"Noah" – The Bible Meets The Lorax
April 7, 2014
By Don Feder
In "Noah," the environmentalist fable, we learn that bad people (descendants of Cain) build cities, eat meat and make weapons. (They probably belong to an Antediluvian NRA.) They also engage in strip mining, in the process turning the earth into a barren wasteland that looks like Afghanistan without the amenities.
The good people are vegans who live in tents, don't make much of anything, and are few in number, probably because they practice family planning. One of many unanswered questions of "Noah" the movie: If the good people (descendants of Seth) don't eat meat, where did they get the animal skins they wear? Presumably, these are the pelts of critters who committed suicide after contemplating mankind's speciesism.
Darren Aronofsky's $130-million anti-biblical epic has almost nothing to do with the Bible's account of the flood. There is an ark, animals marching in two by two, a deluge of Biblical proportions, and a man called Noah. That's where the similarity ends.
"Noah" is anti-religious, pushes population control, and is an allegorical warning about the coming cataclysm which we're told will be caused by global warming. In the movie, God is always referred to as "the Creator." Hollywood has a problem with the G-word.
The Bible describes Noah as "a righteous man" who was "perfect in his generations" and "walked with God."
Aronofsky's Noah is what secularists would call a religious fanatic. Filled with self-loathing and prone to violent outbursts, he becomes convinced that God wants to destroy humanity completely. Thus, the only purpose of Noah and his family is to build the ark and save the animals. On completing that task, the last people on earth are to go the way of the dodo. At the premiere, the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement and PETA must have been applauding from front-row seats.
As portrayed by Russell Crowe, Noah is so obsessed that he plans on murdering his newborn grandchildren to prevent repopulation of the planet.
This is Hollywood's take on religious Christians and Jews – that their fanaticism borders on psychosis and leads to hatred and homicide. Bill Cosby's old Noah routine ("Right, what's a cubit?") is closer to Genesis – and far more entertaining.
Scripture is a bit vague on the reasons for the flood. The Bible explains: "Now the earth was corrupt before God. And the earth became full of robbery. And God saw the earth, and behold it had become corrupted." (Genesis 6:11-12).
Corrupt in what way? Would God destroy the world over larceny? Later in Genesis, the Canaanite cities of Sodom and Gomorrah are blotted out, this time by fire, over sexual deviancy. The term "sodomite" doesn't refer to someone who knocks-over convenience stores.
Try to imagine Hollywood making a movie that inveighs against sexual immorality, when the entertainment industry goes Lady Gaga over gayness and presents cohabitation, adultery and abortion as lifestyle choices.
"Noah" isn't about sin in the traditional sense, but "environmental sin" – as recounted in the Gospel of St. Al. "And God looked at greenhouse gases and lo they were very uncool. And He said: Let the ice caps melt and the sea levels rise until all that's left is Kevin Costner in his sailboat looking for dry land."
In an interview with New Yorker magazine, Aronofsky admitted: "There is a huge statement in the film, a strong message about the coming flood from global warming." Elsewhere, he describes Noah as "the first environmentalist." The Hollywood Reporter refers to the film's "heavy-handed ecological doomsday messages."
The cult of global warming has all of the characteristics of a religion – prophets (Al Gore, Hollywood savants, and scientists in mad pursuit of government research grants), evil (the internal combustion engine, coal-fired plants, population growth), good (measures designed to curb CO2 emissions) and salvation/redemption (draconian fines for carbon-polluters, severe limits on human reproduction – to erase carbon footprints – and eventual repeal of the industrial revolution). Dissenters aren't merely wrong, they are heretics labeled climate change "deniers." Enviros would have auto-da-fes in front of the United Nations building if not for concern about pollutants released by burning flesh.
But the cult of global warming diverges from traditional religion in two significant respects. Judaism and Christianity are man-centered, while warmingism is planet-centered. In "Noah," the words of the first chapter of Genesis are put in the mouth of the villain Tubal-Cain, who tells Noah that the animals are meant for man's use (that we are to have dominion over the natural world) to prove what an evil idea this is.
There's another difference. Generally, religion can neither be proved nor disproved, but is based on something extra-rational called faith.
Although adherents won't admit it, warmingism is also based on faith – a belief in the depravity of industrial society and the evil of progress. Unfortunately for its proponents, warmingism is demonstrably false and is increasingly refuted by reality. The earth isn't getting warmer. The ice caps aren't shrinking. The rise in sea-levels is insignificant and ecological doom is nowhere on the horizon.
Planet earth has repeatedly gone through cycles of heating and cooling. Any number of factors can affect climate, including sunspots.
Last year's hurricane season was the mildest since the early 1960s. Even the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (warmists' Holy Inquisition) admits the average rise in surface temperatures stopped 15 years ago. They try to save face by calling it a "pause" – a pretty long pause.
Last December, climate-change scientists who went to the Antarctic looking for evidence to support their "incontrovertible" opinion and were trapped in ice-seas that weren't supposed to be there. Their ship was locked in ice. Multiple ice-breaking vessels were unable to reach them. (Sea-ice in the Southern Hemisphere hit record levels in September 2013 – for the second year in a row.) Finally, they had to be airlifted off the vessel – saved by wretched technology. Too bad they didn't have special effects (CGI) to save them.
In its second week, Noah's receipts sank by 60%. Still, many people who see it will believe it bears some relation to the Bible – with artistic license, naturally.
Bible illiteracy is epidemic. A survey by Barna Research reveals that 60% of adult Americans can't name five of the Ten Commandments. Baptist theologian Albert Mohler writes that said Barna poll "indicated that at least 12% of adults believe that Joan of Arc is Noah's wife. Another survey of graduating high school seniors revealed that over 50% thought that Sodom and Gomorrah were husband and wife. A considerable number of respondents to one poll indicated that the Sermon on the Mount was preached by Billy Graham. We are in big trouble."
Capitalizing on this ignorance, the movie has fallen angels, called Watchers, covered in stone as punishment for helping fallen man by giving him earth-shaping technology. Looking like calcified Ents from "Lord of the Rings," and discerning Noah's inner goodness (before he goes psycho), the rocks of ages help him build the Ark and protect it from Cain's kids.
As Methuselah, Anthony Hopkins provides comic relief and more revisionism. The world's oldest hippy lives in a cave, serves hallucinogenic tea and practices magic with a seed right out of Jack in the Beanstalk.
Writing on the website Aish.com, Rabbi Benjamin Blech cautions: "To know that millions of viewers, after seeing the film, will internalize Russell Crowe's Noah, as well as many other parts of the film's storyline that have no basis in the Bible or any other reputable sources, should be a cause for much concern to all those respectful of Torah and the guardianship of its truths."
After spending decades (centuries if you want to go back to the French Revolution) trying to destroy religion, the left is now using religion to advance its pet causes. Coming soon, "Sodom and Gomorrah: The True Story" – wherein destruction is visited on the Mesopotamian metropolises for their homophobia, sexism and income inequality.
Don Feder is a former Boston Herald writer who is now a political/communications consultant. He also maintains his own website, DonFeder.com.
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