I never saw this movie until you told me you were recording a commentary. I watched it, loved it, and have now been waiting for like eight months for this commentary to come out. Good on you.

This is great stuff. Also, I don't personally lay claim to any specific religion. I'm not a big fan of organized religion in general. For example, too many "rules" & too much bad shit has happened in the name of a religion. But i do believe in a higher power of some kind. So there's that. To each their own. I do like that Teague brings up that you never see athiests trying to cram their beliefs down everyone's throat.  - other than that note...good commentary, as usual ; ) (can't wait to hear you guys go off on T3)

I never got the vibe that she didn't believe in god as a result of her dad dying. I don't see how they're related.

While it's fair if you got that message from the scene, I don't think that was the intent.  I read it as a demonstration that Ellie was already who would continue to be as an adult - pragmatic and logical, and not interested in vague pseudo-answers like "God moves in mysterious ways".   

I think if the movie wanted to give us a heavy-handed message like you describe (and many a less-deft movie has), we'd have seen a scene of her going to church with her dad before he died.    Or more likely, given Zemeckis' tendency in these matters, religious memorabilia on her wall, revealed in a slow tracking shot. 

So if there'd been a crucifix and a plaque reading "Honor Student at St. Mary's Catholic School for Spookily Devout Girls", that'd be one thing.    Instead, the patented Zemeckis introduce-character-via-their-home-decor tracking shot in Contact shows that Ellie is already obsessed with radio and astronomy, etc. long before her dad's death.  He's raising a little scientist, not a little Christian - I don't think there's any indication that she had any religious beliefs to lose.   

Of course, I probably see that because that was my life too - I didn't "reject" Christianity any more than I rejected Zeus or Buddha or Cthulhu, I just wasn't trained to believe in any of them and religion has never been a factor in my life.   

I suppose you're right that a religiously-inclined person might interpret that scene the way you describe, but we already know that sort of person interprets a lot of things in the darnedest ways anyway, regardless of whether there's basis for it or not.     They make plenty of movies targeted for those people, but  I don't think Contact is one of them.

I was a Tauren hunter too.

Sigh.

Only the terribly uncool people.   Tauren hunters rule.

I bet she could cast a hell of a snake trap, tho - know what I mean?  *

*actually, I myself do not know what that meant, it just sounded dirty.

Trey, my guy-on-the-Internet-I'd-like-to-call-friend, you're not wrong. She chain-snake-trapped me for about three months. Oh, the drama.

And I'm tickled to death by the notion of somebody googling up World of Warcraft jargon so as not to seem uncool.

Great post, thanks for sharing.

As to your last two paragraphs, because I have no reason to think "God"* exists (neither do you, since as mortal beings we all have the same evidence to look at and critique), I'd chalk what you experienced up to your friend having a hunch, and your faith acting as a placebo.  (Perhaps intensified due to your great pain and lessened coherence.) Presumably afterward you followed up on the matter medically, and it hasn't been a problem since.

*I use quotation marks not to be a dick, but to imply that I mean a persona specifically and not some general flow of energy and hormones, intuition, and probability.

I think "faith" is a good word, and I think Hebrews 11:1 defines it as well as anybody ever could. (The King James is most eloquent, I think.)

But really "faith" comes in two parts. First, there's belief without evidence. Then, once that belief-without-evidence is in place, there's trust. Trust in whatever thing it is you believe in without evidence.

This dichotomy comes up a lot in discussions of theodicy. (Shut up, I like to read.) The world can be an ugly place. Some people of faith choose to conclude that it's all part of God's plan. Both aspects of the faith thing are at work there. On the one hand, there's belief-without-evidence in God. On the other hand, there's trust in God's presumed omnibenevolence.

I think — and I'm just talkin' here — that many atheists have more of a problem with the second bit than the first. Let's just be honest here: religious conviction has been used to justify many nasty things throughout history, from the really bad stuff like crusades and pogroms to mere tragedies like a Jehovah's Witness family refusing a blood transfusion for their child. All these things are a consequence of trust, not of pure belief. You can say you believe in God in the absence of evidence for it; that's fine. But when you make choices based on your trust in God, or in your trust in your own understanding of God's will … well, to be blunt, those choices sometimes end up sucking.

I think a lot of atheists — and maybe the Down in Fronters fall into this category, I dunno — put a lot of emphasis on objective truth. Either there is a god or there isn't; this is an objective fact. Personally, I tend not really to care very much about whether people believe that a god exists or whatever. I care — to the extent that I care at all, which I usually don't very much — about what choices people make. If you make a dumb choice based on religious conviction, I think you're just as open to criticism as if you made the same choice based on any other rationale.

Me? I honestly don't know about the whole God thing. I know that the universe exists, and that nobody has ever advanced a plausible theory for how or why. That's pretty strong evidence in favor of the existence of some kind of prime mover, in my book. So I freely admit the possibility that there's something out there that we could reasonably call a creator. Whether that's one of the various gods of the organized religions or aliens from another universe, I can't even begin to guess. But frankly, the Old Testament God seems no less inherently plausible than the aliens, so really, whatever.

God might exist. Or something else might exist that's definitely not God as you or anybody else understands it. Or maybe there's nothing at all out there but cold protons and the fading echo of the big bang. And frankly, I'm not sure which of those three possibilities terrifies me more.

But regardless of whether God exists, and regardless of a person's beliefs in the sacred realm, it's what people choose to do in the profane realm that matters to me.

I live in DC, and as y'all may or may not know, yesterday there was some big political protest thing downtown. The train I took into the city was packed with too-friendly people all wearing matching tee shirts. I don't remember what their pet cause was, but it had some kind of catchy name. "Puppy Salsa" or something, I forget. Anyway, there was this one guy who just would not shut up. He kept turning to new people and asking, "Have you heard of Puppy Salsa before? Can I tell you about Puppy Salsa?"

Now, there's something you have to understand about the DC subway system. We get a lot of tourists here, obviously, but the morning and evening rush-hour trains are ridden almost exclusively by people commuting to and from their jobs. They're quiet. They listen to iPods or read books. They don't take up too much space, they don't make eye contact, and they sure as hell don't talk. To hear another human voice on a rush-hour train in DC is a very, very rare thing.

And this guy just would not shut up. Finally somebody had to say to him — and I wish I could say it was me, but I didn't have the balls — "Excuse me, crazy person? We're trying to go to work here. You wanna keep it down?"

There was applause. Not a lot of it, not like riotous cheering or anything. But people clapped. Seriously.

Nobody likes to be preached to. I don't care if you want me to believe in your god or join your fringe political movement or buy your Amway shit. It's annoying, and it's obtrusive, and it's rude.

Not to say that all people of faith do that, of course. But the ones who do sure do give the ones who don't a bad name.

Last edited by Jeffery Harrell (2010-04-16 21:24:17)

There are two steps to worshiping a god: first, does it exist, and second is it something I feel is worth worshiping? After all, if we find proof the old Mayan gods are real how many will be down to going back to human sacrifices? Personally I feel any being that condemns those who don't bow before it to be evil, be it god or man, but luckily so far nothing has passed the first test in my opinion.

To bring this back to movies, I LOVE the John Carpenter film Prince of Darkness, partly due to the premiss: what if God, creator of the universe, in fact existed in the anti-mater part of existence and thus what was good to him we'd see as evil? Talk about being screwed...

I have to admit Dorkman, I'm quite surprised at your aggression and lack of attention to detail.

You will find that I try to be very specific in my posts. I type what I mean and I mean what I type. I go over my posts three or four times to make sure I've worded it the way I mean to. However, this is a very limited form of communication and easily mis-interpreted so I will clarify and repeat myself as necessary.

I believe you are trying to insinuate that God is not faithful because He has not been faithful to you. I ask you, why would He be faithful to you? What agreement do you have with Him? What has He promised you and what have you promised Him?

Lets look at it this way...
Could you say whether or not I am a faithful person? After all, you don't know me. But actually you might. I go under the name "JediPastor" at the TFN boards. I made "The Conflict Within" and "Warriors of the Spirit" (in LCC4 and LCC5 respectively). Two years ago I announced that I was going to make an LCC entry to go up against Ryan. Because of one reason or another I couldn't. Last year I said I was going to try to make an LCC entry. It turns out I didn't then either. Based on my now known track record, would you consider me to be faithful? No. I have proven myself to be unfaithful to you and the TFN boards based on our (limited) relationship and the expectations I gave and failed to fulfill.

On the other hand, I have a different agreement with my boss. He expects me to work certain hours. He expects me to get certain videos done in a certain amount of time. Why does he expect that from me and doesn't expect it from you? Because he knows me. I made an agreement with him. My boss doesn't know you. Why would he think you are faithful?

Likewise, God has proven himself in my life. He has proven Himself faithful based on the promises He has given me, based on the agreement I have made with Him. I know from His Word what He expects from me and I also know form His Word what I should expect form Him. We have an agreement. We have a relationship. He is faithful. You do not see His faithfulness because you do not have a relationship with Him.

No, read what I said again. Faith is the inevitable OUTCOME of proof. When something is proven to us, we have faith in it. I have proven myself to my boss and he has faith in me. I think some confusion comes from our limited language. Our language allows for one to be called faithful after they have proven themselves. That definition doesn't exactly concur with the definition you described, but it is still referring to a form of faith.

I would accept that as a true statement. I cannot expect you to have faith in something you have never experienced. However, has that ever kept you from experiencing something new before? Have you ever gone to a new restaurant, or went to go see a movie based on someone else's description of their experience there? Just because you've never experienced it before doesn't mean you can't take someone else's word for it and try to experience it for yourself.

You didn't read my words thoroughly. You instead read what you thought I meant. Read my words.

God doesn't ask us to have blind faith in HIM. He instead describes Himself as faithful and shows you His track record. He tells us to remember His feats in the past. Where He does ask for us to have blind faith is in future events. Not who He is, but what He promises to do. (that is the difference in what I said earlier that you missed) Sometimes He promises us things that look impossible. Take this fictional story as an illustration...

A stranger sends me a text message that says "tomorrow at 3pm, there will be a knock at your door" Do I have any reason to believe that this will happen? Not really, no. However the next day at 3pm there is a knock on my door. Interesting. I get another text from the same person saying the same thing. Sure enough, the next day at 3pm there is a knock on my door. Let's say this goes on for a week. On the eighth day the text message reads "at 8pm tomorrow your doorbell will ring" Do I have any reason to believe that this will happen? My doorbell hasn't rung before this. There is no evidence that my doorbell has rung up to this point. However, I am more apt to believe this will happen now. Why? Because of the proof of the ringing doorbell? No. Because of the faithfulness of the messenger. His messages have been right in the past and I am willing to have more faith in his promises for the future.

Does God ask us to have blind faith in Him? No. Does He sometimes ask us to have blind faith in His promises? Yes. You see, He is not unreasonable. We are able to have blind faith in His promises because He has proven Himself to us to be faithful.

Try this one...Will the sun rise tomorrow morning? I know that science has proven that the earth spins at a certain rate and that can be measured. However, that's all in the past. This very moment is now in the past. How do you know the sun will rise tomorrow? Can you see the future? Is the future measurable? How do you know the sun will rise tomorrow? Do you BELIEVE the sun will rise tomorrow? If so why?

You see it's easy to believe the sun will rise tomorrow because it always has. It's been measured, it's been recorded and it is a scientific fact and there is no reason to think it won't continue to do so into the future. However, faith is still required in any belief in any future event. No future event has proof in the present. Proof only exists after the fact. Faith is what we ALL hold onto until the fact has occurred. That fact then gives us more faith for the next time.

You have faith that the sun will rise in the morning because it has been proven to you day after day.

Again, it all comes down to the person telling the story. Do you trust them? You don't know me, you don't trust me. Fair enough. But what do you do when someone you do trust starts having these experiences over and over and over and over? At some point you either have to call them a liar or truly question your own stance. It's up to you. believe me or don't. It makes no difference to the fact that those things actually happened to me.

That is a very good point and a very good way of wording it. I suppose my only answer is that no one event has led me to believe in God. It is an entire conglomeration of experiences. So I would have to say that no one event could get me to not believe in God. As long as my life's experiences continue to follow the promises God has given me in the Bible, I will continue to believe. There have been times when things didn't make sense to me. Where I really doubted some of the things I believed. In the end, the overwhelming majority of my experiences coincide with what God has promised me in His Word. Because of that, I am willing to accept the small things I don't understand on blind faith because I trust the Faithful One who has proven Himself to me over and over.

Now you got onto me pretty aggressively so I responded in kind. I hope in the future you can have an open mind to really read what I am saying and not what you are expecting to hear. I try to be very careful in my wording and I would love to continue our discussion on a more reasonable note.