No, Heretic is not God’s Not Dead for Atheists, it has genuine questioning of religion and control and doesn’t celerebrate a believer dying nor make charicatures of religious people, which is the exact opposite of GND. Also, the surviving girl kept her faith which would not have happened if this was just Atheist GND. The film even points out that the arguments presented aren’t very good, with one of the missionaries countering them. They are just used as a way to build up the characters through their reactions and themes throughout the movie.
Thanks for the comment. I agree that it's definitely not a one-to-one comparison. Just the fact that the spokesperson for the atheist worldview is the creepy villain makes it different than the flawless/heroic Christians in GND. But I do think the film makes caricatures of the religious people (they are peppy and superficial people who have never been challenged or thought deeply about what they believe, with a faith that is all emotion/heart and no head/intellect etc.). And while they do ultimately keep their faith at the end, which was interesting, it's implied that they don't necessarily believe in it as firmly as they claim (the "prayer doesn't work" dialogue or imaginary butterfly ending etc.). I think the film WANTED to be the way you describe it, but other than one quick rebuttal (after the board game dialogue), the religious characters don't pushback on the objections in any meaningful way ("I know it's wrong, but I'm not smart enough to explain how" etc.). At least, that's my experience with the movie. It's not as blatantly one-sided as the GND movies (a low bar to clear), but I definitely don't think it's the nuanced, stimulating theological dialogue that it seems to think it is or want to be. But I appreciate hearing your perspective on it!
@@TheCollisionbmi Thanks for the response, though I would like to add that the depiction of the Mormon missionaries was fairly accurate to my experience. They aren't the average Christian, they are raised to avoid difficult topics and doubt while selling the religion agressively. The average missionary isn't very well versed in theology nor even the history of the church. It isn't really supposed to be a theological dialogue, but an investigation of faith and control in religious context. Also, is it bad that the survivor girl had some doubts? Isn't it a greater triumph that she chose to keep her faith despite the shocking experience shaking it?
@@JuhoPurola For sure. I think your "An investigation of faith and control in religious context" is probably a better description than a theological dialogue. It is more a challenge than a conversation (although, I think that's the part that maybe makes it more similar to something like GND). I think the movie would have been a more effective as an investigation though if it had leaned more into the more difficult trauma and doubts (such as the problem of evil and God not healing the girl's father from cancer), rather than the more flimsy pseudo-intellectual ones that the girls had seemingly never heard before and don't do anything with other than reject them on the basis of faith or tradition. Not sure if you watched the recent(ish) movie "Freud's Last Session" (starring Anthony Hopkins), but that was more the approach I had hoped for with this one, where difficult questions are poised and characters really wrestle with them (and while neither character has changed their mind at the end, you get the sense that they've gained another perspective). Heretic poises a lot of questions and challenges about faith, but I would have liked the missionaries to have actually wrestled with them on a personal level, rather than mostly being bewildered and rejecting them out of hand. But I agree about the ambiguous ending. I mostly took it in the negative (God is an allusion but faith provides comfort to people), but it's also left open to interpretation and open-ended, almost leaving the audience to go through the thought-process themselves that I was hoping to see the characters go through in the movie etc.
No, Heretic is not God’s Not Dead for Atheists, it has genuine questioning of religion and control and doesn’t celerebrate a believer dying nor make charicatures of religious people, which is the exact opposite of GND. Also, the surviving girl kept her faith which would not have happened if this was just Atheist GND.
The film even points out that the arguments presented aren’t very good, with one of the missionaries countering them. They are just used as a way to build up the characters through their reactions and themes throughout the movie.
Thanks for the comment. I agree that it's definitely not a one-to-one comparison. Just the fact that the spokesperson for the atheist worldview is the creepy villain makes it different than the flawless/heroic Christians in GND. But I do think the film makes caricatures of the religious people (they are peppy and superficial people who have never been challenged or thought deeply about what they believe, with a faith that is all emotion/heart and no head/intellect etc.). And while they do ultimately keep their faith at the end, which was interesting, it's implied that they don't necessarily believe in it as firmly as they claim (the "prayer doesn't work" dialogue or imaginary butterfly ending etc.). I think the film WANTED to be the way you describe it, but other than one quick rebuttal (after the board game dialogue), the religious characters don't pushback on the objections in any meaningful way ("I know it's wrong, but I'm not smart enough to explain how" etc.). At least, that's my experience with the movie. It's not as blatantly one-sided as the GND movies (a low bar to clear), but I definitely don't think it's the nuanced, stimulating theological dialogue that it seems to think it is or want to be. But I appreciate hearing your perspective on it!
@@TheCollisionbmi Thanks for the response, though I would like to add that the depiction of the Mormon missionaries was fairly accurate to my experience. They aren't the average Christian, they are raised to avoid difficult topics and doubt while selling the religion agressively. The average missionary isn't very well versed in theology nor even the history of the church.
It isn't really supposed to be a theological dialogue, but an investigation of faith and control in religious context. Also, is it bad that the survivor girl had some doubts? Isn't it a greater triumph that she chose to keep her faith despite the shocking experience shaking it?
@@JuhoPurola For sure. I think your "An investigation of faith and control in religious context" is probably a better description than a theological dialogue. It is more a challenge than a conversation (although, I think that's the part that maybe makes it more similar to something like GND). I think the movie would have been a more effective as an investigation though if it had leaned more into the more difficult trauma and doubts (such as the problem of evil and God not healing the girl's father from cancer), rather than the more flimsy pseudo-intellectual ones that the girls had seemingly never heard before and don't do anything with other than reject them on the basis of faith or tradition. Not sure if you watched the recent(ish) movie "Freud's Last Session" (starring Anthony Hopkins), but that was more the approach I had hoped for with this one, where difficult questions are poised and characters really wrestle with them (and while neither character has changed their mind at the end, you get the sense that they've gained another perspective). Heretic poises a lot of questions and challenges about faith, but I would have liked the missionaries to have actually wrestled with them on a personal level, rather than mostly being bewildered and rejecting them out of hand. But I agree about the ambiguous ending. I mostly took it in the negative (God is an allusion but faith provides comfort to people), but it's also left open to interpretation and open-ended, almost leaving the audience to go through the thought-process themselves that I was hoping to see the characters go through in the movie etc.