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There is NO excuse for posts that long. I cannot read that. If you can't say what you want to say within five paragraphs then it probably isn't worth saying.

Fatpie42 wrote:

There is NO excuse for posts that long. I cannot read that. If you can't say what you want to say within five paragraphs then it probably isn't worth saying.

I think the pont of a lengthy post was to use a couple stories (parables if you will) to illustrate what he was trying to say. And for the record, I have seen a lot longer posts...

i understand you folks want to share your faith. and faith is a wonderful thing, but i don't really think this is the place. and certainly not for stories that are so long. you could have picked on. I empathize with y'all cuz when I was a Christian I wanted everyone to share in the love of Christ too. But, this is not the time or place, we're here to discuss the Matrix, and for the last group of posts, there have been no ties to that movie made.

If we want to get into a religion discussion, I'm sure we can all find a forum geared for that and go at it. =)

Brightest Blessings
~Serenity~

Back to the movie: The parallels between Jesus and Neo are thus;

The One is created specifically to "save" the people of Zion, in the machines own twisted way. But, Neo specifically breaks from convention (as Jesus did incessantly), chooses a different door, one that has never been chosen before (as Jesus did) [also, perhaps it should be noted that he did this for love, but since it was for love of a woman and not the whole world, this parallel could be disputed], and gives himself up so that others will live. Also, he dies in the position of the Cross.

Now, certainly there are differences as well, Neo wasn't hardly a pure human being by Christian standards, but he was a sort of God-man as Jesus was, and he was a Saviour, with the parallels listed above.

Of course, perhaps Neo could be one of the many other god-men savior figures in history, it is a rather generic religious belief, but, Jesus is the easiest example for us all to recall I think, so, that is who I used.

~Serenity~

Hey where just going off of what other people are saying we didint start the topic we just joined in

Ok, the 1st allegory was "The Omega Man" meets "28 days later", with maybe "The Andromeda Strain" thrown in for good luck.

For the stories ultimate revealed choice:
Take the blood from the child needed to save the few. If taking it all saved everyone, would taking half would save half? The doctor or his superior is playing and acting as God in this scenario. Take it all , along with a life, and we save everyone.

So, sacrifice the Golden Goose, or more importantly, your only son to save everyone.. Why shouldn't this son live, save as many as possible, rather than be killed, to try to save the lives of many.

Yes, you have the symbolism of a father's only son saving all of humanity, but then, the sacrifice in your story is not brought about through the "son" , having been enlightened, then choosing to sacrifice himself to save humanity. Rather, humanity has selected him as the chosen one, their savior. They need his blood to live. So the final choice is not one of an individuals salvation and redemption, but rather the choice given to the father to sacrifice his son for the greater good. A choice that can be imposed by others.

ShiniGami wrote:

Ok, the 1st allegory was "The Omega Man" meets "28 days later", with maybe "The Andromeda Strain" thrown in for good luck. For the stories ultimate revealed choice: Take the blood from the child needed to save the few. If taking it all saved everyone, would taking half would save half? The doctor or his superior is playing and acting as God in this scenario. Take it all , along with a life, and we save everyone. So, sacrifice the Golden Goose, or more importantly, your only son to save everyone.. Why shouldn't this son live, save as many as possible, rather than be killed, to try to save the lives of many. Yes, you have the symbolism of a father's only son saving all of humanity, but then, the sacrifice in your story is not brought about through the "son" , having been enlightened, then choosing to sacrifice himself to save humanity. Rather, humanity has selected him as the chosen one, their savior. They need his blood to live. So the final choice is not one of an individuals salvation and redemption, but rather the choice given to the father to sacrifice his son for the greater good. A choice that can be imposed by others.

This sounds like Mills and his determination of what makes actions "good"
You must do what will cause the most happiness ie "sacrifice the Golden Goose, or more importantly, your only son to save everyone.. Why shouldn't this son live, save as many as possible, rather than be killed, to try to save the lives of many."

ShiniGami wrote:

humanity has selected him as the chosen one, their savior. They need his blood to live. So the final choice is not one of an individuals salvation and redemption, but rather the choice given to the father to sacrifice his son for the greater good. A choice that can be imposed by others.

This is an excellent point which I think is a good segway for something a friend said to me after we saw Revolutions together. Perhaps Neo is not the human saviour, but the saviour of the Machines? More on this later, but before you disagree, I ask you to take a moment, a couple deep breaths and think about it. =) [I recommend this because my first reaction was to go, "no way!" and not even think about it, hahaha]

Obviously he's "savior" to both sides, as he basically mediates a peace between both, and then rids the Matrix of Smith. Also, look at the basic tone of "The Second Renaisance" in the Animatrix. It's not really very "anti" machine.

[quote="ShiniGami"]Obviously he's "savior" to both sides, as he basically mediates a peace between both, and then rids the Matrix of Smith. Also, look at the basic tone of "The Second Renaisance" in the Animatrix. It's not really very "anti" machine.[/q : uote]


Good job!

I believe also that the story of the crucifixion if we can see it as ourselves. We sacrifice parts of ourselves in order to grow and become complete. The birth death birth cycle. Sacrifice is enacted over and over again in order to move us along into new life and karma so that we have a natural bent toward completeness. This means becoming aware of projections of ourselves we don't want to own and making another contain them for us. If we commit sin and we are aware or not that we have, and we don't make amends, request forgiveness and truly understand and be accountable for what we do, we suffer soul death, and cannot go to God. The abortion of many foetus's is a sacrifice made by those souls in order for us to understand and be accountable for our actions. The consciousness to understand what we do is part of the of the sacrifice. Parts of us must die in order for a new consciousness to break through. A dream from a friend describes this process 'dreamer dreams that her infant child was put into a refrigerator by a woman who lives with her in the house, although she didn't really know her well, and the infant was put into the refrigerator in order for the woman to secretly meet her lover who waited at the gate. The dreamer watched what was happening and wento to the refrigerator to take the baby out and wrapped it in cloth and took it back to bed with her to warm the baby up and bring her back to life.' Assuming that all players in the dream are aspects of the dreamer, clearly the woman was a dark part of the dreamer who was becoming conscious of a destructive part of her shadow, and the new baby was a part of the new consciousness arising. The dark destructive female was sacrificed in order for the new aspect of the dreamer to burst into consciousness. The older we get the harder it becomes to look into ourselves and keep on looking till genuine change takes place. We become set in our beliefs and ways and resent anyone who tries to tell us that our world view could be old and past its use by date, (like the Marovingian - old programme) and it is time for enlightenment. Morpheous apologised to Neo for freeing his mind after a certain age. The younger we are the easier the acknowledgement that our behaviours and attitudes need to be re-assessed. As the road to enlightenment is paved with pain and suffering, it isn't any wonder that Morpheous apologised for freeing Neo's mind. We need to fish in the depths like the Fisher King. Our own personal micro stories go through many chapters, just as humanity collectively goes through many changes on the way to enlightenment. Perhaps collective humanity is in it's teenage years at present with the preoccupation with sex sex sex. Don't knock me, I'm just a messenger too on the same space ship going through the same things.

I guess this hadn't been clear before in these posts.

A "Savior" in most religious mythologies, performs a sacrifice to save all, believers and non-believers. And in the Matrix mythos, the machines are created by man, and as such are an extension of man.

I thought this was pretty obvious.

And altho it's not clear whether Neo is dead at the end, there is the reference in the park scene of Revolutions, the plack on the park bench says "In memory of Thomas Anderson."