where: CENTURY 14 VALLEJO in Vallejo, CA
when: Friday, March 21st, 2014
show: 7:20 p.m.
costs: $10.75 Ticket + $1.59 bulk Chocolate-covered Peanuts and Raisins + $3.85 20.0 oz Dasani Water = $16.19
auditorium: 4
seat: 3rd row ( counting from the front ), 9th column ( counting from the left )
synopsis/overview: Josh ( Shane Harper ), a devout christian pre-Law student, must defend his faith convincingly against his atheist Philosophy professor, Prof. Radisson ( Kevin Sorbo ), or fail in class and ruin his academic future.
noteworthy scenes: 1.) Snake pit; 2.) Senile dementia; 3.) Atheist; 4.) "Science and Reason have supplanted Superstition"; 5.) "Three words"; 6.) Duck show host interview; 7.) "It's for my father"; 8.) Matthew 10:32-33; 9.) Luke 12:48; 10.) Cancer; 11.) "You need to prioritize what's more important in your life"; 12.) Big Bang Theory; 13.) Spontaneous Creation; 14.) Jealous God; 15.) Break-up; 16.) One Corinthians 15; 17.) "You're making it sound like a conttract negotiation"; 18.) Library; 19.) Rental car; 20.) "A performance staged largely for your benefit"; 21.) "You know I'm a christian"; 22.) Cabernet/Merlot; 23.) Dinner guests; 24.) "Looks like it's all Greek to her"; 25.) Circular Reasoning; 26.) "Nonsense remains nonsense even if spoken by a scientist"; 27.) "Philosophy is dead"; 28.) Cinderella Complex; 29.) "Ninety-second giant leap"; 30.) Book of Job; 31.) Twelve year old; 32.) Angry father; 33.) "Why are you talking about this ..."; 34.) "You're not alone ..."; 35.) Elevator; 36.) "Why does God allow evil to exist"; 37.) Free Will; 38.) "If God does not exist, then everything is permissible"; 39.) "Religion is a disease"; 40.) "Why do you hate God"; 41.) "How can you hate someone who doesn't exist"; 42.) Unanimous support; 43.) "I've decided to follow Jesus"; 44.) "Car blessing"; 45.) "You have dementia. My life is perfect"; 46.) "Unscripted interview"; 47.) Old letter; and 48.) Hit-and-run.
audience reaction: The audience liked it. And quite a few gave it a "Hands Clapper" ending.
recommendation: I liked it enough. It's worth watching.
spoiler alert! She doesn't strike me as someone who wouldn't install a battery back-up in her alarm clock, considering the profession that she is in. This is in gross violation of the US Constitution's 1st Amendment, which states: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." It would have been obvious to a devout Bible-reading christian that only someone who had read the Tanakh ( Hebrew Bible, a.k.a. Masoretic Text ) or The Old Testament of The Christian Bible would know to use the title, "Jealous God." He had to argue his point before the class once a week for three consecutive weeks, meaning he only had a week's worth of time--or less--to do research and prepare his weekly argument yet we see him check-out a stack of textbooks from the library each week! I don't think that he can read through all that text material within such a short period of time. It is a spiritually false assumption to say that Jesus Christ died for all the Sins of The World as He, Himself, said that whoever commits the Unpardonable Sin of Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven ( Matthew 12:31-32, Mark 3:28-30, Luke 12:10 ). I've rented a car on a number of occasions, and I always get asked to show my driver's license and proof of insurance--details that were somewhat overlooked in a particular scene ( and I would always get driven to the car rental office first and be shown a quick check-off on the car assigned to me ). The hit-and-run victim got thrown in the air way too high, if you ask me. If his lungs filled-up with blood, he wouldn't be able to talk like that.
This movie felt like a Big-Screen promotion for a christian rock band! The message conveyed seemed to be:
If you just lost your job, your family, your sweetheart and/or your friends, or if you are dying of cancer, don't worry. Just come to our concert and you can forget about your troubles for at least an hour or so! Yeah, right ....
fyi: There are way too many moral reprobates running loose these days hiding behind an unconvincing veil of religion. They're only fooling themselves.
Honestly, it is very hard to commit the sin of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. You'd have to be Truly Evil in order to do so! But why take such a chance ...?
Indirect Approach
Scientific Objectivity
Why does God allow Evil to exist? In the same way that field scientists let nature take its course when a cute "Bambi" deer is stalked by a bunch of hungry carnivores. You can't be more objective than that! Remember, there will come a time for Spiritual Harvest but, first, the wheat and the weeds must grow together ( Matthew 13:24-30 ). And when everything good is gathered into God's barn, then " ... the yearling will be safe with the lion ..." ( Isaiah 11:6 ).
Scientific Method
Briefly, the Scientific Method involves observation, making a hypothesis, doing an experiment, arriving at a conclusion, having your findings duplicated by others and coming up with a theory. Opening up one's Third Eye is done in a scientific method, too, because all of the necessary steps for opening up one's Third Eye are done in a scientific way. I didn't believe in the possibility of possessing a Third Eye because my knowledge of Human Anatomy and Physiology prevented me from believing in it. Then, I came upon the shortcut method ( there are other methods, of course ) for doing so: The Zhunti Mantra method ( which I mentioned in my Spiritual Milestone blog, Thursday, June 23rd, 2011 ). When I say shortcut, I mean it in a relative way; you'd have to faithfully recite this mantra for approximately 200,000 times before it will open up your Third Eye. But when your Third Eye opens up, you will have an intimate spiritual knowledge of when God said, "Let there be Light!" ( Old Testament of The Bible, Genesis 1:3 ) When your Third Eye opens up, all that you will see is Pure White Light; your physical surroundings will disappear, along with everything else associated with physical objects, e.g. smell, taste, sound, etc. Remember, God created Light first; everything else He created after. In a sense, when your Third Eye opens up, you will get a vicarious sense of being "there" when God commanded Light to appear.
As I've said a long time ago, I don't capitalize the "c" in the word, christian, as it applies to the present world because I have yet to meet a True Christian according to The New Testament meaning of the word. I've accepted Christ as my Lord and Savior; I've had encounters with spirits both good and bad; and I truly believe in the Power and Authority of Jesus Christ but ... understand that none of these automatically makes me a christian because demons and evil spirits, themselves, know that Christ is The Savior God, they too have encounters with good spirits and they truly believe in the Power and Authority of Jesus Christ to command them all! How, then, can we differentiate ourselves from demons and evil spirits who accept the Divine Power and Authority of Christ, The Savior God, if such entities are unsaved? The answer is simple: By being "born" again in Spirit and by speaking in tongues ( fluency and literacy in any and all of the world's languages and dialects--not the nonsense gibberish "speaking-in-tongues" that a certain christian denomination is famous for ) and by performing miracles in Jesus Christ's name like restoring missing limbs and raising the dead back to life! Now, tell me honestly, have you seen such a Christian? I know I haven't ....
I had a Philosophy Professor at Solano College here in Suisun, CA, who came across as aloof. I think most Philosophy Professors are like that! He gave me a B grade simply because of my tardiness--hey, at least I was always fashionably late! I couldn't help it, it was the Pilipino in me which was responsible for my chronic tardiness. I don't know about you, but most of the Pilipinos I know are not punctual--'something to do with "Philippine time." LOL
Every time that I return a rental car, I would always tell the rental car employee: There is no dead body in the trunk. I got rid of the evidence! It always makes for a good laugh.
word of advice: Do not commit the Unpardonable Sin of Blasphemy Against the Holy Spirit of God.
tidbits: As recently as a few weeks ago, a member of a christian rock group was arrested and put in jail for hiring a hit-man to kill his wife! Luckily for the wife, it was an undercover cop posing as a hit-man.
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