Quick Take on Interstellar

I watched Interstellar last night and I have mixed feelings about it. Basic spoilers implied ahead.

From a science standpoint, Interstellar educates the audience about how relativity works (although inconsistently) in regards to time dilation and how it is related to gravity. On the flip side, the movie also propagates the myth that black holes transport people places rather than kill them. I don’t care if movies educate, but I don’t want them to pass on wrong information as if it is correct. Science fiction is at it’s best when it takes unknowns and fills them with what could be true, not when it takes things we know are wrong and misleads audiences.

The movie also implies that the emotion of love transcends the mind, a theme many religious types and romanticizers would like about the film. Love as a motivator for the characters involved would be enough to keep the story together, using it as an attribute of the universe makes the movie feel more fantasy than sci-fi. They might as well evoke the Force.

The ending feels contrived and there are the typical Nolan plot holes, but it was worth seeing. The cinematography, acting, and music were great.

Iron Apologetics

The following post contains spoilers for Iron Man 3 and, possibly, the existence of God.

If I believed in a benevolent creator, I could see myself being a huge fan of the guy. Not only would I owe my own existence to him/her/it, but also would I credit him/her/it for the existence of my friends, my family, my planet--basically everything that matters to me. Religion understandably has it’s share of fanatics, but for those who see no reason to believe, we direct our fandom elsewhere...like movies.

I saw Iron Man 3 this weekend. Robert Downey Jr. really owns the role and the inclusion of Guy Pierce as the villain was a great choice. As with most summer blockbusters, it is an explosive spectacle with a passable story as long as you don’t think about it too hard. I, unfortunately, thought about it too hard. I can’t help myself. (If you haven’t seen the movie and like the film of Marvel Studios, go see it. Spoilers begin now.)

Tony Stark spends the lion’s share of the movie out of the armor. This isn’t THAT surprising. Downey Jr’s ability to convey emotion is severely limited when he has a metal hood over his face. And, hey, why cover the cash register? The result of this choice puts the character in harms way pretty much the entire flick. I doubt the audience is worried that the most popular Avenger in the franchise will die, but, in theory, he is almost always killable to any guy with a gun. This leads me to what takes me out of movies most often--characters not acting like real, intelligent people. Tony Stark is always the smartest guy in the room, so if he is forced to MacGyver weapons out of groceries, I assume it’s because he has no other choice. Later in the movie they show that this was never the case--revealing the biggest plot hole of many plot holes. Tony Stark simply calls upon an army of automated Iron Men. Sure, it allows for a big climax, but it also throws into question why Stark never called upon just one or two Iron Men armors much earlier.

Here you may ask: are you going to bring this back to religion or are you turning this into a movie review blog? It’s the former. I’ve found that movie franchises, especially those catering to the demographic I lovingly call geeks, inspire a kind of irrational loyalty at times. I’ve mentioned this plot hole to Marvel fans in the past 48 hours and have been met with rationalizations that are far too charitable to what was actually shown on screen and hostile toward any critical views. Here are some reasons I heard as to why this plot hole is not a plot hole.

1. The armors were trapped under the ruble of Stark’s demolished home.
2. Tony couldn’t summon the armors because he had no way to contact JARVIS.
3. JARVIS couldn’t connect to the home server.
4. Tony was trying to stay under the radar when he was presumed dead.
5. It never occurred to Tony until the moment he used the protocol.

Each of these are grasps at straws to rationalize an emotional belief that the franchise they love is perfect. An critical assessment of these rationalizations shows they break down quite quickly.

1. If the armor was buried, then Tony also couldn’t summon them when he eventually did. If they weren’t buried, then he could summon them anytime.
2. Tony could have asked JARVIS to summon the armor before JARVIS went offline. He could have asked JARVIS when Tony got him online again, which happened long before he finally called on the armor,
3. Tony sent a message to Pepper very shortly after his disappearance showing that either his home server was accessible or that Pepper could have made it accessible.
4. Disregarding the fact the no one should have presumed Tony dead considering Iron Man shot into the sky not far from the attack on his house where news coverage was present, Tony openly admitted who he was to anyone who saw him. Also, he obviously had more desire to have an armor than to stay concealed since he was working on fixing his suit from the moment it was disabled.
5. Tony Stark isn’t an idiot.

Weak reasoning based on assumptions to defend what is an emotional faith in a franchise is essentially secular apologetics. This is just one example. Last year, negative reviews for The Dark Knight Rises prompted death threats from fanatics who hadn’t yet seen the movie. In the tech world, the Apple/Android/Windows faithful refuse to see design flaws in their favorite gadgets; instead, they are "features."

Am I over thinking this? Perhaps. Next week I’ll explore the theological implications of The Fast and the Furious 6.

Review Shmeview: Calculating God

Calculating God is a book about an atheist presented with a compelling case for God and eventually converting to theism. Not something you’d think I’d like, right? Turns out I did, very much so.

In fact, the pages hold a case for God so solid, that I too would leave atheism...if this wasn’t a science fiction novel. Calculating God is by Robert J. Sawyer, the guy who penned the story on which the post-LOST drama Flashforward was based. In it, two alien races visit earth to investigate human psychology and dinosaur fossils to further their theory that God is real. Sound interesting? If so, I recommend you read it. From here on out I’ll give my take on the book revealing the kind of spoilers that may ruin a purely fresh experience, but shouldn’t take away the enjoyment of Sawyer’s universe. I will avoid any spoilery material that may or may not be revealed in the third and final act of the book. You’ve been warned.

The book reads as an excuse for the main characters, atheist paleontologist Thomas Jericho and theist alien Hollus, to sit down and chat. Sure, other interesting things happen, like the public response to first contact, but this dialogue is all that matters for the first two-thirds of the novel. Hollus lays out to Jericho that the advanced science of his world has actually confirmed an intelligent creator that governs the universe. I won’t get into all the details of the argument, but I will end the post with the part that would make me a theist. Actually, I would have converted before Jericho. He needed a “smoking gun”--to actually witness a miracle, before he made up his mind.

One criticism I have over the fictional discussion is that there was a lot of muddled talk about intelligent design. The paleontologist obviously believed in evolution, and the alien seemed to most of the time, but other times she talked of a designer. I think that was just the author working in all the issues of the religion vs. science debate that he could, but I feel like he failed here. Sawyer has a great grasp of science, but popularizing the ID concept in this book is sending a mixed message. That said, the alien certainly wasn’t a creationist, nor did she have a holy book. She, as well as the rest of the aliens, only believed in a vague sense of an imperfect god. The type of god I would believe in if I did indeed believe.

The argument for God that I found most convincing is one believers already use, the Fine-Tuning Argument. The premise is that the universe is set with fundamental physical constants that, if any were tweaked slightly, would not be able to support life and/or form matter. You can read more about the argument and the specific constants in question here. In our non-fiction world, this argument doesn’t close the book on atheism. We are also on a “fine-tuned” planet of sorts. Life probably wouldn’t have evolved here if we were closer to or farther from the sun, for instance. The anthropic principle states that we must live somewhere that can support life because we are, in fact, here to observe it. We couldn’t be anywhere else.

This principle explains why living on one of the few planets that can support us isn’t that special. However, it needs another element before it can explain why we are in a universe that supports us. There are probably trillions of planets in our galaxy alone, it’s reasonable to assume that at least one would beat the odds and meet human-friendly conditions. For the anthropic principle to work for the fine tuning of the universe, we’d need a well populated multiverse.

Luckily, atheists don’t have to pull the multiverse concept out of our collective, infidel asses to maintain the intellectual high ground. Quantum mechanics also lends itself to a many-worlds interpretation. It’s possible that very universe that could exist, does exist--including many with physical constants that don’t allow life and many that do. As long as this is possible, the “fine-tuning” of the universe requires no god.

In Calculating God, the alien Hollus reveals that their science discovered that there have only been eight universes, a number not sufficiently large enough to account for the astronomical odds that our universe in livable. They also discovered that the constants of the universe could, in theory, be different, but are not. I don’t know if our real-world science could determine for certain whether or not we live in a multiverse and how many universes it contained. If somehow they could discover something similar to this fictional account, The intellectually honest thing to do would be to give up atheism.

Note: It is important for atheists to keep in mind new evidence that would change their mind on the existence of a deity. It is what separates our informed belief from blind faith. I liked this book, in part, because it brought to light one more thing that would convert me.