THEÂ Â American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property – property? – is not at all happy with Hollywood’s latest incursion into the world of fantasy Â- Scott Stewart’s action thriller, Legion, which opened today in US cinemas.
The plot, in a nutshell, is this:
Black-winged, machine-gun-toting rebel Archangel Michael (Paul Bettany) flexes his killer abs and becomes the hero in a fight against Gabriel and his hosts who are bent on destroying humanity because of God’s anger.
Which … uh .. kinda departs somewhat from traditional Catlick mythology.
The Society is now asking concerned cracker crunchers to put their names to an email protest to Sony. The message, which could only have been penned by a drama queen in a high state of hysteria, reads:
I protest with all my heart and soul against the new movie Legion because it asks the blasphemous question ‘What if God lost faith in mankind?’
This question contradicts the most fundamental truths of my Catholic Faith, such as God’s justice, mercy, his infinite perfection, the Incarnation of the Word, and the absolute certainty that God never abandons the repentant sinner.
Moreover, Legion presents an upside down world, where St. Michael the Archangel is the rebel angel.
The movie also has blasphemous references to the holy and spotless purity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, which I simply cannot stomach.
For all these reason, I ask you to cancel the showing of Legion immediately and to issue an unconditional apology to all Catholics for its blatantly blasphemous content.
I used the ASDT’s email link to message Sony – but not in a way this group of miseries had in mind. I suggest you doctor the email in any way you see fit – purely in support of freedom of expression, of course. And if the movie turns out to be a puerile pile of poo, well, that’s par for the course when Hollywood goes delving into the supernatural.
Note: I was amused to find an email acknowledging my note to Sony: It reads:
Dear Barry Duke, Thank you for sending your protest to Sony. May Our Lady reward you!
Update: Jan 25 – Uh-oh, Legion has been judged a turkey.
The Freethinker was founded in 1881 by GW Foote, an outspoken critic of religion. After the publication of 
January 22nd, 2010 at 6:23 pm
Will they never learn? I would probably have never been interested in that movie but now I will go and see it when it comes out!!! It’s like when I grew up as a catholic and they would put out a list of books that were on the “index’ meaning we were not supposed to read them because they contained sex or whatever. We were so anxious to get the list so that we could find out what the good stuff was and go and buy whatever reading material they had condemned! They eventually got wise to that, darn it! But what can you do when you become irrelevant but grasp at straws like they do and try to make us believe that they uplift the moral fibre of society by their insipid pronouncements on something which does not concern them? They still think we are a bunch of sheep, eh!
January 22nd, 2010 at 7:21 pm
In character:
“Sony:
I write to you as a Catholic comfortable in my faith. I refused to watch any Dan Brown movies, but only because they are garbage not because they offend, challenge or weaken my faith.
This movie however looks quite interesting and the theology behind it will no doubt prompt interesting conversations between me and my fellow open-minded Catholics.
Please do not give in to the unenlightened Catholics who are trying to bully you into submission.
Look what extremists who call themselves Christian did to that other wonderful Paul Bettany film ‘Creation’.
Freedom of speech is almost as important to me as Our Lord is.
Thank you for your time and God Bless,
Sean”
January 22nd, 2010 at 7:50 pm
Whatever the quality of the movie, it will hardly suffer from the attention of these nutters. I can just imagine the reaction of a bunch of movie makers to the news that the Catholics have taken the hump, “YES, Kerching, Reee-sult” jubilant dancing and high fives all round.
It is interesting to note the stuff that slips under their radar. Life of Brian created some carefully orchestrated outrage but The Meaning of Life lampooned religion in a far more direct way and was totally ignored. The Radio 4 comedy Old Harry’s Game took frequent pops at the Catholics and religion in general but maybe only tolerant, enlightened Catholics listen to Radio 4.
January 22nd, 2010 at 8:19 pm
Links to this posted at Pharyngula and Secular Cafe. Might produce a fit of fairness and balance:)
David B
January 22nd, 2010 at 8:27 pm
‘American Society for the Defence of Tradition, Family and Property’.
These fundie lobby group names increasingly sound like they are generated by a computer programme that just re-scrambles a few key words.
Notice how when secularists, who are routinely accused of silencing Christians, don’t like somebody’s work in the literary or performing arts worlds we simply criticise and mock it. When these muppets feel the same way they demand censorship and apology.
January 22nd, 2010 at 8:31 pm
Typo, and editing time past.
Meant a bit of fairness and balance.
David B
January 22nd, 2010 at 9:25 pm
I congratulate you with all my heart and soul for making the new movie Legion because it asks the entirely pertinent question ‘What if God lost faith in mankind?’
This question exposed the most fundamental lies of the Catholic Faith, such as God’s injustice, cruelty, his definite abandonment of mankind, the Bullshit nature of the Word, and the absolute certainty that religion always financially rewards a good huckster such as Benny Hinn. .
The movie also has factual references to the unholy sexual appetite of the not so Blessed Virgin Mary, which I think is hilarious
For all these reasons, I ask you to double your planned showings of Legion immediately and to issue an unconditional apology to all movie connoisseurs and atheists for not releasing the film sooner
January 22nd, 2010 at 10:38 pm
Sony:
I protest with all my heart and soul the misguided, anti-free-speech protest against the new movie “Legion.” Asking the question “What if God lost faith in mankind?” isn’t particularly blasphemous, although it may be good marketing (it also seems a bit derivative of Robert Kirkman’s “Battle Pope” and Kevin Smith’s “Dogma, but that’s rather beside the point).
I should add that the form email generated by the “American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property,” has a hysterical tone that reminds me of Catholic newsletters written by someone’s great aunt in 1957, which I simply cannot stomach.
I do not, however, wish to suggest that I will automatically reward your having upset the ASFTDOTFAP by seeing “Legion.” I’ll wait for the reviews–if it’s not an overheated mishmash of Dan Brown and Michael Bay, I may give it a look. In any case, good on you for getting these wankers’ knickers in a twist .
Sincerely,
January 22nd, 2010 at 11:04 pm
I see little point in advising MrMonist to read a bible sometime and see for himself that it portrays the character mistranslated as “God” as the most sadistic, evil, mass-murdering psychopath in all fiction, and that its 19,000 demonstrable falsehoods include fourteen unambiguous assertions that the earth is as flat as a dinner plate.
So I will content myself with instructing him: Do not ever ask your monstrous Sky Fuhrer to bless ME. I can tolerate your well-meaning ignorance, but an insult of that magnitude is unacceptable.
January 22nd, 2010 at 11:37 pm
Hey superstitious idiots – quit trying to control what the rest of the world can have for entertainment! Actually READ your bible and find out how sick religion is!
Hey SONY – don’t cave in to a handful of religious nutjobs!
January 22nd, 2010 at 11:49 pm
Memo to the godphuqt: Do you agree that mass murder was evil when Hitler did it with gas chambers, when Osama bin Laden did it with jetliners, and when Joseph Ratzinazi and his Down Syndrome predecessor do it with a self-serving prohibition of sane birth control and sane disease control?
Then by what rationalization do you brainwash yourself that it is not evil when your imaginary playmate does it with disease, famine, religious wars, natural disasters, transportation accidents, and old age? If you believe that, “When God does it, it’s not evil”, doesn’t that make you incapable of telling right from wrong and therefore insane?
As Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins and others have pointed out, it is the failure of moderate believers to denounce the extremists that enables the extremists to continue their atrocities.
January 23rd, 2010 at 12:14 am
I’m just curious, What is wrong with you people? Why would you mock the faith of others? If you don’t believe, fine, but don’t denigrate those who have chosen to live lives based on belief in a higher power and a life beyond this realm. This is no different than racism, and it frankly makes it obvious that you are more closed minded than the worst redneck.
You’re truly hideous – or I guess a better description is sad and worthy of pity – in your pompous, uninformed blathering about the “nuts” that believe in a higher power; that there is more to this precious life than pleasing ourselves by buying every bauble and toy, and taking advantage of every opportunity to get away from ourselves and who/what we are.
You may find faith ridiculous, and hate/disdain believers, but real people of faith love you anyway. Chew on that.
January 23rd, 2010 at 12:14 am
What I wrote:
I protest with all my heart against Catholics who seem to the think that they, and they alone, should have special treatment and considerations above and beyond all other tax payers and citizens and movie goers, as they and they alone are in possession of the ‘truth’, and cannot see the difference between fact and fantasy, and therefore no one else alive is allowed the freedom to go to the movies and see a new film.
This question here contradicts the most fundamental reality of life: that Catholicism is a nasty, inbred, selfish, immoral and self-righteous dogma of totalitarian garbage that has been foisted on the human race almost for the past 2000 years, and for them to tell us what movies can and cannot be shown is just another in the endlessly long line of toxic hysterical demands they make upon the rest of us; all without a stick of evidence to prove their case, and with the utter arrogance to believe that they are above and beyond everyone else, who don’t accept their centuries old lies.
Moreover, this Catholic protest proves that these people are incapable of telling the difference between reality and fiction. That they are happy to make demands upon the rest of us based upon the arrogance and selfishness of their fantasy that they insist is real, and therefore Sony should shut up and remove “Legion” from our movie theaters on the grounds that Catholics are offended, and as we all know, Catholics are so very precious to the world that they must never be offended.
The holy and spotless purity of Catholics, I simply cannot stomach.
For all these reason, I ask you to ignore everything every Catholic ever said in the entire history of the world, and may “Legion†rule. No apology to all Catholics should EVER be given, for it is they who should be appologising to US, on the grounds of their Church’s reign of terror that it has undertaken against humanity since the 4th century AD, including the Inquisitions and endless decades of child rape and the horrors of the spread of AIDS, where their priests actively LIE to impoverished people that condoms have microscopic holes in them through which HIV/AIDS can pass: a utter and blatant lie that has caused thousands, if not millions of people to contract the disease and die long and slow horrible deaths. Thank you so much, you catholic pious bastards of cowardice and lies.
January 23rd, 2010 at 2:19 am
Sorry Paul Allee but we are not denigrating people who believe but people who believe what most religions have become and teach and they believe blindly. How can someone believe that some superior being or beings would be insulted or would even be concerned about people using condoms when they have sex or with whom they have sex!! It boggles the mind that people like Ratzinger can preach this and people swallow that hook, line and sinker. Or people who send money they can’t afford to preachers who live in mansions and travel in private planes and go around the world preaching hatred in the guise of love!! I was raised as a catholic and I believe in some form of higher power and no one here will condemn me for this. What I condemn are those so called religious smug bible thumpers who use stories….and often gory stories at that…from a book written a couple of thousand years ago to justify persecuting anyone they feel doesn’t live by the precepts they think are the correct ones whether they are gays, atheists, agnostics, etc. Who gave them the right to tell me how to live my life as I see fit!! Who gave them the right to condemn me as a gay man because of some nonsense written 2000 years ago??
January 23rd, 2010 at 7:54 am
Ah Paul this is where you are wrong. Take time to think, really think about what you say. Did you arrive at your belief through investigation? Through vigourous debate and lines of reasoning? Or were you simply told by your parents, priest to believe without question? Or maybe you fear death so much that you have convinced yourself there is an afterlife? Which is it?
January 23rd, 2010 at 8:41 am
Re Paul Allee’s post above.
If believers just believed and did not impose themselves on other peoples lives then that would be another matter. But in this case some seek to impose themselves on artistic freedom, and to prevent people watching films they might enjoy.
This is something that needs opposing, IMV.
I’d point out that calling people truly hideous while at the same time professing love for them seems to require a certain amount of cognitive dissonance.
And further, that except in exceptional cases, it is not the believer who is hated and despised, but the belief. Remember that many freethinkers were once religious themselves, sometimes extremely so.
David B
January 23rd, 2010 at 9:38 am
Quite right, @David B, and I was one of them. It’s a bit rich for a religionist like Paul Allee to accuse rationalists of “taking advantage of every opportunity to get away from ourselves and who/what we are”! That sums up religious belief to a tee!!
January 23rd, 2010 at 9:44 am
@Paul Allee: how dare you, in your arrogant and morally superior fantasy existence, accuse rationalists of greater materialism and self-interest than the religious! I take it that, unlike the infamous “televangelists”, bishops and princes of the church, you are actually carrying out the instructions of that man you are supposed to emulate, and have given away all your worldly goods to follow him!!
January 23rd, 2010 at 11:38 am
@ Paul Allee – why not turn the other cheek? Oh of course – you are a Christian so barely grasp the teachings of your own christ. Like giving away your posessions and leaving your family.
We mock because its funny! We don’t murder because we disagree like your kind.
Now Piss off back to your idiot world of sky fairies and doing the EXACT opposite of what you profess – You morons are like the CGI martians from movie “Mars Attacks” – saying “we come in peace” while slaughtering people.
Religions profess love and peace – yet their god characters are uniformly murderous, vain, petty, retards, whose followers commit atrocities daily. Hollow empty platitudes. And your whole life is now devoted to propogatng this sick evil two-faced deception.
And yet you come on here to insult rational people laughing at the insanity of catholics protesting what sounds like one of the dumbest movies of all time?
No hate here pal! Just concern at what the stupidity of non-educated brainwashed people are doing to fuck up the lives of every normal person on Earth.
January 23rd, 2010 at 3:08 pm
From Charles Darwin (“Creation”, the DVD of which was released recently) to the Archangel Michael (“Legion”) – what a weird CV Paul Bettany has! It’s even better than that of David Prowse (Green Cross Code Man, Darth Vader).
Paul Allee, the denigration of religion cannot be equated with racism. Simple logic tells you that all or all but one of the word’s mutually-incompatible faiths have to be false. Even if one race were superior to others, one could hardly brand the inferior races as false. Chimpanzees aren’t the sharpest knives in the drawer by human standards, but it makes no sense to label them as “false”.
January 23rd, 2010 at 4:54 pm
I think it’s kind of funny and almost a little enlightening to see people’s mythologies being screwed with.
In addition to this movie, I’ve seen a lot of bad television shows here in the US messing around with “supernatural” themes, having to do with demons, souls being dragged back to hell, etc.
I wondered how long it would take for some Christian to cry foul. At least someone finally clued in that their meme was being tampered with.
You gotta remember that most Christians have never read the Bible, even tho of course they all say how important it is…so if you present some alternative theory about the supernatural (even if it’s really crazy) someone might actually believe it, sadly.
I figure maybe if they see their stories messed with in a lot of different ways they might finally figure out that it’s really just a story. Maybe.
January 23rd, 2010 at 5:27 pm
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2.....m_trailer/
Speaking of outrage, I wonder if ‘four lions’ will upset any jihadis.
January 23rd, 2010 at 6:00 pm
To the latest troll: Did you not read my previous post before boasting of your ignorance of the cited facts? If you believe that, “When God does it, it’s not evil,” you are insane. If you believe that a book endorsing a flat earth is nonfiction, you are insane. If you believe that a pope who murdered 60 million human beings through starvation and AIDS is nicer than Hitler, you are insane.
There is no such thing as a sane godworshipper. I have never encountered anyone who has had the disease and recovered, including myself, who does not know that. If you do not want to be ridiculed, then stop being ridiculous. And get yourself educated. In your present state of ignorance, you are part of the reason religion is within 250 years of exterminating the human race–unless religion is exterminated first (by education).
January 23rd, 2010 at 6:58 pm
Marilyn Manson once asked, ‘what if the bible had been written from Lucifers’ perspective ?’. As someone who doesn’t regard the bible as nothing more than a collection of fairy tales, it bemuses me that the Catholic Church, hardly a paragon of virtue, is up in arms over this movie. If nothing else the furore over this will probably cause more people, than probably would have, to go see it. Freedom of speech and expression should be encouraged, and for ‘mother church’ to cry foul over superstition, when they propogate such antiquated and irrational beliefs defies belief.
January 23rd, 2010 at 7:09 pm
@William Harwood
I am an atheist who has read the bible in English ×’× ×”×ª×•×¨×” בעברית.
I purposely lied hence the “in character” bit.
Having also been educated in two Catholic schools I’m fairly up on all things biblical. Thanks for your patronising concern anyway (I thought the name MrMonist might have given you a clue as to my disposition).
January 23rd, 2010 at 7:20 pm
@Rog
I doubt it mate. The once great Morris seems to have contracted dhimmi-itis. Read Nick Cohen’s article about the Martin Amis debate (easily googleable…).
Plus I read an interview with him where he tries to argue that Jihadis are just the muslim equivalent of angry teenagers or punks and religion has nought to do with it…
January 24th, 2010 at 9:47 am
A question, least of all a “what-if” question such as this movie would be, is not an assertion and can thus contradict nothing. It can only cause people, in attempting to answer it, to realise contradictions that already existed independently of the act of asking. Don’t blame the question for highlighting flaws that are your own just because it hurts to realise that they are there. If you don’t like it, don’t watch it, but leave the rest of us the opportunity if we want to.
(The movie may still suck, of course. Suckiness, however, is not sufficient reason to ban something either.)
January 24th, 2010 at 8:43 pm
The American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property – the what? Is that one of those groups of one person with a long name? Does it issue press releases in which it talks about itself in the third person in the manner of Bill Donohue?
I think I’ll set up American Society for the Defense of Patriarchy, Blind Obedience, Slavery, Union Busting, the Profit Motive, Limitless Bribery of Politicians, and Racism, then spend all my time issuing idiotic press releases to make it look bad.
January 25th, 2010 at 9:44 am
“Asking the question “What if God lost faith in mankind?†isn’t particularly blasphemous, although it may be good marketing (it also seems a bit derivative of Robert Kirkman’s “Battle Pope†and Kevin Smith’s “Dogma”, but that’s rather beside the point).”
You forgot Garth Ennis’s ‘Preacher’ graphic novels, but thanks for reminding me of the highly amusing Battle Pope.
I look forward to seeing this movie; it sounds like a laugh.
January 25th, 2010 at 4:57 pm
“I protest with all my heart and soul against the new movie Legion because it asks the blasphemous question ‘What if God lost faith in mankind?’”
Erm… the flood?
I’m no biblical scholar, but I’m pretty sure that’s what that whole story’s about.
October 7th, 2010 at 1:23 am
I am a sixteen year-old Christian who goes to church every week. And, come on, half of you are just agnostics/atheists mildly fascinated with what you see as ancient mythology…it’s just an invalid argument from any of you, as you simply don’t share a Christian mindset and perspective. I find it blasphemous, I really, really do…I won’t waste my time here my listing each blasphemous element one by one, but there is lots and lots of anti-Christian blasphemy here.
You can disagree with me, of course. But my opinion of this will not change. God bless you all.