My experiences as a snake owner and as a snake enthusiast. With a healthy potpourri of other stuff...




Sunday, August 29, 2010

Religious Freedom

I went to see "The Last Exorcism" yesterday. I am a sucker for scary movies, if you haven't realized it by now. My sister wasn't working so I asked her if she wanted to go with me to the movies, but she sheepishly said no. She, on the other hand, is really terrified of scary movies. Fair enough. I went by myself.

Overall, I liked the movie. It is not nearly scary enough, but it is an interesting premise.
The main character, Reverend Cotton, was a child preacher who grew up so used to the whole idea of God that he found himself an adult lacking faith in his own preachings. He had performed tons of exorcisms, but believed in none of them. The whole movie is filmed documentary style, with an actual cameraman following the Reverend along while he tries to show the world that exorcisms are scams and that the people who perform them are frauds.
We follow him to a house in Louisiana, where a young woman has been supposedly possessed by a demon. I don't want to give anything away, beacuse it is a movie worth seeing, but there are several twists and turns that I, as the audience, didn't see coming and which were quite refreshing.
I was, however, a little disappointed at the ending. That's becoming kind of the norm these days, and I am left wondering why. In a lot of the books I've recently read and in a lot of the movies I've recently seen, the endings seemed to be thrown together at the last minute and held in place with clothepins. I can imagine the writers and directors praying to their respective gods that no one would blow too hard on their creations and unravel them.
The ending was crap, which sucked because I really liked the movie.
Something else that bothered me was the use of magical symbols in the ending scenes.
As a pagan, more specifically a ceremonial magician, I was a bit on edge when I saw pentacles and triquetras drawn on walls as symbols representing the devil and Satan worship. An upside-down pentacle is not a problem because that truly is the sign of Satanists, but when you put a right-side up one next to it, you're bashing my religion. I am not a Satan worshiper because I don't believe in Satan or Jesus. I respect everyone who does, however, and I would never go around misusing THEIR religious symbols.
Maybe I am being too picky, but my religion has been persecuted by every other religion for a very, very long time, and I don't think we need to give the Christian and Jewish fanatics out there more ammunition. They already call us Satan worshippers, blasphemers, evil, damned, etc. I have people making the sign of the cross at me when I go walking around my neighborhood with my pentacle on. Why should I be accosted like that when they get to wear their crosses and Stars of David whenever and wherever they want?
Please do your research before you use one of our symbols.
Thus ends MY preaching.

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