How could they? - Page 3

**Demon-Mask** · 11-15-2009, 04:04 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jozman3000

I agree with DB. A big portion of the consumers out there are christian and it's not crazy to say that COTT is being influenced by this fact.
Rewrite it with a story they know well like GOD VS SATAN and boom! You get sales.
But then again like KONG stated, it's business.

Exactly the point, if Hollywood makes money, things are well to them, if they mess with mythology and mix it with Christianity, then so what? Business is business, after all.

**Kugyince** · 11-15-2009, 11:28 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kong

What? You don't think Disney simplifies the majority of their characters into one dimensional black & white, good vs evil, good guys vs bad guys?

My view was that they dumbed down the story. Not because they wanted to make it more Christian like but because they wanted it to have characters that Americans are more familiar with. How many people know the stories of Zeus and Hades? How many understand the story of ultimate evil defeated by ultimate good? How many more people would buy tickets if it followed a standard proven action movie formula?

I don't care too much but the original Clash of the Titans was original. That is why it is a cult classic. The new one is probably going to follow a standard formula. Movie formulas are very annoying and are never classics.

Emphasis mine.

Exactly. This is what I've been trying to explain. It's not some religious conspiracy to convert John Q. Public into Christianity or some attempt to pander to church ladies.

@DB: Those religious nut jobs who cry sacrilege over Harry Potter are a small minority. You can find extremists in any group, including atheists.

**Slime Slayer** · 11-15-2009, 08:30 PM

you guys ever heard of the westboro baptist church? i saw a great doc on them called "the most hated family in america" if you guys want to be annoyed by peoples beliefs, than its a must see.

**Kong** · 11-15-2009, 09:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by stevencassidy13

you guys ever heard of the westboro baptist church?

( Click to show/hide )

**Dudebro** · 11-15-2009, 10:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kong

They are protected under free speech and get proper permits to protest so the police can't do anything. Hell's Angels put a stop to their protests by following them around and beating them up or intimidating them. I thought that last part was cool.

They called it counter protesting. I didn't hear of any violence but they sure as hell intimidated them.
I don't care about their right to protest in this situation. There should be no reason to arbitrarily protest a funeral. To me this is political correctness run amok. We shouldn't tolerate obviously senseless hatred like that. I know if one of my family was being buried I'd be going to jail if they showed up to protest.

**Demon-Mask** · 11-15-2009, 10:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dudebro

They called it counter protesting. I didn't hear of any violence but they sure as hell intimidated them.
I don't care about their right to protest in this situation. There should be no reason to arbitrarily protest a funeral. To me this is political correctness run amok. We shouldn't tolerate obviously senseless hatred like that. I know if one of my family was being buried I'd be going to jail if they showed up to protest.

A good rule, do not show up at someone's funeral and cause trouble, at least not in my family, in which case the 'protesters' would probabaly get killed.

**Shades** · 11-15-2009, 11:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dudebro

I thought of christians because they're the ones who are flipping out about stuff like magic in Harry Potter and LOTR and telling their members to boycott them. To me this was a decision to avoid a scenario like this and it's annoying. It's not surprising though.

You're hearing the loud, over-religious Christians that want to make themselves feel more superior by telling everyone else that they're wrong. I'm not saying you think so, but if you think that's all Christians, then you're wrong.

That upsets me about Lord of the Rings. Sure, it's not as openly symbolic as The Chronicles of Narnia, but JRR Tolkien was very much a Christian, and actually led C.S. Lewis to Christ (as I've read).

Yes, it's a problem, but I just honestly don't think that the makers of this film were looking at Harry Potter and LOTR in fear that the same might happen to them.

But there may be some truth to that. Because this was founded as a Christian nation, perhaps entertainment as a whole looked upon the battle of Good vs. Evil as being the most important battle of all. This plus having Zeus as the God figure and devil being the Satan figure seems fishy.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kong

They are the people that show up at military funerals and very loudly tell the mourners that god killed their son because he hates fags.

Reminds me of the Christian Identity Group, that believe that Jews are a literal decent of Satan (apparently they forget the fact that Jesus was a Jew), and that black people are soulless beings that were never in the Garden of Eden (which that connection makes no sense to me, at all).

These people are ridiculous. Jesus said not to have hate in your heart; yet these people hate lifestyles and skin colors. It hurts, the disgusting image they paint on God as if He were some hate monger... if God is real, then they might want to read Matthew 7:22-23;

"Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!'"

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dudebro

We shouldn't tolerate obviously senseless hatred like that. I know if one of my family was being buried I'd be going to jail if they showed up to protest.

Amen brother, this 'equality' business runs too far.

**Dudebro** · 11-15-2009, 11:15 PM

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Because this was founded as a Christian nation

I disagree with that.

**Shades** · 11-15-2009, 11:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dudebro

I disagree with that.

Well, to my knowledge, the people in the colonial era at least called themselves Christians, right?

If you're talking about the Native Americans, then you're right.

But is there something I'm missing?

**Kong** · 11-16-2009, 03:26 AM

Many colonials were Christians that were persecuted for their beliefs before coming to America. They wanted to create a country that didn't care what religion you were. America was very intentionally not created as a Christian nation.

**Dudebro** · 11-16-2009, 04:23 AM

Exactly. Religious freedom is one of the main reasons the US is what it is. It really bugs me to hear it called a christian nation.

**Winnebagel** · 11-16-2009, 09:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dudebro

Exactly. Religious freedom is one of the main reasons the US is what it is. It really bugs me to hear it called a christian nation.

Indeed. The other thing is that even amongst the founders who were Christians, there was a huge variation of different sects of Christianity. The U.S. really was supposed to be about freedom, as opposed to alot of the things that had been going on in The Church of England at the time.

**Shades** · 11-18-2009, 06:30 PM

If the colonialists were more concerned with freedom of religion over Christianity, then why did they have such a problem with the Native Americans?

**TrakMastaTom** · 11-18-2009, 07:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shades

If the colonialists were more concerned with freedom of religion over Christianity, then why did they have such a problem with the Native Americans?

Because they're brown?

I don't think they had a problem with Indians. They just saw them as an opportunity.
Just like Africans.

**Dudebro** · 11-18-2009, 09:30 PM

The reason the early Americans treated the Native Americans so badly is because of how they looked down on them. They considered them to be primitive heathens and that made it much easier to murder and steal from them. It's dehumanization and it's been going on since the dawn of humanity.
It should come as no surprise that I blame religion for the majority of this. I don't think that's unfair since in that time period religion controlled almost every aspect of peoples lives, including race relations.

**Kugyince** · 11-18-2009, 10:00 PM

Religion had little to do with it. It was mostly just used as an excuse for their actions. If it wasn't religion, they would have used a different excuse. The blame lies fully on the people who committed such atrocities and not what ever religion they chose to believe in.

It's akin to blaming society for one's own actions. A simplistic and juvenile way of thinking. Pushing the blame of such mass atrocities onto some massive organization instead of the ones who actually committed them does nothing but serves to downplay their severity.

**Dudebro** · 11-18-2009, 10:51 PM

I don't think it's juvenile to blame religion when it was the guiding force in the lives of people in that time period. Maybe the blame isn't fully on religion but it's certainly part of it. To blame the people fully is ignoring the influence religion had over them. It gave them the justification to commit the atrocities and in some cases it inspired them to do it.
Are you denying the religious agenda from that time period? Everywhere europeans went they tried to "save" the heathens from themselves. The situation in the US was no different.