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Anytime a movie has supernatural elements, I always wonder: Why don't the characters get more freaked out? I mean, if you encounter ghosts and demons and angels, then that surely gives more credence to the possibility of an afterlife. How can you just carry on like nothing spiritually shattering happened? You would think the characters would run to a place of worship and instantly become more religious.
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Probably the same reason that characters that travel to exotic locations with unfamiliar food and poor sanitation aren't typically portrayed as having explosive diahrea.
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Why wouldja freak? Encountering ghosts and demons and angels would just increase the probability that I'm immortal... ...which of course means anything they could do would be only an extremely brief and extremely minor annoyance.
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I think it would be fair to expect portraying the characters as having explosive diarrhea if unfamiliar exotic foriegn food is a main plot point.
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quote:Originally posted by aspectre: Why wouldja freak? Encountering ghosts and demons and angels would just increase the probability that I'm immortal... ...which of course means anything they could do would be only an extremely brief and extremely minor annoyance.
True. In any case, it would be a profound experience.
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Existential angst is an unlikely plot point for most movies that feature ghosts, zombies, demons, etc.
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quote:Originally posted by MattP: Existential angst is an unlikely plot point for most movies that feature ghosts, zombies, demons, etc.
Acknowledging the profundity of the experience needn't be a plot point. They just need to show the surviving characters going to a place of worship at the end of the movie.
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Most places of worship that I've been to didn't spend a whole lot of time talking about the undead. The characters who survived such a traumatic experience wouldn't necessarily feel that even a house of worship was a safe place to turn to without being laughed at. (Actually, in the movie "the Corpse Bride," Victoria goes to the priest specifically to ask about the ramifications of her fiance marrying a dead woman, and the priest thinks she's crazy)
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I don't think that even having experienced something determined to be supernatural that I'd consider a church to be the best place to go for insight.
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quote:Originally posted by Raymond Arnold: Most places of worship that I've been to didn't spend a whole lot of time talking about the undead. The characters who survived such a traumatic experience wouldn't necessarily feel that even a house of worship was a safe place to turn to without being laughed at. (Actually, in the movie "the Corpse Bride," Victoria goes to the priest specifically to ask about the ramifications of her fiance marrying a dead woman, and the priest thinks she's crazy)
No, they wouldn't go to a place of worship for recuperation, but rather because they now believe in God.
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quote:Originally posted by MattP: I don't think that even having experienced something determined to be supernatural that I'd consider a church to be the best place to go for insight.
You wouldn't go to a church for insight, but merely to start worshiping, as you now know there is an afterlife and suddenly it being more probable that the bible was on to something.
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Seeing ghosts would not make me believe in god. It would certainly not make me believe in any particular religion. It would definitely make me reevaluate my thoughts on the human condition.
If I were suddenly granted the knowledge that (for example) the bible were 100% correct, I would actually be more likely to disdain modern faiths and, for that matter, modern faithful people. Modern religions are a very far cry from their original forms. Currently, I feel that major religions have adapted to fit an evolving culture, necessary to fulfill a purely human need to believe in something greater than the physical world. If I suddenly believed in the bible and a Christian god, I would see modern religions as abandoning the true way of god.
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quote:You wouldn't go to a church for insight, but merely to start worshiping, as you now know there is an afterlife and suddenly it being more probable that the bible was on to something.
Huh? Since when did Christianity become the sole arbiter of an afterlife? And why would a belief in afterlife require worship? "Ghosts exist" is a *long* way from "The God of Christianity wants me to worship Him and I must do so in order to obtain immortality."
This is just beefed up version of Pascal's Wager with all the same shortcomings.
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While I admit that the typical random dude in a movie WOULDN'T necessarily realize this, the existence of zombies. spirits or vampires says nothing about the existence of God. It certainly would be mind-shattering if you discovered they existed and I'd have to rethink my worldview a lot, but unless there was a particular church that I knew had some specific info on zombies, spirits or vampires I wouldn't necessarily go there first.
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I might even come to the opposite conclusion - if zombies exist then that may be a better explanation for the resurrection than divine intervention.
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Most characters in movies come from a Christian background. It only makes sense they run to what they know.
I am excluding zombies because in the movies zombies overwhelmingly are the result of Nature Going Wrong rather than being the result of magic.
But, if you encounter decisive evidence that there is an afterlife, man, you've better get your act together and start praying.
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Supernatural (tv show) actually discussed this concept. Sam asks Dean, after all the stuff we've seen, doesn't that make you think maybe God does exist? And Dean says something like, no, because if God does exist and allows these unnatural things to exist as well, then he is an !@#$# and doesn't deserve to be worshiped. In some ways, adding the supernatural makes the why does God allow bad things to happen worse because the free will, rules of nature answer has been tossed out. A human killing his neighbors sucks, but a demon who has no right to be on this plane of existence killing random people is something God has no excuse for allowing to happen.
On Supernatural, they did eventually discover real angels and they hate most of the angels.
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Seems like it would kinda mess up the plot if everyone knew that all that supernatural stuff was just proof of the promise of an afterlife.
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quote:Originally posted by MattP: I might even come to the opposite conclusion - if zombies exist then that may be a better explanation for the resurrection than divine intervention.
This does seem to be a more reasonable explanation. What if you were instead confronted with demonic possession Matt? Or stigmata?
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How do I distinguish possession from mental illness? Random spontaneous wounds on the palms would also not necessarily strike me as being of supernatural origin and if it did my initial thought would be a malicious entity, not one I would want to run out and worship. I'd certainly read up on the history of stigmata though to get hints about how people had dealt with it in the past.
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quote:Originally posted by Clive Candy: But, if you encounter decisive evidence that there is an afterlife, man, you've better get your act together and start praying.
Really? The problem here strikes me as the same problem with Pascal's Wager. OK, there's an afterlife. But does that mean that praying will get me in? And that not praying will get me excluded? What if it's the opposite? What if the Moslems have it right, and praying to a Christian god offends Allah?
Besides, even granting the 100% correctness of the Christian version of the afterlife and the terms for getting in, there are still things to be considered. The only argument for praying that is added is the threat of eternal punishment. I don't do things because I'm afraid of the alternative. I do things because they are the right thing to do. If I don't pray now, then the belief in an afterlife won't start me praying. It changes only the risk/reward, not my feelings about the act itself.
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quote:Originally posted by MattP: Existential angst is an unlikely plot point for most movies that feature ghosts, zombies, demons, etc.
Acknowledging the profundity of the experience needn't be a plot point. They just need to show the surviving characters going to a place of worship at the end of the movie.
quote:Originally posted by MattP: How do I distinguish possession from mental illness? Random spontaneous wounds on the palms would also not necessarily strike me as being of supernatural origin and if it did my initial thought would be a malicious entity, not one I would want to run out and worship. I'd certainly read up on the history of stigmata though to get hints about how people had dealt with it in the past.
Well in the case of demonic posession, I should think it might be the person speaking in a strange voice, and saying things based on information they should not be privy to. Levitating, contorted body positions, and inhuman like strength might also be indicators that the person isn't simply ill.
But you are right, just because you see something you conclude is demonic possession it does not necessarily follow that you should fall down on your knees and worship God.
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