I'm used to seeing movies mock Christians and Christianity, but I've never seen a movie attack everyone of faith. I am shocked that so many people believe this to be a pro religion movie.
Without writing a 2 page essay on the story. Ang Lee basically says that every religion is just a fantastical story that one chooses to believe instead of reality.
Although the point is made that the story teller is completely fine with a person believing what ever story they wish to believe. The fact that they are saying all religions are just stories is an attack on people of faith.
People who practice religions base many of their decisions in life, including the welfare of their families on their faith. To say that people are letting a fantastic story influence important decisions on their life and the lives of their families is an insult.
Also, Some on the board here talk about atheists. Atheist's always say they don't need God to be good, or give them a moral standard.
Atheism is based on humanism, and the nature of humans is greed,and selfishness.
For proof of this one needs to read no further than this secular Canadian magazine. http://www2.macleans.ca/2010/05/06/do-atheists-care-less/
Cheers
I don't believe this movie was an attack on those that hold Faith highly. I don't believe it was a celebration of them either necessarily. I agree with your overall assessment, I just don't agree with what you took away from the movie as a whole.
Many of the atheists that you are so against are what I would call new atheists, those that have just accepted their newly found freedom from what they are considering to be an oppressive force. They argue that the world needs to eradicate religion and that it is the root of all evil, etc. Eventually we settle down into a much more co-operative phase.
What I feel like this movie represents is the need that many have for a happy ending. Which is the exact reason I have come to the conclusion in the many years I have chosen to not believe that some people do indeed NEED religion. I don't, I am fine with the idea that humans really aren't the most important things in the universe, no more so than any other animal. A human being dying is no more tragic than a flower wilting or a bumblebee dying in the grand scope of the universe. But what new atheists don't tend to realize is that not everyone is like them, humans are complex, some of them really will go off the deep end if they don't have a belief that they will see their loved ones again one day or that death isn't the end. Who is to say that is a bad thing that in believing a fantastical story it helps them through the harsh realities of life?
As for religion being the root of all evil like many new atheists claim, they forget that it isn't religion, or money, or drugs, or skin color that make people kill, it is people. Eradicate religion and people will find new reasons to kill.
Atheism is not based on greed and selfishness, if anything it is based on the idea that humans aren't as important as religion has told us. Not sure what agenda you're pushing here but I could agree with you through most of it.
While I don't feel that the movie was an intentional attack on religion, I do feel that it was somewhat patronizing towards it.
Essentially the point I took from the movie was that the story featuring the tiger (religion) was probably not real, but people believe it because it is more prefferable to reality.
That seems incredibly condescending to me. I don't believe in God because I know he isn't real but prefer something to comfort me. I believe in him because I actually belive he exists. I really do believe we go to heaven after we die and that Jesus was a real man that was brought back to life after 3 days. It isn't an imaginary security blanket for me; it is reality.