Monday, May 12, 2008

Ultimately, a Mechanistic Veiw of Man

I watched Uncorked again last night. This is a new age, nobody gets hurt, weird little movie that unfolds like a play. I think that's why I like it- the play makes the new age stuff seem more remote, like the references to mythology in Shakespeare. It's so utterly impossible that it becomes pleasant, rather than those movies where they try to make it look too real.
Anyway, there's one character who spouts all the metaphysical stuff, and his main purpose throughout the movie is to get his nephew to stop trying to strike it rich at this or that thing and do the one thing he's actually good at, which happens to be playing the guitar.

Well, we hear about this thing we are born to do, even among Christians. Rick Warren, Joel Osteen, etc... There are preachers who build entire careers around stuff like this.

Unfortunately, the idea that a person is born to do one particular thing ultimately reduces people to machines. The full understanding of human dignity is stripped away. We are always so much more than one thing. Also, imagine how soul-crushing reducing your relationships down to one aspect would be. (If you are a parent, and you end all your parenting behavior except for feeding your children, for example.) Would you expect God to do such a thing?

So God might actually want you to do more than one thing, and in your mind, right now those two things may seem mutually exclusive, mainly because you are used to thinking in an overtly linear way.
Or you might be stuck in a dead end job and not feel like anything you do is of much benefit to anyone. It's important to remember to let God be the judge, and not go running around desperate for anything that looks more interesting.

Anyway, in my book, one of the weirdest lines ever:
You don't have to believe me, you just have to trust me.


Am I missing something? Is there a way to trust someone you don't believe?
It doesn't really matter whether you don't believe him because you think he's lying or you don't believe him because you think he's insane; you still don't believe him and therefore how can you trust him?

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