Is this an atheist film?
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edjavega — 18 years ago(November 11, 2007 04:29 PM)
Donuteater, I think your comments and observations are super.
When this film was released in the 80's, it was the height of liberation theology, and U.S. interventionist involvement in Latin America (i.e., funding the contras in Nicaragua, invading Grenada, etc.) to "fight communism". All the more that the themes resonated.
By the way, in the Wikipedia section, it says that Rodrigo Mendoza's character (played by Robert de Niro) was Portuguese. I thought he was a Spaniard, just like Father Gabriel.
The reason this issue has bearing is that the movie makes it appear that only the Portuguese were into slave-trading. But so were the Spaniards at this time, and Mendoza was one of them. -
quaddo — 18 years ago(November 12, 2007 12:15 PM)
To me, it doesn't matter if Mendoza was a Spaniard or not.
What does matter though, is that the Spaniards in the movie proclaim that they aren't pro-slave-trading, but as Mendoza and the audience knows, they're lying.
RIP Ian. -
SomethingGuinness — 18 years ago(November 22, 2007 03:05 AM)
I would definitely, as well, say no to the atheist question. It was based on actual evidence written by the Jesuits, Portuguese/Spanish, and many other primary sources that corroborate much of what is expressed in the film:
The political strife between the church and state (lets not forget this is during the time of the Bourbon Reforms).
Actual Jesuit establishments with the Indians and their constant struggle against the Spanish, Portuguese, Mamelucos (16, 17th centuries) and even other indigenous peoples.
In the end, I seriously doubt the writer and director were trying to portray some sort of theology in the end, but the matter of how FUBAR religion can make society. -
Hancock_the_Superb — 18 years ago(January 20, 2008 02:47 PM)
I think it's more against organized religion and its corruption rather than religion itself. The Jesuits are depicted as being generally good people, if a bit naive, for standing up for their beliefs and principles.
However, it should be noted that Robert Bolt (the screenwriter) was an agnostic/atheist so no doubt this informed his depiction of characters/events in the film.
There may be honor among thieves, but there's NONE in politicians! -
GoUSN — 18 years ago(January 28, 2008 07:59 AM)
The Mission was an excellent film because it depicted the complexity of the human condition, with an overlay of faith, religion and spirituality - demonstrating the connectedness of all of them. The Jesuits' role in the New World is underplayed through history, largely because they - unlike the Franciscans - were not so linked to national governments.
As to the timing of The Mission coinciding with Liberation Theology and ridding Latin America of the radical left - I support Liberation Theology, but have nothing but contempt for the radical left. And The Mission had nothing to do with either of them.
I do get a hoot whenever "atheists" devote attention to religious themes - so preoccupied with opposing religion, that they turn their opposition into . . . religion: fervent, proselytizing, the entire world viewed through their movement.
Hey atheists and secularists: the Church has been the originator, inspiration, and custodian of Western Civilization. If you want to know what happens to a world when "organized religion" is hostile to beauty, try Islam.
"Imagine I had placed into my IMDB signature a clever saying regarding people like you." -
sakkamarra — 16 years ago(September 07, 2009 12:31 AM)
"the Church has been the originator, inspiration, and custodian of Western Civilization."
You mean like when many great works of art from classical, pre-christian culture were banned and almost written out of history? Or how about how free thought, which before the church was prevalent, was turned into grounds for burning at the stake, or how philosophy was reduced from the likes of the work of Plato to discussions concerning how many angels can fit at the tip of a needle? How about how such amazing Greek discoveries such as that the earth is round and how wide and big around it is were, due to contradiction with the bible, forced to be forgotten? How about how algebra or zero, being conceived of by muslims, were also banned?
It wasn't for a thousand years, until the beginning of the renaissance, that western culture could pick up where it had left off, and not without great resistance from the church.
I also find it hard to believe that the church could be both the originator and inspiration of Western Civilization given that western civilization had already existed for thousands of years before the church ever existed. As for me and, I assume, anyone with a basic understanding of western history, I'd choose to live in pagan Greece or Rome before I would ever think to subject myself to the dehumanizing efforts of the church. And thanks to the free thought and far more advanced civil systems during these pre-christian times, I'm sure I'd probably live a more inspired, long, clean, and prosperous life than I would under any church. -
GoUSN — 16 years ago(September 07, 2009 10:11 AM)
It is impossible to engage in dialogue with anyone so intentionally blind. Your points are so profoundly wrong - factually and contextually - that it must stem from either personal bitterness and the resulting demand that we view the world through your warped prism, or the other kind of ignorance that stems from receiving then promoting wrong information. They're both bad, and could well be Specimen A of either genre. Originators of bitter posts like yours are more effective when they at least conceal their anger. Putting it on such conspicuous display only helps us more quickly grasp your kind. I am sure you would have been right at home during the horrors of the French "Revolution," where the lackeys in charge directed a return to the pre=Christian markers you promote in your post. Chaos, more terror, murder, elimination of ordered society. As to your desire to live in pagan Greece or Rome because of their cultural superiority, I can only laugh and wonder what picture book of those times you have on your coffee table. I'd rely less on the pretty pictures and find out what really went on. Then come back and lecture us.
What a goof. -
sakkamarra — 16 years ago(September 08, 2009 10:48 PM)
"It is impossible to engage in dialogue with anyone so intentionally blind."
Nice way to avoid the challenge of a debate. If I am wrong then argue your point and tell how so. There are many personal jabs at me in your post and you seem to assume much about me. The only personal information I gave out however consists of me saying I'd rather live in Rome than the pre-renaissance church. Yet you can somehow gather that I am bitter and angry and would have favored the french revolution (seriously, WTF?). I am not overly bitter, nor am I angry. I am not personally affected by the church so I cannot see how that is so. What did bother me was YOUR misrepresentation of the church's role and one thing I do not like is the mutilation of history. After several readings of your most recent post I have found nothing that even attempts to defend your original claim that "the Church has been the originator, inspiration, and custodian of Western Civilization", which as I have said, is not only wrong and improbable, but also impossible (unless the popes have had a time machine all along, tricky bastards).
As I stated before: THE CHURCH CANNOT ORIGINATE NOR INSPIRE SOMETHING PREDATING IT BY THOUSANDS OF YEARS.
The majority of my post attempted to disprove your claim that it was a custodian. Even if I were wrong on that point, then I am still right in that you were very, VERY, wrong on everything else.
"I have nothing but contempt for the radical left."
This is a perfect example of what I am talking about: you claim that I am angry, bitter, blind, and ignorant, yet you proudly proclaim your own anger and then are blind enough to decry me for what you contend is mine.
Not like any of that personal stuff matters. All that matters is the truth: the church did NOT originate nor inspire western civilization. Go ahead and try to stick to your original claim.
PS Your post is rude, immature, lacking of debatable content, and contains name-calling. -
GoUSN — 16 years ago(September 09, 2009 07:35 AM)
My oh my! An eight-paragraph response. I must have hit the mark. And made my target very, very angry. He appears gloomy even.
So, let's take it this way, Sunshine. IMDB documents an industry based largely in Los Angeles, actually named La Ciudad de Nuestra Senora de Los Angeles, or City of Our Lady of the Angels.
So, calm down a bit and let's take this step by step, shall we hon?
No Jesus, no apostles, no apostles, no Church, no Church, no Catholic Spain, no Catholic Spain, no Franciscans, no Franciscans, no California, certainly no Ciudad de Nuestra Senora de Los Angeles, and if no Ciudad de Nuestra Senora de Los Angeles, no IMDB and, likely, no you.
Got it sweetheart? -
sakkamarra — 16 years ago(September 09, 2009 01:41 PM)
What are you a 60+ year old woman?
Your train of thought is insane and I'm filled with not anger but a very sick and uncomfortable feeling in my gut as it sinks in that granny has gotten out of her cage at the old folks home again and is now attempting to flirt with me.
I think your inability to stay on topic and creation of such an incoherent response is evidence enough that you'll continue to evade the prospect of an actual debate and are therefore not intellectually worth it. I will take great pleasure in copying your posts and emailing them to some friends for laughs, and for that, I thank you. -
GoUSN — 16 years ago(September 09, 2009 02:55 PM)
You are very welcome.
But Puddin', please don't send copies of your e-mails and posts to your 60-year old female friends, or anyone in "granny" age range, because they may find your sexist, ageist comments to be offensive.
Yet, you are kind of cute, in a ranting, gloomy, silly sort of way.
/s/ Granny -
overninethousand — 15 years ago(July 31, 2010 02:32 AM)
Hey atheists and secularists: the Church has been the originator, inspiration, and custodian of Western Civilization. If you want to know what happens to a world when "organized religion" is hostile to beauty, try Islam.
Oh wow.
There was a time when Islamic Civilization was the most advanced civilization in the world. It was also time when Western Civilization was "hostile to beauty". For unwashed Europe it was "Dark Ages", for Arabia and Al-Andalus it was not. -
GoUSN — 15 years ago(July 31, 2010 11:28 AM)
First of all, the notion that Islam was the advanced force of anything (save violence) is quaint. Spread by the sword, and a political belief system rather than a genuine religion, it has been the scourge of the West since, oh, 638. There may have been pockets of intellectual robustness, but look around most of the Islamic world today - stuck somewhere in the 7th Century. If once so enlightened, when did the huge steps backward occur? Fact is, there was no step backward since there was no significant advance in the first place. (And please, save the tired examples of the arch and Arabic numerals.)
Second, whatever may have been the case yesterday is manifestly not the case today. Islam, its books, and its most vocal leadership (without counterpoint) preach violence, misogyny, and intolerance. How many mosques are there in Rome, center of Christendom? Dozens. How many Christian churches are there in Mecca? None. Of course, we'll never actually know, because non-Muslims can't even travel there.
Please oh please, do begin your sermon on the moral and social equivalence of all religions.
"But I'm a Democrat. What has happened to my Party?" -
overninethousand — 15 years ago(July 31, 2010 05:10 PM)
And then the truth still is the Dark Ages' smelly European Christian barbarians were "hostile to beauty" of the more advanced Islamic civilization. And this on religious reasons.
Even slaughtering Jews in the process, too. Rock on! -
overninethousand — 15 years ago(August 01, 2010 12:54 AM)
Also Islamic religion is several hundred years younger than the Christian one.
And several hundred years ago the very mainstream Christian clergymen were burning people (including "even" the less mainstream Christians) alive in the city squares full of onlookers. And other such things. -
hesperus59 — 15 years ago(October 15, 2010 02:04 AM)
The parallel with Islam as "the source" of a great civilization is very relevant. Indeed, this is the most popular argument with Islamic fundamentalists: Islam gave us a great civilization, and the only way to have it back is to return to the true spirit of Islam (whatever that is). By the way, you can make a much stronger claim about Islam being the originator of "Islamic civilization" than Christianity being the originator of "Western civilization". Personally, I don't think religion itself has had any role in building civilizations. It's mainly economic, geographical, and political factors sometimes taking religious manifestations. If given full control, organized religion is more likely to stifle progress of any kind, rather than nurture it.
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overninethousand — 15 years ago(October 15, 2010 02:53 AM)
Religious factors were very important in both cases.
Islam united the Arabs and then the Middle East to the one common cause, one identity (soon really two after the Sunni/Shia schism, but anyway) and more or less one culture. Civilizational advance of the Arabs was great (Persians of course had an advanced civilization since the ancient times).
Christianity led to the downfall and fracture of the already united and technologically and culturally advanced (and relatively tolerant, even as at the same as brutal and bloody as everyone else) Roman Empire into dozens of mostly tiny states and kept the Western Europe (except the Iberian Peninsula for a time being, guess why) in the Dark Ages until the Renaissance. That's a very destructive influence.
Buddhism really had not much effect on the East, in comparison.
Anyway, the film clearly presents its deeply-believing Jesuit protagonists as the completely good guys (including the powerful transformation of a godless slaver into a heroic warrior for Christ and against the opressors, and another choosing a peaceful martydom also for JC, it's two kinds of religious fanatics a few could really object to). How could it be perceived by anyone as "an atheist film", I don't know.
http://www.imdb.com/board/11186830/
is "an atheist film". -
GoUSN — 13 years ago(November 09, 2012 04:14 PM)
Where on earth did you learn your history: the U of Revisionism?
Christianity manifestly did not produce the Dark Ages - which instead were induced by invasions of Imperial Rome by tribes from the North. It was the monastery system of Ireland that becamse repository of Western learning and begain evangelizing, eventually to restore "light" to Europe.
Luckily, I attended a Catholic university, unaffected by the outlandish revisionism that has taken hold of most institutions of "higher" learning. Detach Christianity from the western construct, and voile! No western construct. Man, you people are historical illiterates.