The invention of history!

Being a "loser" is not an easy lot in life. We all know a "loser" or may fear being one ourselves. "Losers" tend to know deep down that they are not as well groomed, intelligent, attractive or popular as others, but manage to suppress it, aided in this suppression by the fact that only the rudest of individuals would dare call them a loser to their face. But not so in the alternate universe in the movie "The Invention of Lying." In this alternate universe people do not know how to tell even little white lies that might help losers save face. Instead they blurt out the truth circulating in their minds. "Losers" in life are put in their place with astonishing brute force.
From the start of the movie you have sympathy for the movie's main character, Mark Bellison, played by Ricky Gervais of "The Office" fame. He is constantly belittled by others, even himself, whilst never retalliating with truthful verbal jibes. Mark is a fat, button nosed, script writer for "Lecture films." There are no motion pictures in this universe, only monologued historical documentaries, as presumably the movies in our universe are full of lies. Mark has the misfortune of writing about the 14th century, needless to say his script on "The Black Plague" is not popular, leading to his sacking from Lecture films. To top this off he sets his romantic aim on Anna McDoogles (Jennifer Garner) who is "well out of his league" because he is a loser and she is not. The poor man is a victim as much as a loser. As the movie opens one is led to think this will be a sweet little poke in the ribs reminding us to be nice to each other even if you have to lie, but there is a much bigger target in mind; God.
As all the plot is in place, Mark Bellison suffers one final humiliation, the death bed of his mother. She is in mortal pain, fearing death and eternal nothingness. This is not helped by a truthful doctor who callously points out her death is inevitable but today is Fajita day in the canteen so things are on the up. The Doctor says Mark should avial himself of a Fajita once his mother has inevitably died. Truthful and callous. In desperation Mark uses a newly found and unique abilty to lie. He tells his mother that death is not the end, and in fact, after death everyone goes to a place where they get a mansion, have ice-cream everyday whilst painlessly enjoying the company of all their friends and relatives. With this new knowledge his mother then dies at peace. However the hospital staff overhear and want to know more, because this new information is startling and it must be the truth, for no-one can lie. From here the "lie" of heaven spreads. The doctors and nurses spread this new "truth" until TV crews and thousands of others gather outside Mark's home to find out how he came upon this information. Everyone in the world, longing for there to be meaning, are transfixed by the hope of heaven that Mark has made up.
Here it gets nasty, and you get the sense everything was a set up to attack the notion of God. Mark tells everyone that "The man in the sky" who is invisible to us, told him, and that he gave him 10 rules for living and entering this new eternal bliss. All of this is of course a lie perpetrated on an unsuspecting public who buy it hook line and sinker. The movie's main take away point is "God is a deceitful invention of people scared out of their mind about deth." In short the movie should have been called "The God Delusion" as it descends into the same ideological rant, only covered in the sugar of a romantic comedy.
What should we think about this movie? Well... mainly we should just think. Here are some things to think about.
Firstly, the alternate, godless, truthful universe is so bleak and colourless. Anne will not allow Mark to procreate with her because his genes are not good enough. The passing on of a strong genetic code is of first and only importance in this kind of world. No-one in the movie has any emotion except the poor hapless Mark Bellison. Colour and humanity is only possible through deceit, while love and sympathy have no truck in this kind of universe. If the "invention of God" is pathetic, then the alternative world without love is morbid.
Secondly, The writers and producers of the movie have a far darker view of humanity than any caricatured Calvinism could muster. It strikes you as you watch that the truth is almost always nasty and narcisstic. The only nice things people say are about themselves. Anne knows she is beautiful and says it whenever questioned. Almost every other truthful word is derogatory of others. Is this really what people in our universe are like, able to say nice things but never to truthfully think nice things? This movie woefully pictures us all as brute beasts incapable of compassion or love.
Thirdly, there is no disctinction between politeness and honesty, truth and love. Honesty is always couched in agressive verbal jibes. For instance, the death bed doctor. He tells this truth, but not in love. In this godless world it is impossible to tell the truth in love. Truth is a bigger victim in this movie than Mark Bellison ever could be.
Fourthly, and most importantly, and possibly ironically, truthful engagement with its subject matter is lacking. A straw man of theism is held up and then diligently set on fire. Ricky Gervais, who is the writer, director and producer invents a history devoid of only one thing, God. In his invented world everything looks much the same, cars, buildings and general structure of society. However the impact on the world of religous thought is overlooked. What would the movie have been like if Mark Bellison had to write about the first century. The historical reality of Jesus is doubted by only a few ideologues. It is in the person Jesus that the "man in the sky" is visible on earth. Christianity sets itself apart by being historically grounded, not subject to the revelation or enlightenment of one man alone. That God is revealed in and through history escapes Gervais' thinking. Possibly this is because he rejected God at 8 years of age, and is now a fully fledged atheist. It is apparent he has invested little to no grey matter on the issues of theology, anthropology, or cosmology since he was 8. His simplification of theism is truly childish. He tries to turn the poor old dreary rationalist into a victim to gain sympathy over and against the "lie" of a vindictive man in the sky.
In the end I found myself the victim. A childish ideological rant wrapped up as a romantic comedy. How I wish Ricky Gervais had the courage and honesty to call the movie what it was really about, but then again lying and self interest are the first and only responses in a world without meaning.

Sympathy for Lara "caught in adultery"

Lara Bingle, a "swimwear model" has recently had a naked photograph of her published in a popular women's magazine. At the time of the photo she was in the shower and the photo was taken by her lover, a married professional footballer. Lara has now taken legal action against the footballer.

What has surprised me is the way many are speaking about her. Here are some comments posted on the SMH website.

"And why was she naked in the first place ?! Yeah, having an affair with another woman's husband really advances women's rights"

"Wasn't she having an affair with a married man at the time the photo was taken. Yet she is concerned about her image."

While there was some support for Lara, these comments just reminded me about the woman caught in adultery and thrown at the feet of Jesus for condemnation. Lara was caught out doing something wrong, but we have been quick to condemn her. I wonder how Jesus would have reacted. Jesus told that woman to sin no more, but also did not condemn her. Can we learn something from this example?

Firstly, when I saw the (pixelated) photo what struck me was the look on her face. She was a 19 year old girl with an older man, and looked embarrased, even frightened. I felt sorry for her, imagining her as my daughter grown up and vulnerable. Yes she had done the wrong thing, but was not deserving of the public ridicule. Perhaps we need to remember how open to doing silly things we were when we were 19.

Lara has been brought up in a society, where free sexual expression without boundary is the norm, in some way she was doing just as she had learned at our feet. I watched Richard Dawkins last night say how appalled he was at morality which restricted what people did with their genitals, it was a matter for them alone. Richard would be proud of Lara's actions I can only imagine.

The negative reaction, shows us a couple of things. We hold double standards, thinking we have a right to freedom while castigating others for it. We also have a streak of jealousy. Lara is rich, young and beautiful and we take a strange delight in seeing such people fall.

Despite her "sins" nothing makes it acceptable to take photos of your "conquests" for your own delight. Yet we shared in the footballers sin, he caused the photo to be published and we lapped it up. It is interesting that it was not published in men's magazine, but a women's magazine to indulge our love of gossip.

Maybe some sympathy can be garnered for innocence lost, and some acknowledgement of our own part in this. Don't get me wrong, both Lara and her lover are culpable, but as a society we opened the door for adultery and then slam it shut when it suits us.

A better line of approach might be to say "Neither do I condemn you... go now and leave your life of sin." It encapsulates judgment and love; it is called mercy!

One man's irony is another man's hypocrisy

I once got myself into terrible trouble. (well more than once really but that is beside the point) I was working for a government department, and email was new. Many of my departmental colleagues scattered around the state were taking their new found mode of communication out for a spin to see what this new technology could do. All of a sudden I had to spend a couple of hours to clear my inbox of ads for cars, random thoughts and every now and again confessions of some, usually sexual indiscretion. The latter of these occurred because people had left their profile logged on and others hijacked it to send crass emails. I got over receiving these messages pretty quickly, and did not know what to do about it. So if you cannot beat them join them.

I, quite ironically, sent a message to everyone in the department to leave me out of their time wasting emails. Boy I got response from that one! About half congratulating me, and half condemning me for trying to clamp down on free speech or just being a kill joy. But here is my first point. Email, and present day blogging, is an incredibly efficient way to communicate. Almost instaneous, widelyl accessible and pretty cheap. However with each new junk email or blog its effectiveness decreases. This is because with so much information out there we just don't know what to make of it. Is this worth my time? Is it true? Is it worthwhile? In "Ye Olden Day" if you had a thought that you wanted people to know about, you needed someone with money (a publisher, printer etc) to agree it was worthwhile distributing. They would put up the cash and let you tell everyone. Mind you this was no guarantee what you had to say was true, just that it was not a complete waste of time! With the advent of email and blogging this "nonsense filter" has been removed. Anyone, even this author could present any old thought to an unsuspecting, and uninterested world with their random thoughts.

It is with this trepidation that I am blogging. I fear I might just be adding to the multitude of uselss thoughts that clog up the internet. But maybe, just maybe, my thoughts, sermons and research will be part of that small part of the E world that is actually useful. Maybe my line between irony and hypocrisy in this matter will be the content's usefulness. I hope that you might like and learn from this blog, but if not, sorry, I am only trying to be ironic.