re: Best religious movies you've seen?

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How then is a movie like Shawshank Redemption religious? Although religious imagery is used throughout, the most stirring scene is the rain scene after the escape. Here we see a rebirth, a washing away of the old and the creation of the new. It is art and religion because this scene is a symbol, something that points beyond itself and opens up to the soul something new. In itself, it is merely rain falling on a feces-covered man. But the symbolism of the event points to a deep existential truth: the different stages of our lives require rites of passage, rites which occur in the, as the Japanese philosophers have said, the engawa, the in-between, the eternally now where time is not chronological. For Christians, this rite is baptism and the Eucharist. For Andy, his redemption comes through the rain.

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2 pages and no love for Dogma?

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One of the principle reasons humans are a religious animal is that we are self-aware. We know we exist, but we don't know why we exist. We know we want something from life, but we don't know why. Much of religion attempts to explain why. Why we exist. Why we yearn for more. The fundamental question of being is the heart of religion.

Movies that deal with that question of being are religious. That's not to say that because movies, or art, deal with religious symbols that religion can be replaced by movies or art. The cinematic arts express and attempt to describe the same sort of questions and situations as religion, and thus, arts can be a helper, a tool, for religion.

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One of the principle reasons humans are a religious animal is that we are self-aware. We know we exist, but we don't know why we exist. We know we want something from life, but we don't know why. Much of religion attempts to explain why. Why we exist. Why we yearn for more. The fundamental question of being is the heart of religion.

Movies that deal with that question of being are religious. That's not to say that because movies, or art, deal with religious symbols that religion can be replaced by movies or art. The cinematic arts express and attempt to describe the same sort of questions and situations as religion, and thus, arts can be a helper, a tool, for religion.

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