The Movies Make People Doubt God

tng | 2007-03-28 03:59

Sunshine movie poster: Image credit Fox Searchlight PicturesI can hear the Dobsons, Robertsons and Falwells screaming that headline at their audiences now. Bill O'Reilly will develop an elaborate conspiracy theory on how Hollywood is subverting moral values by making people question their belief in god. Actually, working on one movie caused one actor to become an atheist. Except, he kinda was already.

Actor Cillian Murphy says that after working on the yet to be released scifi film Sunshine caused his view on the existence of god to change from agnosticism to atheism:

He says, "I was agnostic before this film. Now I'm very much an atheist.

"Not just because I spent time with these guys--they just confirmed what I'd always suspected.

"For me, the film ultimately is a battle between science and religion, or science instead of fundamentalism."

Sunshine is set 50 years into a future where our sun is dying. A spaceship is launched with a device that is hoped will reignite the sun's nuclear furnace but out of radio contact with Earth the mission starts to come apart. Aside from the obvious question of why humans needed to be sent on a mission that could probably have been handled much better by a robotic spacecraft, Murphy seems to not realize that he was already an atheist to begin with before starting work on the film.

Agnosticism is of course one form of atheism, and is in fact what most atheists mean when they say they don't believe in a god. Atheism literally means without god and deals with one's belief while agnosticism means without knowledge (gnosis is derived from the Greek word for knowledge and refers to spiritual knowledge). Thus one can be either an agnostic or a gnostic atheist depending on whether you believe it is possible to know if a god exists (or not). Most honest atheists will tell you that they are agnostic atheists because true knowledge of the existence of a god is impossible. On the other hand, a gnostic theist would be someone who knows that there is a god (or at least thinks they do) and likely many believers would find such a person as insufferable as a gnostic atheist.

While I have a feeling that this film won't be hard science fiction, it's an interesting premise and the movie is directed by Danny Boyle who directed Trainspotting so it just might not suck. You can catch the trailer here.

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Mnerva | 2007-04-07 17:30 | Blog Against Theocracy

I'm only sorry I didn't hear about the Blog Against Theocracy event (April 6 to 8) until it was already April 7! Also, I'm too outdated in my computer skills, including blog literacy, to know if just putting BAT into my subject line will get it registered in the effort. But I had to give it my best (pathetic) shot. It's particularly galling when you have a spouse who does digital film editing on HIS computer. But even though we've had PCs since 1986, I've never gotten much beyond word processing. Where I did get in those 21 years, though, was from Christianity to what I call atheist pantheism. I'm a Pagan who believes that this one life is all we get (energy recycling at best, no specific reincarnation) and that there's no Big Man or Woman in the sky whose main purpose is to rescue us humans from my mistakes. I have to right the wrongs I do myself (and do what I can to oppose the bigger wrongs) and though resurrection myths are manifold, I think it's the height of greed to feel entitled to the eternal survival of one's individual ego. Whatever time I'm given on this single go-around is already such a huge, wonderful gift. Being an "out" Pagan and de facto Atheist is a tremendous wake-up call. This country is already sliding dangerously close to theocracy. If you want to be much disturbed and revolted, just check out the "God" and "Christian nation" language used by high-ranking members of the present national government, including the ("he's not MY") president. I've been much taken aback by the reactions of many who at some point find out I'm Pagan and don't believe in an afterlife. People I've liked and been friendly with for years suddenly feel entitled to proselytize, if not insult and disrespect me, because I'm not a Christian which to them for some inscrutable reason means I can't be a person of character and in fact am not really a human being. (Of course, being a woman, I wasn't a full human being to some of them anyway!) It's been a much appreciated learning experience. As one of my gay friends said to me, it actually makes a white, blonde, blue-eyed, tall, heterosexual woman of independent means a member of a category that is actively discriminated against. Which has made me a lot less oblivious. In fact, I've finally taken the big step of joining the ACLU, much as some of their positions have annoyed and continue to annoy me. I've come around to Ben Franklin's way of thinking -- to paraphrase him, if we non-believers don't hang together, we will assuredly all hang separately. It's vital to defend the First Amendment.

The Movies Make People Doubt God

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