Beyond the Dot: Going Down on Religion...
After my strange brain/heart/fatigue manifestation of CFS yesterday, which flattened me for at least 24 hours, I began to recover, and then: The guy downstairs attacked all night, keeping me awake, making my heart erratic again, and destroying my circadian rhythm again, which mean a terrible CFS day today. More on this later. The point is, now I cannot get ready today, as planned. I will have to get ready tomorrow, and then go shopping. If I possibly feel well enough, I am hoping to catch a movie afterwards, at night. $5 movies all day on Tuesdays.
Here is a movie I am tempted to go see, except for the fact that it is so profusely Christian - and New Age Christian, which could be better - or even worse. I could watch it both as a myth and as a naturally true morality take, with a good message. But, the chances are that it will be overbearingly manipulative, trite-yet-pompous, as is the fashion. This is backed by the fact that it has a large soundtrack chock full of Christian rock/music.
I have a problem with this music, in and of itself. Christian rock/music is usually limp and boring - a complete waste of an aficionado's time. Sometimes, it does rise to being innocuously lovely. But, when it is so-called lovely, its only topic is God stuff, #1, being generally divorced from the reality of most sane people's lives. And, #2, even when it is so-called lovely, IT IS VIRTUALLY NEVER ORIGINAL. All the songs and riffs and techniques - and even voices - are complete rip-offs of standard rock, classics, and recent soul-like pop. I am waiting for the day I hear a Xtian faux gansta rap song shouting about the glory of the Big Man, and all His celestial bling. With Saint Peter hanging in the hood of His Divine Crib, holding the keys to the bad Almighty Grill.
This is the end of the innocence.
I feel completely estranged from people who have so little experience in music that they actually consume this stuff, thinking that it is even more original than sin. I feel sorry, though, because in this fucked up country, it would be nice if people could just float along feeling uplifted and happy. And, so, if this is what they want to do, then it is a kind of lobotomy, but it's fine. I guess there is no real alternative, for them, to the whining and stumbling from Country Music, other than this stuff, which, can be found on FM no matter where you are in this country. Along with half the rest of the spectrum, which is all-religion, sometimes plus demonic talk show hosts.
Which is like a lot of "Christian" men, who are bastards all day, and people come up to you and say, "You should really get to KNOW this guy - he's really a pretty good guy!" TRANSLATION: "He forgives me for being a bastard, too, and then we get together in private and exchange buddy-buddy words of pride and prejudice, and then we bond by hunting feral transsexuals. (Did I say, "hunting"? No, the lyrics recommend saying, "converting").
Oh, and they share money.
But, really, I further do not understand people who go from week to week announcing that they love Jesus. "Are you BLESSED?! Are you BLESSED?! Will you read our literature? Are you happy? Are you saved, living there in your decrepit depravity?"
"Are you fair game to be hunted?"
Finally, the people that go from birth to 80 years old, quoting the same damn things in the Bible, over and over again! I mean, how many more decades are you gonna keep telling us how relevant Adam and Eve are to every damn thing? Even Almighty! Is this dogged and boring obsession all denial - just a cover for your vicarious whims and interlopes - or for the fact that you have no idea where all those extra thousands of people came from during that time of Adam and Eve?
Most of all, I cannot understand what new is derived from coining the same quotes over and over, bouncing them off of fellow zealots. It seems that something so boring would be cast out by the normally dynamic human mind. Instead, these people allow the words of others to tell them who they are, and what to think for the rest of their lives. And, they are happy about this mundane, base currency of theirs, apparently because they glory in the fact that they possess the true wisdom, the true specialness, the divine escape from morbid mediocrity.
And there is the narcissism. They magically assume they are better and smarter than anyone else, based on their repeating of simplistic myths. In their synchronized, emotional rituals, this eternal truth is proved to them, and they are free to go out and hypocritise unto the masses.
Oi vey.
Even less original than their music, they need followers to confirm their greatness, as they need quotes instead of exclamations, to feel genuine and alive.
Disclaimer: This is NOT true of all Christians.
Anyway, as I said, I can see the other side, and I might possibly like this movie, for completely secular, aesthetic reasons. Wouldn't I, of course, just LOVE to wander out into a shack in far-away Oregon and, under the influence of mushrooms finding, not Bundy and his riflemen, but a panoply of greenery and talking furniture? You bet! That would be like my life's dream, come true! But, the chances are that the movie would not respect my eccentricity because, anything outside of some people's DOT is, "eccentric."
I might rather see this movie if I could bring along someone like a normal-person Christian, and we could both share in the human truths of the movie. There is a bank teller, maybe I'll ask her. Probably not. Instead, I'll probably go to, "Chips," dressed as a hooker. Sometimes, there ain't no out but damnation.
The movie: THE SHACK.
Oh. Here's another reason to see it! To study why it went so bad with critics, yet went so well with the audience. Was it merely because the critics were liberals, and the audience was largely Christians? Or, does it bespeak more, about the stories wanted by our times?
I have been thinking that there is no future in American politics, this century. There may only be hope in some possibly religious movement. What better beginning than a movie for the left and for the right - a movie uniting Oprah New Agers with Teabag Fundamentalists?