A Sunday meditation featuring the usual suspects, with bonus popcorn and bad movies ...

For some bizarre reason, the pond's television sets no longer get the ABC.

No doubt the problem will be fixed in due course, and the pond has set aside the paranoid theory that the federal Liberal government has set up a special frequency interference device designed to block the pond's access... though it has to be said that wearing an aluminium hat has improved the pond's ability to focus, and the pond's partner reports that razor blades now get much sharper under the pyramid.

Anyhoo, to cut a long story short, the pond has been forced to watch commercial television, last done back in about 1980, and was immediately stricken by an advertisement for a wretched service the pond will never make any use of.

Not that the pond minds the hint of blasphemy the ad carries as a sub-text.

If you can stand it, you can see the tablet-wielding Jesus featured above, in full on YouTube here (though "in full" is misleading, since the ad is completely devoid of class or meaning, and the pond explicitly denies any liability for any mental damage or emotional suffering for anyone clicking on that link).

What struck the pond this meditative Sunday was the way the ad has been out and about since May and there's barely been a whimper or a murmur about it.

Oh sure mUmBRELLA provided a link to the ad and a story about it, back in the middle of May here, and the comments below carried remarks by a couple of crazies, including one who promised to have the ad off air by the following week, only to have the pond suffer it in the middle of July ...

Clearly all that federal government money being spent on propagandist chaplains hasn't helped the spiritual cause. The secularists, even the most casual and wretched, go on about their business making use and abuse of the myths ...

Perhaps even more remarkable is the way Hollywood has taken to treating the bible as a form of fantasy science fiction.

The pond recently caught up on the worst sci fi film of all time - or at least the worst in the pond's memory, the direly lugubrious Johnny Depp vehicle Transcendence,  which had a bizarre mix of characters. There were the luddites and the anti-technology destroyers, who couldn't stand the thought of humans being fully wired, and computers becoming sentient, yet the best the movie could muster by way of government resources was a man on a jeep with a machine gun, a mortar and a single artillery unit. And on the other side stood the catatonic, almost comatose Depp proclaiming that humanity has always invented its own gods ...

The criminal responsible for the crime was Christopher Nolan's DOP Wally Pfister doing his debut as a director, but since the wretched Nolan was also an EP, you can share the blame how you will ... (don't forget writer Jack Paglen. As always forgive the actors. You can type this shit Jack, but you can't say it).

An even better example was Noah. What's that you say, it's not out on DVD in Australia yet?

Never mind, Noah was wonderful, a most peculiar mix of Tolkein creatures borrowed from Lord of the Rings, and silly sci fi nonsense.

How to feed all the creatures while at sea? Why just give them a good dose of fumes by wandering around the ship like a Catholic priest armed with a thurible burning a potent kind of incense ...

The movie didn't even begin to pretend it was dealing with anything other than myth, and up the front, it even flung in some conservation greenie and vegan rhetoric, just to alienate the fundies even further. It ran out of steam at the end, right as the drunken Rustie proved to be an empty vessel for the lord. Yes, there were family feuds and passion and incest and such like, and once again, despite having indulged in a right old genocide, the long absent lord had fucked up yet again.

Once more She'd allowed frail humans the right to make bad movies about sinful humans, and soon enough there'd be fundie Calvinists stalking the earth speaking tosh in Her name ...

Never mind, the point is that this clap trap generated some $359 million world wide, and is a secularist delight, and now it seems that the bible has become the last refuge for the desperate, not least that failed film-maker Ridley Scott, who is offering the world Exodus: Gods and Kings, with Christian Bale and dinkum Oz lad Joel Edgerton as the Egyptian pharaoh. (The trailer's up on Apple TV and YouTube and other places and looks like a total load of tosh).

Scott was responsible for the second worst science fiction film ever made, Prometheus, and it looks like he's going to treat all the miracles and nonsense in prime Cecil B. de Mille special effects style, and bung on all the plagues and the red river and such without a hint of shame.

Even more bizarrely, it seems before the first bit of tosh is in the cinemas, it's been reported that Scott is in discussions with Fox to do another old testament figure David:

Sources tell Variety that Fox has tapped Jonathan Stokes to pen an untitled pic inspired by the character from the “David and Goliath” tale and focusing on the King of Israel. Though the plot is under wraps, it’s likely that the film would focus on the king’s reign post-Goliath. 
Going by the working title “David,” Scott would produce through his Scott Free banner and along with Chernin Entertainment. 
It’s also unclear if Scott is considering directing. Scott is considering several projects for his next one following “Exodus: Gods and Kings,” including “The Martian,” starring Matt Damon, and the next installment of “Prometheus.” (Variety, here, paywall affected)

Oh do the sequel to Prometheus, really someone should challenge Transcendence for the title of the worst science fiction film ever made.

But why has the pond started to blather about the movies? Well the Sydney Anglicans are wildly excited:

I like the idea of putting the temple prayer of the tax collector “Have mercy on me, a sinner” into the mouth of Matthew as Jesus calls him, and it’s also very affecting that Jesus sees his upcoming betrayal and death in his mind’s eye as he shares the last supper with his disciples. Characters such as Caiaphas are a bit one-dimensional and Jesus is almost too gentle and doe-eyed, but Diogo Morgado does a laudable job in a difficult role and the crucifixion scenes are confronting and done extremely well. (here)

Yes the last thing you want is a gentle Jesus but thank the long absent lord at least he doesn't look Semitic or female in form, and at least there's a bloody good hanging with nails and spears and vinegar wine.

And so we come full circle. That'd be the last supper used to sell a takeaway food service ...

It's as if Plato's allegory of the cave and the shadows and shapes on the wall had yet to reach the angry Sydney Anglicans.

Meanwhile, the Jensenists continue to disgrace themselves. Here's Phillip Jensen conflating and confusing and obfuscating in Caring or Killing in a way that makes the world's worst science fiction movie seem like a step forward for humanity:

It was the eugenics movement of the late 19th century, which laid the foundation for racial breeding and the appalling racism of the 20th century. Racism is always in the heart of sinful humanity, but giving it an intellectual and moral basis created the worst outpouring of racism in history. Similarly, the discoveries of pre-natal gender identification, have allowed for the most appalling expressions of sexism. In some nations and communities, the majority of abortions have been of baby girls. Feminism’s freedom resulted in girls’ genocide!

Say what? Feminism's freedom resulted in girls' genocide?

How fucked in the head is that?

And this from a mob that have connived with and contributed to the persecution and killing of gays in Africa ...

But how about this for a capper?

Atheists’ view of humanity undermines their morality.


Uh huh. So the angry Sydney Anglicans will be immediately and forthwith cutting off all ties with the churches in Africa that aid and abet the persecution of gays?

In your dreams ...

You see, the angry Sydney Anglicans view of humanity undermines their morality ...

Which is why sometimes it's better just to talk about the movies.

A minute in the company of Sydney Anglicans and before you know it, the pond turns full-blown angry irritated feminist ...

What's even more irritating is that Jensen ignores the complications and complexities that Peter Singer was himself forced to recognise in relation to his arguments, way back in 1999 in an interview in The New Yorker with Michael Specter, which you can find in pdf form here ...

But simplistic distortions fit with simple-minded views of the world and a childish credulity in stories like Adam and Eve and Noah.

Yes, back in April 2014 there were the Sydney Anglicans running with John Mason's Engaging with Noah ...

Oh come on pond, you say, they couldn't take Noah and the flood seriously, could they, as a real God-produced event?

Hah. What they're liable to read in the bible, they're liable to think Jesus said was dinkum.

What is important for us here is that Jesus regarded Noah as a historical figure and treated the event of the flood as a reality. Just as the flood occurred, just as Jesus’ predictions about his own death and resurrection, and the fall of Jerusalem, were all fulfilled, so too will there come a day when he returns in all his glory. 
Heraclitus, a philosopher of ancient Greece, taught, ‘Unless you expect the unexpected you will never find truth, for it is hard to discover and hard to attain.’ And G.K. Chesterton once remarked, ‘Truth is stranger than fiction.’ 
Our danger today is the same as it was at the time of Noah. The people then were so taken up with their own lives, so proud of their achievements, that they forgot they were but creatures and rejected the reality of God. If only they had been humble enough to turn back to God while they had time (17:26f). Jesus’ reference to Noah and the flood is a chilling reminder that we ignore God at our peril. NOAH, the movie gives us an opportunity to talk with others about the larger realities of life.

It's a chilling reminder of just how close to the young earth, fundamentalist, literalist, creationist, complementarian Adam's rib mob the angry Sydney Anglicans have found themselves. Now that's a truth stranger than a bad Hollywood movie ...

Finally, the pond, in the old days, used to take an equal opportunity interest in the fundie Catholics, but that got lost when the Pellists headed off to Rome to get involved in the sordid world of the Catholic financial mafia. (Dear sweet long absent lord did they really put the Pellists in charge of the Vatican's social media transformation? Cardinal Pell might be a prime twit but will he show the way in Twitter and such like?).

But happily yesterday a pond correspondent provided an important link to an important text ... a Catholic view of masturbation written in 2010, and available here.

It's nothing new of course. There's a wonderful report on Le Livre Sans Titre, an illustrated warning of the deadly perils of self abuse, written in 1830, and full of illustrations of the result of the vice being practicsed.

And that's just for starters. You can find all sorts of wankers wanking on about wanking all over the internet.

Why if you're a wanker like Greg Hunt you'll do a wiki hunt here and find this exemplary warning:

Of course like Robert Frost the pond always recommends the path less travelled ...

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;  

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same, 

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back. 

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference. 

The paths are clear enough. Bad movies about myths, or wankers taking myths seriously and abusing feminists for seeking freedom ... better a moral and physical wreck at 45 than heading down that latter path ...

And now, last but not least, a heartfelt plea from the heart of Newtown, spotted this very day: