Religion and Mysticism in Movies
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- Created on Wednesday, 17 October 2012 06:32
- Published on Wednesday, 17 October 2012 06:32
- Written by John Draper
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Lately, the world of movie making has taken an increased interest in religion - both organised and simply mystical. Three years ago we had "Creation", the story about Darwin that rattled the creationists, but this year we will have a longer list. It's hard to know if this rash of movies is film makers wanting to express themselves or producers wanting to cater to an increased curiosity amongst film-goers. Only one is really negative about religion and that's The Master, the long awaited "fictionalized" version of the founding of Scientology which is has now been released although there is debate as to whether it's truly about Scientology. When screened at the Venice Film and Toronto Film Festivals it got rave reviews for acting, directing and "best picture" which should get them a big audience. Hopefully it will help educate those who still think Scientology is just another religion. (More on Scientology). One good recommendation is that famous Scientologist Tom Cruise "has issues with it". Another is that the Director, Paul Thomas Anderson, has Scientology lawyers watching his every move (and the Distributor has hired bodyguards). At the TIFF press conference a reporter noted that “there’s an elephant in the room and it also has lawyers.” He asked the director to talk about Scientology briefly at the top of the conference to get it over with: “Can we deal with that word [Scientology] and then get rid of it?” Responded Anderson: “You just did it perfectly.” The Master will screen at Cobourg's Film Festival January 25th.
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Write comment (1 Comment)Rise of the Nones
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- Created on Monday, 15 October 2012 06:28
- Published on Monday, 15 October 2012 06:28
- Written by John Draper
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The Pew report on Religious affiliation in the U.S. is getting a lot of press under the heading "Rise of the Nones". The implication is that Churches are losing members. But there are two major related factors that are being ignored: 1) Few highly educated and well-off countries are as religious as the US and 2) Other countries that are highly religious are often primitive and Muslim (e.g. Pakistan and Saudi Arabia). So the question is not why are U.S. Churches losing members, but why is it taking so long? Why are Americans clinging to their primitive irrational way of thinking? One piece of good news in the Pew survey is that young Americans are gradually moving away from the thinking of their parents. They are more inclined to think for themselves.
Write comment (0 Comments)Reason versus Faith
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- Created on Saturday, 13 October 2012 07:05
- Published on Saturday, 13 October 2012 07:05
- Written by John Draper
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Many otherwise intelligent people describe their religion and religions in general as “faith”. That is, believing without proof. And feelings or emotions don’t count as proof. In other words, there is no rational justification for their beliefs – or to be fair, insufficient rational justification to convince based on just the evidence. People who do not have “faith” (like me), feel that truth is important and in fact that truth trumps emotions or faith. If something cannot be proved, then it is not true. However, there are some things in Science that cannot be proved – but these are theories or hypotheses, not facts. So I suppose God and all religions can be called theories or hypotheses since they cannot be proved or disproved. When there is more than one theory to explain a phenomenon, scientists have opinions as to which they prefer then try to find evidence to support their theory. Their goal is to find the truth - but until the truth is found, several alternative views or opinions may be legitimate.
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Write comment (0 Comments)Abraham approved of murder ordered by God
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- Created on Thursday, 11 October 2012 07:09
- Published on Thursday, 11 October 2012 07:09
- Written by John Draper
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Where did the idea of killing for God/Allah come from? Islam, Judaism and Christianity all started with Abraham. Before him, few societies accepted the idea of a single God. They all had gods for different things - much like we know the Greeks and Romans had. But Abraham's God was a great believer in violence and murdering - if you were not his people you were fair game. Unquestioning obedience was expected - whatever God said was the law - even if it meant killing your own son. Of course, just like today, God no doubt spoke via his "priests" who in fact were interpreting what they thought and called it God's word. But after thousands of years, stories about God speaking to Abraham left out mention of an intermediary. It makes a much better story if you can abbreviate it and keep it simple. It makes it even better if you can tell it with humour in a video. That's what British comedians Mitchell and Webb did with their rendition of the story.
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Write comment (0 Comments)Islamic Reformation
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- Created on Tuesday, 09 October 2012 07:04
- Published on Tuesday, 09 October 2012 07:04
- Written by John Draper
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The Christian Reformation came about when Luther declared that Christians should read the Bible for themselves to see what was to be believed. It was largely a backlash against the abuses by the Catholic Church - this time with power and money, not sex - but it changed the world forever. No longer would killing heretics keep everyone in line. But Islam is different and has not had a Reformation - until now. The Islam holy book is the Qur'an which is written in Arabic and therefore not truly understood by most Muslims, and Islam does not have a hierarchy of bishops in quite the same way as the Catholics. There is no Islamic Pope. However, most Muslims rely on their imam (holy man) to interpret what the Qur'an is telling them. Although it's supposed to be literally true - like Christian fundamentalist view their bible - it's sufficiently obscure that it needs interpretation, not to mention a knowledge of Arabic. Translations into local languages have made it more accessible but the real revolution has come with the Internet.
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Write comment (0 Comments)Religious unrest getting worse
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- Created on Sunday, 07 October 2012 06:34
- Published on Sunday, 07 October 2012 06:34
- Written by John Draper
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New data suggests that unrest because of religion is deteriorating in the West. Up until a few years ago, "social hostilities" due to religion were generally low (good) in western countries and high (poor) in Eastern and Arab countries. Likewise, government restrictions on religion in western countries were minimal while Eastern and Arab countries were quite restrictive. According to Pew Research, between 2007 and 2010 - these measures have deteriorated markedly world wide - but if you look at the detail, it's mostly western countries that have got worse. Pew defines "government restrictions" as: ".. government laws, policies and actions that restrict religious beliefs or practices… including efforts by governments to ban particular faiths, prohibit conversions, limit preaching or give preferential treatment to one or more religious groups." Social hostilities are defined as: "…acts of religious hostility by private individuals, organizations and social groups. This includes mob or sectarian violence, harassment over attire for religious reasons and other religion-related intimidation or abuse."
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Write comment (0 Comments)Is the Christian God Good?
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- Created on Wednesday, 03 October 2012 07:01
- Published on Wednesday, 03 October 2012 07:01
- Written by John Draper
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Satan is supposed to be the Evil Angel - not quite a god or as some would have it, Satan lost the battle for dominance. But how does anyone know this? If a person believes that a god is needed to create the world, why does it follow that such a god would be good and not evil? Of course "good" and "evil" are judged in our terms - we define what is good and what is evil. Maybe God has a reverse view?
If we start with the first monotheist religion - as founded by Abraham - the Jews saw God as being a Lord and master. A heavenly king who ruled his creation. If God created mankind and then named a collection of tribes as his chosen people, then he wouldn't want to lose them. Like property, he'd want to protect them. That's the idea we get when reading the Old Testament - God protected his children but also dominated them. Like a psychopathic king who doesn't want to lose his army. They can be cannon fodder but if he loses them all they could no longer win battles. But then along came Jesus and despite trying to convince the Jews that he was the Messiah, he changed all the rules.Now God loved his creation!
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Write comment (0 Comments)What is Life?
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- Created on Friday, 05 October 2012 06:40
- Published on Friday, 05 October 2012 06:40
- Written by John Draper
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A religious person would glibly say that "life is when a person has a soul given by God". Firstly, this doesn't help with the life of a tree or an insect - they are not given a soul by God and secondly it requires God to intervene with every birth. When does the life of the sperm and the ovum cease? Scientifically, the representatives of the two lives merge - there is no start of life happening. Leaving all this aside, there are many questions around defining life and deciding what the difference is between something we call "alive" and not alive. We easily distinguish between living things like a person, a tree and a microbe while a building, a plastic toy and a rock are not alive. If you do an Internet search to find a definition of alive - you mostly get a list of characteristics. You can say something is alive if it reproduces, heals itself etc. There are all kinds of philosophical discussions on the subject but no-one has yet come up with a really satisfactory way of describing the difference between living and not living.
Write comment (5 Comments)Muslim Immigrants: An optimistic view
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- Created on Monday, 01 October 2012 06:55
- Published on Monday, 01 October 2012 06:55
- Written by John Draper
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Perhaps Muslim immigrants will adopt the values of their host country - just like Catholics and Jews did when they came to Canada 150 years ago. Perhaps not immediately, but after a couple of generations. That's the opinion of Doug Saunders, author of The Myth of the Muslim Tide. I would add that this could well be true while Muslims are a minority or perhaps it's true because the average immigrants are those who want to escape the extremism in the country of their birth. Saunders believes that the facts show that the commonly held beliefs about Muslim immigrants are simply not true although he concedes that some extremist imams could still radicalise some youth.
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