Faith

I just got back from seeing The Passion of the Christ. For anybody who doesn't know about this movie, it's about the last 12 hours of Jesus' life. Mel Gibson co-wrote the screenplay (which he adapted from the New Testament gospels and some other outside sources) and directed the film. After spending the last two weeks researching the film and reading articles and watching him give interviews, I went into the theater with one resounding thought: "After all this research and hoopla, this had better be a damn good movie." It was. I went in thinking one thing and have come out with all sorts of new questions. The first being: What is Faith? Seriously. What is it? When everything else is said and done, doesn't it all boil down to one basic principle? Even you scientists and mathematicians out there who believe that everything can be proven and whose lives are driven by facts... how do you know that what you know isn't just a theory? How do you know your "proof" is really proof? Even your absolutes... don't they all boil down to your belief, your faith in the system? I know that for those of us who don't live and die by theories and scientific evidence, much of our lives are based on faith. We have faith that we are going somewhere. We have faith that our lives have meaning and that we are contributing something to the world. We worship what we worship because we believe it to be true--we have faith that we are right. This movie didn't turn me into a Born Again Christian. It hasn't led me to Jesus. It hasn't changed me into a new person. It didn't even really entertain me all that much. What it DID, was make me think. It wrenched gut reactions out of me in spite of myself. It inspired me to write this blog entry. It has raised questions that I hadn't thought to ask before seeing it... questions that are still forming in my brain. So rather than ask them here, because really what good are asking questions when you don't really know how to start finding the answers or if you even want answers, I will leave you all to your thoughts and ponderings. Oh yeah and I am going to do a little shameless plugging of Mel's movie. Go see The Passion of the Christ. It's worth the price of the ticket and as far as I know it isn't Braveheart on a cross... but I don't know, I never saw Braveheart. Really, go see it.