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The Gospel According to Neo
Xel writes "Josh Burek, writer for The Christian Science Monitor and A.K.A. the guy who sits 4 cubicles from me, has written an excellent essay on religion in The Matrix: The Gospel According to Neo. Sure, this topic has been covered ad nauseum, but it's refreshing to see such a thoughful examination aimed not at geeks alone but a broader, more traditional, and more traditionally religious audience. It also has a nice little glossary at the end where even pasty-faced and vinyl-clad Matrix worshippers may find some easter eggs they didnt know."
the render farms rested, for their caches were full, and their disks bore the fruit of long labors.
Ooops.
Galileo: "The Earth revolves around the Sun!"
Score: -1 100% Flamebait
this is a movie that ... captures people's intellectual imagination.
With dialog like "Noone can be told what the Matrix is", "Woah", and "I know Kung Fu" it's no wonder everyone's in an intellectual tiffy over it. And let us not forget that whole brilliant monologue on weather chicken tastes like chicken.
The Matrix rocks, but it's a silly sci fi super action movie-not some kind of brilliantly thought out metaphor for reality. I'm reminded of my English teach in HS telling me how every noun in every book is a symbol for humanity and her struggles. Come on people, the people who wrote that script were just making a good movie, not sending us a message. That said, I still have opening day tickets.
"Probably the toughest time in anyone's life is when you have to murder a loved one because they're the devil." -Philips
That's Gnu/sticism, darn it!
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
Sure there's Christian symbolism all over the place in The Matrix. Take Neo's name for example:
Neo Anderson
Neo = New
Ander = Man
Which translates to 'New Son of Man'.
What did Christ call himself? The Son of Man.
But then again, there's also Bhuddist imagry and as was mentioned the main theme is based on Plato's Cave.
BTW: My wife attended a talk by Leonard Sweet several months back and he claimed that he is one of the spiritual consultants for The Matrix movies. That would explain where the Christian imagry came from.
Despite the name of the publication, it should be understood that the Christian Science Monitor is not an intensely religious newspaper. In fact, it is one of the most objective and well-written news publications in national circulation. The CSM is often cited by debaters, etc. as a reputable and impartial source of journalism (much more integrity and journalistic value than the likes of CNN, for example).
More about the CS Monitor's origin and purpose
The problem with the "Buddhist Science Monitor" is that whenever someone gets a really good idea and starts to write an article, they ascend to a better plane. Earth gets all the crappy beginer Buddhists. I bet in blisstopia they have tons of great insites about the Matrix.
"Probably the toughest time in anyone's life is when you have to murder a loved one because they're the devil." -Philips
It seems like the people who think that The Matrix has some revolutionary or revealing philosophy are always the same ones who deride me whenever I mention that they might enjoy reading some of the classic works of philosophy from Plato, Aristotle, Nietzsche, etc. These, and many other philosophers, were the basis for the main ideas presented in The Matrix and delve into the topics in a much more in depth fashion.
Could it just be the typical geek fashion to write off something as worthless if it is not exciting or doesn't have any practical application? I don't know, but I encourage any of you who have shrugged off philosophy but find interest in the philosophy found in The Matrix to try out reading some real philosophy. Philosophy may change the way you view the world and--more importantly--make you think about the world.
Besides the philosophy in The Matrix, there are other geek appealing topics in philosophy. For example, you can find AI in philosophy, and I don't mean from some research paper written by some cognative scientist at MIT. What it means 'to think' and to 'be conscience' have been thought about by some of the most profound thinkers in human history thousands of years ago.
If you are in college, I would recommend taking an introductory survey course in philosophy. If taking courses is not your thing, try reading some of the philosophy books put out by Penguin Classics. Their books generally have understandable translations, provide historical context where needed, and have explainations for the more difficult readings.
Christian groups like to talk about "The Matrix" and "The Lord of the Rings" because they're very popular movies that include a lot of religious symbolism and draw on theology for their themes and stories. This is well and good. It's always hard to get people to talk about religion when they're not in the habit of it, especially when they're not very informed on the facts of Christianity or any other major religion.
What I have problems with is when people hold up these films as proof of their creators' intentions to promote particular religions. The "Star Wars" films have been accused, off and on, of promoting "New Age" religion and spirituality. "The Matrix" relies on Buddhist beliefs and themes as much as Christian ones, if not more. And I still can't understand why the Christian right touts "The Lord of the Rings" as a brilliantly disguised retelling of the Gospels (which it wasn't) while the "Harry Potter" books are vilified for encouraging witchcraft and occult interests (which they aren't).
All of these are works of fiction, not of faith. They use a variety of religious themes together to make their story more interesting to viewers, often in ways that's not immediately obvious. But religious sorts should be careful to take these stories as they are and not assume too much about the creators' intents.
Personally, I am impressed by the themes and symbols interwoven in slashdot. For instance, look at the name itself. "Slash"--in ancient Latin this implies a decrease and "dot"---Greek for really small. This implies the quest for the ever smaller, to look beyond minutia with a trained eye. Buddhist if I ever saw it. Then, there is all the bad spelling and grammer, even found in this post. This is the Post-modern idea that we live in an imperfect world, and there is nothing we can do to fix it. But, oh, the Christian irony since spell checkers do exist and we can be saved if only you take the effort to love what is beyond yourself. Oh, I could go on. And, if I was an English major, I would. But to suffice it to say, if you have a million philosophers look at something for a million hours, they will find it to be profound, no matter what it is. As Frued could have said, "Sometimes a posting is just a posting." -Iowa
"He who laughs last, didn't get the joke."-Cap