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Goblinmonger

(22,340 posts)
Fri Apr 11, 2014, 03:40 PM Apr 2014

Interesting take from a theist about the film Heaven Is for Real.

It’s theology may be horrifically anti-biblical, but it’s got the two essential things that American white evangelicals are looking for: gormless piety and sentimental anti-abortionism.
I don’t mind stories that include fantasy elements that would make for terrible theology if we took them seriously. The angel Clarence in It’s a Wonderful Life and the whole business about him earning his wings is pure pudding. It doesn’t make much sense, but the little sense that can be made of it amounts to awful theology. But that’s not the point of that story, it’s just a device to move the plot forward, and it serves that purpose well enough. Heaven Can Wait is terrific fun, but it would be terrible theology if you treated it as a treatise on the afterlife.
The nasty bit about Heaven Is for Real is that it insists that the fantasy elements of this story are “true” — that this is a story that really happened and that this is “for real,” what “Heaven” is all about.
That means we can’t simply respond to this story as a story. It means we have to respond to this lie as a lie – as a mawkish, melodramatic, manipulative, sappy, shallow, schmaltzy, anti-biblical, anti-rational lie.

Full Article

When I saw the trailer for the first time at Noah, I puked in my mouth a little. So I did some Google-fu to see how much this is based off a "real" story and came across this article. I fear the author is right about how both Noah and Heaven Is for Real will be received. Heaven Is for Real seems like the sugary BS that so much of our society just gobbles up.

And I'm posting this in here and not Religion because I would rather have the discussion here where I don't have to deal with people that routinely piss me off.
26 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
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Interesting take from a theist about the film Heaven Is for Real. (Original Post) Goblinmonger Apr 2014 OP
Here, let me piss you off... onager Apr 2014 #1
No lie LostOne4Ever Apr 2014 #4
Strange about near-death experiences... Curmudgeoness Apr 2014 #9
It could be argued LostOne4Ever Apr 2014 #10
You certainly said a mouthful. Curmudgeoness Apr 2014 #11
NDEs have been reproduced several different ways. onager Apr 2014 #12
Interesting. Curmudgeoness Apr 2014 #13
"Who wants to spend enternity with Pat Robertson and Fred Phelps?" Rob H. Apr 2014 #21
Nice catch! LostOne4Ever Apr 2014 #22
If there really is a hell and I end up there Rob H. Apr 2014 #23
Randall Wallace wrote the screenplays for "Braveheart," "The Patriot" AlbertCat Apr 2014 #16
Who starred in those flicks? Iggo Apr 2014 #24
Yep. And a lot of re-writing history. onager Apr 2014 #25
Yep. And a lot of re-writing history. AlbertCat Apr 2014 #26
I'll leave the treacle to the sugar addicted Warpy Apr 2014 #2
I have no doubt audiences will gobble it up LostOne4Ever Apr 2014 #3
More fun with "based on a true story..." onager Apr 2014 #6
Rofl LostOne4Ever Apr 2014 #7
Does that movie really have "talking embryos in Heaven"?? arcane1 Apr 2014 #5
Can embryo's talk? Heddi Apr 2014 #8
gurgle, murgle, burgle, glop uriel1972 Apr 2014 #14
I mean, until it's born, babies don't breathe air, AlbertCat Apr 2014 #17
Yeah, but...Heaven. Goblinmonger Apr 2014 #19
Nice variant on the official trailers Gore1FL Apr 2014 #15
... LostOne4Ever Apr 2014 #20
This is the summer of... AlbertCat Apr 2014 #18

onager

(9,356 posts)
1. Here, let me piss you off...
Fri Apr 11, 2014, 04:15 PM
Apr 2014


Just kidding, but you knew that.

I remember the book this POS is based on. Young boy had allegedly fatal experience, and came back to announce that "The Other Side" was exactly like what his parents/preachers had told him all his short life.

Now it would have been REALLY impressive if he had come back from The Other Side and said: "The first thing I saw was some jackalhead named Anubis." Or "Trust me, when you guys get to The Other Side, do not mess with that Kali woman..."

But no, just the usual BS to confirm everything fundies already believe. Yawn...

One impressive thing - there was some serious money behind this stinker. Writer Randall Wallace wrote the screenplays for "Braveheart," "The Patriot" and some other big movies.

And most of the cast is pretty well known, like Kinnear. Wouldn't it be fun to hand out DVD copies of another Kinnear movie to everyone attending "Heaven Is For Real?" That movie being "Auto Focus" - the biopic about the very kinky private life of Bob Crane.

Oh heavens! If this were the "R" group, I'd probably be getting dogpiled right now for celebrating about Crane's death or some such crap. If it helps, I have chastized myself severely and will now give myself a time-out.

LostOne4Ever

(9,288 posts)
4. No lie
Fri Apr 11, 2014, 04:26 PM
Apr 2014

My mother nearly died 4 years ago and had one of these near death experiences.

She claims to met a man who said some people call him god, and introduced himself as Odin!

She knows next to nothing about Norse mythology either

Strangely enough, none of us rushed to become Pagans

Curmudgeoness

(18,219 posts)
9. Strange about near-death experiences...
Fri Apr 11, 2014, 08:16 PM
Apr 2014

my brother was dead three times in the ER and was brought back. He said he saw nothing.

My father died and was brought back and he saw nothing. It isn't like he asked for a priest after that "death".

Does that mean that people who do not believe in an afterlife don't get one? And people who do believe do? Hardly seems likely to me. But at least it means that there isn't a hell waiting for us, huh?

LostOne4Ever

(9,288 posts)
10. It could be argued
Fri Apr 11, 2014, 08:25 PM
Apr 2014

Going to the Christian Heaven would be Hell for us. Who wants to spend enternity with Pat Robertson and Fred Phelphs?

Honestly, what you are describing doesn't sound too bad too me.

I think Near death experiences are due to the make up of ones brain and the random firing of neurons as the organism dies. I think its possible that the differences in how we think could wire the believers brain slightly differently than ours and result in one them getting NDE and not us.

Wild speculation on my part though.

Curmudgeoness

(18,219 posts)
11. You certainly said a mouthful.
Fri Apr 11, 2014, 08:40 PM
Apr 2014

The Christian Heaven really would be hell if I have to spend eternity with all the sanctimonious believers that I have endured in life.

Honestly, I already believe that when we die, we die....so there is nothing. For any of us. But it makes people happy to think that there is something more than this.

I have no idea what causes these experiences in some people, but my wild speculation is that it is just what they thought they saw or expected to see or couldn't admit to other believers that they saw nothing.

onager

(9,356 posts)
12. NDEs have been reproduced several different ways.
Fri Apr 11, 2014, 09:09 PM
Apr 2014

One of the most interesting to me was the findings of Maj. Gen. James Whinnery, a US Air Force doctor who was in charge of testing student pilots on centrifuges.

Those people are the exact opposite of those who usually experience NDEs - student pilots are young, very healthy and not likely to be delusional, either intentionally or not.

But when their brains were starved of blood flow on the centrifuge under extreme gravity, here's what they reported. It sounds very familiar:

Bright light, floating through a tunnel, out of body experiences, vivid dreams of beautiful places, euphoria, rapid memories of past events, meeting with friends and family...

http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4261

IIRC, researchers at UCLA were also able to reproduce NDE experiences with non-dying subjects during REM sleep. I think the linked article will point you to that research as well.

Curmudgeoness

(18,219 posts)
13. Interesting.
Fri Apr 11, 2014, 09:31 PM
Apr 2014

That doesn't explain why the two atheists that I knew who died and were revived did not have any experiences. Both were hearts stopped, so there would have been a lack of blood to the brain. That is what I find so odd.

Rob H.

(5,351 posts)
21. "Who wants to spend enternity with Pat Robertson and Fred Phelps?"
Tue Apr 15, 2014, 12:23 PM
Apr 2014

Pssh, they're not going to heaven because they're not True Christians™, at least according to some right here on DU.

LostOne4Ever

(9,288 posts)
22. Nice catch!
Tue Apr 15, 2014, 12:55 PM
Apr 2014

Well since the liberal christians are not really christians according to conservatives, and the conservatives are not really christians according to the liberal christians...

I guess we are all going to hell!

Heaven Population: 3
Hell: 10 billion+

Rob H.

(5,351 posts)
23. If there really is a hell and I end up there
Tue Apr 15, 2014, 01:05 PM
Apr 2014

...at least all my godless heathen friends from DU will be right there with me. Like Mark Twain said, "Go to heaven for the climate and hell for the company."

 

AlbertCat

(17,505 posts)
16. Randall Wallace wrote the screenplays for "Braveheart," "The Patriot"
Tue Apr 15, 2014, 02:26 AM
Apr 2014

Two films with dreadful, awful, stupid and clueless screenplays.

onager

(9,356 posts)
25. Yep. And a lot of re-writing history.
Tue Apr 15, 2014, 04:13 PM
Apr 2014

IIRC, the British govt. even protested about "The Patriot." Specifically the scene where British soldiers nailed shut the doors of a church and burned it, with the congregation inside.

Usual tedious addendum:

There was at least one well-documented atrocity during the American Revolution, but it went the other way - the battle of King's Mountain on the SC/NC border.

The American combatants there were mostly armed civilians, not professional soldiers or militias.

Those civilians didn't know any "rules of war." So even after British soldiers surrendered, they kept killing them - even after their American commanders ordered them to stop.

Though being 'murican, I have to say the Brits sort of asked for that one. IIRC, a British general sent a proclamation to the locals, threatening massive reprisals if they supported the Revolution. As often happens, that didn't intimidate the locals but just pissed them off. So they grabbed their rifles and went looking for the fight. They weren't thinking strategy/tactics/rules of war, only "kill the British."

/usual tedious addendum

 

AlbertCat

(17,505 posts)
26. Yep. And a lot of re-writing history.
Tue Apr 15, 2014, 05:23 PM
Apr 2014

Yeah.... "Braveheart" was about a accurate as those "Elizabeth" films with Cate Blanchett.... maybe even less.

Warpy

(111,253 posts)
2. I'll leave the treacle to the sugar addicted
Fri Apr 11, 2014, 04:16 PM
Apr 2014

and even though Noah is purported to be good special effects fantasy and SF film, I doublt I'll see it, either.

I can forgive fantasy if it's a good enough story, even though I realize the god soaked or weak minded will take it as fact. I just can't see any great stories coming out of present run of "if I convince enough people this crap is true, maybe I'll convince myself" movies.

LostOne4Ever

(9,288 posts)
3. I have no doubt audiences will gobble it up
Fri Apr 11, 2014, 04:20 PM
Apr 2014

While I vommit just from the trailer.

Based on a true story is becoming one of the most abused phrases in movies. Yeah they based one name on a real story then made up the rest.

onager

(9,356 posts)
6. More fun with "based on a true story..."
Fri Apr 11, 2014, 07:16 PM
Apr 2014

Couple of recent horror movies make that same claim - "The Conjuring" and "A Haunting in Connecticut."

Both are based on utter claptrap from Ed & Lorraine Warren - two of the most shameless hucksters who ever came down the pike. Ed died in 2006, but Lorraine is still hamming it up all over the media. Most recently on the TV show "Paranormal Activity."

The Warrens first became famous when they loudly inserted themselves into the "Amityville Horror" case. Most people know the story behind that one, and if not, it's easily Googled.

To this day, Lorraine Warren claims that was a real case of demonic possession. Even though the lawyer involved has said repeatedly that he and the Lutz family made the whole thing up. And in the forty-odd years since the Lutzes found a creative way to get out of their upside-down mortgage, not one single weird event has happened in that house.

"A Haunting in Connecticut" was interesting because it led to a lawsuit against the Warrens for...well, I believe the formal legal term here is also "making shit up:"

“The Warrens told my family numerous times that we would be millionaires and the book would help get my sister’s boyfriend, Arne, out of jail...I knew from day one it was a lie, but as a child, there was nothing I could really do about it.”

http://flavorwire.com/405552/the-long-strange-career-of-the-conjuring-demonologists-ed-and-lorraine-warren/

The funniest thing I've read about them was in the Comment section of a blog. Sorry, I didn't save the link. But the usual Warren apologists showed up in force with the usual claims:

"The Warrens only want to help people struggling with the Dark Forces! They've never made ONE CENT from their investigations into hauntings, bla-bla-bla..."

A few posts later, somebody wrote: "The Warrens had a seminar in my town once. I really wanted to go, but couldn't afford the admission..."



LostOne4Ever

(9,288 posts)
7. Rofl
Fri Apr 11, 2014, 07:34 PM
Apr 2014

Though I was unaware of the story behind it, I was thinking of the horror movies you mentioned when I made my post.

That is a riot.

I wonder if Warrenstupidity's name is a reference to this or something else?

Heddi

(18,312 posts)
8. Can embryo's talk?
Fri Apr 11, 2014, 07:36 PM
Apr 2014

I mean, until it's born, babies don't breathe air, so I don't know how a fetus/embryo would talk because they have lungs full of junk

uriel1972

(4,261 posts)
14. gurgle, murgle, burgle, glop
Fri Apr 11, 2014, 09:59 PM
Apr 2014

The truth is out Murlocs are embryos given life again in video games... or maybe not

 

AlbertCat

(17,505 posts)
17. I mean, until it's born, babies don't breathe air,
Tue Apr 15, 2014, 02:38 AM
Apr 2014

Not to mention that it takes years for a baby to learn to talk goo goo baby talk and even more years to learn to talk properly.

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