The Bible: Read it again for the first time.
I was less than impressed with the 2014 remake of the biblical story of Noah and the Ark, featuring Russell Crowe. While some of the thematic and symbolistic changes they made were interesting (I'll discuss those below), the controversy itself offers much for discussion. People are angry because it "wasn't ...
Oops, it's 2:56AM here in Taiwan and I was just reminded that September 30th is International Blasphemy Day. Luckily, since most of the world is half a day behind, I still have time. I decided to celebrate by dusting off this post about Emily Dickinson I've been meaning to publish ...
I started writing this post a couple years ago as a response to a very silly book called "How to Profit from the coming Rapture". Here's the description: "Taking the familiar form of a how-to investment guide, HOW TO PROFIT FROM THE COMING RAPTURE instructs those readers who will certainly be ...
My sister sent me the following chain letter, which goes into surprising detail about exactly how, physically, Jesus suffered on the cross. The point of the letter is to get you to feel his pain, which generates an emotional catharsis; it makes you first feel guilty, and then overwhelmingly grateful. ...
Wearing skulls and dressing in black will get you killed - at least in Iraq, where dozens of teenagers have been stoned recently for wearing black and channeling Emo. "Emo" is a Western subculture that follows the revival of gothic and horror trends in society and literature, and also parallels ...
An online review posted about Disney's 2012 John Carter of Earth movie runs thus: "John Carter evokes pretty much every sci-fi classic from the past 50 years without having any real personality of its own." The essential thing to keep in mind, however, is that Edgar Rice Burroughs' A Princess of ...
***Oops - the movie adaptation of Paradise Lost starring Bradley Cooper has been canned as of February, 2012! It's a crying shame...Hope they revive it down the road.*** For the past decade, traditionally marginalized or "evil" characters have gained the limelight - witches, vampires and werewolves have changed from creatures of ...
Here's an interesting mental exercise for you: 1. Let's define Satan as the worst thought you can think. So anything bad, evil, disagreeable, wrong... all that stuff is "Satan" or "Satanic". He's the absolute most vile, ugly, scary creature you can imagine, with fangs, horns, and lots of eyeballs. 2. Ok, are you ...
King David (who first defeated Goliath, stole his sword, then become a violent kingly soldier) soaked in the blood of battle, one day happened to see his fellow warrior and friend Uriah's wife Bathsheba bathe in her courtyard from the roof of his palace. He had her brought to his chambers ...
Something interesting I discovered today was the link between the David and Goliath story and Homer's Iliad. I've already come to understand how much of the Old Testament (especially the flood story, but there are others) were lifted from Sumerian stories (Abraham was raised in, and left behind, a highly ...
Prepare to be amazed. Today I've been looking for pictures of Satan, and pictures of Garuda, for two separate art projects. What I'd never before realized, however, is that medieval depictions of The Devil are basically direct copies of much earlier (I presume) pictures of Garuda - the hindu flying ...
You probably know Cain as the bad guy who (for no good reason) killed his nice and kind brother Abel in Genesis, in the world's first murder. Some of the unexplained problems of this account (such as why God accepted Abel's sacrifice but not Cain's, which is what pissed Cain ...