I just started watching the TV mini-series ‘Heroes’. What a show! This show has my complete attention and it’s probably the best show I’ve seen so far. I love the idea of superpowers and a higher meaning to life, something that tells you you’re meant for greater things, that you have a destiny.
The whole idea of superpowers and heroes really interests me as a Christian. I can’t help but wonder about something. I always wonder how artists come up with ideas like these. Why is the idea of a superhero so appealing to us? Or, why did the idea of a superhero even enter our imagination?
To me at least, when I think of a superhero, I always think of a guy or girl in tights with some cool power. But then I think of Jesus. And I’m trying to say this without sounding just stupidly cheesy. I mean, I really think about him, how he healed people, how he ascended (could fly?: there was upward movement) to Heaven, how he walked on water, turned water to wine, rose from the dead, calmed storms, raised other people from the dead.
I always wonder whether the reason for why superheroes appeal to us, or why we even have the idea of superheroes, is because we do live in a Christian universe. And the idea of a superhero is a remnant, a hangover, an aftershock, a shadow, a copy, a reflection (or, whatever!?), of some real, true, divine, supernatural reality or truth about something or someone or some event that is supposed to happen, or is destined to happen, or is promised to us to happen.
I really can’t get that itch to go away. All this superhero stuff is really real, and it’s something - I know it in my gut - that’s going to be real one day, probably in the afterlife sometime, and it’ll manifest itself in ways we never dreamed of.
Of course, all these powers are delegated. I see it like this. Paul thinks Jesus’ resurrected body is the archetype for ours. So, whatever His could do, ours could one day do too! So, for example, when Christ healed a person of blindness, He could manipulate all the little nerve endings to come together in the way that allows sight. This is a miracle over Nature.
Or, when Jesus calmed the storm, wind and water currents were under the control of His will. He did close up and focused what He does everyday far away with every weather pattern.
But then it seems He could fly, walk on water, defy death - He even appeared in a room out of nowhere, almost a sort of teleportation.
There’s a guy in ‘Heros’ who can bend space and time. This is exactly what C.S. Lewis talks about with our resurrection bodies!!! Because Jesus could fly and just teleport in a room, it’s got to be the case that those bodies are going to be related to space and time in a different way than they’re related now!
It just seems like all these powers - superhuman strength, flying, teleportation, space/time bending, healing - are unclear, unfocused, but real, reliable clues (good guesses?) into something that may be very real with regard to us, our future, what we’ll be able to do.
I know it’s probably not edifying to dwell on that, because the first step is obedience to and love for God; after that, it seems the powers are delegated in some mysterious, special way we’ll be able to experience one day.
But the show ‘Heroes’ really brought this home for me. Perhaps every single one of us has some power, different from all the rest - it’s unique to you, and it was delegated to you for a purpose, and the exercising of that power is part of your destiny. And maybe that power is something you’ll need for whatever job or prospect God will entrust you with in Heaven.
And I readily admit all of this could be complete nonsense and rubbish. But I can almost say that this stuff is creatively created for a reason, an imaginative reason, and I almost know it in my bones that something sort of like it is going to be true in the afterlife, or at least after we get our resurrection bodies.
Sunday, April 11, 2010
Saturday, April 10, 2010
The Moviegoer and Movie Criticism
Have you ever met people that hate or don’t or can’t understand a movie that you think is amazing, or that you think just demands respect? I have. And I just don’t get it when they start to tell me why.
I’m thinking of people who object to Se7en because of the gore, as if that made it a bad movie. Or, the people who object to There Will Be Blood, because it disrespects the Church - which it doesn’t. Or, object to No Country For Old Men, because it’s too dark.
These people just do not understand how to interpret or appreciate art, or how to separate good art from their personal tastes. I’ve heard people object to The Joker in The Dark Knight, because he is just too disturbing, or they don’t like what Heath had to do to himself to play the part. Or, people who object to Goodfellas because of the swearing, or Good Will Hunting, because of the swearing.
Are you forming a picture in your head of the kind of person I mean? These people don’t belong in a movie theater. Their opinion of any movie is worthless. And from my experience, there’s no getting through to them just how shallow their criticism is.
Take No Country For Old Men. Is it bad because it’s too dark? Seriously? Is Anton Shigurh (literally, ‘ants on sugar’) too mean, nasty, devoid of goodness, ruthless, evil? YES! He is supposed to be. Good criticism goes to the creator, the writers, directors. The Coen Brothers are into philosophy, so you can expect philosophical themes in their works.
The whole movie is a parable, an allegory of sorts, deliberately set in a Flannery O’Connor type, short story medium. O’Connor would use dark themes set in the deep south to bring home deep insights into human nature, God, and faith. The Coen Brothers were doing the same things, I think.
To object to the movie because the bad guy was evil is pretty shallow and it doesn’t allow the movie to be what it is in order to communicate the meaning it’s trying to give us. If you personally can’t handle that, and it makes your stomach turn, or it makes you wince, then you have to be able to distinguish your sentiments from good art.
The movie gives us a visual representation of certain motifs in life that we better understand if we meet the movie half-way and let it teach us. It’s in the context of a story and is to the eyes and ears what books are primarily to the imagination. Movies get at our imagination through the visual representation. It’s the same process, different medium.
But you can go to any masterpiece out there and find bad reviews. Just visit imdb.com. Here, let me try an experiment. All are agreed that whether or not you like it, there’s something grand and sweeping and artistically brilliant about P.T Anderson’s Magnolia, right? I mean, intuitively, you’d think everyone would just ‘feel’ this, even if it’s not their cup of tea. Similarly, I feel like there MUST be something artistically brilliant about Lawrence of Arabia, even if I was bored to tears watching it. It’s just not for me. But I can appreciate and hold that distinction in my mind.
Now, read this comment about Magnolia. I’ll quote it: “As a somewhat well read person, I thought this movie was a self indulgent poor imitation of a seinfeld episode.” Read that again. This person was ‘angry’ because the characters weren’t interesting. I mean, what do you say to these people?
I’m thinking of people who object to Se7en because of the gore, as if that made it a bad movie. Or, the people who object to There Will Be Blood, because it disrespects the Church - which it doesn’t. Or, object to No Country For Old Men, because it’s too dark.
These people just do not understand how to interpret or appreciate art, or how to separate good art from their personal tastes. I’ve heard people object to The Joker in The Dark Knight, because he is just too disturbing, or they don’t like what Heath had to do to himself to play the part. Or, people who object to Goodfellas because of the swearing, or Good Will Hunting, because of the swearing.
Are you forming a picture in your head of the kind of person I mean? These people don’t belong in a movie theater. Their opinion of any movie is worthless. And from my experience, there’s no getting through to them just how shallow their criticism is.
Take No Country For Old Men. Is it bad because it’s too dark? Seriously? Is Anton Shigurh (literally, ‘ants on sugar’) too mean, nasty, devoid of goodness, ruthless, evil? YES! He is supposed to be. Good criticism goes to the creator, the writers, directors. The Coen Brothers are into philosophy, so you can expect philosophical themes in their works.
The whole movie is a parable, an allegory of sorts, deliberately set in a Flannery O’Connor type, short story medium. O’Connor would use dark themes set in the deep south to bring home deep insights into human nature, God, and faith. The Coen Brothers were doing the same things, I think.
To object to the movie because the bad guy was evil is pretty shallow and it doesn’t allow the movie to be what it is in order to communicate the meaning it’s trying to give us. If you personally can’t handle that, and it makes your stomach turn, or it makes you wince, then you have to be able to distinguish your sentiments from good art.
The movie gives us a visual representation of certain motifs in life that we better understand if we meet the movie half-way and let it teach us. It’s in the context of a story and is to the eyes and ears what books are primarily to the imagination. Movies get at our imagination through the visual representation. It’s the same process, different medium.
But you can go to any masterpiece out there and find bad reviews. Just visit imdb.com. Here, let me try an experiment. All are agreed that whether or not you like it, there’s something grand and sweeping and artistically brilliant about P.T Anderson’s Magnolia, right? I mean, intuitively, you’d think everyone would just ‘feel’ this, even if it’s not their cup of tea. Similarly, I feel like there MUST be something artistically brilliant about Lawrence of Arabia, even if I was bored to tears watching it. It’s just not for me. But I can appreciate and hold that distinction in my mind.
Now, read this comment about Magnolia. I’ll quote it: “As a somewhat well read person, I thought this movie was a self indulgent poor imitation of a seinfeld episode.” Read that again. This person was ‘angry’ because the characters weren’t interesting. I mean, what do you say to these people?
Thursday, April 8, 2010
Capitalism works for me.
I definitely missed the train for the band Arcade Fire. I have the unfortunate habit of buying a lot of music at one time and slowly working my way through it, if at all. I have 31 days worth of music on my computer/ipod and I would say I am seriously acquainted with 85% of it.
I'm an American, overconsumption is what I do.
What I have been doing recently is making genius playlists on my itunes. If you don't know what this is then let me give you a quick tutorial. Apple/itunes has decided to create a "genius" program within itunes where you click on a song and the genius will create a playlist based on the music genome of your library.
Dictionary.com defines genome as, "a full set of chromosomes; all the inheritable traits of an organism."
Let's assume that your itunes library is an organism, genius finds other similar chromosomes and compiles them together.
Science hasn't been this fun since Bill Nye the Science guy!
Anyway, after I create a genius playlist, I discover songs within my own library! I know it seems ridiculous that one could find brand new songs in their own library, but like I said I'm American and Capitalism works for me.
Back to the original point, this is how I was reminded of Arcade Fire. I listened to their first album Funeral and enjoyed it. NPR then said some good things about their next album Neon Bible, and since I do whatever NPR tells me, I acquired it. (Don't worry how.) At first listen I was not really impressed, which may explain my apathy toward it for the next 2 years. That is not to say that there was not at least one stand out track for me. The song with the albums namesake is an interesting song. Neon Bible's lyrics are haunting. It reminds of a world that Faulkner would inhabit. They create these moods that seem to reek of immorality. Its like its on you, on your face, you want it off of you.
Well, recently I can't stop listening to the entire album. The songs have a serious preoccupation with faith and religion. But, not in the traditional sense. The lyricist seems to be exploring something, something that presumably, the church or religion in general is supposed to be able to answer but he finds it lacking.
Musically, they are, or were 2 years ago, on the cutting edge. I am interested to see the growth in this band. With lyrics as strong as these are, interesting music to back it up, they are a band that threatens to be around for a while.
And with Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber throwing out hits like candy at a parade, it is a breath of fresh air.
(To be clear, I love Lady GaGa and Ke$ha. Justin Bieber brings back memories of being uncool at 14 and I do not have the psychological strength to deal with those emotions.)
Check out this video, it is for their song Neon Bible, they perform it in a Elevator. If this doesn't strike your fancy about this band, than to be honest, nothing will.
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
There Will be Blood: Daniel Plainview
Daniel Plainview: “I see the worst in people. I don't need to look past seeing them to get all I need. I've built my hatreds up over the years, little by little, Henry... to have you here gives me a second breath. I can't keep doing this on my own with these... people.”
How many of you guys love Daniel Day-Lewis’ character Daniel Plainview in There Will Be Blood (TWBB)? This character is probably my favorite character.
He is the symbol of capitalism, and some even say America herself. Of course, his character evolves throughout the movie, or you might say ‘devolves’, as he descends deeper and deeper into his own madness and hatred.
I love the imagery - is it on purpose? - at the beginning. He is in the womb of the Earth digging for the gold he needs to fund his future career in oil drilling. A bearded and gruff Plainview is in the middle of nowhere, in the desert, 100 feet underground, in the awful heat, covered in soot. There is no talking - only Johnny Greenwood’s eerie strings that just seem echo bleakness.
I remember that quote from John Milton in his Paradise Lost poem: “long is the way
And hard, that out of Hell leads up to Light.” Only it isn’t into Light that Plainview ascends up to. It is the pit of darkness - and it is hard and long.
We have to remember that TWBB is primarily a character study. It reaches into the psychology of a man who is consumed by his own ambition, his hatred for other people, for competition because of his own competition. He says: I have a competition in me. I want no one else to succeed. I hate most people.
But throughout the movie, I felt more and more like I was spiraling downward through Dante’s Hell, and as you get further and further down, the cone gets more and more condensed and you’re left with the suffocating, claustrophobic straightjacket of madness and Hell.
The movie is dominated by very powerful scenes. Like I mentioned, the beginning scene is amazing. He is in the belly of the earth. There is no dialogue. We get to know the drive of the character. He is alone, trailblazing a career for himself. He is injured after accidentally falling down the mine-hole, fracturing his leg, even though he manages to drag himself across the desert to safety.
I get the feeling that this is a time and these are men who are real men, hard men, men who are dirty, who don’t complain, who have nerves of steel, forged and tested like a sword freshly-made in the fire.
When he starts to talk, his dialect is almost haunting. Every syllable is pronounced. His gait is determined but awkward. He has a son, but he is adopted after his dad died in a mining accident. But Plainview mainly takes him under his wing as a marketing ploy, though the movie does show that Plainview cared for the boy as much as his character allowed.
There is the powerful scene in the church. Plainview’s rival, Eli (a corrupt and manipulative preacher at a church in the town where Plainview is trying to drill) puts Plainview through the humiliating ordeal of getting up in front of the congregation and admit - no, yelling - that he is a sinner, that he has ABANDONED HIS BOY, HIS CHILD! Very powerful.
There is another scene where something goes wrong with the derrick and H.W. (Plainview’s son) is catapulted by an explosion that makes him permanently deaf. There is the roar of the oil rupturing out of the ground, the soundtrack is loud, the percussion and the strings are riveting, the camera follows the running men around the derrick to fix the problem, and the background noise is shrunk to a minimum as the music just takes over the scene. The sun sets as the men are scrambling and we get definitive shots of Plainview glorying in the prospect that THERE IS AN OCEAN OF OIL UNDER OUR FEET, and no one can get at it except for him. Epic.
Not very many people like the end, but I think it makes perfect sense. Like I said before, there is a spiraling downward, like going further and further down into an inverted cone. At the bottom, everything touches, and things are almost banal, which is probably what Hell is. The two main forces in the movie, Eli and Plainview, end the movie cooped up in the mansion where a petty argument - with connections with previous events in the movie - ends with Plainview smashing Eli over the head with a bowling pin.
Let’s not forget the final words: I’m finished. I can’t help think of Christ: It is finished. Not sure of a connection there - it’s just the first thing that popped in my head.
There’s so much I’m leaving out. But the main thing is that the most subtle and brilliant element about this character is that as you look at Plainview act and talk and behave, his facial expressions, his tones of voice, his motives, his confessions, his degeneration: you see there is something in his soul that his just plain evil. It is that element in his soul that - if we look at ourselves carefully - we also see in ourselves.
The more I see the movie, and the more I pay attention to the character, I see so much of myself in the character and it sort of scares me. But parts of him are in everyone. Like he tells his supposed brother (who met a bad end): if it’s in me, it’s in you.
I remember the scene where Plainview is asking why he doesn’t own a certain tract of land. Why don’t I own that, he asks. WHY DON’T I OWN THAT?, he repeats. Al, his helper, says it’s owned by someone else and that he might want to think about making the pipeline around it. Build pipeline around 50 miles of tract? Plainview snaps: Don’t be thick around me, Al. I can just feel the frustration. His drive met a speed-bump and it’s quickly swatted out of the way like a gnat. Everyone in his way is reduced to a gnat.
I love that scene when he is talking to a competitor, someone who wants to buy Plainview’s drilling rights and in exchange make him rich. The competitor makes an off-hand remark about Plainview’s son, something with just the right amount of ambiguity for Plainview’s ruthless ambition to rationalize. Did you just tell me how to raise my son?, he asks. One night, I’m going to come into your house while you’re sleeping and slit your throat, he says. Wow. And you know he means it.
How many of you guys love Daniel Day-Lewis’ character Daniel Plainview in There Will Be Blood (TWBB)? This character is probably my favorite character.
He is the symbol of capitalism, and some even say America herself. Of course, his character evolves throughout the movie, or you might say ‘devolves’, as he descends deeper and deeper into his own madness and hatred.
I love the imagery - is it on purpose? - at the beginning. He is in the womb of the Earth digging for the gold he needs to fund his future career in oil drilling. A bearded and gruff Plainview is in the middle of nowhere, in the desert, 100 feet underground, in the awful heat, covered in soot. There is no talking - only Johnny Greenwood’s eerie strings that just seem echo bleakness.
I remember that quote from John Milton in his Paradise Lost poem: “long is the way
And hard, that out of Hell leads up to Light.” Only it isn’t into Light that Plainview ascends up to. It is the pit of darkness - and it is hard and long.
We have to remember that TWBB is primarily a character study. It reaches into the psychology of a man who is consumed by his own ambition, his hatred for other people, for competition because of his own competition. He says: I have a competition in me. I want no one else to succeed. I hate most people.
But throughout the movie, I felt more and more like I was spiraling downward through Dante’s Hell, and as you get further and further down, the cone gets more and more condensed and you’re left with the suffocating, claustrophobic straightjacket of madness and Hell.
The movie is dominated by very powerful scenes. Like I mentioned, the beginning scene is amazing. He is in the belly of the earth. There is no dialogue. We get to know the drive of the character. He is alone, trailblazing a career for himself. He is injured after accidentally falling down the mine-hole, fracturing his leg, even though he manages to drag himself across the desert to safety.
I get the feeling that this is a time and these are men who are real men, hard men, men who are dirty, who don’t complain, who have nerves of steel, forged and tested like a sword freshly-made in the fire.
When he starts to talk, his dialect is almost haunting. Every syllable is pronounced. His gait is determined but awkward. He has a son, but he is adopted after his dad died in a mining accident. But Plainview mainly takes him under his wing as a marketing ploy, though the movie does show that Plainview cared for the boy as much as his character allowed.
There is the powerful scene in the church. Plainview’s rival, Eli (a corrupt and manipulative preacher at a church in the town where Plainview is trying to drill) puts Plainview through the humiliating ordeal of getting up in front of the congregation and admit - no, yelling - that he is a sinner, that he has ABANDONED HIS BOY, HIS CHILD! Very powerful.
There is another scene where something goes wrong with the derrick and H.W. (Plainview’s son) is catapulted by an explosion that makes him permanently deaf. There is the roar of the oil rupturing out of the ground, the soundtrack is loud, the percussion and the strings are riveting, the camera follows the running men around the derrick to fix the problem, and the background noise is shrunk to a minimum as the music just takes over the scene. The sun sets as the men are scrambling and we get definitive shots of Plainview glorying in the prospect that THERE IS AN OCEAN OF OIL UNDER OUR FEET, and no one can get at it except for him. Epic.
Not very many people like the end, but I think it makes perfect sense. Like I said before, there is a spiraling downward, like going further and further down into an inverted cone. At the bottom, everything touches, and things are almost banal, which is probably what Hell is. The two main forces in the movie, Eli and Plainview, end the movie cooped up in the mansion where a petty argument - with connections with previous events in the movie - ends with Plainview smashing Eli over the head with a bowling pin.
Let’s not forget the final words: I’m finished. I can’t help think of Christ: It is finished. Not sure of a connection there - it’s just the first thing that popped in my head.
There’s so much I’m leaving out. But the main thing is that the most subtle and brilliant element about this character is that as you look at Plainview act and talk and behave, his facial expressions, his tones of voice, his motives, his confessions, his degeneration: you see there is something in his soul that his just plain evil. It is that element in his soul that - if we look at ourselves carefully - we also see in ourselves.
The more I see the movie, and the more I pay attention to the character, I see so much of myself in the character and it sort of scares me. But parts of him are in everyone. Like he tells his supposed brother (who met a bad end): if it’s in me, it’s in you.
I remember the scene where Plainview is asking why he doesn’t own a certain tract of land. Why don’t I own that, he asks. WHY DON’T I OWN THAT?, he repeats. Al, his helper, says it’s owned by someone else and that he might want to think about making the pipeline around it. Build pipeline around 50 miles of tract? Plainview snaps: Don’t be thick around me, Al. I can just feel the frustration. His drive met a speed-bump and it’s quickly swatted out of the way like a gnat. Everyone in his way is reduced to a gnat.
I love that scene when he is talking to a competitor, someone who wants to buy Plainview’s drilling rights and in exchange make him rich. The competitor makes an off-hand remark about Plainview’s son, something with just the right amount of ambiguity for Plainview’s ruthless ambition to rationalize. Did you just tell me how to raise my son?, he asks. One night, I’m going to come into your house while you’re sleeping and slit your throat, he says. Wow. And you know he means it.
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Mad Dog Tannen and the Sports Almanac, Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Time Machine
As far back as I can remember I've been a huge fan of the Back to the Future trilogy, my purpose for this writing muse however is not to address the trilogy as a whole, but just parts 2 and 3 and out of those,
mainly just 3. The original Back to the Future is nothing short of sheer cinematic perfection and should be held in the same high regard (if not higher) as the likes of Led Zeppelin 4 and the book of Proverbs.
(If you don't agree with the above statment, you are an idiot.)
For this reason I have chosen to strictly focus on 2 and 3. Also as far back as I can remember I've considered BTTF part 2 to be a close second behind part 1 in greatness and found part 3 to be a distant, mild embarrassment to 1 and 2. Similar to, but not as much of an embarrassment as say, Terminator 3 "Rise of the Machines" or The Land Before Time 3 "Littlefoot Still Hasn't Accepted the Fact He'll Be Extinct Soon." Recently however, my boyish presumptions have been shatterd and my opinion has been changed.
I spent the better half of my monday evening watching the trilogy from start to finish, which is something that I enjoy doing atleast once, if not more times a year, because I'm a 22 year old college drop out that believes watching Michael J. Fox movies is a much better way to spend time then working, reading or just pretty much anything. By the time part 2 was winding to an end, Biff had been set in his place again, the sports almanac had been destroyed, no pictures of loved ones were fading out of exsistence. Everything was as it should be. By this point, I'll be honest, I had very little desire to even put in the part 3 dvd. I've seen it dozens of times and each time it's always a bit of a let down. But still, I had gotten this far, I couldn't stop now and just leave the doc hangin in 1885 and Marty still wondering around 1955 Hill Valley. So i did the noble thing, and pressed on, but this time it was different, it was as if something had changed from the last time I watched it up to this time, because it was great! I loved every second of it, it was like watching 'Friends' for the first time. I was engrossed in every scene, laughing at every joke, I may have even cried a little bit....who's to say? Even things that I used to think I didn't like about the film before, I ended up some how falling in love with them this time around.
For example, I was never really fond of the character of Buford 'Mad Dog' Tannen (the 1885 version of Biff) or the fact that Doc has a love interest in the third film. I mean come on, it's Dr. Emmett Brown we're talking about here! The man has devoted his entire life to science and you're trying to tell me he ends up falling for some doctor Quinn medicine woman school teacher?! But for some unknown reason this time I was completely ok with it. I thought the love-at-first-sight meeting of Doc and Clara was charming and gave more depth and insight to the character of Doc Brown, allowing him to be, for once, other things then just a zany scientist. And I'm convinced after this last viewing of part 3 that 'Mad Dog' is the best version of Biff we see in the whole trilogy. Bottom line: for the first time, 3 was better then 2. Maybe it has something to do with me getting older, that I appreciate certain qualities about the film now that I never did before? I honestly couldn't tell you, but if you are a Back to the Future fan, I encourage you to rewatch and reassess.
mainly just 3. The original Back to the Future is nothing short of sheer cinematic perfection and should be held in the same high regard (if not higher) as the likes of Led Zeppelin 4 and the book of Proverbs.
(If you don't agree with the above statment, you are an idiot.)
For this reason I have chosen to strictly focus on 2 and 3. Also as far back as I can remember I've considered BTTF part 2 to be a close second behind part 1 in greatness and found part 3 to be a distant, mild embarrassment to 1 and 2. Similar to, but not as much of an embarrassment as say, Terminator 3 "Rise of the Machines" or The Land Before Time 3 "Littlefoot Still Hasn't Accepted the Fact He'll Be Extinct Soon." Recently however, my boyish presumptions have been shatterd and my opinion has been changed.
I spent the better half of my monday evening watching the trilogy from start to finish, which is something that I enjoy doing atleast once, if not more times a year, because I'm a 22 year old college drop out that believes watching Michael J. Fox movies is a much better way to spend time then working, reading or just pretty much anything. By the time part 2 was winding to an end, Biff had been set in his place again, the sports almanac had been destroyed, no pictures of loved ones were fading out of exsistence. Everything was as it should be. By this point, I'll be honest, I had very little desire to even put in the part 3 dvd. I've seen it dozens of times and each time it's always a bit of a let down. But still, I had gotten this far, I couldn't stop now and just leave the doc hangin in 1885 and Marty still wondering around 1955 Hill Valley. So i did the noble thing, and pressed on, but this time it was different, it was as if something had changed from the last time I watched it up to this time, because it was great! I loved every second of it, it was like watching 'Friends' for the first time. I was engrossed in every scene, laughing at every joke, I may have even cried a little bit....who's to say? Even things that I used to think I didn't like about the film before, I ended up some how falling in love with them this time around.
For example, I was never really fond of the character of Buford 'Mad Dog' Tannen (the 1885 version of Biff) or the fact that Doc has a love interest in the third film. I mean come on, it's Dr. Emmett Brown we're talking about here! The man has devoted his entire life to science and you're trying to tell me he ends up falling for some doctor Quinn medicine woman school teacher?! But for some unknown reason this time I was completely ok with it. I thought the love-at-first-sight meeting of Doc and Clara was charming and gave more depth and insight to the character of Doc Brown, allowing him to be, for once, other things then just a zany scientist. And I'm convinced after this last viewing of part 3 that 'Mad Dog' is the best version of Biff we see in the whole trilogy. Bottom line: for the first time, 3 was better then 2. Maybe it has something to do with me getting older, that I appreciate certain qualities about the film now that I never did before? I honestly couldn't tell you, but if you are a Back to the Future fan, I encourage you to rewatch and reassess.
Monday, April 5, 2010
How does prayer really work? Part 2
Blaise Pascal said, "God instituted prayer in order to lend to His creatures the dignity of causality."
And so we are asked to pray. But we wonder: if I didn’t pray, would have the prayed-for event happened anyway? That is the question. But is that a good reason for not praying? I’m no so sure. Of course, all events have been decided before our world was even created. But it seems to me that if we pray, this prayer was one of the ingredients in the event actually happening. What is really interesting is this: it’s possible our prayers are part causes of past events, for God’s omniscience can take into account prayers in the future for past events and affect the event that way.
This doesn’t mean our prayers can change an event that is already settled in the past. If we think so, then it is our thinking and pondering this (rather than the ceasing of prayer) that is one of the causes of the fixed past event being what it is. As Lewis says: “My free act contributes to the cosmic shape.” Our acts have been taken into account before all worlds, but our consciousness of having performed an act meets in our lives, on a space/time coordinate in the space/time block.
Knowledge of an event’s having happened it also a factor. I cannot pray for a past event that I know to have already been fixed. Psychologically, it isn’t possible. The fixedness of the past event is an expression of God’s will, and to pray for the past event’s undoing would be the violation of that will.
This leads to all the absurd experiments skeptics and science-minded people try to play with prayer. We’ve all heard of the studies that have one group of people with cancer in one room, and another group of people in another room with the same cancer. 100 people pray for one group’s cancer to be healed, and another room has no people praying for it. In nearly all these studies, the room without prayer is the room with the most recession of cancer. Therefore (they bellow!), prayer is a pipe-dream. But all of this is absurd.
The scientist can say that if the prayer-group prayed for the room with the recession of cancer, they would have - by a fluke - gotten credit where no credit was due. It was merely Nature taking its course. But ‘Nature taking it’s course’ is only one of the links in a chain, we can reply. These links are hooked up with the links in God’s will, which in turn take into account a possible prayer.
Think of the psychological state of a someone who knew (empirically!) that his prayer caused events he concentrated on. It would turn less into edifying prayer than magic. I’m not supposed to think this particular event happened because of a prayer; I’m suppose to believe all events are answers to prayer, whether the answer be a granting or a refusal. All that happens is this. When you pray for an event, and the event happens, your prayer played a part in the event’s happening. But if the event doesn’t happen, the prayer hasn’t been ignored, but refused, for your good and the good of the universe. And if you didn’t or don’t pray for an event, your not praying was a factor in the event’s not happening.
And so we are asked to pray. But we wonder: if I didn’t pray, would have the prayed-for event happened anyway? That is the question. But is that a good reason for not praying? I’m no so sure. Of course, all events have been decided before our world was even created. But it seems to me that if we pray, this prayer was one of the ingredients in the event actually happening. What is really interesting is this: it’s possible our prayers are part causes of past events, for God’s omniscience can take into account prayers in the future for past events and affect the event that way.
This doesn’t mean our prayers can change an event that is already settled in the past. If we think so, then it is our thinking and pondering this (rather than the ceasing of prayer) that is one of the causes of the fixed past event being what it is. As Lewis says: “My free act contributes to the cosmic shape.” Our acts have been taken into account before all worlds, but our consciousness of having performed an act meets in our lives, on a space/time coordinate in the space/time block.
Knowledge of an event’s having happened it also a factor. I cannot pray for a past event that I know to have already been fixed. Psychologically, it isn’t possible. The fixedness of the past event is an expression of God’s will, and to pray for the past event’s undoing would be the violation of that will.
This leads to all the absurd experiments skeptics and science-minded people try to play with prayer. We’ve all heard of the studies that have one group of people with cancer in one room, and another group of people in another room with the same cancer. 100 people pray for one group’s cancer to be healed, and another room has no people praying for it. In nearly all these studies, the room without prayer is the room with the most recession of cancer. Therefore (they bellow!), prayer is a pipe-dream. But all of this is absurd.
The scientist can say that if the prayer-group prayed for the room with the recession of cancer, they would have - by a fluke - gotten credit where no credit was due. It was merely Nature taking its course. But ‘Nature taking it’s course’ is only one of the links in a chain, we can reply. These links are hooked up with the links in God’s will, which in turn take into account a possible prayer.
Think of the psychological state of a someone who knew (empirically!) that his prayer caused events he concentrated on. It would turn less into edifying prayer than magic. I’m not supposed to think this particular event happened because of a prayer; I’m suppose to believe all events are answers to prayer, whether the answer be a granting or a refusal. All that happens is this. When you pray for an event, and the event happens, your prayer played a part in the event’s happening. But if the event doesn’t happen, the prayer hasn’t been ignored, but refused, for your good and the good of the universe. And if you didn’t or don’t pray for an event, your not praying was a factor in the event’s not happening.
Friday, April 2, 2010
How does prayer really work? Part 1
In the second appendix called “On ‘Special Providences’ in the book ‘Miracles’, author C.S. Lewis gives what I think to be a very good explanation for how prayer might work. We hear it all the time. Some girl named Jane is down on her luck. She doesn’t have enough money to go on that trip to Europe she’s wanted to do since she was a child. Things look dire. She prays to God to ask Him if He would give her the money to go. Lo and behold, about a day later, the money is in an envelope at the mailbox! It’s just enough money to go, and it came from her grandparents. But there is a problem. The money was already on the way before Jane prayed. So, the question is: does the prayer make any difference? In retrospect, we can see that even if Jane didn’t pray, the money would have came anyway. How many prayers are like this? Do they have any kind of causal efficacy? How do we know when they do? How do we know things would have happened anyway, without the prayer?
Look at it this way. God is in control of everything, every atom - leaving aside the sense of ‘control’ for the moment. We inhabit the natural order - the order of events, connected with each other by cause and effect. This is what Lewis calls the gridlock, the grand interlocked event, like the gears in a clock - every event is related to every other either as a cause or an effect. Each event can be traced back to a ‘first event’ which got the ball rolling. The first event caused the rest, in a sense. In Nature, the scientists tell us that these events ‘go on’ obeying various laws of nature, like the law of gravity, or the law of thermodynamics, or the laws of electromagnetism.
Lewis speculates that God was the one that made this special ‘first event’, the event that caused the rest, made the rest what they inevitably will be. If God didn’t want Jane to get her money, then that ‘first event’ would have been adjusted or tweaked to make that happen. Not only was Jane’s money taken into account, but also the position of every atom for all time, including the atoms making up the dust particles in a different galaxy. But this is staggering when you think about it. The complexity of that ‘first event’ is enormous. It's the cause of trillions and trillions of other events in the vast causal web that is our space/time block. This just goes to show how awesome Omniscience is. Just as a Tolstoy can make all the events in War and Peace affect each other in just the right way, so can God on a cosmic scale with the story of humankind.
Lewis then develops a brilliant analogy containing one element I disagree with. But it doesn’t matter. The analogy is so amazing that it accommodates my own view anyway. My view is that God is related to time and so isn’t timeless; but Lewis puts God outside of time. But here is the analogy. I’ll quote him: “Suppose I find a piece of paper on which a black wavy line is already drawn, I can now sit down and draw other lines (say in red) so shaped as to combine with the black line into a pattern. Let us now suppose that the original black line is conscious. But it is not conscious along the whole length at once - only on each point on that length in turn.”
From God’s point of view, we’re all a bunch pre-made black, conscious lines at only one point of the line at a time. From that vantage point, God can make a pattern out of the black line using his red ink. Suppose our black line was an ‘S’; God could use His red ink to make an ‘8’, for example. Suppose further that the point on the black where we’re conscious progresses, moves, one point at a time. When I get to B, A is a memory, and when I get to C, B is a memory. Also suppose that the black line has freedom. It goes wherever it wants. The shape the black line takes is entirely up to us! So, when we reach point G down the road, we have chosen the shape the line will have at that point. But from God’s perspective, He has already seen us reach D, E, F, and G in accordance with the shape ‘S’, even before we were there. In fact, He sees us reach X, Y, Z (thus, completing the ‘S’ shape) at our death in the space/time block.
But what happens as we go from A to B to C to D and so on? God with His red ink has already made the pattern (suppose it’s the ‘8’ I already pointed out) He wanted. So, wherever I go with my black line to make whatever shape I’m freely making, I’ll see the red ink already there waiting for me!
To recap: we’re the black lines, with freedom, and consciousness, at one point of the black line at a time. If a part of Jane’s black line asks God for money for the trip to Europe, God could have chosen to make the red mark just at that point in the space/time manifold, thus making a certain satisfactory pattern. Jane prays at point F for money to be granted by point J, and God makes the red marks around J accordingly. But these red marks are perhaps a part of another pattern on another sheet of paper involving the black lines of grandparents! The black lines of Jane and the grandparents are so disparate, that from their point of view alone, they would have never dreamed they were related by an overarching red mark, producing the patterns that God willed. Perhaps the red marks are related to black lines before Jane was born or even after she dies! In answering Jane’s prayer at J on the black line, God used point E on the grandparents’ black line (corresponding to point H, say, on Jane’s line: thus explaining the sending of the envelope ‘before’ Jane even prayed), and the red markings thus produced the desired pattern.
Maybe our prayers ask for things that involve the adjustment of events before I was born or even for truths about events that will come after I’m dead.
Look at it this way. God is in control of everything, every atom - leaving aside the sense of ‘control’ for the moment. We inhabit the natural order - the order of events, connected with each other by cause and effect. This is what Lewis calls the gridlock, the grand interlocked event, like the gears in a clock - every event is related to every other either as a cause or an effect. Each event can be traced back to a ‘first event’ which got the ball rolling. The first event caused the rest, in a sense. In Nature, the scientists tell us that these events ‘go on’ obeying various laws of nature, like the law of gravity, or the law of thermodynamics, or the laws of electromagnetism.
Lewis speculates that God was the one that made this special ‘first event’, the event that caused the rest, made the rest what they inevitably will be. If God didn’t want Jane to get her money, then that ‘first event’ would have been adjusted or tweaked to make that happen. Not only was Jane’s money taken into account, but also the position of every atom for all time, including the atoms making up the dust particles in a different galaxy. But this is staggering when you think about it. The complexity of that ‘first event’ is enormous. It's the cause of trillions and trillions of other events in the vast causal web that is our space/time block. This just goes to show how awesome Omniscience is. Just as a Tolstoy can make all the events in War and Peace affect each other in just the right way, so can God on a cosmic scale with the story of humankind.
Lewis then develops a brilliant analogy containing one element I disagree with. But it doesn’t matter. The analogy is so amazing that it accommodates my own view anyway. My view is that God is related to time and so isn’t timeless; but Lewis puts God outside of time. But here is the analogy. I’ll quote him: “Suppose I find a piece of paper on which a black wavy line is already drawn, I can now sit down and draw other lines (say in red) so shaped as to combine with the black line into a pattern. Let us now suppose that the original black line is conscious. But it is not conscious along the whole length at once - only on each point on that length in turn.”
From God’s point of view, we’re all a bunch pre-made black, conscious lines at only one point of the line at a time. From that vantage point, God can make a pattern out of the black line using his red ink. Suppose our black line was an ‘S’; God could use His red ink to make an ‘8’, for example. Suppose further that the point on the black where we’re conscious progresses, moves, one point at a time. When I get to B, A is a memory, and when I get to C, B is a memory. Also suppose that the black line has freedom. It goes wherever it wants. The shape the black line takes is entirely up to us! So, when we reach point G down the road, we have chosen the shape the line will have at that point. But from God’s perspective, He has already seen us reach D, E, F, and G in accordance with the shape ‘S’, even before we were there. In fact, He sees us reach X, Y, Z (thus, completing the ‘S’ shape) at our death in the space/time block.
But what happens as we go from A to B to C to D and so on? God with His red ink has already made the pattern (suppose it’s the ‘8’ I already pointed out) He wanted. So, wherever I go with my black line to make whatever shape I’m freely making, I’ll see the red ink already there waiting for me!
To recap: we’re the black lines, with freedom, and consciousness, at one point of the black line at a time. If a part of Jane’s black line asks God for money for the trip to Europe, God could have chosen to make the red mark just at that point in the space/time manifold, thus making a certain satisfactory pattern. Jane prays at point F for money to be granted by point J, and God makes the red marks around J accordingly. But these red marks are perhaps a part of another pattern on another sheet of paper involving the black lines of grandparents! The black lines of Jane and the grandparents are so disparate, that from their point of view alone, they would have never dreamed they were related by an overarching red mark, producing the patterns that God willed. Perhaps the red marks are related to black lines before Jane was born or even after she dies! In answering Jane’s prayer at J on the black line, God used point E on the grandparents’ black line (corresponding to point H, say, on Jane’s line: thus explaining the sending of the envelope ‘before’ Jane even prayed), and the red markings thus produced the desired pattern.
Maybe our prayers ask for things that involve the adjustment of events before I was born or even for truths about events that will come after I’m dead.
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