Yesterday I watched what was probably on of the worst movies I have ever seen. I’ve seen a lot of bad ones recently, unfortunately, but this was bad even by those standards. This movie was “Life of Pi.”

( Just to clarify, I have not read the novel the movie is based off of, I heard they changed a lot, so when I criticize, I am criticizing whoever put the idea in there. Not the experience itself, which I think was poorly portrayed.)

If you saw it and liked, then don’t read the rest of this part. (Unless you don’t mind.) I’ll ignore the fact that the storyline didn’t make sense at all by the end, and just focus on my personal peeve. And yes, this is going somewhere:

In the beginning of the film Pi, the main character, states that’s he is a Hindu–Catholic–Muslim. His father doesn’t like this and tells him that he would be okay with Pi believing in something different from him, but he needs to choose one. To believe in everything, he says, is to believe in nothing.

Interestingly enough, my family has recently come into contact with a person who holds the believe that all religions are equally true.

Pi wants to be baptized (Catholic) but he continues to be fascinated by the Hindu gods, who he credits with showing him Christ; and he finds brotherhood in being a Muslim.

I would never have bought this idea, but I would not have let it spoil the movie for me if it had not been a plot point, but the whole story hinges on Pi surviving with just his faith, his head, and his tiger. And his faith never changes in the course of his journey.

Furthermore, at the very end of the movie, we are presented with two alternate accounts of what happened, neither is provable. But we are left to decide which we want to believe. The problem is, Pi himself never says which is true, he thinks they are intertwined. But they also contradict themselves.

The one good point of the movie is spoiled by that ending, because you question whether Pi ever learned the lesson of his own experience. Which, in a better film, would have been the sanctity of life.

That’s another discussion, but I’m returning to my problem. Permit me to vent, I’ve got to get this out.

ARE–YOU–KIDDING–ME!

(I want to back up and say first that this whole movie is based off a novel, none of this really happened, so I am not criticizing a real experience, but rather the author’s interpretation of it.)

Okay, as an author, our job is to tell the truth. To ferret it out and make it more clear to the reader than it otherwise would be. That’s why it drives me crazy when authors do things like this.

Pi’s faith is polytheism. I’m calling it what it is. Though he claims to be a catholic and a Muslim, he never truly left off being a Hindu. And Hinduism is the only one of his three faiths that his outlook is compatible with. he is a Hindu because of his family, he says. Now, that’s not even the problem. I totally get that someone who was never taught better would assume that cat holism and Islam were compatible with Hinduism. What bugs me is the author who is pushing this idea. Pi’s father was correct, to believe in everything is to believe in nothing.

There’s a saying “If you stand for nothing you will fall for everything.” And my real complaint is that in a nutshell. If there is nothing in your life that you can stake your life on, then there is nothing in your life that you really trust.

Christians and Muslims alike know that you cannot have two gods. It may be one of the only things we have in common. It baffles me that author of this story picked two incompatible religions to link up with another that was even more incompatible. And called that faith.

But it is not faith. It is what the Bible calls being tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine, and I’m pretty sure the Quran calls it being an infidel.

It’s a very, very dangerous belief, and it is one we are actually teaching our children in this country, in the form of saying “There is no right or wrong answer.”

Let me tell you, readers, this belief does no good at all. Everyone I’ve met who has it turns into a sniveling coward when there’s a conflict. They use it as a reason not to face problems. Especially the problems in logic that way of thinking presents.

And it is what is killing us. Because so many young people I know fall back on it and refuse to face their issues. And issues will spoil their lives if they aren’t faced.

I may have offended someone by these remarks…oh well. I don’t want to offend  people, but I’m sick of hearing this stuff, and someone rarely stands up to it and says “that’s crazy!”

The church, though I regret to say it, has played a role in this. By not telling people that sin was deadly, and by not warning them that God is jealous. (I just shot someone’s sacred cow.)

Guys, God is jealous. He will not share His position with anyone. It is true, we have the will to choose but what has not been made clear is that if we do not choose God, and God alone, then He gives us over to our other choice. And we follow everything but God, everything  but the Bible. Even if we still think we follow God, we don’t know Him at all.

It doesn’t bother me that God is jealous, because I realized awhile ago that if He was not, He really didn’t love me. What lover wants to share their beloved with another? It’s funny how willfully we choose to misunderstand God’s intentions.

I’m running long, so I will end this here. Thank you for reading and feel free to comment on anything that you liked or didn’t like.–Natasha.