that bringing Jesus up in a history class is not wrong because Jesus was a verifiable human figure in history whose teachings verifiably influenced many other verifiable human figures in history, and that the premise of their defense should be that she was not preaching the Good News of Jaysus, but rather having a history mention about a historical figure AND NOW WE’RE FINALLY GETTING SOMEWHERE. Jeez. If I wrote this movie, it would be approximately 5 minutes long.

20.   And then she hands him a Bible and says he’s got some reading to do. No. That’s not how you win this.

21.   OH MY GOD NO YOU DID NOT JUST CALL LEE FREAKING STROBEL TO PROVE THE EXISTENCE OF JESUS.

22.   Windswept Pastor collapses and grabbed his right side, and I’m pretty sure he has appendicitis and now OMG THERE WILL BE NO CHRISTIANS ON THE JURY AND HOW WILL THEY EVER WINNNNN?!??!

23.   NAILED ITTTTT. Appendicitis. brb, taking my boards tomorrow.

24.   And now they call to the witness stand Cold Case Detective, who wrote the book “Cold Case Christianity” to prove that Jesus was a real person, and can you guys PUH-LEASE stop calling hacks who write books, and start calling hacks who are Ph.Ds in History or something?!?!  Literally any monkey with a keyboard can self-publish a book.

 25.   Cold Case Detective flips TO THE LITERAL BACK OF THE BIBLE to find the book of Matthew. Seriously, he is like, at least 9/10ths of the way through the book, approximately where James is located, if there’s a concordance, or Two Corinthians, if there’s not. MATTHEW IS THE FIRST FREAKING BOOK OF THE NEW TESTAMENT, IT’S LIKE 2/3 OF THE WAY THROUGH THE BIBLE OMG. 

26.   Guys, stop using the Bible to prove the existence of Jesus. It's inherently biased.

27.   Kids, kids, it's cool that you're singing "How Great Thou Art" to Innocent Teacher. Literally one of my favorite hymns. But seriously, guys, you gotta do it in 4-part harmony, otherwise the atheists will win, and it will be all your fault.

28.   Some Christian Dude talks to Mike Huckabee about how “Jesus was the most influential person who ever lived,” and I just don’t think you can quantify that. Personally, I think that probably that title goes to Genghis Khan, ancestor of 1 of every 200 individuals in the world.

29.   Good Atheist Lawyer goes on an obviously satirical rant about how anyone in the personal or private sphere should be persecuted until Christianity has been stomped out. And of course Innocent Teacher completely falls to bits because she has absolutely no faith in the lawyer that’s been faithfully and faultlessly helping her through this entire process. God may or may not be dead, but sarcasm sure as hell is.

30.   Suddenly we’re at a Newsboys concert? Um, ok?

31.   Jury voted in favor of Innocent Teacher, because of course they had to, because how was that even an argument?!?

32.   OMG THE JURY MEMBER WITH THE CRAZY-COLORED HAIR AND THE RACCOON EYES AND THE BLUE LIPSTICK IS SECRETLY A CHRISTIAN WITH A SECRET CHRISTIAN TATTOO ON HER NECK DESPITE THE LAWS IN LEVITICUS AGAINST TATTOOS OMG PLOTTTTT TWISTTTTTT.

33.   Good Atheist Lawyer has never met anyone who’s stood up for what they believe in the face of opposition until he met Innocent Christian Teacher. It’s because he’s an atheist, and all his friends are atheists, and all atheists are anthropomorphized lies.

34.   Future Stanford Student announces “God’s not dead!” to the assembled protestors. But, like, no one was arguing that through this entire movie, so…

35.   The movie ends without Good Atheist Lawyer becoming Good Christian Lawyer, which, honestly, surprised me.

          In summary, this movie was pretty bad. The only good people were the Christians, or the people who were about to become Christians, and also, unexpectedly, Good Atheist Lawyer, which displays some small degree of nuance. But every other person in a position to do any critical thinking or reporting of facts was an atheist, and that’s just feeding into the leftist argument that right-wing conservatives are all anti-intellectuals. 

          The premise of the movie was inherently flawed – a case against a history teacher teaching about nonviolence in history who answered a question about Jesus’s influence on nonviolent protests would get laughed out of court.

          Summary of the summary – better than “God’s Not Dead (1), but still bad, with ham-fisted treatments of anyone who isn’t a Christian.

          And now I have "God's Not Dead" by the Newsboys stuck in my head, and I'd just rather that weren't the case. 

Christian Mingle

       

         According to the trailer, Gwenyth (who even names their kid Gwenyth anymore? Mom always told me that when I was picking out baby names, I should stand on my back porch and shriek their proposed name as loudly as possible, five times, and if I felt stupid doing it, then I probably shouldn’t pick that name. And that’s now GERRRRTRUUUDE EVELYYYYYN UNRUUUUUUH was scratched off the list) is a standard cool-girl, looking for love in all the wrong places. And by “wrong places,” we mean OKCupid or Tinder or eHarmony. Because she’s not looking for love in all the right places (church), she hasn’t found it yet. So, on a whim, she signs up for ChristianMingle.com (which definitely did NOT sponsor this movie) despite the fact that she doesn’t even know what a Christian is or how to act like one, which will definitely NOT be a major plot point in this film. S/O to Emily Luedke for digging this one out of the trash heap.

1. Kickin’ this movie right off with an Owl-City sound-alike, which is about Jesus, and not fireflies. Hilariously, the song is entitled “Me Without You,” and is set to a slideshow of a girl and a boy hanging out, and not a girl hanging out with Jesus, which even more concretely makes my point that modern Christian music is just secular music with “Jesus” inserted in place of “my boyfriend.”
2. Scene of Sad Single Gwen sadly flipping through channels while eating cookies and reading Facebook about all her friends being in relationships, because that’s what single girls do. They don’t cultivate hobbies or friendships, they just pine about how they’re not married.  
3. WHAT, DID YOU JUST THROW THAT POINSETTIA INTO THE TRASH WITHOUT EVEN TRYING TO RESUSCITATE IT?! You can’t even keep a plant alive, why do you think you don’t have a boyfriend?!!?
4. OMG IF YOU SIGN UP ON CHRISTIANMINGLE.COM AND YOU DON’T ACTUALLY ATTEND CHURCH, YOU PROBS SHOULD NOT LIE AND SAY YOU ATTEND CHURCH EVERY WEEK. That’s just bad form, and it will be immediately obvious. Hope you’re not Catholic, cuz the jig will be up as soon as you start jumbling that liturgy.
5.  They make a book called “Christianity for Dummies?”
6. This girl has zero conversational skills, no wonder all of her dates have sucked.
7. “Uncomplicated AND a believer!” Haha… this relationship is founded on SO MANY LIES ALREADY AND IT IS LITERALLY 10 SECONDS OLD.
8. Apparently the “Christianity for Dummies” book did not include a section on how to fake a believable prayer.
9. “Who says I’m not Christian? I read the Bible!” Apparently not enough, since you had to read a book called “Christianity for Dummies”
10. This girl totally has a Pinterest board titled “Someday…………………”
11. NO NO NO NO NO DO NOT DIP YOUR SUSHI IN THE SOY SAUCE WITHOUT TRYING IT FIRST the sushi chefs are totes judging you if you do that. It was on NPR, you can read about it here. 
12. You have read the Bible before, but have to read a book titled “The Bible for Dummies” instead of actually reading the Bible in order to learn about the Bible? I just… you’re doing it so, so wrong.
13. UUUUUUUUUUUUUHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH I literally (LITERALLY) just did a Tina-groan out loud - this Bible study scene where she tries to recite a Bible verse about marriage and sexual immorality, but instead mis-attributes it to the wrong author…… it is SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO AWWWWWKWAAAARRRRDDDDDDDDDDDDDD.
14. Girl, if you can’t freaking find Romans right off the bat, you are totally sunk. That one is pretty basic.  Did you never have sword-fights as a kid? “GALATIONS 5:17, GO!” Like, Titus, Obadiah, Haggai, sure, but Romans?
15. “I’m really good at faking it.” *snicker*
16. “Your mother doesn’t like me.” Of course she doesn’t, you’re a blatant fakity faker, and moms can spot that in like 0.0000006 seconds.
17. These people are SUUUUCH caricatures of modern Christianity, it is the most painful thing.
18. You’re mad at Christian Boyfriend, so you’re not answering his calls? Real mature. Probably why you haven’t been able to sustain a viable relationship.
19. Girl just ships off and visits Christian Boyfriend in Mexico, where apparently they have crackle-free cell reception, which I don’t believe for one minute.
20. Who nominated this cowboy singer, anyway, because he’s absolutely terrible.
21. Both Fakity Faker and Christian Boyfriend agree that the cowboy singer has a beautiful voice, which is definitely a sign that they deserve each other.
22. Every Mexican character in this entire movie just stands around and stares, while the white people move around and get stuff done. Thank goodness for the white people, otherwise nothing would ever get done.
23. “You know what I think? You’re pretending. The “Christianity for Dummies” book that I found in your luggage didn’t tip me off at all.” Good grief, Christian Boyfriend, how did you fit that thick book into your jacket pocket? An Undetectable Extension charm?
24. “Why does it matter that you’re a Christian, and I’m not, even though I totally said I was, but I was lying about that, and what does it matter that our entire relationship is based on this one very important lie about who we each are?” Hahahahaaaaaaa…… like, how did you expect this to turn out? At what point did you plan on telling Christian Boyfriend that you’ve been faking it this whole time?
25. Skipping work because you have strep throat would NOT buy you a couple weeks, who are these pansies? Go to the Urgent Care, get some Amoxicillin, deal.
26. NO NO NO NO NO DO NOT START READING THE BIBLE WITH GENESIS OMG STOP IT. Yeah, sure, it’s cool for a few pages, with the “Let there Bes” and the “And it was goods” and the “two by twos” and the incest between Lot and his daughters, but once you get to Leviticus, with the menstrual requirements, and the mold, and the uncleanliness, you’ll stall out.
27. Oh, girl, picking a random church because you were walking past on the sidewalk, and they had a rockin’ multiracial praise team with tambourines and lots of clapping, that’s just not the way to do it.
28. Girl, you can’t be disappointed in Christian Ex-Boyfriend because he’s dating a girl who isn’t a Christian from reading “Christianity for Dummies.” I think maybe you don’t have that right…
29. "I’ll pray for you.” That’s the Christian way to end a conversation without saying “Buzz off, jerkface”
30. HOW ARE YOU ANGRY THAT CHRISTIAN EX-BOYFRIEND DUMPED YOU THE FIRST TIME FOR PRETENDING TO BE A CHRISTIAN BY READING “CHRISTIANITY FOR DUMMIES AND WHO THEN DUMPED YOU *AGAIN* BECAUSE YOU CALLED HIM OUT FOR DATING A GIRL THAT ISN’T YOU, A GIRL THAT DIDN’T PRETEND TO BE A CHRISTIAN BY READING “CHRISTIANITY FOR DUMMIES,” BUT WHO ACTUALLY *IS* A CHRISTIAN, AND ISN’T LYING ABOUT A VERY FUNDAMENTAL ASPECT OF RELATIONSHIPS?!?!?!?” Shouldn’t you be mad at yourself at this point, for making such a public spectacle of yourself?
31. How did the little Mexican girl get her address to send her a plot-device letter?
32.  …………………… so she moves to Mexico and teaches English to the little Mexican girl's friends……… except the kids don’t need to learn English, because they already speak it without a trace of an accent…
33. Christian Ex-Boyfriend is back………………? He dumped the Real Christian Girlfriend to come back for the girl who based their entire relationship on a really big lie? You guys are gonna need some major pre-marital counseling

               THAT WAS SO PAINFUL I AM SO GLAD THAT IT IS OVER OMG IT WAS LITERALLY THE WORST MOVIE I HAVE EVER WATCHED FOR THIS BLOG AND THAT INCLUDES "GOD IS NOT DEAD." Sorry for the excessive use of caps lock, you guys, but this movie 1000% deserves every capitalized letter. It was absolutely excruciating. The moral of this movie was “Base your relationship on a lie, and it’ll totally work out for you!” Alternative moral was “Mexicans need white people to fix their problems for them.” I don’t have anything nice to say about this movie, it was absolutely awful. I don't even know what the target audience is, because it was offensive on so many levels. Like, "God is Not Dead," is obvi for the apologetics buffs. Kirk Cameron is obviously for men who want to feel good about yelling at their wives. "Left Behind" is obviously for people who think Obama is the Antichrist," and I get it, movies need a target audience. But this... it was just so bad. I don't even know who the writers had in mind when they wrote it. 

  

The Red Tent

     

You cannot convince me that this is not the best movie poster of all time.

      I have heard nothing but good things about “The Red Tent.” A BRL friend from Bethel told me about the Lifetime adaptation, and how I absolutely HAD to read the book. So I ordered it awhile back, and spent last weekend reading it in it's entirety. Then this weekend, I watched the movie.
     The book/movie is about Dinah, one of Jacob’s daughters by his 1^st wife Leah. The only mention of Dinah in the Bible is from Genesis 34, in which Dinah goes out walking one day and is raped by this dude Shecham, who was the son of the local bigwig. After raping her, he was like “Oh… she’s kinda cuuuute, maybe I should marry her!” Presumably Dinah had no say in the matter, because being a lady in the Old Testament SUUUUUUUUUUUUCKED. So he gets his dad to try and talk to Dinah’s dad, Jacob (of the Jacob-and-Esau fame), to see if they could get married. Jacob finds out how this kid Shechem knows Dinah, and understandably flips his lid, tells his sons what happed, and they, understandably, flip their collective lids. Meanwhile, Shecham’s dad is still trying to get Dinah to marry his son, so he goes to talk to Jacob and his sons again, and they’re like “Yeah, it’s totes cool that you’re gonna marry our sister, we have no problems with that whatsoever! But all the people in your local bigwiggery have to get circumcised in trade for her, because… reasons!” So Shecham’s dad is like “Yeah, sounds reasonable.” While all the dudes in the local bigwiggery are lying around groaning in pain, Dinah’s brothers show up with swords and killed all of the men, looted the city, and stole all their flocks of animals, killed Shecham and his son, and brought their sister back. So kind of a weird and bloody little historical footnote.

     BUT the book is super good, just oozing with female empowerment and stuff. And I love me some feminist empowerment, especially when it’s encapsulated by a really great historical mostly-fiction-but-not-completely story that’s based in something from the Bible. Because let's be real - the Bible and female empowerment are usually mutually exclusive terms. Not always (see Tamar, Mary Magdalene, Ruth, Esther), but it’s a good rule of thumb.

     So here we go! I’m super excited to NOT get really angry at some dumb movie!

1. Seriously though, is there nothing worse than an unrequited love-triangle? Unless it’s an unrequited love triangle made up entirely of people in the same family. Leah loves Jacob who loves Rachel, who loves Jacob back, but is also Leah’s little sister. Oh, and they’re all cousins! Bleargh. They are just asking for some recessive genetic diseases.
2. For being known as "the ugly sister," Leah is extremely beautiful.
3. Jacob’s totally ok with having Leah instead of Rachel. Dude gets his cake and can eat it too!
4. Wow, Jacob, four wives instead of one. SO much cake.
5. Jacob is SUCH a shrewd investor. Honestly, the only thing I knew about this guy was that he’s really good at breeding sheep, and that he tricked his dad into giving him the eldest-son birthright, which seems a little low, buuuuut at the same time, the eldest-son birthright is a pretttty sweet deal, sooo…… I’m not sure how much I can really fault him for that. Also he had a crapton of kids, because that tends to happen when you have four wives.
6. WHYYYYY are Simeon and Levi always the jerks? In “King of Dreams,” they were the dark-haired, shifty-eyed jerkfaces, and now the same is true here, too! Maybe I didn’t pay attention enough in Sunday School, but I’m not sure that’s ever really implied in Genesis.
7. Where do all these incredibly beautiful women get the tools to sculpt their incredibly beautiful eyebrows? I mean seriously you guys, I have a mirror and at least 40 more centuries of beautification technology on them, and my brows do not look even half that good!
8. Yarrow root??! The only thing I know about yarrow root is that if you chew it, your tongue goes numb (thanks Camp Friedenswald!). Turns out it’s also Bronze Age Ambien.
9. ENTER THE BAD GUY. You can tell because he wears a lot of black eyeliner. Dinah, gurl, he totes notices you peeking at him from across the way. You’re not being sneaky at all.
10. “Not as beautiful as you.” Oh, you charmer. 
11. Ohhhhh gurrrrl you are gonna regret that decision. Stripping down for a dude you just met that wears that much black eyeliner, and whom you plan to marry without asking your dad is just not the mark of a well-considered choice, not when you’re an OT lady. Nowadays, sure, whatever, full steam ahead. Back then? No.
12. Dinah’s sexy striptease is made even more awkward by the complete lack of response from Not-So-Bad-Guy.
13. OHHHHHHHHHHHH the family couldn’t POSSIBLY want Dinah back, because she’s no longer “pure.” Haha, you guys suck. But seriously, though. Sit down. *Relatedly, I read a book over Christmas that was all about stuff like that, and how a girl’s dowry wasn’t so much payment to her dad in exchange for the work he’ll not get out of her once she left the farm, but more as payment for her intact hymen. PATRIARCHY.
14. Mmmmm… circumcision. Nothing says “good bride price” like a big pile of foreskins.
15. WHY is it that Simeon and Levi and Joseph are the only sons that ever show up in this movie? Jacob has 10 other sons, and none of them are ever even mentioned!
16. “It’s just a flesh wound!” Yeah, Not-So-Bad-Guy, that’s what they all say. Look at what happened to that one dude from Game of Thrones! “Just a flesh wound to my sculpted and incredibly defined pecs,” but then he dies of blood poisoning or something.
17. How in the crap did Jacob’s sons (ie Levi and Simeon) slit Not-So-Bad-Guy’s throat without Dinah noticing?!? They were in the same bed, 6” from each other! I would certainly notice that sort of thing, especially if there were blood-loss-induced thrashing going on.
18. You know, Jacob, bringing up the shame your daughter brought on your name by not asking his permission to marry Not-So-Bad-Guy MIGHT have been better brought up in a conversation that did not directly proceed from blood-drenched Dinah’s completely justified ranting involving your sons and their rampant murder of everyone. Just saying. Time and place, dude. Also, Dinah, wow. Call it like it is, gurl. 
19. Not-So-Bad-Guy’s mom is a total boss. What a lady, I mean, really. Strong female role and all that.
20. I take it back. She’s a total BIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIITCH.
21. Is anyone planning to do anything about the Dinah’s episiotomy-induced HEMORRORHAGE?!??!? She’s bleeding all over the place! Jeez guys, I know you’re Bronze Age and all, but if you can do an episiotomy, you can sure as heck fix one.
22. No, random carpenter, Dinah’s kid Re-mose does NOT have Dinah’s eyes. Hers are blue, his are deep brown. It’s like saying Harry has Lily’s eyes, when he clearly does not.
23. Wow, this is hardly the Dreamworks’ version of the confident and carefree Joseph that lived in an Egyptian cell for like 5 years, practicing botany and vibrato in his spare time. This terrified and unkempt Joseph is probably more accurate, though.
24. Re-mose, your hair is stupid looking. And you’re a complete douchenozzle.
25. GUUUUHHHHHHH girl has some crippling self-esteem issues. And some dude swoops in and saves her. Thank goodness for the mens, amirite, ladies?
26. OH SNAP DINAH’S KID RE-MOSE WORKS FOR THE EGYPTIAN VIZIER WHO IS NOW JOSEPH, WHOSE WIFE IS IN LABOR AND IS BEING ATTENDED TO BY DINAH. IT’S ONE BIG HAPPY FAMILY REUNION! Except no one knows it, because none of them actually meet. Also, I don't want to be like "Well, in the BOOK..." but in the book, Joseph is an arrogant but illiterate former slave with homosexual leanings. Not very Lifetime-movie-friendly, I gather.
27. Now that they have met, it would have been better if they hadn’t, cuz all hell breaks loose.
28. Joseph can forgive his brothers for selling him into slavery, but can’t forgive his sister’s kid for nicking his pecs? He’s probably (justifiably) afraid of dying of blood poisoning. But c’mon dude, where’s that soulfully-singing botanist we’re all so familiar with?
29. So if all the kids are coming together to be with their dying dad, where are all the other brothers? Seriously, again, it’s just Joseph and Dinah. But I guess if I’d sold my brother into slavery, and killed my sister’s husband and every dude in his kingdom, and were the direct agent of their misery, I’d probably lay pretty low, too.

     At the end of the movie, everyone is ok with everyone else and all is forgiven, because what is a Lifetime movie if it doesn’t end like that? The book is a lot darker. That said, it was a very well done production, and I very much enjoyed it. You guys, look, it’s totally possible to do a religiously-themed movie without kowtowing to idiotic, overused themes, and Lifetime just did it. It’s not perfect, because of course it couldn’t be, but of all the religious-themed movies I’ve reviewed for this blog, this is the one that I’ve hated the least, by a long, long shot. I probably liked it because it took a lot of artistic liberties with a story that is a tiny, weird little footnote in Genesis, one that hasn’t been told like 9,000 times. And it's cool because it tells the story from the lady's point of view, which, let's be honest, is pretty much absent from the OT. The mens get to tell all the stories, and as a result, maaaaaaybe stuff gets a little twisted in the telling. "History is written by the victors," and all that. This story was also awesome because it involved a bunch of super boss ladies who were very cool. I would legitimately like to hang out and menstruate in the red tent with them. It sounds like it would be really fun. You should defs read the book. Unfortunately, you can’t go see “The Red Tent” in theaters, but you can probably stream it on the Internet. If I can do it, you can, too. And you totally should. Full marks.

Exodus: Gods and Kings

   

       Alternative titles – “Everyone is White,” “The Writers are Basing the Movie off of Sunday School Flannelgraphs and Not Off the Bible,” and “Moses, You’re Doing it Wrong.” Now, I've seen Dreamworks’ “Prince of Egypt” at least a dozen times, and know every word to every song in there, even that crazy song sung in Hebrew, so I defs know what I’m talking about when I say that this most recent adaptation is pretty weird. It’s mostly accurate, by which I mean “Christian Bale is obviously Moses, the plagues are sequential, Tzipporah is a hottie, and the Hebrew God is maybe just a little bit petulant.” So really, not that much accuracy. Errors, suspensions of belief, and laudable moments are as follows:

1. Moses and Ramses are both given swords with the words “short enough that you won’t trip over them.” Hurrrrr that’s what she said.
2. The only Black lady in the entire movie is obviously just hanging around in a position of sexual subservience. Way to go, typecasters.
3. Haha, yeah, Hebrew slave, when you came up to Moses in the middle of the street and told him to meet some random slave dude in the slave quarters at midnight, I’m sure no one noticed that, especially not the 6 guards that are all around Moses. Nah, bro, you’re good.
4. WHAT?!?!?!? No, Miriam did NOT put Moses in the river, her MOTHER did! Jeez, did you guys not read Exodus 2 at all? Have you been depending on flannelgraphs from Sunday School this whole time?
5. Moses, understandably super pissed that he’s a prole and not a prince, storms out and… kills an Egyptian guard…? Yeah, makes sense.
6. Moses is exiled because Ramses (now Pharaoh) is mad that he killed an Egyptian guard. Ok, yeah, that’s pretty on-point.
7. Goat toenail trimming is a great place to meet the ladies. Just ask Moses and Tzipporah, they’ll tell you. One minute they’re trimming goat toenails, the next, they’re getting married!
8. “Proceed,” is all Tzipporah says before Moses starts taking off her clothes. Um. Ok?
9. FAST FORWARD 10 YEARS WITHOUT TELLING US!!!! Or maybe it’s longer, I don’t know. Moses has a ten-year old son, so maybe they waited 5 years to have kids, and it’s actually been fifteen! Christian Bale doesn’t actually age though, because, as we all know, that dude is classic.
10. WHOA, MUDSLIDE ON THE MOUNTAIN!!!!
11. Moses takes a mudbath while God (a ten year old boy with a very petulant way of speaking), tells him to go fight for the Hebrews in a very nonspecific way. No instructions, nothing. The burning bush is just kind of chillin' in the background. I’m pretty disappointed in this scene, to be honest. That whole burning bush thing, with the “who made man’s mouth, who makes him deaf or mute?” is actually kind of my favorite part of the whole story, and this movie cut that out, which makes me really mad. Also, the “Prince of Egypt” soundtrack accompanying the scene is some of the most powerful music out there, and I’m sad that the whole burning bush scene is just Moses taking a mud bath while a ten-year-old boy talks smack to him.
12. Whoa, Moses, really, you haven’t told your WIFE that you grew up in Seti’s palace? You think that maybe, in 10-15 years of marriage, maybe that sort of thing should have come up BEFORE you went riding off back to Egypt again?
13. Tzipporah is not supportive at all, which is not how it is in Exodus. She goes with him, and when God tries to kill him this one time on the road (I regularly tell people to do something, and when they go to do it, I try to kill them. It happens to the best of us, I get it), she CUTS HER SON’S PENIS and puts the blood on Moses’s feet so that God can recognize him again. That is one of the weirder parts of the Exodus narrative.
14. In response to Moses’s classic “Let my people go,” Ramses is like “Yeah, no, because infrastructure, amirite?” And Moses is like “Oh, yeah, you’re right dude, that is a completely valid concern!” Haha, except not. He’s like “Ok, cool, hellfire and damnation, then!”
15. Pharaoh’s army looks like Stormtroopers in those hats.
16. Um no. Burning ships in the harbor? Training guerilla Hebrew slaves during the day? That’s not how this works. You gotta F.R.O.G! That stands for Fully Rely On God, for those who did not grow up in the evangelical tradition of the late 90s.
17. The god-child and Moses (no mudbath this time) have a conversation that basically goes like this: “Hey, Moses, remember that time when you were taking a mudbath and I told you that I needed a guy to go fight for the Hebrews? Well, you went and fought for the Hebrews, pretty much exactly like I told you (except I didn’t give you any specific instructions on how to do that), and it didn’t work, and now Pharoah is totes pissed. So now how about you sit back, relax, maybe take another mudbath, and watch me do my thing.”
18. The Nile is red because the crocodiles ate all the boat-men on the river, turning the river to blood. No.
19. Quick succession of the plagues, which, mercifully, are all in the right order, but unmercifully, are unaccompanied by the "Plagues" song from "Prince of Egypt," which is probably my favorite.
20. NO THE PLAGUES DO NOT AFFECT THE HEBREWS THAT’S NOT HOW THIS THING WORKS. *Caveat – I double-checked after the movie, and apparently the only plagues that do not specifically bother the Hebrews are the plague of darkness and the plague of the firstborn. My bad.
21. Oh for Pete’s sake you guys, those hailstones are NOT that big. Just chill out.
22. Ramses yells to an empty room about how he’s going to drown Hebrew children. He’s slowly going bonkers, probably because of the Egyptian nobility’s penchant for marrying their own fathers and daughters.
23. Ramses… you can’t just put your mummy-baby into that admittedly adorable little sarcophagus. Mummies need like 90 days to chill on a bed of salt and have their brains pulled out through their nose, and their organs packed in special little jars! Didn’t you read the mummy-making books in 3^rd grade like the rest of us?
24. Oh, what? Moses’s SWORD was the thing that divided the Red Sea?! WHAT??!?!?!? The subtle implications of that little change in narrative have HUGE ramifications. Suddenly, Moses is no longer the peaceful shepherd-vessel of God’s spirit, but the charging-forth champion FOR God! You guys, this is NOT COOL.
25. NO, NO, NO, WHERE IN THE BOOK OF EXODUS DOES “THEY WALKED ACROSS ON DRY LAND” TRANSLATE TO “THEY SLOGGED THROUGH WAIST-DEEP WATER”?!?!?!?!?!? Relatedly, slogging through waist-deep water with 400,000 other people and their panicked animals sounds like the best way to get oneself killed before reaching Canaan.
26. TORNADO?!?! I mean, whatever, it’s a little one, but… OMG *MORE* TORNADOES?!?!?! WTF, WHERE IS THE PILLAR OF FIRE?!?!?!!?!?
27. And then Moses’s guerilla fighters (that do not exist) go out and try to fight with Ramses’s charioteers? No, you guys, come ON, have you NOT read Exodus 14:14? The Old Testament Moses is a super hippie, he’s like “Yeah dudes, just chill, God’s gonna wipe these guys up like spilled milk, just calm down, it’ll be fine.”
28. A brief parlay with Ramses, with the converging combinations of tornadoes and the returning sea is a great idea, Moses! It’s awesome that you’re using your words instead of your sword in order to talk some sense into your former best friend, but for realz, dawg, you need to GTFO.
29. Hey Moses, maybe instead of throwing a rock at your son to let him know you’re back in town, maybe you wanna be like “Hey son, I’m BA-A-AA-ACK!!! Dja miss me?!!?” or something that doesn’t involve throwing rocks at your son.
30. Tzipporah is super excited to see 400,000 Hebrew refugees in her town, because that’s not a strain on the infrastructure AT ALL.
31. That’s super nice of the god-child to make Moses a cup of tea while he chisels out the Ten Commandments.
32. You guys, WHERE is Miriam in all of this?!?!!? The song of Moses and Miriam in Exodus 15 is SUPER nice, and they IGNORED IT!! And once they’re wandering in the wilderness for 40 years, who else but Miriam is supposed to get leprosy to teach Moses a lesson about trusting God? Seriously, the wimmins in this story get shafted.

      So yeah. That’s the story of “The ‘Exodus’ Writers Are Basing This Movie Off a Sunday School Flannelgraph and Not On The Bible.” It was just so… militaristic. So much less “Hey, God’s gonna fight for you, just chill,” and so much more “Yeah, God probs defs wants us to whip our swords out and kill the Egyptians!” And Moses’s staff was missing! It doesn’t get turned into a snake, it doesn’t part the Red Sea, it doesn’t get hit on a rock to produce fresh water, and it doesn’t turn the Nile into blood! I mean, this thing is a super important prop, and they just do away with it! Or, better yet, they TURN IT INTO A FREAKING SWORD, BECAUSE SWORDS ARE AWESOME YAY!!!!! I mean, you can just look at the movie poster, where his GIANT SWORD is just out there for the world to see, to see that this is not your typical Moses movie about your typical Midianite shepherd. It was pretty disappointed. My professional opinion is that you should not watch this film. 

Left Behind

          

          “Left Behind” came out like two months ago, and I wanted to review it then, but alas, I am not about to spend $10 of my husband's hard-earned money to watch a terrible movie starring Nicolas Cage and his Sad Face, and thus am dependent on Christians to illegally upload the movie to the Internet once they are done watching it. Since Christians tend not to be moral black holes, this can take awhile. BUT THE WAIT IS FINALLY OVER.

         Nicolas Cage, obviously hoping to deep-six his film career even further, stars as Ray-Ban, a pilot in charge of driving a plane full of empty clothes through the air, in a modern remake of the 2001 Christian blockbuster “Left Behind,” which was based on the 436-book series by Jerry Jenkins and Tim LeHaye, which is NOT based on the Bible, but instead features their vividly inaccurate imaginations of a non-biblical, but nonetheless pop-culturally significant, apocalypse. That was a long sentence, but if medical school has taught me anything, it's that you want to fit your case presentation into 2 sentences, but you don't want to leave anything out. Enter: run-ons.

         Before we get started, I want to assure you all that I have, indeed, read all 942 “Left Behind” books. Maybe (definitely) more than once. I was THAT person. I read Revelation from cover-to-cover, and when I was in middle school, I tried to write a fantasy book co-starring the Horsemen of the Apocalypse and the Lion of Judah. Unfortunately, I do not have a copy, but desperately wish that I did. Believe me when I tell you, I am EXTREMELY qualified to write this review. Errors, suspensions of belief, and any smidgen of accuracy will be noted as follows:

1. Jumpin' right in there with the Random Airport Christian and your Garden-Variety Apologetics, hopelessly outnumbered by the one-two punch of Ray-Ban's Clueless Daughter and Ruggedly Handsome Reporter's displays of rational thinking and sincerely-held-belief-bashing. Both of them are atheists, and are quite obviously quagmires of immorality.
2. Oh, Ray-Ban, I see what you did there – the disappearance of your wedding ring coincided exactly with the arrival of Hottie to the scene. However, if Foundations of Medical Practice has taught me anything (and it hasn't), it's that correlation does not equal causation.
3. Hottie's sexual attraction to Ray-Ban is evident in the way in which she eyes his backside with appreciation. Causation equaled, I retract my previous statement.
4. Ray-Ban wears his Ray-Bans inside. Because of course.
5. Clueless Daughter's use of “wacko” to describe her Christian Mom's belief system makes me think she's probably related to John “Wack-o Bird” McCain.
6. The sneak peeks of children on Ray-Ban's plane is not a subtle use of foreshadowing at all.
7. Hey, Ray-Ban Junior and Clueless Daughter, going to the mall is what the cool kids do........................ in 2003.
8. The sneak peaks of children in the mall is not a subtle use of foreshadowing at all.
9. Hey, Ray-Ban, Hottie, and Ray-Ban's backside, going to a U2 concert is what the cool kids do...................................... in 1989.
10. WHOA THAT WAS ABRUPT!!!!!!!!!!!! RAY-BAN JUNIOR IS JUST A PILE OF CLOTHES!!!! CLUELESS DAUGHTER IS TELLING A PILE OF CLOTHES THAT SHE LOVES IT!!!!!!!! THE PLANE IS FULL OF PILES OF CLOTHES!!!!!! THE MALL IS FULL OF PILES OF CLOTHES!!!!!!!! THE CO-PILOT IS A PILE OF CLOTHES!!!!!!!! A PILE OF CLOTHES IS FLYING THE PLANE!!!!!!!!! The whole plane looks like the floor of my college roommate's side of the room – PILES OF CLOTHES EVERYWHERE!!!!
11. Hey, Clueless Daughter, I'm pretty sure that Ray-Ban Junior is not inside of the backpack through which you are so frantically rummaging.
12. Um wow, I'm not a pilot at all, but I'm pretty sure that there is NOT a button on a plane that just SUCKS ALL THE OXYGEN OUT OF THE CABIN!!!!!!
13. Um, no, Ruggedly Handsome Reporter with a boss Nikon, you can't just take a picture out a dark airplane window of a dark airplane wing in the dark while flying in the dark and have it come out perfectly focused and perfectly lit without even a hint of shake. I am a photographer who owns a boss Nikon, I know these things. If I can't do it, you can't do it.
14. How is it that even though Ray-Ban and his backside on a plane that is only like 3 hours from New York, and Clueless Daughter is IN New York, why is it that it is completely pitch-black outside of Ray-Ban's plane, while Clueless Daughter is running frantically through the well-light daytime streets? Even if a plane is flying against the rotation of the earth, it just doesn't work like that. 
15. Clueless Daughter, does Ray-Ban Junior have a curious case of the Benjamin Buttons? Why else would you look for him in the nursery of a hospital?
16. Oh, all the babies and all the kids and all the nice people were taken, but the DOCTORS were left behind? You know why that is, right? We doctors are godless moral vacuums, that's why.
17. The dog sitting next to the pile of clothes is probably the saddest part of this whole stupid movie.
18. Whoa, Ray-Ban, does your mom live in the cockpit of your aircraft? She doesn't? Then maybe, as you are flicking casually through the pile of clothes that used to be your co-pilot, idk, maybe you want to be a little more neat about it, and not just toss things willy-nilly over your shoulder?
19. Christian “Wack-o Bird” Mom's Bible is open to Song of Solomon? For a woman who believes fervently in the Rapture, I would have expected a little more “abomination of desolation” and a little less “your breasts are like two fawns” from her daily devotional but hey, what do I know, it's not like I majored in Bible and Religion in college or anything.
20. Straight from the mouth of King Nicholas himself - “Either I'm going crazy, or the entire world is insane.” Truer words have never been spoken, especially by a man who (presumably) voluntarily chose to eighty-six his film career by appearing in his wretched screenplay, and is now deeply regretting that decision. True fact – those words were not in the original script – they were ad-libbed as Nicolas Cage realized what a mistake he had made.
21. WHOA, LADY WITH A GUN?!?!!?!? ON A PLANE?!?!?!? It's been a long time since I've held a gun (those darn pacifist beliefs!), but last I checked, they were made of metal. Metal that is detected by metal detectors, specifically set up to detect the guns made of out metal that crazy people bring onto planes. WHERE IS THE TSA IN ALL OF THIS?!?!?
22. Ray-Ban, telling Hottie that you have a wife is a very noble thing to do, but come on, time and place. I mean, no time like the present, but all hell is kind of breaking loose with the proles in steerage right now!
23. Hottie, if I were you, I'd be more upset about the steerage full of empty clothing than the fact that flirty-flirt Ray-Ban and his backside have a wife.
24. The look on Ray-Ban's face when he finds out that the entire planet has been affected is probably the same look Nicolas Cage wore at the premiere of “Left Behind” when when he realized that everyone would see him in this ridiculous movie. Sheer horror.
25. Wow, despite having demonstrated absolutely zero aptitude for original thought or talent of any kind, other than parroting John McCain, Clueless Daughter has suddenly learned to drive a motorbike! Her newfound skill at motorbike-driving does not extend to picking up a helmet, however.
26. Clueless Daughter's previously untapped reservoir of mechanical knowledge comes in handy in very quick succession – first a motorbike, then a stick-shift pick-up, and now a road-grader! I hope that someday, my vast knowledge of trees of the United States comes in handy in an emergency like this.
27. YEAH, GURRRRL, LIGHT THAT SH*T UP!!!!!! Good thing there is always a gas can available in an emergency.
28. The hug between Ray-Ban, Ray-Ban's backside, and Ray-Ban's Clueless Daughter is inspiring as all-get-out. Hallmark movie music plays, New York burns in the background, families are sobbing over piles of clothing that used to be children, but all is right in what remains of their little family.
29. The closing screen is of Ray-Ban's stunned face, as Nicolas Cage realizes what appearing in this movie has done to his career.

        My biggest beef with this movie is not the bad acting, not the lack of Kirk Cameron, and not even that it portrays a biblically-inaccurate event, but that the entire movie is just Nicolas Cage flying a plane while repeatedly assuring everyone that he would get to the bottom of “whatever-this-is.” Having read the “Left Behind” books, I can tell you that Ray-Ban flying a plane constitutes approximately 1/100^th of the entire series, and only about the first 30 pages of the 250-page first installment. WHERE IS THE ANTICHRIST?!!? In the White House, obviously, and unavailable for comment. 
         In conclusion, don't watch this movie. Rotten Tomatoes gave it a 5%, which is probably some kind of record. If you really feel like you want to hasten the arrival of Jesus, just keep on doing good things for people who need it, because nothing you do is going to speed up his return. Dude has his own timetable.