free will et al SPOILER

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: SCA - : Thanks for the reply - : here is my reply to you- : : Great flick, Kevin! I hope there will be an *uncut* VHS release, if the rumours about the extensive trimming are true. : The way I've heard it the original was 3:15 or something, so yes there is a bit more Dogma to be had. : : : Bartleby and Loki are going to have to be separate judgements, of course. : : But another thornier issue remains... are angels subject to the same restrictions as mankind? : I think that we'd have to assume that they are held to the same tenets as humans if they are not acting with divine authority. The argument against this could be that since. Loki is the angel of wrath. It is, therefore, in his nature, to act wrathful. If you can't fault a shark for doind what it does best, then you can't fault an angel. The difference is in the free-will. humans have the option of commiting an act of violence necessary or not. The angel would be more like an animal in that it can only act to its nature. : Lucifer's actions counter this argument though. It was not his nature to act prideful, he did it of his own accord. Probably, the rule is something like, since angels can think rationally, that when they are not called to divine service, that they have the ability to know right from wrong and may decide to commit a sin. They have a predisposition to their nature. ie Bartleby watches people because he is a watcher, he is predisposed toward that, he : chooses to butt heads with god's laws because he wants to, not because he is predisposed towards this. : : LOKI: : : Loki has killed at least 7 people based on his own interpretation of God's desires and *without* divine mandate to do so. : however, all of those he killed were guilty of mortal sins. And, he felt he was rightous in killing them, which brings up a wider question, hypothetically, we have a guy, Alfred, who is a soldier. Place him in any conflict in any time frame on just about any side. If he believes that those he kills are the enemy, intent on harming others, is he acting against god's will murdering (breaking the fifth commandment), or if he believes that he truly is doing god's work exempts them from this judgment. Granted this raises many sticky issues... i'm just raising the point. If acting without divine authority is a ticket to hell, then any, say WWII (it's trendy, so sue me) veteren who killed a german and was himself killed w/o benefit of remorse or confession, is in hell. Alternately, if merely believing that what you do is for the greater good than it is feasible that some member of the SS was pardoned, given that he showed proper remorse while doing his job. This is, as i said, sticky, at best. : : IF angels are covered by their own special code then Loki must be punished under angelic law for his killing spree, but in his (admittedly brief) mortal life appears mostly blameless. : I can only think that he might be guilty of a sin of omission in not trying to stop bartleby, but getting drunk on the sidelines instead. : : BARTLEBY: : : Bartleby does have the tearful apology at the end, but it is unclear exactly how much of his behaviour he is apologizing for. : I agree with that. I am unsure if he realizes what he has done and is apoligizing, or if he is just so happy to be in the presence of god again that he weeps. : : He has slain numerous individuals without much of *ANY* justification, :directly contradicted the Will of God, and attempted to willfully negate all of :existence. : Bartleby definatly seems *more* guilty than Loki... more so because he was prideful, where loki was not. loki acted according to what he was, the angel of wrath. bartleby acted according to what he wanted to be, acknowledged as the human's superior. : :The Morningstar (by comparison) wasn't as fractious by half. : Well, he did try to say he was better than god (damned pride)... and there was that whole war on heaven thing. I think Lucifer might have done a bit worse than bartleby. : : I would guess that Bartleby (despite his sin being technically greater than :Lucifer's was) in expressing true contrition is forgiven and (after being slain :personally by God - what's a movie without at least ONE good smiting?) : and what a smiting it was! : : goes to Heaven as a mortal spirit (or Purgatory, if we're being dreadfully :Catholic about the whole thing). : I think Purgatory might be the best place for both of them. : : This seems, on the surface, to be a *terribly* unfair solution... but is unfortunately doctrinarily sound (assuming the belief to take precedence over the good idea in this case) : See, i just don't think we can take doctrine as fact in this case. The only reason that it is the Catholic church is because of what Jesus said to Peter. If there was a way that this could have happened in another religion then the dogma would have applied to that earth-bound religion. But the "good idea" of religion is super-orthodoxy, if i may coin a phrase, and not limited to the dogma of one particular religion. Since the angels are not themselves Catholic, only using their dogma to work an angle, why would they be judged by the standards of the catholic religion? : . Yes, God *could* forgive them both and let them into Heaven as angels, but that pretty much removes the point of *having* a law. : No i would think in either the heaven or hell case, they would go as mortals. : : : I would assume that they were disposed of according to the sin on their :souls at the time of death. : Even if they were judged and sent according to their sins to heaven or hell, what about their bodies? They only time god took anybody body and soul is Mary, and they only time s/he's gonna do it again is during the Rapture, and that is used a precursor to Judgment Day. D'oh. : There is the theory that God hit the RESET button on the universe, but that kind of (terribly literal) Deus ex machina ending I find terribly unsatisfying. It would negate the entire tale. : I don't know, it's just unsettling that god would disappear the whole accident scene. I know, god works in mysterious ways... but c'mon. : Please note also that Bethany is still dead post-cleanup until personally resurrected. : Well, god still had to do some work with bethany. : Persoanlly, I think God merely tidied up the area to suit Her personal aesthetic sensibilities : From what i've seen i don't think that god would be that, well, superficial, i'd like to know that *something* happened to the corpses, but just being spirited away bothers me. : (doing cartwheels among the corpses is an activity more up Krishna's alley than Yahweh's.) : but aren't they one the same? : : : How does Loki lose the wings? : : I assumed Bartleby cut 'em off for him with that little knife he had. : that works. : : : : : (a) Neither Punishes nor Rewards Loki and Bartleby, who are only guilty : : : of wanting to go home : : I think they're guilty of a *little* more than just *homesickness* : point taken. : : Who knows, but I'd bet that Azrael is neither in Hell nor in Heaven, but :that he simply *isn't*. : Azreal is the bad guy of the movie. Oblivion would be to good for him. I'm not sure, but i think if a demon's material form is destroyed they go back to kind of reform. If they were killed in hell, it would be a different story... then again, these are AD&D rules i'm remembering so... take that with a grain of salt. : : : I've never bought the 'proof denies Free Will' argument. That type of logic seems to indict God for any miracles She performs. : I'm not saying that people don't have the ability to choose, and granted, I'm sure that there would be the conspiracy theorists that would say it was all a plot cooked up by the Chuch to increase membership. i just think it lends an undue wight to the dogma of the catholic church. That the free will being taken away is the freedom to choose a form of religion. : Free Will is not merely the freedom to believe or not believe, its the freedom to act in accordance with your own desires, despite God's wishes. : Now you can argue that that isn't much of a choice when one considers the eternal pleasure/punishment carrot-and-stick afterlife, but though belief in that system can affect one's behaviour it by no means negates one's Free Will. : The Almighty can stroll down the Avenue of the Americas tossing thunderbolts and hurling invectives in Hebrew at passersby : And blowing the heads off of those passerbys (just had to throw that in) : : without negating the Free Will of anyone at all. : But can the Almighty stand infront of a Mosque doing the same thing without adding this undue wight of proof that says, "this is the chosen religion, I am in this church because this is where i belong." That takes away from every other religion and may not take away free will altogether, but would seriously damage it. : : : Granted she could have easily gone out and sent the souls of all the : : : people for judging, but i don't know I kind of like that ending. : : Yes, but then again the faith isn't built on what people would *like* to be true. ;) : True, : : : Rufus sees Loki drunk and because of that, he says, "He's mortal now" : : : but Loki was suppossed to have told God off in a drunken rant before : : : losing his job. How does this happen? : : The prohibition against angelic tippling came about *as a result* of Loki's binge, so there's no conflict there. : My problem was with the series of lines: : Jay says something like, "he's drunk off his ass" : Rufus says something like, " That means he's mortal" : Meaning that why couldn't an angel have broken God's law by drinking. It made me wonder if the angels could not physically drink. That's what i was getting at. But, I see by the responses, I could have worded it better. : : : Could God have decided that angels are not just banned from imbibing, : : : but physically unable to imbibe (like, a gag reflex) hence Metaron's : : : spitting : : I assume that this *IS* the case, as otherwise there is little to no reason for Bartleby and Loki not to be drinking 24/7. They're already banished to Earth for all time. What is the Almighty going to do, send them to Hell for *drinking*? If they *can't* swallow alcohol it would explain why neither of them *do* drink (though the scene with Bartleby and Bethany on the train is a tad vague, I assume that cut footage shows Bartleby faking drinking just as Loki fakes toking on the joint Jay passes him.) : : : When Bartleby and Loki become human, by losing their wings, and gaining : : : a concience... do the unsexed angels...ah... well... grow a pair? : : One would assume they would have to, since there must be a transformation to provide them with at least an alimentary system. Mortal Loki would have had to pee eventually. I'm surprised with all the dick jokes that they never covered that. ;) : maybe they did and it was cut. : : I wonder about Bartleby's 'conscience' comment though, since Metatron certainly seems to have one, seeing as he felt terrible about having to tell 12-year old Jesus about his true nature. : Maybe Metatron being the seraph that he is has a concience that bartleby and loki, being lower angels do not. : btw: maybe i've just watched cartoons too much growing up, but whenever i see Metatron i alway initially read it as Megatron, and that makes me think of Transformers....which of course has it's own christ mythos. : I wouldn't really take anything Bartleby or Loki say as 'gospel truth' (pardon the pun) as far as the movie goes. : They don't seem to be wrong about too much though. : : Also, I just *love* how much Mooby's statue looks like Mickey Mouse. :) : Yeah, i caught that too. : : Again, Kevin and the whole ViewAskew crew... congrats on a job very well done! : double for me : - : ba : : p.s. - I'd love to get into a convo on or off-list. Reply or post privately to me at: c-gillen@sjca.edu

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