Silence: Scorsese On Religion, Faith and Suffering...

Silence, the latest by Martin Scorsese got just one nomination for Academy Awards. La La Land got 14, the highest ever. If you see Silence, you will understand why. Silence is not the kind of movie that wins at Oscar or create magic at box office. It is the kind of movie that after a decade, people may watch with awe and wonder why it failed when it was released. It is not Forrest Gump or Shakespeare in Love. It is Shawshank Redemption. It is 2001: A Space Oddesey. It is Blade Runner.

Silence is a period movie set in 17th Century Japan. Japanese monarchy is heavily coming down on converted native Christians and European priests who relentlessly try to import the religion. They are tortured brutally and made to apostate by stepping on a stone figure of Christ. When news reaches that Father Ferreira is captured and has apostated Christianity to become a Japanese, his two disciples decides to smuggle themselves into Japan and find out the truth. The movie follows their painful journey- in both physical and spiritual sense to find their mentor.

Silence is a companion piece to Scorsese's much derided masterpiece, The Last Temptation of Christ. Both movies are meandering, difficult ones that test the viewer's patience. But once you break the mould, both movies are immensely rewarding, I would even say meditational experiences.

Both movies have protagonists on whom greatness is thrust upon, who continually try to decipher God's messages to show them their way and get desperate when they fails to hear from him. Both movies need an emotional and intellectual maturity from audience who has to figure out that, it is not what is shown that is intended. They need the viewers to see through elaborate symbolism and decode the intent of the director.

Silence is a movie that gives you enough freedom to intellectually and emotionally involve with it. I feel that Scorsese is daring the audience to introspect about their faith and believes, engage with the movie, accept or even disagree with the concepts that it put forward.

You can watch this movie in many levels. The easiest would be the literal one, in which Japanese Buddhists torture converted Christians and force them brutally to abandon the religion. I saw it as the fight between a steadfast individual's believes and the social reality. A powerful drama about, how surrendering to greater good can be liberating. It resonates with my idea about one's religion being a very deeply private affair that should stay within his soul. I was clapping my hands when I watched the last shot of the movie, because that was what I felt pure faith should be.

I will not recommend this movie. Please don't even think of watching this movie if you are not ready to put your effort on it. It demands that much. If you are just in for mindless entertainment, you are going to lose your money and three hours of your life.

Truth, Religion and Sun Rise...

Today morning it so happened that I shared some pictures with inspirational messages over Facebook. I do that regularly, when my eye catches something that I feel is relevant and to which i agree, I share it. One of which was this:

I received immediately a comment from one of my dear friend who is an atheist. Now, that comment became the cause of a pretty long conversation that really stimulated me. I love it when I get an opportunity to arrange my scattered thoughts and give it some form. I thought I will reproduce it over here as a blog post have more permanency than a Facebook post. I am indebted to my friend for this conversation and I sincerely hope he will not mind me using his words. I have done some editing to the conversation just to maintain the flow. There were instances were both of us commented together about different aspects of the topic.

In the below transcription, F stands for my friend and M for me.

F: As per you, are the religious priests doing truthful job??

M: Are doctors doing truthful job prescribing drugs with side effects? Are teachers doing truthful job telling kids that sun rises in East and sets in West, which is factually wrong? Are advocates doing truthful jobs when to save a client manipulation of truth is done? Are politicians doing truthful job, are engineers doing it, are govt servants doing truthful job?

F: No government will allow life threatening side effect wala drug in the market and how will the doctors prescribe them??

M: So no prescribed drug has any side effects?

F: No society which depends on logical thinking will allow to teach Sun rising east and setting west story. Deeply religious poisoned country like ours still teaches such nonsense..

M: So teachers are liars.

F: Religious dominated system is a lie.

M: So no prescribed drug  has any side effects?

F: I already answered this. (About advocates) There can be 2 sides for every story. Advocates try to establish their truth. Finally the truth based on evidence wins

M: But one of them is a liar. 50% advocates are liars.

F: Oh man.... I already answered to this advocate issue as well...

M: I never told about life threatening side effects (of drugs).you assumed it. Just side effects. Yes as per you 50% advocates are liars.

F: I can read self conscious cheating on all your answers because I know that your intelligence level is much better than in these answers... :)

M: Didn't answer my drug question. Aren't doctors prescribing drugs with side effects. Not life threatening may be.

F: Instead of asking counter questions, why don't you give direct answers to my question, if you have..... :)

M: My answer is there in those questions.

F: Counter questions are answers??  :)

M: Can be. If you can read between lines.
Now if you cannot do that, take direct answer.

Doctors know that painkillers have side effects. Still they prescribe them in limited quantities.

Teachers know that the statement sun rises in East is a lie. They teaches that to small kids because to make them connect with the world as they perceive. Later when the kid grow and learn more about solar system he understand that we perceive it only in earth. But when you take the bigger picture truth shifts.

Advocates help their client not by telling lie but by manipulation of facts. In their perspective they are doing their work.

So none of them are liars.

Religion is required to weak minded people in small doses (with side effects included) for quick relief. Religion is fatal in bigger doses like paracetamol is.

For common people to reach the bigger realm of spirituality some lies are told first. When they matures, they realise that miracles and beliefs are just hokum and your self (spirit- whats inside you) is your master. It is the mastering of your self (who is your master now) that is important and not fighting about what meat to eat or which direction to face while praying.

For people suffering from inner guilt religion slightly manipulates the truth, like advocates do. They get ready to face the world believing some bigger entity has removed their guilt.

(Once I get a reply and if this conversation continues I will update the post.)

God Delusion by Richard Dawkins

English biologist Richard Dawkins wrote his best-seller God Delusion in 2006. It is, as its title suggests, a book that criticizes the concept of God that is propagated by religion and that tries to put science in that mantle. It also exposes the troubles of being an atheist in Christian society and the common prejudices faced by atheists. Dawkins uses Darwin’s evolution theory and natural selection to prove that the probability of the existence of God as described in Abrahamic religions is almost nil. As expected, the book turned out to be very controversial with many theologians criticizing it bitterly in diverse forums.

The book has ten chapters, each one building on the previous in systematically proving the improbability of God and that religion is not basically responsible for virtues in humans. In the first chapter he quickly points out that, by God he doesn’t mean the Einsteinian God, but the interventionist God, that creates life, judges and metes out punishments.  Next he takes up different arguments for God, especially the one that states that the perfect designing of universe requires a master creator and one by one puts forth his rebuttals for each of them.

Dawkins is aware of the argument that even if there is no entity called God, religion is still essential for common people in-order to maintain its morals in society. In the remaining chapters he tries to reveal the fallacy of this argument by proving that morality and good virtues that we display are not due to the presence of religions among us. As per him religion occurred as a byproduct of an acquired human skill to transfer knowledge by believing one’s elders and following them. He is critical of Christianity’s stand with abortion. Dawkins also deals with several social issues created by religious faith- psychologically damaging and corrupting the minds of kids, leading them discard reason to become blind followers, commodification of women and forcing them out of the mainstream of society and creation of unnecessary divisiveness and friction in society.

In God Delusion, Dawkins put forward compelling arguments against a God figure that designed the universe, judge the inhabitants and punishes them. Majority of his arguments are built around Christian and Jewish faiths and predictably they end up his punching bags. He touches upon Islam. I agree with the logic of several of his arguments. Evolution indeed can solve many a puzzles in human history. I am also wary of the tendency of religions to fill in the gaps left by science. Dawkins’ language is witty and that makes the book an easy read though a bit toning down on the scorn that he exhibits towards religions could have made it more palatable. God Delusion helped me in appreciating the theory of evolution much more.  Fortunately, in this part of the world we don’t have the big fight in education system between Evolution and Creation.

One difference of opinion that I have with Dawkins concerns with the bifurcation of religion and spirituality. I believe that spirituality is something personal that exists beyond the realms of organized religion. It basically deals with introspection- something that is lacking in Abrahamic religions and is the core of Sanatani faiths- Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism. Though these religions have, to some extent degenerated in their later periods, loosely imitating Abrahamic faiths and displaying sectorial tendencies, I feel the individual nature of faith and the inquisitiveness inbuilt in them still stand tall. This introspection is basically for knowing and realizing the full potential of self- of body and mind in tandem with nature, and subsequently for attaining the ultimate knowledge that My self and this Universe are in essence the same.