From: martin@cs.curtin.edu.au (Martin Dougiamas)
Subject: The Steve Martin movie "Leap of Faith"
Summary: "Leap of Faith" gets sickening at the end.
Keywords: christian con-job
Organization: Curtin University of Technology
Date: Mon, 28 Dec 1992 17:04:36 GMT


I don't read this group regularly, I just dip into it on occasion,
but I consider myself a pretty strong atheist... as far as a God is
concerned, the universe is innocent 'til proven guilty.

Tonight I saw the film "Leap of Faith" with some friends of mine 
who are pretty religious.  I'm a pretty big fan of Steve Martin,
especially his earlier films, and I'd sort of expected to have a 
bit of a laugh at evangelism at my friends' expense.

Was I wrong...  Steve Martin seems to have gone really quite
sickeningly religious in this movie.

The plot runs roughly as follows:
Con-man evangelist and his entourage roll up to a small drought-ridden town.
Con-man is shown to be very clever fake... with lots of slimy tricks
up his sleeve to con people out of their money in the name of Jesus.
He sets up a huge tent and puts on a huge glitzy show every night.
Then some "real" miracles occur: a crippled boy comes on stage and starts
to walk.. and the local drought is broken by rain.
Con-man chucks in his conning job and becomes a true believer, shouting
"praise Jesus" and laughing and so on and leaves town for an unspecified
life.

My friends loved it ... they took it as an affirmation of their faith,
almost as if the film were a documentary.  The music was like heaped
emotional saccharine at the end, and the whole thing was actually quite
repulsive to me, as a thinking person trying to remain logical about the
whole thing, under the onslaught of sound and colour.

What really riled me was that EVEN THOUGH THE ENTIRE TRICKERY AND SHAM
OF THE REVIVAL MEETINGS WAS REVEALED, and it was shown how all the 
audience were just suckers to the smooth-talking preacher, they STILL
got off on the spectacle of the revival meeting... singing along with
the songs etc and leaving the theatre with the same glassy-eyed 
assurance that god was in his heaven and all was right with the world,
JUST LIKE THE AUDIENCE IN THE MOVIE!   The film was simply a bigger
version of the con they were supposedly exposing!

I wanted to tell them the whole thing was a giant con-job in itself...
that there isn't a single shred of evidence for any miracle whatsoever,
but I knew it would be no use... they refuse to respond to rationality.

So I just feel frustrated at the whole thing... especially when I think
of the thousands of people falling victim every day to this same con job
disguised as a comedy movie.

My recommendation: see the first three quarters of the movie on video
for some very useful info on how evangelists do their thing, but give
the last quarter of the movie a miss if you want to avoid puking on
your carpet.  And if you must watch the whole film, avoid seeing it
with christians present.

Pet peeve: people who confuse simple love, friendship, being kind to your
fellow man, good music and happiness with some fictional supernatural
being.

Comments welcome.
Martin
---
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You feel sleepy. Notice how restful it is to watch the cursor blink. Close your
eyes. The opinions stated above are yours. You cannot imagine why you ever felt
otherwise.  When you awake you will follow up this post and enthusiastically
agree with it.  Then you will send all your money to martin@cs.curtin.edu.au.
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