Obed May 7th, 2010

Hmmm… you book sales seem to be almost as good as my CD's sales…

Watching Theology: Gattaca « Joseph JP Johnson May 10th, 2010

[...] hawke, film, gattaca, watching theology. Leave a Comment We finally put together a new edition of Watching Theology. On this edition, Duke and I spend a little time looking at cloning and Ethan [...]

Craig June 2nd, 2010

I haven't listened in a while, but 'The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus' was practically made to be dissected by this podcast.

Julie D. August 5th, 2010

Y'all! Oh my goodness, you were so wrong about the conclusion that the movie says that God is dead and that the system will never change.

The clear implication, especially when taking the girlfriend into consideration (can't remember her name) along with the tester's child, is that man cannot really control what he thinks he controls. They are not God-children but yet are not what man designed them to be. And we are shown that those very errors that creep into the system do not mean what we think … in Ethan Hawke's character's case, this would be automatic failure. And in his brother's case, it would be that he automatically wins.

We are shown that free will can overcome all those repressive systems and that just because we might "control" science, it does not mean that we control true knowledge … or Truth … in other words, God.

Our family just watched this last week and I've been saving your podcast to listen to until afterwards. It was interesting that the movie engendered tons of conversation in our home, along the lines of my comments above. And yet it is as if you missed all the clues. They are subtle but they are definitely there.

Julie D. January 3rd, 2011

Thanks for the answer/conversation on Gattaca. I think the difference is that we didn't see "chaos" as being elevated. We saw an extreme attempt to control man being overcome. Maybe a la 1984? Which would be the free will element. Obviously we're looking at different elements, which may have something to do with the fact that I'm not familiar with reformed theology … being Catholic.:-)

I'm getting ready to begin a podcast with a Catholic pal who also loves movies. Obviously we'll have to talk about Gattaca and see where that takes us.