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God: The Most Unpleasant Character in All Fiction
God: The Most Unpleasant Character in All Fiction
Dan Barker | 2018 | Reference, Religion
6
3.5 (2 Ratings)
Book Rating
A striking book designed to hit Christianity in the heart.
(Please note: It is beyond the scope of this book review to go into whether or not there is a God, or if God is good.)

This book is written by Dan Barker, a former evangelical preacher. The inspiration for this book comes from a single paragraph in Richard Dawkin’s God Delusion, which goes as follows:

“The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomanical, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.”

Now that’s quite a statement! And it’s also what Barker’s book is centred around. In Part 1, Barker sets out examples of these 19 characteristics within the Christian bible.

Sadly for Christianity, not only had barker found examples of every single one of these 19 characteristics, but he usually found several examples in every case. In fact, the reason I haven’t given it a higher rating is because it was so repetitive, with so many examples of remarkably similar and disturbing passages. A whole chapter is dedicated to each of the descriptors in turn, and the whereabouts of each of the passages are clearly noted in bold before being presented underneath.

In Part 2, Barker takes the argument further still:
“He [Dawkins] forgot to mention that the God of the Old Testament is also a pyromaniacal, angry, merciless, curse-hurling, vaccicdal, aborticidal, cannibalistic slavemonger.”
Again, the following chapters are full of examples of these characteristics.

The book is predominantly a laundry list of evil requests and doings of the God of the Old Testament, but Chapter 28 asks “What About Jesus?” And here Barker even manages to find evidence that Jesus endorsed invasion and bloodshed (Deuteronomy 6.15-19), and encouraged the beating of slaves (Luke 12:47-48). Barker also sites a lot of Jesus’ bad advice

Several passages may be unpleasant for even strong atheists to read. I couldn’t get over how many times “fingers dripping with blood” comes up in the Bible.

Overall, Barker has little comments around and between the examples he sights, but I would suggest that this makes for a stronger argument, handing the role of jury to the reader. Obviously this book will upset just about any Christian who attempts to read it, and for those who do read it may feel better to recall that the analysis is only of how God is presented in the Bible, and not an analysis of any effect (if any) of God in their daily lives.
  
Crank (2006)
Crank (2006)
2006 | Action, Comedy, Mystery
7
7.1 (15 Ratings)
Movie Rating
First Person Video Game
People forgot that hardcore henry was not the first, first person movie. It seems like people were like oh my god hardcore henry was this first person film, and its the first one and its shot like a video game and your in the charcters shoes.

Crank came out many years before hardcore henry and was a first person film, your in cranks shoes and it is shot like a video game, it is basically a video game. The plot even sounds like a video game.

The plot: Chev Chelios (Jason Statham), a hit man wanting to go straight, lets his latest target slip away, then he awakes the next morning to a phone call that informs him he has been poisoned and has only an hour to live unless he keeps adrenaline coursing through his body while he searches for an antidote.

This film and its sequel i would highly reccordmend, not alot of people talk about these films.

It has action, drama, susepense, comedy, adventure. Hardcore henry is a copy and paste movie minus the everything that crank had.

Dont watch hardcore henry, watch this movie instead.
  
40x40

Kevin Morby recommended track Goodbye Sadness by Yoko Ono in Season of Glass by Yoko Ono in Music (curated)

 
Season of Glass by Yoko Ono
Season of Glass by Yoko Ono
1981 | Pop
(0 Ratings)
Album Favorite

Goodbye Sadness by Yoko Ono

(0 Ratings)

Track

"This was another sonic influence on the record - the saxophone, the guitar. If you’re painting a picture it’s like 'What colours do you want?' Every instrument is a colour and with this we’re only using a few different colours. It's in how it sounds and how it feels to listen to, it's not necessarily about the actual instruments, it's about what it visually feels like. “Yoko’s record was produced by Phil Spector and on Oh My God the subject matter is a little absurd and it's fun to be sort of playful with it. Back to the cinematic thing, it exists in this big, bombastic universe and mimics the Phil Spector sound. “I just read the Jeff Tweedy book and I really related to him saying that basically his whole life and everything he does is essentially influenced by two different records. One's a record of just train sounds like cabooses, it's not music, it's just train sounds. The other one, I forgot, I think it's Johnny Cash or something. ""Yoko used the heartbeat of her unborn baby on a song she made with John Lennon and I really relate to that; I'm really into the atmosphere of songs and how everything in the world can be its own music. I saw a quote from Neko Case recently where she said 'When you're an artist and work for yourself, your job never ends!"

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