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Moviefan2k4's Replies
First, I feel it necessary to fall back on my previous refrain: "I can give you evidence, but I can't force you to accept it." From all you've written so far, it seems to me you are purposely holding to materialism, which rejects the supernatural without question. If you keep that ideological defense up, nothing anyone says will get through to you. Now, I will attempt to tackle the number of your recent objections, as far as I am able...
1) Assigning human traits to a supernatural Creator does not involve "special pleading" from a Christian standpoint, because Scripture says humanity was made in His image. So this begs the question of, "What kind of God says "trust Me", but then makes Himself so hard to understand that we can't?"
2) Your implied assertion that anything happens given enough chance doesn't make much sense when you examine it closely. One counter-example often used is the idea of taking apart a wristwatch, putting all the pieces in a bag, shaking it for a million years, and expecting to remove a watch that's ticking and on time. Another has you walking on the beach, and you see "John loves Mary" carved into the sand, but you're alone. You know a mind made that, even if you didn't witness it. The same things apply to Creation itself; you don't have to experience everything to accept that its true.
3) The "acorn and oak" example isn't about actual creation, because plants have no inherent consciousness. They're more like computer programs, which need a programmer greater than them to start things running. Plants are basically a rejuvenating food source made to produce after their own kinds; they have no inborn life.
4) No one has ever actually seen a star form. We see them die all the time, but the notion that they were formed from gravity and space dust comes from agnostic Harlow Shapley, and dedicated naturalist Carl Sagan who popularized it later.
How can you possibly not like Brad Fiedel? He composed one of the most iconic movie themes of the '80s and '90s, for the Terminator franchise.
But to stay on-topic, I guess that one unpopular opinion I have is my view that Jerry Goldsmith is slightly overrated. Yes, he did great work for much of the Star Trek films and TV shows, but what was he really known for otherwise? People like John Williams are known for legendary music across the board, by comparison.
In no particular order...
John Williams
Graeme Revell
Alan Silvestri
James Horner
Howard Shore
The key to understanding anything spiritual is allowing yourself to be open-minded about the possibility of the supernatural, not just fighting it because you don't like the implications. What you call "special pleading" doesn't apply, because the definition of that term requires leaving out a proper justification. If you want to go the scientific route, consider this: those who study the heavens have concluded that time, space, and matter all came into existence at the same exact moment. Whether you use the term "big bang" for this or not doesn't really matter right now. My point is that without time, there would be no when to set up space or matter. Without space, you'd have a when and what, but no specific location. And without matter, there would be nothing that existed for the purpose of time and space working together.
So per this example, all three are co-dependent. Nature never creates itself from a total void, which means that a cause was needed that exists beyond the boundaries of time, space, and matter. In other words, this cause would have to be timeless (or eternal), spaceless (or unbounded), and immaterial (or not coming from the natural world). Plus, in order to form anything as huge and varied as the cosmos, the cause behind it had to be more powerful than nature itself. There also had to be intelligence involved, because we know from various fields of study that the universe is too organized and detailed to be random. And finally, there had to be personal attributes at play, because making anything requires a deliberate decision. So when you consider the notion of a timeless, spaceless, immaterial, powerful, intelligent, and personal being...what's the first idea that pops into your head? There's a reason many apologists refer to God as the "uncaused first cause", because rationally it makes perfect sense. I'm not against science, but I don't agree with the doctrine of scientism, which insists that only the natural world holds all the answers.
This article explains it fairly well.
https://www.compellingtruth.org/one-third-angels.html
I'd just like to clarify one other thing, that came to my mind after my previous post. When I wrote earlier that I didn't think I could provide an answer to your satisfaction, I meant the last part quite literally. There's a very real difference between evidence and proof; the former is objective, the latter is subjective. I can give you evidence like crazy, but I can't force you to accept it. If you want to find irrefutable 100% proof of anything supernatural in this life, you'll never find it because we are inherently incapable of doing so. Our natural abilities can only take us so far, and we have our limits. God has none, other than His inherent nature and what He has promised to us.
I guess the main so-called "constraints" in my life have to do with my fears and weaknesses.
First off, I'm deathly afraid of snakes, and have been since I was at a zoo once and one of them tried to strike at me through its cage. As a result, I can't watch the Well of Souls sequence in "Raiders of the Lost Ark", and pretty much every scene featuring a snake in the "Harry Potter" series. Interestingly enough, I can watch the end of "Chamber of Secrets", because I saw how they built a practical life-sized basilisk head for that sequence.
My other main fear is heights, and as such I've hardly ever flown in an airplane. Also, when I get above the 2nd or 3rd floor in most buildings, I stay away from railings and windows. I think part of it comes from sleeping on the top bunk bed a lot as a child, and falling to the floor almost every night.
Finally, my last vulnerability is probably my temper. I'm not a mean-spirited person, but I do often become defensive when I'm accused of being something I know in my heart I am not. I have both epilepsy and Asperger's Syndrome, the latter of which causes many of my mannerisms and perception abilities to be easily misunderstood. I have an extensive vocabulary, but I'm not always the best at detecting sarcasm or grasping things non-literally.
Mine is probably the Bible, though to be fair I don't think I've read the whole thing in sequence at all in my life. My folks used to put me to sleep by reading it as a kid, and I attended Sunday school where the teachers would tell us the well-known accounts like the Garden of Eden, Noah's Ark, the Exodus, Samson & Delilah, the reign of King David, Jesus' ministry, etc.
It was only many years later that I started attempting to go through it myself, and I realized how much of the Old Testament is filled with stuff that in all honesty drives me nuts. I love both God and Jesus like crazy, but I have a very tough time caring about things like the dimensions of the Ark of the Covenant, the traditions of the Levite priests, the details of the genealogies, and trying to decipher the various illustrations in Revelation. I'm just glad that God doesn't need perfect people on His side, though...just humble ones willing to listen and obey Him.
I've probably seen the first "Back to the Future" entry at least 200 times since I was 8 years old. My folks taped it onto VHS for me, and I wore it out completely by watching almost every day, until "Part II" came out in the Christmas season of 1989. As for other '80s films, I love the original "Highlander" as well; its a fantasy classic. Most of the sequels suck, but I do have a soft spot for "The Final Dimension", and I watched the TV show quite a bit growing up too.
Rejecting God's authority because you don't like it doesn't mean that He or it don't exist. If God is real, then that's true for everyone whether any of us like it or not...including you and me. As for why God doesn't present Himself to everyone all the time, there's two primary reasons. First, it would interfere with our free will and His desire for us to "live by faith, not by sight". But even more importantly, our fallen bodies can't currently take being exposed to the fullness of His glory anyway; we'd literally be destroyed because of the difference. That's why Jesus came down; He was called "Immanuel", meaning "God with us" or "God in flesh". If you're only willing to accept what you can detect with your natural senses, then you're severely limiting yourself.
I haven't gone all-out for Halloween in years, mainly because I'm single with no kids and I quit watching most horror films years ago. But I do like some films with a supernatural twist, like "The Crow" and "Beetlejuice" (still haven't seen the sequel yet). My local church gives out candy to the neighborhood kids every year, in a tradition they've dubbed "Trunk or Treat".
My only relationship began this way, 23 years ago. I was living in a homeless shelter after a fight with my Mom, and shortly after I arrived I saw this woman standing a few yards from the main door. She was of average build and height, with shoulder-length brown hair...but what really captured me was her eyes. For some reason, she was crying; not bawling, just gentle tears. Having grown up in a very hurtful extended family myself, I immediately felt this emotional connection; I didn't even know her name, but I wanted to try and help her if I could. We met properly a day or two later, became platonic friends...and then within a few months everything went from almost heavenly to absolute hell. There were a lot of reasons behind all the chaos, and we tried a total of three times over a five-year period to work things out...but ultimately it all fell apart. I spent many years after that blaming myself, and its just recently that I've been able to focus on the better times with her instead of the worst ones.
Regarding absolutism, there is the concept of "absolute truth", which says that some things are right or wrong regardless of our opinions. If God is the supreme authority, then that means His nature is the source of absolute truth. As for the taking of any life, God can do that at His own discretion without ever having to externally justify it, and for one reason: He is the Creator and sustainer of life. His nature defines what justice is, and as such He can't commit murder. We can, because we're both fallen and selfish, but God is neither. God forbids us to unjustly take a life, because it goes against the purity of His own nature and also interferes with the love He knows that person shares with others in their lives. God is not some blind dictator, using His power to enslave us all. He could do that, but He loves us so much He swore not to. For example, after Noah and his family left the Ark, Scripture said he put the first-ever rainbow in the clouds, to remind people that whenever they saw it, we'd be reminded of this promise: He would never cause or allow the whole Earth to be flooded ever again. And so far, God has kept His word.
My view on capital punishment is very simple - "If you don't want to do the time, the don't do the crime." Crooks these days are selfish beyond measure, feeling they can do whatever they want to anyone without ever having to answer for it...and sadly, the current legal system is supporting that view. We have too many crooked cops, lawyers, and judges, most of them being bribed or otherwise pressured into showing leniency or even releasing a criminal instead of pursuing true justice. Think about it: how many times have you seen a movie or TV episode, where a crook hold's a judge's kid hostage, and tells the judge the child will die unless their demands are met? Those kinds of stories aren't purely fictitious; they often happen in reality.
To me, the ultimate '80s movie will always be "Back to the Future". It had everything - comedy, adventure, suspense, romance, and a killer soundtrack. Mark Campbell (credited as "Marty McFly") sang the film's version of "Johnny B. Goode", primarily because Michael J. Fox was doing both the movie and his sitcom "Family Ties" simultaneously. He barely had time to sleep, much less record a full song for the elaborate sequence. In his biography "Lucky Man", Michael told one brief story about how he once got so confused by the all-consuming schedule, he freaked out in the "Family Ties" prop room because he couldn't find Marty's video camera.
I had a similar discussion along these lines with my roommate last night. I was trying to explain to him that human morality does not apply to God, since He is the supreme Creator and thus both good and evil are determined by His nature...not our emotional responses. Also, its important to note that in the eternal view, no one ever dies; we simply move from one form of existence to another. Even most cultures who aren't Christian embrace some idea of an afterlife; its only the most stubborn humanists who insist that can't be true. To that, I'm reminded of an illustration that an apologist I like once used. He said he asked an atheist, "Do you know everything?"; the man said "No." The apologist then said, "OK, would you say that you know half of everything?" Again the atheist responded in the negative. Finally, the apologist said, "Okay, let's assume for the sake of discussion, that you know half of everything. Would it then be possible, for God to exist in the half which you don't know?" His point of course, was that as limited mortal beings, we can't fully comprehend everything about God; that's why He sent Jesus and also had the apostles write the Bible. God wants humanity to know Him, but He also wants us to trust Him...and sometimes that requires a leap of faith without always understanding every issue.
In perfect honesty, I doubt I can answer your objection to your full satisfaction. Having said that, there's different verses in Scripture where its said that God "created" or "made" something, and again you have to look at the context.
Consider Lucifer himself for a moment. If God is all-knowing, then He knew Lucifer would rebel, and end up taking a third of Heaven's angels with him. With that in mind, the most logical question is "Why didn't God stop him?", or even "Why did God create him in the first place?" The same could be said about Judas Iscariot, who betrayed Jesus. He was part of the Messiah's inner circle, seeing many of the teachings and miracles his fellow apostles did...yet he still allowed his greed to overtake him. When he finally did come to his senses, Judas mistakenly believed that Jesus would never forgive him, so he hung himself. Why does God allow that, even in modern times? I know you've probably heard it already, and while this answer isn't easy at all, its still very simple: "free will". There can be no light without darkness, and for love to mean anything there must also be an option to hate.
God gave Adam & Eve total freedom in Eden, with one exception: don't eat from the tree that contained knowledge of good and evil. They did it anyway, and that choice triggered a terrible curse which affected not just humanity, but the world as well. That's why things like cancer and other diseases exist; our bodies have become corrupted over time (I also suspect modern genetic tampering might've had something to do with it as well). The curse still affects the natural world today, which is why we have tornadoes, earthquakes, tsunamis, flash floods, etc. None of that existed in the original creation. The book of Revelation says that at the end of this world, God will destroy this corrupted Earth and make a new one, where all the purity and beauty that existed before will return.
It is difficult to work your way through the mess that is current-day Hollywood, that much is true. I don't say this to be pious or sound "holier-than-thou", but I tend to generally avoid most R-rated movies. In fact, I was looking at my Blu-Ray collection recently, checking the rating for each title (mainly from curiosity), and discovered I had about 30 of them. My initial response was along the lines of "Good God; when did this happen?"
Now, allow me to explain something right away: I am obviously not against all films given the R rating in total. For me, it depends on why that rating was assigned, and how the more mature material fits into the story. For example, there's a ton of blood and graphic violence in "The Passion of the Christ", plus a few brief frightening images. But there's also no explicit swearing, and no sexual content at all. So the main reason for the rating in this case was more than likely due to violence.
By contrast, one of my all-time favorite mainstream films is "The Crow", starring Brandon Lee. It was given an R rating in 1994, but if you were to judge it by today's standards it would likely be seen as relatively tame. Most of the violence is not overtly bloody, one character is a drug addict, and the sexual content is fairly minor for the rating boundaries (actress Bai Ling is briefly shown from behind in a shower, and there's also a short glimpse of a dead topless woman). But in my opinion, the biggest reason for the rating is the language; the criminal characters swear so much they'd make most sailors blush, and Lee's character does at least once. The main reason I enjoy the film so much is that despite its content and overall dark tone, the heart of it contains a love story so powerful its almost Shakespearean. The final narration sums up the whole thing perfectly: "If the people we love are stolen from us, the way to have them live on is to never stop loving them. Buildings burn, people die...but real love is forever."
I go almost every week. I've lived in my current residence for 6 years, and started going to my local church about a year after I moved. In that span of five years, I can only think of a handful of services I missed...most of which were due to the place being briefly shut down for part of the Covid pandemic.
I just read that verse in context, just to make sure I could try my best to address it properly. In Isaiah Chapter 45, God is describing His nature to a man named Cyrus, and several verses before #7 have God describing the various attributes He has, and what He can do. With this in mind, I think its very important to pay attention to the first part of verse #7, which says "I form the light, and create darkness". To me, that seems like a bit of additional and necessary detail.
I found this brief video online, which actually explains the original ancient word rendered as "evil" in verse #7, and how there are many other substitutes for it. Its only about 3 & 1/2 minutes, so there's not much patience required. Check it out.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7aTf6OEwf3o