Agnostic, Not Atheist or Theist (Spoilers)

Bravo, bravo! I believe you got it. I'm actually surprised by the stupidity of many of the other posters. I would imagine the writer, and director would appreciate your interpretation, or more likely your understanding of their film. I agree the Noam Chomsky quote said, then interpreted by Patience was the "defining moment".

Now that I wrote that I find it funny. I think you are absolutely correct. Other people think the movie is "religeous indoctrination", I think those people are morons, like Henry Poole of others faith... lol. Still, I believe our interpretation to be correct, and those people to be dense.

Dustin

Well said, szabo101-1.

I am a Christian and a theist. I believe in miracles, and take the Bible quite literally. That said, I do have great respect for people who are willing to say, "I don't know" and think we could us more of that in today's world--I tend to think the average person known far less than he/she thinks he/she knows.

Recently, while doing a little online researcy, I came across this quote about pain (I had experience an injury and was doing some research).

"Since we know little about the brain, we try to fit virtually every phenomenon observed in the brain into our limited realm of knowledge about the brain. What we already understand is incredibly complex, but we have not yet viewed the whole tip of the iceberg. For example plasticity, the brain's ability to shift processes to other anatomical areas of the brain when injury to a part of the body or a part of the brain occurs, is now an obligatory term when discussing any brain function. It doesn't explain anything but it creates the illusion that we understand a process which is completely mystifying."

I thought this was VERY interesting! And I do think it is part of human nature to try and fit what we do not understand into what we do understand to try and make sense of what doens't really make sense. And when we do that, we think we know something that we, in face, really do not know.

Is it really so hard for people to say, "I have no idea"? Perhaps it is.

Anyway. I liked your post, and I am now curious about this move (I haven't seen it yet--but it is coming on Starz), and I am very interested in the phenomena of belief--why people have such greatly different beliefs, even people who are objective, intelligent, and sane. It's a strange phenomena. You'd think that all people who are truly interested in knowing the truth of things would come to the same conclusions. But they don't. Lot of people jump to the simplistic conclusion that those who do not agree with them are stupid. That's a rather intellectualy cowardly and pointless stance to take considering the diversity of ideas and philosophies out there. Still, there isn't a whole lot that explain people come up with such differing philosophies about the nature of reality.

I agree with the OP. Different minds will see different things and draw different conclusions. I appreciate this movie for being open-minded.

Well, it kind of is though....

It's clear that Patience couldn't see...she wore those coke bottle lenses all day. If she really could see then she'd twist her eyeballs up wearing those things.

The movie is about faith but where people get mixed up is the label that people need to put upon faith. The reasonable Atheist can appreciate the movie and character interplay without agreeing with its subcontext.

I do agree with Patience's explanation to Henry as being central to the movie, though. She basically echoed and underscored what Esperanza was trying to get across from the beginning.

I believe that the message by the writer of this script is that "things happen for a reason," which was another central comment by Esperanza and that faith needn't be tied to a single image or dogma. The labeling of faith through religion is not what the writer is going for but rather the open ended interpretation of other worldly forces.