I was watching "The Rapture" last night. It is a strange movie about a woman who finds religion, and what happens to her.
Sharon, played by Mimi Rogers, spends her days working a dull tedious job and her evenings picking up strange couples for group sex with her friend, played by Patrick Bauchau. She hears people talking about a mysterious child, prophecies of the Rapture and dreams of a pearl of great price. When she tries to learn more they tell her that she can not understand without faith. At first, she tries to pretend she understands but they know she is faking. Then she has the dream about the pearl and tries to clean up her life. When she starts proselytizing at work her boss takes her aside and invites her to their meetings where the child who has the gift of prophecy speaks. The child prophesizes that the End will come in six or seven years. She gets married and has a child and lives according to her faith. After six years, her husband is killed in an office shooting spree. Her faith helps her deal with her grief until she has a vision of her husband in the desert. She asks her church about the vision but no one else has had one like it. They tell her it is for her alone so she takes her daughter and goes into the desert to meet God. After a couple of weeks in the desert they run out of food and her daughter has a vision that she is in heaven but Sharon is not. So Sharon shoots her daughter to send her to heaven but she can't shoot herself because suicides can't go to heaven. She still believes in God but she no longer loves him because he made her kill her daughter. She confesses her action to the police and goes to prison. While she is in prison, the Rapture occurs. She comes to the river outside the kingdom of heaven and her daughter meets her and tells her she can enter heaven if she will say she loves God. She chooses to remain in hell for all eternity rather than say she loves a God who caused her so much pain.
My roommate felt that people watching it for the first time would think she was crazy because of her faith in God even before she killed her daughter, but I didn't think that way. Sharon feels that her life is empty (as many of us do) and Christianity fills up the emptiness for her. That is what religion does for people. I wondered if people realized that Paganism can do that as well, any path followed with faith and conviction can meet our spiritual needs. And any path followed to extremes can lead to tragedy.
Another friend of mine thought the movie would be better if the Rapture hadn't occurred and Sharon had had to live with the consequences of her actions. That would have been a different movie. The moral of that movie would have been trite and obvious. I think they took a much more daring stand by playing it as if she was right. What if God really did want her to kill her daughter? What if those looney fringe people are right and we sensible people are wrong? Is it even possible to know?
My roommate and I agreed that if the Christians turned out to be right we would be keeping her company at the end. I have good reasons for not being a Christian. If everything Christians say about their God is true, he is a psychotic bastard. What sort of sociopath plays these sadistic games with peoples lives knowing what the results will be? If god knows what we will do if we are put in certain situation and he puts us in those situation than he is responsible for what we do. Free Will is not an answer. Free Will is a twisted illusion under those situations. Under those situations God is like an abusive husband who demands "Look what you're making me do?" while he beats up his family. Why would anyone choose to worship such a monster?
Randy, David Duchovny's character, gives some of the arguments against the existence of God. Sharon uses the "We wouldn't have a need for God if God didn't exist" argument and Randy gives the "God is just a psychological crutch" reply. The "We wouldn't have the need if we weren't taught it" argument is also used. I personally believe that religion is a by product of our ability to use language. But that is my Doctorate thesis and too complicated to go into here.
That said, I do believe in a Divine Spirit. I believe that if an all knowing, all powerful, ubiquitous being who loves all of us exists then that being is the universe itself. At one point Sharon says to her daughter Mary "I don't love God but I do love you. Isn't that enough?" I believe that it is enough. Since we are all the Divine Spirit, to love anyone is to love the Divine. The Charge of the Goddess says "All acts of love and pleasure are My rituals"
I believe that the petty rules and restrictions that are attributed to God in Abrahamic tradition are inconsistent with an Omniscient, Omnipotent, Omniphilic, Ubiquitous God. I do believe that such a God can love us knowing all our faults. I don't believe that such a God could possibly care who we sleep with or what we do in our daily lives. Judgement and forgiveness are incompatible.
Further notes in case you didn't have your King James Bible handy when you were watching. The four horsemen of the Apocalypse are commonly called (in order of appearance) Pestilence, War, Famine, and Death.
(Rev 6:2) And I saw, and behold a white horse: and he that sat on him had a bow; and a crown was given unto him: and he went forth conquering, and to conquer.I had always thought that the first horseman was disease but verse 6:8 is quite clear "beasts of the earth". Of course with our modern understanding of diseases they could be included under beasts of the earth. I don't know where the names of the first three horsemen came from only Death was named in the verses.
(Rev 6:4) And there went out another horse that was red: and power was given to him that sat thereon to take peace from the earth, and that they should kill one another: and there was given unto him a great sword.
(Rev 6:5) And I beheld, and lo a black horse; and he that sat on him had a pair of balances in his hand.
(Rev 6:8) And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And Power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth.
© 1999 Eva M. Snyder