God's Not Dead

[Gooey98]

I enjoyed the video, even though I've never seen the movie.

Same for me. Although I enjoy pretty much everything Kevin puts out, so my opinion might not exactly be objective.

[TigerShadow]

I especially loved the research he did on the court cases at the end, and the thing is, I know and have researched cases where actual discrimination occurred against Christians. It looks like they just picked cases that looked vaguely "Christians vs. THE MAN".

[Eleventh Doctor]

What are some of the cases you found?

[TigerShadow]

Pierce v. Society of Sisters: The Compulsory Education Act required public education as a means of eliminating parochial schools; the Court found in favor of the parochial schools because the act denied parents their rights to educate their children by whatever venue they choose.

Sherbert v. Verner: A Seventh-Day Adventist was fired for refusing to work on Saturday, her denomination's Sabbath, and was refused worker's compensation; the Court found in her favor on the grounds that refusal to hire or provide worker's compensation must be done with a compelling government interest in mind (this established an Exercise Clause precedent test).

Wisconsin v. Yoder: An Amish family sued for the right to educate their children within the Wisconsin Amish community because the Amish do not believe in public schooling past a certain age; the Court ruled in Yoder's favor because public school conflicted with Amish values and did not provide any compensatory benefits.

Widmar v. Vincent: The University of Missouri at Kansas City declared that its facilities could not be used for religious purposes; the Court found in favor of the religious organizations because of equal access rights.

Rosenburg v. University of Virginia: A student was denied the funds to publish a religious magazine solely because it was religious; the Court found in the student's favor because refusing funding on religious grounds while allowing it for atheists and nonreligious groups is viewpoint discrimination.

(I don't think that all of these involved active, intentional discrimination against Christians, nor do I think that these are the only cases that exist involving the same, but they're worth mentioning—especially Pierce and Widmar.)

[SirWhit]

That episode is pure gold. Actually partially inspired me to do my speech on Christian Films.

[Pound Foolish]

Why I liked God's Not Dead (though it wasn't outstanding or anything)

A. All the Christian songs! It was so fun. You geeked out, if you care about such things. I my gosh I've heard this a million times and I love this band and here it is. Though some of them weren't that great, they did hit on some real good songs. It was kind of just pleasant to sit back and just feel Christian and watch a Christian movie with Christian music, you know. Plus the Duck Dynasty guy, plus the Newsboys, plus the Christian guy who plays Spencer in Good Luck Charlie. All this Christian pop. This is the first Christian movie I saw that seemed aware of what it was and what it was trying to be, part of the Christian pop-culture. It was truly a niche-movie. It was cozy, like visiting a favorite library. They catered shamelessly and I loved it.

B. Again, the guy who plays Spencer GLC, Shane Harper. I can't say Spencer is at all my favorite character but even so my whole family was like, "Oh my gosh it's him." It's not a reason for everyone to like it, obliviously. It was just part of my experience.

C. The proofs of God. They were pretty solid. Granted, they didn't dive as deep as possible into it and build an un-defeatable argument. However, they did cover the basics pretty well, I even learned a little bit. People don't really talk much about the proofs. When criticizing, they don't say, "gee whiz, those proofs were awful." They just say the atheist was a stereotype (if he's a stereotype why have I never seen him in a movie or book before? I'm not saying there aren't any other movies or books with a cruel atheist teacher, but they don't seem too overabundant) and things like that. And yet, that misses the whole point. I mean, it was kinda sorta an important part of the movie that God's Not Dead.

[Eleventh Doctor]

Gee whiz those proofs were awful, not even joking. I have been saying this all along about the movie

[SirWhit]

They set up the strawman of an extremely anti religion professor and made him an extremely unlike able person. They made all the other non Christian characters unlike able at best and abusive at worst.

[Pound Foolish]

Gee whiz those proofs were awful, not even joking. I have been saying this all along about the movie

Ahhh, when? You've mostly said, "What makes this movie good? Tell me!"

But anyhow, why are they bad?

They set up the strawman of an extremely anti religion professor and made him an extremely unlike able person. They made all the other non Christian characters unlike able at best and abusive at worst.

Sure, the professor was a plot convenience. (Since when do movies have those?) I didn't say the movie didn't have faults. On the other hand, he's gracious and kindly allows Josh to "defend the antithesis" and he's pleasant to his girlfriend until she picks up the worst thing possible to an atheist, Christianity. He certainly wasn't a sympathetic character, he was an antagonist after all, but he wasn't a monster.

Then there's Miss Liberal who's just very adamant in her beliefs and doing her job, no reason to dislike her, even if she's portrayed as having problems.

And his girlfriend... Well, no one is going to agree with me on this. I mean, no one. But I loved his girlfriend. She was levelheaded, honest and reasonable. Not bossy, just explaining he limits and reasons. We only saw her when she was having to level with her boyfriend about something important to her, that's probably not what she's like in general. I doubt they sit down to a date and she starts bossing him. I admired she was so upfront and gentle.

That being said, it is definitely the movie's single biggest fault that the non-Christians mostly had issues or came off as bossy and the Christians had literally no faults. It's so typical and frustrating. But it doesn't ruin the whole movie for me at least.

Also, they weren't really there to have a believable debate so much as show some respected and important arguments for God. For all that though, he still called Josh more than once, making him research further. It's not as if Josh floored him on the first try, or second.

[ArnoldtheRubberDucky]

Yes, but the professor's so-called "counter arguments" are arguments that the vast majority of atheists wouldn't actually use. I seem to recall that his first argument depended on the logical fallacy of "Stephen Hawking is an atheist, and he also happens to be the world's greatest scientist, so clearly he can never be wrong", and his last one was simply "God killed my mother, so I hate him, even though I know he exists". The problem wasn't entirely with Josh's arguments (though they were flawed, too). In fact, my main problem with the argument scenes (the only scenes of the movie I saw in full, thanks to Youtube) was that there was no attempt at showing how a real atheist would debate, which makes the movie a dangerous fantasy for Christians to be influenced by. The argument scenes could've easily played out like this, and it would've made a lot more sense:

1. Josh makes his first point.
2. The professor attempts to refute it, WITH REAL EVIDENCE, AND NO LOGCIAL FALLACIES.
3. Josh refutes the professor's refutation effectively.
4. The professor behaves as an actual atheist would, and actually addresses the things that Josh says.
5. But then, Josh makes one final crushing argument, leaving the professor shocked.

This setup would not have given undeserved credibility to the atheist viewpoint: all it would've done is give an accurate assessment of situations like this, which is exactly what Christians need, and Josh would've still won in the end. My guess is the filmmakers were a bit scared of including atheist arguments against God in the movie, but it's a heck of a lot more dangerous to show people trying to defend their faith an inaccurate fantasy than to show them the real world, and what they're actually going to be up against. That, in the end, is what makes this movie so upsetting.

[Blitz]

PF, for once I actually like your review. I would also like to point out the sub-plot in the Muslim family is actually pretty common, especially in Africa. Worse actually can happen here.

[Eleventh Doctor]

@PF They're bad because they're the same arguments every Evangelical high school senior is taught before they go off to college and there in lies the problem; this isn't about faith this is about a solider in the culture war "winning" a battle. The movie is over the top in it's perceived victory, they literally have a concert celebrating the death of the atheist professor, yes I know they didn't know he was dying while they were celebrating but the script writers did. And the pastors who rush up to "help" him as he's dying don't try to give him medical attention, they let him die as they pray with him to be saved.

[Jared DeWhite]

How was he dying?

[Paula]

He got hit by a car when it was raining.

[Jared DeWhite]

I'm guessing he was bleeding??

[Blitz]

I would also argue that he had internal injuries and not external. He wasn't even bleeding.

[SirWhit]

Yeah. Well, either way he died

[Eleventh Doctor]

Because the pastors who rushed up to him didn't help him in anyway.

[SirWhit]

Yeah, the African pastor (I think he was African?) just said "Oh he has internal bleeding" and then let him lie in the middle of the road while they shared the Gospel with him. I don't know...seems kind of like a bad time...

[Eleventh Doctor]

But I mean the African pastor was obviously a doctor who can diagnose internal bleeding on sight right?