Construction

Lately I've realized that I need to do some construction. I've had an opportunity to make my home better, and it's something I've needed for a long time. I don't really have the time, but I think it's something I can do. To get things started, I need to first get rid of a wall.

But I don't really know how you get rid of a wall. I've never had to try before. I guess I could try and tear it down, but I'm worried that's going to leave a lot of pieces on the floor. I'm trying to avoid a mess. Maybe I need to figure out what's keeping the wall there in the first place.

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"He'll always be a boy. He's a man that never grew up."

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I'm excited for next week. The break has been relaxing, but I'm ready to pick up where I left off. I'm excited to see where the year takes me, and I'm thankful for where I'm at. I'm incredibly lucky.

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"We're a million miles away."

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Lately I've thought about the movie Her. I think the movie was really good at keeping a relationship seem so unrealistic and realistic at the same time. The relationship between Theodore and Samantha seems so real, but keeps the audience remembering that Samantha doesn't exist. The movie is so relate-able for anyone that finds relationships difficult. It reminds us how hard it is to trust somebody. I need to watch it again.

Religion

For this post, I want to talk about a movie.

God's Not Dead is a Christian drama that was released in March 2014. For those that aren't up to date in Christian movie productions (so... everyone), this movie is about a Christian college student that enrolls in a philosophy class, and is forced to argue his Christian faith with his professor, an atheist.

For the sake of this post, I watched the movie. 

After enrolling in an introduction to philosophy class, Josh Wheaton is warned that his teacher, Professor Radisson, might not agree with Josh' religious beliefs.

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"Freshman Registration Advisor: [On Philosophy class] Think Roman Colosseum, lions, cheering for your death... Last drop date is the 22nd; you might want to keep that in mind."

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So Josh goes to class, and Radisson immediately asks the class to write down on a piece of paper, "God is Dead". After writing this, and signing the paper, the class is allowed to skip the religious portion of the class. Everyone except Josh writes it down, which gets Radisson's attention. So naturally, like any college professor would do, Radisson ridicules Josh, and forces Josh to argue with him about the existence of God. Josh gets three opportunities to argue (because 2 have to lead up to the one finale) with Radisson, and the class decides the winner.

I'll jump through the rest (because it's pretty slow). Josh and Radisson go back in forth in the first 2 debates, and we learn that Radisson's mother died when he was a child (and a Christian), and he has renounced Christianity because of the loss of his mother. He's also a dick to his girlfriend, a Christian.

So the third and final debate is here, and Josh hits a nerve when he asks a philosophical question that only a philosophy teacher could be struck by. Something that was so deep, with so many layers, that Radisson floated into space.

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"How can you hate someone who doesn't exist?"

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So now, Radisson is pissed at Josh, yelling at him (you know, like when your college professor forced that one student to argue with you, ignoring everything on the syllabus, and started yelling). The other students of the class side with Josh, and begin to tell Radisson that they believe in God now. Radisson has a fit and storms out of the class. Josh wins the debate!

Oh and Josh has a girlfriend that dumped him because these debates were.... academically dangerous? What?

Oh, and way to have all the female characters either cry, or become emotionally unstable. Really making some progressives move there.

So Josh celebrates by going to a Christian band concert, Newsboys. Meanwhile Radisson learns the errors of his way, and accepts his mother's death. He finds Josh to go apologize, and gets hit by a car (lol dat writing) while on his way to the Newsboys concert (they really jam that band's name into you) While on his deathbed, he accepts Christianity into his life. and dies.

Then that guy from Duck Dynasty comes out of no where, and talks about how he didn't do anything wrong on A&E. After that, as the Duck Dynasty guy walks off set counting the money he just got, the Christian band (NEWSBOYS, REMEMBER?!) dedicates a song to Josh (why not Radisson? Didn't he just die?) and the movie ends.

Oh and Dean Cain is in the film (yeah). And he's an atheist business man with slicked back hair. And in the end he reveals that he's being controlled by the devil.

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".......... is that Dean Cain?"

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Hey maybe Dean Cain was a good pick for the role after all. But after it's revealed that he's possessed he should have looked into the camera and said, "Believe it." like in Ripley's Believe it or Not.

This movie was produced by Pure Flix, a Christian production studio. They've previously made movies like Superuser Countdown and Christmas with a Capital C, but God's Not Dead is their biggest landing film, raking in nearly 8 million.

So the movie was bashed by critics: 17% on Rotten Tomatoes, 4.9/10 IMDB. Feel free to Google the movie to read them.

More importantly, this movie is an insult to a lot of people. It's an insult to Christians, an insult to the art of cinema, and  it's a borderline harassment to atheists.

Insult to Christians:

The production company was aware of the target audience this movie was going to hit, and made sure that they would be satisfied. They didn't do this by making a compelling story or script, but instead just paid to have a Christian band and that Duck Dynasty guy in the movie. These cameos have ZERO influence in the story, and are just tacked on just to put meat in the seats. This lazy form of advertisement is insulting to the Christian audience, implying that you don't want to watch a compelling story, but just want to hear their own opinions retold by a celebrity and a band. 

The Duck Dynasty guy is the worst. The movie is marketing off of a scandal just to make the movie seem more Christian. The Duck Dynasty guy (I refuse to look his name up) wasn't in trouble for being Christian, he was in trouble for bashing homosexuals. 

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"Remember how Christian this guy was? Look at that beard. Remember when A&E totally almost fired this guy? Look! He's in the movie! Wow! Tell your friends!"

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Don't allow a production company to treat the audience this way. Demand a movie to do more than assume you want your opinions shouted at you. Or at least spend the time to artistically incorporate their ideas into the film, rather than toss them at you as a cold side dish.

Insult to the Art of Cinema:

Okay, maybe I'm just being dramatic on this one. But this movie is terrible.

To the movie's credit, the directing and editing seemed okay. Each shot seemed well placed, and no out of place edits.

But the writing sounded like it was written by a Freshman in high school that just visited r/atheism. Every argument the atheist used against God was one obviously held by a Christian. Each atheist argument was set-up to be easily argued. The writing didn't even attempt to hear an atheist's point of view. Instead, they use the atheist points to just make the Christian points sound more profound.

Borderline Harassment to Atheists:

Do I really need to explain this? The two atheists in the film are 1. an angry, yelling professor, and 2. Dean Cain possessed by the Devil. 

The professor is atheist. But he's only atheist because he's angry at God for the loss of his mother. This idea that atheists are angry are a commonly held notion by Christians. More importantly, it implies that people are only atheist BECAUSE of this hate. Atheism is not based on hate.

Oh and way to have the other atheist in the film be controlled by the devil. Really settled that plot there.

Even worse, the professor accepts Christianity before he dies, implying that he was "saved" at the end of the film. The movie belittles the professor and his ideas, and compares the ideals of atheism into a 40-year-old child's tantrum.

I know that a lot of people might think I'm being silly. Terrible movies are made all the time. Maybe I need to just chuckle at the silliness and move on.

But, I want people to understand that children and teenagers are seeing this movie, whom don't entirely understand atheism. And this movie has some horrible, horrible themes.

1. Atheists are angry at the world, have lost something, or need to be saved.

2. Atheists can be possessed by the Devil.

3. If someone questions your faith in God, assume they are attacking you as a person.

4. Atheists are able and willing to attack your beliefs if you give them the chance.

5. Christians and Atheists are in an eternal struggle.

All of these themes are morally wrong. They put atheists in a negative context. Atheists are the most hated group in America, and all this film does is ask Christians to assume the worst when around them.

Atheists don't hate Christians, and they are certainly not at ends with them. Be open to the ideas of an atheist, and listen to them. Most importantly, understand that your beliefs will be questioned. Everyone's beliefs are. Don't just clap your hands on your ears and make noises with your mouth. Listen. 

Lets look at the flip side. What if a movie was made where an atheist college student attends a philosophy class. The professor asks the class to write "God's Not Dead" on a piece of paper, and the atheist college student refuses. The Christian teacher belittles the student, and forces him to make an impossible argument that God doesn't exist. We then learn that the professor is only Christian because he lost his mother as a child, and clutches to his Christianity because of this. On the 3rd debate, the atheist student asks why the Christian professor hates atheists so much, and the professor storms out of the room after the class agrees that there is no God. The atheist student celebrates by going to an atheist concert (I dunno... Portugal the Man?). The Christian professor accepts that he's only Christian because he's mad at God for the loss of his mom, and goes to the concert to apologize to the atheist student. He's hit by a car, and on his deathbed accepts atheism, and denounces Christianity. Then, some celebrity atheist reminds us that Christianity is stupid, and the movie ends.

Right? Pretty terrible.

Airplane

Last week I blew myself up.

It didn't hurt or anything, but I was sent to my room for three days as punishment.

I probably deserved it. The whole thing was pretty silly. But I needed to do it.

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"Did it hurt?"

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Nothing has really changed. The doctor said it'll take around 6 weeks for me to feel the changes. Til then, I'll just be doing the same thing.
I haven't figured out how I will react to these changes. More importantly, I haven't figured out how I will react to others reacting to my changes. I know that blowing myself up has permanently changed a part of me, but I want to know if it's change for the better.

A loss of control is scary. It's scary to think that you wont have control over something will change you. It's hard to accept that something happened, or will happen, and you have no say in the outcome. It's not that we crave control. It's that we don't trust cruise control. We need to know that we're in control of who we are, where we're going.

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"Whatever you're doing is okay. You are okay."

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Coffee shops are the only place I can write. Even though I've lived alone for more than two years, I only feel alone when I'm in a coffee shop. I'm around groups of friends, couples, dates, study groups. I can only be alone when I'm around others that aren't. I feel like I'm always around people when I'm home.
I can't write when I'm not alone. I get distracted. People can be distracting. They're sobering.

I had dinner with friends last night at this Mexican restaurant. We sat outside. I remember an airplane flew over us. A friend from Austria was visiting. I sat in my chair, with an empty margarita cup precipitating onto the concrete ground through the table's grate-y surface. I was looking at the puddle of water and feeling alone.

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"How long are you visiting?"

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story about a time traveler.

When I was a kid, I was in an after-school math program that was located in this church. I arrived there after school at around 3:30, and was picked up by my mother at around 5. If I finished before 5, I would sit on this bench outside the church, and wait for my mom's white car to pull into the church's driveway. I remember I would always keep my backpack at my feet, so that people wouldn't steal it.

One time in particular, a man approached me. He was homeless, in every sense of the annotation. 

He told me he was a time traveler. He sat next to me and told me about his recent adventures through time. My stranger danger alert probably should have urged me to leave the bench and find an adult, but I stayed and indulged him. He continued his story, and told me about how bleak the future is. He also told me that the past was pretty bleak. Really, everything was bleak.

Despite not being a time traveler, the homeless man seemed pretty convinced that he was a time traveler. It's possible that he craved attention, and desperately lied to a kid to fulfill that urge. It's possible that he has mental health issues. It's also possible that he's a time traveler.

Either way, I'm able to tell people that I met a time traveler

Despite probably not meeting a time traveler, I seemed pretty convinced that he was a time traveler. It's possible that I crave attention, and desperately tell this story to fulfill that urge. It's possible that I have mental health issues. It's possible that I want to believe that he's a time traveler.

Maybe that's how it works. People want attention so they tell false stories to other people. Those people also want attention, so they tell other people about the time a person told them that false story. Then this just continues.

I think that if no one in the world wanted attention, the world would be a lot quieter.

talking his language.

I woke up this morning and the world was filled with insects. I realized I was alone when I stepped outside. Everyone else was a bug. Scurrying with purpose.

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"Do you think you could date a smoker?"

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I'm not sure if I could date a smoker. It's hard to get close with someone knowing that there will always be a certain level of distance between the both of you. You know there is at least one thing that makes you different from them. Something that you believe to be true is thought false by them. Inevitably that might cause tension. It's a ticking time bomb. And you know that neither of you are willing to accept the other side. You live on two different islands.

I think emotions are hard to understand. We cling to them when clearing the fog, or reject them when we're afraid. I don't think therapists are meant to be emotional prostitutes. I don't think it's the therapist's job to go on an emotional journey with their client. The therapist doesn't have to feel what the client is feeling.

Right now I'm living my life somewhere between secluded and displayed.

165 days. A lot has changed.

I'm either going to be the worst therapist in the world, or a mediocre one.

Not that this is a problem for most girls, but the best way to guarantee that I wont talk to you is by wearing a Sheldon Cooper shirt with the word "Bazinga!" on it.