1. Do the gods love good actions because they are good?
2. Or, are good actions good because they are loved by the gods?

One could restate these questions as:

1. Are actions good independent of God?
2. Or, are actions good because God decided that they are good?

If the first statement is true, one would deny divine command theory—the theory that what is good, and what one should do, is determined by what God commands.

On the other hand, if the second statement is true, then God could have commanded that torture and killing are good, which doesn’t seem compatible with our strong intuition that these things are wrong.

Most theists argue for the second case but reconcile it with our moral intuitions by placing restrictions on God. They assert that God is infinitely good, and as such, he can only do good things. In other words, he couldn’t have commanded torture to be good because it would go against his own nature.

I have a problem with this assessment. By placing restrictions on God and claiming he couldn’t have chosen to command a particular action as good, this implies that his agency is compromised. First, this seems at odds with the common understanding of God as all-powerful. Second, if God, as Protestant theology teaches, is a god who desires a personal relationship with us, it feels strange to have a relationship with something that lacks true agency. Agency is fundamentally built into every meaningful relationship.

The protagonist reveals to a group of friends that he has been alive since ancient times, claiming to be 14,000 years old. The entire movie revolves around his friends interrogating him about his claims. While I liked the concept of the film, I feel the execution was poor. His friends mostly asked very basic questions about his life, then acted like he was a genius just because he had answers.

One particular dialogue stood out as disappointing: the protagonist claimed to have been Jesus, by giving Buddha’s teaching “a new face.” While there are some commonalities between Buddhism and Christianity, they have fundamental differences. For example, buddhism focuses on being saved from within through one’s own efforts, while Christianity centers on salvation through a third party, namely God, “by grace alone.” These are fundamentally incompatible ideas. 6/10.

This is a documentary directed by Werner Herzog about his friend and actor Klaus Kinski. If you want to learn more about Klaus Kinski, this is the right movie for you. I would definitely recommend watching at least a few Klaus Kinski movies before diving into this documentary. Some of my favorite anecdotes were:

• During the last days of filming Aguirre, the Wrath of God, Kinski became so angry that he threatened to leave the set. He had already packed all his belongings. Upon hearing this, Herzog told him that he was free to leave, but warned that before he rounded the next corner, he would have eight bullets in his head from Herzog’s rifle. Hearing this, Kinski became remarkably disciplined for the remainder of the shoot.
• Another story Herzog shared involved his plan to raid Kinski’s house and set it on fire. However, the plan was foiled because Kinski’s shepherd dog was awake and alerted him.

Definitely a 6.5/10.

Half of the film consists of sex scenes, while the other half features cinematic shots of Japanese cityscapes, all accompanied by wacky music that sounds like it came straight out of a generic Japanese visual novel. The only thing more absurd is the Fantozzi soundtrack. Impressively, the movie masters the art of including explicit sex scenes without ever showing any genitals. I enjoyed the performances, particularly the father and his synergy with his younger son. If you’re looking for a compelling story, you should probably look elsewhere. However, the movie has surprisingly cute atmosphere. 6.5/10.

A japanese erotica film that delivers exactly what you’d expect. The only noteworthy aspect is that the main actress maintains the same facial expression throughout the entire movie. 6/10.