Don’t laugh, it’s a little too close to the truth.
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
God’s Not Dead,
God’s Not Dead 2, and next…
Don’t laugh, it’s a little too close to the truth.
There’s something I’ve been missing in the superhero movie genre — characters who aren’t defined entirely by their superpowers. There’s always been some of that, of course: the whole point of Spiderman, for instance, is that he’s a teenager struggling with responsibilities, and Batman is the grim vigilante. Sometimes the personalities are getting lost in the milling crowd of magical abilities vying to be expressed in glorious CGI, though.
And what about Superman? He was vastly overpowered to the point where his multitude of unstoppable powers were utterly boring, and got in the way of the story. But the one thing that did make him interesting was that he was the personification of kindness and decency, something that’s been lost in the movies, at least since the Christopher Reeve version.
Sometimes the comics still remind us of that core of his character, though. So here’s a little story about Superman’s cat.
It’s not the superpowers, it’s what you do with them that makes for a good story.
There’s going to be a new Star Wars movie in December. Really new, not like that recycled plot line we saw in the last movie.
It’s a Star Wars story that has escaped much of the baggage of the characters and plots of the George Lucas movies? Yes please. Also, the smaller scope (“steal some plans!” rather than “save the galaxy!”) is welcome, as is a character with more personality than “hero”.
I also look forward to the angry tears of the fanboys who discover that it’s another movie that puts a woman protagonist front and center. Don’t you all know that a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, gender roles were identical to the traditional expectations of 1950 America?
Isn’t it weird? There are all these clueless people telling people like me what we’re thinking, and getting it so wrong. Just this morning, Ken Ham announced…
Secularists are fearful of @ArkEncounter cause they don't want people hearing the Christian worldview they're vehemntly intolerant of
— Ken Ham (@aigkenham) April 7, 2016
Secularists are fearful of @ArkEncounter cause they don’t want people hearing the Christian worldview they’re vehemntly intolerant of
I would definitely watch it, although who you’d pick for judges would be problematic.
This is almost as brilliant as the idea that changed the world.
spiritual but not religious
Just think. You’re sitting at home (or possibly sleeping in), playing video games or surfin’ the web (or possibly taking care of that horrible stack of grading glowering at you on your desk), when you could be attending the Church of the Spiritual But Not Religious.
Doesn’t that look like fun and a great way to spend a Sunday morning?
I might need something to excuse procrastination and putting off grading, but I don’t think I’ll stoop that low.
I knew that ancient sculptors would paint their statues, rather than leaving them as plain stone, as we usually see them — the Philadelphia Museum of Art, for instance, is adorned on the outside with classical-style sculptures painted in lifelike colors, and they are amazing. It’s too bad the colors of winged Nike and Venus de Milo and all those statuary busts aren’t restored as well.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art is doing something interesting, though. Egyptian art was also painted in bright colors, so what the Met is doing with the Temple of Dendur is painting it with light, using projection mapping, to hint at what it looked like in its glory days.
Gorgeous. I want to see it. I want a time machine so I can really see what it was like, too.
That’s right, today is the most boring and unbelievable of the Christian holidays, when we’re supposed to be all reverent because people claim some dude came back from the dead a long time ago, on a date almost incomprehensibly difficult to calculate because it has something to do with the moon. We celebrate this unlikely event by wearing fancy clothes and going to church and making our children chase eggs, none of which is particularly pleasant or entertaining, or possessing any special appeal to anyone.
Until now.
This day is about some guy resurrecting, and now a lot of loony people want him to resurrect a second time. No one ever seems to ask whether we want some manic charismatic rabbi from the ancient Roman empire to come back and tell us what to do. What we need is some kind of Jesus repellent. Something that would totally repulse some sanctimonious geezer with a purity fetish.
Oglaf has come up with the celebration to drive religious redeemers away (totally not safe for work). As a bonus, it should also work on Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons, and other such obnoxious proselytizing intruders. It probably wouldn’t work on Ted Cruz, but then no method is perfectly fool-proof.
