Ang Lee's Movie "Life of Pi's" False Assertions

[Philip]

Just rented and viewed the incredible movie, "Life of Pi," which just won Ang Lee his second Academy Award for Best Director. I was surprised to not find any posts about the movie here on the forum. And I wondered if any others recognized the false beliefs being asserted by the movie's premise?

A movie with absolutely gorgeous cinematography and stunningly beautiful views, "Pi" is truly is a visual feast. It is well acted and fascinating. But I find the spiritual views being endorsed in the movie are that "it doesn't truly matter which path to God you choose, as long as it's one that YOU feel comfortable with" and that "God has provided more than one path to finding him."

We see a progression of faiths that the young Pi embraces back in India: First Hinduism, then Catholicism, then Islam. His family seems mostly irreligious, but his dad does note that one can't follow multiple religions without it ultimately being like believing in nothing/irrelevant - perhaps the only real truth in the script. We really don't discover much about what Pi ultimately chooses, other than to say that, while still in his teens, he tells his dad he wants to be baptized. And later he describes himself as a being both a Hindu and a Christian. And it seems that the truths that he ultimately embraces are all experientially based.

At the movie's end, we discover the false belief being asserted, that there are multiple paths to God:

After telling insurance investigators two wild tales about what caused the ship he was on to sink, Pi tells them two different wild versions of the events of his shipwreck and stranding at sea. As the officials cannot prove or know which story is true, they choose to report the story version with Pi's description of his epic sea crossing with a tiger. Pi thanks the investigators and says, "and so it goes with God." As in, the DETAILS of differences in religions are unimportant to God, as each person can simply choose the "story" (religion) they are most comfortable with. Of course God tells us which story we believe and WHO we believe in is of paramount importance.

Any thoughts on the movie?

[Silvertusk]

Yet to see it - but it is on my Lovefilm list - so hopefully soon.

[neo-x]

I wasn't terribly impressed by the story of the film. It falls somewhere between average to mediocre. The visuals are of course stunning. The film lives and breaths pantheism all the way.

[PaulSacramento]

IMO, it was a comment on human nature and what we WANT to believe,
The insurance people had a choice, to believe in a story they deep down KNEW wasn't true or to go with the real story and all its horrific facts.
They choose the latter.
What wasn't explained is WHY.

[Philip]

The end of the movie explains exactly what the movie is about - a search for God and how there are differing stories about him that are available - and, yes, how we are free to choose the story/religion that god supposedly has told simultaneous to the OTHER stories He has supposedly told. Note that when Pi tells the second story, the outcomes and events within are THE SAME and are merely a collective allegory of his first story, albeit in which he substitutes individual PEOPLE and characters familiar to him into the second story, for the animals in his first story. This is to illustrate the movie's end-capping assertion - that GOD has told many different if similar and overlapping stories - and that these stories all originate with him (thus his "and so it goes with god" comment). And very key is Pi's assertion that, as all of these "seemingly" differing stories that individuals choose (whatever religion they follow), that god is unconcerned with which any one religion they end up choosing, as ALL (or at least of the religions most followed) are pathways to himself that HE has provided mankind.

And so Pi ultimately refuses his father's input, that trying to follow multiple ways to god, when those ways teach vastly different things about him, is akin to following and believing in absolutely nothing - which is quite true. God doesn't let us choose "all of the above," although many want to, or they falsely think that WHICH path they choose is ultimately not important (the movie's and Pi's assertion (at the film's end). And so Pi never seems to question why god would tell CONTRADICTING stories about himself or how to live our lives. It would appear that Pi would merely say the differences between religions only APPEAR to be contradictory to us, and in reality aren't even relevant.

[domokunrox]

I wasn't terribly impressed by the story of the film. It falls somewhere between average to mediocre. The visuals are of course stunning. The film lives and breaths pantheism all the way.

Correction. Pluralism.

Pantheism is the belief that ALL is God by identity. Monism essentially.

Pluralism is basically saying that everything is true and contradictions don't matter.

Monism is saying that everyone else is wrong because God is ALL THINGS.


In regards to the movie. I immediately thought of this.
Matthew 7:13-14 NASB
"Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it. [14] "For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it.

[ClassicalTeacher]

I have heard of the movie, but never had any interest in it. Now, I'm glad I didn't have any interest in it. One thing seems typical (like the elephant in the living room) is the ever growing moral relativism and nihilistic ideologies spreading throughout our country. And, follywood is largely responsible for that attitude. Public schools also contribute greatly to this malignant infection of our innocent children. When the prevailing thought (or at least it is seen as prevailing because of the msm) is that "anything goes" as long as it doesn't "hurt" anyone so permeates our society, there should not be any surprise when we see these kinds of movies marketed as "normal" because, in fact, it is becoming normal here.

There isn't much redeemable about follywood with only a few exceptions, which can probably be named on one hand. The fact that many Americans look to celebrities to form their personal beliefs (as in the cased of SSM) and vote in a marxist-commie-muslim into the WH TWICE speaks volumes of the corruption of our traditional morals and behaviors today. When young children as old as 5 or 6 years (and even younger) are exposed to things in government-run and sanctioned public schools such as homosexuality treated not just as normal, but PREFERRED, how to put a condom on, birth control, a frenzied attempt to wipe out any hint of guns to the point of suspending a kindergarten girl for having a pink bubble gun, and the latest hysterics from public school about insisting that a deaf boy change his name because to sign his name makes his hand in the form of a gun, and other such politically motivated histrionics, school boards becoming unhinged and threatening a high school valedictorian with sanctions such as contacting a military college where he was accepted (I don't remember the college, but it was something like West Point) because he dared recite the Lord's Prayer at his graduation ceremony, and a feverish attempt overall to quash any kind of traditional values left in society, we have reached the point of insanity.

I am always reminded of Isaiah's words: "Woe to those times when evil is perceived as good and good is perceived as evil." We are in those times.

[PeteSinCA]

Haven't seen the movie, but I had a question about the take on the ending. Is it simple pluralism or more particularly the idea that personal choices are "true" for the chooser and this is the only "truth" possible? Pluralism has been around a long time; the idea that "truth" is personally determined is a bit more modern.

[PeteSinCA]

The passage to which CT referred, Isaiah 5:20-24 (NASB):

Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; Who substitute darkness for light and light for darkness; Who substitute bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter! Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes And clever in their own sight! Woe to those who are heroes in drinking wine And valiant men in mixing strong drink, Who justify the wicked for a bribe, And take away the rights of the ones who are in the right! Therefore, as a tongue of fire consumes stubble And dry grass collapses into the flame, So their root will become like rot and their blossom blow away as dust; For they have rejected the law of the LORD of hosts And despised the word of the Holy One of Israel.

[domokunrox]

Haven't seen the movie, but I had a question about the take on the ending. Is it simple pluralism or more particularly the idea that personal choices are "true" for the chooser and this is the only "truth" possible? Pluralism has been around a long time; the idea that "truth" is personally determined is a bit more modern.

Read the book of Daniel and you're see that its actually ancient.