On Friday night, Joel and I watched a movie called "The Invention of Lying." I was not impressed overall with the movie and really would not recommend it. That aside, it provoked a few thoughts for me.
The story follows the life of a man in a world where nobody has ever learned how to lie. Everyone only tells the truth and cannot even fathom doing otherwise, until this man stumbles upon lying. He is the only one in his world who learns to lie and so the story follows his life having this "advantage" over others.
This movie got me thinking about how often we lie in everyday life, so much so that it seems almost ingrained into our culture. In my own life I realized how often these lies come through without a second thought. How many times have these words left my lips in the form of a lie? "I'm fine thank you." "You look great!" "I understand." "That's ok." Even, "I'm Sorry." -- Yikes! When I stop to think about it I'm very guilty of not speaking the truth. These lies have become almost necessary in life to get by and seem normal, and polite. Our society is accustomed to both speaking and hearing these on a day to day basis. I guess it made me stop and think that I need to hold myself more accountable for the things that come out of my mouth. This doesn't mean I'm going to tell the polite cashier all my woes in the grocery lineup just because she asked me how I am doing today. Really, it needs to balanced with a sense of propriety, but maybe I could be more careful about how I answer people. There is the old saying we are taught as little children, "If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all." Maybe I can try to remember that balanced with "If you can't say anything TRUE don't say anything at all." Just something to think about I guess.
This part of the movie was good and thought provoking I guess. The movie became offensive to me in the second half. You see, this man who is able to lie starts telling people that there is life after death. He tells people that there is a "man in the sky who is in charge of the world." He tells people that there is a moral code that we must live by. The movie goes on and on implying that everything that we believe as Christians is a lie. It implies that our belief in God (at least in a God who we can relate to personally), our belief in heaven and hell, etc. are just lies that we believe to make us feel better -- that it all really does not exist.
I guess offensive is not really the right word. There were parts that were downright offensive, but mostly I was not really offended, nor surprised, just disappointed, and a bit disgusted. I actually found some irony in it all. Christianity is shown as a series of lies that people use to make themselves feel better, or to explain things they otherwise could not explain. In reality, that is the lie that people believe because it is more comfortable to them then to come to terms with the truth. It is more comfortable to believe the lie that there is no hell, then to believe that it does exist and that people will go there. It is more comfortable to believe the lie that there is no God and continue on living life the way you want, rather than to believe in a God that is too big for us to fully understand sometimes, and to change and live our lives for something bigger than ourselves.
In a way, the movie exposed some of the lies that people commonly believe. For example, that "good people" go to heaven and "bad people" go to hell. This of course begs the question of "how good do you have to be to get to heaven?" In reality we are all bad people who need forgiveness and God in his mercy made a way through Jesus, for us to be forgiven and to be in communion with Him in this life and in heaven for eternity.
I guess it all boils down to being comfortable. It is more comfortable to lie and believe lies than it is to tell and believe the truth, but is it worth it in the end?
So, as much as I did not like this movie, at least it caused me to thing and examine some things.
Well... I guess that's all for now folks!
Love,
M
2 comments:
I found the movie to be very amusing. I didn't think that it was bashing Christianity solely and specifically - I think it was poking at religion in general. The more religion tries to set up rules and regulations to answer the questions of life, the more it unravels, and we are still left with the same questions. I loved the part when he came down from his apartment with the rules on two pizza boxes and all of his "simplicity" quickly became too complicated and twisted him around.
I live by the words of Jesus, "Love God, Love people." And right now I'm feeling super convicted because I told off a beggar at my gate because I gave her a huge bag of food yesterday morning and she came back at lunch and then again at dinner and then she was back again this morning. Love God. Love people. Gah. I don't always get it right. And it's not always so simple.
You need to blog more!
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