What that idiot who admittedly didn’t even understand the rating system failed to understand is that it was not his job to tell me how to exercise my God-given conscience. <snip>
I found the movie: “Saving Private Ryan” to be especially moving. There was some very graphic violence and some rough speech. The movie was not glorifying violence and adult language but rather it was an honest effort to portray the situation as it actually was. The movie was rated “R”...
Imagine sitting in the audience at a CA---less than a year ago---, listening to a clownishly-animated, though humorless, little DO lecture on the evils of modern entertainment, particularly "R"-rated movies. Care to hazard a guess as to the example he imperiously cited to seal his argument?
"Schindler's List." You heard me. "Schindler's List!"
Even coming from a JW platform, that one stunned me.
To the credit of some in the audience, I did detect some faint wtf undercurrent as I flitted my glance around the auditorium.
Though extremely difficult to watch---as a general rule I avoid war films like the plague---, I made the conscious decision to see “SPR” and was deeply moved by it (betcha can guess the immediate application FUBAR conjured! ). I've seen a good number of "R"-rated movies that were rated such mostly due to the intensity of the subject matter. This is especially true for independent and/or art-house fare. The message to be drawn from many of these stories actually engenders introspection and reinforces Christian convictions. Otoh, I find quite a lot of PG-13 stuff---that, because of not being rated “R,” and, therefore, technically, not off-limits to them, JWs in my area flock to in packs---too objectionable, mindless, and pointless to endure. That’s the problem with stone-tablet religious tenets---they actually serve to undermine opportunities free will affords to sharpen one's conscience.
How a religious organization professing to be Christian determines that it does not violate the individual conscience of and its true obligation toward its adherents in saddling them with the endless dictates of its own voluminous Law Code(s) still mystifies, even when referencing an organization as iron-fisted in its control as the WTS.
-AMNESIAN
