Moments (/movies I guess) that make me glad to not believe

miss no stars

Apologies in advance, needed to rant. Was watching a film on netflix this evening. It's called "And then there was one". While watching it I was unaware that it is a true story. (Made for TV movie but imho, worth a watch).

Only when it was over did I realise it's a true story. Fairly devastating.
It's about: (no more detail than in reviews and summaries online)

couple gets married and try desperately for a baby. Much IVF and fertility treatment later they conceive a baby. Few months after baby is born, they find out that she has AIDS. The couple themselves are also tested and both have AIDS, most likely from a blood transfusion after a miscarriage.

It made me think about the film Philadelphia and the similar attitude that people had to the main character. Don't get me wrong, I think AIDS is an horrific disease and the thought of it terrifies me. There's just no coming back from it. But what struck me is how cruel people are to victims. What struck me more is how society dealt with the disease.

Nobody seemed to care. People were dying. Human beings were suffering painful and drawn out deaths, but society just turned their backs. People who were already marginalized by society were (and to the best of my knowledge, still are) the groups that are at highest risk of contracting it. Gay, sub-Saharan African, drug users. People just didn't seem to care. Seemingly if one of those labels applies to you, society doesn't give a rat's arse. Apparently some lives are worth more than others. To my mind, a life is a life. It's even in the charter of human rights, every person has a right to life. Except, it seems, some people. It just strikes me as so Animal Farm-like. Even the medical community didn't seem to care as much as if it had been something that only affected cute white children with rich parents. From what I've read, it just wasn't fashionable enough to draw much by way of research grants. How many people would be alive today if it wasn't seen as a disease that cleansed society of "undesirables"?!

I was the reminded of my ethics class in 1st year of college. We were given the scenario that you've invented a wonderful new heart replacement but it costs a fortune. In comes an obese man, who drinks and smokes, and needs a heart replacement or he will die. Should he be given it? The immediate reaction of one or two more vocal idiots in the class was "Of course not, it's his own fault". I was too sickened to not react so I did then ask them what if he's the sole bread winner in a family with 5 or 6 innocent kids who will be without a parent and a source of income. What then? What about those other lives that will be devastated by your decision not to treat? (I think the whole "a life is a life" argument just would have been lost on them).

But to get to my point. I am so glad that I do not believe in a higher power. Humanity never fails to amaze me with its achievements, but it also never fails to sicken me with its prejudices and injustice. It makes me sick to my core. And I'm just glad that I don't have to believe that a higher power created humanity and left in all that nastiness. What kind of a power would DO that?? I'm glad I can rationalize the behaviour with considering its roots in the evolution of the human (fear causing most of the behaviour). But overwhelmingly, I'm just glad I'm not going to bed tonight with a big question mark over my head about what kind of god would do that. Instead, I go to bed disappointed in humanity and glad that I don't have that dilemma to face.

I wonder what kind of comfort can really be derived from belief. But then, maybe, people who do believe just might not question the behaviour of people in "THIS" life so much. Who knows. I'm just glad that I really do not believe. I also think that not believing in an afterlife frees up my moral compass to spin more accurately. I believe not that we're judged on our faith and adherence to doctrine and that will determine whether we get eternal salvation in heaven, but that history will judge us as a people (and perhaps individually if we make big enough ripples) based on how we treated one another. Did we shy away from people based on things they cannot change, or did we treat everybody with dignity and respect?

[/rant]

Dades

Thanks for posting.

miss no stars wrote: »

What kind of a power would DO that??

The answer is: none. We expect more of humans, we should at least expect the same of the gods people purport to exist.

Sarky

I was very glad I wasn't a believer after watching Thor. Imagine coming out of that film and realising how boring Jesus was. He didn't even have a big hammer.

kylith

Jesus promised to get rid of the wicked people. Odin promised to get rid of the ice giants. I don't see any ice giants around, do you?

I'm glad I'm an atheist ever Sunday morning when I lie in, whenever i see people who should have more self respect debase themselves in front of some gobshįte at an alter, or whenever I hear of church higher-ups colluding to protect rapists.

jank

miss no stars wrote: »

And I'm just glad that I don't have to believe that a higher power created humanity and left in all that nastiness. What kind of a power would DO that??

[/rant]

I think that is called free will. Everyone has it or at least appears to have it. God or no God doesnt really come into it.

krudler

Sarky wrote: »

I was very glad I wasn't a believer after watching Thor. Imagine coming out of that film and realising how boring Jesus was. He didn't even have a big hammer.

Jesus was like the Aquaman of deities, his powers were...ok I guess, but nowhere near as cool as some of the other ones :pac: what would you rather? live in rags and do parlour tricks for peasants or be able to fly, summon lightning and carry a hammer that was forged in a dying star? hammer!

Mickeroo

Prometheus annoyed the crap out of me, main character stays true to their "faith" in the face of irrefutable proof that it's nonsense, and in hollywood movies this remains something which is seen as laudable in a protaganist. Balls, I say.

Sarky

Even Aquaman had his moments, especially when he had a hook for a hand.

krudler

Mickeroo wrote: »

Prometheus annoyed the crap out of me, main character stays true to their "faith" in the face of irrefutable proof that it's nonsense, and in hollywood movies this remains something which is seen as laudable in a protaganist. Balls, I say.

that annoyed the sh1t out of me too. its nonsensical christian logic. I'll spoiler this so anyone who hasnt seen it doesnt ruin it.

So this scientist travels across the galaxy, hoping to find an answer to mankinds biggest question, where we came from. gets this evidence explained to her, and then basically goes "well ok so god didnt create us these big beluga whale looking mofos did, but HEY, something must have created them! amirite? well? so aliens made us, and who made them? well clearly it was a wizard"

shenanigans! it was probably stuck in there not to upset the 'Mericans. if you're going to do sci fi then go the whole hog dont cop out and have someone keep their faith when their beliefs have just been proven to be hogwash.

also, space jesus.

krudler

Actually a good watch for the whole science v religion cagematch is Contact, its a good look at what would happen should alien communication occur, planet earth goes batsh1t basically.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRoj3jK37Vc

Turtwig

Carl Sagan >> Ridley Scott.
(Damon Lindelof & John Spatis & ...)
Just saying.

jank

Mickeroo wrote: »

Prometheus annoyed the crap out of me, main character stays true to their "faith" in the face of irrefutable proof that it's nonsense, and in hollywood movies this remains something which is seen as laudable in a protaganist. Balls, I say.

The whole premise of the movie is lost on you so.

jank

I love Contact, only watched it the other day in Melbourne. One has to take christian fundamentalism portrayed in the movie with a pinch of sale though. The movie has a great pace to it, never lets up and in some ways the protagonist in the movie ends up with "faith".

Otacon

jank wrote: »

...and in some ways the protagonist in the movie ends up with "faith".

jank wrote: »

The whole premise of the movie is lost on you so.

:rolleyes:

Mickeroo

jank wrote: »

The whole premise of the movie is lost on you so.

Not even slightly, but I'd be glad to be put straight on that with an actual explanation?

Calibos

To me, certain peoples opinion and analysis of Prometheus is supremely analgous to religion.

ie. the people who thought it was very deep and meaningful and thought provoking, who slagged the people who questioned the plot and reckoned they didn't really understand it and obviously wanted a shallow action flick, well...........

.....ironically these are actually the people who didn't understand it, who for some reason couldn't see the plotholes that you could drive a truck through, who couldn't see that characters didn't act like one would expect them to in real life, who did not know enough about science to know that large swathes of the plot don't make sense from a scientific standpoint, who didn't know enough about the sci-fi genre or other works in the genre to realise that the plot such as it was wasn't as original and unique and daring etc etc as they thought. [Replace the Film Prometheus with the Christian Bible and replace the films critics with atheists who don't really understand Christs Message who obviously want a shallow materialist existence]

Its kind of like something I heard someone say about Republican VP candidate Paul Ryan. Paul Ryan is not an intellectual. Paul Ryan is what ignorant people think an intellectual would sound like. ie. Paul Ryan sounds intellectual to the ignorant but to an actual intellectual, Paul Ryan sounds ignorant.

Turtwig

Well there is always the old trope "reality is unrealistic". Films being artistic expressions have to weigh up the balance between what people will think intuitively should happen vs the reality of the situation.

The martial arts is an example of this. The majority of strikes are so quick and usually to the body that the majority of the audience wouldn't even notice what happened. So, instead you have long drawn out epic choreographed scenes where you can just about see and 'feel' every punch and kick. Such a fight, while totally unrealistic, is actually what most audiences expect to see in a fight. And that's only martial put realistic physics in any movie and I'd think you find most people would think the producers made the most unrealistic pile of garbage ever. Imagine what would happen if you consulted a psychologist or sociologist and made people's behaviours realistic!

As much as I hated Prometheus expecting it to be realistic is something I don't quite expect, I don't mind plot holes either they can work in some cases in fact I think there's no set formula for what makes a great movie but Prometheus wasn't one of them. But, I would actually kiss a director who included scientists who were, you know, actually scientists and not idiots.

/rant.

kiffer

I enjoyed At the mountains of madness Prometheous. The crazy (supernatural) happenings shouldn't rob the believer's faith... firstly while she was a Christian she clearly wasnt a creationist. Her position was basically God created the universe at some point in the distant past, stuff happened, we appeared on the earth, more stuff happened, let's find out what all that stuff was.
Her position wasn't in anyway that of a biblical literalist.
There are massive plot holes but her not losing her faith was not one of them. She went there expecting to find engineers, why would finding them upset her?

The behaviour of the aliens doesn't make sense? We don't have enough context for them to make sense.
Why do they hate the humans? I can think of loads of reasons that they might... but they'd just be guesses.
But given that they do hate us, and the characters show up with weapons in your war ship I think attacking them makes sense.

jank

Otacon wrote: »

:rolleyes:

At least you could afford a decent reply unless posting smiley faces is your thing.

jank

This may have been posted already but Ridley Scott himself said this about the subject of Jesus in that film.

RS: We definitely did, and then we thought it was a little too on the nose. But if you look at it as an “our children are misbehaving down there” scenario, there are moments where it looks like we’ve gone out of control, running around with armor and skirts, which of course would be the Roman Empire. And they were given a long run. A thousand years before their disintegration actually started to happen. And you can say, “Lets’ send down one more of our emissaries to see if he can stop it. Guess what? They crucified him.

http://www.movies.com/movie-news/ridley-scott-prometheus-interview/8232

The engineers for want of a better word had a large emphasis on self sacrifice, you saw that in the very first scene of the movie. Sacrificing now for the betterment of your children or the creation of life. It is not a surprise that the awakened engineer looks at the android, rips him in half and then proceeds to kills its maker with it, in an utter demonstration how feeble humans are. Remember one of the slogans for the Weyland Corporation is "We are the Gods now". Peter Weyland himself wanted to live forever a big no no for the Engineers. I suppose the Engineer was giving them the smackdown for forgetting his place!

seamus

Mickeroo wrote: »

Prometheus annoyed the crap out of me, main character stays true to their "faith" in the face of irrefutable proof that it's nonsense, and in hollywood movies this remains something which is seen as laudable in a protaganist. Balls, I say.

Actually it was watching this where I (in the tiniest way) regretted having no belief because I found myself utterly unable to connect with her or her thought process for maintaining her faith in the face of what she found. All I could think was, "You closed minded fool".

Dades

I left my non-religious hat at home, tbh, and just revelled in sci-fi visual awesomeness.

krudler

jank wrote: »

I love Contact, only watched it the other day in Melbourne. One has to take christian fundamentalism portrayed in the movie with a pinch of sale though. The movie has a great pace to it, never lets up and in some ways the protagonist in the movie ends up with "faith".

no she doesn't

krudler

kiffer wrote: »

I enjoyed At the mountains of madness Prometheous. The crazy (supernatural) happenings shouldn't rob the believer's faith... firstly while she was a Christian she clearly wasnt a creationist. Her position was basically God created the universe at some point in the distant past, stuff happened, we appeared on the earth, more stuff happened, let's find out what all that stuff was.
Her position wasn't in anyway that of a biblical literalist.
There are massive plot holes but her not losing her faith was not one of them. She went there expecting to find engineers, why would finding them upset her?

The behaviour of the aliens doesn't make sense? We don't have enough context for them to make sense.
Why do they hate the humans? I can think of loads of reasons that they might... but they'd just be guesses.
But given that they do hate us, and the characters show up with weapons in your war ship I think attacking them makes sense.

wait if she's a christian then finding out that humans weren't created by god should surely blow a massive hole in the whole christian idea of where we came from?

kiffer

krudler wrote: »

kiffer wrote: »

I enjoyed At the mountains of madness Prometheous. The crazy (supernatural) happenings shouldn't rob the believer's faith... firstly while she was a Christian she clearly wasnt a creationist. Her position was basically God created the universe at some point in the distant past, stuff happened, we appeared on the earth, more stuff happened, let's find out what all that stuff was.
Her position wasn't in anyway that of a biblical literalist.
There are massive plot holes but her not losing her faith was not one of them. She went there expecting to find engineers, why would finding them upset her?

The behaviour of the aliens doesn't make sense? We don't have enough context for them to make sense.
Why do they hate the humans? I can think of loads of reasons that they might... but they'd just be guesses.
But given that they do hate us, and the characters show up with weapons in your war ship I think attacking them makes sense.

wait if she's a christian then finding out that humans weren't created by god should surely blow a massive hole in the whole christian idea of where we came from?

Only if she was a Creationist...
Which we already know she's not...
Does the existence of David the android mean there is no god? (Just because we can make life doesn't mean that there is no god, or that there needs to be one either)
There are plenty of Christians that are happy with God as the prime mover at some pre big bang point and most everything after that is mysterious ways ... woo woo


Edited: bleeping phone... m minor edits.

Mickeroo

kiffer wrote: »

Only if she was a Creationist...
Which we already know she's not... does the existence of David the android mean there is no god?
There are plenty of Christians that are happy with God is the prime mover at some pre big bang point and most everything after that is mysterious ways ... woo woo

Ok i get what you're saying now, you're saying since her character seems to have accepted evolution and such(though there is a debate over whether the film implied evolution or not too) there's no reason discovering the Spacejockey's seeded life here should shake her faith either?

i still think finding out we are some other species' science experiment should shake her faith a bit more. I don't see David as a good comparison since he's just a robot in everyone's eyes (apart from his own gong by the film).

krudler

kiffer wrote: »

Only if she was a Creationist...
Which we already know she's not... does the existence of David the android mean there is no god?
There are plenty of Christians that are happy with God is the prime mover at some pre big bang point and most everything after that is mysterious ways ... woo woo

..he's a robot. how is that a valid comparison?

kiffer

krudler wrote: »

kiffer wrote: »

Only if she was a Creationist...
Which we already know she's not... does the existence of David the android mean there is no god?
There are plenty of Christians that are happy with God is the prime mover at some pre big bang point and most everything after that is mysterious ways ... woo woo

..he's a robot. how is that a valid comparison?

... seriously?

Engineers make us.
We make android.
We want engineers to treat us better.
At the same time we consider our creations as just a machine... less than a slave.

Edit: sorry on luas, cut short by end of journey.

Mark Hamill

Jernal wrote: »

As much as I hated Prometheus expecting it to be realistic is something I don't quite expect,

I dont mind when a film drops a bit of realism, if that specific realism isn't really integral to the point, but in a film that was supposedly asking deep questions about humanity, you would expect the people in it to be, at least somewhat consistent as real humans.
There is so much that breaks any sense of realism that the film just falls apart:

Why do all these people agree to go on a 2 year trip into space before being told what the trip is for?
Why did the company not at least check that these people where psychologically compatible, seeing as they where going to be alone together on a space ship so far from earth (the geologist was an asshole)?
Why did they bother to hide the old man? Seriously, why would they bother? He owns the company, what difference would it have made if everyone knew he was there?
Why did the biologist freak out at seeing the humanoid body (only a little bigger than a normal human body) but try to pet the vagina-faced alien penis cobra?

I assume everyone who has seen Prometheous has seen this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-x1YuvUQFJ0

Prometheus is to space (Or philosophy. Or humans. Or the measuring of distances), as The Core is to geology.

krudler

kiffer wrote: »

... seriously?

Engineers make us.
We make android.
We want engineers to treat us better.
At the same time we consider our creations as just a machine... less than a slave.

Edit: sorry on luas, cut short by end of journey.

I get that but why would our ability to make artificial life disprove god?

It bugged me as to why the Engineer

just turns into a smashy smashy movie monster, there's no explanation as to why he starts battering people. like if you populated a planet then some humans managed to progress enough to make it out into space and track you down you wouldnt be a tiny bit curious and chat to them? not lets rip this dudes head off and batter that oul guy who looks like Johnny Knoxville in the Bad Grandpa makeup from Jackass :pac:

Calibos

I can't highlight spoiler tags on my iPad to read them. What I can do however is grab the spoilered invisible text and get the iPads text to speech functionality to read it out to me.

I think I wet myself after the female Irish accented iPad voice talked about the Vaginal faced alien penis cobra!