Does God Exist?

The existence of God has been interpreted and argued very differently for all of history, but probably the most popular titled belief is that of Classical Theism, a generalized title for the three longest and largest lasting religions in the world, Islam, Judaism, and Christianity. "God has many key features, God is the creator of the universe, and he is omnipotent, omniscient, and perfectly good." (Nils Ch. Rauhut). A belief that is common and arguably universal in classical theism is that God is an all-powerful, all-good being that created the universe and now controls it. When it comes to support an argument like this, people have a variety of interpretations, such as the argument of religious experiences. "Some of the most persuasive arguments is the defense of the existence of God are based on religious experience. (Nils Ch. Rauhut). Whether or not a claim seems to be true, when someone has a very spiritual experience that they interpret has to be ordained by God, putting persuasions aside, it is nigh impossible to convince them God does not exist, however someone could skillfully fabricate their experience to convince still others of his belief, in the case of Muhammad when he started Islam in the 7th Century. The Cosmological argument is used by classical theists as well. "In order to understand the basic Thrust of the Cosmological argument, we need to understand two philosophical ideas, the concept of a necessary being and the principle of sufficient reason." (Nils Ch. Rauhut). The argument of a necessary being is that God is a necessary being for the creation of what we understand as the Cosmos. And the philosophy of sufficient reason is that there must be sufficient reason for the existence of the cosmos.

The design argument also has to be among the most popular. "This argument is immediately plausible, and for centuries it has been one of the most dependable bulwarks of rational theology." (Nils Ch. Rauhut). The basics of it is the logical assumption that given all the advanced life on earth, the careful layout of the solar system and it's processes, how it affects life on earth, all the intricate details and features of our universe would have needed to be designed by an intelligent creator, there's no way something that advanced just happened by chance. However, it is more common than one might think for a classical theist to believe that the events that some modern scientists belief started the universe, the Big Bang, for instance, was facilitated by God, that the Big Bang is the form in which God Created the Universe. It could also be believed that God started life on earth in the process of evolution. Traditional Creationists are still probably more common to this day, in there believe that life does not change, and the way all organisms are today is the same as they were 6 thousand years ago when God created them. "Traditional Creationists hold the Genesis account of creation is literally true." (Nils Ch. Rauhut). God created the earth in six days, all life on earth, everything about it that exists today, was designed by God in six days.

Eternal sunshine of the Spotless Mind is a movie that depicts a bad breakup and a memory erasing procedure that tries to remove the heartbreak, except that the two people involved still fall in love, inevitably. The two are shown as a happy couple at the beginning of the film. When the two are on their first date, it shows a great contrast between the two, and their strengths and weaknesses, Clementine wants to go out onto the ice covering a lake, but Joel is much less daring and adventurous so he doesn't want to follow her out their, but she encourages him and drives him to do so. So the two are shown as a happy couple, lying on the ice. However, the relationship quickly reaches an ugly end one night when Clementine comes home really late one night. ""It's 3 O'clock" "I kinda sorta wrecked your car" "you're either drunk, or just pathetic." "I was a little tipsy, don't call me pathetic!" "Well it is pathetic, and it's irresponsible, you could have killed somebody." The two whom once thought they were in love end up in a fight and separating. The ongoing separation leads to both of them undergoing an overnight procedure that involves erasing all of their memories of the loved one. Much of the movie's course is showing Joel's dreams about Clementine as he relives is memories of her as they are being erased.

Most of the film Donnie Darko depicts a teenage boy living in a tangent universe, and is shown what will happen if he survives a jet engine falling from the sky and landing in his room. In an early scene in the movie Frank calls Donnie out of his room and tells him the world is going to end, meanwhile, if Donnie hadn't gone out to see Frank he would have died had he not left the house, because of a giant jet engine that crashed into his house that night. This is the first scene in the tangent universe, and the first step in Donnie seeing what would happen to the people around him if he didn't die. In a later scene Frank tells Donnie Darko to flood the school, one more event leading up to Donnie's understanding of what the tangent universe is. The event creates a lot of turmoil in the school, and even causes a teacher to be fired, and the schools core curriculum to be changed, even though they never find out it was Donnie who did it. As the tangent Universe progresses, Donnie starts to understand what exactly the point of all this is, and is starting to show evidence that he knows he has to die. Especially in a scene where he spea
ks out against Jim Cunningham "You're actually, I'm pretty scared, and I'm pretty troubled, and I'm pretty confused, but, and I'm afraid, really afraid, but I think your a fucking Antichrist." (Donnie Darko) Jim Cunningham is a fraud, and Donnie can already tell, but that doesn't mean Jim is wrong in calling Donnie out, the fact is Donnie is afraid, afraid of what Frank is telling him he has to do.

"What do you know about time travel?... Every living thing follows a set path,  and if you could see your path or channel and then you could see your path" (Donnie Darko) Donnie Darko does spend some time trying to resist the fact that he has to die, and is shown asking questions about time travel and wormholes. ""When is this gonna stop?" "You should already know that, watch the movie screen, I want to show you something. Have you ever seen a portal ? Burn it to the ground." (Donnie Darko) Meanwhile the events of the tangent universe continue, and Donnie Darko is told by Frank to burn Jim Cunningham's' house to the ground. Toward the end of the movie however, it is evident that Donnie now knows the purpose of all that has been happening, and shows that he is ready to die. "I promise, that one day, everything is going to be better for you!" Donnie tells the young Chinese girl at his school, who is so ostracized and ridiculed by the other students at the school, showing his undertanding of how lonely she is, and sympathy towards her because of how lonely he is, and expecting things to be better for himself when he dies.When the world ends.

The Waking Dead

In the move, Waking Life, there are many scenes in which the main character and others are involved in deep philosophical conversations.The course of the movie includes him and others involved in deep philosophical discussions. One of the conversations includes a movie inside a move in which these philosophers discuss aspects of what they call a "holy moment" which involves a kind of summary of the movie itself. "I mean, there's the holy moment and then there's the awareness of trying to have the holy moment, in the same way that the film is the actual moment really happening, but then the character pretending to be in a different reality." -Waking Life. The character is unaware of his reality, and is thus in a holy moment, but when he becomes aware of trying to have the holy moment, he immediately starts searching for a different reality. Another scene is a depiction of some philosophical pedestrians and contrasts them with an old man atop a pole. "No worse than us. He's all action and no theory. We're all theory and no action." -Waking Life. The men are walking aimlessly discussing the theories of the universe, but they put none of that thought into action, just as the man climbed atop the pole with out thinking about it, they are complete opposites. Either action with no fruit, or thoughts with no fruit.

In one of the final scenes of the film, the main character is depicted on a bridge, and a man appears and speaks to him. "An assumption develops that you cannot understand life and live life simultaneously. I do not agree entirely. Which is to say I do not exactly disagree."-Waking Life. The assumption would be that he admits he does not fully understand life, but he understands the point of life, the purpose, living in experiences, life itself is the point of life. The final scene before he "wakes up" shows him having a conversation with a man playing pinball. He explains his problem that he can't wake up, and the man playing pinball who claims to have had the same problem. "And then she tells me that actually this is the narrative of everyone's life. That, you know, behind the phenomenal difference, there is but one story, and that's the story of moving from the "no" to the "yes."-Waking Life. The fact of the matter is it doesn't matter if he's dreaming or not. Perspectives are based almost completely on relativity, relative to what you already know, so there is no way for him to know if he's dreaming or not. The best thing he can do is accept reality for what it is, accept the things you cannot control, whether or not he is dreaming, there is no way to know.

 Mis en scene is a prominent film feature the The Matrix. A good example is the above representation of Neo and Trinity entering the Matrix to rescue Morpheus. This clip captures all the aspects of their imagination while they are in the matrix. The obvious appearance that they desire. Well groomed, dark sunglasses and coats, and holding various types of fire-arms. Also the expressions on their faces, telling you that the entire squad of policemen they just killed were easy pickings, like it was another day at the beach. The crumbling pillars behind them, and the way they are walking. All contribute to a representation of their desire to look bad-ass.

Another very strong point in The Matrix is the philosophy about free-will that is implemented. The suggestion that life is not real but merely our imagination represented in a computer program known as The Matrix. It does a good job of trying to show the free will humans have even within a deterministic universe.  A good example is when Morpheus offers the blue and red pills. Neo has the option of taking the blue pill and continue to live in an appealingly false reality. Or he can take the red pill, and enter the real world with Morpheus. This is a representation of how much free will humans really have, even if our lives are limited, and possibly deterministic, we still have the ability to make independent decisions. There are many aspects of our perception of reality that are out of our control, but we still have the freedom to make many decisions that could heavily impact us and/or the ones around us. For instance we have the choice to accept our reality for what it is, similar to taking the blue pill, or we can choose to bend our reality to the extent of our human ability, like taking the red pill.

World View

I believe in God, I believe that the overall point of life is to make a choice, to follow him, or not follow him. It's sad to me how much humans try to bend religion to there own values, as a result Christianity has grown to be a very divided world religion. The little things about religious traditions don't matter, in my opinion, I think that the only thing that matters is a human-being accepting Jesus Christ as their personal savior, and living life in a relationship with the holy spirit. One of the things I like to refrain from is feeling superior to other humans because of my Christian faith. I think it is important for people to know that becoming a Christian doesn't somehow make you a better person per say, a superior human being, with superior ethics, it merely saves you from the punishment of your sin, you are still a sinful human being, doomed to fall short of God's glory.