Short Take on "Without a Paddle"

O...K. This reaction will be short, sweet, and slightly disjointed. It's been several days since I watched the movie and I still remember most of it, but for now I'd like to deal with the philosophies in the movie. First of all, though, I'd like to share some thoughts about the basic good and bad of the film. It'll help us understand the nature of the philosophies embedded in the script.

Funny. I guess that's what this show is, so I'll give it that. For one, I liked the Matrix parody mainly because I regularly make fun of those wacky bullet-dodging scenes the first movie was famous for...you know, Keanu Reeves bending backwards with arms waving and all. In fact, I liked most of the *cleaner* comedy in the film, such as Tom's dumb remarks (the part where the native American tells him off was a nice touch) or Dan's lame, almost-embarassing Threepio cracks (that just kinda shows you how much of a big nerd he really is). The fishing-with-a-flashlight scene? Only in the cartoons. And the grizzly bear episode was rather...cute.

However, around halfway through the film, everything grows lame and dare I say too postmodern pop culture. For one thing, it seemed kinda predictable that the hash field would end up getting burned, but why play into all the 70's “good tripping” drug scene? I know this will sound lame to many of my contemporaries, but as Mrs. Reagan said, you don't need drugs to have fun. In fact, this movie made a number of cracks without necessarily needing to get into the liberal and offensive side of things, although sadly the bathroom jokes outnumbered the more General Audience ones.

And what about those blonde New Age tree huggers? Goodness, that was probably nothing more than a sorry excuse for gratuitous sexual innuendo. Without a Paddle didn't need any of that junk. The homosexual gag in the cave, Dan’s repeated complaints about not being able to get it on with a girl, the numerous references to “downstairs”…this film seems like typical American White Trash sex party stuff at some later points, and it really does nothing for the story. It just ended up killing my interest faster than a gunshot wound right down the middle of the corpus callosum.

Here’s the bad part. What started as a “good ‘ol boys” film with a ton of potential for unearthing the deep treasures of bonding and friendship ended up as just another summer teen flick that stars a trio of angst-ridden twentysomething adults instead of a group of angst-ridden high school sophomores. Whatever shred of morality there was in the film was all but invisible as the viewers are instead treated to a slew of comedic nonsense.

I’ll be fair, since comedy is one literary tool that can be used to make a point—and it does happen at certain points in the film, like the part where Dan stitches up Tom’s wounded arm or the scene where the three heroes fall into a mine pit. Although, mind you: good, lasting points in this film scarce. In fact the very main “moral” of the film is just humanist, existential blather smothered with feel-good overtones (“He burned his money just to stay warm.”). True, money and possessions are nothing compared to a life fully lived. But then again how would the film define a “full life”? Why, doing the things you want to do for the sake of [your own] happiness, of course! Have fun! Hang out with your buddies! Enjoy every spare minute you have because at the point of death it all goes away and we can never take it with us. This life is all we have, so make sure you drink in every last drop like a long, tall Screwdriver on a hot day.

Don’t get me wrong here, I am NOT denying the fact that these guys had to sacrifice their own self-absorption just to help each other (and that IS a crucial part of friendship: coming out of one’s own hole to help another)…but ultimately, it’s all a collective selfishness. And I am only able to say these things because I am a born-again, evangelical Christian. A life lived without any relation to the one, true Triune God whatsoever is good for nothing more than a tool to be used as God sees fit (Ecclesiastes 6:7-9, Romans 9:14-18). And furthermore, herein lies the futility of humanism and materialism (not the “gimme-gimme” kind of materialism, but the philosophy): the belief that the earthly life is all we have. The good news is that those whom God has redeemed have a better destination than this corrupt earth (see 1 and 2 Thessalonians, 1 Corinthians 15). But I guess I shouldn’t expect anything much from unbelievers on the matter.

In hindsight, I wonder why I even laughed in the first place.

More on Feminist Stuff

A friend of mine, who goes by the nick "Serrevin" in the IRC chat channel I go to, had a discussion with me about my writing on Egalitarianism, and it was a good one. Here it is:

[20:44] (machaira) Evin, could you please look this over and see if I made any misakes in my argumentation?
[20:44] (machaira) *mistakes
[20:44] (serrevin) yeah
[20:44] (serrevin) let me see it
[20:44] (machaira) http://machairaina.blogspot.com/
[20:45] (machaira) Latest entry
[20:45] (serrevin) what are you dealing with?
[20:45] (machaira) Feminism
[20:46] (serrevin) k
[20:47] (serrevin) what's the title?
[20:47] (machaira) "Egalitarianism...Yeahright"
[20:47] (serrevin) k
[20:52] (serrevin) I think it was pretty cogent
[20:52] (machaira) Oh?
[20:53] (serrevin) i'm a bit more sensitive to the feminists but the argument definately makes sense
[20:53] (serrevin) did you have any reservations about it?
[20:53] (machaira) Well, I thought my argument was lacking somewhere. Especially when I touched on media.
[20:53] (serrevin) how so?
[20:54] (machaira) They could claim that "Well, the commercial pushed you to want it!"
[20:55] (serrevin) it's very hard to argue with modern liberals
[20:55] (machaira) I thought in response, "Unless the female had any perceived need prior to the viewing of the advertisement, she wouldn't bite the hook."
[20:56] (serrevin) would we be able to sell a product in masse to women that helps them grow facial hair?
[20:56] (machaira) Would they even want that?
[20:57] (serrevin) of course not
[20:57] (machaira) Good point.
[20:57] (serrevin) there has to be a previous dispostion toward a percieved need/want in order for a commercial to work
[20:57] (serrevin) all the commercials do is simply embellish the need/want
[20:57] (machaira) Yes...ads don't give us desires. They just play on existing ones and direct them to the particular product/service offered.
[20:57] (machaira) Yep.
[20:58] (serrevin) well there you go
[20:58] (serrevin) hahah you can use the "facial hair" thingie if you like
[20:58] (serrevin) but yeah dude, it seemed pretty tight to me
[20:58] (machaira) Thanks.
(non-related entry)
[20:59] (serrevin) i've always complained about the confusion of "feminism"
[20:59] (serrevin) you know they want equal rights
[20:59] (serrevin) but when the titanic is goin down they expect us to give them the last lifeboat
[20:59] (machaira) And to heck with us?
[21:00] (serrevin) well that's the thing
[21:00] (serrevin) was leo supposed to punch her out, and fight for his life like the men were doing with each other
[21:00] (serrevin) what would the reaction have been?
[21:00] (machaira) So much for equality
[21:01] (serrevin) you know they would have decried it as violence toward women... blah blah blah
[21:01] (machaira) Yup, equal treatment.
[21:01] (machaira) Hey, we treat each other this way, and since you wanted things THAT way...well...
[21:01] (serrevin) feminism saddens me tell you the truth
[21:01] (machaira) *Shoryuken!*
[21:01] (serrevin) hahahaha
[21:01] (serrevin) hahahah
[21:01] (serrevin) that was classic bro
[21:01] (serrevin) i'm gonna steal that
[21:01] (machaira) LOL
[21:02] (serrevin) all they want is to be treated the way we're supposed to treat them
[21:02] (serrevin) but they're too proud to say so
[21:02] (serrevin) look how this culture treats them
[21:02] (machaira) Good words, man.
[21:02] (machaira) Go on
[21:02] (serrevin) what is an artist like britney spears saying to them
[21:02] (serrevin) " we don't really care about your talent, just take your clothes off"
[21:03] (machaira) Uhh..."We're open season?"
[21:03] (serrevin) commercials are the same
[21:03] (serrevin) we've got women taking their clothes off to sell everything
[21:03] (serrevin) and let's not even get into the porn issue
[21:04] (serrevin) so our culture has stripped them of dignity
[21:04] (machaira) (Which quite a number of radical feminists themselves endorse)
[21:04] (machaira) (porn, that is)
[21:04] (serrevin) true
[21:04] (machaira) Go on
[21:04] (serrevin) I think the "revenge" comment about feminism is correct
[21:05] (serrevin) but I also think it's the wordling's way of trying to get some dignity back
[21:05] (serrevin) they percieve men as the one with the power, and they want to be in that position because they're tired of being degraded
[21:05] (serrevin) hence the scream for "equality"
[21:05] (serrevin) but at the same time they want to be treated as the "weaker vessel"
[21:05] (machaira) "Oh look at them, they're better than us"
[21:05] (serrevin) which leads to the whole titanic situation
[21:06] (serrevin) there aren't many women running the porn industry, or the music industry, or the commercials that exploit them
[21:08] (serrevin) men have dropped the ball in this culture, look at the plague of the single mother for example
[21:09] (machaira) They want to be treated the same as men, but when the boat finally starts to sink they pressure us to treat them as the "weaker sex" instead of knocking them out with flash kicks like we're doing to each other.
[21:09] (machaira) True. If one party fails to do his responsibility, a domino effect follows.
[21:10] (serrevin) I think all the posturing for equality is a cry for dignity, a dignity that men have stripped them of
[21:10] (serrevin) think for a moment
[21:10] (serrevin) what is the reprobate mind of man going to do, seeing as God has given him headship?
[21:10] (machaira) Heh...plain and simple
[21:10] (machaira) Aggressive control
[21:10] (serrevin) exactly
[21:10] (serrevin) and how is the reprobate mind of woman going to respond to that?
[21:11] (machaira) "...your desire shall be over him..."
[21:11] (serrevin) "the message" translation would be "feminism"
[21:12] (serrevin) on the one hand they want the dignity that reprobate men have stripped them of, while at the same hand, they remember that they are supposed to be treated as queens, and they want that too
[21:12] (serrevin) that's why it's so amazing to see the way the lord dealt with women
[21:13] (machaira) The woman at the well, the woman caught in adultery...
[21:13] (serrevin) exactly
(non-related entries)
[21:14] (serrevin) and they responded to it
[21:14] (serrevin) my wife was a rabid feminist when I first met her
[21:14] (serrevin) and she's totally adopted a biblical position on the issue now

Also, irRational not only pointed out a misused word in the same article ("pimps" instead of "prostitutes") but also said something that I can't help but quote here:

[23:54] (irr2lurk) one thing that makes me angry is that feminists say i can do anything i want to do
[23:54] (irr2lurk) except that which i really want to do
[23:55] (irr2lurk) be a full time wife and mommy

Feminism is another thing that has affected me adversely, and I would like to write about it a bit more. Perhaps, God willing, I shall add it to my not-so-compiled writings on the Fall of Man and how it has affected every single aspect of life in the material and spiritual universe. Who knows, maybe it'll get to be a book someday...huh-huh-huh. ;-)

Egalitarianism...Yeahright

I can't believe how irritatingly one-sided and self-contradictory our Gender Development class is. On the one hand, it is asserted that women should be given equal treatment alongside men (laws, representation, "equal work opportunities", etc.). On the other, one group reported on women's health issues and how women have "special needs" that should be met. One is led to wonder just what ramifications it will have upon the feminist concept of egalitarianism.

Similarly, I was treated to a double standard: for a few rather emotionally-charged moments, the professor (who appears at first sight to be an equity feminist--the more "conservative" type--but is also laced with gender feminist ideologies) talked about constitutional amendments and how men might be charged with sexual harassment cases should they perform any offense. What caught my ear (and my ire) was her statement about how it was the right of women to wear sexy clothes because "it makes them feel good".

I was like "Oh my goodness...this is nothing short of a double standard." So it's OK for women to dress like prostitutes because it makes them feel good, but men suddenly have the added responsibility NOT to stare? Whatever happened to "equality"? Suddenly the whole concept of accountability fell squarely on the shoulders of the hapless male while the female was rendered free to do anything she wanted, and, hell's bells, to Sheol with the male if he ever loses any vestige of self-control in favor of staring at a cleavage for more than 1 second. Shades of the foolish woman condemned in the book of Proverbs come to mind. I remember a quote Shamgar once made in channel: "We are men, that's why we require you to stay clothed."

It doesn't end there. Later on we tackled the issue of how women are portrayed in the media, and the professor lamented not only the portrayal of women as sex objects (this I will not object to as far as my Christian worldview is concerned, for it reflects not only lasciviousness but also the whole "self-worship" lifestyle of the old Health Culture movement, which led to the rise of bodybuilding), but also the use of women to pressure OTHER women into buying products or services, like hairstyling and (of all things) laundry detergents. She claims that the media forces women to look and feel a certain way, to adopt a certain lifestyle, and to buy certain things, thus causing budgetary affliction.

Um, well. I thought women had the right to dress in sexy clothes because it made them "feel good"? Land sakes, folks, just look at Britney Spears and Ashanti! Because of them I regularly see girls who dress in jeans with fake gloss on the thighs and--dear me--buttocks. Those jeans are a lot more ridiculous in appearance than what you see here described, because in real life they look something like cowboy pants bleached at all the wrong places (and if I were to hazard a preference, I'd say I'll choose the cowboy pants over those jeans any day of the week). And I know one particular schoolmate who has hot oil treatments on a DAILY BASIS.

What about osteoporosis commercials? Aren't these "catering to women's special needs" as declared in class? And yet according to this logic, they seek to deny women a proper daily allowance of calcium because the media is swaying them to purchase a certain product for their own well-being and thus draining their cash reserves? And besides, isn't that what commercials are SUPPOSED to do in the first place: get customers to avail of a certain product? I can only imagine how they would react to Vitamin E commercials that showcase a very sexy female kickboxing instructor in tight Speedos who claims to "kick hard" because of her supplement intake! I'll tell you WHY they adopt this practice: it's because they believe women should be free to decide how they should look like, in what way they would define success, and what they should buy for themselves. I am left to wonder just how consistent that claim would be if what women wanted was to look and feel good "for themselves"...just like all those "successful women" in the TV ads. Besides, we had women prepping their hair with coconut paste and dressing in all sorts of outlandish jewelry WAY before shampoo with ginseng extract was ever invented.

I know how the media forces people to think one way and not the other; I will not deny that. But to first make a claim that women had the right to do anything they wanted with their bodies and later on deny this in light of "media bias" is ridiculous. It should be remembered that one tenet of media production is "Give the people what they want." Picture the following:

Advertisement says: "You need/want this." (as it is INTENDED to do!)

Woman says: "I want it!" (rendering her responsible because she desired it in the first place--else the commercial wouldn't have had any appeal to her. Why would you choose to get something you never wanted to begin with?)

Feminist tells Woman: "NO!!! You don't want that!" (I thought women should be free to do anything they want?)

Let me get this straight. Women are human. Humans are made in the image of God. We have, in respect to one another, unalienable rights. Therefore, women have unalienable rights that we as finite creatures should respect. They have the right to live healthy, happy lives like the rest of us do. However, it is a stretch to declare that both men and women should be treated equally in all things and in the broadest, most general sense of the word, and a contradiction to declare that while men and women should be treated equally, everyone should still cater to the "special needs" of women. Furthermore, it is a glaring contradiction to declare that women should have the right to do anything they wanted with themselves, and at the same time deny the desire of women who want to do something for themselves in the name of being free to do anything for oneself as a woman! Besides, as I noted in my previous blog entry on one atheist argument, just WHO defines rights and laws around here? Is it us? Or is it the triune God who made heaven, earth, and everything in them?

One article I read once said it best: "Feminists aren't interested in equality. What they want is revenge." They don't want to be recognized as humans with the same general rights every human being has had from the foundation of the world, but rather they want to rule the world and define those rights for themselves. Let the males suffer.




Mach thinks he's been reading too much Peter Pike articles

The Utter Foolishness of it All

"Can God make a square circle? Or a rock so big he can't lift it? You say he can't? But I thought your God was omnipotent? If he can't do these things, then he's not omnipotent."

Answer: God also happens to be the creator AND standard of logic and absolutes, and this argument shows not only a disregard for absolutism but also a glaring lack of logic. For example, what defines a circle? Or a square for that matter? Is it just the terminology, or also--and that more importantly-- the inherent qualities thereof (e.g. circumference, radius, lack of edges and corners, etc.)? A circle ceases to be a circle, both in name and quality, when it suddenly possesses a bunch of corners and straight edges.

Let's apply that to the rock argument. A rock, by definition, is a solid fragment or large mass of hardened mineral--an object with finite volume. God, on the other hand, is described by the Christian Bible as the very embodiment of infinity (Psalm 90:2). He has neither beginning nor end in all of his aspects. So how could he possibly create an object of limited size that he, an omnipotent being, cannot lift? That object would logically have to be WAY bigger than he is (i.e. bigger than infinity!) for him NOT to be able to budge it an inch. This is a logical fallacy. NOTHING can be greater than that which is infinitely great, and furthermore a rock would cease to be a rock by definition if it lacked any measurable qualities. Can you see the absurdity?

Secondly, the skeptic here challenges the concept of absolute standards and makes a play on words. He seeks to redefine meanings, primarily so that the Christian would be left confused and unable to tackle the real root of the problem within the atheist/skeptic, which is an unbelieving and rebellious heart naturally biased against anything God has to say (remember...Adam and Eve were tricked into wanting to know better than God, which led to the rebellion in Eden). You will want to point out that God is THE standard for uniformity and order; governance exists only if there was a governor to pass, implement and maintain laws. A circle is such because he decreed it to be. Rocks are finite because he decreed them to be. That which God has made crooked we cannot make straight (Ecclesiastes 7:13). Otherwise, to what purpose would the Scripture say "Woe unto them that call evil 'good', and good 'evil'!"? (Isaiah 5:20)

Lastly, the skeptic has tried to impose limitations upon God in attempting to challenge his omnipotence by letting him contradict himself. Surely, if he is all powerful then he could do anything, including becoming inconsistent! We may simply point him back to the transcendental argument. Just as we may ask who defines laws and universal standards, we may also ask who defines limitations and boundaries. Shall God, the unchanging God, be at all limited by the fact that He cannot bring into existence a certain logical fallacy due to certain universal parameters, when HE HIMSELF is the very reason those same parameters exist? We must point out to the skeptic the fact that God cannot contradict himself, for an ultimate standard cannot be inconsistent. He cannot be irrational (for he is the basis of rationale) or evil (for he is the standard of good).

God is not some arbitrary, random force. If anybody remembers that old comic book Judge Dredd, one may wish to note that the title character's tagline was "I am the law". God is no different! He IS the very basis for the law, as the law reflects his divine character (this is why Scripture's authority rests upon God himself...because the Bible is the very word that proceeded from God). Without law and order, there can only be...guess what? Anarchy. Chaos. Without consistency, there would be inconsistency. Without light, there would be darkness. Without good, there would be evil.

Take note: the opposites of all these concepts--law, order, consistency, light and good--are not concrete qualities in and of themselves. Rather, they entail the LACK of the aforementioned qualities. And shall an infinite God lack anything? Just because he cannot do something contrary to his nature does not mean that he is lacking. WE are the ones who are lacking because we cannot conform to his nature! We lack righteousness, therefore we are unrighteous. We lack wisdom, therefore we are foolish. We lack love, therfore we are unloving. God is not wanting in these things, for he is complete. And he cannot do the things which proceed from the shortage or absence of the qualities enumerated here, for that would mean he is lacking in some way.

Therefore, sorry skeptic dude. God can't make a square circle, for that would be a contradiction in terms. He is unable to make a rock so big he cannot lift it, for that would be a contradiction in concepts. And he isn't "limited" according to your demand for inconsistency as a quality, for he is the very reason that limitations, standards, consistency and the notions thereof exist.

Think about it. If God didn't exist, why would a circle be a circle at all?

(For more on this, visit Ryft's blog here, which contains a much more detailed article on the same subject. I love this apologetics stuff)