Posts Tagged ‘religion’

Review: Exodus: Gods & Kings

Posted: December 14, 2014 in Review
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My friend and I (and the friend we ran into at the theater who joined us for the show) didn’t go into this movie with many expectations. We were trying to keep an open mind, trying not to form an opinion about a Biblical movie that apparently deviated a lot from the source material.

Well, I can’t speak for my friends with any sort of authority. But I can say that I was disappointed. And not because I thought it would’ve been better to have had Middle Eastern or black actors in the main roles rather than white people (I mean it is in Egypt). Or why a guy named Christian is playing Moses (so much irony in that).

I think what Ridley Scott was trying to do with this film was to tell the story of Moses as a very human story, of a man troubled by his decisions, his role as a leader, and possible brain damage or psychosis. I think those who go for the human story of Moses will like this movie. I however was still kind of hoping for the Exodus story, so I was kind of disappointed. And I don’t think they told the human story very well either.

Plus Ramses II’s motivation to exile Moses and try to take him down seemed a little weak. Didn’t help that Joel Edgerton, who plays Ramses, was pretty unconvincing as an actor. And sometimes the dialogue made us nearly burst out laughing because it was so awful. And why at the beginning do they have screen titles that explains what’s happening in Egypt at the time? Literally everyone knows this story! You would’ve done better actually telling us the minor characters’ names more than once!

Plus the traditional fourth plague isn’t flies, it’s wild animals! Lions and tigers and bears! I know with the profusion of frog and fish corpses out there flies seem like a better choice, but animals seem much scarier and harder to explain through science! Can’t we see that for once?

Still, the special effects are pretty impressive, especially around the scenes with the Ten Plagues. The decision of how to portray Moses’s interactions with God is pretty original. Plus there is a little bit of theological wrestling that really exemplifies Moses’s problems in this movie. I have to admit that those were high points.

All in all, I’m giving Exodus: Gods & Kings a 2.3 out of 5. I don’t think that, among movies about Biblical events, this one won’t be remembered as a classic and will more likely be remembered as a movie that got the people who prefer their stories closer to the book in conniptions.

Well, that’s all for now. I’m going to try to see The Legend of Princess Kaguya and Babadook later this week, might do a review of the former and probably will do a review of the latter. Keep an eye out.

Good night, my Followers of Fear.

Creating a Curse

Posted: October 19, 2014 in Reflections, Scary Stuff, Writing
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Before I start, I just want to make sure everyone is aware that I’m not actually showing you how to curse someone. I do know how to do that, but I don’t want to share the method lest someone use it on me. That would suck. No, I’m talking about creating a curse for a story, one that would terrify all who read your work.

The thing about curses is that they are relentless and awful. A curse doesn’t discriminate based on how nice you are, how much money you make, what religion you belong to, or any other factor. No, once a curse locks onto you, it’s like you have a target on your back that you can’t get off, and you won’t get that target off until the curse has run its course (usually this means death). That’s what makes them so scary.

So how do you create a curse? First you need to decide on this:

Person, place, and/or thing. A curse is usually associated with a specific object, location, or person, though sometimes a curse can be associated with more than one of these (such as with an entire family, multiple houses, or a person who lived in a house). In the movie The Conjuring and its spinoff/prequel Annabelle (which I just saw recently), a curse was placed on the doll, allowing a demon to possess it and make havoc for anyone who came into contact with the doll. That’s an example of a cursed object. The house in The Grudge is an example of a cursed location, as well as an example of a cursed person (Kayako, the woman who lived in the house, is the one who carries out the curse). Another example of a cursed person is simply someone who has a curse placed upon them, making interaction with others difficult, if not impossible. Boy, would that suck!

This brings me to my next point, though:

The well is essential to Samara’s curse and origin story.

The origin story. Every curse has its story of how it came to be, and often that the basis of how the curse can be warded off (more on that later). Generally this involves some horrific event happening, causing the curse to manifest or be cast. For example, in the Buffy universe Angel’s curse was caused when he killed the beloved child of a tribe of gypsies, who restored his soul to him through magic. Another example is when Samara/Sadako from the Ring movies was trapped in the well and died, her soul was filled with rage and she infected a blank video cassette. And in The Nightmare on Elm Street franchise, Freddy’s curse came into being when he was killed in a fire by the parents of the children he’d killed/molested (depending on if you’re going with the original movie series or the remake).

 

The trigger. For a curse to take hold of a target, something specific has to happen. For instance, in the popular Bloody Mary legend (which I’ve tested numerous times, by the way), you have to say Bloody Mary three times in the mirror in order to summon her. In the Stephen King story Bag of Bones, the curse was triggered when a child descended from one of any of the families involved in a gruesome murder, whose name usually began with a K, got to a certain age (in the TV miniseries, this was simplified to just the daughters). And in the popular story The Monkey’s Paw, one had to make a wish on the titular paw in order to start the curse. Which leads to the fun part:

How the curse manifests. A curse manifests after the trigger has been…well, triggered. In Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (yes, I’m pulling Harry Potter out), Katie Bell was put in unimaginable pain when she touched the cursed necklace. Touching the necklace was the trigger, and the pain was the manifestation. Another form of manifestation would be the Tecumseh curse, which was that any President elected in a year divisible by twenty would die in office (though Ronald Reagan and President Bush managed to get away). The election year is the trigger, while the death of the President is the manifestation.

How to ward it off. This is optional for literary curses, but it’s something you want to consider in creating a curse. In Jewish folklore, the demon Lilith tries to take the souls of newborns or eat them. However, if one has a mezuzah, a marker on one’s doorpost  that has the name of three angels on it, Lilith cannot enter the home and attempt to take the child. The angels whose names are on the mezuzah were the same angels who tried to get Lilith to return to Adam when she was still his wife. When she refused, they cursed her to become a demon and made it that she could not enter a home with their names on it (that’s how the origin story relates to warding off the curse).

The hamsa, a symbol prevalent in Judaism and Islam, is also good at warding off evil. It’s no good at warding off taxes though.

In another example, there’s a curse among some actors about saying the name Macbeth in a theater which leads to bad luck. Depending on who you ask, there are different methods to dispelling the curse, a popular one being to leave the theater, walk around the building three times, spit over one’s left shoulder, say an obscenity, and then wait to be invited back into the theater.

Containing/canceling the curse. This is also optional in writing fiction, but it should be considered. Two things one should consider when figuring out how to cancel or seal a curse is that it should be difficult, and that it doesn’t necessarily have to do with the origin story. In the movie The Unborn, the dybbuk couldn’t be stopped until it was exorcised. A similar thing happened in the third movie in the American Grudge movies, in which case an exorcism that sealed Kayako into a little girl was needed before she could be stopped. In Japanese onryo legends, the spirit needs to have whatever is disturbing it resolved or it will continue to seek revenge.And in Bag of Bones, Sarah Tidwell did not end her curse until her bones were dissolved with lye, thereby releasing her from Earth.

That’s how you create a curse. As for creating a terrifying story involving that curse…well, that’s up to you. I’m not going to give you directions on that. Not in this post, anyway.

Oh, and one more thing: I saw Dracula Untold and Annabelle at the movies today with a friend. Both were excellent, getting 4.5 out of 5 from me. But something in the latter film really stuck with me: near the end, the priest character says that evil can only be contained, it’s not created or destroyed (or something like that). I think that when you’re writing a scary story, especially one involving curses, that’s some pretty good stuff to keep in mind. True evil is not something you can easily be rid of. At least, not in my experience.

What advice do you have for creating curses?

Have you written anything with curses recently?

Are there any stories of curses that are your favorite or that I didn’t include? Tell me a bit about them.

My Own Take on the Hobby Lobby Case

Posted: July 15, 2014 in Politics and Leadership, Social Activism
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I know I’m a little late to this conversation (though I did post a lengthy message on my Facebook page when it first happened) and I would’ve written a blog post about this sooner, but I’ve been busy with other work. Well, better late than never. Besides, Jon Stewart managed to make some jokes on it last night, so I can do it tonight.

There used to be a time when religious liberty meant that you could go to church ro synagogue in peace and without fear of ridicule or attack. Where your religion didn’t bar you from certain neighborhoods or trades. Where you didn’t have to wear a yellow star, and you didn’t suddenly have to leave country or convert in order to avoid death and suffering.

When the hell did it change that a couple of people could make decisions about the health of thousands of women?

As noted above, a lot has already been said about the Hobby Lobby case. However, I’m going to go over it because I find the majority ruling of the Supreme Court simply infuriating.

First off, Hobby Lobby says that it doesn’t want the federal government to force them to hand women employees birth control. Um, the people who will be handing birth control over will be the pharmacist. The insurance company your company uses will actually be paying for it, drawing on the money every employee puts into the company insurance policy to pay for the birth control. So basically everyone who’s on Hobby Lobby’s health insurance policy would be paying for the birth control. The fact that only a few people at the top can decide what everyone is paying for in their health insurance worries me somewhat.

Second, the owners of Hobby Lobby are objecting to contraceptive pills that “cause abortion”. Most fertilized eggs actually self-abort and don’t embed themselves in the uterine wall, so maybe you want to protest whatever mechanism causes that? Also, the pills that “cause abortion” actually a bit of a mystery, as scientists aren’t sure how they prevent pregnancies. So maybe you might want to figure that out before you start a lawsuit? Especially since you still cover Viagra and vasectomies, the latter of which basically makes the testicles useless and gives seed nowhere to go to procreate. I think the Biblical term for that is “spilling seed”.

Continuing on with this, I’m not so sure Hobby Lobby actually objects to birth control pills, as some of the companies, trust funds, and other financial mechanisms its owners have fingers in actually hold stakes in pharmaceutical companies that produce these very pills that are being protested. Is it really protesting on religious grounds to provide abortion pills? Or is it something about not having to pay for a product you already own?

And I’m really worried about this decision, which opens up some serious floodgates for lawsuits. The term “closely-held corporation” is a pretty loose definition. Already we’ve seen evangelical colleges asking to be exempt, and other companies as well that one wouldn’t normally think of as “closely-held companies”. Under the loose definition though, they might.

And if religious liberty can be used as an excuse to get out of covering contraception or other “objectionable” medical practices, what’s next? Catholics are against all forms of contraception. Jehovah’s Witnesses are against blood transfusions. Scientologists are against psychiatry. Christian Scientists generally don’t like traditional medicine. And what about objecting to other things based on religious belief? Other laws? What if a family bakery that got incorporated decides not to make a wedding cake for a gay couple because they believe it’s a decadent lifestyle? What if a print shop refuses to print flyers for an event hosted by the local Wiccan community because they won’t “help witches and Satanists”? As Justice Ginsburg said in her dissent, it’s a slippery slope.

All in all, I’m really troubled by the implications of this decision, besides the fact that a few people, mostly older white men, are getting away with making medical decisions for thousands and thousands of women and thinking that is okay. It’s already hard enough to purchase safe, affordable birth control, and some people need the help of an insurance company to afford it. Some of these women aren’t even taking birth control medications to avoid getting pregnant! Birth control medication is good for regulating menstrual cycles, prevent endometriosis, reduce the pain of cramps or migraines, and even fight acne! Most women actually take the pill for multiple reasons, studies find.

And they can’t just go looking for another job that offers birth control on the insurance plan. Some women can’t afford to leave a job because it’s all they have. The job market is still rather difficult these days, and leaving a job to look for one that might offer the right insurance isn’t exactly like walking through a park. In fact, it could lead some families to financial ruin.

Now that I think about it, most of the women who will be most affected by this decision will be women in the lower-middle, working, and poverty-stricken classes. Meanwhile, the rich can still easily afford birth control should they desire it, or own the companies that produce birth control. This si not just starting to resemble a new battle in the war on women, but also a form of class warfare and keeping the lower classes in their place. And I’m sure I’m not the only person who’s thought this.

What say you on the Hobby Lobby case? Where do you see this going in terms of consequences?

(Be aware I will be screening comments. So if I get the kind of comments from people who can’t bear any opinion but their own, it won’t show up on this blog)

A Biblical Reinterpretation of Homosexuality, Part 2

Posted: June 19, 2014 in Living and Life, Reflections, Social Activism
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I’m going to tell everyone a midrash, a story that helps to explain aspects of Judaism, and which may or may not be true, depending on the story. This story, no matter how you look at it, is very interesting and helps to explain why I’m able to give these reinterpretations.

The story dates back to the writing of the Talmud. Several rabbis were trying to decide on an issue of kashrut, or dietary law. Eventually all the rabbis except one decided a certain way on the issue, with the remaining rabbi insisting he alone was right. This rabbi, who was apparently so learned that he could teach Harry Potter a thing or two (my own phrasing, not the story’s), said that if he was right, then the walls in the study house would cave in, a tree would move from one place to another, and that the river outside would flow backwards. Sure enough, the walls started to lean in, a tree walked across the ground, and the river started flowing backwards. With each occurrence the other rabbis would remind the rebellious rabbi that walls, trees, and rivers don’t decide matters of Jewish law (and they chided the walls for trying to bring themselves down when it wasn’t their conflict). Finally the rebellious rabbi said, “If I am right, let a heavenly voice confirm it!”

At that moment a great voice from above was heard saying, “Follow this rabbi’s opinion!” The other rabbis, instead of cowering and giving in, replied to the voice, “Matters of law are now on Earth, not in Heaven.” The heavenly voice replied, “My sons have bested me.”

What does this tale tell, besides the fact that apparently Talmudic rabbis were said to be quite powerful? Besides the teaching that a majority rule is stronger than a single zealot (and the rebellious rabbi later became a heretic and was excommunicated, interestingly enough), the story shows that once God gave the Jewish people the Torah at Mt. Sinai, it was in their hands, and therefore they had to decide how to interpret it. So basically while some may claim that LGBT people and their allies are going to hell and claim the Bible says so, I can claim just as much that that law no longer applies and that LGBT people and their allies are just as holy as anyone else. And guess what? We can both be right!

I tell this story because a lot of people’s arguments and opposition to LGBT rights are based on a singular interpretation of the Bible, so alternative interpretations of the Bible can be just as legitimate as traditional ones. I also tell this story because, while two opinions can both be right, sometimes one opinion may have more reason to be right than the other (as in the ruling of the majority in the story). For example, I can say that I believe both evolution and the Genesis story to be right. I can’t ignore that dinosaurs, the fossil record, and the distance travelled by the light of certain stars make evolution seem more right than Genesis (which I tend to view as a metaphor for the Big Bang and evolution that humanity is too stupid to understand at this point in our existence).

No denying it: gay people are born that way. It’s in their DNA.

Understanding this, let us look at what science has proven: that sexuality is a genetic trait, and that multiple genes make up sexuality, so multiple sexualities arise. Some people, like a pastor I had the displeasure of hearing speak out on the Oval at OSU this spring, claims that meant homosexuality is a genetic defect. But that would mean there would have to be a loss or impairment of quality of life for the affected. If anything, the scientific method has shown through studies that people who are open about their sexuality and accepted for it tend to live happier lives. It’s only when they try to deny, change, or hide their sexuality that there is some impairment.

Likewise, this also means that homosexuality isn’t a lifestyle, or something you can indoctrinate youth into. As I said, differing sexualities are genetic, and you can’t pray away, condition someone, or ban something so caught up in the very DNA in a person.

Now, some might ask about my previous post, where I said that homosexuality was commonplace in Greece in a ritualized form. I say that was a form of cultural homosexuality. It was done because it was part of the culture, everyone was doing it, and nobody could see any reason not to do it. Plus, having a male lover was a choice, not a requirement. You could almost compare it to video games: everyone seems to play video games these days, and most people don’t see a reason not to play them if you can. (I know that we’re talking about two very different things here, but you get the idea, right?)

In any case, I’ve said what I wanted to say about the Bible, religion, and homosexuality before Pride weekend here in Columbus. I hope you enjoyed the posts I’ve written and perhaps were given some food for thought. And if you’re in the Columbus area this weekend and are looking for some fun, come to Pride. Leave the picketing signs at home, and have a blast. I’ll see you there.

A Biblical Reinterpretation of Homosexuality, Part 1

Posted: June 16, 2014 in Living and Life, Reflections, Social Activism
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With the Columbus Pride Festival coming up this weekend, LGBT people from around the country (including George Takei as Grand Marshal for events this year) will be descending upon Columbus for a huge parade and festival to celebrate their sexual orientations, fight discrimination and injustice, and to push for same-sex marriage in Ohio, which is on the ballot this year. It’s sure to be a great time for many.

For some though, the Pride Festival will not be so welcome, and while Columbus may be one of the Midwest’s LGBT hotspots, there is the very real chance that protesters will show up and decry what they see as perversion, sin a horrible lifestyle, or some sort of disease/genetic defect/psychological disorder. Usually I ignore these sorts of people, but I figured that since I’ll most likely be attending the Pride Festival this year (my first), I thought it would be interesting to do a post on these protestors, most of whom have a Biblical basis for why they’re opposed to homosexuality, and show how the Bible could actually endorse homosexuality rather than outright ban it.

Before I do though, I wanted to post this video I found, which I think is very eye-opening, and gives some very good points on the Bible and homosexuality:

Interesting, isn’t it? And that thing about Sodom and Gomorrah mirrors pretty closely what I learned growing up about why those cities were destroyed. In fact, I remember a pretty graphic tale about how two girls met at a well, one realized the other’s family was very poor and gave her some flour for her family. When the town elders heard about it, they basically took the first girl and stoned her in public (I’m not sure what happened to the second girl, but she probably came away from that emotionally scarred and still hungry, if not dead). And if you want to know more about that book they talked about in the video, here’s a TIME magazine article on it.

I would like to add some points on to these, based on my own upbringing, experience, and understanding of the Old Testament (I’m not very familiar with the New Testament of course, being Jewish). First, that famous verse in Leviticus that anti-gay pastors love to quote, “Thou shall not sleep with a man as thou sleeps with a woman”. First off, what can women do? Second, this sounds like a prohibition against homosexuality, but it could have other meanings.

Of course, there’s the anatomical one: men can’t sleep with other men like they can with women, because men don’t have vaginas. But I’m pretty sure that argument, although obvious, won’t sway many people, so here’s two more that might. Firstly, there’s the patriarchal argument: women in the days when the Bible was written were expected to attend to their husband’s sexual needs, and most likely that meant they had no say in it unless they were impure and couldn’t have sex anyway. In an age where men were expected to be dominant in all matters, especially in the home, forcing one man to attend to another man’s sexual needs at the latter’s beck and call would be considered the ultimate emasculation, so therefore sex between men was forbidden.

The other reason (and the one I feel makes the most sense), is based on pagan idol worship. Many Near East and Mediterranean societies practiced homosexuality, not as a distinct orientation, but as an activity. The Greeks were famous for having relationships between other males before marriage, and there were other societies at the time that had cultures that permitted men to have relationships with each other before or after marriage. Some of these relationships were especially prevalent in military circles to increase unit cohesion, and a few were ritualized in the form of idol worship. God would have seen this latter act, worship of idols through sexual intercourse, as detestable, so He created a form of worship and sacrifice that did not involve sex, and forbade a form of sex that does not lead to procreation, as well as because it was used in idol worship.

There’s a pretty big difference between this and emasculation or idol worship, wouldn’t you say?

Since today there is no idol worship through sex (as far as I know), it would be permissible for same-sex relations to occur. Besides, these interpretations deal with a form of emasculation or idol worship. They do not apply to men, women, or other gender-types who are in loving, committed relationships like we see today.

There are other factors to consider here as well. For example, there is the belief that marriage should be as it is in the Bible. If that’s the case though, why do we outlaw polygamy and women can choose who they marry? Not to mention the definition of marriage and marriage roles have changed throughout the years, so it’s no surprise that it’s being changed in our day and age and “pro-marriage” activists shouldn’t be alarmed. And even if not always legally accepted or endorsed by religious establishments, same-sex relationships have been taking place for many, many years. There have been relationships between high-ranking clergymen and other men since the early days of the Church, but it was tolerated because of fear of worse sins, ones that at the time that were considered venereal.

Even during waves of religious upheaval, reformation, or resurgence, same-sex relationships flourished: Queen Elizabeth may have been a lesbian, and several members of her court were gay and able to get away with it due to their status. King James–of the Bible translation–actually had several relationships with men as well as women. And recently there was an article from The Boston Globe about two women who lived together and were treated as married…in 1807! So even if it’s not exactly legal, same-sex marriage is not exactly as new as cell phones.

This post is getting very long, so I’m going to continue this discussion in another one. I hope some of you who read this post found it informative and may have given you some food for thought. I don’t think it’ll sway anyone who’ll protest at Pride this weekend, but it may sway some people who are undecided on the issue. Or that it may prove helpful for those who want to try to reconcile homosexuality with religion.

Oh, and before you wonder what sort of religious authority I am, I can only say that I’m the son of two Conservative rabbis, I went to a Jewish day school from Grades 4-12, I’ve gone to synagogue for most of my life, and I still learn and keep in touch with my religion. So I may not be a rabbi or pastor, but I’ve done as much studying as some, and more than some others. I guess I can speak with some authority on these matters. What do you say?

*I will be screening the comments for offensive, inappropriate, or just plain rude comments. Be warned.*

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