For me, this is a must see!

Why this movie?

Alexis de Tocqueville once wrote:

“America is therefore one of the countries in the world where philosophy is least studied, and where the precepts of Descartes are best applied. Nor is this surprising. The Americans do not read the works of Descartes, because their social condition deters them from speculative studies; but they follow his maxims, because this very social condition naturally disposes their understanding to adopt them.” — Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America

That may have been true in back in 1840, when de Tocqueville wrote it, and it may even still be true. I think it would be more true for 21st Century America if we substituted a another name for Descartes’.

Friedrich Nietzsche

Even if most of us cannot pronounce his name, believers or non-believers, we Americans — most of us anyway — validate Nietzsche’s philosophy the way we live our everyday lives.

What most people don’t realize, since they’ve only read three words of Nietzsche, is that Nietzsche berates Christians and Atheists equally for the exact same reason. The Christian — from Nietzsche’s perspective — either lives a morality of expediency out of fearful submission or to give him a sense of moral superiority, or else he simply claims that moral superiority without actually adhering to the code. It’s all superficial and hypocritical — again, the way he sees it. To some extent, he could be right, if we can find examples to back up his argument. Can we?

Nietzsche attacks the atheists of his time for jeering at the Christian, while clinging to the same morality. Do we find examples of this today? Have you ever asked an atheist how he can possibly justify his morality without God?

If you want to irritate an atheist, ask that question. Most of them won’t be stumped for an answer. They’ll jump right on your case for asking such a stupid question and prove to you that you don’t need God to justify morality. And I wonder… what exactly does that prove?

Nietzsche still scoffs at this attitude espoused by many atheists. You see, Nietzsche saw far ahead of his time. He saw the day when people would argue for euthanizing children, because we can, not because morality has anything to do with it.

Nietzsche saw a day when doctors and scientists would float the idea of testing the possibility of 3-parent embryos; and regulating groups like the FDA consenting to those tests, because maybe there could be some practical use for it. How do they justify it? What really is the need to justify it when it’s only a concern for science, not morality?

Nietzsche saw all of this: the moral inconsistencies of the many, which would ultimately allow the amoral, elite few to further the progress of mankind, the way they think it should be, according to their wisdom and science.

While the world grapples over moral relativism, nihilism fills the moral void. Nietzsche’s a rather sick puppy, isn’t he? Well, what he said… it’s happening.

That’s one reason why I want to see “God Is Not Dead.” (Not that Hollywood can give us an answer at this point).

I believe in God and I look to God for answers. This movie appears to lean in that direction. Sometimes a big screen production has a way of waking up the culture in a way it needs to be woken up. I’m not really expecting that much, but I am expecting it to focus on the types of challenges I mentioned here, raise interesting questions for believers and non-believers, and perhaps point in a direction where we can look for answers.

And it looks like it could be a very fun movie.