Having just seen Knowing, the film starring Nicholas Cage as a man who’s been given a sheet of numbers predicting every accident that will happen, I’m having a hard time with Ebert’s review. Ebert gave it four stars. I would give it two.
It is a movie about whether events in life are random or predetermined and wants to be a movie about what you would do if you knew the end of the world was happening.
If you want to see the answer to that, go watch Deep Impact–a better film.
Knowing doesn’t uncover the “end of the world” plot until late in the movie. This movie is about whether all events are preordained. And should a coded sheet of these events fall into our hands–does it indicate that higher forces are communicating with mankind–revealing these accidents? But alas, it’s not to actually change them. The list is stuck in a vault for fifty years. What’s the point of revealing numbers only to hide them away? Nicholas Cage would have us believe it is to give those numbers to his son, fifty years later. For what reason–there is no reason. Since Cage cannot do anything to affect or change the events, the paper communicates nothing but “proof” that someone knew what would happen.
Knowing is saddled with a predetermined plot too. The characters only talk about the plot; when they arrive in a scene, they say only what needs to be said to move the plot along, which I always find hard to believe. When the sister enters the movie, her reason to be there is to tell us that Cage is estranged from the family, to establish that he is running from religion, to emphasize that the family is worried. The writers even realize that there is no real interaction in this scene because they have her tell Cage that he didn’t even ask “how are you? How’s your week been?” before telling her to leave. The characters know it is an awkward scene. All of the scenes are like this–leaping from plot point to plot point.
The revelation that the numbers are actually dates is so unnatural as to be funny. It doesn’t happen because he actually strives to figure them out–he is drunk, it’s an “accident.” This plot is so much about determinism that it tries to get away with unbelievable coincidence. The author can always say–“Well, that was my point!” But that’s just bad writing. If you need coincidence that badly, then your characters are just puppets.
Cage is a morose father, drinking himself into a stupor every night. He’s supposed to be a MIT astrophysicist. Man, where did they get this classroom? That’s MIT?? It’s small. Only twenty students are there, most look around high school age. It’s supposedly his first lecture of the year–it’s completely philosophical, cosmological, lasts for ten minutes or less, with brilliant students who repeat back knowledge to the professor, and then our brilliant professor blanks when he’s talking about whether the world is random or not, and dismisses class. I never believed him as a professor. And I didn’t believe that was MIT, or any other university.
The worst foreshadowing happens here–when he takes up the models of planets and talks about them.
SPOILER: Cage is supposed to have worked on solar flares, was an expert in the field–but he doesn’t work on them now? He doesn’t mention this fact till the end of the film, when it becomes important. But one would suspect that the scientists who have already discovered that a major solar flare is coming would want to consult with the man who has solar flare knowledge.
This movie is full of Christian references to the inevitability of mankind’s destruction. You are sledgehammered over the head with it at times. Cage as prodigal son, makes the predictable return to his pastor/father. There’s even a convenient Christian message scrawled on a van in the last sequence–so that during watching destruction you might make a decision. The kids are taken in a “rapture” which makes angels look like a$$holes because they wouldn’t take Cage with them and save him too, or anyone else in those huge ships of theirs.
Take away the thin veil of science fiction and this is mere theology. Down to the “new adam and eve” and “tree of life” in the last frame… a very tired science fiction ending (we’ve seen it so much that On Spec and other sci-fi magazines reject all stories with “adam and eve” endings). Those people left behind are riotous and murderous, not many shown as kind; as destruction swoops down, you are made to think we are all sinners, murderous thieves. The writers have stacked the deck–giving us no choice on how to read the plot. Nobody really has a believable choice. That may be honest theology, or philosophy–but it doesn’t make a good movie.
Bear Witness 
for a good end-of-the-world movie, you have to see Last Night, a Canadian movie about the few hours before the earth is destroyed and nobody can do anything about it. so what do you do? obsessive-compulsive customer service? live out sexual fantasies? relive childhood christmas? try to be alone?
Rapture is also a good apocalypse. sinner joins a religious cult that claims to know when the end is coming. and it does.
Those sound cool. I’ll have to rent Last Night.
The movie Knowing was absolutely amazing in my opinion. And I wholeheartedly respect your opinion of the movie.
It is indeed a movie about whether events in life are random or predetermined. A Basic breakdown of Science vs. A Higher Power. Cage’s character gave answer to his ideology at the beginning of the movie that things are “random as hell.”
I think it to be a tad-bit far fetched to scrutinize the picture in parts before you analyze the film in it’s entirety. It’s important to watch the movie, give an overall surface rating of it then delve into it–that’s what I did.
The point in revealing the numbers was to benefit Cage’s character in the movie…not us as an audience. This revelation of numbers was to shift his mindset of things being random, that his world could possibly be that of Determinism.
In your argument of leaping from plot point to the next I think that it could’ve been a little more stable had we had an extra two hours to sit in the movies :). I agree. But also, I think this helped suspend a mystery into all of our minds, those moments were as awkward to “Prof. Koesler” as they were to us I’m sure. Imagine discovering an object that predicted the fate of others, perhaps yourself, I’m sure that would be hell of an awkward moment.
In regards to the numbers being dates, it is inevitable that the numbers mean something. Had they not meant anything, it wouldn’t have played such a major part in the movie. I don’t think him (Cage) having a drink and then investigating the #’s was “unbelievable coincidence” but more of unintentional discovery.
The movie was shot somewhere other than Boston, hint, you not being able to distinguish the institution MIT from it’s classroom structure to the student body. I believe the movie’s purpose was to begin in “media res”……in the middle of things, it would be meaningless to have us (the audience) sit through a lecture aside from what we needed to know in pertinence to the movie. Besides, I’m on Spring Break, I don’t think I could’ve possibly stomached him talking a minute more in the classroom environment lol. Anyhow, besides the point. In which I think your evaluation of the university that was portrayed in the film and your opinion of Cage as a professor has nothing to do with the film. The filmmakers were not seeking to entice us to enroll MIT, it was merely decoration to the movie’s plot and them….you might see something wrong with that. I didn’t. And in response to the “worst foreshadowing” of Cage’s Sun and Earth display, I’d agree that it didn’t really send off a light-bulb that said “Ahhhhh……their world will come to an end due to solar flare.”
I’d also agree this movie is full of Christian references but not only to the inevitability of mankind’s destruction but to the inevitability of eternal life if we make the choice. Those “assholes” were scary to us because we did not know who they were, but they were a comfort to the children. Abby told her Mom and Prof. Koesler that the people told them that they had a choice to come with them and be safe.Now, I disagree with how the writers chose for Lucinda to kill herself because she obviously didn’t make the choice. It kind of reminds me of a strict “holiness or hell” or possibly an uncomfortability and even insanity with choosing something other than God.
I think it is important that we first recognize that of course, it is a movie, and as much as Christians would like to portray the movie quoting a numerous amount of scriptures and having God himself to gather the children up himself, they can’t. You can’t force that on spectators, I think the writers method was attractive. Prof. Koesler could not go because he could not hear them. Which leads me to my ultimate point, what I got from the movie was that only children of God will ascend to that Great Place. Not literally children, they were used to signify innocence and purity. We seen that the people left behind were riotous and murderous, how can they inherit the kingdom? Read “Hebrews 3:18-19” from the Bible, maybe it’ll help give understanding to some part of the movie. But I do thank you for shedding light in regards to the Prodigal Son, I failed to think about that. This was a joy to read, I love to read opinion based things such as this, thank you for allowing me the opp to share my opinion as well.
Thanks, Brittney, for your comment. I have a long working familiarity with the Bible, have been a Christian most of my life, but I have problems when theology creeps into movies. Anyone’s theology. One, it’s often a cheat for originality. Two, whose interpretation do you follow? Especially with the Book of Revelation, which is built for multiple interpretations. But a movie made of any one of them will make some devout Christians steamed. Once you have a rapture plot, we know how it’s gonna end. It’s prescribed. Well, once I know how my movie’s gonna end, especially if I see very little struggle from the main character to change things, then it takes away the human part of the movie.
God gave us free will, but Cage has very little in this movie. And I didn’t see anything that resembled what I believe God will be doing, oh, at the end of the world. It didn’t resemble any theology I recognized–which is why it’s better not to make a movie of theology.
I’m also tired of scientists being the bad guys; many are devout Christians and evolutionists. Putting them in with thieves and murderers, classifying all who are not “pure and innocent” debunks the whole idea of forgiveness, grace and salvation.
So, predetermined plots–as you’ll agree–make lousy movies. If you take away choice from a main character then they cease to be interesting, merely following a pre-set plot, heavily guided by the author.
If I’d have seen Cage struggle to the last moment, I would have believed this movie. But to assume the aliens are friendly, to give up your son to them, made little sense. Giving mankind the numbers made little sense. Might as well given them the script, for all the good it did.
I’m reminded of Stranger than Fiction a fine movie about a man who in the first few minutes heard a voice saying he was going to die. At first, he fought it, fought to stay alive, and then, when told he had to die, he decided to do great things with his life, and at the final moment, accepted his fate as heroic.
The authors of this movie, Knowing, gave Cage the realization he was going to die in about three days, and crammed his “struggle” in there, and then wiped out the planet…that’s not a plot, that’s a decree.
I have no problem with the Bible or Christianity; I do think copying the Bible word for word, plot point for plot point, makes lousy plots for movies, on the whole. Although I loved Prince of Egypt–which explored the depth of what was hidden in that story, the emotions.
E.M. Forster, in Aspects of the Novel, says that what separates fiction from Memoir is that memoir is the facts of someone’s life–what history could record–but fiction aimed to be what could not be told by history; it was the unrecorded hidden emotional depths of people living in history.
Good fiction allows characters to explore, but we learned very little about Cage. I found him a non-explorer. He could have been a banker for all the plot used him as a scientist. Let Cage explore more, let him fight. Let him be unique–but he was merely a person who was told to go through this plot–not an individual, a unique person.
The movie Last Night, which was suggested to me by a friend, explores the idea of ultimate destruction of earth and what people would be doing on their last night much better, and from a human angle.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_Night_(film)
There were some good points to the movie and at the beginning I was even willing to follow the angle that the numbers would show events that have yet to happen. But there were just too many holes and half finished ideas to make this movie really all that good. Other than the ships at the end which were a very interesting configuration.
First, even though the Aliengels were there to save the “chosen children” they were in no way friendly as they bombarded their brains with horrible images of the upcoming event as we see from the son’s perspective. Not only that but there must be something more to the numbers than just the times that the disasters or accidents were going to happen. Again going back to the sun he was found near the end of the movie once again writing out the same numbers as the girl 50 years before for no other effect than to get Cage to find the door that was supposed to be the one safe place. But there is no safe place on the planet.
Secondly we have the appearance of the small polished riverbed stones. A sign of the Aliengels having been there. Now in my experience, given that movies by and large are only 2 hours or less, anything given as much screen time and weight in a series of scenes had better be important later or you just wasted that time. We even find stones under the woman’s bed showing that they often visited her and I am guessing would have taken her with them if she was still alive at the end of the movie. (She could still hear the voices.) But for reasons only she and the writer will ever know she decided not to be saved. And in the end the stones are nothing more than a special effect for when the ship takes off.
In writing it is important to establish your main character(s) from the outset or even only shortly into the piece. Who they are, what they do and of course what they want. If a writer trivializes something early on as nothing more than a footnote and then uses it as a crutch later on to make a point than it is not believable. It has to do with the weight that it is given as we, as viewers, carry only so much with us from scene to scene before we start losing things. If it is shown as unimportant such as Cage’s scientific background (beyond being good with numbers) we are going to devote more on what is being showed to us. (like the silly rocks) It was unbelievable that he would be an expert on solar flares and the sun in general and not have taken more time out at the beginning to let us see this through his work. And I don’t mean through a classroom setting as that is not where the important stuff would happen.
My last point would be that the whole “saving the children” is based on those who can hear the Aliengels. This does not mean that they are innocent or that they are any better than any of the other children other than the fact that they may have the beginnings of the ability to speak mind to mind. Nothing more than an evolutionary step forward for us humans. In a way that is like an alien species using us as an experiment to see how close they can make us to them. Else you have to ask the question about why they didn’t take all the babies? Children too young to have formed any kind of social network or to have been influenced by the rest of us. Also there were 4-5 Aliengels for every two children and only two children per ship. Seems like an awful lot of wasted space when they went on record saying that they were protecting them and no reason given as to not taking more. And why even give the children a choice at the end if throughout the movie it was shown that there was no choice and that everything was inevitable? (Which is why the mother was killed off so that her daughter would not hesitate and making the Aliengels evil, or at least the writer for taking it out of human hands.)
No, even without the whole religious background setting and the predetermined vs. random elements the movie was too sporadic with the details that it wanted us as viewers to follow to make it good. Too many pieces led nowhere in an effort only to prolong the moment until the end of the world.
I’m not sure why the author makes such a big point about the unbelievableness (is that actually a word?) of Cage as MIT Professor, or the rest of his paragraph on MIT. Having been a student at MIT, I actually thought that the representation was fairly good.
The students at MIT are often young and brilliant. In my experience, they’re not nearly that pretty, though. Makeup? Brushed hair? Bright young faces in stylish clothes? Sure. 😉 I often showed up to class in my pj’s, personally.
Once you’re through the big freshman-year classes, unless you’re in one of the big majors (electrical engineering, computer science, or biology), then most of your classes *are* that small. Mine were often 4 or 5 students, especially as we progressed toward senior year. Granted, the MIT shown in the movie looked suspiciously Harvard-like (as in – way too pretty), but you wouldn’t want to show the real MIT. A lot of it is concrete, and most of the rest is avant-garde modern buildings. 😉
I had quite a few professors as muddled, whimsical, and yes, sometimes, lost in space as Cage. I thought he did a great job at being an MIT astrophysicist. Really smart people are weird.
Anyway. Just my 2c.
All in all I believe this movie would go just above average in my eyes. What i really enjoyed was how the ending was just thick with biblical references, not just the tree and the aliens (angels), to the children and the rabbits being the only ones taken. The children were the pure at heart which God would give new life to (though it seems in this movie it wasn’t an afterlife). Why did the writers have both children interested in animals? God gave Adam and Eve dominion over all animals! The rabbits also symbolize new life (EASTER BUNNY!) and purity. Just me givin’ some insight on this movie 🙂
PRETRIB RAPTURE DISHONESTY
by Dave MacPherson
When I began my research in 1970 into the exact beginnings of the pretribulation rapture belief still held by many evangelicals, I assumed that the rapture debate involved only “godly scholars with honest differences.” The paper you are now reading reveals why I gave up that assumption many years ago. With this introduction-of-sorts in mind, let’s take a long look at the pervasive dishonesty throughout the history of the 179-year-old pretrib rapture theory:
Mid-1820’s – German scholar Max Weremchuk’s work “John Nelson Darby” (1992) included what Benjamin Newton revealed about John Darby in the mid-1820’s during his pre-Brethren days as an Anglican clergyman:
“J. N. Darby was a very subtle man. He had been a lawyer, or at least educated for the law. Once he wanted his Archbishop to pursue a certain course, when he (J.N.D.) was a curate in his diocese. He wrote a letter, therefore, saying he had been educated for the law, knew what the legal course would properly be; and then having written that clearly, he mystified the remainder of the letter both in word and in handwriting, and ended up by saying: You see, my Lord, such being the legal aspect of the case it would unquestionably be the best course for you to pursue, etc. And the Archbishop couldn’t make out the legal part, but rested on Darby’s word and did as he advised. Darby afterwards laughed over it, and indeed he showed a copy of the letter to Tregelles. This is not mentioned in the Archbishop’s biography, but in it is the fact that he spoke of Darby as ‘the most subtle man in my diocese.'”
This reminds me of an 1834 letter by Darby which spoke of the “Lord’s coming.” Darby added, concerning this coming, that “the thoughts are new” and that during any teaching of it “it would not be well to have it so clear.” Darby’s deviousness here was his usage of a centuries-old term – “Lord’s coming” – to cover up his desire to sneak the new pretrib idea into existing posttrib groups in very low-profile ways!
1830 – In the spring of 1830 a young Scottish lassie, Margaret Macdonald, came up with the novel notion of a catching up [rapture] of Spirit-filled “church” members before Antichrist’s “trial” [tribulation] of non-Spirit-filled “church” members – the first instance I’ve found of clear “pretrib” teaching (which was part of a partial rapture scheme). In Sep. 1830 “The Morning Watch” (a journal produced by London preacher Edward Irving and his “Irvingite” followers, some of whom had visited Margaret a few weeks earlier) began repeating her original thoughts and even her wording but gave her no credit – the first plagiarism I’ve found in pretrib history. Darby was still defending posttrib in Dec. 1830.
Pretrib promoters have long known the significance of her main point: a rapture of “church” members BEFORE the revealing of Antichrist. Which is why John Walvoord quoted nothing in her revelation, why Thomas Ice habitually skips over her main point but quotes lines BEFORE and AFTER it, and why Hal Lindsey muddies up her main point so he can (falsely) assert that she was NOT a pretribber! (Google “X-Raying Margaret” for info about her.)
NOTE: The development of the 1800’s is thoroughly documented in my book “The Rapture Plot.” You’ll learn that Darby wasn’t original on any chief aspect of dispensationalism (but plagiarized the Irvingites); that pretrib was initially based on only OT and NT symbols and not clear Scripture; that the symbols included the Jewish feasts, the two witnesses, and the man child – symbols adopted by Darby during most of his career; that Darby’s later reminiscences exaggerated his earliest pretrib development, and that today’s defenders such as Thomas Ice have further overstated what Darby overstated; that Irvingism didn’t need later reminiscences to “clarify” its own early pretrib development; that ancient hymns and even the writings of the Reformers were subtly revised to make it appear they had taught pretrib; and that after Darby’s death a clever revisionist quietly made many changes in early Irvingite and Brethren documents in order to steal credit for pretrib away from the Irvingites (and their female inspiration!) and give it dishonestly to Darby! (Before continuing, Google the “Powered by Christ Ministries” site and read “America’s Pretrib Rapture Traffickers” – a sample of the current exciting internetism!)
1920 – Charles Trumbull’s book “The Life Story of C. I. Scofield” told only the dispensationally-correct side of his life. Two recent books, Joseph Canfield’s “The Incredible Scofield and His Book” (1988) and David Lutzweiler’s “DispenSinsationalism: C. I. Scofield’s Life and Errors” (2006), reveal the other side including his being jailed as a forger, dishonestly giving himself a non-conferred “D.D.” etc. etc.!
1967 – Brethren scholar Harold Rowdon’s “The Origins of the Brethren” quoted Darby associate Lord Congleton who was “disgusted with…the falseness” of Darby’s accounts of things. Rowdon also quoted historian William Neatby who said that others felt that “the time-honoured method of single combat” was as good as anything “to elicit the truth” from Darby. (In other words, knock it out of him!)
1972 – Tim LaHaye’s “The Beginning of the End” (1972) plagiarized Hal Lindsey’s “The Late Great Planet Earth” (1970).
1976 – Charles Ryrie”s “The Living End” (1976) plagiarized Lindsey’s “The Late Great Planet Earth” (1970) and “There’s A New World Coming” (1973).
1976 – After John Walvoord’s “The Blessed Hope and the Tribulation” (1976) brutally twisted Robert Gundry’s “The Church and the Tribulation” (1973), Gundry composed and circulated a 35-page open letter to Walvoord which repeatedly charged the Dallas Seminary president with “misrepresentation,” “misrepresentations” (and variations)!
1981 – “The Fundamentalist Phenomenon” (1981) by Jerry Falwell, Ed Dobson, and Ed Hindson heavily plagiarized George Dollar’s 1973 book “A History of Fundamentalism in America.”
1984 – After a prof at Southeastern College of the Assemblies of God in Florida told me that the No. 2 man at the AG world headquarters in Missouri – Joseph Flower – had the label of posttrib, my wife and I had two hour-long chats with him. He verified what I had been told. But we were dumbstruck when he told us that although AG ministers are required to promote pretrib, privately they can believe any other rapture view! Flower said that his father, an AG co-founder, was also posttrib. We also learned while in Springfield that when the AG’s were organized in 1914, the initial group was divided between posttribs and pretribs – but that the pretribs shouted louder which resulted in that denomination officially adopting pretrib! (For details on this and other pretrib double-mindedness, Google “Pretrib Hypocrisy.”)
1989 – Since 1989 Thomas Ice has referred to the “Mac-theory” (his reference to my research), giving the impression there’s no solid evidence that Macdonald was the real pretrib originator. But Ice carefully conceals the fact that no eminent church historian of the 1800’s – whether Plymouth Brethren or Irvingite – credited Darby with pretrib. Instead, they uniformly credited leading Irvingite sources, all of which upheld the Scottish lassie’s contribution! Moreover, I’m hardly the only modern scholar seeing significance in Irvingism’s territory. Others in recent years who have noted it, but who haven’t mined it as deeply as I have, include Fuller, Ladd, Bass, Rowdon, Sandeen, and Gundry.
1989 – Greg Bahnsen and Kenneth Gentry produced evidence in 1989 that Lindsey’s book “The Road to Holocaust” (1989) plagiarized “Dominion Theology” (1988) by H. Wayne House and Thomas Ice.
1990 – David Jeremiah’s and C. C. Carlson’s “Escape the Coming Night” (1990) massively plagiarized Lindsey’s 1973 book “There’s A New World Coming.” (For more info, type in “Thieves’ Marketing” on MSN or Google.)
1991 – Paul Lee Tan’s “A Pictorial Guide to Bible Prophecy” (1991) plagiarized large amounts of Lindsey’s “The Late Great Planet Earth” (1970).
1991 – Militant Darby defender R. A. Huebner claimed in 1991 to have found new evidence that Darby was pretrib as early as 1827 – three years before Macdonald. Halfway through his book Huebner suddenly admitted that his evidence could refer to something completely un-rapturesque. Even though Thomas Ice admitted to me that he knew that Huebner had “blown” his so-called evidence, prevaricator Ice continues to tell the world that Huebner has “positive evidence” that Darby was pretrib in 1827! Ice also conceals the fact that Darby, in his own 1827 paper, was looking for only “the restitution of all things” and “the times of refreshing” (Acts 3:19,21) – which Scofield doesn’t see fulfilled until AFTER a future tribulation!
1992 – Tim LaHaye’s “No Fear of the Storm” (1992) plagiarized Walvoord’s “The Blessed Hope and the Tribulation” (1976).
1992 – This was when the Los Angeles Times revealed that “The Magog Factor” (1992) by Hal Lindsey and Chuck Missler was a monstrous plagiarism of Prof. Edwin Yamauchi’s scholarly 1982 work “Foes from the Northern Frontier.” Four months after this exposure, Lindsey and Missler stated they had stopped publishing and promoting their book. But in 1996 Dr. Yamauchi learned that the dishonest duo had issued a 1995 book called “The Magog Invasion” which still had a substantial amount of the same plagiarism! (If Lindsey and Missler ever need hernia operations, I predict that the doctors will tell them not to lift anything for a long time!)
1994 – In 1996 it was revealed that Lindsey’s “Planet Earth – 2000 A.D. (1994) had an embarrassing amount of plagiarism of a Texe Marrs book titled “Mystery Mark of the New Age” (1988).
1995 – My book “The Rapture Plot” reveals the dishonesty in Darby’s reprinted works. It’s often hard to tell who wrote the footnotes and when. It’s easy to believe that the notes, and also unsigned phrases inside brackets within the text, were a devious attempt by someone (Darby? his editor?) to portray a Darby far more developed in pretrib thinking than he actually had been at the time. I found that some of the “additives” had been taken from Darby’s much later works, when he was more developed, and placed next to or inside his earliest works! One footnote by Darby’s editor, attached to Darby’s 1830 paper, actually stated that “it was not worth while either suppressing or changing” anything in this work! If his editor wasn’t open to such dishonesty, how can we explain such a statement?
Post-1995 – Thomas Ice’s article “Inventor of False Pre-Trib Rapture History” states that my book “The Rapture Plot” is “only one of the latest in a series of revisions of his original discourse….” And David Reagan in his article “The Origin of the Concept of a Pre-Tribulation Rapture” repeats Ice’s falsehood by claiming that I have republished my first book “over the years under several different titles.”
Although my book repeats a bit of the Macdonald origin of pretrib (for new readers), all of my books are packed with new material not found in my other works. For some clarification, “The Incredible Cover-Up” has photos of pertinent places in Ireland, Scotland, and England not found in my later books plus several chapters dealing with theological arguments; “The Great Rapture Hoax” quotes scholars throughout the Church Age, covers Scofield’s hidden side, a section on Powerscourt, the 1980 election, the Jupiter Effect, Gundry’s change, and more theological arguments; “The Rapture Plot” reveals for the first time the Great Evangelical Revisionism/Robbery and includes appendices on miscopying, plagiarism, etc.; and “The Three R’s” shows hypocritical evangelicals employing occultic beliefs they say they have long opposed!
So Thomas Ice etc. are twisting truth when they claim I am only a revisionist. Do they really think that my publishers DON’T know what I’ve previously written?
Re arguments, Google “Pretrib Rapture – Hidden Facts” and also obtain “The End Times Passover” and “Why Christians Will Suffer ‘Great Tribulation’ ” (AuthorHouse, 2006) by media personality Joe Ortiz.
1997 – For years Harvest House Publishers has owned and been republishing Lindsey’s book “There’s A New World Coming.” During the same time Lindsey has been peddling his reportedly “new” book “Apocalyse Code” (1997), much of which is word-for-word the same as the Harvest House book – and there’s no notice of “simultaneous publishing” in either book! Talk about pretrib greed!
1997 – This is the year I discovered that more than 50 pages of Dallas Seminary professor Merrill Unger’s book “Beyond the Crystal Ball” (Moody Press, 1973) constituted a colossal plagiarism of Lindsey’s “The Late Great Planet Earth” (1970). After Lindsey’s book came out, Unger had complained that Lindsey’s book had plagiarized his classroom lecture notes. It was evident that Unger felt that he too should cash in on his own lectures! (The detailed account of this Dallas Seminary dishonesty is revealed in my 1998 book “The Three R’s.”)
1998 – Tim LaHaye’s “Understanding the Last Days” (1998) plagiarized Lindsey’s “There’s A New World Coming” (1973).
1999 – More than 200 pages (out of 396 pages) in Lindsey’s 1999 book “Vanished Into Thin Air” are virtually carbon copies of pages in his 1983 book “The Rapture” – with no “updated” or “revised” notice included! Lindsey has done the same nervy thing with several of his books, something that has allowed him to live in million-dollar-plus homes and drive cars like Ferraris! (See my Google articles “Deceiving and Being Deceived” and “Thieves’ Marketing” for further evidence of this notably pretrib vice.)
2000 – A Jack Van Impe article “The Moment After” (2000) plagiarized Grant Jeffrey’s book “Final Warning” (1995).
2001 – Since 2001 my web article “Walvoord’s Posttrib ‘Varieties’ – Plus” has been exposing his devious muddying up of posttrib waters. In some of his books he invented four “distinct” and “contradictory” posttrib divisions, claiming that they are either “classic” or “semiclassic” or “futurist” or “dispensational” – distinctions that disappear when analyzed! His “futurist” group holds to a literal future tribulation and a literal millennium but doesn’t embrace “any day” imminency. But his “dispensational” group has the same non-imminency! Moreover, tribulational futurism is found in every group except the first one, and he somehow admitted that a literal millennium is in all four groups! On the other hand, it’s the pretribs who consistently disagree with each other over their chief points and subpoints – but somehow end up agreeing that there will be a pretrib rapture! (See my chapter “A House Divided” in my book “The Incredible Cover-Up.”)
2001 – Since my “Deceiving and Being Deceived” web item which exposed the claims for Pseudo-Ephraem” and “Morgan Edwards” as teachers of pretrib, there has been a piranha-like frenzy on the part of pretrib bodyguards and their duped groupies to “discover” almost anything before 1830 walking upright on two legs that seemed to have at least a remote hint of pretrib! (An exemplary poster boy for such pretrib practice is Grant Jeffrey. To get your money’s worth, Google “Wily Jeffrey.”)
FINALLY: Don’t take my word for any of the above. Read my 300-page book “The Rapture Plot” which has a jillion more documented details on the long-hidden but now-revealed history of the dishonest, 179-year-old, fringe-British-invented, American-merchandised-until-the-real-bad-stuff-happens pretribulation rapture fad. If this book of mine doesn’t “move” you, I will personally refund what you paid for it!
People, people. If there’s one stupid theological argument it is the post-trib/pre-trib one. Who really cares? Leave it for Sunday School. This is a very bad movie, but has no bearing on whether or not folks will be raptured or not. For more info on that–pray.
And what you don’t get from God, you don’t need.
You certainly don’t need to occupy your time with debating it. It’s theological geekdom.
If the film is working on pre-determinism then it can’t be religious as that would go against freedom of will etc?
2 kids per ship was just nasty, plenty of room.
The aliens being angels… No, just evolved life forms who have what we would class as a god complex and only wanted young healthy kids to populate the new planet. Someone above implied there was only two kids and its Adam and Eve scenario….mmmmn incest them (Kane & Able went with their mum btw). There was lots of ships, it’s just a kids planet with what seems to be one geographical feature (the tree)
It’s a fun daft film that only raises pointless questions which have pointless answers and makes Christians feel even more superior.
Always fun to see the end of the world though, but plenty of good doomsday movies you could watch that are better and don’t try to be much else (2012 being a really daft one or The Core which is even dafter)
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[Look at what I ran into while on the web. Any comments about it?]
(Here’s the start of a stunning web article! To see all of it, Google “Pretrib Rapture & Ed Hindson” which can be seen in full on Joe Ortiz’s “The End Times Passover” blog. You’ve been warned!)
What a wishy-washy ingrate Ed Hindson is!
He received most of his doctorates from (non-pretrib) schools like Westminster Theological Seminary.
But Falwell’s deep pockets at close-minded (pretrib) Liberty University bribed Hindson into becoming an alma mater backstabber as well as a slavish pretrib plagiarist.
I discovered years ago that “The Fundamentalist Phenomenon” (a book dated 1981 and edited by Jerry Falwell, Ed Dobson, and Ed Hindson) had quietly and monstrously pirated huge portions of George Dollar’s 1973 book “A History of Fundamentalism in America”!