Arrrr, curse ye, jpf. How dare you reveal this abomination to me? What’s this crazy born-again doing reviewing a pirate movie as a justification for his dogma?
But back to Jack for a second — sorry, Captain Jack. I was thinking about one of the central themes of this movie which involves the principal characters, one that you’ve most likely picked up on it as well:
Resurrection from the dead
As it turns out, getting swallowed by a nasty beastie called the Kraken is a bad thing, so one of the key story lines in this film is a desperate need for Captain Jack to come back from the dead so the forces of evil can be defeated.
And also as it turns out, we all have a Kraken of sorts on our tail as well … and unfortunately being on shore doesn’t keep us safe. Our nasty beastie is called death, and one day it will find us. We need someone to rescue us when that happens — to resurrect us so we can live out our eternity that way God intended it — which is in heaven with Him.
Jesus Christ defeated the Kraken called death. Like Jack Sparrow, he willingly jumped into its jaws to save others. But here’s the most amazing part … Jesus didn’t stay there. He came back so that we too could come back from the dead as well!
Look, Pirates of the Caribbean is fiction. That characters in a cartoon-quality story pop back and forth from the living to the dead and back again does not say anything to support your quaint superstitions about Jesus. Quite the contrary, it says that resurrection is a familiar (and lazy!) trope in fantasy stories, and if there’s any conclusion to be drawn, it ought to be that, gee, this bible story sure does sound as silly and improbable as a tale about a pirate getting eaten by giant cephalopods and getting rescued from Davy Jones’ locker by people with a magic compass. In fact, it ought to tell you that the bible is inferior. No pirates. No cephalopods. No swashbuckling. No undead monkeys. No men with tentacles.
Go ahead. Compare the bible to a fairy tale. I’m one up on you—I can recognize a fairy tale when I see one.
Sometimes he makes some sense:
“After all, how do we know that the empty tomb isn’t just some made up 1st century CGI blockbuster designed to entertain and excite a bunch of gullible religious nuts?
Well, we don’t. All we can do is look at the evidence and decide where it leads.”
Unfortunately his evidence just consists of taking the bible as fact, which is belief not evidence.
I got some tentacles for ya right heah!
Somebody wasn’t even paying attention to the 2nd movie–Jack definitely did his best to avoid being eaten; he didn’t jump until the very last minute, and only because he couldn’t avoid it!
I’m reminded of the passage in Stanislaus Joyce’s “My Brother’s Keeper,” telling of his upbringing in Dublin, with his elder and more famous brother, James. Speaking of the priest’s homily, he said ‘His sermon must have been what my weekly English theme was to me — the squeezing of a dry lemon.’
After all, the preacher has to have something to say for (it varies) fifteen minutes to an hour of exhorting the faithful. He has to stop them from falling asleep and he can only ask them to jump up and yell ‘Hallelujah’ a certain number of times, so he tries to be ‘hip’ and ‘relevant’ — are either of thos words still in common use — and ‘relate’ to the young and the frivolous with something ‘fun.’
Pity the poor preacher, squeezing his dry lemon.
Can I play?
And you know those Snakes on a Plane? Well Jesus was also like a snake- a snake that had very good news to tell us. And as the snakes ultimately were cast out of the plane, so Jesus was cast out by the Romans.
I heerd tell that heaven be paved with gold…Aaarrrggh!
Arrr, after readin’ the abo’e from Mr. Lane Palmer, Christian Today Guest Columnist, I’m a-wonderin’ why no pirate worth his salt would take him seriously, so to speak. What wi’ them fine Christian lot tryin’ so hard to get humour an’ all… if yer catch my meanin’…
…and me parrot concurs…
oh, and… “yo ho, me maties!”
Jack Sparrow as Jesus?!? That just cracks me up in ways I’ve never been cracked before.
So, PZ, any progress on adapting Pirate Mode to the ScienceBlogs/Feed servers?
But wait. . .if Jack Sparrow is Jesus, then that means Keith Richard is god.
This is worse than I ever imagined.
The Bible would have been far, far more interesting if JC were eaten by a squid. But I guess that would be too close to the Jonah story, huh?
The Pirates movies revel in the fact that they are tall tales. Not exactly something you wan tto use if you’re trying to justify religion.
“Our magic carpenter is just like your undead pirate!”
But wait. . .if Jack Sparrow is Jesus, then that means Keith Richard is god.
This is worse than I ever imagined.
So is the Holy Spirit cocaine, heroin, alcohol, nicotine…?
You want return from the dead, you call Willow Rosenberg.
I just got a funny idea for a flash cartoon/web comic. The FSM leads his pirate followers from the beer sea generated by the beer volcano to plunder the riches of Heaven.
Oh, and there’s only one thing I have to say about resurrection.
P.Z. says—“In fact, it ought to tell you that the bible is inferior. No pirates. No cephalopods. No swashbuckling. No undead monkeys. No men with tentacles.”
I don’t know about that. Maybe no undead monkeys, but…God ordered the Israelites to–conquer, pillage, rape, murder, enslave, steal– sounds like a pirate story to me.
And there’s even a behemoth!
Xena the Warrior Princess got crucified several times during her TV career. She even rose from the dead at least once.
I can’t wait for the next biblical edition starring Jack Sparrow as the resurrected chosen one.
Apparently christians not being satisifed with worshipping one fictional character, then go on to claim all fictional characters as the embodiment of their favourite religious fiction.
When will the insanity end?
When he invaded what is modern day Turkey, Alexander the Great stopped to pray at the shrine of Achilles. At this shrine were the ashes of Achilles, mixed with those of Patroclus. We know that Alexander the Great was real, therefore we know Achilles was real.
Achilles took part in the siege of Troy as chronicled in the Iliad. Also in the Iliad numerous deities of the Olympian Pantheon took part in the battle. Therefore they are real. This whole christianity thing and their god of herding, sheep, and bread is a false religion built on lies. It causes good people to blaspheme against the Olympians. Tres sad.
Achilles was no pirate but he was of divine heritage. Descended from the original titan of the sea… so almost a pirate… sort of. Yar?
Duh, that’s because she’s a Cylon!
Actually, that’s giving me an idea. The perfect addition to Ken Ham’s Creation “Museum” exhibits or surroundings would be pictures of happy people posing with cartoon characters, mythical creatures, and characters from tall tales: Goofy, Mickey & Minnie Mouse, Snow White, Pinky & the Brain, Chip’n’Dale, the Roadrunner and Wile E. Coyote, unicorns, fairies, Santa’s elves, centaurs, Betty Crocker, Smokey the Bear, Jack and the Beanstalk, Shrek, Pinocchio (pine-eye?), Captain Hook, Tinker Bell, Peter Pan, Spongebob Squarepants, leprechauns, dragons with tiny ridiculous wings, space aliens, Santa Claus. And Pecos Bill, Babe the Blue Ox, and Paul Bunyan. Especially Paul Bunyan, because we want to give equal time to the Ax-dragging Theory, right?
Emphasize that drawing a picture, putting on a costume, or making a diorama (Christmas windows, anyone?) does not constitute proof.
Ever heard of the deus ex machina? When you put God in a story, it instantly turns to crap.
I was just thinking how much cooler the Bible would be, story wise, if it had more cephalopods. Jesus? Eaten by squid. Jonah? Eaten by whale which is then eaten by squid. Ramses? A plague of cuddlefish on his people, simultaneously inking the Nile. Sodomites? The two angels unfurl their tentacles and flail out some cephalopodic whupass.
Jesus H. Christ.
I had no idea until we went to see Narnia that a) Harry Potter is Satan and b) Narnia is a Christian Experience.
I figured out by overhearing this man in his 30s accompanied by his two disciples, two young boys that I think he was being a little too friendly with, sitting a few seats away from me. Man, talk about cooties…
Arrrrg indeed. Lets see how this Capt’n Jesus chap floats wi’ a wad o’ rusty cannon shot in ‘is gut, eh? String ’em up and cut ’em down over ye port side, where me friends the sharks been feedin. Arrg.
I’m reminded at this time of someone…who came from space…and died…only to be ressurrected.
Yes, ET the extraterrestrial, I love that little guy.
PZ wrote:
As compared to… ?
But wait. . .if Jack Sparrow is Jesus, then that means Keith Richard is god.
This is worse than I ever imagined.
Yeah, ’cause whose father did Keith Richard snort, then?
Star Wars is 30 years old. Does anybody remember all those hideous “May the Force, which is Jesus, be with you” books and pamphlets that came out? Well, this too shall pass.
I like Monado’s idea, except let’s put all those characters in Hammie’s sideshow right along with the dinosaurs. A monument to kitsch.
Here’s something in the same vein as the Christianity Today article: “Arrr Ye Fearin’ the Hereafter? Theology and Death in Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End“ by Marc T. Newman, Ph.D.
That’s from MovieMinistry which gloms onto popular movies to sell religious tracts of dubious copyright status. Their tract for Pirates is called “Do Ye Fear Death?” Well, do ye, punk?
However, our old friends at CAP Movie Ministry aren’t buying it:
Then there’s Patch the Christian Pirate! God gave Ron “Patch” Hamilton eye cancer so he could start a Pirate Ministry. What? God didn’t have the time to take a leg and a hand, too?
Also, Christian pirate rap with puppets. I’m pretty sure this was linked to from here before, but why not again. It’s from some sort of pirate-themed Christian kids show. There’s more clips in the related section.
No men with tentacles.
Actually, these are fine. Men may be admitted to the assembly of the LORD unless these parts are crushed. Deuteronomy 23:1.
Oh…tentacles. Never mind.
I was thinking about this resurrection from the dead thing. If I saw the movie right, Jack was assisted in coming back from Davey Jones’ Locker by a pagan Goddess who animated stone crabs.
Is this really the message they want to tell us about Jesus Sparrow?
Only slightly off topic – who’s read ‘The Pyrates’ by George MacDonald Fraser? If not, get to it, because it’s what PotC ripped off, and all kinds of better. Craploads o’ cephalopods, and all the pirates anyone could want. Bonus: it mercilessly takes the piss out of both religion and pirate stories. Please don’t be put off by the fact that GWB has been reading the Flashman papers by the same author. As a Fraser fan, that just made me feel that something I love was violated.
Ok, one more from the American Tract Society: Pirates (yours for the low low price of $2.50 per pack of 20!) “Like Captain Jack Sparrow, when you face real life problems, you need a plan to win.” Their thesis isn’t as creative as the other two above. I think the gist can be summed up thusly:
The ATS is rather blatant in their abuse of other people’s creations and rather broad interpretation of fair use. I especially liked how they didn’t mince words in their description of their Ugly Betty tract “Hello, My name is Betty” (emph. mine): “This new tract from ATS capitalizes on the popular TV series Ugly Betty.”
… Unless you’re J.R.R. Tolkien.
At least C.S.Lewis was honest and open about the deliberate Christian allegory behind his books, and if religion really offends you, then you can just accept it as based on the myth and enjoy dissecting the myth.
A teacher at my old school (it was a private, Uniting Church school BTW, so the religious teaching was above board) who fancied himself as a bit of an evangelist (even got up in school assemblies and sang with the school band as backing) once tried to draw a parallel between Jesus and superheroes. My brother told me what happened.
Teacher: “So, who can tell me what Superman, Batman and Jesus all have in common?” (It may have been Superman and Spiderman, not sure, not too relevant anyway).
Nine hundred boys aged five to seventeen, in spontaneous chorus: “They’re all make-believe!”
You can’t say he didn’t ask for it. At least painting Jesus in subtext as an allegorical lion in an imaginary land isn’t asking too much. Go, Narnia.
this made me nearly fall out of my chair laughing :-D
“But wait. . .if Jack Sparrow is Jesus, then that means Keith Richard[s] is god.
This is worse than I ever imagined.”
…So does that make Mick Jagger the Virgin Mary, or…?
Holy Mixed up metaphors, Batman!
“…So does that make Mick Jagger the Virgin Mary, or…?”
I’m sure Mick hopes you guess his name (just don’t be puzzled by the nature of his game).
jpf:
I thought that should be, “Step 4: PROPHET!!!”
Avast ye swabs! The wages of sin be lots and lots of filthy lucre! Also cool pirate ships. Yarrrrrr!
Captain Jack as Jesus? Well, I’ve hope that, should I go to heaven when I die, I’d get to be with Captain Jack for all eternity…but there’s a lot more sex in my version of heaven than in the Bible’s.
Listen, just because someone comes back from the dead doesn’t mean they’re a Christ figure, OK? Captain Jack didn’t “sacrifice” himself, he was sacrificed by Elizabeth. His own double-dealing caught up to him and endangered the lives of all his friends, so she sacrificed him to save everyone else. He was also brought back, he didn’t come back on his own, and I’d love to know how they square with the fact that he was brought back by a witch. Captain Jack is essentially a mercenary (although a smokin’ hot one) and not really a role model for anyone (except, again, in terms of hotness…I’ve been trying to get my boyfriend to be more like him, at least in the bedroom, since Pirates 1 came out!) By trying to get their tentacles into every aspect of everything, these people “arrrrrr” just hurting their own cause.
And yet it still came back. I mean you’ve got to admit after Captain Jack was eaten (he didn’t exactly defeat the Kracken, but then he hadn’t spend the previous 24 hours power-leveling in preparation for the boss encounter) the Kracken didn’t come back to terrorize the rest of the people, despite the fact that as previously demonstrated by the movie the Kracken was unrealistically stupid considdering it’s a giant cephelopod.
You just had to say something that would make me think of tentacle monsters raping/attacking boys in girl school uniforms (well, as a thought experiment I combined Yaoi with tentacle-monster themed manga). Still, I can see why those angels descended on Sodom ;).
What do Jesus and Superman/Spiderman/Batman have in common? Asside from that they’re all make believe? They all save the world dressed in their underwear.
I’ve got to say, one day I got a pamphlet from the Jehova’s witnesses telling me the end of false religion was coming. Cause for celebration if there ever was one.
@jpf:
CAP Movie Ministry is always a hoot. I visit occasionally when I need cheering up by reading some insanity (maybe that says something about me…).
The last review I happened to read was for Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World which I read expecting to find tut-tutting about what struck me as rather obvious Charles Darwin allegory surrounding the visit to the Galapagos Islands. What I found instead was that there were a few things they actually liked about it:
I kid you not. Harsh punishments doled out to the (often in those days press-ganged) working class poor crew members for failing to show “proper respect” for “proper authority” (ie hereditarily rich people) is actually seen as a good thing.
Read the whole thing to make sure I’m not taking that out of context.
Come on everybody. We already have a One True Saviour, resurrected not once, but twice! All hail Buffy, a saviour worth having… again and again.
PZ, you can get started with a new business venture here. You can sell Kraken necklaces. You could also sell pieces of the Kraken that swallowed Captain Jack.
That characters in a fantasy story jump from the living to the dead and back again is one thing. That Dumuzi did the same thing, and did it millennia before this Jesus character snuffed it, is perhaps more significant. (So did Osiris, and many others.)
Dumuzi’s death was much cooler as well, with his lover Inanna, newly returned from the underworld, getting pissed that he doesn’t seem to be bothering to mourn her, and setting a bunch of ugallu (demons? soldiers? servants of Ereshkigal, anyway) on him to go to the underworld in trade.
I dunno about you, but I find getting sent to hell by a woman I’ve annoyed *much* more realistic than this pathetic sky-god stuff.
(of course Wilkins is right as ever and the *real* saviour is Buffy. But we have to consider who the one individual was who was involved in *both* her resurrections, the mundane and the magical. All hail Xander Harris, a quiet and unassuming sort of god.)
They have a nice tendency to overlook the parts they don’t want to see when it suits them. I mean : how the hell did they miss a 30m high naked (well, very sparsely clad with strategically located ropes) sea godess ?
I was watching John Carpenter’s “The Fog” the other day and it struck me just how well it backed up the Bible. I mean first up you have death stalking the land in the shape of the fog and the sailor-zombies within. They send to hell anyone who still carries the ‘original sin’ of their forefathers until the priest manages to overcome this by giving the gold back to them. This renunciation of worldly goods was obviously a metaphor for accepting the love of Jesus into his heart, or perhaps he represents the sacrifice of Jesus himself. After this the fog (death) held no fear for people.
Damn, you could do this for so many films. Flash Gordon next :-)
Irony alert (from the Movie Ministry review):
Reassuring lies like… I dunno… “It’s not really the end, I’ll just go to Heaven and live in bliss for all eternity”? That sort of reassuring lie?
It’s all the rage:
http://www.dare2share.org/students/captain-jesus-and-the-pirates-of-the-resurrection
and
http://www.dare2share.org/culturecommission/pirates-of-the-caribbean-at-worlds-end
The new Harry Potter movie is coming out soon. This site will definitely tell the kids how to witness to HP fans then, too. It’s kind of funny to see all these people trying to use popular culture to sell xianity, while others rant and rave about it being satanic and want it wiped off the face of the earth. It’s enough to make your head spin (definitely satanic – see: “The Exorcist”. Heh.)
Really, I think it’s mostly just jealousy at the popularity of other fictional stories that has them doing this crap. A church up the street from me went so far as to put “SPIDERMAN IS FANTASY; THE RISEN CHRIST IS THE REAL SUPERHERO” on its sign. Gotta shut out all the other myths, or at the very least make it so that the other myths are really about their own favorite myth.
Plus, Xander wears an eyepatch, just like a pirate! All Must Worship Buffy and Xander(and maybe his demon bride Anya)!
Yeah but Spiderman has cool powers and can be an interesting character with the right creative team. What’s Jesus got, ressurrection, fishes and loaves, walking on water, yawn. Maybe if Jesus had adamantium claws and a healing factor he’d be more interesting.
If number of ressurections are a criterion for divinity, nobody beats the X-Men. How many times has Jean Grey died again?
Yes, but you’ll also end up with an ambulatory lump in your carpet which randomly possesses your friends.
That is a face I would not mind being my first sight coming back from the dead. Also, a church worshiping Xander Harris is something I could definitely get behind.
Clearly, it’s time for syncretism to rear its head once more. I’m thinking Neo-Egyptian, with Xander as some kind of subdued Ra figure, Willow as an Isis/Anubis hybrid, and Buffy as a sort of Osiris substitute. Also, pirates and pasta, since you can’t have a great religion without pirates and pasta. To the Blog!
I took a course in Medieval Literature in college, and it was mentioned that every facet of existence was touted as an allegory or reminder of God/Jesus/Spirit.
Everything red reminded of Jesus’ blood, every seed that sprouted reminded us of the Resurrection, and on and on.
James Burke also mentioned this in his series “Connections” when talking of Charlemagne and his times.
Church father Justin Martyr did this in the 2nd century CE:
(In case anyone’s wondering: his explanation for this was that the Devil counterfeited the story of Jesus in advance.)
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!!
The stupid! It hurts! Get it away from me! Get it awaaaaayyy!
Well, Dare to Share won’t be plundering MY soul.
They can’t even spell “Davy Jones” correctly.
The acting is better in POTC than in the Bible. Dialogue, too. Not to mention the plot.
Oh lord.. Buffy vs. Vampire Jesus
“He’s back from the dead… now she’s seeing red!
But will Christ back away from… His own crosses?
Join us tomorrow as we see the Lamb-turned-Lion face…
THE SLAYER!”
*nerf herder plays something thrashy*
Now, if cephalopod stories are better fairy tales, and the Dogon heavenly beings are cephalopod-like (they are hydrostatic – have no bones), then is the Dogon religion the ultimate religion? They even have a snake eating a man, then crapping him out and returning him to life! No pirates, though, other than God’s first-born – the jackal.. jackals are kind of like pirates.
Right up there with people who see the ‘face of satan’ in the ‘9/11’ videos of the WTC and people who hear spirit voices in background noise. Heck, with enough faith a true believer can see the face of Jesus in a tortilla/grilled cheese sandwich/nachos, so is it any surprise that a believer that hasn’t seen the 1st movie (where Jack was already dead and cursed) could make a quantum leap of logic and connect the story of a carpenter who may or may not lived and died 2000 years ago, with a modern story of a less than christlike pirate?
Jack Sparrow wasn’t dead, he was only mostly dead.
RamblinDude: As I recall, Augustine thought so …
Andrew Wade: I suppose Gandalf is sort of like Jesus, but …
dzd: Ever notice how the world’s largest groups of religions are very syncretic, and those that aren’t very (now) are small?
What about Revelations? Now that would be a movie!
Think about it:
Four sinister horsemen (including Death on a Pale Horse)!
Flying men (angels) with sickles hacking people to death!
Beasts!!! A 7 headed 10 horned red dragon! A 7 headed 10 horned sea beast with a leopard’s body! An earth beast with 2 lamb orns and a dragon’s voice! A one eyed one horned flying purple people eater!
…What?
A super villain and a superhero – when they meet it’s matter vs. antimatter, blowing up real good!
We could throw in a few pirates and cephalopods for thr FSM and Cthulu worshippers.
Of course, we’d have Keef Richards battling it out with Alanis Morissette for casting of the God character. My money’s on Keef…