Wow, but I'm sick of that...

[agilebrit]

Seems like whenever a Christian stands up on their hind legs and says "I'm not going to see this movie/read this book/partake in this particular form of entertainment because it attacks my faith," some friggin' idiot spouts back with "Well, your faith must be pretty weak if it's threatened by entertainment."

Yeah, no. That's not it at all. But that's a nice way to attack my faith further. Bravo. *golf clap*

I have limited entertainment dollars. We all do, right? I am not entertained by movies, books, and music that attack my faith. I'm actively repelled by them, in fact. Therefore, spending those limited entertainment dollars on things I don't find entertaining is stupid. I didn't get where I am financially by being stupid with my money. I don't go see Adam Sandler movies either. Not because I'm "threatened" by him, but because I find him incredibly annoying and dreadfully unfunny.

I would really love to see this ridiculous argument laid to rest once and for all.

This post brought to you by the comments on a review for "Prometheus." Jury's still out as to whether I'm seeing it or not. I will wait for a review from someone I actually trust before committing to go.

Comments

[roseaponi.livejournal.com]

I hear you :) I may not see Prometheus, though I haven't heard of any faith conflicts (yet), because I don't really like scary alien monster movies. Must I now go see it to prove X, Y, or Z to people who don't matter to me? ;)

I don't find my faith to be threatened by fairy tales, horror movies, science fiction, Harry Potter, or anything like that. But I am quite reasonably irritated when people who don't know Christ make blanket statements about Christians, or when people who've never lived down South make these broad generalizations about Southerners, or when there's a movie or book that pretty much states, "Yes, there is a God... And He wants to EAT YOU!!!" and I'm considered weird for not being eager to go be entertained by that.

Let's scale down the example: If you are a loving person, and say, you keep a daycare in your home and teach kindergarten, and someone were to make a movie that takes everything that identifies you (your address, your picture, your habits, your wardrobe, maybe even your name) and uses all that as characterization details for the villain that kidnaps and cannibalizes children, I'd call that an attack. You might not have much of a job or a daycare after the movie comes out, either.

Yeah, blatant lies aren't so entertaining.

I'm not concerned about God's ability to handle idiocy, but I'd like to limit my own exposure.

[agilebrit.livejournal.com]

And why should I pay money to be insulted when there are people on the internet perfectly willing to do it for free?

And, I mean, I write SF, fantasy, and horror. So do a bunch of my good friends. The idea that I'm somehow "threatened" by it is laughable on the face of it.

[johncwright.livejournal.com]

You should be sick of the argument. The argument rests on two assumptions, both of them false.

Assumption One: the only reason why a Christian finds a work repellent, disgusting or insulting is never because the work is actually repellent, disgusting or insulting but because he is secretly uncertain about the tenants of his belief, and the work is actually doing no more than gently asking him to question those belief, to which the hapless Christian is overreacting as comically as the flopping of a beached fish.

The reality is that if you invite a clown to perform at your child's birthday party, you are perfectly correct to react in ire if he poops on the birthday cake, and this is not a sign of the uncertainty of your love for your child. The clown has deceived you by stepping out of his role as an entertainer meant to amuse you and into his role as a social engineer performing an operation on you, such as to make you desensitized, or such as to shame you into conforming to his opinion; and this is an operation which he, but not you, think needed for the greater good.

Assumption Two: the goodness of faith is to be judged, as the goodness of all things are judged, by their strength. "Strong" women characters, for example, are more good than feminine woman characters because strength is better than femininity. Here, a "strong" faith is to be judged by how undisturbed by insult and slander it's owner might prove: as if a man was held to be more in love with a woman, or a flag, the less ready he was to leap to her defense when molested, spat upon, and so on.

The reality is that a man more deeply in love is more offended by malice against his beloved rather than less.

The final reason to be sick of the argument is the faction of the men who are most often seen making it: pesky little intellectuals who pretend to a moral and mental superiority to their neighbors, and who themselves do indeed react as if insulted when their cherished beliefs are gently questioned, and who do flop like beached fish in the agonies of the slightest unethusiasm for their various causes and movements and revolutions. Since they cannot answer questions to defend their beliefs, they adopt an odd and limited vocabulary, called Political Correctness, which renders questioning of the beliefs impossible: and they call any deviation from the pretend vocabulary is motivated by a desire to insult, or an appalling insensitivity.

Psychologists call this projection.

[agilebrit.livejournal.com]

.... I have nothing to add to that. Well stated, good sir.

[honorh.livejournal.com]

It's a stupid argument, all right. I wish I'd known just how offensive the movie Paul's "Christian" characters would be before I went. I was left with a bad taste in my mouth, a knee-jerk dislike for Kristin Wiig, and a bad hit to my genuine love for Simon Pegg and Nick Frost. Why should I feel I have to enjoy something that insults my faith or face the accusation that I find it "threatening"?

Because you know that, were it offensive to their point of view or values they hold sacred, they wouldn't say they found it "threatening". I find some movies offensive because of the way they treat women. Don't get me started on My Best Friend's Wedding. So, do I find that movie "threatening" to my femininity? No, I find it offensive because it is, in fact, offensive.

[agilebrit.livejournal.com]

Pretty much this. Using Adam Sandler as the example again (because he makes it easy), I'm not passing on seeing his latest thing because it's "threatening" to my viewpoint that a thirteen-year-old child who becomes a father is a victim. It's not cute. It's not funny. It's gross and playing it for laughs is disgusting, and that's why I'm passing on it. In the right hands and with a deft touch, it could be an interesting movie with moments of pathos that point up what a tragedy this is. Adam Sandler's hands are not the right ones.

And making Generic Christian #1 into the Villain of the Day over and over and over again, while taking cheap shots at straw men, is also icky. And lazy storytelling. Which I cannot abide. I should spend money on that because...?

[bojojoti.livejournal.com]

I felt the same way about Paul. The writing was so lazy, stupid, and hateful. I am repelled by Kristin Wiig now and don't care to see her in anything else. I still have leftover love for Pegg and Frost from Shaun of the Dead, but it did take a battering. I left that theater feeling like I needed brain bleach to remove the scummy coating the movie left on my mind.

[agilebrit.livejournal.com]

Ick. And that one was on my "to watch sometime in the future" list, too. Ah well. *crosses it off* Icon says it all, really.

[fierynotes.livejournal.com]

One: I have every intention of seeing Prometheus. I can keep a part of my brain alert for attacks on faith and report back to you if you like. (Keep in mind that I'm an atheist, so while I can pay attention, there are certain kinds of attacks on faith to which I may be oblivious.)

As for Adam Sandler... I feel like paying to see an Adam Sandler movie is too much like rewarding bad behavior.

[agilebrit.livejournal.com]

I would much appreciate it, thanks so much. :)

[stephiel.livejournal.com]

My main reasons for not seeing Prometheus have more to do with not having a movie theater in my immediate neighborhood, and my unwillingness to spend two hours on a bus to go to a movie theater that's some 30-odd miles away from me which is poorly maintained and has non-existent security than with my faith.

Having said that, though, I'm well aware that because I've chosen to become a believer in Christ, my behavior, attitude and conduct should be a reflection of my faith, which is rooted in a deep love for Jesus Christ and the sacred values which are an integral part of that love. Since having faith in Jesus implies that I'm in a loving, intimate relationship with Him, it's out of love for Him and what He represents, which determines my reaction to anything which impugns His integrity, or presents Him in a malicious or offensive way.

Although my faith isn't threatened by Harry Potter or anything in that realm, I know there are many who don't fully grasp or understand what a belief in Christ is about, so they're going to be watching me and my behavior in certain situations and circumstances, so rather than mislead them or give them a wrong impression of what a believer in Christ should be, I choose not to read the Harry Potter novels or watch the films based on those novels.

I'm not a religious fanatic, by any means, and I'm not like some who feel the need to advertise their faith through outward signs. My faith is made manifest in the greater good I'm able to do for others, grounded and strengthened by my love for Christ and for those whom He loves to the last full measure.

Here endeth the Sermonette... :)

[agilebrit.livejournal.com]

How sad is it that people of faith, and faith in God and Christ in general, are treated with such general disrespect in my chosen genre, that when I find something that doesn't do that, where the Christian characters are genuinely good people and respected and loved by the main character, I fall all over myself to buy them and recommend them to others.

Dresden Files, I'm looking at you. I don't know if Jim Butcher is a Christian and frankly don't care. He doesn't act like my faith is beneath contempt in his fiction, and it's refreshing.

I bet he takes a lot of flak for it, too.

[johncwright.livejournal.com]

I am glad you mentioned Jim Butcher. Seeing a story where angels come on stage and they are neither fascists nor wimps, but are instead warriors of light in the cause of absolute good is so refreshing that it is a pleasant shock.

And it is sad that I have been so abused by the entertainment industry that a portrayal of Christianity which is merely normal rather than malign causes me to be grateful. I am like a battered wife who has one nice day with her husband. "Gee! We spent a whole day together, and he did not slap me ONCE! It's just like the honeymoon again!"

[agilebrit.livejournal.com]

It's a new take on an old story for this genre. My current project actually runs along the sort-of same lines (my angel is a warrior/Guardian who can't screw with Free Will), although I'm taking more a page from the RP I've been embroiled in for the last year rather than Jim. He opened a door, though, and I'm hoping I can walk through it.

Also, I love that metaphor. It's very apt.

[texanfan.livejournal.com]

That's a pretty stupid thing for someone to say, but I've learned to avoid most Internet kerfluffles. I swear there are people who say things just to try to start an argument. Your entertainment dollars are your most effective voting tool. Starting a controversy is a sure way to create a financial success.

[agilebrit.livejournal.com]

And they say it every. Single. Time a Christian says "I'm not going to see that movie because it attacks me/my faith." It's almost a Pavlovian reaction. I wonder if their knees hurt very much from whacking the undersides of their desks so much.

[texanfan.livejournal.com]

That's the major reason I just don't follow these Internet arguments. It's the same damn thing every time. Seriously, I've thought of numbering the responses, it wouldn't take much.

Small minds don't have anything beyond catch phrases to rely on. They can't intelligently and rationally discuss anything.

What I find even more maddening is the people who have a problem with Christianity, proceed to tell me what I beleive and tear that apart. Which might even be convincing if it bore any real resemblance to Christianity at all. So you try to explain that's not what you believe, that they have no clue what Christians believe and they shout you down.

[agilebrit.livejournal.com]

They know the tenets of your own faith better than you do because you're one-a them hayseed ign'rnt hicks without a brain in her pretty little head and they are SMRT!

Whatever, dudes, talk to the hand. You know they wouldn't dare talk to a member of Islam like that because they'd be afraid of being labeled a bigot. Guess what, folks? Bigotry is bigotry.

[word-smuggler.livejournal.com]

Heard and approved.

It seems to me that a few too many people on my side of the religious fence (I'm agnostic, if you want a quick label :-)) tend to overreact to personal choices based on faith and/or religion. In my personal experience, when someone explains other people how they feel ("You no watch movie? You feel threatened!"), I often find they're mostly projecting.

So, uh, people... they're personal choices, leave them to the person who makes them. Nobody is telling you to make the same choices. You can relax. Your convictions on the universe must be pretty weak if they're threatened by someone else's opinion on what to do with their spare time.

[agilebrit.livejournal.com]

I think there's a bit of superiority complex going on with people like this as well. I love it when other people tell me what I'm really thinking. Especially when those people know nothing about me other than a label they've slapped me with. It's the best thing ever.