a belief in choice or a choice of belief ?
June 20, 2005note: the views are my own, they require some amount of flexibility in thinking, there is no attack on anything intended here.. if you don’t like this, you don’t have to read it.
now to talk about what i was talking about when i posted the earlier post.
i finished watching ‘the last temptation of christ’. while i will not call it a masterfully amazing movie.. it does challenge belief. enough to generate unnecessary controversy.
my roommate is a staunch believer in christianity, and all that - he couldn’t really stand the ideas stated in ‘the da vinci code’, and this movie was not too well received by him either. not surprising 
an hour of discussion later, it came out : jesus christ is the ’son of god’. he cannot be fallible. god is a being who is not fallible.
i know not enough of other religions to comment, but i do know enough of hinduism to say that while a god is omniscient from the point of view of the religion, that does not mean that he does not commit the occasional mistake. most gods have slipped up every now and then, and more than one has committed major errors in judgement. especially when they incarnate in human form.
hence, all of us, being normal(?) humans, can’t really be exempt from this rule.
back to the movie. a couple of thoughts come to mind.
it beautifully states that it is possible that jesus was a human who chose to live his life extraordinarily. he could have been faced with self-doubt, he could have been an unwilling leader.. who came to believe in himself as a saviour. people followed him not because he was seen as a man who challenged belief, but because he picked up a gauntlet that would not taken up by others.
if one thinks about it, it is very easy to convert such a person into a saviour of the world.. and make him the greatest event to happen to the planet. to the point, that our calendar revolves around him.
he was crazy enough to take on the world’s beliefs, and show them a way of making it all make sense.
it boggles the mind.. but it is possible.
its quite simple, isn’t it ? there is always more than one way of looking at things.
and the way one looks at things depends on what one chooses to see, and what one chooses to believe.
the extension they have placed on the movie, where they show an alternate reality to jesus; goes to prove one thing.. the power of choice. it is very easy to give up and defer the choice.. and eventually that comes to bite back horribly. but once the choice is made, regret is unnecessary. the choice cannot be made again and again. no choice should be made blindly.. as any choice can change the world as we know it.
the other point that the movie makes, albeit on a much subtler note is that, if one believes; anything is possible. jesus ‘wills’ the water into wine, by believing it to be so. this is hailed as a miracle… he does much the same with his other miracles.. but think of the point made here.
is it possible that the human mind can cause change by simply willing it to be true ? we all know our brain is capable of much more than what we put it through… is it possible for us to actually harness the power that may be lying waste within ? could channeling of mental energy cause levitation ? cause a spoon to bend ? change water to wine ?
maybe. if we believe it can.
maybe not. if we will shackle it with belief.
believing in something is one thing, allowing it to dictate life is another. we can believe in so many things. god. divinity. jesus. the power of the mind. that maths may actually be something that is worth the effort. existence.
but this does not mean that these things definitely exist. that i cannot have different beliefs. that all life has to conform to these beliefs.
we can change everything, if we want to. if we don’t… nothing is possible. ever.
when choice is made based on belief, one has to remember that the planet may not share this belief to allow the choice to work. but if one wants to, one can make anything work. each one makes his or her own choices, you don’t have to agree with all of them.
but that does not mean that my choice is wrong.
of course, i could be absolutely wrong here. there may be no such thing as free will and choice; and we could all just be puppets on the strings of gods. or aliens. all this could be one gigantic experiment. or a humongous joke.
i wonder.
interesting and very true... belief changes everything... we see what
Sabah | June 21, 2005interesting and very true… belief changes everything… we see what we want to see… we hear what we want to hear… we WANT to believe in something so we do… very often people give reasons for their beliefs eg- we ve been thought so since childhood; everyone else thinks so; so on… free will exists… its up to us to understand where and how… ultimately it all boils down to the games of the mind… someday we may be able to find out how it all works… till then, we can only assume, guess and wonder…
the problem is that we have to work in all this, living with some assumptions. ironically, a point comes when the assumption needs to be justified; and we cannot do this.
logic is an answer, but who can decide this ?
as you can see.. trying to answer one part leads to questions one cannot answer.
at least, not yet.
You know, I just finished reading The Da Vinci
Sol | June 21, 2005You know, I just finished reading The Da Vinci Code. I took it to be a work meant for entertainment and if it were written as gospel, gospel that changes hundreds of years of belief’s then I could understand the uproar. But, like this movie it is meant for entertainment.
Entertainment, that unlike a sitcom, challenges you to give thought to “what if?” “could it happen?” and only when you can ask yourself those kinds of questions are you free to question, examine and learn just where your beliefs truly are.
And then, my next question becomes.. “what if Jesus was mortal? What IF.. he was like us and chose to live his life as he did? Then, wouldn’t it make it worth the effort to try to live almost likewise, knowing if he could attain it so can we? Just… food for thought.
its a very valid point, and indeed, it is one of the things that i was referring to. well put.
the question is very often, why is it no-one even tries - and blindly follows.
Richy | June 30, 2005The article you have written on the last temptation of christ is good.Instead of studying for Masters in Medical Imaging you should have gone into studying literature or jounalism.The books like davinci code and the last temptation of christ are just stories made up to undermine devout christian (Roman catholic) faith in god.To understand this you should be brought in a devout christian family where everyday prayer is a must, the effect of this prayers can be seen in your surroundings.I cannot put this in words but my experiences in life show me that god exists ofcourse I have never seen him.
you know me very well(last 9 months), though I’am a christian let me tell you I just boast about my christian faith as every single minute of my life on this earth I sin either knowingly or unknowingly.Mayebe it would be in the form of quarelling with friends ocassionally or any other form of sin.
thanks for the compliments
it is an interesting point: have these forms of entertainment been made knowingly to undermine the christian faith ? i would like to say that they are just another depiction of the facts, which are equally possible - but i cannot say that for sure. having an unshakeable faith means that you will have one support whenever you look for it. the question is ‘is that support based in clay ?’
the fact that you accept that you are human, and err, is a beginning. few even accept that they sin, let alone hypocritically.
there is some hope