I finished watching this film with the enthusiasm of a Christian friend. Although I feel disappointed in terms of content, I still have to thank that friend for his original intention. As for the disappointment? I mainly want to talk about it below. There are spoilers, be careful.
1) Let alone the loose structure of the story, after all, art appreciation is not my purpose of opening this film. The development of the plot and the character of the characters are also far-fetched, and the taste of the main theme makes me feel a little bad. But fortunately, these are not the ones that are most concerned about, but the three debates between the Christian protagonist Wheaton and his philosophy teacher about the proof of God. This is not only the main line of the film, but also the only reason the audience can find in the film. A foothold.
It's just that this rational foothold is actually based on an absurd opening. It is hard to imagine that the first lesson a philosophy professor gives students is to sign the promise of "God is dead"! The screenwriter made a common-sense methodological error here-the main purpose of the philosophical spirit is speculation, and the act of arbitrariness and swearing is precisely religious (there is no derogatory meaning to religion)! What's even more amazing is that this professor of philosophy has listed a long list of atheistic thoughts and has easily persuaded everyone about his "God is dead" arbitrariness! This kind of registration number is enough to show that the professor is more suitable to teach politics than philosophy. Furthermore, the screenwriter has exposed an important implicit error here: that is, he regards philosophy and science as the opposite of religion. But the fact is that the question of faith has always been a serious and important topic in the philosophical system (religion is usually under the academy of philosophy). Fortunately, since the debates of the male lead Wheaton have retained a little bit of visibility, I will mainly discuss these three debates.
2) The first debate was Wheaton citing the existence of God from the perspective of cosmology, but the God inference about the first impetus was rejected by the professor using Hawking's "self-design". In fact, this debate did not hit the subject at all! why would you said this? First of all, M theory is still a hypothesis about the ultimate theory of physics, so the use of Hawking to deny Newton on this issue also does not represent the truth. So Newton believes in God, and the conclusion is that I want to make a comeback for Wheaton? ——That would be even more wrong! The screenwriter here deliberately obscures a question like many believers. The important thing is not that Hawking chopped down the gods of Galileo, Newton, or Einstein, but is the god of the latter the god of Christians? Einstein believed that with the continuous improvement of the religious realm, the concept of the personal god will be gradually diluted, until the religious teachers "have the courage to abandon the doctrine of the personification of God", and "the idea of the intervention of the gods in the process cannot be tolerated for a moment." ", "In order to clarify the principles of celestial mechanics, Kepler and Newton worked lonely over the years... It is the religious sentiment of the universe that gives people this power." Einstein's God essence is what he calls "universal religion". It’s ridiculous that scientists’ religious views of deism are often taken as their own family by many ignorant Christians!
The second debate Wheaton challenged from the teleological point of view, that is, through the theoretical flaws of Darwin's theory of evolution, to prove the existence of the "designer" God. First of all, it must be admitted that Darwin’s theory is indeed not perfect—even the flaws are fatal. It is very weak to explain the leapfrog evolution of species, such as the leap from inorganic matter to organic matter; the "intermediate link" from organic matter to primitive life is difficult to explain. Even for human evolution with more fossils to test, too many "intermediate links" of evidence gaps make us still lack the absolute conviction from apes. But this kind of God-proven strategy is still not convincing for people with a little philosophical knowledge, let alone a philosophy professor. So I'm curious that the professor who moved out of Hume's name in the opening scene did not answer this question directly! In his later years, Hume made a systematic critique on the teleological proof of God's pillar in his "Natural Religious Dialogue". His criticism was so powerful that Kant only regarded God as a "suspension of practical reason." From Hume's point of view, our world is obviously full of "imperfections and imperfections". It is "just a clumsy work of a naive god who first showed his skills. He later abandoned it and was ashamed of his clumsy work." . If this God that can only be recognized by design results, it must not exceed the nature necessary to produce results. At most, we can only imagine an incomplete designer from it, and even doubt whether it is a result of the poor results. Designed. In addition, Hume also began to question God from the "problem of evil", that is, if this world is designed by the all-good God, where does evil come from if it follows the consistency of deduction principles? At the end of this debate, the professor quoted the words from "Job": "Man is born by a woman, and there are short lives and many tribulations." Life and death are the basic form of evil in the world. After the professor described his experience of praying to God in his early years but still failed to save his mother, which made him question the existence of God, the subject of the third round of debate was buried.
The theme of the third debate was "The Problem of Evil". Wheaton first started by refuting the ethical paradox of Jean Meyer. It is necessary to briefly introduce this paradox: Meiye traces the origin of the "question of evil" from the text of "Genesis", thus questioning God's "all-knowing, all-powerful, all-good". That is: eating the forbidden fruit "all-knowing" why doesn't God know? If you know the "Almighty" God, why doesn't it stop? Is God still "all good" if he can continue to cause infinite disasters for mankind? The conventional way out of this problem is to follow the "free will" route, and Wheaton also defended his beliefs from this route. But this route is still problematic (but the philosophy professor in the film continues to release water), because obviously not all evil is the result of human actions, and Job's suffering is not self-inflicted, nor is it to teach his mother! But Christians will still argue that it is because they are born guilty—original sin. This creates a new question, that is, if we may be punished by God no matter what we do, what is the motivation for obeying the precepts? Where is God's justice? What's more, it is just like Campanella's clear moral logic: It is unreasonable for the son to commit the crime for Lao Tzu. On the contrary, Lao Tzu should be responsible for teaching the son. The original sin of the son's sin is completely shameless! So this strategy was rejected by Job himself. Wheaton was conscious of the lack of flavor, and then quoted Dostoyevsky's famous saying "If God does not exist, man can act arbitrarily", this sentence is quite deep! It is a pity that the screenwriter technically made the sensible professor of philosophy burst into emotions at a critical moment (I want to sigh with emotion here, as far as the movie is concerned, the screenwriter is God). So far mixed with my disappointment, the rational debate finally returned to the simplistic slogan of "believe in love" or "have hatred" standing in front of the line, and "successfully" defended Wheaton's beliefs in imaginable emotional induction. The victory came to an end.
3) In order to make up for a little disappointment, I naturally want to continue the discussion that would have been meaningful if it were not for the professor's "accidental" rational collapse. Voltaire, the standard bearer of enlightenment rationality, once said that "Christianity is undoubtedly the most absurd and cruel", but in the enlightenment movement that overthrew the church vigorously, he said, "Even if there is no God, we must create one." This is not Voltaire's self-contradiction, but a consideration based on the metaphysical basis of morality. People need this and a God in people's moral practice, even though he, as a deist, is different from those believers. However, it is necessary for God to constrain people because of his final judgment. This morality of fear of going to hell and not daring to do evil is still too bad in the eyes of Einstein or Fromm. Well, let's return to the devout believer of Toshi with the tolerance of moral warning. It's just that he doesn't take the creed for granted like many believers now, but is experiencing fierce faith struggles. It is this pious person who is worried about falling into arbitrary behavior and needs faith, and at the same time he has shaped his other side in "Brother Karamazov"-arbitrary Ivan-through his mouth reveals his deep heart. To deal with anti-Christian doubts. And you will find that this kind of faith struggle of Do’s can be found in the most pious and rational believers from Tertullian, Augustine, Pascal, and even Kierkegaard. The deep doubts and deep-rooted piety of God are actually It is the history of thought that runs through the entire faith community at the same time! Kierkegaard, who is also a faithful child of God, clearly stated that "Christianity is passion." Human reason and emotions, and even the social form built by human mental models, are difficult to explain the complexity from any one-or-other perspective.
The end of the movie is the sudden death of the professor, who is converted out of fear of death. This reversal treatment has increased my disappointment, not because of the abrupt plot, but because the interpretation of the connotation of faith is too superficial-because people are afraid of death, they rush to God in order to find a good home. Of course, as a missionary film, it can indeed meet the needs of most people in pursuit of religion. Just like the first time I joined the church, someone told me to believe in the Lord and enter heaven (I felt like I had entered a market at that time). In fact, the movie could have had a better ending. The professor prayed to God in his early years but saved his mother in the end is an excellent clue, but the movie falls short of stereotypes (of course, it is also related to the screenwriter's own belief level). Therefore, I still want to tell one more story for friends who are interested in thinking about their beliefs. The famous Japanese faith writer Shusaku Endo has a novel based on history. It probably tells a story that is similar to the professor’s early faith experience: During the Tokugawa prohibition of religion, a young priest ran to find his teacher because it is said that he was a devout teacher. Actually abandoned teaching! We must know that the level of faith of such a person is not like a professor who believes for death but can die for faith! Later, a series of cruel things happened to prove that his teacher did abandon teaching, and the shogunate treated his teacher as if That set to fix him. They tortured some Japanese believers. As long as the young pastor did not abandon the religion, they had to watch those believers slowly tortured to death. Under extreme circumstances, the little pastor suffered from both Hume's sense of morality and his benevolence in God, calling on the "all-knowing, all-powerful, and all-good" Lord to show his spirits quickly in these desperate times. However, just like the professor, he found that the real situation has not changed even the root grass. The little pastor chose to abandon the religion out of conscience in despair. It gives modern people a deep thinking: Facing a silent God, what faith can we seek?
4) In the end, what is irrelevant to the issue is that I want to criticize the philosophy professor in the film and affirm Wheaton, a pious freshman. The professor’s brutal interference in the beliefs of others is obviously not done by a qualified teacher. The consensus of modern people’s beliefs is that it (of course does not include anti-human cults) is only people’s personal problems, and any practice of imposing personal will on others is More human rights. Believers of any religion should adopt an attitude of respect. But in reality, this is exactly what some Christian churches who criticize Buddhism need to reflect on, and this attack will not bring any self-defense, because people with a little logic know that reduction is not their own truth. Argument. The affirmation of Wheaton is because, although he did not give a deeply enlightening insight, his speculative spirit and serious attitude towards the issue of faith are far beyond that of many believers in the country who are flooded with mysticism today. What needs to be emphasized is that the so-called mysticism here refers to imposing one's own subjective inner experience as an absolute truth. The proliferation of mysticism comes from low cost-neither knowledge nor speculation is required, as long as the "I feel, that is the truth" can be shielded from all rational voices. This common anti-intellectual phenomenon limits the cognitive level of some believers and thus largely affects the harmony between people (the film somewhat expresses the superiority of believers and the prejudice against non-believers), I believe this is definitely not The original social intention of a modern religion.
On 2014.10
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