From this point onward, the review will contain spoilers. If you are not interested in those, I advice to stop reading.

One thing I found hugely disappointing was the escape from Sanctuary. While the world of Sanctuary was quite well-crafted and in great detail too, the book became incredibly watered down past this point. The main characters reach the town of Memphis and suddenly the book changes style – but for the worse. While I had revelled in the misery of Thomas Cale while he was living in Sanctuary, his life took a rather uninteresting turn once he got out of there and by luck managed to become a part of the upper class of Memphis. Memphis seems to be quite inspired by a European renaissance town and got nothing in common with its American counterpart. Now, there are interesting parts here, but most of them just seem to be completely forgotten. Hoffman is incredibly poor with forshadowing; sometimes he highlights certain events and objects as if they bare any importance to the plot to just be forgotten, and sometimes he doesn’t forshadow at all and then it just comes tumbling down on top of the reader that this was actually important – except we never got to know why it was. A perfect example of this is the event that lead to Cale’s escape. By chance he got to see how one of the Redeemers in Sanctuary was dissecting girls alive, and this randomly lead Cale to kill the Redeemer and escape with the girl who was still alive. Afterwards we are told how Cale’s “protector” at Sanctuary, Redeemer Bosco, steps into the room and picks up an object from one of the girl’s intestines, musing whether this is what the Redeemer Cale murdered might have been after. However, we never get to hear anything of this ever again. Here there is also another issue with Hoffman’s inability to properly use the omniscient narrative – instead of properly developing an internal plot at Sanctuary that tells the reader that “this is really important”, he simply just seems to ignore Sanctuary all together most of the time. When he does use the omniscient narrative properly he has shown great ability to create compelling subplots; why did Bosco murder the High Redeemer? However, the plot is then dropped, there seems to be no why than Bosco’s possible sense of megalomania. While I do not mind to let the reader figure out some things on its own, it is one thing to drop clues and another to not drop any clues at all and then expect the reader to figure things out anyway. I have had enough of stories like RahXephon for quite some time, thank you.

Additionally, to continue from the old post, the feeling of haphazardness gets worse. Hoffman seems to mix and mash fantasy and reality as he seems fit, however, the result is often bad. Very bad. Why do you use name the main protagonist Thomas Cale, but one of his acquaintances IdrisPukke? I kid you not, no spacing there. I don’t even know how I am supposed to pronounce it, so I just read it as if it would be Norwegian with spacing. All this simply gives a sense of lack of imagination. When Hoffman doesn’t know what to do or name something, he just picks something from the real world and puts it into his novel. A perfect example is how Jesus is actually featured, but this time he is known for being in the belly of a whale. It has no relevance whatsoever, and it adds no depth since this Jesus is not the same as the Hanged Redeemer, despite their historical similarities. There is also a serious lack of geography. All this fuzzyness just adds more confusion when I instead would just like clarity. I want to know WHY the Redeemers are at with with the Antagonists, and I would like to have another perspectives of the Antagonists that is not related to the Redeemers. I would also like to know why Thomas Cale is important to Bosco beyond the “I had a vision and I think you are the reborn version of the Antichrist”. Which, of course, could have been dropped much earlier. While it is a powerful way to end a novel, again, there is no indication of this. While there is a description of Cale either appearing as a callous, cold murderer or attempting to learn the social norms of the Materazzi (the name of the people who live in Memphis), the readers get no indication of this. Just because a person says something about another character it does not make it true. And this leads to my third and final gripe with “The Left Hand of God”, that of poor character development. There is some, but barely. If the author wants to say that this person is this or that, show it! Show how Cale is so cold and callous. Instead, we in fact get the opposite – that he can be kind and caring and attempts to be despite his cruel upbringing. That Cale killed a man in a duel is not proof, especially when we are told that he is in fact scared for his life during the first part of the duel. Personally, that is now how I expect someone who is cold and callous to act like. That Cale after the duel ended cut off the opponent’s head in a fit of rage does again not show that he is cold and callous, but rather emphasizes his frustration over being an outcast despite that he clearly got certain abilities that should make him recognized, which the duel in fact was about to begin with. It was a schism between him and one of his oppressors in Materazzi who made sure to take a social advantage of their different social classes. And then there are characters who are given some development to just disappear. Like the assassin who was spying on Cale for several weeks to fall in love with him. I don’t know why, but Hoffman got a thing for love at first sight. Anyway, the assassin got murdered, so the time spent on describing her and her way of life was completely thrown away. And scrap that thing about character development being my last issue, my last issue are gender roles. Women are constantly described as sex objects, and useless too. Arbell Swan-Neck is a disgusting example. Supposedly, her nickname Swan-Neck is meant to symbolize her beauty, but I don’t know about you, but a woman with a swan-neck just gives me images of a woman with an unnaturally tall neck. That is not beautiful. Women are also constantly described as delicate, and while Arbell Swan-Neck is certainly of noble status is thus treated as such, it would be nice if she just didn’t you know, act it out. Everytime. She is the damsel in mistress personified. Awful. I thought we had passed that stage in fantasy where women cannot be protrayed in other ways, and when they do, they get killed… by men. That says a lot about the gender roles in “The Left Hand of God”.

To summarize, it got some very interesting ideas but they are never developed. There is some decent writing down there, but it’s usually tossed away. I have very mixed feelings after finishing it. While I think the underlying story is interesting and I want to see where this is all going, I am not sure the sloppy writing can in fact justify to buy the final installments to find out, especially if the writing does not improve, and there is no indication that it will. It can be noticed that Hoffman is a screenwriter, the novel is very “filmic”, but not in a good sense. If “The Left hand of God” had been a 2 hour long film where Hoffman was forced to compress the story to fit this time format, I think it might be great. But this isn’t “The Left Hand of God”. We get a 500 pages long book where most of the content is bland; uninspired and uninteresting. Pure filler, to be frank. And like any person who is not out of their mind, I do not like fillers. I read another comment somewhere that actually describes my feelings of the book pretty well. I don’t want to read it, I just want to read the summary.

I started to read it while on the airplane and the first pages were interesting enough for me to stick around, which is rare nowadays. As the title of the book implies, it’s about religion. Not Christianity however, as we might be lead to believe, but rather a fictuous version of it. The religion of the book is unnamed, but we get a rather thorough description of it. The book starts out with introducing its main character, Thomas Cale, who is a 15-year-or so teenager living at the military training camp/monastery called Sanctuary. Despite its name, Sanctuary is not a sanctuary. It is run by overzealous monks referred to as Redeemers, and they accept abandoned boys to be trained as soldiers that are to be sent into a war against the Antagonists in The East. The boys are referred to as Acolytes, and the monks use any methods they deem necessary in order to keep their Acolytes in check. Torture of all kinds are common, that together with brainwashing is meant to ensure that the boys will stay in check. If they don’t or simply have a mental breakdown, they seem to be taken away from Sanctuary to never return again. Where they are taken is never mentioned this early on, but the book emphasizes that it’s a place of no return – death.

The timeline of the book seems to become more typical of modern fantasy: not quite science fiction placed in the future, but not quite medieval placed in an alternate universe either. My impression is that it’s in fact post-apocalyptic. According to the book, the religion worshipping the Hanged Redeemer (it is called the Hanged Redeemer because the main symbol of faith depicts a main who is being hanged as the perfect example of a man who is being redeemed from sin through pain. It is interesting to note that the Hanged Redeemer changed facial expression over the course of time from being agonized to euophoric – very similar to how Jesus has changed his facial expression) has existed for at least a million years, implying that while it is not Christianity itself, it is a spin-off variant of it. It seems to in particular take inspiration from Catholicism, as there are supposedly more saints than there are days during a year (The Hanged Redemeer’s mother is for example the only woman to be considedered holy – all others are the embodiedment of sin because of their female sexuality of course, and how women’s bodies might tempt men sexually). Another point supporting the idea that the universe in “The Left Hand of God” is post-apocalyptic is that towns like Memphis among other American ones are mentioned, suggesting that the East is most likely Europe and the land in which Sanctuary is situated is a post-apocalyptic variant of USA. This seems a bit odd as the author of “The Left Hand of God”, Paul Hoffman, is British. British English also colors the novel itself; while it is not “too” British, words such as “bloody”, “lardy” among others give the novel a British tone. Hopefully the reason why Hoffman decided to play out “The Left Hand of God” in a future post-apocalyptic USA will be explained, eventually.

The book itself is not the most amazing piece of literature I have read; but it not the worst either. It is certainly passable as easy entertainment, but of course the most striking feature is its anti-religious stance. The Redeemers are often compared to the Inquisition; while the Redemeers themselves often live in wealth, eat good food and live well, their existence stands in stark constrast to the Acolytes who live very miserable lives similar to that of a prison. The book’s target audience lingers somewhere between young and adult fantasy, and can certainly please both age groups. I initially thought it would be more in the veins of Neil Gaiman and/or Robert Jordan, and it is more similar to the latter than the former in terms of style. The backside text seems to actually imply more descriptive violence than what it actually contains, hence also making it passable for a younger audience, even though I think more descriptive violence would be able to give the book a far rawer and brutal undertone which would be more fitting of what the book seems to aim thus far. Something akin to The Sword of Truth might be more appropriate.

The problem with the book however seems to be that it is very haphazard. Sometimes you simply don’t know where it’s trying to take you. The most notable examples are the changes in point of view. The book is written from an omniscient third person perspective, and when it changes point of view it feels very forced and unnatural. Instead I think Hoffman could’ve used other literary tools to explain the same thing without having to change point of view.

I will update with more posts as I continue to read the book to see if I change in opinion or if there’s new information regarding the Redeemers.

Several decades later, Hollywood decides to make a movie out of this historical event. The result is so-so. The main part of the film is reflecting the trial against the priest, who helped to take care of Emily Rose, the American recast of Anneliese Michel. He is defended by Erin, a skilled attorney, and a so-called “agnostic”. This alone starts to ring a bell into my head. Why is it that all women you see in these kinds of movies are always people who are no longer believers or are depicted as to not be sure what to believe? I am sure this might possibly reflect the statistics that most of the churchgoers in USA are women, but regardless, it would be nice to see an unfaithful man who would turn back to his faith, for once.

During the first part of the movie, very little happens at first. The events unfold like a typical court case, and most of the arguments brought up against the priest rely on “scientific” opinions about Emily’s condition: she was possibly suffering from epilepsy that later developed into schizoid epilepsy, which, according to the movie itself, is a term one of the “scientists” made up. As I am no expert in this field, I will not argue whether this is a possibility or not, but one thing I DO know, is that the screenwriters have a terrible knowledge of anthropology in particular. This becomes particularly evident when Erin lets an “anthropologist” testify about demon possession in various cultures, which somehow developed into some New Age mumbo jumbo about some people being more susceptible to possession than others, and this could have a possible biological reason. If the screenwriters would have bothered to actually look up what social and cultural anthropologists do, is that we DO NOT make up theories why some people would become possessed by demons. If anything, WHAT we do is that we make third-person accounts of such events and try to put these events into a cultural/social perspective. So yes, I got a huge axe to dig with that part in particular, and most of the movie and its ability to appear realistic were ruined to me, at that point.

Another point which I strongly disliked is that the movie at first seems to attempt to present how the eyewitness testimonies described the event, which ultimately would make the movie neutral on whether demon possession is a possibility or not, but then suddenly changed position and started to support the idea that demon possession is in fact possible, and that demons exist in this world. It’s not like I can buy that, but the setting for such a storyline was completely wrong. I’d understood if it was something like The Exorcist, The Omen or any other fictional setting that doesn’t try to be scientific (an exception would be the X-Files, but I never liked the few episodes they had that explored Scully’s Catholic faith, anyway) but it’s more about telling a compelling story. Now, the problem is that the compelling story in the Exorcism of Emily Rose is supposed to lie in the court case at hand. As such, the movie utterly and horribly failed. Instead of giving different and varied personal accounts of the event and developing the interpersonal relationships between the characters, which would ultimately had made the movie more into a drama that, in my opinion, would’ve been a perfect choice for this kind of setting, it tries to scare by giving the viewer a sense that demons might exist. Besides creating a tingling sensation, that’s all what it did for me. If I wanted to see something actually scary, The Exorcism of Emily Rose would certainly not be on that list.

Neither did I agree with the final verdict of the jury, since the evidence to support his case was mostly based on eyewitness testimonies and emotional retelling of events, as well as some holes poking in the logic of the “science proponents”. (Spoiler: The priest was found guilty but the verdict was changed into his favor, making it far less severe than it initially was.)

With that said, I do not completely dismiss the movie. It’s worth seeing once but some of the aspects are incredibly hard to overlook (particularly, if you study anthropology…) to make it really enjoyable, especially as an unbeliever. It does raise some interesting questions about ethics and philosophy, such as whether it was more humane to let Emily die by her own choice than strapping her to a machine or put her into a psychiatric ward, where she, no doubt, would not have been much better off. However, these things do not make up for the major flaws that ruined the movie to me. If this movie had been a drama, if it had been interested to explore these questions in more detail, if it had been interested to portray an objective stance on the matter, then yes, I think it might have been an outstanding movie.

However, as it is, it did not and thus it is mediocre but works a Saturday night entertainment when you’re bored. I should also mention one more thing which really put the nail into the coffin though, and that was the post scriptum they added when the case was closed. Instead of saying that the events presented in the movie are fiction and that the real person behind Emily was Anneliese Michel, they wrote EMILY, which made it sound like the whole thing happened in USA. Furthermore, the final note added that Erin’s case was based upon information provided by someone who knew Emily from that time. I don’t exactly remember the details. As you can see, however, the implications remain clear: Emily existed for real and so did Erin and this case. Despite that this is all fiction and a retelling of events.

This movie is so incredibly unprofessional I’m surprised it passed the screenwriting status. If I were Anneliese’s parents, I would be terribly offended by the fact that the filmmakers somehow claim that the events Anneliese went through was based on a girl in USA. I mean, give her the proper credit. The girl suffered terribly, after all. If you are going to write a movie about her life, then at least make sure that it doesn’t omit the fact that it was HER and not somebody else.

I never liked Bill Maher; A comedian who laughs about his own jokes is nothing more than irritating. Nevertheless, I found myself watching Religulous over the holidays season to kill some spare time. After having watched it, I still didn’t like Bill Maher, even though he argued for “our” side, that is to say, the nonreligious one. Religulous is categorized as a comedy/documentary film, but instead of keeping the documentary and comedy parts separated, he blends them together in a nasty mix which dissolved the aspects of both. To me, this was neither comedy nor a documentary.

If it was a documentary, it was as much as documentary as like categorized spawns from the beast that is Michael Moore – a one-way road into a dark abbyss. The only different between Maher and Moore in the making of documentaries is that Moore at least tries to approach the subject in a serious manner. Religulous is also proud to call itself religious satire or parody, forgetting the fact that repeating dogma in a redneck accent does not make a good satire or parody. Maher preceeds his actual “documentary” by saying he will approach the matters at hand with an agnostic attitude, even though he titles his work with a portmanteau derived from the words “religion” and “ridiculous”.

In all his interviews except the one with his sister and mother, Maher shows no respect to his interviewees. He does not have the decency to let the person finish and jumps in mid-sentence with some or other bad remark that was probably intended as funny, laughing to himself as he does so. This is not only annoying for the interviewee but also for the viewer of the film. If Maher didn’t manage to intercept with some half-wit’s pun on the spot, the editors of the film have made sure that the interviewee is ridiculed in other ways. Maybe it is funny and I simply don’t get it, but one has to agree that before the interviewee is able to answer a question Maher jumps on top of him or her. The only thing Maher does reasonably well is ask questions that are difficult to answer for those who intellectually rely on no more than faith. Maher does this particularly well on interviewing the U.S. senator Mark Pryor. Personally I thought this was the best of his interviews, but maybe that was because this senator ridiculed himself enough for Maher not having to intercede on his behalf.

As you might have guessed, there are little to no real arguments that Maher puts forward in his film. This is why I think anyone who is engaged in opposing faith or religious doctrine, either as a secularist, an outspoken atheist, a bright, or otherwise, has no need to watch this film. Many people of this actively nontheist calibre have already heard of all the blatantly unrealistic claims, have already researched religious dogma, and have already heard all the arguments for and against that this film puts forward. In one of the first interviews with some truckers in a roadside ministry Maher did not seem to detect one of the truckers used the famous Pascal’s Wager argument. Instead of replying “Well what if you’re wrong?” he could have listed several reasons why such an argument doesn’t have any intellectual merit. Any one of “us” who have debated theists time and time again would have been able to come up with much better ways to counter the theistic arguments, without having to resort to simple ridicule which doesn’t take require too much effort to begin with.

There were a few scenes in the film that I did enjoy. One was the interview with the (former) director of the Vatican Observatory, who had the complete opposite views regarding the age of the earth, the universe and evolution as the former interviewee, the nutcase young earth creationist Ken Ham from the Answers in Genesis Creation Museum. Another funny interview was with father Reginald Foster, the Pope’s principal Latinist. He seemed a very jolly fellow and agreed with Maher on almost everything Maher said was wrong with religion in general and some dogma in particular. Neither Maher or I had expected this and it made for a fun diversion from all the fundamentalist crackpots.

In conclusion I just want to recap my recommendation: if you’ve debated religionists before, if you’ve studied the doctrines, if you’ve studied theological arguments, there is no reason for you to go see this film because you will not hear anything new. It would not have been a waste of time if it was funny, but frankly I didn’t think it was. I’d say you’d best save it for a moment of desperation in which you feel the need to fill your time with hopeless ad-hoc and reductio ad absurdum.

When religion and cinema mix, it must be a tasteful blend, or one risks alienating part of the intended audience.  It is clear that there was a distinct purpose for mixing religion into SSTIII, but it was done so distastefully that I felt the need to get up several times to get more popsicles.  Not that I was particularly hungry, or too warm, I just couldn’t stand what I was seeing… and I sat through Expelled.  What went wrong?  Lets start from the top. **Severe Spoilers ahead.  Not like you’d actually want to watch anyway, but if you do for some bizarre reason, watch before reading.**

For those unfamiliar with the premise, basically there’s some sort of space war between “bugs” and humans.  The “bugs” are just that; cool insectoid special-effects creatures that impale infantry and bite them in half.  Humans encountered this hostile species while colonizing the galaxy, and now there must be a species-wide war effort to keep them from destroying the human race.  This is based on a book, but admittedly, I have not read it yet.

In the first movie, we have a group of friends who go into the service, beat up bugs, have relationship issues, rescue each other, and ultimately capture a “brain bug”; one that is intelligent and can communicate telepathically.  The humans contain the creature to use for special intelligence and the main characters are hailed as heroes.  The second movie has nothing to do with either of the other movies so I won’t waste my time with that.

The third movie starts out on a planet where we have a compound where the main character, Rico, from the first movie is in command.  The bugs are kept out by a sort of bug-zapper fence while the humans inside dig trenches and do war-type-things with plastic guns.  A ship carrying the Sky Marshall and several friends of Rico lands in the compound.  The Sky Marshall (SM) is some sort of pop star in conjunction with the leader of their society, and Rico’s friends are a Ship Captain, Lola Beck, and General Dix Hauser.  They have a bit of falling out, then the power flips off and the bugs start pouring in.  So far so good, right?  There are some decent special effects as the infantry is mutilated and Lola Beck and SM escape.  After the massacre, Rico is blamed for the problem and is scheduled to be executed for punching the Dix in the face.  That’s when the “good” part of the movie is over.

Lola Beck’s ship crashes on a bug planet.  In the middle of the desert.  Only five or six crew members are alive, and she can’t get a distress call out. Her call is actually being blocked by the current second-in-command, Admiral Enolo Phid.  Dix finds out about this, stops Rico’s execution, and has him and a crew suit up to go rescue them with mechs, then that plotline disappears for close to an hour as we watch Beck and the SM wander around the desert.  First annoyance, there’s this blonde chick who was a flight attendant as a survivor who is super-religious.  As they’re trying to figure out what to do outside their escape pod, she starts praying.  Beck more or less tells her to shut up because she’s being annoying, then gets assaulted by the SM telling her that she should allow blondie-flight-attendant to believe.  Her reply was more or less along the lines of “I don’t care what she believes, as long as she keeps it to herself”.  The Flight Attendant continues to be obnoxious, until the SM takes her by the hand and tells her that he’s religious too.  It starts to get all warm and fuzzy, “OOH you believe too, I had no idea, Oh that’s so wonderful” <3 <3

Then Beck grabs guns and tells everyone to start walking so they can make it to an old base 100 “clicks” away and be safe.  No one is happy about this, and everyone’s pissed at Beck, who begins to take on the stereotypical village-atheist role.  While they’re walking, the Flight Attendant begins singing Jesus-songs and pissing the hell out of both Beck and us viewers.  Beck expresses her frustration again and is shot down by the SM, who fully supports the idea and begins preaching/flirting with the fight attendant for the rest of the walk, or at least until they’re attacked by bugs and forced to run, then some people die and the rest of the party gets MORE angry with Beck.  Atheists are all assholes who ruin all the theist’s fun and happiness, after all, so she’s got to fit that bill.  Now, its dinner time.

As everyone sits around the fire (how did they make it in the desert…?) with their cans of rations, flight attendant suggests that they all pray before the meal.  SM thinks this is a great idea, and Beck snorts and heads off to “patrol the perimeter.”  After we get to hear their entire prayer, they begin talking over dinner.  First of all, where are the ‘Mechs!  We’ve been told they were coming, and this is getting absurd.  Second, for a bug planet, they certainly get a lot of chances to chit chat about religion and not a lot of chances to be swarmed and die.  And third, their dinner discussion revolves around… religion.  They go around in a circle, asking whether or not the other members of the party are “believers.”  The last marine left, who’s obviously got a crush on the flight attendant, says he’d like to be one, at which she gets all happy and they flirt a bunch, then she tells him they can get married “only in a church”.  The last one is the doctor-scientist type who’s been on Becks’ side this whole time.  As it approaches his turn, it cuts to Beck eating her food alone and cold on the hill (because atheists have no friends and hate religious people), then she senses some sort of danger.  As she becomes clearly unnerved and starts heading back to camp, it cuts back to the doctor saying “I believe in YOU, Sky Marshall,” clearly avoiding stating his view openly, and the earth cracks open under his feet.  He falls down and dies, and they all get moving because of the earthquake, which is actually a huge bug, which you see when the SM looks down the crevasse.

After the death of the doctor, Beck recites a few common Atheist stock lines: “Where is your God now?” (He’s always there blah blah bah) “How do you know he’s listening?” (we believe!!1!!1 <3 <3) etc.  I’ll go on about Beck’s character later, but at this point it cuts to the Admiral Enolo Phid and Dix, who have found out something disturbing.  While it is obvious the religion being toted overall is Christianity, the SM actually has been communing with the bugs through the brain bug caught in the first movie and regards some great bug as “god”.  They kill the brain bug and go about their business.  Rico is almost ready to go off with his Mechs, FINALLY, and we’re almost done with the movie.

Now we’re back with the religious nuts walking around the desert, one of several biblical allusions present in the movie, including Rico in the middle of two other criminals at his execution, then “coming back from the dead”… I wonder what THAT’S alluding to… They finally reach the safe base, and the SM gets all happy that they’ll soon get to meet with the one true god –Behemecoatyl!  Eh, what?  Flight Attendant girl freaks out because he’s talking about the “wrong God”, and they descend towards the base, all disturbed.  Soon after, they’re attacked by spiky legs that come out of the ground and kill the marine guy.  SM gets excited because this is Behemecoatyl (Brain of Brains), and they’re going to work out some sort of peace treaty, or so he thinks.  The massive bug suspends the three dead people so they can speak for him and he “communes with” (read as: eats) the SM, then the two women are surrounded by bugs!  Oh no, it seems there’s no escape, so the Flight Attendant gets to her knees and starts reciting Our Father, and Beck gets frustrated at her for praying instead of doing something useful.  In explanation, the Flight Attendant gets teary-eyed and desperate; “When you’ve got nothing left, God is all you have, you must pray blah blah blah O GOD SEND US ANGELS WITH YOUR FIREEEE”.  At this moment, the Mech team FINALLY gets their act together and rocket down to the planet, the light from their suits forming a sort of halo around Flight Attendant’s head.  Beck has a miraculous conversion when she sees this and gets down on her knees to recite the Our Father with the Flight Attendant while the ‘Mechs lay waste to the bugs for about… 20 seconds, or at least as long as it took to say the prayer.  Aaaand that’s it for the ass-kicking robot suits, which the movie was titled for.  20 seconds of bullets to the tune of Our Father as recited by a recently converted atheist.  Time for another popsicle.

Now everything is happy-ending; the planet gets blown up, Beck and Dix get married in a church, and Admiral Enolo Phid converts to Christianity and makes it the official religion of the Federation.  Part of the closing “commercial” states: “Across the federation, federation experts agree that: A: God exists, B: He’s on our side, C: He wants us to win.”
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So that’s the synopsis.  About half an hour total of bug smashing, and the rest was religious garbage and wandering aimlessly in a desert.  This movie could have kept the same overall plot, and been awesome if it had more mechs and less praying.  And I heard a rumor that the religious half was supposed to be satire!  Where did it fail?

First, there was an underlying purpose for including religion, but it was largely masked by the preachy-ness of characters and the stereotyping.  This was essentially the theme that religion can be a powerful driving force behind war when it turns to zealotry and fanaticism can be used by leaders to control their subjects.  However, if you missed a key sentence in dialogue throughout the course of the movie, you would miss this theme.

When Dix and Phid are with the Brain Bug, Phid shows Dix the video of the Sky Marshall “communing” with the it/god.  Phid makes a few brief comments about the single-minded determination of the bugs as a result of their hive mind; akin to the religion the SM was now infected with.  She mumbles under her breath: “We should consider getting some of that.”  If you miss that single sentence, you miss the entire satirical theme, and the commercial at the end and Phid’s “conversion” of the state makes no sense, especially in light of her discouraging faith in the beginning.  If you miss this SINGLE SENTENCE, the intended “satire” falls flat.

I have seen this theme in a number of books and movies carried out effectively, and in a way that it did not alienate an irreligious audience or a religious one.  Lets face it, when Beck gets on her knees with the Flight Attendant, the movie is just OVER for most of us, and the religious viewers were probably repulsed at having their religion portrayed inadequately by a giggling, flirty blonde flight attendant.  But ultimately, one of the largest problems with the whole setup is the use of Christianity as the religion of choice.  Had the writers just made up a religion, much of it might have been admissible and the overall statement about religion and war might have been easier to discern, and the satire might have shown through.  Instead what I heard was a lot of preaching with nothing but a failed stereotypical “atheist” to counter it, and one sentence explaining the purpose of the whole charade.  Sometimes satire fails, and this is one of those cases.

We’re also looking at a case where character stereotypes were supposed to help carry the satire, specifically through the rational doctor, militant atheist Beck, fanatic zealot SM, blind believer Flight Attendant, and the scheming Admiral Phid.  All of the stereotypes were overdone in a way to be frustrating and unbelievable, and insulting to those who they were supposed to represent.  I can’t speak for the Christian end, but the depiction of non-believers was incredibly poor, specifically Beck.  The doctor was a much more reasonable example, but he died too early to state much more than the fact he did not believe the SM was fit for duty with his state of fanaticism.  He also found ways to work around the absurd religious nature of his group while remaining neutral, but the irreligious had to either die or convert to hold the premise, and his fate was death.

Beck on the other hand, embodied every false atheist stereotype the Christians have came up with.  She hated, HATED the religious, she asked questions that no sensible atheist would waste breath on, but that Christians think we wonder about (“Why do you pray?”), and found every moment to insult the Flight Attendant (“Where is your god now?”).  She also fell into the No-Atheists-in-Foxholes assumption, as the going got rough, she broke, and at the same time fit the cliché that atheists are not *really* atheists and will turn to God in times of need.  She was also an asshole, pushy, and overly pragmatic.  There was no real irreligious character to act as a foil, and the closest thing was Beck.  This completely alienates the entire irreligious audience—even those of us who were aware beforehand or caught on that the movie was supposed to be satire.

There are highly effective ways to pull of satire.  There are also highly ineffective ways.  SSTIII ranks highly among the most ineffective satires I have ever experienced.

Let me first preface this critique by saying that prior to this I had a lot of respect for Ben Stein. I have read his commentary on the economy and I quite enjoyed it. I always took him for a realistic perspective and didn’t think he would fall victim to this kind of a work. I am dismayed at having seen him take this direction. At first I saw what Stein’s point was, but as I learned more and more about this documentary and how he treated the scientific community, all I have to say is it’s underhanded. He apparently tries to create this huge controversy in the scientific community and he sensationalized the topic a little too much in this documentary, to the point where I’m wondering how much he’s getting paid to back this up. My one fear for those who see this is that they will not look at it from an intellectual perspective, and rather look at the sensational points that Stein pointed out to give a rather “damning” image of science and the scientific community…

The basic premise of the documentary was apparently not to favor one side or the other, but to show that the scientific community is apparently abusing their privilege in academia (that’s called “favoring” last time I checked). He gets scientists that make claims how their lives were ruined, but have been refuted on “expelledexposed.com” if you want detail explanations. Now I should point out that this documentary has almost nothing to do with science. This documentary is about what is happening within the community and if there is some knowledge and teachings that are being suppressed. Stein presents fairly convincing evidence that shows that this could quite realistically be taking place in the American scientific community; unfortunately it appears to be a major fabrication.

What sparked all this? Why, Creationism and the religious sector of course. I don’t think there is any secret that there is a huge divide between these two sectors in the U.S. Sometimes it feels like the plight Galileo went through never ended.  We tend to view the organized religions as an oppressive entity that wants to keep the people from being free thinkers. What Ben Stein shows us is that the scientific community, which is so critical of the religious community, may be guilty of the exact same thing! Honestly, I’m outraged by such a concept because you simply can’t take the higher road and be a hypocrite about it, it’s just nonsensical. Then it turns out that Ben Stein is the one participating in a dishonest approach to this, claiming to show that Intelligent Design is being suppressed from science in schools (which it rightfully is, it’s not science), he turns around and takes very specific interviews in hopes to embarrass scientists like Richard Dawkins, because he couldn’t provide an answer to “how do you think life began.” After Dawkins pointed out that he didn’t know, then Ben forces him to try and come up with something on the spot, so Dawkins spouts off a possible example, when it was pretty clear that he wasn’t 100% taken with the explanation himself. This makes it looks like the largest opponent of Intelligent Design and Creationism doesn’t know what he believes, when the whole point is that he doesn’t believe the answer is the Abrahamic deity of the Old Testament, the end. He said that, but Ben wouldn’t let up as if the man that already said he has no answer somehow could come up with something revelatory and provable. No, it doesn’t work like that. Naturally that isn’t the full interview, but due to editing we didn’t see that in theaters.

In fact Stein went to the level that barely involved religion. I was pretty surprised about this, since this followed my viewing of another documentary called “Flock of Dodos” which basically pitted science against religion. Stein decided to show that there is a divide within the scientific community. I will point out that, while I am a proponent of Darwinian Evolutionary theory (yes, it’s more than just a random notion), I was in no way swayed to the other side at the end of this documentary, which is not its purpose. In fact a lot of the scientists that strayed from the generally accepted theory did not say that Darwin was wrong. Granted some did think he was wrong, but for the most part they were saying that the Darwinian theory isn’t a hundred percent complete, which it isn’t and science freely admits this right now. However, they can show time and again that evolution IS a fact, it’s the part that the single origin of life that’s the question right now.

In terms of Microbiology, Darwin is gravely lacking and this is probably due to the fact that there is such a huge world of microbes out there and you can’t expect a small portion of the scientific community to focus on the origins of every single one. It’s going to take some time, but in todays spoiled world of instant gratification people expect science to turn around proof in an hour. Again, it doesn’t work like that. They bring up the point that the evolutionary theory of species variation doesn’t hold water, this concept doesn’t even hold 100% water either. What about the new hominid fossils found in Chad, called the Toumai fossil, that have much stronger lineage between apes and the Lucy fossils? Sounds like a very possible bridge to me. Stein does go on at length about Intelligent Design, but frankly that doesn’t answer any questions either. He doesn’t show how it is truly the proof and the right way to think of things scientifically. If anything it’s addressed as an opinion, and scientific rigor isn’t based on opinions. Is it possible that our universe is intelligently designed and there’s a creator behind the curtain? Of course that’s a possibility. But you can make the same argument for literally everything and anything. Such as why do I like the style of music I like? The answer could be that I was designed to do so, but that doesn’t quite give me a fool proof answer. That’s not an answer as to why I like Black Metal and someone else doesn’t, it makes no sense, but you can obviously present that as a possible theory to the query and anyone can lie with statistics and probability to make the point appear “true”. The same is true for anything else in the world.

Unfortunately the way Intelligent Design is being promoted within the community has a fairly lacking quality. I can see why science is taking such an adverse reaction, because the way it’s presented is that it feels like a science stopper! For example, if one scientist can’t figure out how something came to be he or she may feel obliged to say, a higher being must’ve been involved. I get that feeling whenever I read “Darwin’s Black Box” by Michael Behe. Then three hundred years from now a completely different scientist with new technology at their fingertips may have a long drawn out and very correct answer. I can see how the scientific community could view this as a dangerous idea. However, this does not give them the right to silence other scientists who may find credence in the theory. You can believe whatever you want regardless of how wrong you are; just don’t force it on someone else as a fact is all I ask. It’s a truly foolish notion too, because the Intelligent Design argument is literally non-testable. You can’t prove that some other being or whatever designed organisms to work the way they do. You can prove that with computers because humans obviously made them, but it won’t work the other way around. So why this possibly has a place in science is beyond me… it just doesn’t even fit. For hundreds of years people erroneously believed the world was flat till that got proven wrong too, so are we to repeat the same crazy mistake of believing something that is improvable once again just to satisfy a few people who think it adheres to their “God” hypothesis more congenially? At least until it can be proven.

One thing I was disappointed to see Stein show in his film is going over the probability theory. This is the theory that the chances that life would exist on this planet is almost zero. Thus it must be a miracle that life exists at all. This whole statistics and probability concept has no place in this forum. Honestly, what are the chances that life exists on this planet? One hundred percent! Life is here isn’t it? People need to stop making this argument with probability, because it’s inherently useless on a mathematical level. The answer is a hundred percent and once people get over this fact we can move on and start looking at something much more realistic instead of crunching meaningless numbers.  And no, “random mutation” is not as random as people seem to ascribe it. It’s weighted to favorable traits, so favorable traits are more likely to be passed on than unfavorable; I hope people can grasp that very simple mathematical principle of weighted probabilities in that sequence. Yes I’m fully aware of all the planetary notions physics has for us living in the green zone which is perfect to support life. Guess what, during the life of our star (the Sun) that’s going to go away. So as that special little zone erodes are you then going to claim how perfectly designed this whole solar system is? Wait, you’ll be dead, you won’t care about making fantastical and erroneous claims…

I acknowledge that I am not the average viewer. I consider myself to be very well read and pretty well educated and I further approach everything with a very analytical eye. That being said, Ben has over sensationalized this topic, which has already been over sensationalized. I think this is a very dangerous documentary, especially if viewed by religious fundamentalists, because this will then be used as ammunition to their arguments (when there really are none). This is also why I think the scientific community is afraid to discuss the discrepancies in Darwinian Theory in a public forum. It’s a very sad concept, but it’s also very realistic. I have spoken to far too many people that adhere to the thought that the Earth is only six thousand years old due to the dates ascribed to the Bible. What Stein did correctly was to show Intelligent Design theory in the light that it is inherently irreligious in concept. This would hold far more weight to their proposal, but I’m personally afraid of the religious view that this will help their six thousand year old Earth theory. Both theories are just wrong and they’re not scientific either. It’s a belief and it’s based on faith and it is not testable in a laboratory. That’s the fact of the situation.

Now the biggest problem I had with this film was the relation between the Darwinian path into Nazi Germany. This just came right out of left field. Were there Nazi scientists that were influenced by Darwin? Of course there were. I’d challenge someone to find a country WITHOUT a scientist that supported Darwin in the 1940’s. Furthermore, I felt like Stein was unnecessarily putting forth the Darwinian concept to show it was an influence on Nazism and Hitler’s concept for ethnic cleansing. But this is only part of the story. He didn’t even once point out that Hitler was also influenced by religion. One scientist pointed out that if you read “Mein Kampf” you can see Darwinian Theory in the influence. Is that true? It definitely is. But if you read “Mein Kampf” (and I have, for the record) you will also find that Hitler modeled his rise to power after the rise of power of the Catholic Church. He had a great respect for this institution, not to mention he was obsessed with religious relics. Hitler was also hugely influenced by Neitzsche, so maybe Philosophy was the real problem of the holocaust? Or how about “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion” the document that Hitler based virtually all his anti-Semtism on. No, clearly that’s not the primary factor; it was Darwin and his very dangerous theory. Honestly, humanity has been using any excuse it can to kill, look at Judaism in the book of Numbers. Biblically, the term “dooming” a city means to basically destroy everything: kill all women, children, and men. This happens a lot in the Old Testament. Last time I checked that’s the complaint people are making against Darwin. How about Karl Marx and his Communism concepts? Hitler hated them too and he wanted all of them dead, which had nothing to do with Darwin, that was a political maneuver, so maybe its politics? While we’re going crazy we can go back and say how horrid metallurgy is because mankind made swords out of metal then killed fellow man. See science is a huge problem. Honestly, if you’re going to make it look like Darwin is a primary fault of the holocaust you need to tell the whole story. I’m not sure that’s what he intended, but that’s how it came off.

Frankly, I felt like Darwinian Theory was being demonized by Stein in the sense that it was one of the root causes for Hitler’s ideology, which just isn’t true at all. I realize Ben’s of Jewish descent and how it probably hit home for him once that scientist mentioned Hitler and Darwin in the same sentence, but I felt like that part was overly done. Frankly, it’s far too touchy of a subject to bring people out into a forum to discuss a theory that’s already too touchy. However, I do admire Ben for balancing it off a little with the Eugenics programs the U.S. was running at the time in tandem with Hitler’s regime. I think this gave us the right perspective that it wasn’t just a Nazi Germany concept. Unfortunately, I think the average viewer is going to walk away equating Darwin with Hitler in the same concept. Especially since there are so many people out there today who think Hitler was an atheist and there are now a new group of people saying the holocaust was a conspiracy that never actually happened. This is absolutely crazy and bringing that period of time into the argument only makes it far more of problem for the uneducated peoples in the world today. Pretty soon we’ll have Darwin sitting on Hitler’s cabinet as an adviser because no one knows their history anymore.

Yeah, I wrote a long review for this. It deserves a long response. Congratulations if you made it through this treatise against some of this documentary’s gross flaws. This is coming from someone who actually thought Ben Stein’s commentary was well done, but this is just tasteless. I will now await the barrage of trolls and spam from all the Intelligent Design proponents out there, but please at least try to explain why I’m wrong. I believe in giving the best reviews possible, with as much critical analysis as is necessary. Telling me Intelligent Design IS a science with no real backing is not a realistic reason as to why this review isn’t helpful. I’m actually a pretty reasonable fellow and I enjoy great discussions on this topic, but only if people are willing to listen and are at least fair and balanced. Not backing up your words isn’t being fair or balanced.

As I mentioned above visit www.expelledexposed.com to find out more about what’s really going on behind the scenes.

I read this book in about two days because it was so good, yes, I know some can read it in one sitting, but I’m fairly busy. Anyway, it was nice to read something that mirrors my sentiments on this topic almost exactly. Sam Harris isn’t apologetic in his critique of religion and I think this is a breath of fresh air to simply call hypocrisy for hypocrisy. One thing I did like is that Harris didn’t single out just Christianity, but he actually goes over religion in general. I think this is because he didn’t want to give out any illusions that Christianity is the sole problem religion out there, it’s not, it’s all religious conceptions.

One point that I hadn’t really given much thought was the financial perspective. Which is funny because I actually have a degree in finance and economics. Anyway he brought up the concept about the untold millions of dollars that are going into these Christian organizations. Most of this goes to support the infrastructure of the church, you’d be surprised how little goes to charitable organizations. I used to look at Church accounts in an old job and it shocked me how their balance continued to grow versus how much was actually leaving. Some non-profit organization that is? Another point is that there’s a drastic opportunity cost. Could you imagine if people took the money they normally give to the church and either saved it on their own, or donated it to medical research to cure something like cancer or come up with a vaccine for AIDS. It’s such a crazy notion to think that people willingly give a portion of their income to an organization that is bent on informing them that they are all sinners and none of them are good enough for God, but, hey, he loves you anyway, so give us your money. That’s just asking to be beaten down on a regular basis and happily give them your money. Doesn’t this fall into a notion of a possible pathological disorder?

One aspect I’m sort of surprised at is that Harris didn’t attack the Biblical history. Frankly it doesn’t really matter if Christians follow a creationist policy, the fact is most of those stories are borrowed from ancient societies. The Sumerian tale of the flood greatly predates the Bible and Noah’s real name was Ziusudra. You’d be surprised at the parallels. Even the Garden of Eden parallel story can be found in a tale about Inanna. Most Christians don’t care to acknowledge this cherry picking of other religious stories, but they are happy to cherry pick the “good” quotes out of their Bible to justify that their God is actually only loving and perfect… but we’ll ignore that thing about slavery now won’t we? Further on the historical note it’s pretty clear cut that Moses didn’t write the first five books. Aside from blatant borrowing, the Bible was written down in 600 B.C. during the Israelites captivity in Babylon. Yes, the Torah was written in Babylon. Historians figure the Exodus with Moses happened in the vicinity of 1300 B.C. and it’s pretty clear he died during that book, so how he wrote it in 600 B.C. is beyond me. I’ve listened to many Christian preachers and they all purport that Moses wrote the Torah. Did it ever occur to anyone he died before it was finished? In fact it recounts his death and keeps going, it doesn’t just abruptly end. This is a very strange literary technique, the dead continuing to write a book…

Another point I’m surprised he didn’t attack is the blatant proof that God is an unjust deity. If you read through this text it’s made abundantly clear in the New Testament that if you don’t follow Jesus you will not be saved. In fact you are doomed to suffer eternal death. This doesn’t matter if you are actually a good person, a wonderful and loving father to your children; if you don’t follow Jesus you are done. I can’t physically think of any concept or proof more unjust than this. Naturally people will quote Pascal, but it’s an aberrant proof. Harris blatantly points out that people DO have something to lose and that religion is detrimental to others on a global scale. Maybe it’s not God, maybe it’s the followers, because they simply can’t deal with religion responsibly. It must be imposed on others. I just don’t understand this mindset and if God truly is a loving and caring being then the actions of his followers should be making him weep constantly and not an atheist that doesn’t rape, murder, and honors his neighbor. But the faithful don’t look at it this way, it’s the atheist that is the problem, not the child molester who believes and can have his sins forgiven despite his problems.

This book is an outcry to a nation that sorely needs it. Where science is constantly on trial and regardless if science doesn’t have a ready answer means God did it. This is a huge problem, more people need to read this book and understand it. Do NOT cherry pick this text like so many love to do with their religious texts. It must be taken in as a whole, much like the Bible should be read, but most people don’t read the Bible so they don’t understand the hypocritical concepts Harris brings up on a textual level. I know the Christian militant front will decry this review, but I urge you to read about intellectual honesty when it comes to this topic.

While I’ll agree that some of the information present is a bit contrived or at least stretched, there’s plenty more which speaks volumes. Of course given the very nature of this site, I will of course only focus on the first part of Zeitgeist, the religious portion. As for its conspiracy theories, the rest of you can debate the Lusitania and 9/11 elsewhere.

The first thing worth noting is that Zeitgeist uses very careful language throughout. The story of Horus is of no exception: “Broadly speaking, the story of Horus is as follows…” where they then list very specific details about Horus that relate back to Christianity. And while they are correct that many aspects of Egyptian mythology hold some curious and beyond coincidental parallels (Osiris being reborn/incarnated via Isis as Horus during the winter solstice, celebrated with a festival lasting 12 days, later being affiliated with/as the newborn “sun”), Zeitgeist makes very literal and direct connections between aspects which are a little sketchy. That isn’t to say that there aren’t striking similarities between Egyptian mythology and others, including Christianity, but that the zealotry present in Zeitgeist tends to overstate and generalize certain facets, if not skewing fact then contradicting popular opinion. Again, careful language is key here. But this alone isn’t enough to justly proclaim that they are outright lying. To prove they’re not just full of themselves, I’ll list just a few examples of religious similarities.

For instance Isis: Sister and wife of Osiris, mother of Horus through a magic conception (literally, using magic), and a virgin in that she did not “conceive” Horus as such. Isis was originally viewed as a woman, the mother and protector of Horus the Child, but later came to be reverred as one of the most recognized and worshipped Goddesses of Europe and parts of Africa, being incorporated into and synonymous with many other Goddesses of the era (such as Serket). Even centuries after the given birth and death of Jesus, Isis was still being worshipped within the Roman Empire until physically removed in the 6th century by the Christian elite. And while it has been disputed by Christians that there is no commonality or derived origin of the Virgin Mary from Isis, the similarities are more striking than their differences.

Mithra of the Persian Empire was considered a redeemer, protecting and “saving” people’s souls, accompanying them to paradise. Direct and shameless quotes from wikipedia follow:

“While in older Zoroastrianism Mithra is seen as a creation of Ahura Mazda, in later Persian culture, Mithra evolved to be an incarnation of Ahura Mazda [1], and in his role as ‘Judge of Souls’ as the rewarder of good and annihilator of the bad. Mithra was seen as omniscient, undeceivable, infallible, eternally watchful, and never-resting.”

“The last day of the Persian month Azar is the longest night of the year, when the forces of Ahriman are assumed to be at the peak of their strength. While the next day, the first day of the month Dey known as khoram rooz or khore rooz (the day of sun) belongs to Ahura Mazda, the Lord of Wisdom. Since the days are getting longer and the nights shorter, this day marks the victory of Sun over the darkness. The occasion was celebrated in the ancient Persian Daygan Festival dedicated to Ahura Mazda, and Mithra on the first day of the month Dey.”

Their festival is closely derived from Egyptian culture, based on the Egyptian solar calendar but substituting Zoroastrian divinities. The winter solstice festival is still in part celebrated as Shab-e Yalda in Iran, Yalda meaning “the birth of sun”.

The similarities between Christianity and its holidays and events and various Pagan festivals and traditions such as Sol Invictus and Saturnalia are extremely prevalent, themselves having much in common with Brumalia (derived from bruma for “shortest day”) which ended on December 25th, which is thought to have progressively evolved from Lenaea, a festival involving the rebirth of Dionysus. And Dionysus himself originated as a Greek god as Osiris became profound and widely known during the Hellenic era. They did not copy exact details but focused on values and traits of Osiris; a phenomenon similar in other regions at that time, changing facts to match or create local gods who later were collectively known as Osiris-Dionysus. It can in turn be easily argued that Jesus’ conception was not unlike the Osiris-Dionysus deities. Of course the similarities held by all of these figures and festivals are mostly oblivious to or ignored by Christians. Apologists of the time went so far as to claim that the Devil copied the life of Jesus into the past, as opposed to vice-versa.

While Zeitgeist is just the slightest bit sensationalist it does make a lot of good points, and has a lot of truth in it. Its greatest failing is trying to make literal and unforgiving connections between various icons, religious or otherwise, related or not. This may have developed merely out of time constraints for the film or in an attempt to bolster their case and simplify facts for the audience.

For example, relating the constellation Virgo back to Mary, Myrra and Maya purely because of its symbol (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Virgo.svg) is somewhat ridiculous. At worst it’s coincidental, especially considering how many virgins (Isis ring a bell?) have NOTHING to do with the letter M. At best it’s a half-truth. It would be like claiming one of the Wisemen brought gold because it’s the metal associated with Virgo; it might somehow be related but is entirely circumstantial, and does not explain why frankincense and myrrh was given as well. But they pass it off as fact. As for Bethlehem being a reference to Virgo, that makes a lot more sense given their shared meaning and holds a bit more credibility, especially considering that Paul did not spread the story of Jesus as something which physically occured on Earth.

So although Zeitgeist is quite credible in a lot of what it offers, the entire film is thrown out or ignored by most Christians because of intertwined falsities and over simplifications. For example, their explanation of the winter solstice and spring equinox is quite succinct, and varying religions and mythologies undoubtedly relate this with astronomical phenomena and myth; that is definite fact. Even if Christianity did not initially form around these events directly they clearly adopted them through other belief systems after its conception, ultimately personifying sun worship through the character of Jesus.

Whether Jesus did or did not exist isn’t really relavant to this discussion, but he likely was used as a base onto which various religious beliefs and traditions were consolidated into one, assimilating aspects of Isis, Mithras, Dionysus, Mithra, and others. This may have been done to unite the people and incorporate aspects they can all relate to or already had deeply integrated into their lives. It may have been done to force social change, or as Zeitgeist suggests, a method to control the populace and encourage/force conformity and control (ie. beginning with the Council of Nicaea). It may even have been done unwittingly and by the will of the people over time, unwilling to relinquish their previous beliefs to the one being forced upon them by the state (seen with the Theodosian decree).

In reality it is quite likely that all of the above are true. But in the end Zeitgeist is a propaganda piece, no different than the Vatican, or the Department of Homeland Security, or this very website. All of them proclaim the world as they see it.

If you’re looking for “truth”, if there is such a thing, you can’t just go to one source. Even all the good parts of the Bible combined (trust me, they are in there) don’t offer all the answers to life’s questions, nor could this website ever hope to (although we’ll offer as many as we can). Moderation truly is key. You need a little of one source with a bit of another mixed with a dash of skepticism and a healthy dose of reason to come to a rational and logical conclusion based on factual evidence.

But Zeitgeist does offer some very compelling evidence…