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Eternity: The Ultimate Experience of Fundamentalist Depravity

eight bits said:
OP

Probably a stupid question, but what do you make of Jesus having no lines, just business?

I can't think of any religious reason for portraying him that way, can you think of why?
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In a mystical sense it kind of makes sense. God is typically referred to as silence or darkness. I'm reminded of the Cathusian phrase: "Behold the silence: allow the Lord to speak one word in us, that He is". Also the old Franciscian one: preach the Gospel at all times, use words if necessary.

Since this was an Evangelical thing, I'm assuming they aren't interested in Catholic mysticism though.
 
Eternity: The Ultimate Experience of Fundamentalist Depravity
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I get that the play wasn't to your liking. But I think I save the above description for people like Jim Jones, and not plays where you are free to leave, if you want.
 
bruto said:
Ask if they'd really rather you peed on the floor.
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I hadn't thought of that one.

.............

I should have been more precise. Once I realized how bad it was, I would have discreetly walked out. If anyone barred my exit, then depending on my mood, I would either climb on stage and exit through the back; dropped to the floor and started caterwauling about how I cannot get to my heart medication in my car; yelled, "I have read the Bible and this is not the message of the Bible, now let me out of here;" or walked to the front of the theater and said, "I'd love to stay and watch how the child rapist has a deathbed conversion and gets into heaven while his victims go to hell, but I have things to do - how do I get out of here?"
 
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Denver said:
I get that the play wasn't to your liking. But I think I save the above description for people like Jim Jones, and not plays where you are free to leave, if you want.
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That's the actual title of the play, I only added the last three words. Did you watch the whole thing through?

I should mention that the actors were running up and down the main entrance / exit aisle of the church, which I think was the only way out, so there was the risk of being trampled. And it all took place in pitch dark with no intermissions. One thing about fundamentalists is that when it comes to mind controlling the masses, they know what they're doing. Yes, I wish I could go back in time, tell the pastor and everyone involved to go screw themselves in a bold clear voice, and storm out of the church. But how many people would have actually done that?
 
I managed to sit through the whole set of videos. Here's my thoughts.

BEFORE THE PLAY
1) The music of the intro makes me feel like I am watching either a soap opera or a self-help video.

VOICE OVER
1) The speaker's inflictions seem a little off. More like he is screaming, rather than making a point. Also, he goes on too long. Jesus and the Angels just stand there for too long.
2) The lighting is weird. Satan is running around, but he's mostly in shadow and you can't see him very well. It's also dizzying.

SOLDIER
1) With the sergeant: It would be more likely that the sergeant would be encouraging the soldier, rather than rebuking him. If the sergeant was getting on the soldier's case, it would likely be because the soldier was so much into "Jesus" that he wasn't doing his job. If all the soldier can think about is Jesus and the afterlife, I wouldn't want to go on an op with him. He's more likely to zone out, rather than focus on the "here and now" people shooting at me! (As an aside, the "private" is wearing sergeant stripes.) Oh, and saying "sir, yes, sir" to an NCO would get a reminder that NCO's are not called "sir" since they "work for a living." :)
2) With the other soldier: I have a tough time imagining a soldier's first thoughts after seeing their comrades killed is "will they spend eternity in Heaven?" Worse yet, the subject soldier is not giving comfort to a grieving friend; he's being an ass by saying one of the comrades "didn't listen" and so now is in Hell.
3) At least he finally thought of his kids! Of course, it was after everyone else, but he got there...
4) All I could think when the soldier came back out was "shut up! We get the point. You love Jesus and it's beautiful."

BIKE RIDER / LOST DAUGHTER
1) With her mother: I liked this, actually. Forgiveness is good, and the fact that her mother accepts her is positive. A much better message than it could have been.
2) With her sister: I like this one, too. The sister is being honest about her feelings, and they are reasonable ones.
3) "Amazing Grace" was a bit much. I get why it was there, but it went on too long. (And those poor Angels had to stand there with their arms up the whole time!)

COUPLE ON THE MOTORCYCLE (ABORTION)
1) Gee, ruining your life by having a child when you aren't financially or emotionally ready is better than waiting until you are ready.
2) Let's see, she says her relationship with Justin is going badly. So of course, it would have been better if they had a child together since their relationship is already on the rocks. That would be a great life for that kid... And then there's the fact they are both now DEAD! That kid would be an orphan.


COUPLE IN A CAR CRASH (PORN/ALCOHOLISM)
1) Jennifer's alcoholism is completely glossed over, but Eric's use of porn is a major issue. (There is no indication that he actually has a porn addiction.)
2) Eric is right. "Finding God" isn't going to solve their problems. There is a lot more at issue, and going to church isn't going solve them. They should have found a counselor both could agree on.

OLD COUPLE
1) They are quite funny. Her song at the start though is too much, though.
2) The couple's intro went on too long.
3) If everything is fixed, why isn't the man's hearing better?
4) She only stayed with him because he was a Christian? Not because she loved him? Because they were friends?
5) The kids in the first flashback are reciting by rote, not with feeling.
6) Not sure if the old man's story is supposed to be a real memory, or a joke. But he would not have been on the beaches of Normandy on Dec 7, 1941.
7) Is the flashback with the black woman supposed to say all blacks follow voodoo?

HIGH SCHOOL TEAM / CHEER SQUAD
1) They came so close to reality. There was a lot of confusion in the early days of the Iraq invasion, and they touched on that. And then it turned into one guy flying off the handle.
2) "Why won't they listen?" Here's an answer - you are being sanctimonious! Actions speak louder than words.
3) Drinking beer is a sin? What about wine (at a wedding...)?
4) Gee, Heaven seems like a downer after seeing your friends thrown into Hell. Seems rather heartless to go from crying over your friends to partying with Jesus...

ENDING
1) "You were brought here by divine appointment..." *snicker
2) They sent out 250,000 tickets? Seems like they got a low return on that.

GENERAL COMMENTS
1) Just about everyone was over-acting.
2) The lighting between sets made me think everyone died at sea.
3) Too much echo on Satan's lines. Also, the lighting is poor and the smoke makes it hard to see.
4) Satan's speeches are too long and repetitive.
5) The audience gave more applause to character's being taken by Satan than when characters go to Heaven.
 
Yeah, the version I saw was slightly different. I'll summarize it here.

I) The opening act was of a solder who was KIA in Iraq. Like all of the characters, he has to go on and on about how beautiful heaven is, and all that. During the flashbacks of his life, we see that he was annoyingly devout. He told his commanding officer that he'll believe in Jesus no matter what, grinning like an idiot the whole time, while said officer is trying to convince him to focus on the here and now. This NEVER happens in the US military, which has a heavy Christian bias to the exclusion of religious minorities, homosexuals, and atheists. In the next scene, we see the only good deed the soldier ever did, which was to convert a fellow soldier who was having doubts after their buddies were killed. His explanation for why God let them die? You guessed it, the Lord works in mysterious ways.

As you might expect, the soldier's name appears in the book, and Jesus comes out to admit him. More overacted cheering and jumping around follows, and the solder says that his children need a father. The audience is supposed to applaud, despite the obvious fact that he left behind a widow and children.

II) The second act was when the play started to show its true colors. A woman with neo-pagan beliefs arrives at the gates, and she believes she's found enlightenment. The first flashback shows how she fell in with this New Age clairvoyant, who convinced her that the purpose in life is to look inside and awaken her personal goddess, rather than look outside for God. She is taught that all religions are a path to the truth. The subsequent flashbacks show her becoming increasingly abusive towards her Christian friends and trying to convert them to paganism, which the play implies is necessarily a direct result of her different beliefs.

Predictably enough, Satan bursts forth and drags the woman down to hell. He then says that yes, all other religions are a path to the same place: to him, and the pits of hell. In short, if you believe anything other than Pauline Christianity, you're going to hell. A bigoted message to be sure, but not atypical of people like this.

III) The third act was about a teenage gangster who partied and did drugs. He died when he got into a gang fight and a rival member stabbed him. He believed he would still be saved because of his regular church attendance, as the flashback with his sister showed. When he's waiting to hear his verdict, he thinks that even if his name doesn't show up, he can still work out a deal with the angels.

Satan comes out soon afterwards and drags him into hell, saying that he loves hypocrites. In other words, people who go to church, but still live sinful lives. Given the overall hypocrisy of the theology in the play, it was surprising that they even knew what a hypocrite was.

IV) In the fourth act, the play starts to get political. Three guesses what they condemn here. That's right, abortion. A young couple arrives, and we find out from the flashbacks that the girl got pregnant. The boyfriend convinces her to have an abortion, because it's too early for them to have a child. She reluctantly goes through with it, but is emotionally distraught. That's when her Christian friends tell her she can get over her pain if she accepts Jesus into her heart.

If you know what evangelicals think about abortion, you can tell what happens. The boyfriend is sentenced to hell for, as Satan puts it, murder in the first degree. Satan then dares people to have all the abortions they want, because it's all the more for him. The woman herself is saved, and when Jesus comes out to admit her, he's carrying her aborted fetus (now a baby). This is supposed to be a "happy" ending, to an act in which the playwright conveniently reduced a complex moral issue to a matter of black and white.

V) The fifth act talks about addictions and vices. We see an adult couple who died in the middle of a bad marriage with unresolved issues. The husband spent a lot of time on on his computer, and was so addicted to porn that he neglected his wife, who turned to alcoholism herself. In other words, porn and alcohol are so evil, they will invariably tear relationships apart. They try to get marriage counseling (and the counselor was played by my mom's former coworker) but the guy doesn't want to go through with it.

Sure enough, both the husband and the wife are dragged down to hell for letting their addictions get in the way of accepting Jesus. Satan says that he loves vices and addictions, thus the moral of the story is that everything (that the church prohibits) is a slippery slope into addiction and abuse.

VI) Here the play tries to be humorous. In the sixth act we see an elderly couple, whose antics are supposed to lighten the mood. They were saved a long time ago, and in the flashbacks, we see what constitutes a good Christian life. In the first, they're attending a church recital where their granddaughter recites a passage from the book of John. The audience is supposed to find this heartwarming. In the second, they're comforting their daughter, whose husband was just sent off to Iraq. The daughter is in tears, but they convince her to accept Jesus and everything will work out.

After they profess their love to God again, Jesus comes out and lets them both into heaven. The old couple is overjoyed to be free of the limitations of decrepit old age, because in heaven there's no more pain.

VII) The final act of the play is perhaps the most vile, sick, and disgusting display of God's laws in action. A mother, her two teenage children, and her teenage niece end up at the gates after a car crash. The flashbacks are a little more complicated now. Her two children are given the chance to accept Jesus, but they think that because they're young, they don't have time just yet. Maybe they'll decide to later. Her niece, whose parents are both dead, is more bitter about her life, so she lives as a rebel and doesn't care much for her aunt's preaching her religion at her all the time. The mother desperately asks the children if they accepted Jesus, but none of them did. The niece then expresses her anger at God for taking away her parents, and makes the mistake of saying she hates God.

When Satan shows up this time, he takes all three children to hell with him for being rebellious and not accepting Jesus. The mother, being saved, is able to tell Satan to get back from her. She then tries to pursue her children, but the gates of hell slam shut, and she's left crying and pounding on them. The angels take her back to the podium, where they read her name, and Jesus takes her into heaven. Sure enough, she's already forgotten about her children and niece.


I agree with your final thoughts, and would add: The overriding theme of the play was that everyone gives up too easily. The mother gave up on her children and niece as soon as she found out she was going to heaven. God and Jesus gave up on everyone that Satan threw into the pits of hell. The playwright gave up on rational thought and moral consistency a long time ago. The only one who didn't give up, it turns out, was me. As much as this play disgusted me, I refused to give it so much credit as to allow it to destroy my will to learn about world religions.
 
Frozenwolf150 said:
That's the actual title of the play, I only added the last three words. Did you watch the whole thing through?

I should mention that the actors were running up and down the main entrance / exit aisle of the church, which I think was the only way out, so there was the risk of being trampled. And it all took place in pitch dark with no intermissions. One thing about fundamentalists is that when it comes to mind controlling the masses, they know what they're doing. Yes, I wish I could go back in time, tell the pastor and everyone involved to go screw themselves in a bold clear voice, and storm out of the church. But how many people would have actually done that?
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Ah, I have watched a few scenes and now have a better understanding.

I would have left pretty quickly by feeling my way down the row while quietly and repeatedly saying, "excuse me medical emergency." And then either felt my way up the aisle, or turned on the pocket flashlight that I am never, ever without and walked up the aisle. If I were challenged at the door, depending on my mood, I would say, "The lights are making me sick, please let me out," or "I've already been reborn in Jesus Christ Son of God, so I can leave."

I also imagine that if one had said to the bouncer or doorman, "I need to speak to a minister right now! I cannot wait until the end of the play," then one would be escorted out of the theater. Making a scene would not be helpful. Telling the pastor to screw himself would almost certainly be interpreted by the play participants as a demon trying to prevent them from doing God's Work therefore the play really is a threat to Satan.
 
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These plays do one thing, that is showcase how BADLY written the theology of this particular brand of christanity is. God is all powerful and knowing, but seems to be powerless to stop Satan from mucking up his plan. If you think deeper they entire concept of Jesus and the Cross starts to fall apart. This is a narrative that is at the level of cartoons such as He-Man or Transformers. As an adult I can see how those shows were just filled with plotholes that by 8 year old brain did not see. These plays are aimed at people with that same intellectual level.

The reason we are seeing religion slip away in this country is because more and more people are just getting too smart for this crap.
 
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