Allen’s second directorial foray (following 1966’s re-dubbed comedy, What’s Up, Tiger Lily?), also marked the second time he wrote, directed and starred in a film. The mockumentary chronicled Allen’s failed bank robber character, Virgil Starkwell.
“Midnight in Paris” is nominated for four Academy Awards, will Allen show up Sunday?
Woody Allen once famously said that “90 percent of life is just showing up.”
Now, with Allen’s “Midnight in Paris” nominated for four Academy Awards, including best picture, a lot of people are wondering if Allen might actually show up at this year’s Oscars, being broadcast this Sunday night on ABC.
But, if past awards ceremonies are any indication, don’t bet on it.
“Midnight in Paris,” which charmed critics and audiences alike, also earned Oscar nominations for best director, original screenplay and art direction. The tale of a modern-day Hollywood screenwriter, Gil (Owen Wilson), who travels back to the Paris of the 1920s to mingle with Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald, is Allen’s biggest box office hit ever.
Since opening last May, it’s taken in more than $56.5 million in this country, and almost $92 million more worldwide. And at age 76, with 41 movies to his credit, Woody Allen is enjoying some of the best reviews of his career, after a string of films that garnered lukewarm reviews.
Peter Travers, whose program “Popcorn” airs on ABC News Now, named “Midnight in Paris” to his Top 10 list, saying, “Allen’s love letter to the City of Light is his best and most beguiling film in years.” In his Rolling Stone review, Travers wrote, “Not since 1979’s Manhattan, in which he rhapsodized over the New York of his black-and-white dreams, has Allen used a camera to make such urgent, passionate love to a city.” He added, “For all the film’s bracing humor and ravishing romance, there are also haunting shadows. That alone makes it a keeper.”
Oscar Sunday: Everything you need to know
And what has made this particular romantic comedy and fantasy such a hit with audiences?
On the website Metacritic, one moviegoer said, “I’m ashamed of myself that I never watched a single Woody Allen movie until now. ‘Midnight in Paris’ is just simply dazzling. The script is smart and provokes intriguing ideas.” Another wrote, “Woody Allen’s latest film is as light as air, but still manages to say something of substance about the dangers of nostalgia and romanticizing the past.”
Woody Allen himself, the quintessential neurotic New Yorker, might have a thing or two to say about the raves.
In a recent Allen biography on PBS’s American Masters, Allen said of his many films, “So few of them are worth anything.”
But almost 50 years since his first screenplay (1965’s “What’s New Pussycat”) and his directorial debut (1966’s “What’s Up, Tiger Lily”), Hollywood begs to differ. Allen’s writing and directing have earned him more than 20 Oscar nominations, and he was even nominated once for Best Actor for his role in Annie Hall, which won a total of four Academy Awards in 1977, including best picture.
So why is the smart betting money he’ll be a no-show on Sunday?
Through all the decades of accolades, Woody Allen has consistently shunned awards shows. Already this season, he skipped the Oscar nominees’ luncheon and took a pass on the Golden Globes, where “Midnight in Paris” won best screenplay.
Back in 1974, when his funny, futuristic hit “Sleeper” was ignored by the Academy, Allen was quoted as saying, “The whole concept of awards is silly. I cannot abide by the judgment of other people, because if you accept it when they say you deserve an award, then you have to accept it when they say you don’t.”
Oscars Red Carpet
But there has been one, and only one, time that Allen appeared at the Oscars. He took the stage at the 2002 ceremonies, to show his support for New York in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks and urge the industry to keep making movies in the Big Apple.
In his own kind of personal love letter to the wounded city, he said New York was still a great, romantic, exciting place. In more typical Allen fashion, he acknowledged the standing ovation by quipping, “Thank you very much. That makes up for the strip search.”
Now, Woody Allen’s “Midnight in Paris,” his love letter to the City of Light, has him front and center at Oscar time once again.
Is he likely to be a winner? Thelma Adams, contributing editor for Yahoo! Movies, tells us that “Midnight in Paris” has its best chance for an Oscar with its writing, and that in the best original screenplay category, it’s the one to beat.
And will Allen be a no-show once again? When ABC News contacted his publicist’s office on Wednesday, we were told they were not able to comment on that.
But, if 90 percent of life is showing up, when the awards are handed out Sunday night, Woody Allen will probably stick with the 10 percent.
Woody Allen, the film writer, director, and actor, has consistently populated his scripts with characters who exchange dialogue concerning meaning and purpose. In Hannah and Her Sisters a character named Mickey says, “Do you realize what a thread were all hanging by? Can you understand how meaningless everything is? Everything. I gotta get some answers.”{7} […]
I have gone to see Woody Allen’s latest movie “Midnight in Paris” three times and taken lots of notes during the films. I have attempted since June 12th when I first started posting to give a historical rundown on every person mentioned in the film. Below are the results of my study. I welcome any […]
Looking at the (sometimes skewed) morality of Woody Allen’s best films. In the late ’60s, Woody Allen left the world of stand-up comedy behind for the movies. Since then, he’s become one of American cinema’s most celebrated filmmakers. Sure, he’s had his stinkers and his private life hasn’t been without controversy. But he’s also crafted […]
In one of his philosophical and melancholy musings Woody Allen once drily observed: “More than any other time in history, mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other, to total extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly.” Life tortures Woody Allen posted by Rod Dreher […]
Midnight in Paris – a delightfully entertaining film of wit, wonder and love Have you ever thought that you were born in the wrong time? Since I was a child, I found my love for MGM musicals set me apart from my friends. Are we really out of place, or is a sense of nostalgia […]
Five favorite Woody Allen classics Add a comment Sean Kernan , Davenport Classic Movies Examiner June 11, 2011 Woody Allen’s new film “Midnight in Paris” starring Owen Wilson, Rachel McAdams and Oscar winner Marion Cotillard opened Friday, June 10th at Rave Motion Pictures in Davenport, Iowa. “Midnight in Paris” stars Owen Wilson as a blocked […]
I know that you have complained about not getting all your appointments through the Senate. Max Brantley called it a cold war between the White House and the Republicans in the Senate over these appointments that were being held up. Today he jumps on this again in the Arkansas Times Blog (March 2, 2012).
Where did this “cold war” start? I contend that it started back during the Bush years when Mark Pryor and his Democratic buddies were holding up judges like Miguel Estrada for no good reason.
Paul Greenberg in the editorial “Dept. of Hypocrisy: Mark Pryor’s Selective Outrage,” (May 3, 2010) pointed out that Pryor was angry that Republicans were holding up the President’s picks for the federal bench. ”There’s just no place for this in the Senate,” he huffs. “There’s no place just to play partisan political games with these judicial appointments.” Greenberg went on to show how hypocritical this was of Pryor.
Liberal columnists seem to be the most hypocritical though. Take a look at this article below that shows how the NY Times keeps changing their opinion on this according to who is in the White House:
In an editorial last month, The New York Times argued that the Senate should adopt President Obama’s plan requiring the Senate to vote on judicial nominees within 90 days—thus eliminating the filibuster as applied to those nominations. The Times notes that this is a “major change in position” from its stance that the filibuster “goes to the center of the peculiar but effective form of government America cherishes.” As Ed Whelan pointed out, this is not the first time the Times has reversed course on the use of the filibuster. In 1995, the Times argued that the Senate, or “the greatest obstructive body,” should stop using the filibuster as it had “become the tool of the sore loser.”
Whelan noted that coincidentally, the Times opposed the filibuster when Senate Republicans used it to stall President Clinton’s executive-branch nominees but “hailed” its existence when it was used to block a number of President Bush’s judicial nominees. So, we won’t be surprised when the Times’ latest reluctant revelation that the filibuster “threaten[s] to paralyze government” us reversed yet again during the next Republican administration.
As for Obama, he voted as a Senator to filibuster a number of President Bush’s nominees—including Supreme Court Associate Justice Samuel Alito and Court of Appeals Judges Janice Rogers Brown, William Pryor, Priscilla Owen, and Leslie Southwick (and as Whelan discusses, Senator Obama not only voted for filibuster but led the unsuccessful attack against Southwick). As president, Obama now opposes the filibuster since it’s been used to thwart some of his nominees, including Goodwin Liu and Caitlin Halligan.
What the Times doesn’t discuss is one rather obvious reason why President Obama is calling for the Senate to change its rules now. The proposal itself raises the stakes if conservatives in the Senate slow down confirmation of judicial nominations to challenge the President’s recent unconstitutional “recess” appointments to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the NLRB. As Hans von Spakovsky discusses in this recent piece, conservative senators have yet to take meaningful action in response to the president’s purported recess appointments, but there reportedly are some senators who want to follow in the steps of Senator Robert Byrd, who infamously challenged President Reagan’s recess appointments by holding up a variety of Executive Branch nominees and even 5,000 military promotions. Eliminating the filibuster would further neuter the Senate in the face of future, illegal recess appointments—as the New York Times certainly knows.
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Thank you so much for your time. I know how valuable it is. I also appreciate the fine family that you have and your committment as a father and a husband.
Sincerely,
Everette Hatcher III, 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002, ph 501-920-5733, lowcostsqueegees@yahoo.com
Switchfoot is a Christian Band with a great message (Part 3)
One of my favorite bands is Switchfoot. Tim Foreman is the front man and this band has always been very vocal about their Christian faith. I am really enjoying this series on their band.
For many years, those who follow the Christian music scene have speculated whether or not Switchfoot is a Christian band. They began their career with that “label”, but once they achieved mainstream success they seemed to want to distant themselves from that “box”. Many of their songs contain a “Christian” message although they seem to avoid using the name of Jesus Christ in their songs.
For those of you not familiar with Switchfoot, they are an alternative rock band from San Diego, California. They have become one of the most popular alternative rock bands in the world in fact. The members of the band include Jon Foreman (vocals and guitar), Tim Foreman (bass guitar and backing vocals), Chad Butler (drums and percussion), Jerome Fontamillas (guitar, keyboards and backing vocals), and Drew Shirley (guitar and backing vocals).
But is Switchfoot a Christian band?
Should they even be included on this site?
How do they actually view their faith?
Jon Foreman put it this way in one interview: “We’ve always been very open and honest about where the songs are coming from. For us, these songs are for everyone. Calling us ‘Christian rock’ tends to be a box that closes some people out and excludes them. And that’s not what we’re trying to do. Music has always opened my mind—and that’s what we want”.
So is Switchfoot a Christian band or do they just cozy up to the Christian music industry when it will further their career. That is for you to decide.
It is apparent from this statement below that Senator Mark Pryor is against the Balanced Budget Amendment. He has voted against it over and over like his father did and now I will give reasons in this series why Senator Pryor will be defeated in his re-election bid in 2014. However, first I wanted to quote the statement Senator Pryor gave on December 14, 2011. This information below is from the Arkansas Times Blog on 12-14-11 and Max Brantley:
THREE CHEERS FOR MARK PRYOR: Our senator voted not once, but twice, today against one of the hoariest (and whoriest) of Republican gimmicks, a balanced budget amendment. Let’s quote him:
As H.L. Mencken once said, “For every complex problem there is a solution which is simple, clean, and wrong.” This quote describes the balanced budget amendment. While a balanced budget amendment makes for an easy talking point, it is an empty solution. Moreover, it’s a reckless choice that handcuffs our ability to respond to an economic downturn or national emergencies without massive tax increases or throwing everyone off Medicare, Social Security, or veteran’s care.There is a more responsible alternative to balance the budget. President Clinton led the way in turning deficits into record surpluses. We have that same opportunity today, using the blueprint provided by the debt commission as a starting point. We need to responsibly cut spending, reform our tax code and create job growth. This course requires hard choices over a number of years. However, it offers a more balanced approach over jeopardizing safety net programs and opportunity for robust economic growth.
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Mark Pryor has voting over and over to spend more than we have. A Balanced Budget Amendment would make that impossible. PROBABLY ONE OF THE MOST OFFENSIVE THINGS THAT PRYOR HAS DONE IS CONTINUE TO VOTE TO PASS BUDGETS THAT ARE NOT BALANCED AND NOW HE HAS BEEN GUILTY OF EARNING OUR COUNTRY A CREDIT DOWNGRADE. THAT IS ONE OF THE MAIN REASONS ARKANSANS WILL VOTE HIM OUT IN 2014 AND PUT SOMEONE IN THAT WILL VOTE FOR A BALANCED BUDGET AMENDMENT (like they did in 2010 when they replaced Senator Lincoln with a conservative Republican).
WASHINGTON– Today, Congressman Joe Walsh (IL-08) voted against the latest debt ceiling deal brokered by President Obama and Congressional leaders.
“Last night’s deal shows how far the debate has moved in just a few months,” said Congressman Walsh. “At the beginning of this debate President Obama demanded a blank check increase in the debt limit with no spending cuts attached. When that didn’t work, he insisted on huge tax increases on American families and job creators. The Republican Party, however, stood strong and refused to pay for reckless spending withmoretax increases.”
“While I give my Republican leadership all the credit in the world, I cannot support this latest deal: it spends too much and cuts too little. While this deal will cut $2.4 trillion from the national debt over the next 10 years, Washington will still add another $7 trillion to the national debt over that same period.”
“The fact that there are only $7 billion in cuts next year, an election year, shows how blatantly political this bill is. We need to be slashing reckless spending now and in the future, not just when it is politically convenient for the President.”
“Democrats still don’t get it and refuse to make the spending cuts necessary to avoid a credit downgrade. I have made it clear from day one that I will never vote for an increase in the debt ceiling unless it fundamentally and structurally changes the way Washington spends money. I believe that the way to do that is through statutory spending caps and a Balanced Budget Amendment to the Constitution.”
My liberal friends on the Arkansas Times Blog (Elwood and Sound Policy) are always upset when I suggest that we should have some real spending cuts in the budget but we can no longer kick the can down the street. I have heard people say that for years but after several deficits of a trillion in a row I am starting to really believe that fact.
The General Services Administration’s (GSA) scandalous spending at a 2010 conference has gotten plenty of attention. Rightly so, because the GSA officials’ misconduct resulted in a gross misuse of taxpayer dollars. But there is much more than egregious abuses of public resources by federal employees and managers.
One of the underlying drivers of such irresponsible spending is a big, bloated government that has a penchant for waste and an accompanying lack of oversight. Taxpayers deserve a better return on their money, a truth that Congress should put into practice by cleaning up any and all government waste.
Washington also misuses taxpayer dollars in less blatant ways. Take the 47 federal job training programs the federal government runs, for example. Or the 15 agencies involved in food safety and inspection. Congress ought to identify areas of program duplication and fragmentation and then consolidate or eliminate unnecessary ones. This recent Government Accountability Office report offers a myriad of programs to cut, combine, or restructure.
Don’t be fooled, though, by thinking that tackling waste alone or combining a handful of programs will solve the country’s twin crises of spending and debt. Waste is deplorable and unacceptable, yet it is small in comparison to the trillion-dollar-plus deficits recorded in recent years. More importantly, it is not the main contributor to Washington’s spending problem. The three major entitlement programs—Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security—constitute the lion’s share of current spending.
The future portends an even more oppressive burden from entitlement spending. The first baby boomers have reached retirement already, and millions more will become eligible for Medicare and Social Security benefits. Entitlement spending is on track to eclipse all tax revenues, meaning at that point the federal government would have to tax or borrow money to fund all other programs.
Congress and the President are expected to spend today’s taxpayer dollars wisely. They can accomplish this by rooting out waste, eliminating duplicative programs, and returning to a more limited government at the federal level. All of this will help restore Americans’ trust in their government. But to assure Americans that their children can have an even more prosperous future than they had, Congress should do the hard work of proposing entitlement program reforms—reforms that will get spending under control and unshackle future generations from crushing levels of taxes and debt.
I got to see Arthur Laffer speak in 1981 in Memphis and he predicted what would happen the next few years with tax revenue as a result of the Reagan Tax Cuts and he was right on every prediction.
But I haven’t specifically responded to some recent studies which make rather outlandish claims that the revenue-maximizing tax rate is 70 percent or above.
President Obama and others are demanding that we raise taxes on the “rich,” and two recent academic papers that have gotten a lot of attention claim to show that there will be no ill effects if we do. The first paper, by Peter Diamond of MIT and Emmanuel Saez of the University of California, Berkeley, appeared in the Journal of Economic Perspectives last August. The second, by Mr. Saez, along with Thomas Piketty of the Paris School of Economics and Stefanie Stantcheva of MIT, was published by the National Bureau of Economic Research three months later. Both suggested that federal tax revenues would not decline even if the rate on the top 1% of earners were raised to 73%-83%.
How do they arrive at such high numbers? Alan explains.
The authors arrive at their conclusion through an unusual calculation of the “elasticity” (responsiveness) of taxable income to changes in marginal tax rates. According to a formula devised by Mr. Saez, if the elasticity is 1.0, the revenue-maximizing top tax rate would be 40% including state and Medicare taxes. That means the elasticity of taxable income (ETI) would have to be an unbelievably low 0.2 to 0.25 if the revenue-maximizing top tax rates were 73%-83% for the top 1%. The authors of both papers reach this conclusion with creative, if wholly unpersuasive, statistical arguments.
Is this assumption warranted? Hardly. Alan elaborates, making the same points I’ve made about rich people being different than the rest of us.
But the ETI for all taxpayers is going to be lower than for higher-income earners, simply because people with modest incomes and modest taxes are not willing or able to vary their income much in response to small tax changes. So the real question is the ETI of the top 1%. Harvard’s Raj Chetty observed in 2009 that “The empirical literature on the taxable income elasticity has generally found that elasticities are large (0.5 to 1.5) for individuals in the top percentile of the income distribution.” In that same year, Treasury Department economist Bradley Heim estimated that the ETI is 1.2 for incomes above $500,000 (the top 1% today starts around $350,000).
Alan cites other studies as well, all of which show that Saez, Piketty, Diamond, and Stantcheva, are well outside the mainstream.
For all intents and purposes, they cherry-picked data and made unrealistic assumptions in order to justify class-warfare tax policies.
Hitler’s last few moments of life were filled with anxiety as they should have been. He went on to face his maker and pay dearly for his many sins. When I look at the never before released pictures of Hitler’s bunker, it makes me wonder how anyone can claim that this life doesn’t count for all eternity and people like Hitler are home free like Woody Allen’s movie “Crimes and Misdemeanors” suggests.
I am not going to give all the blog posts but there were many. Here is another one.
No Everette, god does not establish moral codes. We do. We can attribute them to any deity of your choosing but make no mistake we, society, set moral codes. I suppose you were at prayer meeting on the occasions we discussed civil and moral codes and origins. They existed long before the Hebrewic god came along.
Warning to fundamentalists: Don’t let go of your imaginary place called “Hell.” It could cost you a job, family and friends. So, since security is our most important possession hang on to Hell.
Elwood, answer this one question. HOW COULD JUDAH HAVE REMOVED HIS TROUBLESOME MISTRESS FROM HIS LIFE WITHOUT KILLING HER? Woody Allen knew what he was doing in this film and he was showing that without God and an afterlife then there is no reason not to murder!!!!
Woody Allen’s 1989 movie, CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS , is concerning the need of God while making decisions in the area of personal morality. In this film, Allen attacks his own atheistic view of morality. Martin Landau plays a Jewish eye doctor named Judah Rosenthal raised by a religious father who always told him, “The eyes of God are always upon you.” However, Judah later concludes that God doesn’t exist. He has his mistress (played in the film by Anjelica Huston) murdered because she continually threatened to blow the whistle on his past questionable, probably illegal, business activities. She also attempted to break up Judah ‘s respectable marriage by going public with their two-year affair. Judah struggles with his conscience throughout the remainder of the movie. He continues to be haunted by his father’s words: “The eyes of God are always upon you.” This is a very scary phrase to a young boy, Judah observes. He often wondered how penetrating God’s eyes are.
Later in the film, Judah reflects on the conversation his religious father had with Judah ‘s unbelieving Aunt May at the dinner table many years ago:
“Come on Sol, open your eyes. Six million Jews burned to death by the Nazis, and they got away with it because might makes right,” says aunt May
Sol replies, “May, how did they get away with it?”
Judah asks, “If a man kills, then what?”
Sol responds to his son, “Then in one way or another he will be punished.”
Aunt May comments, “I say if he can do it and get away with it and he chooses not to be bothered by the ethics, then he is home free.”
Judah ‘s final conclusion was that might did make right. He observed that one day, because of this conclusion, he woke up and the cloud of guilt was gone. He was, as his aunt said, “home free.”
Woody Allen has exposed a weakness in his own humanistic view that God is not necessary as a basis for good ethics. There must be an enforcement factor in order to convince Judah not to resort to murder. Otherwise, it is fully to Judah ‘s advantage to remove this troublesome woman from his life.
…Elwood, are you missing in action? Earlier you asserted, “No everette, God does not establish moral codes. We do.” However, you will not elaborate on what the atheist Judah should have done to silence his mistress and save his marriage. Should he have confessed it all (including his past illegal activities) and faced the penalties or pay his hitman brother to have her done away with quietly like he did?
When it comes to morals you like to make big statements but you can not back it up by answering this simple question. I would love to hear from other atheists on this too. Maybe they will run and hide.
I don’t think eLwood is going to drop by, so I’ll take my shot at this.
You are correct that Woody Allen has pointed up a feature of the world as it exists, a feature that I don’t happen to like: People sometimes get away with murder.
What you don’t get, though, is what I just said: It is a feature of the world as it exists that justice is not inherent. Whether you or I like that or not, it’s how it is. In a world without any god, justice and meaning and all good and moral things have to be determined and imposed by people.
With god, one could, in theory, just shrug one’s shoulders at Hitler and say, “You’ll get yours, someday.” With the Christian god as accepted by many fundamentalists, Hitler could make a deathbed conversion and go straight to heaven, do not pass hell, do not collect eternal damnation.
Another great artist, Randy Newman, speaking as the Devil makes this point to an angel, “a good girl, cut down in your prime”, recently arrived in heaven:
“The man who shot you in the head In that ‘Burger King in Tucson Well, he never will be punished you know He will move to Big Pine, California Become the richest man in Inyo County While that may not be much, it’s enough When he dies Sixty-five years from today With his loved ones all around him He’ll be whisked right up to heaven He won’t pass go or have to wait He’ll just march right through the Goddamned gate And why, you may ask yourself why For thousands and thousands of years I have asked myself why”
To which James Taylor, playing God, answers:
“Faith. Contrition. Sincere contrition. Confession. Sincere confession Redemption. Absolution Those who seek Me shall find Me In the case of this man, Predestination
My ways are mysterious Sometimes even to myself My ways are mysterious”
Now, that’s not terribly satisfying from a moral point of view either. The “death and glory” version of Universalism, where all souls go to heaven as soon as they leave the body makes much more sense from an ethical point of view, especially if you accept the late Bill Hicks’ description of life:
“It’s just a ride and we can change it any time we want. It’s only a choice. No effort, no work, no job, no savings and money, a choice right now, between fear and love. The eyes of fear want you to put bigger locks on your door, buy guns, close yourself off. The eyes of love instead see all of us as one.”
Of course, Hicks, like myself, was somewhere between an agnostic and an atheist. Like Hicks, I don’t expect any life after death or eternal reward. Justice has to be provided here on earth.
So when a Hitler or a Nixon dies, not unpunished–both those men suffered, though not in proportion to their evil–or scot free, but still without having truly experienced justice for their sins, it’s the fault of those women and men who didn’t work hard enough to impose justice upon them.
That’s the ethical duty we face in the absence of god: Justice here and now, determined by human reason and imposed by human action.
Martin King’s riff on Theodore Parker’s claim, that the arc of the universe is long but that it bends toward justice, is true in a world populated by humans, who aren’t bad and who take that arc in their hands and bend it for all they’re worth. Atheists and thoughtful theists alike don’t depend on god to git-r-done (for values of ‘r’ which include ‘justice’).
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Let me start responding by first quoting two points that you make:
You are correct that Woody Allen has pointed up a feature of the world as it exists, a feature that I don’t happen to like: People sometimes get away with murder.
What you don’t get, though, is what I just said: It is a feature of the world as it exists that justice is not inherent. Whether you or I like that or not, it’s how it is. In a world without any god, justice and meaning and all good and moral things have to be determined and imposed by people.
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Let us take a close look at how you are going to come up with morality as an atheist. When you think about it there is no way around the final conclusion that it is just your opinion against mine concerning morality. There is no final answers. However, if God does exist and he has imparted final answers to us then everything changes.
What doesn’t make sense is to look at the existence of evil and question the existence of God. The reason is that atheism turns out being a self-defeating philosophic solution to this problem of evil. Think of what evil is for a minute when we make this kind of objection. Evil is a value judgment that must be measured against a morally perfect standard in order to be meaningful. In other words, something is evil in that it departs from a perfect standard of good. C.S. Lewis made the point, “My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call something crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line.”[ 1 ] He also goes on to point out that a portrait is a good or a bad likeness depending on how it compares with the “perfect” original. So to talk about evil, which is a departure from good, actually presumes something that exists that is absolutely good. If there is no God there’s no perfect standard, no absolute right or wrong, and therefore no departure from that standard. So if there is no God, there can’t be any evil, only personal likes and dislikes–what I prefer morally and what I don’t prefer morally.
This is the big problem with moral relativism as a moral point of view when talking about the problem of evil. If morality is ultimately a matter of personal taste–that’s what most people hold nowadays–then it’s just your opinion what’s good or bad, but it might not be my opinion. Everybody has their own view of morality and if it’s just a matter of personal taste–like preferring steak over broccoli or Brussels sprouts–the objection against the existence of God based on evil actually vanishes because the objection depends on the fact that some things are intrinsically evil–that evil isn’t just a matter of my personal taste, my personal definition. But that evil has absolute existence and the problem for most people today is that there is no thing that is absolutely wrong. Premarital sex? If it’s right for you. Abortion? It’s an individual choice. Killing? It depends on the circumstances. Stealing? Not if it’s from a corporation.
The fact is that most people are drowning in a sea of moral relativism. If everything is allowed then nothing is disallowed. Then nothing is wrong. Then nothing is ultimately evil. What I’m saying is that if moral relativism is true, which it seems like most people seem to believe–even those that object against evil in the world, then the talk of objective evil as a philosophical problem is nonsense. To put it another way, if there is no God, then morals are all relative. And if moral relativism is true, then something like true moral evil can’t exist because evil becomes a relative thing.
An excellent illustration of this point comes from the movie The Quarrel . In this movie, a rabbi and a Jewish secularist meet again after the Second World War after they had been separated. They had gotten into a quarrel as young men, separated on bad terms, and then had their village and their family and everything destroyed through the Second World War, both thinking the other was dead. They meet serendipitously in Toronto, Canada in a park and renew their friendship and renew their old quarrel.
To paraphrase the late Dr. Francis Schaeffer, the person who argues against the existence of God based on the existence of evil in the world has both feet firmly planted in mid-air.
Rabbi Hersch says to the secularist Jew Chiam, “If a person does not have the Almighty to turn to, if there’s nothing in the universe that’s higher than human beings, then what’s morality? Well, it’s a matter of opinion. I like milk; you like meat. Hitler likes to kill people; I like to save them. Who’s to say which is better? Do you begin to see the horror of this? If there is no Master of the universe then who’s to say that Hitler did anything wrong? If there is no God then the people that murdered your wife and kids did nothing wrong.”
That is a very, very compelling point coming from the rabbi. In other words, to argue against the existence of God based on the existence of evil forces us into saying something like this: Evil exists, therefore there is no God. If there is no God then good and evil are relative and not absolute, so true evil doesn’t exist, contradicting the first point. Simply put, there cannot be a world in which it makes any sense to say that evil is real and at the same time say that God doesn’t exist. If there is no God then nothing is ultimately bad, deplorable, tragic or worthy of blame. The converse, by the way, is also true. This is the other hard part about this, it cuts both ways. Nothing is ultimately good, honorable, noble or worthy of praise. Everything is ultimately lost in a twilight zone of moral nothingness. To paraphrase the late Dr. Francis Schaeffer, the person who argues against the existence of God based on the existence of evil in the world has both feet firmly planted in mid-air.
Francis Schaeffer pictured above.
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By your own admission man imposes his own morality and that is why I want to challenge atheist like “John Arkansawyer” to show what basis he has for saying Hitler was wrong!!!
Early in his career Hitler was popular and many of the German people bought into his anti-semetic views. Does the atheist have an intellectual basis to condemn Hitler’s actions?
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I personally met someone who was part of the Hitler youth movement in Germany in the 1930’s and until his dying day he believed that Hitler was right. I had a basis for knowing that Hitler was wrong and here it is below.
It is my view that according the Bible all men are created by God and are valuable. However, the atheist has no basis for coming to this same conclusion. Francis Schaeffer put it this way:
We cannot deal with people like human beings, we cannot deal with them on the high level of true humanity, unless we really know their origin—who they are. God tells man who he is. God tells us that He created man in His image. So man is some- thing wonderful.
Francis Schaeffer died in 1984, but there is a website dedicated to his works. In 1972 he wrote the book “He is There and He is Not Silent.” Here is the statement that sums up that book:
One of philosophy’s biggest problems is that anything exists at all and has the form that it does. Another is that man exists as a personal being and makes true choices and has moral responsibility. The Bible gives sufficient answers to these problems. In fact, the only sufficient answer is that the infinite-personal triune God is there and He is not silent. He has spoken to man in the Bible.
The basic question Woody Allen is presenting to his own agnostic humanistic worldview is: If you really believe there is no God there to punish you in an afterlife, then why not murder if you can get away with it? The secular humanist worldview that modern man has adopted does not work in the real world that God has created. God “has planted eternity in the human heart…” (Ecclesiastes 3:11). This is a direct result of our God-given conscience. The apostle Paul said it best in Romans 1:19, “For that which is known about God is evident to them and made plain in their inner consciousness, because God has shown it to them” (Amplified Version).
It’s no wonder, then, that one of Allen’s fellow humanists would comment, “Certain moral truths — such as do not kill, do not steal, and do not lie — do have a special status of being not just ‘mere opinion’ but bulwarks of humanitarian action. I have no intention of saying, ‘I think Hitler was wrong.’ Hitler WAS wrong.” (Gloria Leitner, “A Perspective on Belief,” The Humanist, May/June 1997, pp.38-39). Here Leitner is reasoning from her God-given conscience and not from humanist philosophy. It wasn’t long before she received criticism.
Humanist Abigail Ann Martin responded, “Neither am I an advocate of Hitler; however, by whose criteria is he evil?” (The Humanist, September/October 1997, p. 2.). Humanists don’t really have an intellectual basis for saying that Hitler was wrong, but their God-given conscience tells them that they are wrong on this issue.
Crimes and Misdemeanors (Woody Allen – 1989) – Final scenes
There are so many reasons to abstain from drinking. (At the end of this post I will give three more reasons I do not drink.) Below is an excellent reason to avoid drinking because you realize that just after two drinks you may end up facing the legal difficulties that Heather Harrington is now facing.
Many times I have been in Knoxville on business and got to listen to the “Sports Animal” radio shows. I have even called in several times.
Posted May 7, 2012 at 4:44 p.m., updated May 7, 2012 at 5:48 p.m.
A local sports radio personality and former Lady Vol is facing charges in connection with a drunken-driving arrest last month.
Heather Harrington, 28, co-host for WNML’s Sports Animal morning show, was arrested April 29 for allegedly driving under the influence, according to an arrest warrant.
The former University of Tennessee volleyball player allegedly ran a stop sign while northbound on Morrell Road at the corner of Nubbin Ridge Road in a 2005 Ford just after 1:30 a.m.
When stopped by police, Harrington had a very strong odor of alcohol on her person, bloodshot eyes and slurred speech, according to Knoxville Police Department Officer Jeffery Green’s comments in the warrant.
She was unsteady on her feet when exiting the vehicle and performed poorly in a field sobriety test, the warrant states. She also refused to submit to a blood test.
Harrington told the officer she had consumed two drinks at the Tin Roof on Northshore Drive.
The radio host was charged with first offense DUI, failure to provide proof of insurance, failure to obey a stop sign and violation of the implied consent law.
She later was released on a $500 appearance bond.
According to court records, Harrington previously was arrested in Knoxville for disorderly conduct in March 2004.
Harrington goes preppy with a polo shirt and cargo pants.
Photo by Saul YoungHarrington goes preppy with a polo shirt and cargo pants.
Photo by Saul YoungShe’s a brick house in Kenzie cuffed short shorts and a BCBG bell-sleeve floral wrap top. Harrington completes the look with BCBG shoes.
Photo by Saul YoungTailored jeans and a textured tank are what Harrington wears on air at The Sports Animal radio station.
Fashion advice: “Wear what makes you feel most comfortable.”
Fashion motto: “Only heels after 5.”
She finds a way to transition from sports replays to Knoxville’s need for a Nordstrom on The Sports Animal radio station.
Radio personality Heather Harrington, 23, determinedly hits Nordstrom’s Mecca of a shoe department when in other cities.
Hailing from Houston, where “big style” reigns, the former University of Tennessee volleyball player’s weakness is shoes — BCBG and Manolo Blanhnik labels can be found in her collection of more than 40 pairs.
Not a slave to labels, Harrington shops anywhere that suits her 6-foot-1-inch frame. She lets us into her closet:
What are you currently obsessing about having in your closet? Sunglasses, in every color and print; I just love them because you can put on a pair with no makeup and you still look great.
Name a purchase you charged that you wish you hadn’t? (Laughing) I don’t have buyer’s remorse too often.
What should every woman have her closet? A black dress and high heels.
If you could take only three things from your closet to a desert island, what would they be? A sarong that I got as a gift from Malaysia that can be worn as a skirt or a dress and two bathing suits.
Do you ever wear your pajamas on air? I used to but that didn’t always look so good if I had to meet with someone unexpectedly or if a tour or something was going to be happening at the radio station. I usually wear tailored jeans and some type of white top — a white fitted tee, a white button-down
What could happen in the world of fashion to change the world? It would take something like all the designers refusing to have their clothes made at child labor sweatshops or anywhere with inhumane conditions.
Have you ever been a fashion-don’t? Oh, yeah, when I was younger, in junior high school, I could never find pants long enough for me. So I was definitely wearing a lot of floods.
What does your dream closet look like? It is filled with shoes and is a huge walk-in closet.
What do women not need any more of in their closets? Pantyhose; just go get a spray-on tan and get rid of the pantyhose.
What is it about women’s fashion that you think most men don’t understand? Our obsession with shoes and bags. It’s not meant for them to understand, and they shouldn’t complain about a woman’s collection of shoes.
How often do you shop? And where? Probably three to four times a month. I’ll shop anywhere but especially when I go out of town I am on a mission for places to shop.
The last time you dressed up I wore a brown chiffon BCBG dress and snakeskin high heels to a wedding in D.C.
It’s been said that shopping is euphoria for women. What are your thoughts on this notion? Retail therapy works. When I shop alone, it’s about having “me” time.
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A police officer stopped Heather before she had a wreck. Unfortunately there was no officer there to stop Ryan Dunn back on the Sunday night in June of 2011 when he was killed driving drunk.
Flickr user Eric Lewis posted the image below with a caption that says the photo shows what’s left of Dunn’s car.
Ryan Dunn tweeted a picture of himself drinking from a bar. At 2 am he left the bar and a few minutes later he was killed after running off the road in his car.There are three reasons that I do not drink and here they are.First,alcohol has brought a social plague on our country not matched by anything we have ever seen in the past. I will never forget the day I heard this statistic in 1975: “Drunk drivers are responsible for 50% of highway fatalities.”My pastor Adrian Rogers shared that statistic from the pulpit. I was only 14 years old at the time, but I was looking forward to driving. It caused me to realize that I had to abstain from alcohol and try to convince my friends and family to do likewise.Second, the Bible does condemn alcoholic wine. There were three kinds of wine mentioned in the Bible (grapes, grape juice and strong drink). Wine in the cluster which is equal to our grapes. Isaiah 65:8 ” “As the new wine is found in the cluster…” The point I am making here is very clear. The Bible does refer to nonalcoholic wine which is equal to our grape juice. Don’t take for granted everytime you read the word “wine” in the Bible that it is referring to the kind of wine we are used to today.Next we have the term “strong drink” which is equal to our wine today. Strong drink is condemned. .Proverbs 20:1 states, “Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging: and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise. ”
WHAT WAS “STRONG DRINK” IN BIBLE TIMES?
Distillation was not discovered until about 1500 A.D. Strong drink and unmixed wine in Bible times was from 3% to 11% alcohol. Dr. John MacArthur says “…since anybody in biblical times who drank unmixed wine (9-11% alcohol) was definitely considered a barbarian, then we dont even need to discuss whether a Christian should drink hard liquor–that is apparent!”
Since wine has 9 to 11% alcohol and one brand 20% alcohol, you should not drink that. Brandy contains 15 to 20% alcohol, so thats out! Hard liquor has 40 to 50% alcohol (80 to 100 proof), and that is obviously excluded!
For documentation on this subject Google “alcohol” with the name of Adrian Rogers or John MacArthur. These theologians have covered this subject fully with biblical references.
Third, Romans 14:21 states, “It is better not to eat meat (that had been offered to idols) or drink wine or to do anything else that will cause your brother to fall.” If a person rejects all the linguistic arguments, there is still Romans 14:21 concerning not causing a weaker brother to stumble..
It is consistent with the ethic of love for believers and unbelievers alike. Because I am an example to others, I will make certain no one ever walks the road of sorrow called alcoholism because they saw me take a drink and assumed, “if it is alright for Everette Hatcher, it is alright for me.” No, I will choose to set an uncompromising example of abstinence because I love them. The fact is that 1 of every 6 drinkers in the USA are problem drinkers. Maybe if my family of 6 drank, that could be me or one of my children?
Billy Sunday told a story that illustrates this principle:
I feel like an old fellow in Tennessee who made his living by catching rattlesnakes. He caught one with fourteen rattles and put it in a box with a glass top. One day when he was sawing wood his little five-year old boy,Jim, took the lid off and the rattler wriggled out and struck him in the cheek. He ran to his father and said, “The rattler has bit me.” The father ran and chopped the rattler to pieces, and with his jackknife he cut a chunk from the boy’s cheek and then sucked and sucked at the wound to draw out the poison. -He looked at little Jim, watched the pupils of his eyes dilate and watched him swell to three times his normal size, watched his lips become parched and cracked, and eyes roll, and little Jim gasped and died.
The father took him in his arms, carried him over by the side of the rattler, got on his knees and said, “God, I would not give little Jim for all the rattlers that ever crawled over the Blue Ridge mountains.”
That is the question that must be answered by everyone no matter what their religious beliefs. Is the pleasure of drinking alcohol worth the life of one of your children?
Probably the most telling is the last statistic: 95% of alcoholics die from their disease and die approximately 26 years earlier than their normal life expectancy.
WPVI Action News 6.20.11 – Report on the death of Ryan Dunn and friend Zac Hartwell from the scene Daredevil Ryan Dunn and his passenger died from the impact of the violent car crash and the resulting fire, according to a coroner’s report Tuesday. The Chester County coroner listed blunt force trauma and thermal trauma […]
Roger Ebert’s tweets on “Jackass” set Internet on fire Roger Ebert and Ryan Dunn (Credit: CBS/Getty) (CBS) Maybe this is what happens when friends let film critics tweet. In the hours after news broke of “Jackass” star Ryan Dunn’s death by fiery car accident, film critic and prolific Twitter user Roger Ebert tweeted, “‘Jackass’ […]
Ryan Dunn seen on Sunday night. This shot was removed from his tumblr site. Ryan Dunn tweeted a picture of himself drinking from a bar. At 2 am he left the bar and a few minutes later he was killed after running off the road in his car.There are three reasons that I do not […]
Buzz driving is drunk driving. This is a popular advertisement run by our local law inforcement office. Does the Ryan Dunn case prove their point? Published: Celebrities with diseases reported June 20, 2011 Given the crazy nature by which they lived it was perhaps inevitable that one of the “Jackass” cast would eventually wind up on […]
Ryan Dunn dies in car crash Jackass movie star Ryan Dunn died in a car crash in Pennsylvania early Monday morning. He was 34. Hours before the crash, Dunn posted a photo to Twitter, by way of his Tumblr blog, that depicted him drinking with friends. An unidentified passenger also died in the crash. […]
Video clip with picture of car Ryan Dunn was in before being killed this morning: ‘Jackass’ Star Ryan Dunn Killed in Car Accident By DavidOnda Mon, 20 Jun 2011 15:25:50 GMT Ryan Dunn, star of MTV’s “Jackass,” was killed this morning in a one-car accident in West Goshen, Pennsylvania. The first reports began pouring onto […]
Marin Čilić (Croatian pronunciation: [mâriːn tʃǐːlitɕ]) (born 28 September 1988) is a Croatian professional tennis player. His career high ATP ranking is no. 9, achieved on 22 February 2010, following his best-ever performance at a Grand Slam, reaching the semi-finals in the 2010 Australian Open. Čilić developed his career at a young age; his potential was realized by local hometown coaches who saw him play and encouraged his move to Zagreb for further training.[1] He was soon befriended by his fellow countryman Goran Ivanišević who introduced him to current coach Bob Brett.[2] He went on to turn professional in 2005.[3] He is known to support Italian Serie A side A.C. Milan.[4]
Interview with Tim Foreman and Chad Butler airing February 26th, 2007.
Discuss: cowbell, Christianity, fan connection
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Switchfoot is a Christian Band with a great message (Part 2)
One of my favorite bands is Switchfoot. Tim Foreman is the front man and this band has always been very vocal about their Christian faith. I am really enjoying this series on their band.
Andrew Shirley – guitar – Birthday (married with a daughter)
Switchfoot Bio:
Switchfoot is an alternative rock band from San Diego, CA, that was formed in 1996 by brothers Jon and Tim Foreman and their surfing buddy, Chad Butler. Though they competed in national surf championships on weekends and were good enough to earn product endorsements from equipment companies, their real passion was music. The guys formed a band (originally known as Chin Up) and they released three albums before making their major label debut in 2003.In 2001, Jerome Fontimillas joined the band playing keys, guitar, and singing background vocals.
Drew Shirley started touring with the band as a guitarist in 2003. He officially joined Switchfoot in 2005.
My niece Mallory Nail went to see Switchfoot in concert at John Brown University on Oct 14, 2011 and I am very jealous. 969 Switchfoot Interview #2 Interview with Tim Foreman and Chad Butler airing March 13th, 2007. Discuss: idea of success, fan interaction ________________________________________ Switchfoot is a Christian Band with a great message (Part […]
The Daily Hatch 