Posted by SiliRat at hse-mtl-ppp30359.qc.sympatico.ca on November 30, 1999 at 19:04:36:
In Reply to: Christian Review Of Dogma posted by M@$E$ on November 30, 1999 at 13:29:07:
: Has anyone at View Askew seen the CAPalert review of Dogma? It cracks me up, the guy sat through 38 minutes and deemed it evil from that. Among the sins listed:
Seen it, replied to it. Here, here's what I had to say.....
Good day,
It is truely sad to see when a person cannot see the mirror before their faces, or the messages behind the words. Especially when they are so truly moving, and whether you choose to believe it or not, faithful.
Your frequently flawed review of Dogma shows how often what was being said was ignored by you in your state of rightious indignation. Below follow some quotes from your review, with my comments.
"Full sequences of dialogue were intellectually presented to encourage thoughts of humans being able to manipulate the will of God, and to present false justification for ignoring His expectations of us."
Perhaps your most baseless arguement. And it's one of your first.
This film is, first and foremost, about faith, and why so many people have lost, and are losing, faith. The question I put to you regarding your statement is where do you put your faith. Do you put your faith in God Almighty, or do you place it in the words of men? This film NEVER questions God's place as Father ( and Mother ) to us all. It NEVER questions God's judgement. It never even implies that we can manipulate the WIll of God. It DOES question the will of man, which is how we currently percieve the Will of God. In our day and age we know NOTHING of the Will of God, instead living on a steady diet of what those before us, faliable man, have decided is the Will of God. This film shows us how, over the course of the past 2000 years, the Word of God... has been twisted and corrupted to suit the desires of those before us. The expectations you speak of are not those of God, but those of man. The Will of God was set forth 2000 years ago, in the writing of the faithful, inspired by God. And yet, these infalliable words, written as if by the the Hand of God himself, have been changed, edited, warped, misused and abused countless times. There exists NO true example of the Word of God in our modern world. Instead, we are bombarded by a slew of pretenders, each claiming that the one before them was wrong. God is infalliable... why then has it taken hundreds of authors, and thousands of editors 2000 years to write the Scriptures? Why have the Dogmatic laws been changed and revised and rewritten and appended so many times? Not because God got them wrong, but because man ( or more accurately, men ) have choosen an agenda other than that which God has put forth for us.
The expectations and will that you speak of are not those of God, but those of man.
"Much verbal energy was spent to explain how we, as a people, have matured beyond the abusive limitations of subservience to His expectations of us; the expectations which are unfairly stifling and suffocating to the free will; to the incredibly inhibitive nature of obedience to His Word."
I won't go into this for very long, since it is just a rehash of what I have said before. The 'abusive limitations of subservience' are not those of God, but of man. He didn't create the laws that this films strikes out against... man did.
"An "angel" dropped his pants to reveal that God had removed his genitalia. "
God had not removed the angels genitalia.... God never gave angels genitalia. They were never meant to procreate, and therefore had no need of them. Nor do they require to eat or drink, and so again, they are not required.
"Humankind was blamed for the "failure" of the Scriptures, implying the Scriptures are imperfect. "
Goodness me! The word of man imperfect? Can this be? Anything written after the death of the apostles, and the deaths of those who knew Jesus, cannot be taken as the Word of God, unless you mean to imply that God was wrong in the first place. That is what you are suggesting. Why has the Word of the Lord changed so many, many times since it was first written if it truly is the infalliable Word of God? I don't question the word of God.... I just have yet to find it in the scriptures. Have you read 'The Only Law of Our Faith', written by James? It is closer to the Word of God than any other work yet composed by man, and yet it is excluded from the scriptures in it's entirety. Why? Simply because 300 years later the Church decided that it didn't fit into the images of Jesus and God that these MEN wanted to portray.
"Two characters who were supposed to be angels were the quintessential counterfeiters of the Scriptures -- one of them committed gunfire murder of an adulterer with as much regard for what he had done as if he had just sneezed. "
I ask you, have you read the Bible? Did not the Angels of Death fly over Egypts killing all the men ( children included )? Did not the Angel of Death descend onto Sodom and Gemorrah with a great flaming sword? Did or did not God have an angel to whom he had relegated the task of bring death unto the sinners? It is the role of this angel, as written in the scriptures, to act as the hand of God in the punishment of sinners. Why should he react with any 'regard' if he is fulfilling "God's Will"? Does this mean that you are questioning God's Will?
This film IS an enlighting look at faith, and how truly misplaced it has become. One's faith is supposed to be put in God, not in the self-serving words of man.
From the anger, hatred and judgement in your reviews, I see little or no reason for you to call yourself Christian. I truly hope that Jesus once again enters you heart to remind you what love, forgiveness, and most importantly of all, The Will of God is.