Unexpected depths

A writer friend of mine on social media asked what I thought was a very interesting question, and one that would be a good topic for this week's Fiction Friday: what is the most memorable line you've ever read?  I've read a good many profound books, but the first thing that came to mind was a line not from a book but from a television show.  In the Doctor Who episode "The Face of Evil," the Fourth Doctor remarks, "The very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common; they do not alter their views to fit the facts, they alter the facts to fit their views."

The aptness of that quote these days hardly needs to be pointed out.

But there are many others, in books, television, and movies, quotes that somehow stand out for their unexpected depth (sometimes even in otherwise silly settings; the episode "The Face of Evil" was unremarkable in other respects).  Some only gain their punch from the context -- I'm reminded of Eowyn's defiant "I am no man" in Return of the King, immediately before she stabs the King of the Nazgûl right between the eyeballs, and the heartbreaking line at the end of Vanilla Sky when Sofia Serrano says, "I'll see you in the next life, when we both are cats."  Neither has much significance unless you know the story.

But there are a handful of true gems that carry their weight even independent of where they're from.  Here are a few of my choices:

• "Deserves it! I daresay he does.  Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life.  Can you give it to them?  Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement.  For even the very wise cannot see all ends." -- J. R. R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring
• "You will become way less concerned with what other people think of you when you realize how seldom they do." -- David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest
• "When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won.  There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall." -- Mohandas Gandhi in Gandhi
• "There is no greater agony than having an untold story inside you." -- Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
• "How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world." -- Anne Frank, Diary of a Young Girl
• "Oh, yes, the past can hurt.  But you can either run from it, or learn from it." -- Rafiki in The Lion King
• "I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had an underlying truth." -- Umberto Eco, Foucault's Pendulum
• "Get busy living, or get busy dying." -- Andy Dufresne in Shawshank Redemption
• "Not important?  Blimey.  That's amazing.  You know, in nine hundred years in time and space, I have never met anyone who wasn't important." -- The Eleventh Doctor, Doctor Who, "A Christmas Carol"
• "Through dangers untold, and hardships unnumbered, I have fought my way here to the castle beyond the Goblin City to take back what you have stolen.  For my will is as strong as yours, and my kingdom as great...  You have no power over me." -- Sarah in Labyrinth
• "Live now; make now always the most precious time.  Now will never come again." -- Jean-Luc Picard, Star Trek: The Next Generation, "The Inner Light"

Nota bene: If you can watch "The Inner Light" and not ugly cry at the end of it, you're made of sterner stuff than I am.  That episode has to be one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen on television.

So... there are a few of my favorite profound quotes from fiction.  What are yours?

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I've loved Neil de Grasse Tyson's brilliant podcast StarTalk for some time.  Tyson's ability to take complex and abstruse theories from astrophysics and make them accessible to the layperson is legendary, as is his animation and sense of humor.

If you've enjoyed it as well, this week's Skeptophilia book-of-the-week is a must-read.  In Cosmic Queries: StarTalk's Guide to Who We Are, How We Got Here, and Where We're Going, Tyson teams up with science writer James Trefil to consider some of the deepest questions there are -- how life on Earth originated, whether it's likely there's life on other planets, whether any life that's out there might be expected to be intelligent, and what the study of physics tells us about the nature of matter, time, and energy.

Just released three months ago, Cosmic Queries will give you the absolute cutting edge of science -- where the questions stand right now.  In a fast-moving scientific world, where books that are five years old are often out-of-date, this fascinating analysis will catch you up to where the scientists stand today, and give you a vision into where we might be headed.  If you're a science aficionado, you need to read this book.

[Note: if you purchase this book using the image/link below, part of the proceeds goes to support Skeptophilia!]

Hack attack payback

In the past couple of weeks, the media has been buzzing about the hacking of Sony Pictures Entertainment, in which a great deal of information that the corporation would consider sensitive -- executive salaries, emails between high-ranking employees, and copies of unreleased films -- were released online.  The hackers call themselves "the Guardians of Peace," but no one seems to know who they are.

And of course, there's nothing like a complete lack of information to make everyone start to claim that they know the whole story.

The most popular theory is that the Guardians of Peace are operatives from North Korea, who did this as revenge for the planned release of Sony's bromance film The Interview, which is about a couple of guys who are hired to assassinate Kim Jong-Un.  North Korea, for its part, has disavowed all responsibility for the hack, with Kim Jong-Un adding, "And if you don't act more respectfully, we'll do it again."

In all seriousness, though, it struck me as odd that the North Koreans could pull this off.  They're not exactly a technological powerhouse.  Just a couple of days ago the entire country lost its internet connectivity, possibly because a squirrel farted in Pyongyang and damaged their only working router.  The United States, for its part, has disavowed all responsibility for the act, with a CIA spokesperson adding, "And if you don't act more respectfully, we'll do it again."

The speculation doesn't end there, of course.  It's now being theorized that Sony hacked themselves as a PR move.  After the alleged North Korean connection, Sony pulled The Interview, but has decided that it will re-release it to various independent theaters.  This has elevated the movie from what would probably have been a fairly forgettable film into something that suddenly everyone wants to see, fueling accusations that Sony engineered the hack to boost the movie's ticket sales.

Myself, I think this is ridiculous.  Why would Sony release sensitive information just to push one bad movie to make more money?  Security is a huge deal in the movie industry, and it seems ludicrous to think that they'd jeopardize their reputation for protecting their employees and investments for the sake of one silly movie.  The limited release is unlikely to make much money as compared to showings in major theater chains, although it does afford me the opportunity to reaffirm my own decision not to see the movie.

Then, of course, we have the "Thanks, Obama" crew, who is claiming that Obama engineered the hack himself, with the assistance of the NSA, to make North Korea look bad.  Because apparently the North Koreans weren't doing a stellar enough job of that all by themselves.

The upshot of it all is that we still have no idea who the Guardians of Peace are.  They may have had something to do with North Korea; they may be some kind of independent troublemakers, on the lines of Anonymous; or they may be something else entirely.  At the moment, we have no real data to go on, so that's the best that we can say.

The lack of hard information won't silence the speculation, of course.  Quite the opposite, in fact.  These people love it when they have no evidence, because that leaves them free to attribute events to whatever their favorite bête noire is.  On the plus side, though, it has prompted people to start a campaign to make Kim Jong-Un look ridiculous:

So whatever else you say about the hack, it did have at least one positive outcome.  Not that anyone in North Korea will be likely to see it, unless they do something about those flatulent squirrels.

Saying no to Noah

There are times when I want to tell people, "Stop.  You are making it way too easy for me."

I would almost like it better if the loonies had stronger arguments, you know?  Make me work for my posts.  Stop me in my tracks with some actual logic or evidence.

Sadly, that rarely happens.  I won't say "never;" I have more than once posted retractions or corrections.  And I live in hopes that the wingnuts will eventually start adopting the scientific method as their modus operandi.

But I don't see it happening any time soon.  Instead, we still have daily examples of what my father used to call "shooting fish in a barrel."

The latest example of fish-shooting has to do with the reactions to the soon-to-be-released Darren Aronofsky biblical epic Noah, starring Russell Crowe and Emma Watson.  (Watch a trailer here.)  The movie is due in theaters on March 26.

 [image courtesy of the Wikimedia Commons]

You would think that the staunch Christians would be tickled pink that Hollywood is putting a biblical story on the Big Screen -- they certainly loved the gruesome Passion of the Christ, not to mention classics like The Greatest Story Ever Told and The Ten Commandments.

But no.  The site Christian News published an article called "New 'Noah' Film Starring Russell Crowe Flooded With Controversy," which described the reactions of Christians who have been allowed to pre-screen the movie.  "Earlier reports of the film expressed disapproval that Noah was depicted as being centered on an environmental agenda, and that Aronofsky viewed Noah as the 'first environmentalist,'" author Heather Clark writes, implying that Christianity and environmentalism are somehow antithetical.  "Noah is also stated to be tormented with guilt for surviving the flood while others perished."

Well, yeah.  I'd guess he would be.  But it only gets weirder from there.  Angie Meyer-Olszewski, an entertainment publicist, was interviewed by Fox411 and said, "You can’t stray from the Bible in a Bible-based film without upsetting a percentage of the Christian faith base.  Interpretations may vary, but if the story changes, even a little, it’s deemed offensive.  When a studio releases a movie that’s biblical, they are playing a game of religious roulette."

But no one had a stranger, or more bizarrely ironic, reaction than our old pal Ken Ham of Answers in Genesis.  In an interview with Newsmax, Ham said, "In the movie, it seems Noah is a far cry from the Noah of the Bible.  He's angry, even crazy.  It makes a mockery of Noah's righteous nature and is actually anti-biblical...  Noah was a preacher of righteousness, (but) this just isn't the case in Hollywood's version.  He's a delusional, conflicted man, more concerned about the environment, animals, and even killing his own grandchild than he is with his family and his relationship with God."

Ham then went on to say, in a quote that I swear I'm not making up, "Sure, after watching the film, people could be directed to read the true story for themselves in the Bible.  But in this day and age, young people have a hard time deciphering reality from fiction and don't often take the time to form their own educated opinions."

*irony overload*

The last quote prompted atheist blogger Hemant Mehta to say, "He didn't really just say that... did he?"

Then noted evangelical wackmobile Ray Comfort weighed in, because things weren't surreal enough.  "I wouldn't encourage a soul to pay Hollywood to make any movie that undermines the credibility of the Bible, and this one certainly does," Comfort said.  "Do it right -- according to the script in the Scriptures -- and we will support it in the millions, as we did with Ben-Hur."

Ah, yes.  I do remember the famous chariot race scene from the Gospel of Luke, don't you?

And if this weren't enough, we now have word that the movie is being banned in Muslim countries, thus far Qatar, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates, with Jordan, Kuwait, and Egypt expected to follow suit.   The reason -- it is an insult to depict any of Allah's prophets (of which Noah is considered one), and the movie "contradicts the stature of prophets and messengers... and antagonizes the faithful."

Well then.  This just shows, once again, the truth of the South African proverb, that there are forty different kinds of lunacy, but only one kind of common sense.  I mean, really; do they expect that a movie is going to follow the "script in the Scriptures" to the letter?  If it did, it would be, what, fifteen minutes long?  And have no character development or, frankly, plot.  But there you have it; I guess you can't please everyone.  And it's not like it's the only biblical epic you have to choose from, if that sort of thing floats your, um, ark.  The Jesus's-life movie Son of God is already in the theaters, and seems to be generating better responses from the faithful, for what it's worth.

As far as director Aronofsky's feelings about the controversy surrounding Noah, the media depicts him as upset by it, but I honestly doubt he is.  The kerfuffle over the movie's biblical accuracy, and whether it should be viewed by the devout, is keeping it in the media -- which is exactly where Aronofsky wants it to be.  I predict it'll be a roaring success, at least for the first few weeks.  Irish poet Brendan Behan said it best: "There is no such thing as bad publicity."

Noah goes to Hollywood

There's no pleasing some people.

When I heard that Darren Aronofsky was making a movie, due out in 2014, about the Great Flood -- and starring such Big Names as Russell Crowe, Jennifer Connelly, and Anthony Hopkins -- I thought that the über-Christians would be delighted.  After all, they mostly seem to be wildly in favor of movies like The Ten Commandments, The Greatest Story Ever Told, and The Passion of the Christ.  Even Ben Hur was one of my extremely Catholic mother's all-time favorite movies, despite the most literal reading of the bible turning up very few chariot races.

But no.  Noah, with Russell Crowe in the title role, is stirring up a lot of controversy amongst the literalist crowd.  And it's not just because, in producer Scott Franklin's words, "Noah is a very short section of the Bible with a lot of gaps, so we definitely had to take some creative expression in it.  But I think we stayed very true to the story and didn't really deviate from the Bible, despite the six-armed angels."

To get a flavor for why fundamentalists are howling about this movie -- and also to understand how far out of the realm of reality they've gone -- take a look at a webpage, courtesy of BeginningAndEnd.com,  a website for and about literalist/Christian apocalyptic ideas.  Entitled "Russell Crowe's Noah -- A Warning for Christians," this website makes the following claims:

1)  The movie pushes a liberal, pro-environmental message.  Apparently we don't want to conflate sea-level rise from global warming with sea-level rise from god sending rain to smite the wicked.

2)  The main wicked guys that god was aiming to smite were the Nephilim, who were a race of evil giants that were born when fallen angels had sex with human women.  God didn't want "the entire human gene pool to be corrupted by fallen angels," so he decided to kill everyone.

3)  Well, almost everyone.  Noah and his family, of course, were "righteous" so he saved them.

4)  So god was "us(ing) the flood to preserve the human gene pool."  No, I'm not making that quote up.

5)  The whole "raining for forty days and forty nights" thing was really a big deal, not only because that is a crapload of rain, but because prior to the Great Flood it had never rained.  "The moisture in the environment came from geysers in the ground...  A mist from underground pressure provided water for plant life.  The pre-flood word in short had a hyperbaric environment.  (Some Christian researchers have theorized that this environment contributed to the long life spans of the people before the flood, where some people lived over 900 years. However, after the flood, there is a sharp decrease in life spans down to the lengths seen today.)"  Because we all know how higher atmospheric pressure makes people live longer.  And no, I didn't make that quote up, either.  And if you don't think that there are people who seriously believe that the long life spans reported in the bible were due to higher atmospheric pressure, take a look at this website, which is inadvertently hilarious in its attempt to explain the biblical account "scientifically."  You know, with math and graphs and all.  It's amazing.

6)  It's a serious problem that the movie shows that on the Ark, Noah had an "animal hospital" to take care of injured animals.  This is non-biblical, the website tells us.  Nowhere in the bible does it say that Noah had an "animal hospital," despite the fact that given that he had only two of each kind of animal, having one of them die would be pretty awful.  (Maybe that's what happened to the unicorns, which by the way are mentioned in the bible as being real -- check out Job 39:9-12.)

7)  So, all in all, the movie Noah is a wicked and evil film.  "Pray for the makers of this movie to repent and believe the Word of God, rather than abusing it," we're told.  "And spread the Word to other Christians to not support such a blasphemous, anti-Christian film."

So, yeah.  Yikes.  It's hard to know where to start.  For me, being a science teacher, the best part was when they started talking about how before the Great Flood plants were watered by "geysers."  But really, the whole thing is worth reading, if for no other reason to get a feeling for the twisty anti-logic fundamentalists use to explain the parts of the biblical account that couldn't possibly have happened.  Of course, all they have to do is to fall back on "anything is possible with god," and also, "if you don't believe this, down to the last word, you are going to be doomed by the god of mercy to eternal hellfire ha ha ha ha."  Which, you have to admit, are pretty persuasive arguments.

Anyhow, like I said, some people are impossible to please.  You'd think that just the fact that Hollywood is giving a nod to the biblical account would have been enough, but no.  They didn't do it the right way.  Can't have Noah appearing to be an eco-wacko.  Can't have any mention of anything that wasn't mentioned in the bible.  Got to include lots of naughty angel/human sex.

Of course, it's not like I'm going to go see the movie anyhow.  I'm not into biblical epics.  If I want to watch a movie based in mythology, I'll take Lord of the Rings any day.  All in all, it's a hell of a lot more moral a story.