I believe it was a link in a message on this NG that led me, for the first
time, to a web site called http://www.movieguide.org This is one of
several web sites that exist to rate current movies "from a Christian
perspective."

The author, Dr. Ted Baehr, has a "moral acceptability scale" with 8
levels, from "Exemplary", apparently reserved for movies/books that
portray Jesus in a positive light, to "Abhorrent", for any work that
portrays a competing belief system in a positive light. Works that don't
specifically comment on religion fall somewhere in between.

The one that tickled me was his rating of the current Disney movie,
"Brother Bear" as "Abhorrent", because it portrays paganism and shamanism
in a positive light. He frets that "The pagan northwest Indian world was
not a pleasant place. Feuds were common, killings were frequent, babies
and the elderly were left out to die, animals were driven off cliffs to
kill them en masse, and shamanism, with its totemism, scared everyone.
Every spirit was out to get you â?" all the animals, trees, and
nature-embodied spirits." Later he says that "This pagan world is the
world of BROTHER BEAR, but it has been highly sanitized. Here, the shaman
is a loving guide, the ancestors and totems are there to help you, and,
for the most part, people seem to be having fun worshipping nature. . . a
far cry from the truth....This truth about pagan cultures must be told to
any child who sees this movie."

BOINNG!!! Another irony meter goes up in smoke!! In the few years that I
spent going to church as a child, I don't recall much discussion of God
slaughtering whole civilizations, "witches" being burned at the stake,
blasphemers being tortured to death, and the like. I do remember pictures
of Jesus being surrounded by smiling children, with birds and butterflies
flying merrily about.

If more people told the truth about Xtianity to their children, the world
would be a much saner place.

--
MarkA
(still caught in the maze of twisty little passages, all different)

I believe it was a link in a message on this NG that led me, for the first
time, to a web site called http://www.movieguide.org This is one of
several web sites that exist to rate current movies "from a Christian
perspective."