Apr 7th 2015 Considering Faithful Protestors

Let's face it. We in America live in an age where the underdog feels the most entitled to victory. If you feel like the guy at Starbucks deprived you of a couple ounces of foam, you are entitled to a lawsuit. If you feel like a system doesn't give you a fair shake, you have the right to make it known to the world. Which is great in most cases and even expected. America has a long standing tradition of protests and freedom fighters and some of them have done a lot of good. However, there are cases where such actions do not make much sense until you look at it a little more in depth.

In the last couple of years there has been an increase in news about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the member protestors who disagree with some actions of the church. In discussions with such protestors, I can understand how they get to the opinions they have and have sympathy for what they are thinking and feeling. I may not agree with them, but I can have empathy for them and understand the path that lead them to where they are. I can even follow the reasoning behind why they think it's ok to storm certain inappropriate venues so that their voices can be heard. What I don't understand, is how they so thoroughly blurred politics with religion.

In politics, it is essential that all voices be heard where ever they can. Protests are a natural side-effect of people trying to find common ground with those with differing opinions. We live in a land that is governed by one body and as long as we live on this soil claimed by that government we all have to follow that governments rules (i.e. taxes). Therefore, such actions are expected and necessary as a matter of course to make sure nobody is unduly repressed.

Religion is different. In religion, you either agree with and do your best to march in step with the leaders of your chosen church, or you don't actually want to be a part of that religion and you are free to leave. It's that simple. It's a choice. Welcome to America. You can live in the same house, have the same job, and be a part of any religion or no religion and it doesn't really affect your mortal life that much. If you like most aspects of a religion, but find some things fundamentally wrong with it, you either find a new one or create one that is tailored to your individual desires. This is where church's usually divide and new organizations spring up. Last I checked, it only takes six people to create a new religion in America. Yet, this is not the route the protestors have chosen. Instead they are employing political tactics of marching, sign carrying, and shouted outbursts during meetings. Why?

This is where I think I understand the protesters better than they understand themselves. Logically, it would be much simpler for dissenting LDS members of like minded opinions to gather themselves into a body and separate from the church as a whole and form their own church. They won't, because emotionally they know they'd loose too much if they did. Besides obviously loosing millions of people who believe their church was founded by God himself, they'd suddenly find themselves not among the largest bodies of Christian faithful, they would be without a prophet, they wouldn't have any buildings, institutions, or missionaries and may loose contact with many friends and family members. They would essentially have to start from scratch which would be a lot of hard work. Also, if you've deeply associated yourself with a religion long enough to connect right and truth and good with being a member of that church, but you suddenly find yourself in disagreement with it, what do you have left? If you leave, are you suddenly not good anymore? This, of course is wrong because goodness isn't exclusively religious. So these good people suddenly find themselves in a limbo world where they want to be a part of the church, but a part of them nags with increasing intensity that a part of that same church is wrong and must be fixed. When it feels like bishops or stake presidents don't handle your feelings seriously, you may feel boxed into a tight corner where the only option is to protest. It's not, but I can see why people would feel that way.

My point is that disagreements and spiritual upheavals happen all of the time and in every ward in our church. Most of them can be handle through personal study, prayer, temple attendance, and if necessary a trip to the Bishop. In the church, you don't have to go to the highest authority to get your spiritual needs met because your local leaders are acting by the prophets authority. It would be impossible for twelve guys to meet personally with every member as often as the members need council. Moses learned that from his father-in-law. Are these leaders perfect? No, but they do their best which is all any human being can ask of another. Along those same lines, all policies, procedures, and actions start at the very top. God says jump, then the prophet says jump, then the twelve say jump, then the seventy, say jump, then the stake presidents say jump, then the bishops say jump, then the teachers say jump. It's that simple. Same message, same line of authority.

This church is a hierarchy with God as the king, but it also has democratic workings threaded perfectly throughout the system. We vote, but we can't vote God or the prophet out of the system. The vote is so that the leaders know who has questions, who needs extra guidance, and rarely who knows something that makes a leader unworthy for his calling. It happens, but very rarely. I find that most people get into the trouble when they over-complicate the message or when they cross wires with "rights" and God's will. Many times the leaders have said that we tailor ourselves to God, not the other way around. So why are so many people convinced that protesting and telling the leaders to tailor gospel to what they personally believe will ever work? We don't follow scripture according to the interpretation of John from Australia. We've always followed it by the direction of God through his prophets and apostles. This is what fundamentally make the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints earn that title. So why do protestors believe this will ever change?

Believe me, I'd rather people would keep their voiced dissenting opinions out of General Conference and took their questions to the Lord and their leaders. If still unsatisfied, then I'd rather they'd leave the church until they've figured out what's bothering them so much and we remain friends than to have protestors rudely disturb sacred moments for people who do believe and have deep feelings about our meetings. It's like having your annoying cousin crash your dad's funeral with obnoxious political debates. There's a time and a place. And personally, I feel like if you're trying to single handedly change the minds of thousands of people, you'd rather be their respectful relative than the obnoxious one. Bees and honey and all that.

Mar 30 2015 God's Not Dead a Netflix Review

I've heard whispers of this film and now it has finally made it onto Netflix. When I first started it my mother showed signs of concern that this would be a bible bashing, faith rending movie. I am happy to say that it is not a bible bashing movie. Instead, it is a movie that delivers exactly what every peace loving Christian has always wanted to see, the absolutely logical and nearly irrefutable smack down of antitheism. AKA, the day Christians weren't intellectually ground down into humiliating dust for believing in God.

So, without further ado, this is God's Not Dead......and there will be spoilers, duh.

What do I have to say about this movie? Despite my problems with it, I really enjoyed it. The main characters have decent acting and are strengthened by a story line that is surprisingly intriguing and more open philosophy-wise than you usually see in a Christian movie. They even kept the miracle factor to simple engine trouble. All in all, it's a movie that's intended to make you think and when you take it like that, you'll leave pretty happy.

In the movie you follow several story lines that circle the main dilemma of a Christian freshman college student with dreams of going into law. He suddenly finds himself facing down his philosophy teacher who basically says, "If you do not deny your faith for the purpose of opening your mind to my lectures you will not pass my class." Jerk. Yet, we've all heard several versions of this story before both fact and fictionally and we're excited for the smack down that's about to happen anyway.

Even though it is pointed out early that our hero could rearrange his entire schedule and avoid the teachers class, pass with good grades, and keep his girlfriend happy, our hero instead decides to take on the dragon that is Professor Radisson because he feels that God would want him to. The rather overly hostile professor challenges our hero, Josh Wheaton, to present before the class three twenty minute lectures to prove that God isn't dead, by which time if the class isn't convinced, Josh would fail and his dreams of law school would run dry. Super nice of this cocky professor to give the kid time to prepare and three whole chances to save his future.

Josh's presentations absolutely blew my mind. If the professor wasn't drawn as such an egotist, he might have given the kid an 'A' just for the professional effort. Seriously, it was bordering unbelievable. I mean, I know they have several scenes of him going through the library and even worrying about being able to keep up with his other classes because of this challenge, but come on. The guy is like a golden freshman. He pulled off three well researched and quality debates in under a week. The way he was presenting the arguments you would think he had started taking debate classes when he was in kindergarten. Not to mention advanced presentation skills with serious graphic design that most seniors would need a month to put together. Seriously, did this kid even sleep between the three class periods?

The main case of arguments between Christian and atheist beliefs are smart, balanced, well researched, and come with a broad range of references from credible sources. Thereby, in the end, leaving the audience free to decide for themselves whether or not God is actually dead. Though every other part of the movie screams "God is real!" the main part of the story surrounding the debates at least leaves it up to choice and leaves Christians feeling like they've been finally fairly heard. The debates feature the kind of dream arguments you wish could happen in real life where each side is represented fairly and nobody is interrupted or shouted down. True to character, the professor was overly aggressive in his counter arguments, but even he stayed well behaved enough for each argument to be presented fully. I'm glad the writers chose to give his character very strong rebuttals because that just made the whole thing feel a lot richer. These arguments, by far, were my favorite part of the movie. Unrealistic in presentation, but still awesome in and of themselves.

There's a few side stories and these were my least favorite. First annoyance was the fact that you had two characters who could have been twin sisters. It made it hard to tell who you were looking at in the movie. One was named Aiysha, a former Muslim who had been hiding her conversion to Christianity for over a year and eventually becomes a possible love interest for Josh. The other awkward character, Mina, had the wonderful role of being the young Christian student who was dating the seriously old looking in comparison Professor Radisson. Three kinds of wrong right there. Both women have long dark hair, almond eyes, eastern skin tones, slim forms, and similar fashion senses and make up trends. Unless they were in the same shot, which they never were, it was really hard to tell them apart and that muddled the story for me a bit. Another side character, red head Amy Ryan, had a well played side story, but it was more of a nice filler that illustrated an old Christian trope than was strictly necessary to the plot. Her jerk ex-boyfriend Mark had a similar problem with his story, but the part where his sick mother suddenly had a moment of clear thinking and told him off for his wicked perspective was pretty cool.

Pet peeve number two, the non-supportive girlfriend. For writing that was otherwise really strong, I'm amazed they wrote her character the way they did. Her sole purpose for existing was to create the classic love or God dilemma that felt as cheesy as most Christian movies are. As if publicly putting deeply personal feelings about faith on the line while your "respectable" professor eviscerated and threatened your academic future wasn't reason enough for Josh to feel conflicted about it, they had to add this charming character. I'm glad they bluntly told us about how they'd been together for six years, because that was all the chemistry these two had. Putting aside my personal feeling about starting romantic relationships at the ripe old age of twelve (assuming that like most freshmen, they are currently 18) knowing this fact actually helps me to believe her reactions a bit more. As anyone who has officially achieved adulthood will tell you, teenagers are incredibly self-focused. So having a girlfriend telling her guy that it's her way or the high way isn't that far fetched, but having a professed Christian girl tell her Christian guy that standing up for God isn't worth risking a wealthy future and then dumping him for it is too Tele Novela. They even threw in a, "My mother was right about you!" line. Her entire character was about manipulative control and selfish gain. Really dumb and really cliché. In other words, totally not necessary.

Pet peeve number three and the biggest spoiler, the professor dies. Before he can die though, he has a quick series of events that rapidly melts his god-hating heart. Talk about convenient. You have a change of heart and then don't live long enough for it to make a real worldly difference? How is this powerful or even a good thing? I know I've said he was a jerk throughout this review, but he was still a likable and believable character with mostly good lines and good acting. Except the elevator scene. That was just extremely awkward. Still, after building the whole movie up on the idea that he was a former Christian which makes him the worst kind of atheist, it could be easily said that he last minute converted precisely because he was distressed and in pain. He'd just lost the debate to a freshman, his Christian girlfriend had rightly dumped him in front of his colleagues because it turns out he's a jerk to everyone, he was revisiting old feelings about his mom dying, and then he gets' hit by a freaking hit and run car. The fact that it was raining just added salt to the injuries this guy was going through, though maybe the director was going for a weird symbolic rebaptism thing, who can say. Anyway, to me, it would have been far more powerful for him to live with the change rather than conveniently die right after. However, on the other hand if he dies then he can't fail our hero. Choices, choices. 
If you don't mind over the top girlfriends and awkward Duck Dynasty cameos, it's not a bad Sunday movie and will leave Christians with little glowing fuzzies once you're done. Cuz, who doesn't like a good old theology smack down where the Christians actually win? Not the best movie, but not really deserving of the really low scores either.

Jul 26th 2014 Reaping the Seeds of "Twilight" aka Why a Movie Called "50 Shades of Grey" is Exactly What We Deserve

(Editor's note: I will not be including excerpts or gross allusions in this critique. Your choice to ingest it elsewhere, my choice to keep it out.)

The only reason I am taking this on (because I could have honestly gone my whole life without acknowledging this books' existence) is because everybody seemed really concerned about it, but not necessarily for all the right reasons. Good and moral reasons to be sure, but let me paint for you the true travesty that books such as Twilight and 50 Shades of Grey have brought upon the literary world.

In 2005, Stephanie Meyer released her first installment of the Twilight series. Featuring a young malleable female protagonist whom, "all girls could relate to because she is so blank" and a young looking old vampire with stalking tendencies as this vampire will casually lets himself into her room, at night, while she's sleeping, and without her permission. The story started the engine in 50 Shades of Grey author, E. L. James' mind that created the now well known conflicted relationship between Christian, a millionaire, a victim, and an abuser, and Anastasia, yet another somewhat blank in easily molded female character.

Stephanie Meyer started Twilight with some good and moral intentions that she managed to keep. She wanted to make it a big deal that Bella and Edward had a pure love because they did not have sex until after marriage, however, her book failed to carry this message to the world at large. All anyone seemed to care about was the sexual tension in the series.

The soft pornographic nature and the possessive style relationships featured in this series combined with a young impressionable fan base that accepted it as credible mainstream material gave this work unprecedented power for the wrong reasons. Young girls were swooning at the idea of being wanted so much by powerful hot vampires and young boys were trying to figure out how they could emulate those vampires so they could attract the girls they liked. Scary right?

In short, Twilight became a series that didn't quite carry the message that its author wanted because of the louder sensational elements of the book. It is a tragedy when the author can't keep an audience focused on their point.

50 Shades of Grey, originally inspired by Twilight, also had a good premise.

Don't stop reading. Hear me out. The story is rubbish, but the premise isn't. At it's core, all it is, is Beauty and the Beast all over again.

The story does deal with certain human truths which is what we do want in our literature. Like most abusers, the male protagonist was abused as a child and perpetuates that abuse in his future relationships. This does happen in the world. It doesn't have to be discussed explicitly, but it does happen and it is a topic that can and should be discussed in some literature. Our female protagonist even becomes the hero by exercising an old trope where the pure virgin tames the brute and turns him into a well adjusted human being and defeats his abuser in the process. She doesn't manage to stay a virgin, but it's still based on that trope. It's a very Faustian story at it's core and there is a story there that can be told well.

However, like I said, only the premise in 50 Shades of Grey is a great idea. The topic of having an abused underdog overcoming the cycle of abuse is totally a story worth having.

Yet, this book, just like Twilight, has way to much in it that distracts from that potential message and I can honestly say that the author never intended to focus on anything moral at all. The only acknowledged theme here is sex, sex, sex, and more sex. Yet another great opportunity is lost in the literary world for a real story to be brought to light and relished. Sex can be a theme if it shows how it affects society, history, human psychology etc. Otherwise its just a thing people do. No meaning whatsoever.

This is horrible to those of us who seek out books to discover new perspectives and meaning in a chaotic world. Instead we're being drowned in sensationalist garbage that means absolutely nothing. Where are the philosophers? Where is Socrates, Shakespeare, Milton, and the unknown authors of Beowulf? Where is Ernest Hemingway, Harper Lee, Mark Twain, William Faulkner, or Thomas Jefferson? Where is Gandalf for crying out loud! Books aren't just about entertainment, they're about presenting new perspectives on timeless ideas in this multifaceted world of ours. Trash books like these make us forget that.

Worse, people who don't take the time to read good literature and discuss it make us forget that.

We only have our illiterate selves to blame that books like these gain more conversation than Paradise Lost, because we decided long ago as a society that big old books are just too hard to understand.

I've always said that a true story teller can engage a large audience without having to fall back on shock factors like foulness, sex, or depravity. A genius, can keep an audience focused on a toothbrush for an hour without falling back on those easy paths.

This is the discussion that should be happening concerning this movie that's coming out. Let's talk about abuse. Let's talk about women's and men's rights. Let's talk about real relationships. Most of all let's beg the story tellers to give us more then sensation. Give us truth. Give us universal, deep meaning about the world and a new creative way on how to perceive it.

Only then will be able to regain some humanity in our words.

Jan 9th 2015 Art and Why Sia is the Bravest Woman Alive

These two songs are part of series of songs by the music artist Sia called 1000 Forms of Fear.

Chandelier
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vjPBrBU-TM

Elastic Heart
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWZGAExj-es
Meaning in art is highly based on individual interpretation. The only requirement to be a correct interpretation is that you must be able to convincingly prove your perspective on any given piece with only that piece.

I found this subject online today and I had to write about it for various reasons. First I want to start out by saying the "Elastic Heart" music video is an amazing piece of art that's tackling a difficult subject. Internal struggles are hard to display on screen, in song, or in dance because they are so personal and people often misinterpret it because they're coming from a different experience than the artist who made it. This is basically why I think there is an uproar about Sia's latest video, "Elastic Heart." In this video you have 28 year old man and a 12 year old girl in flesh colored outfits interpretative dancing in a cage. Feel free to widen your eyes at this point because the gut reaction is, "Whoa, hang on now, is this going to be about child abuse?" This is a valid fear since 98% of music videos are about romantic (or a better word cupidic) relationships with dances and symbols to match. If you add the age gap and then the creep-o-meter shoots off the charts. As a society, we universally oppose pedophilia and child abuse in every respect and are willing to go to arms over it if even a wiff of it is present. I mean, even convicts are rumored to beat up fellow inmates for pedo-related crimes as a form of justice. This is all a valid interpretation of "Elastic Heart", except for the fact that it's wrong.

I wasn't nearly as disturbed as some people were by Sia's choices in this video. While some interpreted the cage as a giant bird cage I saw a tiger cage and many of the first dance moves were feline in nature and supported that interpretation. Thanks to these images, when I first watched the video, I already viewed the dancers as representing something other than the people they actually were. While some parts can be interpreted as pedophilia, I feel like this is disproven with the fact that its the little girl who in charge of most of the video. Throughout the video she is far more energetic and aggressive than the exhausted and torn up grown man she's chasing around the cage. On top of that there was no inappropriate touching, gyrations, or anything similar to the more "sexy" dance videos we're used to seeing. The reason why I think people are missing the point here, I believe, is because of two major fallacies: one, all buff men are sex objects; two, all little blonde girls are vulnerable and defenseless. I've never seen a buff grown man get beat around so much by a little girl as I did in this video. She scratches, hits, kicks, and scares him into corners. Her face is often turned downward which in most art is an interpretation of determined control, not tilted back, which is a more vulnerable and weaker pose. She even openly laughs in his face at points. However, they are still a grown man and a little girl in minimal nude clothing dancing in a cage. Again, I can see the other point, but I highly doubt Sia was going for that.

Remember, this exact same little girl character in this exact same costume represented addiction in the last video, "Chandelier." In that video, she was the embodiment of what happens inside someone when they are addicted to something that is typically socially acceptable. Sia had revealed in an interview that she has had her own struggles with wanting to be a fun party girl who is accepted while dealing with the realities alcoholism. Since the little girl is the exact same in "Elastic Heart" and both songs are meant to be in a series, we can safely interpret her as that same struggle or more specifically alcoholism itself. Sia tweeted after the released of "Elastic Heart" that Shia LaBeouf and Maddie Ziegler were playing two parts of the same person. If that is the case, then we can consider dirty, buff, glove wearing Shia as the persona that has been fighting to get away from his past, but is still drawn to it as alcoholics also deal with lifetime attractions to alcohol. I think its the acting "drawn to" factor that set off most pedophilia antennas, but lets be honest that in a culture that accepts homosexuality you would get the same feeling if it was acted as well by a grown woman. If you took out the "drawn to" factor all together, you'd be lying about how powerful addiction really is and it wouldn't be as strong of a video. In short; good art makes comfortable men uncomfortable, and uncomfortable men comfortable. This qualifies.

This theoretical interpretation I have is supported by the fact that the little girl is in control most of the time and its all Shia can do to be in control even in the littlest sense. There's a point in the new video where Shia gets as far away as he can from Ziegler by climbing to the top of the cage. Then Ziegler seems to go to sleep. If we are to take Ziegler as alcoholism this picture is brilliant. Shia is still tempted to come closer when Ziegler appears innocently asleep, when she wakes up she even comes to him innocently before biting him. Which addiction does. Once you get away from something that's bad, looking back at it may make it seem less harmful, but get too close and it will always bite you and laugh in your face. The whole dance is basically the war between addiction, temptation, and the struggle that comes from that experience. After a few close examinations, I realized the cage could be interpreted as the boundaries an addict has to put up in their lives to keep from falling off the wagon, that doesn't mean that the temptation can't get in, it just means its harder to get out. This proven when the girl easily slips in and out of the cage as Shia, while he could leave, stays inside. The fact that she can get out of the cage at all again disproves the pedophilia theory. The alcoholism theory is further proven when Shia is carrying Zielger on his back like a heavy load and later she hits him on the head four times, changing his face from sick, to silly, to angry, to subdued, which are common personality switches alcohol can cause. Ziegler also reacts to his breath as if it stunk, which is another side affect of alcohol. I felt like the choreography showed the struggle of addiction beautifully. It was tragic and powerful to watch and I don't think people who have always felt in complete control of themselves would get it.

I can see where people would have misinterpreted this as child molestation. We are dealing with abstract concepts of desire, need, want, right, wrong, temptation, and the common and often seen interpretation of these things in the media is sexual in nature. This is why Sia is the bravest woman alive. She's willing to risk the wrong and socially despised interpretation in order to show a new perspective on a different internal struggle. Sex is talked about all of the time. The destructive internal wars of alcohol and other temptations on the other hand, are barely represented at all in art. If they are, its very blunt or poorly done. When you look at the lyrics they are even more vague and subject to interpretation. In an art form that only seems to be concerned with talking about love between two people, its easy to just jump to weird conclusions, but when you look at the lyrics from the perspective that I've spent way too much time describing, it's even more powerful than the typical cliché relationship. Remember, the center stage is all about what is going on inside a single person. Then again, my interpretation can also be completely wrong. I just know that it has more proof than the pedophilia argument. 

Why Blogger is Better

Simply put, I got sucked into doing all of my word-smithing on Facebook Notes. That particular function in the last few months has suddenly decided that paragraph breaks for online reading aren't important. Time to move the shop back here. Meanwhile, enjoy random posts from thoughts I'd been having over the past year.