I guess this is the star of Duck Dynasty. I don’t know; I’ve never seen the show. Anyway he says that atheists will be converted to end-times Christians if we watch the remake of ‘Left Behind’ starring Nicholas Cage. Can it believe it took this for me to finally lose the last of my respect for Nicholas Cage? To see him as the joke that everyone else has already seen for years?
I would say that this comment from the Duck Dynasty guy would have cost me my faith in humanity too -except that he is also the producer of this film, and we know how important money is when compared to anything else.
Unless Duck-Dynasty-guy thinks that this movie contains enough evidence to rationally justify belief in the Christian mythos, he’s projecting his own method of coming to conclusions onto others. He thinks that an emotional appeal will convince people, which reveals how it is that he is convinced. I do the same; I project my need for evidence onto others, assuming that enough evidence will change their minds.
Do fundie nuts not realize that even liberal Christians hate end-times crap? The guy who writes the Slactivist blog has been ripping apart the Left Behind books for years, muttering all along the way about how vile and messed up they are. You have to be seriously deluded to think that someone who isn’t even Christian will actually be converted by them.
These ones might not be as bad as the last series of movies, though. The higher budget might draw a better screen-writer who can rework the shit writing of the books. You could make an end-times series that I would actually enjoy. You just need to tap some writers who aren’t writing to the fundie-Christian audience because they can’t get anyone in the mainstream market to take them seriously.
Hell, Good Omens comes to mind. Surely someone could write something like that while making it adhere a little more to the Christian perspective. I might just read something like that.
You have to give them credit. It takes genius, of a sort, to turn flaky theology into millions of dollars.
Yeah, the marketing people are clearly on the ball, considering what they can do with such an amazingly shitty product.
I don’t know. They seem to be taking one of the stories out there any making a drama out of it. The line “the god my mother worshiped would never do this” (something like that) makes me think that this may not play out quite the way the fundies imagine.
Cage seem to take roles he thinks seem fun, he have done some weird movies that might sound fun on paper.
It’s also possible he just needs the money that badly. Dude has a gambling problem.
Although he didn’t star in Iron sky…
Pretty much since he won the Oscar, Cage has been a “will act for food” sort of person. I guess tax problems will do that.
It’s Lea Thompson’s participation that I find disheartening.
I’m not the biggest expert on media meant for conversion, so I may miss the brilliance of the Duck monarch, but this seems awfully counter-productive. Usually, convincing someone that something is a good thing consists of either presenting evidence, or showcasing the good sides of the concept in question. Usually, when religion is involved, it tends to be the latter that is focused on, with the medium being used to showcase happy believers or give a positive visualisation of some mythical story or the story of someone’s religious experience.
Left Behind just seems to be showing a story about how the Christian god will kill and destroy people, separating people whom we are made to sympathise with from each other and their children. That trailer does nothing to paint the people left on Earth as evil or anything other than perfectly nice people, so I fail to see how it’s supposed to convince anyone that worshipping the instigator of the chaos is the right choice. Even if it somehow presented irrefutable evidence that this god exists, it seems more likely to get people to convert to some form of Satanism to escape the being that caused mass destruction.
In other words, rapture porn is not the way to convince people that they should be Christians. It’s how you pander to the worst in Christians. Spot on, Keveak.
I feel like geeking out now. Stargate SG-1 (possibly inadvertently) became one of the best popsci philosophy references on this topic. It’s story about what would really happen if we met gods like those described in the Christian bible. (Spoiler: We would blow them up, or die trying.)
Forgive me for geeking out so much, lol.
http://www.stargate-sg1-solutions.com/wiki/9.11_%22The_Fourth_Horseman_Part_2%22_Transcript
In this following exchange, Teal’c and Gerak previously took part in a war to free themselves from slavery from a group of sufficiently advanced aliens called Goa’uld who called themselves gods. At the current spot in the story, Gerak has sided with another group of sufficiently advanced aliens, who also call themselves called, called the Ori. Like the Goa’uld, the Ori have a “convert or die” policy.
Above, Teal’c references the Goa’uld who used sufficiently advanced technology to revive the recently slain, heal the sick and wounded, and who had a Star-Trek phaser -like weapon which was jewelry on the hand (“Destroy their enemy with but a wave of their hand?”).
Above, Gerak references how the Goa’uld were physical creatures who relied on material physical technology, whereas the Ori seem to be non-material spirits or some facsimile. Still finite in power, but far beyond modern science, and outside of material science altogether.
Basically, he’s taking Gerak’s gun and pointing it towards himself.
“I die free” (look it up on tvtropes). Also known in the real world as “Give me liberty, or give me death!”
Now, replace “Ori” with “Christian god”, and what’s different? Nothing as far as I can tell. Both purport to have infinite power and to be free from flaws. Both offer enlightenment and life after death to their followers. Both command a “convert or die” policy.
Then, let me remind you that the Ori are lying, and they don’t give life after death to their followers. The Ori are basically a variant of “Gods Need Prayer Badly”.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GodsNeedPrayerBadly
The Ori use their followers at the follower’s expense. If the Christian god exists, want to take bets on whether it actually rewards its followers instead of being out for itself, especially considering the content of the Christian bible? Isn’t that what some Christians believe already, that the primary duty is to glorify the Christian god? What is the measure of a god?
Perhaps they won’t remake the campy credits and music of the Kirk Cameron “classic” that graces my DVD collection.
This could be done in such a way that it would be worth watching. I just don’t anticipate such a treatment.
Hell, I love Constantine. I’ll watch religious media, if it’s well done. Even slightly more theologically-oriented movies, like The Last Temptation of Christ.
As they said on Non Prophets Radio, several years back, the Left Behind computer games could have been done in such a way as to make me play them. Hell, I’d love to play as Satan’s forces. Of course the game ended up as an unplayable mess, as most things put out by evangelical media companies do.