Prometheus a movie worth considering:

If given a choice, I choose reading books over watching movies, 99 times out of a 100.  Movies, anymore, simply disappoint.  The best parts seem to be all wrapped up in the previews.  Last night I took Jacob to see the newest Ridley Scott movie, Prometheus.  It was good on several counts, and I recommend it.  The movie was well acted, and the plot was good too.


In the movie, several powerful Worldview questions are raised, like: Where do we come from, where do we go when we die, what happens after death, what were we created for.  I was impressed with how well the theme was woven through the plot.

Minor Spoiler Alert:  I won't give away the whole movie, but....  The aliens that are discovered, are actually a 100% match for our DNA.  The movie also has the aliens as our creators.  The question then becomes, who made the aliens?  Why did they leave us on earth and what are their plans for us are also part of the plot too.

I really like the tension the movie raised between Faith & Science.  One scientist is a believer, her partner is a Naturalist.  The cross necklace the believer wears, like a touchstone to her faith, becomes a focal point later on in the movie when the android who has it asks if she still wants it after what appears to be a crisis of faith.  She does still want it.

Prometheus, as you might remember from Greek mythology, was the one who sought to place man on the same playing-field as the Gods of Mt Olympus, and was eternally punished.  After giving mankind fire, an angry Zeus chained Prometheus to a rock, and daily his liver was gouged out and eaten by birds, eagles I think, and it miraculously regrew so that the next day he'd be tormented again, forever.

The Christian faith, on the contrary, doesn't have a wrathful God who punishes those who seek to be God like, in fact, that's the goal of our faith -- to be like the God in Whose image we were created.  The believer in the movie doesn't lose her faith when the evidence momentarily seems to discredit her worldview, it only causes her to ask better questions.

Back to the movie.  I won't give away the ending of Prometheus.  I will say the movie was not hostile towards faith or science, a rare balance in any movies these days.  It fairly and evenly raised questions each of us needs to grapple with.  The movie also showed the limitations of mankind, even with the best science money can buy, we don't get every question answered, and we don't always get the answers we hope for.