Evangelical Cinema and Culture

[AWA]

That was the funniest thing I've seen in some time. And by funny I mean LOL @ the horridness.

The prosumer camera thing combined with US Christian dollars is certainly making inroads, but unfortunately they are completely unaware they're making great comedy.

[knives]

How are we certain this isn't satire? Pieces of dialouge and some action sets in the trailer suggest it might be.

[Matt]

How are we certain this isn't satire? Pieces of dialouge and some action sets in the trailer suggest it might be.

Evangelical Christians aren't very good at satire, as a rule.

[dx23]

Bad films like that make baby Jesus cry.

[Cde.]

I think the one-two punch of Boogie Town and After Last Season (which we can now rule out being an April Fool's Day Joke) is hard to beat. This one's pretty funny though.

I love it how for the first half of the trailer it looks like a fairly typical overly melodramatic 'inspirational' Christian movie...and then SATAN APPEARS!!!

[domino harvey]

I do take some small bit of satisfaction in the MPAA being forced to sit through that trailer in order to certify it.

[domino harvey]

Evolution disproved using peanut butter

[dx23]

Evolution disproved using peanut butter

I saw that a while ago and it is as idiotic as Kirk Cameron trying to disprove evolution with a banana. What annoys me the most is that these assholes repeat these stupid ideas that show complete ignorance and lack of scientific education to promote their creationist agenda and all the anti global warming bullshit that the conservatives push.

[karmajuice]

In Kirk Cameron's defense, that is a video of Kirk Cameron sitting quietly while some other guy tries to disprove evolution with a banana.

[Grand Illusion]

I feel like the only innocent party is the banana.

[Gregory]

Wish I could've been in Kirk's seat: "You're right, bananas do seem perfect for people (and other primates) to eat. But what about mangoes and pomegranates? Couldn't God have perfected those a little more? Especially the mango: how did anyone eat that before the invention of the knife and flossing? Still, both of those are better than the Buddha's hand. Who created that?!"

[matrixschmatrix]

I have no idea of how that argument is supposed to work. anyway. I mean, there are any number of examples in nature where an animal and a plant are clearly engineered to fit with one another- passiflora and the sword-billed hummingbird, for instance. Evolution has a perfectly handy explanation for how that happened, no need for outside interference whatsoever.

[Kirkinson]

In Kirk Cameron's defense, that is a video of Kirk Cameron sitting quietly while some other guy tries to disprove evolution with a banana.

The Prosecution rests its case.

[domino harvey]

Cameron's insane. In that firefighter Christian movie he made, the filmmakers had to cut to a closeup of him kissing his actual wife rather than the actress playing his wife, since he refused to kiss anyone else

[matrixschmatrix]

He also violently attacks his computer for forcing him to watch pornography. Some aspects of the fundamentalist subculture are so strange they loop around to being endlessly amusing.

[Mr Sausage]

In Kirk Cameron's defense, that is a video of Kirk Cameron sitting quietly while some other guy tries to disprove evolution with a banana.

The Prosecution rests its case.

Finding a Crocoduck would disprove evolution. Good work, Kirk Cameron.

Oh, if only those evolutionists could find some species that was half-way between an older and a newer species, something like, I don't know, a half-dinosaur half-bird combination or something.

[aox]

No No, Kirk Cameron is right. Wait......does that make him wrong? I am confused.

[matrixschmatrix]

I think that proves that there is a God, and that He too thinks Kirk Cameron is risible.

[Brian C]

I think "notosuchian crocodylomorph" would be a great name for a band.

[Grand Illusion]

In Kirk Cameron's defense, that is a video of Kirk Cameron sitting quietly while some other guy tries to disprove evolution with a banana.

The Prosecution rests its case.

Finding a Crocoduck would disprove evolution. Good work, Kirk Cameron.

Oh, if only those evolutionists could find some species that was half-way between an older and a newer species, something like, I don't know, a half-dinosaur half-bird combination or something.

Dawkins has an excellent rebuttal (yes, rebuttal) to evolutionists who raise Archaeopteryx as the prime "transitional fossil."

It's a great read. Check it out.

[matrixschmatrix]

Haha, well the rebuttal is essentially 'it's not a good answer because the objection in question is so incredibly stupid that even answering it is giving it too much credit', which is true enough, but I'd like to assume we all knew that already.

[Grand Illusion]

I like how, in that chapter, Dawkins elucidates the arbitrary classification of birds as non-reptiles. Also, I like how he explains some of our current species bias. Bias that includes considering species as being wholly more primitive or more evolved, when that distinction can break down to individual appendages. I like the example given that the extinction of birds' closest relatives/ancestors led to our view of how "different" birds are from other species, despite being closer to reptiles than other reptiles are.

If all of this is common knowledge, I appreciate how he logically constructs the argument, piece by piece. I may be a simpleton, but he certainly clarifies things for me. If not the facts themselves, then the mechanics by which they work. Dawkins begins by saying the objection is dumb, but then carefully shows how evolution is a bunch of branching paths rather than a ladder, which is something the Archaeopteryx example plays into (i.e. dinosaurs -> birds).

[matrixschmatrix]

To be fair, I'm in the middle of watching through a giant box of Attenborough shows right now- it's easy to forget how complicated the process of evolution seems when you haven't had it minutely and excitingly illustrated with actual footage accompanied by cogent explanations, as it is with Attenborough.

Reading further in the link, it does go into more and more interesting depth about the issue of archaeopteryx and how it's classified- I'd only read the first, dismissive blurb before. Honestly, the saddest thing about Creationists to me- aside from the way that belief is fostered specifically to aid in anti-environmental crusades- is the number of beautiful, amazing things about natural history they have to shut themselves off from. Evolution is such a gorgeously elegant process that it seems like something you'd be proud to credit God with- and that way, you wouldn't have to close your eyes and plug your ears every time someone tried to explain to you how an ecosystem works, and how it came to be.

[zedz]

I like how, in that chapter, Dawkins elucidates the arbitrary classification of birds as non-reptiles. Also, I like how he explains some of our current species bias. Bias that includes considering species as being wholly more primitive or more evolved, when that distinction can break down to individual appendages. I like the example given that the extinction of birds' closest relatives/ancestors led to our view of how "different" birds are from other species, despite being closer to reptiles than other reptiles are.

If all of this is common knowledge, I appreciate how he logically constructs the argument, piece by piece. I may be a simpleton, but he certainly clarifies things for me. If not the facts themselves, then the mechanics by which they work. Dawkins begins by saying the objection is dumb, but then carefully shows how evolution is a bunch of branching paths rather than a ladder, which is something the Archaeopteryx example plays into (i.e. dinosaurs -> birds).

Though Archaeopteryx, being Jurassic and long extinct before whatever wiped out the rest of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago, is a less pertinent example of a bird antecedent than the late-Cretaceous feathered velociraptors, which even to the dimmest Creationist are really obviously part-dinosaur / part-bird creatures (so generally they have to dismiss them as evil Evolutionist hoaxes).

[Mr Sausage]

Though Archaeopteryx, being Jurassic and long extinct before whatever wiped out the rest of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago, is a less pertinent example of a bird antecedent than the late-Cretaceous feathered velociraptors, which even to the dimmest Creationist are really obviously part-dinosaur / part-bird creatures (so generally they have to dismiss them as evil Evolutionist hoaxes).

If they even believe they have feathers in the first place, given that everything people know about velociraptors comes from Jurassic Park (even tho' they were actually depictions of Deinonychus).