Is Religion Just a Joke? Essay -- Religion Religious Essays

Is Religion Just a Joke? Driving with my friend to the movies one evening final stage winter we discovered a group of quite a little bundled up and picketing by The Safari movie theatre in Moorhead. My friend and I didnt write out what movie we wanted to watch, but these protesters made up our mind. We decided to see the movie Dogma because that was the very movie these outraged people were boycotting. Sometimes people carry their religion to the point where it has an adverse effect on people. This was the case that evening.As we watched Dogma, my friend and I laughed hysterically. It wasnt nearly as bad as the protestors suggested. The view the outraged Christians and I seemed to disagree on was they took the movie literally, whereas I personally took it as mere fiction. In my opinion, it was just another religious waggery to bring the sometimes-scary field of religion down to a point that seems more human in the eyes of the average American today.By making the topic of religio n humorous, we as a society can take a look at the different aspects of this complicated and controversial issue. What is ethically right or wrong has been seen in many issues such as cloning, euthanasia, and abortion. Religion, along with these other issues, is often hard to confront. With the aid of movies, such as Dogma and Keeping the doctrine, we atomic number 18 able to delve into the issue of religion more easily. Let us now take a look at these two movies. Keeping the Faith starts with a priest, Brian Finn, played by Edward Norton, telling his complicated story to the local bartender in New York who thinks hes heard it all already. Brian tells of a childhood friendship between himself, Jake Schram, and a girl named Anna Reilly. The three... ...ck Jesus, a thirteenth apostle played by Chris Rock who was written out of the bible because he was portentous (having a black savior is okay, but not a black apostle), Mary not being a virgin, after all, Do you think Joseph would stick by around if he wasnt getting any?, and God being a woman. Anyone who would take these humorous and outrageous suggestions literally is more of a spoof than this movie. In my opinion, a movie is just a movie and nothing more, other than to bring into focus a difficult subject matter. Therefore, funny movies close religion actually help viewers think critically about religion. The protestors seemed to want to make the religious comedy genre be blasphemy on God, where that is not what the movie was trying to do. Which brings out the question Who is making religion a joke? -The movies? -Or the people carrying their religion too far?