Posted by turtle at user-2ive2qd.dialup.mindspring.com on December 22, 1999 at 08:55:33:
In Reply to: Dogma posted by fainelli on December 22, 1999 at 02:59:42:
My eyes hurt.
Anyway, I just wanted to point out that the majority of folks who saw this movie came out of the theater inspired and ended up seriously thinking about the whole God thing more than they had in years. From what I've heard this one movie did more for boosting God than anything else has in a decade, at least for the 18-30 year olds.
As far as your statement about Kevin portrying "the definitive answers"? Huh? In the movie I saw, the whole moral of the story was to be open minded about sirituality, and to make up your own mind about what to believe. Kevin was pretty much diametrically opposed to the concept of having "definitive answers". I'm not sure how you could have gotten anything else out of the movie.
In any event, Dogma may not be the movie YOU wanted it to be. And that's cool. Kevin's gola was not to strike out at Catholicism, only some of the doctrines that some Catholics tend to get hung up on. I'm sure as a Catholic it hard to see that this sort of criticism is a good thing, (heck, everyone, even Kevin himself, hates criticism). But talking about important issues, like spirituality and beliefs, is imperative to personal growth. If the church doesn't confront some of these discrepancies it's doomed to failure and extinction. One of the main reasons that more and more people are ditching religion, and Catholicism in particular, is because it makes no sense, and preaches doctine that most modern thinking people just can't agree with.
Dogma is about one man's (Kevin) search for a way to embrace the Catholic ideals while embracing his own ideals at the same time. And thats what many folks are continually trying to do: make religion fit into their lives. You may have already done that. And that's why the movie didn't click with you. But most people haven't yet made the sort of committment that you have. Those are the people who saw Dogma and got something positive from it.
-turtle