Well it appears that I have stirred dissension in my commentors again. At least they seem to be civil this time, probably because I am a wraithful person who would take it out on their characters if they weren't :) just kidding...your character will suffer anyway Hahahahaha....
I did some quick checks and it appears most of the major right wing groups didn't protest. I do remember reading reports of groups planning to protest, but they may have been the smaler groups of wacknuts in new hampshire who have all the harry potter book burnings. I'm pretty sure Pat Robertson had somethig negative to publically say about the film too, but then thats no suprise.
I would disagre that I'm reading too much into the "lying, crazy, true argument". It is one of the main/classical arguments/proofs that Jesus was the son of god. Althought its not used in the film to study Jesus or Aslan, it is presenting the argument as a correct way of rationally answering aquestion of wether a fantastical claim is true or not. This is good brain washing. Teaching children a way of thinking that will lead them to the answers you want them to have is much more effective than just giving them the answers.
If a child is simply given an answer, when he matures he may be inclined to question that answer.
If you teach your child a way of analysis, then the tools he would use to answer the question are faulty and he can't properly sway from the teaching.
I was almost suprised they didn't try to work Pascal's wager into the film somehow.
As far as the film just showing its ok to have faith, I would disagree with this assessment. Every time intelect is brought up in the film it is looked down upon. Every time Faith is brought up it is championed. If the message was its ok to have faith then there should have been some sort of balance between the two. The message of the film as I see it is clearly that faith is better than intelect.
I would also disagree with your deffination of Faith. This is a word which must strictly be taken in context, because there are two types of faith. There is religious faith and there is what I will call common faith.
Common faith is based upon history and evidence. For instance: I have faith that when I walk out my door I will step onto the pourch and see my car in the driveway. The pourch has ben there since I bought the house and I know I parked in the drive last night so my thought that things will be as they last were is based on the evidence to point.
Another example would be I faith in the goodness of people. Only a small percentage of our society are criminals or people bent on doing evil deeds and harming others, so there is a good chance that who ever your statement is in reference to they are in fact a good person.
Religious faith on the other hand dosen't require evidence and infact often goes in the face of contridictory evidence. i.e. "The bible is the literal word of an infaliable god." Anyone with half a brain can easily see that the bible is full of contridictions, both statements which conflict between different passages and those which conflict with known history. This would mean that eithor the bible is not the literal word of god, or that god is a failable being who is prone to make simple errors. Most beleivers of supernatural type occurances fall victim to the religious style faith.
I take the talk of Faith in Serenity to be of the common type. The shepard wants Mal to have faith in something, a cause to fight for. Through out the series, although Mal is an Atheist he does have common type faith. He beleives in the goodness of people, that he can make a difference, ect. In the film Mal seems to have lost his way and needs the coaching to return to his path.
As to your friend, I would say he has the common sort of faith. In time science probably will explain the mysteries of the universe. It has explained many mysteries in the last few hundreds of years and squashed misconceptions and wrong ideas. Althought every idea in science isn't correct, they will be weeded through and altered to fit new data found. This faith is based on history and past data.
Faith mentioned in Narnia is of the religious type. Unbeleivable supernatural things are claimed and the children without any sort of proof are asked to beleive in them. And not strangly enough they are right every time.
Nothing else really to report on the wonders of my life. I finished the film last night, apparently I only had like 5 minuted left of it. I did some cleaning and fired up my old MAc. Just sitting there in front of it made me want to write again. I don't know if its some kind of good creative power infused into it after all the writing that has been done on it or what, but I deffinatly felt the spark. Its too bad I was too busy to get anything out.
