I'll start off with this article about the upcoming The Golden Compass movie.

http://snopes.com/politics/religion/compass.asp

You better not expect successful movies to be anything other than the way they've always been. Gods and heroes usually do pretty well at the box office if they have some sort of overt positive message. I saw Narnia and it was entertaining enough, but it sure wasn't a religious film per se.

The most Hollywood treats Christianity is usually when they make any preacher some sort or religious huckster or child-beating moralizer. A foil and that's all.

I do believe that the RELIGIOUS are sometimes portrayed negatively or as naive simpleton.

Fundamentalist Christians more than likely. Jews usually get off ok, and despite terrorists being portrayed as Arabs all the time they seldom have their religion mentioned.

Negatively? Is that why we arent seeing any religious people to look up to? Or is it more like they arent doing what they should be doing?

Hell, we see more of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt doing what you would think religious leaders should be doing. Here recently we hear about Senator Charles Grassley ( R ) looking into these mega rich TV evangelizers. 'Bout time. Interesting he didnt go after Pat Robertson and certain others.

I think these "people" are getting a bad rap in the media because that is what they put out there. Instead of buying gigantic "churches", mansions and multiple houses, expensive cars and private planes, maybe these folks ought to fight aids and starvation and such.

beasty, I hate to be the one to break the news to you, but "fundamentalist Christians", i.e., Biblical literalists, ARE simpletons. To believe in it literally, as with creationism, requires a suspension of all critical thinking skills, the discarding of common sense. You can have an IQ of 200 and 7 PhDs, but if you refuse to use the brain God gave you to figure out that the sun COULD NOT have stood still in the sky, you are a simpleton.

And while "the media" often (usually) does portray fundamentalist Christians in an unflattering way, and shouldn't, neither does "the media" have an obligation to inaccurately portray them in a positive way, either.

Besides, "the media" brought us the 10 Commandments movie, The Passion, Touched by an Angel, and many other positive portrayals of Christians.

Considering we spin and move around the sun and it does stand still while we move and spin it would depend on appearances. The earth has gone through some major changes and man hasn't been around for many of them. What the sun appeared to do at different times is hard for me to say conclusively.

I don't know if the media is under any obligation to portray any religion fairly, but that doesn't mean we can't comment on how it does treat them. Far being it from me to defend Christianity, having grown up in a mixed household that barely discussed religion so as to avoid argument.

You're full of it... the Big Bang could not have possibly happened either... but science believes that it did... and that it's not creation... simpleton.

Why couldn't the Sun have "stood still"?

Judy is going to reason her way past Saint Peter

I guess.

I guess if life isn't a miracle, then they don't exist

...Awaiting long-winded, well articulated post explaining why an Omnipotent Being, if It exists, couldn't bend any laws of physics as we know them.

Because, as beasty just noted, the apparent motion of the sun is due to the earth's rotation--roughly 1000 mph. For the sun to "stand still", the earth would have to stop rotating. Setting aside that someone would have taken note of every loose object, including themselves, flying off at a thousand miles an hour, such a sudden stop would have split the crust of the earth into a zillion pieces.

One can, of course, simply postulate that an onmnipotent God can simply suspend even the most basic laws of physics whenever he wants to, but why bother? It makes more sense to simply say "the onlookers were shocked", a concept long expressed in many cultures, languages and pre-existing myths with the expression "time stopped" or "the sun stood still".

Why am I not surprised at which members of the local cast of characters who appear to actually believe the sun literally stood still in the sky?

I never said that the sun stood still, you did.
I'm just saying that IF there is a God, it certainly could have if He wanted it to.

I guess that makes me a simpleton.

Straw man fallacy

Many in the media are, like FJ, so much smarter, better educated, and elite than the rest of us that they can sit on their pedistals and observe how stupid the rest of us are. That's just the way they see, because they think so much better and more deeply and whatever they think is what's true.

IF there is a God performing such miracles, then of course anything at all is possible, including that we're all shadows on some Greek philosopher's cave wall.

And yes, if you believe the sun literally stood still in some sort of breathtakingly complicated repeal of gravity, momentum, and basic astronomy without even sloshing up a few medium-sized tsunamis, you are a simpleton.

Faith does not require gullibility.

Then spake Joshua to the Lord in the day when the Lord delivered up the Amorites before the children of Israel, and he said in the sight ofIsrael, Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon; and thou, Moon, in the valleyof Ajalon. And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies. Is not this written in the book of Jasher? So the sun stood still in the midst of h "Then spake Joshua to the Lord in the day when the Lord delivered up the Amorites before the children of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel, Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon; and thou, Moon, in the valley eaven, and hasted not to go down about a whole day. And there was no day like that before it or after it, that the Lord hearkened unto the voice of a man: for the Lord fought for Israel."
Joshua 10:12-14.

It doesn't sound metaphorical to me...



http://www.cyberspaceorbit.com/text/sitchday.htm

http://www.ntu.edu.sg/home/hblim/passages/sunstill.htm

I notice that once again, you launch a personal attack in defense of "Christians" without ever once letting on whether or not you yourself actually believe in a literal interpretation of the Bible.

You remind me of moderate Muslims who feel obliged to defend their fellow Muslims from any criticism by the infidels--even when the subject of the criticism is 200 lashes for a woman who was gang raped.

so Judy

have you ever witnessed a miracle?

No. I have witnessed many inexplicable events, but I don't classify them as "miracles", merely as things I lack the ability to understand. And don't attribute them to a supernatural origin merely because I don't understand them. I'm sure much of what science "knows" now (as you would use the term "know") will turn out to be a stupid as the humours theory of disease. But my lack of understanding doesn't make them "miracles" in the sense of supernatural intervention.

The only event I know of that I would classify as a "miracle" would be the cause of the Big Bang.

Might I ask you to relate the "miracles" you have witnessed, and your reasons for believing them to be miracles rather than unexplained events?

How is the truth a pesonal attack? All one has to do is read your condescending posts and compare to major media writers and see that what I said is how it is.

I am however sworn to defend the Christian religion against any and all who may attack. It has nothing to do with moderate muslims or moderate anythings. Are you really comparing Charlie and the others to those who would ship a woman who was raped or anything else? I took an oath.

I think its a miracle that we can share thoughts

communication

life

sight

thought

love

all miracles

So you keep saying--you took an oath.

But you're remarkably coy as to what exactly the Christian religion you're sworn to defend includes. Stoning adulteresses and disobedient children?

And no, I would not compare Charlie to those how ship off a woman who was raped for 200 lashes, though I would characterize the good Rev. Phelps so.

I would compare Charlie Ray to those who gathered in churches praying for an end to the Black Plague--kind-hearted and well-meaning, a good man, but a bit soft-headed (ok, a lot soft-headed) whenever the subject of religion comes up.

is this what you think Christianity is?

yikes

Nobody wants to tell a pompous and condescending person anything.

thank God

No. Those were examples of what a literal interpretation of the Bible can lead to.

I mentioned Phelps. There's also Eric Rudolf, David Koresh and others who've gone down that road of carrying Biblical literality to absurd lengths. Time Bart stops playing coy and lets us know just what it is he defends as "Christian".

May I steal that line?

I can accept that some people may believe in flying saucers or an invisible voice in a few deluded or special heads, but I find it very hard to believe in something just playing around with planets in the heavens like so many billiard balls, or keeping track of every sparrow or ant.

what if it was yours?

Mine what? Billiard balls, sparrows, ants?

your creation

how far to the edge of the universe?

I'd be watching it closer.

how many stars? planets? life forms?

got limits?

rules?

if God stopped paying attention all would implode

The distinction between fundamentalist and traditional is quite blurred and neither necessarily denote literalist. I consider myself a traditional Christian with no particular requirement to interpret anything literally... as do several million other folks.

The choice of simpleton is unfortunate and bespeaks not so much to the category of Christian but to the narrow outlook of the user.

"Simpleton" was the word Noma chose, which I adopted. I actually prefer "gullible" myself.

But I stand by the basic concept: Biblical literalism seems to impair the ability to think critically, which is why creationism in all its permutations has to be kept out of science classrooms. It impairs the ability to even understand the basics of the scientific method, putting kids behind from the start if they're told that creationism is a "theory" Starts them off already with a wrong definition of what a "theory" is in the scientific sense, and a wrong concept of what science is.

So God is making the planet spin and the sun shine? That must be why he's too busy to stop AIDS or end floods and droughts. If you talk to him tonight you might tell him to get on that right away.

He didn't stop morons either.

Consider yourself lucky.

I don't think most Christians are so fundamentalist it makes them foolish, but don't try and prove me wrong right away. I think almost anything can be carried too far, and that includes atheism.

God sets the limits

Right. Which means, of course, that at any point, ANYTHING and EVERYTHING is God's will.

I believe that most of the stuff happening here is of mans will.

So long as God sets the limits, it is God's "game".

Suppose, you have an ant farm... an scientific experiment... in a contained bio terrarium... you let them do their thing... interfering as little as possible...

It's your game... but the game is to let them play it out.

yes

iindeed it is

we are at His mercy

thank Him for His grace

the real message of the New Testament

Atheists should stay out of religious matters.