Religious nutters up in arms about yet another film

• Censorship and Moral Panics

I’ve not had as much time recently to keep up with my news feeds but this story, while a little old, is worth mentioning.

The president of the Religious Anti-Defamation Observatory, Antonio Alonso Marcos, has sent an open letter to Alejandro Amenábar whinging about Agora, the director’s recently released biopic of Hypatia.

Hypatia of Alexandria was a fifth century Neoplatonist philosopher who is considered the first notable woman in mathematics. She lived in Roman Egypt, and was killed by a Christian mob who falsely blamed her for religious turmoil. The mob in question waylaid her chariot during lent, stripped her naked and dragged her through the streets to the newly Christianised Caesareum church, where she was flayed alive and burned to death.

According to Marcos, the film presents “a biased view of the relationship between science and the Church, between faith and reason.” I’m intrigued now as to how Amenábar has made the Catholic church look worse than it actually was – and I suspect he hasn’t. The church does have an appalingly bloody history and, for all the likes of OADIR would like to sweep this under the carpet, all the whinging in the world won’t make the past go away.

Bartholemew has more on both OADIR and Marcos, but the shorter version is that the organisation exists to press the authorities to enforce laws against offence to religious feeling – that’s their religious feelings, not yours.