|
Post by Voxxkowalski on Jan 20, 2018 8:55:47 GMT -5
I think you should see arrival...it has at its core a very prolife message...albeit secular. Its not principally about aliens...thats just the plot construction used to advance the broader ideas.
|
|
Deleted
Past Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Jan 20, 2018 9:54:03 GMT -5
I think you should see arrival...it has at its core a very prolife message...albeit secular. Its not principally about aliens...thats just the plot construction used to advance the broader ideas. Ok, thanks for the recommendation. I think I'll check it out.
|
|
Deleted
Past Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Feb 10, 2018 20:53:09 GMT -5
Voxx, consider this analogy by which the materialistic outlook of the characters on the apparent "bootstrap paradox" translates to the spiritual realm.
The movie explicitly states that the fifth dimension is love. The movie doesn't explain how, but it presents to us the idea that the humans who "evolved" to that dimension are creatures of pure love, confined by nothing, with access to all space and time at once. While the movie presents this idea to us through the eyes of materialistic scientists, we know that, if Dr. Brand is right, the Catholic equivalent of these humans viewed through the eyes of a Catholic are really those in Heaven who are enjoying the Beatific Vision. A Catholic analogy might better help us understand what this would look like on the individual (rather than a special) scale.
Consider you, let's say your name is "Bob", lost and stranded on foot in a terrible snowstorm. Everywhere you look is whiteness, and you have no resources left to survive until the storm is over. You are losing heat quickly and there is no sign of civilization anywhere. It is a bleak desert of snow and blizzard in all directions as far as the eye can see. You are a horrible sinner in the state of mortal sin, but remembering your lost faith you pray to the patron saint of snow--if there is one you don't even know--to deliver you from death. Suddenly, a light appears in the distance and begins to get closer. You reach out to the light and, as it draws near, you see it is a holy figure, a saint. Where he came from or whether he heard your prayer you don't know, but he guides you to safety, you escape the death of the storm. You ask him what his name, and he says he is "St. Robert." He tells you that he only came to your aid in response to your prayer and that he wants you to start a devotion to him as the patron saint of snow. Shrouded in mystery, he disappears and you never see him again.
Years later, you die and go immediately to heaven; the Church declares you a saint. In view of the Beatific Vision, you see all that God sees, all of eternity past, present, and future all at the same time, each event like one eternal instant all happening at the same time. You see yourself lost in the snowstorm and hear yourself, even now in that eternal instant, praying for help. God then sends you in response to that prayer to guide Bob out of the snowstorm to avoid dying in the state of mortal sin to ensure he will become a saint with Him in heaven. You then enter that ever-present instant and appear to Bob to guide him out of the snowstorm. When Bob asks you your name, you give the name given to you by the Church (St. Robert), Robert being your real name. You see the look on Bob's face, a look of amazement, confusion, and wonder. You then tell Bob that it is God's will you be known as the patron saint of snow, and Bob's conviction in this regard--coupled with his miraculous event--leads him to become a great saint of the Church. Now, in Heaven, you know who it was that came to save you. It was you.
This is, in essence, the story of the movie, though on a much larger scale, the scale of the whole human race. While the movie portrays this rescuing saint as some highly evolved human, we know it can be none other than a saint. If you watch the movie through this lens--that the characters are simply trying to materialize what they are seeing, like all materialistic scientists do--the movie is much more entertaining. The amount of mystery in which they cloak these "beings", as well as the power and incomprehensible abilities they possess, gives them all the same qualities as saints. Nothing about the movie prohibits us from viewing them this way, even though it seems quite clear that was not their intention. Still, the movie uniquely puts itself squarely in exclusively Catholic territory by suggesting that the only way a being can exist eternally, outside of the four dimensions, is through nothing else but pure love--the willing of perfect good. It doesn't say it is through man's intelligence, wormholes, negative energy, black holes, or the Mendelbrot Set. It is through pure love.
What do you think?
|
|
|
Post by Voxxkowalski on Feb 11, 2018 7:22:42 GMT -5
I think your trying say you like a movie alot and are framing it in a Catholic milieu because you wrongly feel its necessary for Catholics to do this to say they like a movie. You liked it great...I didnt. I found it the opposite of affirming. I found it a nightmarish scenario to think that heaven is a tesseract built by evolved humans.
|
|
Deleted
Past Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Feb 11, 2018 20:38:42 GMT -5
I think your trying say you like a movie alot and are framing it in a Catholic milieu because you wrongly feel its necessary for Catholics to do this to say they like a movie. You liked it great...I didnt. I found it the opposite of affirming. I found it a nightmarish scenario to think that heaven is a tesseract built by evolved humans. *sigh* If that were the case I would just say it. Please don't read into what I'm saying and just take it at face value. But ok, you didn't like it. I know that. I'm just providing information about why your major hang-up with the movie didn't bother me. I gave up long ago trying to get you to look at it differently. Now I'm just explaining why these hang-ups aren't so for me. I don't think you know enough about me to say that I feel its necessary for me to frame movies in a Catholic milieu in order to like them. That couldn't be further from the truth. I just don't let the fact that they are materialistic get in the way of me liking the movie. When you implied that it did for you, I decided to try getting rid of that for you to help you. That's all. I didn't start out this thread to justify the movie. I simply asked what everyone thought. Now that you have provided your reasons why you don't like it, I am simply explaining why those same things don't keep me from enjoying it. It's entirely subjective. I'm not trying to force you to like it. It's just discussion, that's all. I'm not trying to make this an issue or right versus wrong, just why a Catholic perspective keeps me from having the same issues you did. (The evolution thing does get annoying, though.) I enjoy it because of its use of the general theory of relativity in a very personal way. Its use of the Novikov self-consistency principle is also an endless source of intellectual fodder. I only tried to show you a different way to approach it in response to your impression that it was too materialistic to be enjoyable to you. I thought I could help you see it in a more pleasant light to help you get more out of the movie by responding that the movie could be viewed in an alternative way. That materialistic view can be overshadowed, for example, by a Catholic perspective. That's all my response was meant to do. As for the Tesseract, you have it wrong. That wasn't supposed to be heaven. It wasn't even supposed to be the fifth dimension. It was a four dimensional representation of a small piece of our universe (Murphy's room) built by those in the fifth dimension so that Cooper could find a way to communicate with his daughter in all points of time. While the space occupied by the Tesseract was in the fifth dimension, the Tesseract itself wasn't the fifth dimension. It was simply a communication medium built within the fifth dimension so that a four dimensional human could understand what needed to be done and how to do it. The Tesseract isn't supposed be anything remotely close to a fifth dimensional reality, and Cooper was so far from actually experiencing the fifth dimension that it would have been impossible for him to understand it. They had to condescend to his puny intellect in such a way as to create this four-dimensional infinity box of single moments of time as the only way it would make sense to him. The Tesseract was, to them, infinitely inferior to their actual reality. It was useful only as a tool for an infinitely inferior human to use for the communication of information to another infinitely inferior human.
|
|
|
Post by Voxxkowalski on Feb 12, 2018 0:38:44 GMT -5
Ok so your geeking out...thats cool too...I get it. Btw writing *sigh* is condescending bullshite...you need to examine why you would write that if were both allowed have an opinion on a secular movie. Love ya. BTW did you ever watch Arrival?
|
|
Deleted
Past Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Feb 12, 2018 17:30:19 GMT -5
Ok so your geeking out...thats cool too...I get it. Btw writing *sigh* is condescending bullshite...you need to examine why you would write that if were both allowed have an opinion on a secular movie. Love ya. BTW did you ever watch Arrival? I just want to provide you with subjective information about why it didn't bother me. It doesn't have to be right or wrong. Also, I'm not sure what "geeking out" means. I know you greatly appreciate the myriad of ways in which the written word can be misunderstood, so I didn't figure you'd assume that *sigh* has to be condescending. Its also used as a rhetorical device that means a meaning has been understood far enough that one is at a loss how to rectify it. That's all I meant. I'm lamenting the situation that I am not getting my message across and at a loss how to fix it. But if you don't see how it's not condescending I won't use it anymore. I have used it through our about 15k posts and no one once reacted to it as though it was condescending, but, hey, there's a fest time for everything. If you'd prefer indont use it, that's fine too.
|
|
Deleted
Past Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Feb 12, 2018 17:32:14 GMT -5
No, I haven't seen arrival yet. I don't usually buy movies without seeing them first, and I don't have Netflix. Maybe inwill rent it or see if I can borrow it from someone.
|
|
|
Post by Voxxkowalski on Feb 12, 2018 19:20:39 GMT -5
Geeking out refers to the love and appreciation someone feels to a subject matter on a personal level (Im not referring to an emotion) because for whatever reason they find it really intriguing. For instance someone who is really into Trains or all things train related would find themselves geeking out over a film about trains that others may not find intriguing at all. Its a good thing. *Sigh* I guess you cant see the condescension. No biggie.
|
|
|
Post by Voxxkowalski on Feb 12, 2018 19:47:28 GMT -5
Now I have another reason to resist the inferences you suggest. Carl uber athiest Sagan. He would use this type of lecture to prove God is simply us misunderstanding other dimensions.
|
|
Deleted
Past Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Feb 12, 2018 21:00:08 GMT -5
Geeking out refers to the love and appreciation someone feels to a subject matter on a personal level (Im not referring to an emotion) because for whatever reason they find it really intriguing. For instance someone who is really into Trains or all things train related would find themselves geeking out over a film about trains that others may not find intriguing at all. Its a good thing. *Sigh* I guess you cant see the condescension. No biggie. I see what you did there
|
|
Deleted
Past Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Feb 12, 2018 21:09:42 GMT -5
Now I have another reason to resist the inferences you suggest. Carl uber athiest Sagan. He would use this type of lecture to prove God is simply us misunderstanding other dimensions. Yes, I have watched this before. I am not so concerned with what bad things do with good as I am concerned with what good things do with bad. Enter: Jesus Christ using the most evil action of man for the greatest good ever conceived. If from the outset I were against good endings because of bad beginnings, then I would never admit the Resurrection. I would say that because the act was utterly evil nothing good could could come from it. But I would have been completely wrong. Good things come out of bad more than bad things come out of good.
|
|
|
Post by Voxxkowalski on Feb 13, 2018 8:15:49 GMT -5
Yes but you have to reframe and contextualize the film in your mind to create a "good" ...I took the film at its face value and it was presented in the view of Sagan through the lens of materialists. Dont forget it was climate change....and evil anti evolutionist education that are trotted out early as enemys. I like Iron Maiden songs...some have lyrics that I reframe with Catholic meanings...but I wont pretend thats what the musicians were attempting. (Im not saying your pretending anything of the sort either) so No matter how pure the "science" of the film I cant look past its deliberate atheist intentions.
|
|
Deleted
Past Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Feb 13, 2018 11:15:14 GMT -5
Yes but you have to reframe and contextualize the film in your mind to create a "good" ...I took the film at its face value and it was presented in the view of Sagan through the lens of materialists. Dont forget it was climate change....and evil anti evolutionist education that are trotted out early as enemys. I like Iron Maiden songs...some have lyrics that I reframe with Catholic meanings...but I wont pretend thats what the musicians were attempting. (Im not saying your pretending anything of the sort either) so No matter how pure the "science" of the film I cant look past its deliberate atheist intentions. Ok, very true. I can look past it for the purpose of entertainment, provided it isn't offensive to our Lord.
|
|