I'm a hard-core fan of movies. Movie critics often say that TV movies tend to be too bad or mediocre (bad or mediocre cast, special effects, plots, etc.).
But even the most critical reviewer of movies concede that some TV movies (i.e. movies made for TV, not for theaters) are good and even excellent.
Without a doubt, this is the case of SHARKNADO, a recent TV movie (aired on Syfy channel) which has became a sensation in twitter.
The movie is about what, at first glance, is very implausible disaster scenario (a hurricane hits Los Angeles, California, causing a bunch of sharks to be scooped up in water spouts and flooding the city, both on land and air, with shark-infested seawater), you would think (at least it was what I thought) that the movie would be, at best, ridiculous (and at worst, just boring, repetitive and a waste of time).
I was wrong.
Being a fan of shark movies (and movies about other predators), I've always assumed that the obvious defense from ANY kind of attacks by sharks was essentially to stay away from the water. (My thesis was "Well, if it is about defending against shark attacks, just keep yourself far away from the shark's territory". Obviously, such simplistic and apparently common-sense "solution", which would work fine in most cases, wouldn't apply at all in the context of the movie...).
I have to confess that, among the recent movies that I've watched, this is problably the best (in terms of entertaiment, at least). It has some good acting performances, reasonably good special effects, a good dosage of clever sense of humor in dangerous scenes, and tends to keep you interested and entertained from the beginning to the end.
So, I was not surprised to discover that this movie has been a kind of sensation in twitter. The movie's apparently absurd scenario actually impressed a lot of viewers in the United States and other countries, getting mostly positive comments and reviews.
Viewers took to Twitter in droves with a combination of excitement, sarcasm and confusion, but a general sense of being entertained. If nothing else, the movie sparked discussion. According to CNN, "It's perfect fodder for the Twitterverse, where hashtag #Sharknado was a top trending topic early Friday."
It was reported some weeks after the movie were aired on Syfy that a sequel will be made...
If you have not watching it yet, I suggest you to do it.
I don't think children should watch it, but I'm sure most adults will enjoy it.
In a previous post, I commented about the movie Red Lights, which (I argued) was apparently promoting pseudo-skepticism in Hollywood. I was only partially wrong, but I won't tell you the story of the movie, you should watch it by yourself (it is a very good movie, by the way... you are going to enjoy it a lot).
I'm going to comment only that one of my top favorite actresses, Sigourney Weaver, features a nice but tough-minded, highly intelligent woman and very experienced and trained experimental scientist, whose professional experience dealing with "psychics" has made her a hard-nosed skeptic. She fully knows the fake psychic's bag of tricks and how to design experiments to expose them.
I suspect that Weaver's role was inspired in professional skeptic Susan Blackmore. Although less eccentric than Blackmore, Weaver's role is very similar in her scientific approach and moderate manners (not a Randi-like type of rhetorical skeptic), specially regarding the fact that her skepticism is based on her own personal scientific experience.
In fact, when a student questions her about whether she thinks that all paranormal claims are false, she answers that she's not saying such a thing, that her point is that most of them can be explained in conventional ways, according to her experience.
Remember that Blackmore has said that she didn't find any convincing scientific evidence for psi (this is not exactly like that, because she has admitted in Confessions of a Parapsychologists that "The other major challenge to the skeptic's position is, of course, the fact that opposing evidence exists in the parapsychological literature. I couldn't dismiss it all." (p. 74), so actually she knew that positive scientific evidence did exist for psi, only that she couldn't find it in her own experiments).
The end of the movie is, for a large extension, very unexpected. I think this movie should be watched by all fans, students and reserachers of parapsychology and psychic research, and even pseudoskeptics will surely like it, except for...
PS I ask all the readers that, while watching the movie, ask themselves: Am I more sympathetic to DeNiro (the psychic) or to the researchers (Weaver and Cillian)? This test will tell you a lot about your own prejudices...
The main and most powerful argument for atheism is the so-called "Problem of Evil": roughly and in its logical version, this argument says that the existence of evil is logically incompatible with God's attributes of omnipotence and perfect goodness, because such a good powerful God could make disappear any evil and suffering if He wanted it. (If He couldn't, He wouldn't be omnipotent. But if He could but he doesn't want it, then his perfect goodness is non-existent).
You have to keep in mind that even if the logical version of the problem of evil were solid, it wouldn't be a proof for atheism. At most, it would be a proof against the traditional theistic understanding of God (as a God who is active in the world). But it left untouched a God as conceived by deists like former atheist philosopher of religion Antony Flew. In this interview, when asked about the problem of evil, the deist Flew answered: "For the deist, the existence of evil does not pose a problem because the deist God does not intervene in the affairs of the world."
So, the problem of evil falls short as a proof for atheism.
Moreover, as consequence of the works of philosophers like Alvin Plantinga (see specially his seminal book "God, Freedom and Evil"), the logical version of the problem of evil has been widely rejected by contemporary philosophers of religion.
As William Rowe, who's a prominent atheist philosopher of religion and defender of atheism, comments: "Some philosophers have contended that the existence of evil is logically inconsistent with the existence of the theistic God. No one, I think, has succeeded in establishing such an extravagant claim. Indeed, granted incompatibilism, there is a fairly compelling argument for the view that the existence of evil is logically consistent with the existence of the theistic God." (William L. Rowe, ‘The Problem of Evil and Some Varieties of Atheism’, American Philosophical Quarterly 16 (1979). Emphasis in blue added)
As consequence, atheist philosophers have developed the so-called "evidential" problem of evil, namely, the view that, granted the logical compatibility between God's attributes and the existence of evil, the latter makes improbable the existence of God (i.e. the existence of evil is empirical evidence against God's existence). This is the main argument of atheists today.
An obvious problem with this argument is that, according to classical theism, God's existence is necessary (hence, not a matter of probability calculus which only applies properly to contingent beings and events, i.e. beings and events which could or couldn't fail to exist or occur, and precisely for this reason their existence can be "probable" or "improbable" given a certain background). Therefore, if God's existence is even possible (i.e. logically possible given the existence of evil), then he must to exist (i.e. the notion of a possible necessary being failing to exist is logically incoherent). This is why the atheist concession that evil is compatible with God's existence is a major concession against atheism. In my opinion, this is the primary shortcoming of this version of the problem of evil.
But my purpose in this post is not to discuss the arguments for and against the evidential problem of evil.
Rather, I want to suggest the watching of the movie Sliding Doors, which highlights one of the most common defenses that theists have against the evidential version of the problem of evil, namely, the view that God could have morally sufficient reasons to allow evils in the world.
Many theists (like William Lane Craig, see below), trying to meet the challenge of the evidential version of the problem of evil in its own merits, arguing that God could have moral reasons to allowing evils in the world, but that the theist doesn't need to know them (after all, how could any of us to know God's full reasons for any divine action, decision or permission? Perhaps we can know some things about God, like his existence, main attributes, some of his purposes and so forth, but pretending to know in detail the specific contents, desires and plans of an infinite, omniscient and perfect mind seems to be impossible for infinite and imperfect beings like us).
The movie Sliding Doors doesn't refer to religion, or to the debate of theism and atheism. The movie tells the story of a woman whose life could take different directions depending on whether or not she catches a train.
This movie is relevant for reflections about God allowing evils because, given human beings' free will, each alternative choice by every individual person in a specific set of circunstances could have wholly different effects (individually and above all collectively), and some of these effects could be desired by God as part of his large plan or providence for the humankind. So, a natural tragedy (e.g. as the events occured in Japan some time ago) could trigger human decisions which, in the future, will cause a state of affairs which is part of God's overall plan.
One could still ask why God, being omnipotent, allows such natural disasters in order to reach his desired ends. Couldn't he simply use other, less dramatic or tragic means, to reach his ends? This is what we don't know: onmipotence means the faculty of bringing about any metaphysically possible state of afairs, but it is not clear that, given free will (of human beings and other advanced beings: aliens, afterlife spirits, angels or demons if they exist, inter-dimensional intelligences, etc.) God could bring about his ultimate ends, without violating and destrying the free will of his creations.
For example, some ufologists who accept the existence of extraterrestial beings suggest, based on the evidence of contactees, that some aliens are responsible of certain natural disasters or "casual" tragedies in order to cause pain and suffering on human beings (supposedly, some negative alien races absorb the energy of negative human emotions like hatred, anger, panic, fear, envy, etc.). If this is the case, then even some natural evils are a product of free will (e.g. of advanced non-human beings).
Obviously God could simply destroy everything that exists, including any creature endowed with free will and consciousness; but such a action would seem less "good" than allowing certain finite evils in order to, eventually, cause greater goods and an expansion of consciousness and universal armony.
In any case, it is obvious that we're entering an extremely speculative territory here. We simply don't know why God allows such a thing. The point is that the atheist problem from evil, while convincing for atheists, is hardly convincing for theists or even (I dare to say) agnostics with an open mind about God's existence.
In addition to Plantinga's book recommended above, I've found very useful William Lane Craig's distinction between the "emotional problem of evil" and the "intellectual problem of evil", which he discusses, for example, in the following lecture:
I strongly recommend to think about Craig's arguments, Plantinga's sophisticated treatment of the problem of evil, and watching the movie Sliding Doors with this topic about free will, the evil and God's omnipotence in mind.
I haven't watched this movie yet, but as you can watch in the trailer (and in the online commentaries about it) and in interviews with Rodrigo Cortes (the filmmaker), it is clear to me that movie presents a pseudoskeptical view of psychic phenomena.
It focuses on "paranormal frauds" which, as any serious researcher of parapsychology knows, do exists and have been motive of concern for seasoned parapsychologists for a long time (see for example, this article by George Hansen published in the Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research).
In the this interview, the filmmaker Cortes comments "Something that I wanted to do through the film is try to explore the roots of belief, because everything has to do with beliefs. When I studied the side of the rationalists and the skeptics, and the side of the believers and so-called psychics, I found out that both of them, no matter what they claim to do, behave in a very similar way. They only accepted what confirmed their previous positions, and tended to reject everything that put them at risk."
Note that Cortes calls "rationalists" and "skeptics" what is more properly called PSEUDOSKEPTICS (=materialists and atheists who deny or debunk psychic phenomena because it doesn't fit in their naturalistic, anti-religious, anti-spiritual worldview), and "believers" and "psychics" as their opponents. Obviously, this is a wrong terminology, because the "rationalists" and "skeptics" tend to be pretty irrational in many instances (see Jime's Iron Law for evidence).
But Cortes, who's a intelligent man, realizes that bias exist in BOTH group (not only in the group of "believers"), and this speak well of Cortes' intelligence and objectivity. For example, in the same interview he says "Let me put it in a different way: If you believe in God, that's a belief. If you are an atheist, it's a belief too, because you cannot prove that God does not exist. It's something that you have to believe in, which is something that I found pretty fascinating about the character of Matheson. I would say that that's my way of behaving, too—it isn't receiving, it's not about denying. It's about questioning, and trying to understand."
Again, the above comments shows Cortes' intelligence, in contrast with some atheists and pseudoskeptics who try to mislead the public into the belief that atheism is simply "the lack of belief in God" (which actually conflates atheism with agnosticism). The actual definition of atheism, as a metaphysical position, is the belief that God doesn't not exist (more technically, it is the belief that the proposition "God exists" is false).
As philosopher of religion William Lane Craig explains
But Cortes's beliefs are clearly naturalistic. In another interview published in a Spanish magazine about paranormal topics, he comments "Nature cannot be trascended, everything has a place according to natural laws." (El Ojo Critico, Nº70, p. 28. Translation by me). Such naturalism obviously begs the question against theism and, by implication, against spiritual and supernatural (=beyond the physical or material nature) explanations of psychic phenomenon (which seem to be phenomena not connected with blind natural laws or purely mechanical forces but with intentional agents or free persons... therefore, only a personalistic worldview provides a proper framework to understand them as part of the fabric of reality. You cannot make sense of these phenomena in terms of blind and mechanical forces, and spontaneous and non-conscious natural laws of matter, and this is precisely why "naturalists" and materialists are committed debunkers of these phenomena. Even some professional parapsychologists, not trained in philosophy, fail to understand this point, believing naively that they're studying purely "natural" phenomena, when actually they're studying phenomena which imply essentially a personalistic worldview contrary to the essential impersonalism of scientific naturalism and materialism).
Parapsychology is NOT metaphysically neutral, because it studies phenomena which push the balance in favour of certain metaphysical doctrines and against others (i.e. scientific materialism). As philosopher Chris Carter comments "As I discuss in my book, this militant opposition is something peculiar to Western societies, and it is basically due to the historical conflict in the West between secular and religious members of society... It is essential to realize that most of the deniers and phony-skeptics are militant atheists and secular humanists. For instance, the world's leading "skeptical" organization, The Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP) was founded in 1976 by atheist philosopher Paul Kurtz, at a meeting of the American Humanist Association. For various reasons, these people have an ideological agenda which is anti-religious and anti-superstitious. One of the main pillars of their opposition to religion and superstition is the doctrine of materialism: that is, the doctrine that all events have a physical cause, and that the brain therefore produces the mind. If they conceded the existence of psychic abilities such as telepathy, and of the Near Death Experience as a genuine separation of mind from body, then this pillar of their opposition to religion would crumble. Hence, their dogmatic denial of the evidence that proves materialism false"
If parapsychology were metaphysically neutral, then naturalists would have no problem with parapsychology because, after all, parapsychologists are not defending any religion at all. But they're discovering phenomena which fit a personalistic worldview like THEISM and don't fit the impersonalistic worldview of scientific naturalism and materialism. This is the key of the debate.
As atheist philosopher Thomas Nagel comments "I believe that this is one manifestation of a fear of religion which has large and often pernicious consequences for modern intellectual life.
In speaking of the fear of religion, I don’t mean to refer to the entirely reasonable hostility toward certain established religions and religious institutions, in virtue of their objectionable moral doctrines, social policies, and political influence. Nor am I referring to the association of many religious beliefs with superstition and the acceptance of evident empirical falsehoods. I am talking about something much deeper—namely, the fear of religion itself. I speak from experience, being strongly subject to this fear myself: I want atheism to be true and am made uneasy by the fact that some of the most intelligent and wellinformed people I know are religious believers. It isn’t just that I don’t believe in God and, naturally, hope that I’m right in my belief. It’s that I hope there is no God! I don’t want there to be a God; I don’t want the universe to be like that.
My guess is that this cosmic authority problem is not a rare condition and that it is responsible for much of the scientism and reductionism of our time. One of the tendencies it supports is the ludicrous overuse of evolutionary biology to explain everything about life, including everything about the human mind. Darwin enabled modern secular culture to heave a great collective sigh of relief, by apparently providing a way to eliminate purpose, meaning, and design as fundamental features of the world"
It is the fear and hostility to THEISM (i.e. to a worldview which, beyond the purely physical, non-teleological, impersonalistic and blind natural world, poses a more basic spiritual world grounded in a free, conscious, super-powerful, intentional and ultimately perfect person called GOD) which is the core of naturalism, materialism and pseudoskepticism. (Again, even parapsychologists have not recognized this, because they also conflate "theism" with "religion").
Note that even quantum mechanics, which in some interpretations postulates consciousness as basic and causally important to physical reality, doesn't refute the above philosophical consideration, because a consciousness which is free, ontologically independent of nature and hence undetermined by natural laws is precisely what God (and its spiritual creations = spirits) are supposed to be. For this reason, atheist philosopher Quentin Smith and agnostic quantum physicist Euan Squires, have suggested that the standard dualistic interpretation of quantum mechanics provides a good SCIENTIFIC argument for God's existence (and hence, for theism).
People watching movies like that will tend to think that "the paranormal" is limited to spoon-benders and other "psychics", when actually the best evidence for most psi phenomena is found in laboratory experiments with normal subjects (see Dean Radin's books for discussion of the experimental evidence) in which the evidence for psi is discoveried after careful statatistical analysis.
As a hard-core fan of movies, I'm sure that I'll enjoy this movie too (it has great actors there), but I strongly disagree with the general approach and misleading impression that it will give to the public.
