TBC NewsWatch

THE SECRET GNOSTIC KEY TO ARONOFSKY'S "NOAH"

Aletia.org, 4/5/14, “The Secret Gnostic Key to Aronofsky’s “Noah” that Everyone Missed” [Excerpts]: In Darren Aronofsky’s new star-gilt silver screen epic, Noah, Adam and Eve are luminescent and fleshless, right up until the moment they eat the forbidden fruit.

Such a notion isn’t found in the Bible, of course. This, among the multitude of Aronofsky’s other imaginative details like giant Lava Monsters, has caused many a reviewer’s head to be scratched. Conservative-minded evangelicals write off the film because of the “liberties” taken with the text of Genesis, while a more liberal-minded group stands in favor of cutting the director some slack. After all, we shouldn’t expect a professed atheist to have the same ideas of “respecting” sacred texts the way a Bible-believer would.

Both groups have missed the mark entirely. Aronofsky hasn’t “taken liberties” with anything. The Bible is not his text.

In his defense, I suppose, the film wasn’t advertised as such. Nowhere is it said that this movie is an adaptation of Genesis. It was never advertised as “The Bible’s Noah,” or “The Biblical Story of Noah.”...That isn’t what Aronofsky had in mind at all. I’m sure he was only too happy to let his studio go right on assuming that, since if they knew what he was really up to they never would have allowed him to make the movie.

I discovered what Darren Aronofsky’s first feature film was: Pi. Want to know its subject matter? Do you? Are you sure? Kabbalah.

The world of Aronofsky’s Noah is a thoroughly Gnostic one: a graded universe of “higher” and “lower.” The “spiritual” is good, and way, way, way “up there” where the ineffable, unspeaking god dwells, and the “material” is bad, and way, way down here where our spirits are encased in material flesh. This is not only true of the fallen sons and daughters of Adam and Eve, but of fallen angels, who are explicitly depicted as being spirits trapped inside a material “body” of cooled molten lava.

Admittedly, they make pretty nifty movie characters, but they’re also notorious in Gnostic speculation. Gnostics call them Archons, lesser divine beings or angels who aid “The Creator” in forming the visible universe. And Kabbalah has a pantheon of angelic beings of its own all up and down the ladder of “divine being.” And fallen angels are never totally fallen in this brand of mysticism. To quote the Zohar again, a central Kabbalah text: “All things of which this world consists, the spirit as well as the body, will return to the principle and the root from which they came.” Funny. That’s exactly what happens to Aronofsky’s Lava Monsters. They redeem themselves, shed their outer material skin, and fly back to the heavens. Incidentally, I noticed that in the film, as the family is traveling through a desolate wasteland, Shem asks his father: “Is this a Zohar mine?” Yep. That’s the name of Kabbalah’s sacred text.

The entire movie is, figuratively, a “Zohar” mine.

(goo.gl/Wzt9kz)

IMAGINARY FEATHERS FOUND ON DINOSAUR

Crev.info, 3/13/14, “Imaginary Feathers Found on American Dinosaur” [Excerpts]: Once again, imaginary feathers have been discovered on a “bird-like” dinosaur, this time from the Dakotas.

The fossil was discovered about a decade ago, but is only now being described. Artwork shows feathered arms and fuzz on the body and legs of the ten-foot “chicken from hell,” [Lat.] Anzu wylieli. Science reporters describe the imaginary feathers in detail: It boasted a flashy head crest and probably wore feathers (Live Science). It was a giant raptor, but with a chicken-like head and presumably feathers (PhysOrg). The size of a small car, the dinosaur also had claws and feathers on its upper arms (BBC News).

The original paper...like the popular media, calls it a “presumably feathered dinosaur” but otherwise includes no evidence of feathers....Nature published an analysis of melanosomes from scales and feathers from creatures as diverse as mammals, birds, dinosaurs, pterosaurs, lizards and turtles. The researchers, mostly from China, noted a distinct break between the melanosomes of reptiles and those of birds.  Considering that “When this relationship evolved relative to the origin of feathers and other novel integumentary structures, such as hair and filamentous body covering in extinct archosaurs, has not been evaluated.”...True pinnate feathers (as on birds), it should be noted, are not mere “novel integumentary structures,” but distinct systems involving follicles, stem cells, and regulatory proteins. It must have taken a “significant physiological shift” to evolve them, indeed.

(goo.gl/V7DEiY)

TAQIYYA AND BLASPHEMY LAW IN THE UK

FrontPageMag.com, 3/6/14, “Taqiyya and Blasphemy Law in the UK” [Excerpts]: In British law, race and religion are increasingly becoming deliberately confused for the purpose of accusing critics of Islam of racism.

A soccer fan was recently arrested on suspicion of inciting racial hatred after allegedly ripping up pages of the Qur’an and throwing them at a match. While on bail, he was also banned from attending any football games, visiting St Andrew’s—the stadium of the incident—and going to any city where his team Middlesbrough was playing.

Insults against Islam are taken very seriously in Britain....After the incident, Middlesbrough Football Club suspended six more people, and vowed to ban anyone convicted of the “crime” from the Riverside Stadium, its home ground, for life.

Nobody could answer the question of what race Islam is. Muslims belong to all races, including white. But we know that the word “racism” has lost its original sense, and indeed any sense. Originally the concept of racism had a place and an important role in both ethical and political discourses.

Now it’s best avoided because it’s lost its positive characteristics, its usefulness, and has instead become a tool for intolerance, intimidation, restriction of freedom of speech and other freedoms, in short a means of oppression.

Since the word “racism” has started being used to refer to many attitudes, behaviors and ideas that had little or nothing to do with racism in the strict sense, its meaning has become progressively larger and larger, correspondingly decreasing its sense.

When today I hear about someone or something being called “racist,” I hardly ever believe that it’s true. The likeliest explanation, I think to myself, is either an umpteenth case of excessive political correctness, or a personal attack. The descriptive capability of the term has got lost or at least dramatically eroded.

There is at the moment a worrying trend: what has for a long time been a common Leftist ploy, the shouting of “racist” to shut down any criticism of Islam, is now on its way to being enshrined in British law.

(goo.gl/yNXj4z)