Unwillingness to fit in

Friday night, I went to see Captain America: The Winter Soldier (FINALLY!) and, as I tell people, I knew it was going to be good- I didn't think it would be epic!

Throughout the movie, I kept noticing how I would relate to the Cap, namely how he refused to go along with this generation's relativistic ways and trying to compartmentalize one's own morals in order to do a job. When his partner did such a thing, it did lead to consequences, yet he always stuck to his morals when everyone else thought he was out of his mind. Frankly, I have been called names for being moralistic rather than relativistic, yet I still continue on.
Months before it came out, moviepilot.com released pictures of how Captain America's new suit would look, and, for this generation, it did have a more modern, "dark" look, and what surprised me was how a few people reacted. They didn't want the change, they preferred his old-school style. Remember this, though:
In America, today, it's becoming illegal to have an American flag flying in your own home lawn. You get called "intolerant", "bigot", everything but "human" and "patriotic", would these be side effects of postmodernism and relativism and the whole Tolerance Movement? I dare say it certainly seems so.
In the first movie, Captain Rogers was completely unashamed in how much he believed in fighting for freedom, but even more so in fighting for the sake of a friend's life when no one else thought that friend could even be alive. In his second appearance, he made a thought-provocative one-liner ("With all due respect, ma'am, there's only one God, and I'm pretty sure he doesn't dress like that."), and even though The Avengers had many pro-Biblical moments, one-liners, subtleties, etc., it never got controversial, in fact it actually became one of the summer's biggest hits. And relativism got a slap in the face throughout. Try figuring that one out.
Before I saw the first movie, I never got into Captain America. I don't consider myself an American patriot. When a co-worker (who was stunned) asked me why not, I was blunt with her:
"With today's status quo, you're not allowed to be a Christian without getting dehumanized, so I'm status quo ante." She smiled at that response, and hey, I was taught honesty by my mother and subtlety by my father, so I've learned how to mix the two without compromising my faith nor values nor virtues. After all, if I felt it unnecessary, I would have given up my "v-card" around 15 years old, when it was the average age to give it up to fit in (nowadays, I think it's 12), instead I'm still waiting and am now 27. The culture bashes and ridicules me, yet I still continue on, regardless. As a few friends of mine say, I was born in the wrong generation. Or maybe... like Captain America, we were born in the right generation, with a different generation's mentality, and are meant to go against this generation's mindset. I have never had a problem going against the flow, against the grain and be a pain at times (okay, okay, quite often), but I won't stop being who I am just because some think my morals are "outdated" and think I'm "backward" (does that mean they're hypocritical if they call me narrow-minded just because I don't think like their narrow minds?).
After seeing the first movie, I was completely surprised, given that Joss Whedon's an atheist, but as a friend of mine pointed out, Stan Lee's involved in all the Marvel movies and believes in absolutes. When he passes on, if they're still making them, they'll try to change that, but they'll have a huge fanbase demanding what we're still getting. How do I know? It turns out that a few people who believe in relativism saw The Winter Soldier and considered the themes and considered the possibility of absolute good and evil to be existent after all.
All-in-all, it's a good possibility that relativism takes on a heavy toll on how one tries to live than one would ever expect. No wonder we're getting hungry for absolutes again.

Time to stop playing it safe

For several years, I've been noticing how my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ are becoming more and more timid, using Scripture to justify why they don't stand up to their persecutors- oh, wait. That's American Christians. And if anything, I've seen, since '07, that we constantly misuse Scripture, not getting the whole context, we do what I call "surface reading", something that even Jesus calls out. He calls out the scribes and Pharisees, saying "Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you know the word, yet you don't know what it means." So much for just a recent issue.
One of my biggest influences to be the way I am is a quote from one my favorite comedian/actors, Jim Carrey: "The problem with this world is that there is no danger music." Principally speaking, I believe that should mean we shouldn't be afraid to stand up for our beliefs, regardless of consequences. For a minor example, due to how my life played out, I have no problem being a Christian Goth, yet my mother cannot fully accept it because she doesn't approve the Gothic lifestyle (she stereotypes it as too dark for her, "I wasn't raised to be like that." I wasn't raised to be Gothic, but still...).
There can also be plenty of major examples, but all-in-all, I'd rather you think about it, Dear Reader.

A VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Due to this whole War on Christmas (which, it seems, non-literal progressive Christians are saying there is no war and that "fundies" are just going crazy about being persecuted when they're "not"), I would just like to tell you what I told countless college students during the last week of school before going home for Christmas Break:

MERRY CHRISTMAS, HAPPY NEW YEAR'S AND BAH HUMBUG!

And that is all for now. Some time in the near future, I'll be discussing some recent controversies and then some, but for now, enjoy the holidays, it doesn't matter which one(s), no matter what you believe. Spend time with friends and family, have great fun and socialize. Hey, even atheists are known to have fun with Christmas (unless they're real-life scrooges...), so go and celebrate a beautiful time of the year (no matter the weather).

Your Faith is a Joke

No, I've never heard anyone actually say that, but I have no doubt that someone may have said it, or maybe just thought it. Considering the slippery scope of today's moral thread and how it's quickly unraveling, I could imagine why people would think faith at all is a joke. How so? Let's take a look at offense.

Back in the times of the Early Church, Christianity was easily THE most offensive lifestyle, before it was misrecognized as a "religion," when it was easily recognized for its revolutionary love. Nowadays, Christians are easily THE most offended people of most faiths. Us and Muslims seem to be equally offended, even if not quite about the same things.
More recently speaking, back a couple years ago, there was a video game being publicized, Dante's Inferno. It was already getting heat for making a fantastical action/adventure version of the epic classic poem from Dante, then they revealed their most touchiest Trophy/Achievement, when someone killed a set number of unbaptized babies, one would get what was named "Bad Nanny", sparking an outcry from the religious community. Then it went farther by having a fake photo of a "religious community" holding signs that condemned EA (who are always testing people's limits, anyway) to Hell. On the website objectiveministries.org (which hasn't had one update since 2009, thankfully), they took that picture and asked "Why would anyone do this?" That question was the very reason why, to offend.
Personally, I laughed, not because I hate the Church or Christianity, but because I knew Christians would go all up in arms and miss the big picture. Plus, it tickled my morbid funny bone. Many things that offend mainstream Christians simply don't seem to faze me, or, when they do, they simply get me to think about things, none of which are "They deserve to burn in Hell!" Nope, I save such judging thoughts for David Stewart (from jesus-is-savior.com) and Westboro Baptist Church, who are experts at that (and definitely experts at being misinformed and providing atheism with ammo to shoot down all Christianity for being "backward degenerates", great going, WBC, great going indeed!).
Not all that long ago, I made a post on jesus-is-savior.com's fb page about how, according to the page's admin, they're not David Stewart, so I said "This may not be run by David, but it sure has his hatred, nothing at all like Jesus."
I got backlash in one statement, about how I was "obviously" not following the right Jesus.
Not the right Jesus? He made it sound like there's more than one. There can be more than one self-proclaimed "Messiah", but none can follow through with all the Biblical predictions. More to the point, I told the page's host that I followed the Biblical Jesus and went into a long-typed (and one very long sentence) reply on who Jesus was in the Bible and ended with how I am glad to be a Christian Goth. That really confused him, so I explained how Jesus was the ultimate Goth since that doesn't deal with listening to Marilyn Manson and Cradle of Filth (which I don't, I have more refined tastes) and wearing trench coats (wouldn't mind, just can't afford one right now), or painting my face in a very creepy way (only on Halloween, and then just when I can afford it). It's all about counter-culture. In a society that constantly berates you, mocks you, hates you if you don't fit in to their own niche (even if it's a Christian school with STRICT regulations on how to look, talk, act, etc.), then the world gives one every reason to go against it. Is it any wonder why the Bible calls the world a place of rebellion?
As I say, if you go with God, you rebel against the world. If you go with the world, you rebel against God. Either way you go, in life, you'll be rebel. Who will you rebel for?
The church I'm a member of here in Huntington is the first really down-to-Earth Church that I've been to since I went to Valley Brook Vineyard Community Church. Meaning there's humor, worship, seriousness, and an in-depth look at what is being meant by every verse and statement in the Bible, not just going by surface text like so many American churches do. It's why I feel at home there. Christianity doesn't feel like a joke there, I feel welcome going there even though I read Stephen King and other horror authors, even though I tend to wear dark clothing (they didn't hesitate with me when I asked for a baptism), and all 3 pastors were glad to hear that I was interested in becoming a member. In Huntington, which is considered, with how many churches there are per square mile, the "most churched city in America", this one church I feel comfy going to.
Oddball fact: in dealing with the "joke" angle, besides Jesus, my other role model in life happens to be The Joker, who's a total anarchist. He doesn't need a leader, is totally unpredictable, has a strangely illogically convoluted past, and sees the world immensely differently than everyone else does. One would think he was a scorpio like yours truly. Though I consider him a role model and think of myself as a borderline anarchist, I'm seriously not as bad off as he is. Point is this: let's stop giving the skeptics a reason to think we're just a bunch of religious hypocritical losers that need a crutch and yell and snap at every single thing we immediately perceive to be an insult and actually learn from the Bible and find a way to adapt to the world without compromising our spiritual integrity. Otherwise, yeah, I think we'd be a horrible joke. What was it the Apostle Paul wrote?
"If Christ Jesus did not truly die and rise from the grave, then we should immediately disregard all we've been taught and continue on as we had been."

Carrie: Review

Of all movies I've seen that I want to review, this may yet be the most fun to review:

You may have heard of it. Possibly?
When I think back to the trailers I'd seen, I was worried that they were showing too much, including the infamous prom night scene. Turns out, they were barely scratching the surface. Nothing but teases, those trailers were. Not only that, but the 1979 movie I can now only think of as a bit campy. The visual filter from then was rather light for a horror movie along with the filming techniques used. Sure, they were edgy and maybe revolutionary then, but now, they could just be head scratching today. Now, we have clear camera usage, highly-advanced CG that can look exceptionally realistic with the context, and (most important with the context of this film), the moral fabric today is loose enough that some of what was in the movie can be seen and no one really cries out at the insane things that Carrie's mother, Margaret says or does. Same with the bullies at Carrie's school.
Back in the day that the book was published ('74), "bullying" wasn't an easily accepted word (much like "sin" is not really accepted anymore), yet that was the primary theme in the book. And when I found out last year that this remake would be closer to the book than the last two films, I was worried over one element from the book. Would they use time jumps?
The book literally broke pretty much every single rule of bookcrafting then, including not having a single chapter, but be separated into 3 parts. Within each part would be the central story, newspaper articles, interviews with people, court hearings, even "documented" birth and death certificates. All within each part in no particular order, and in severely disjointed fashion with only enough clarity to figure out what's going on in the "present" of the central story.
Broke all the rules with a good dose of genius, that King.
Luckily, since American audiences today prefer (rather strictly) a point-A-to-point-B storytelling, there were no time jumps. And that's not the only good thing, either.
Something else that tends to ruin today's horror movies are the mandatory jump moments every couple minutes or so coupled with the heavy story twists. Since my mind works a certain way when it comes to a plot-twist-riddled story, I could only watch a WHOLE LOT of horror movies once then get bored afterward. Nothing (much) against them, that's just how I am.
For Stephen King, he doesn't rely on those groundbreaking (or even quaking) story twists to keep the story going. Maybe a few slights to get one thinking about what's going on, but overall, this is more like a slow burn. No heavy story twists that grab your lungs and jumpstart your brain. Yes, that is a good thing for Carrie.
The heavy stuff is in Carrie's gift, which her mother sees as evidence that her daughter is a witch. It's an integral element (though not a spoiler) to the story itself and the unstable relationship between mother and daughter. At first, the telekinesis shown is subtle,  a pile of tampons getting shuffled followed by a light shorting out. Then, over time, it gets a little less subtle and borders on disturbing until the prom scene, then it goes into overload of jaw-dropping shock, regardless of what you saw in the trailer. Between the beginning and that scene, there are multiple subthemes worth paying attention to, one in particular jumped out at me in the beginning: the use of political correctness to hide behind one's own corruption. One of the story's antagonists being asked to take her phone out to see if the video she took of Carrie and posted on youtube, for instance, looks to her dad who's telling her to "just get the g**d****ed thing out so we can get this over." One can tell she's spoiled completely rotten from her reaction that her father seems to be "with" her school principal (whom she promptly calls filthy sexual degradations behind his back afterward). She uses "invasion of privacy" as an excuse to not hand it over at all and blames the principal, phys ed teacher, and her own father for her banishment from the prom.
That's just one subtheme. There's multiple that's relevant to today's times and worth noting.
Do I have any complaints about this film? Only one.
Chloe Grace-Moretz. Yes, she's an incredible actress. She proved that in her highly controversial performance in Kick-Ass and again in Hugo. Now that she's almost an adult, her style is getting matured and so is her already impressively immersive acting. Yet, she's too pretty.
Yes, too pretty. When I think about how Stephen King described Carrietta White, I remember "spots of acne," "chubby," and overall, homely. No pun intended, but Chloe has Hollywood-grade beauty. It's because of her acting ability that I can overlook her relatively heavily contrasting looks compared to the book's titular heroine.
Regardless, this film gets high praises from me (especially with how Julianne Moore, an atheist, can be such a chillingly disturbed Christian mother and an epitome of calm insanity).
9.5/10

When Did I Become a "Terrorist"?

If there was any doubt about our president being not a Believer, it has become affirmed.
I no longer believe Barack Hussein Obama, Jr., is a Christian. Even false shepherds can vocalize a faith they don't believe in.
Recently, I looked up a site that had 72 "signs" that a person may be a "potential terrorist", and it was the last one that was completely blatant.
72. Evangelical Christians.
Nothing on the list indicated anything about being Muslim or supporting Islam like it may have a decade ago, now it was all implicitly/explicitly referring to Christians. I didn't look at the entire list, but what I did look at was a clear indication that prez Obama is NOT a Christian, as though hiring anti-American and anti-Christian people as part of his congress cabinet board wasn't clear enough...
It has become irritatingly clear in the last few years that political correctness has forced Christians their hand(s) to hold back anything in the possibility of being slammed against. They can get offended but cannot offend. They can be fought against, yet not allowed to fight back. It's becoming a one-sided battle with an enemy that starts with spirits, not the flesh. That's the main thing materialism seems to get us to forget, that we're not actually fighting flesh. Flesh is more just a physical channel (if not a conduit) for spirits to interact. From interaction comes a potential to manipulate social activities. Also recently, I'd noticed that certain things we do accept in maybe the past 10-ish years seem to be more accepting of ideals and systematic ideologies that are not (in any way) American and call it political correctness in an attempt to quench it.
Good thing I don't go by political niceties. If almost any, by that matter.
Technically, anyone who causes the biological response we call "terror" is a terrorist, anyway. I, personally, have been through a few traumatic experiences (resulting in civilian PTSD) that caused terror in my child- and teenhood. So I've dealt with terrorists who will never be on any government watchlist, yet, in my eyes, they're terrorists nonetheless. And they're not Christians, either.
So now has come the time when choices will be made that will either undo America entirely or strengthen America as a whole. But the choice one makes, one cannot make and be soft in their core.
Make your choice and stand by it, even if you'll be called a "terrorist" in doing so.

Rage's Echo: a review

This was, by the very definition, an original story. It is truly like no ghost story I've read, doesn't feel reminiscent of anything, it is an original by an original author.
Thematically, it's at times harrowing, shocking, positive, dreary, hopefully, frightening, confusing, unashamed, unabashed, and even laugh-out-loud hilarious.
In the first of this 248-page tome, there were a couple pacing issues that I found some minor difficulty trudging through. Yet, once I got through 43% of it, the story took off with the mysteries, deep characterization, its own story nuances, inside jokes, and even intertwining character personalities. Needless to say, this was definitely an impressive ghost story to get to know.
And the way it ends is both chilling and hopeful.
Not hopeful in "Hope there's a sequel in the works," but hopeful in the thematic structure and for what could happen.

Note: I received a free ARC courtesy of the author for a personalized, honest review. It was definitely worth it!