Sally and House Theology

October 10, 2005

Thank you for the comment on the first post, Sally. It’s my first one (obviously) so I will cherish it always. I assume a big part of the urge to blog (which I don’t really feel personally, but am trying to be open) is the desire to get feedback on your ideas. Comments would, therefore, be integral in keeping the drive alive. So keep it up, Sally and any non-Sallys that may be out there. Then again, maybe comments shouldn’t matter and some people just do it for their own satisfaction. What do I know?

So, anyway, I was talking to Sally (same one) a second ago and asked her what I should do my first post about. She said (typed, really, it was on aim), “sometimes sarah gets bibley you could find your inner bible and write about that.” Now, I’ve never been a big bible person. I was always active in my church because the people there are great, and I spend my summers at a Presbyterian conference center, but I’ve never really been very into the religious aspects of either institution.

Although, speaking of the Bible, for my creative writing workshop I did just write a story set on Noah’s Ark. In this class, another girl wrote a story about a little Episcopalian child, in which she frequently talked about God. She, however, did not feel comfortable writing out the word, and instead wrote G-d, which got very distracting. It felt like we were all at Hogwarts and we were talking about Voldemort….er…i mean…he-who-must-not-be-named. I was tempted to tell her that it was a waste of our time if she was just gonna stay within her comfort zone the entire semester, but decided not to be so confrontational. Luckily, I now have Sarah’s blog.

And, speaking of writing. My roommate watched Contact yesterday. It was on HBO, which it has been a lot lately. You know the movie, starring Jodie Foster and Matthew McConaughey (sp?). Anyway, i’ll try not to give anything away, but it won’t make sense unless you’ve seen it. My roommate thought it was “so weird” and “interesting” that her headset video recorder recorded 18 hours of static when she had that out of this world experience that not only does nobody believe she had, but which the rest of the world believes only lasted a fraction of a second. It is, I told him, in fact, not weird that that happened, because it is a movie and somebody wrote it that way. It would be weird if it really happened, or something like it happened, or it could be connected to real life somehow. The movie, which I usually refer to as “obnoxious”, drives home in a very unsublte manner a point about the relationship between faith in science and religious faith. However, I believe the ridiculous analogy it uses, the plot of the movie with the aliens and the machines and all that, is so over the top and ridiculous, that it undercuts the validity of any point the movie was trying to make. If they had made a movie about a smaller, real life situation, it would have been much more compelling.

My favorite bit of Hollywood philosophy/theology of the moment comes from the second to last episode of the first season of House, MD. This is an excellent show. Everyone should all watch it. Some of the plots are outrageous and some of the medical advice is bad. Some of the dialogue is unnatural. But Hugh Laurie might just be the best actor ever. Anyway, In this episode, when Laurie’s character, House, a genius diagnostician, says he finds it msot comforting to not believe in any form of afterlife, which of course he is questioned on. He responds to the question of how believing in there not being an afterlife could be comforting by responding, “I find it more comforting to believe that this isn’t simply a test.” Word.

So, anyway, that is my inner bible. Not surprisingly, it referenced movies and television, because I don’t know a lot, but I do know those two things. Anyway, um…those were my thoughts. I guess we will end the post there. I need to go read St. Augustine’s Confessions anyway. That book is killing me, but at least my philosophy teacher is very attractive.

Posted in uncategorized by Reeve Hamilton