If you abandoned your faith…

If you abandoned your beliefs would your love go away? Your compassion, your heart, your goodness, your wisdom, loyalty and love of truth? No, no more than if you brought a new friend or child into your home would they detract from or replace those you all ready love. Love is not a byproduct of your faith, it is you and the hopes you have for your faith are because it is you, and in you and not in a deity, book, or mythic hero or messiah. If your religion is love, it is because you are and not the reverse.

Holding Fast to a Lie in an Avalanche of Information…

It strikes me as more than curious (and a little unsettling)  that the only other body of information Christians quote as prolifically as the Bible is Wikipedia. Is there a DSM diagnosis for someone who persistently indulges in the wholesale acceptance, exaltation and dissemination of dubious, antiquated, poorly sourced and long discredited information? I have to say debating these individuals is a lot like arguing the existence of elves with a J.R.R. Tolkien fan whose only source is The Lord of the Rings, but there must be something else going on other than the old canard of religion, devotion and faith. Call it  Misology, Misoneism, Oppositional defiance, Sciolism, Pseudo-intellectualism, or just plain fanaticism, there is a definite pathological compulsion to latch on to an impossible idea for dear life and even through an avalanche of factually contradictory information hold fast to it even as everything around it crumbles.

FROM EXAMINER.COM TRICO FILMS SNAGS MICHAEL CHASE WALKER TO SCRIBE “THE DRAGON PRINCE”

FROM EXAMINER.COM Trico Films snags Michael Chase Walker to scribe The Dragon Prince http://www.examiner.com/article/new-project-announced-by-trico-films via @examinercom

Saving Mr. Hanks

Personally, I love it when a title commands the buried theme of a movie– it happens so rarely these days when fewer and fewer screenwriters or movie marketers could care less about it when positioning for “Marquee” value. The movie “Witness” comes to mind, as does “Chinatown” or “Quiz Show” where it stops being a movie about a quiz show and becomes a personal litmus test for the audience to question their own moral compass and  societal judgements. I understand Brody’s point, but the problem is not that that the title reveals the “essence” of the film, the problem is it gives it away and then pile drives it into your noggin’ with little irony or narrative epiphany. No, the problem with this unfortunate piece of fluffery is that it is about one thing, and one thing only, and that is, it is a stunningly trite hagiography of not P.L. Travers, but Uncle Walt himself. It is so saccharine, in fact, it is even difficult for Mr. Hanks with all of his yankee doodle blandness to overcome. I can’t wait for the sequel though I understand the working title will be “Dr. Disney Child Psychologist Calling”

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/movies/2014/01/what-would-have-saved-saving-mr-banks.html?utm_source=www&utm_medium=tw&utm_campaign=20140107 via @NewYorker