That Pascal thing always seems weird to me, like an omnipotent God isn't going to notice that you're just going through the motions on the off-chance that it matters.
Terry Prattchet had a good commentary on that. In his Discworld series, there was a philosopher that made Pascals argument. After his death, he was greeted by a number of very unamused gods with clubs.
I always felt sorry for whoever originally owned the holy grail- they were nice enough to host a dozen or so people for Passover and they stole their cup for no reason
I actually quite dislike Pascal's Wager due to its most fundamental flaw. It assumes there is only one god to believe or disbelieve in. when in reality, which god(s) if any exist is a subject of spirited debate, as is what acts will get you punished. In that context, it is not a wager between two simple options of yes and no, but of countless variations of yes that if not mutually exclusive, are at least by some measure in conflict with each other. Who are we to say in that situation that belief in the "wrong" god is preferable to remaining on neutral ground? Such an argument is most definitely a result of Judeo-Christian-centric thinking. I'm glad you brought up that and other rebuttals to the idea.
Well, this one went rather close to the Lovecraft st. at the end. All we need now are just some unimaginable horrors, extreme puniness of mankind and, of course, overly long shots of the scenery. Almost makes me wishing for, say, "Indiana Jones and the Unknown Kadath".
The way I always interpreted the metaphysics of these movies is that, while myths and legends might claim that the supernatural powers of items like the Ark or the Grail are connected to God, there is no actual proof of this, and indeed many things Jones observes seems to contradict the beliefs held by those mortal men who first wrote about them. After all, if there were a magical cup with healing powers, and nobody actually knew where it came from, do you doubt that it would eventually be incorporated into a religious story like the King Arthur myth, and used as "evidence" in support of the author's religion? In short, I think Indiana Jones is so skeptical and agnostic because, after years of observing that all theories surrounding the supernatural are defied by the evidence of his own two eyes, there's simply no merit to claims of God's presence being clear in the world. The only thing he might see fit to trust is accounts of what these artifacts can *do,* not where they came from.
Concerning the question of the Ark and seeing. It may have just been a plot device but there is a possibility that the film markers were suggesting that Jones and Marion, by closing there eyes were were showing due respect towards divine authority whereas the Nazis were being arrogent in there conviction that they could take the power of God. There are examples of people being punished by God for disrespecting him or what is holy to Him in the Old Testament. Indie, raised by his father, would have known this fact regardless of his beliefs.
It's similar to the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, where Lot's wife turned back and looked at the angels and God's power destroying the city and was turned to salt. Lot and the rest of his family continued to look forward, their eyes averted, and were spared
Very interesting video. You could interpret the thing with the Ark as God waiting until the Nazis actually tried to do something with it to punish them for their blasphemy. Up until that point, the ark was only really being carried around, and using carrying poles at that. This is actually consistent with what happened to the Philistines when they captured the Ark in the Old Testament book of 1st Samuel. They made off with it fine, but then bad stuff started happening when they tried to use it for their own religious purposes.
Huh. That's interesting. I came away with an entirely different interpretation (not surprising, now that I think about it). :) To me, it seemed that the Nazis in Raiders were punished for hubris, and Marian and Indy were spared for respecting the power of God, enough to understand that they shouldn't look. The hubris came from believing that the Ark, something that belonged to God, was a tool that they could use for their own purposes. This is kind of related to your points about belief leading to good, or bad... often (not always, but often), that too comes from hubris; from invoking belief in God without accepting that the claim comes with responsibilities. Anyway, that's just how I interpreted it. :)
Leon, your videos are a brilliant blend of movies, philosophy and social/cultural commentaries, all of which I'm passionate about. They always leave me with thoughts and new ideas. Always so excited to click on your new uploads! :3
I don’t think that the Christian God (or any other diety) is necessarily real in the Indiana Jones movies. The Ark, Sankara stones, and Holy Grail might just be magic objects, with different people throughout history interpreting them through the lens of their own individual faith. If the Sankara stones were found by Christians and not Hindus, people would probably say that they were given by God and not Shiva, for example. Same goes for the other artifacts.
This video has made me view the trilogy in a much more Lovecraftian outlook than ever before. These movies were a burst to my young imagination, thanks for making these!
I always just interpreted the inconsistencies between the films as being similar to the way the Mad Max films are, meaning that they're all the same story about the same person, just told in different ways; thus the series is not necessarily the same as how Star Wars is telling one story in several parts, but it's more like an anthology. It's the 4th one that screws it up because it's the only one that acknowledges any kind of continuity between the films.
Well, yeah, but that's more of an easter egg for the audience, not any kind of big plot point. On the basic level, all three original movies are treated like stand alone films, and that was very much the intention of the filmmakers since the reason Spielberg wanted to do it in the first place was because they wouldn't let him make a James Bond movie. And Bond works mostly the same way. It's the same character and there are elements that persist, like Q and Monnypenny, but for all intents and purposes, the continuity doesn't matter. Again, until Crystal Skull ruined everything.
All these years and I never knew that Temple of Doom was a prequel... The series makes so much more sense with that in mind, especially regarding the Abrahamic god. And speaking of epistemology, the difference between truth and fact in the context of this series is also more interesting than I realized. I had always written that scene off as Jones being a bit pretentious and preferential to his own discipline, but bearing in mind what he had experienced at that time (which I now know included ToD), truth vs. fact acknowledges the difference between the way things are (reality) and what we can comprehend, such as what is inside the Ark, or that thing the chick in the Leboeuf movie I refused to see was vaporized by being beyond the limits of the human mind. Jones pursues fact, or truth which we can comprehend, but also knows that there are things we don't know, and perhaps can't even understand; at least not in one blast of face-melting revelation, as opposed to years upon years of study and contemplation.
Does Indiana Jones believe in God? Dunno, but a reporter once asked Harrison Ford since one of his parents was a Catholic and the other was a Jew, what religion was he? Ford's response was, "Democrat."
The reason Indy doesn't believe in the arc's powers in raiders is that in temple of doom, he has seen the power of kali and shiva. therefore he thought that hinduism is the only true religion.
I always attributed the discontinuity of Jones' initial skepticism of the supernatural in each film to what I call a "Bugs Bunny reset" (e.g., characters/objects dying/being permanently damaged in some way only to appear as if nothing ever happened in the next scene/short). Interesting analysis, but I'm not sure these films elicit such serious philosophical scrutiny. They are fun, unpretentious homages to old-fashioned action-adventure serials. I doubt any of the writers or Steven Spielberg himself ever put as much thought into the personal beliefs of the title character. He was more dimensional than most protagonists in the genre, but still restricted by the archetype.
There's another explanation as to why evil exist and even magic beyond God. The angels and us humans have free will and we sinned. As for magic, satan and his angels have limited power and can use it to their advantage.
Also, who is more moral; a type of theist who's motivation for doing good is to receive an reward in heaven or the type of atheist who expects none but does good anyway? If it turns out there is a good and just God, surely the reward would go to the do gooder with the purest/best motive in this instance rather than the belief in him/her/it per se.
Something I've never heard talked about is that (if we accept Brody's idea that the Ark is a power that can be wielded by those possessing it) the ending of Raiders basically insinuates that the world super power status of the United States could be explained by having the invincible power of God on its side since 1936.
This almost seems to imply that the Indiana Jones universe is one of Cosmic Horror. Where even brushing up against powerful, expansive beings is deleterious to ones mind, body, and soul.
I think it’s interesting to note that the Adam & Eve story, the appearance of Medusa in the Divine Comedy, and other stories throughout history and mythology have suggested in some form that humankind should not see/learn some things (and can’t be trusted not to do so).
Not sure if someone else already mentioned it below or if it was purposefully excluded from the video due to irrelevance (or time constraint), but there's something to be said about belief beyond benefits and disbenefits (or costs), and that is the act of believing itself. What I mean is, do we presuppose that God knows who is a true believer and who simply claims to be one? One could arrive at the pearly gates and claim belief despite a life of non-belief, so what then? As someone who has always struggled with faith in God, I cannot simply choose to believe what I want to. I have feelings one way or the other and so my beliefs sway with those feelings. If I find that I do not truly believe (in my heart of hearts), it might be advantageous to say that I do anyway for reasons cited in the video. But if I assume God knows my true beliefs, then lying would have no advantage to it and possibly even a disadvantage. Whose to say God holds our genuine belief in him above being true to ourselves? So back to a previous statement: If I find that I do not truly believe, it might be advantageous to say that I do anyway, but one could assume the opposite is just as likely so we get back to the starting point in a sense - what do you believe? Because, in the end, our assumptions about God (beyond whether or not God exists) tell us what God expects of us. We have to have faith, not only in God, but in our preconceived notions of God, in order to presume stated belief in God offers only advantages and no disadvantages in the after-life (or life, if your faith believes in that). This has gone on longer than I had planned and might not have been worth stating, but I figured others who struggle with faith might appreciate some additional complications thrown in (that, again, may have been excluded from the video with good reason). Anyway, sorry for the rambling and thank you for another amazing video!
kinnikufan If it matters, Pascal himself understood there were people like you (that is to say, people who might want to believe, but struggled with actually having faith) when he made his wager. His advice was to simply do as the Romans do, i.e go to church, pray, participate in religious festivals, do all the things your religion expects you to do (and avoid doing things your religion expects you to avoid) and eventually religion (and the belief it stems from) will become as natural as anything else. Now I don't know how much that would actually help, since as you said belief is something one either has or doesn't have, but it's something, at least.
I had never thought about these movies Inn this way. Thank you! Additionally, prima facie means something like 'at first glance'. Am I the only one who keeps seeing Immanuel Kant as a real pissant who was very rarely stable?
That was really interesting, I've never really thought about the distinction between items which just work because of some inherent supernatural power and the ones which function as a way for God or a god to work their power on earth. Do you think that in this movie the way the arc works comes from a deliberate choice on the writers' part or because they interpreted the way it works in the Bible wrong?
A good way to counter Pascal’s Wager is to simply add a 3rd option. An all powerful God exists, he is responsible for the Bible, is testing humans to decide their afterlife, BUT following the Bible results in eternal damnation. If the Bible=salvation God and the Bible=damnation God have comparable or inconclusive levels of evidence then there is no point in trying to appease a possible unknowable diety.
This video serves to cement my atheism, and to reinforce the opinion I hold that questioning our existence, life beyond death and higher power are totally impractical, nonsensical and time wasting pursuits. Thanks..!
That Pascal thing always seems weird to me, like an omnipotent God isn't going to notice that you're just going through the motions on the off-chance that it matters.
Terry Prattchet had a good commentary on that.
In his Discworld series, there was a philosopher that made Pascals argument. After his death, he was greeted by a number of very unamused gods with clubs.
I always felt sorry for whoever originally owned the holy grail- they were nice enough to host a dozen or so people for Passover and they stole their cup for no reason
Pascal's Wager is so incredibly easy to dismantle from multiple angles.
It's self-defeating.
I actually quite dislike Pascal's Wager due to its most fundamental flaw. It assumes there is only one god to believe or disbelieve in. when in reality, which god(s) if any exist is a subject of spirited debate, as is what acts will get you punished. In that context, it is not a wager between two simple options of yes and no, but of countless variations of yes that if not mutually exclusive, are at least by some measure in conflict with each other. Who are we to say in that situation that belief in the "wrong" god is preferable to remaining on neutral ground? Such an argument is most definitely a result of Judeo-Christian-centric thinking. I'm glad you brought up that and other rebuttals to the idea.
Well, this one went rather close to the Lovecraft st. at the end. All we need now are just some unimaginable horrors, extreme puniness of mankind and, of course, overly long shots of the scenery. Almost makes me wishing for, say, "Indiana Jones and the Unknown Kadath".
Honestly now I really want Indiana Jones + Cthulhu to exist!
The way I always interpreted the metaphysics of these movies is that, while myths and legends might claim that the supernatural powers of items like the Ark or the Grail are connected to God, there is no actual proof of this, and indeed many things Jones observes seems to contradict the beliefs held by those mortal men who first wrote about them. After all, if there were a magical cup with healing powers, and nobody actually knew where it came from, do you doubt that it would eventually be incorporated into a religious story like the King Arthur myth, and used as "evidence" in support of the author's religion?
In short, I think Indiana Jones is so skeptical and agnostic because, after years of observing that all theories surrounding the supernatural are defied by the evidence of his own two eyes, there's simply no merit to claims of God's presence being clear in the world. The only thing he might see fit to trust is accounts of what these artifacts can *do,* not where they came from.
Concerning the question of the Ark and seeing. It may have just been a plot device but there is a possibility that the film markers were suggesting that Jones and Marion, by closing there eyes were were showing due respect towards divine authority whereas the Nazis were being arrogent in there conviction that they could take the power of God. There are examples of people being punished by God for disrespecting him or what is holy to Him in the Old Testament. Indie, raised by his father, would have known this fact regardless of his beliefs.
It's similar to the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, where Lot's wife turned back and looked at the angels and God's power destroying the city and was turned to salt. Lot and the rest of his family continued to look forward, their eyes averted, and were spared
Very interesting video. You could interpret the thing with the Ark as God waiting until the Nazis actually tried to do something with it to punish them for their blasphemy. Up until that point, the ark was only really being carried around, and using carrying poles at that. This is actually consistent with what happened to the Philistines when they captured the Ark in the Old Testament book of 1st Samuel. They made off with it fine, but then bad stuff started happening when they tried to use it for their own religious purposes.
How do you *always* find a way to get me thinking about movies in a new way?
Raiders: Africa
Temple: Asia
Crusade: Europe
Kingdom: South America
5th: Either North America or Australia?
F. N. Lorter North Pole!!!
The quest for Santa Claus!
F. N. Lorter the 5th is Mexico or central or south America
a lot of people in these replies can't count.
South Pole. Cthulhu.
Huh. That's interesting. I came away with an entirely different interpretation (not surprising, now that I think about it). :)
To me, it seemed that the Nazis in Raiders were punished for hubris, and Marian and Indy were spared for respecting the power of God, enough to understand that they shouldn't look. The hubris came from believing that the Ark, something that belonged to God, was a tool that they could use for their own purposes. This is kind of related to your points about belief leading to good, or bad... often (not always, but often), that too comes from hubris; from invoking belief in God without accepting that the claim comes with responsibilities.
Anyway, that's just how I interpreted it. :)
Leon, your videos are a brilliant blend of movies, philosophy and social/cultural commentaries, all of which I'm passionate about. They always leave me with thoughts and new ideas. Always so excited to click on your new uploads! :3
I don’t think that the Christian God (or any other diety) is necessarily real in the Indiana Jones movies. The Ark, Sankara stones, and Holy Grail might just be magic objects, with different people throughout history interpreting them through the lens of their own individual faith. If the Sankara stones were found by Christians and not Hindus, people would probably say that they were given by God and not Shiva, for example. Same goes for the other artifacts.
This video has made me view the trilogy in a much more Lovecraftian outlook than ever before. These movies were a burst to my young imagination, thanks for making these!
You are amazing. Your content is always so thoughtful. Thank you for making these videos, I so appreciate your work and wisdom.
This is probably the best video on these movies ive ever seen, and it's on youtube, the trash tv of our futuristic times! Well done u, i subbed.
I always just interpreted the inconsistencies between the films as being similar to the way the Mad Max films are, meaning that they're all the same story about the same person, just told in different ways; thus the series is not necessarily the same as how Star Wars is telling one story in several parts, but it's more like an anthology. It's the 4th one that screws it up because it's the only one that acknowledges any kind of continuity between the films.
Well, yeah, but that's more of an easter egg for the audience, not any kind of big plot point. On the basic level, all three original movies are treated like stand alone films, and that was very much the intention of the filmmakers since the reason Spielberg wanted to do it in the first place was because they wouldn't let him make a James Bond movie. And Bond works mostly the same way. It's the same character and there are elements that persist, like Q and Monnypenny, but for all intents and purposes, the continuity doesn't matter. Again, until Crystal Skull ruined everything.
Go figure, the Hebrew god prefers a scholar.
I wonder how often the Grail Tomb staffers have to replace letter tiles in the God's Name Hopscotch room.
"The Holy Grail is Bible fanfiction."
Gen,M,Violence,Religion,No Pairings.
I read it. It sucks.
I could have sworn that when I started this video it was about Indiana Jones, 10 minutes later and I’ve become an expert on religion..
All these years and I never knew that Temple of Doom was a prequel... The series makes so much more sense with that in mind, especially regarding the Abrahamic god.
And speaking of epistemology, the difference between truth and fact in the context of this series is also more interesting than I realized. I had always written that scene off as Jones being a bit pretentious and preferential to his own discipline, but bearing in mind what he had experienced at that time (which I now know included ToD), truth vs. fact acknowledges the difference between the way things are (reality) and what we can comprehend, such as what is inside the Ark, or that thing the chick in the Leboeuf movie I refused to see was vaporized by being beyond the limits of the human mind. Jones pursues fact, or truth which we can comprehend, but also knows that there are things we don't know, and perhaps can't even understand; at least not in one blast of face-melting revelation, as opposed to years upon years of study and contemplation.
I love how this video is almost 14 minutes long, and Kingdom of the Crystal Skull gets less than 30 sec of screen time.
Does Indiana Jones believe in God? Dunno, but a reporter once asked Harrison Ford since one of his parents was a Catholic and the other was a Jew, what religion was he? Ford's response was, "Democrat."
"Pascal wagered"
I see what you did there.
pascal forgot to account for the existence of other religions with his wager
I'm just gonna say it....Indiana Jones is an atheist...Change my mind
Did you get a new mic? Your commentary in this episode sounds really good.
The reason Indy doesn't believe in the arc's powers in raiders is that in temple of doom, he has seen the power of kali and shiva. therefore he thought that hinduism is the only true religion.
I always attributed the discontinuity of Jones' initial skepticism of the supernatural in each film to what I call a "Bugs Bunny reset" (e.g., characters/objects dying/being permanently damaged in some way only to appear as if nothing ever happened in the next scene/short). Interesting analysis, but I'm not sure these films elicit such serious philosophical scrutiny. They are fun, unpretentious homages to old-fashioned action-adventure serials. I doubt any of the writers or Steven Spielberg himself ever put as much thought into the personal beliefs of the title character. He was more dimensional than most protagonists in the genre, but still restricted by the archetype.
Raiders of the Lost Ark is the Best action film ever made.
There's another explanation as to why evil exist and even magic beyond God. The angels and us humans have free will and we sinned. As for magic, satan and his angels have limited power and can use it to their advantage.
Awesome video Leon. Haven't seen any of the IJ movies in a while so now might be the time to rewatch them.
It seems that even the movie didn't take the God this seriously.
Also, who is more moral; a type of theist who's motivation for doing good is to receive an reward in heaven or the type of atheist who expects none but does good anyway? If it turns out there is a good and just God, surely the reward would go to the do gooder with the purest/best motive in this instance rather than the belief in him/her/it per se.
Obviously the atheist has the moral high ground... But are you also implying theists are incapable of comitting good deeds without seeking rewards?
Something I've never heard talked about is that (if we accept Brody's idea that the Ark is a power that can be wielded by those possessing it) the ending of Raiders basically insinuates that the world super power status of the United States could be explained by having the invincible power of God on its side since 1936.
This almost seems to imply that the Indiana Jones universe is one of Cosmic Horror. Where even brushing up against powerful, expansive beings is deleterious to ones mind, body, and soul.
I think it’s interesting to note that the Adam & Eve story, the appearance of Medusa in the Divine Comedy, and other stories throughout history and mythology have suggested in some form that humankind should not see/learn some things (and can’t be trusted not to do so).
They way you interpret it makes it sound a lot like Lovecraftian cosmic horror...
It’s worth noting that when the philistines captured the ark in 1 Samuel 4-6 they suffered massive repercussions and devastation for having it.
I understand why a penitent man would kneel, but why would he roll forward?
My take is Indiana believes God exist. But everybody can take away something different from a movie series.
Not sure if someone else already mentioned it below or if it was purposefully excluded from the video due to irrelevance (or time constraint), but there's something to be said about belief beyond benefits and disbenefits (or costs), and that is the act of believing itself. What I mean is, do we presuppose that God knows who is a true believer and who simply claims to be one? One could arrive at the pearly gates and claim belief despite a life of non-belief, so what then? As someone who has always struggled with faith in God, I cannot simply choose to believe what I want to. I have feelings one way or the other and so my beliefs sway with those feelings. If I find that I do not truly believe (in my heart of hearts), it might be advantageous to say that I do anyway for reasons cited in the video. But if I assume God knows my true beliefs, then lying would have no advantage to it and possibly even a disadvantage. Whose to say God holds our genuine belief in him above being true to ourselves? So back to a previous statement: If I find that I do not truly believe, it might be advantageous to say that I do anyway, but one could assume the opposite is just as likely so we get back to the starting point in a sense - what do you believe? Because, in the end, our assumptions about God (beyond whether or not God exists) tell us what God expects of us. We have to have faith, not only in God, but in our preconceived notions of God, in order to presume stated belief in God offers only advantages and no disadvantages in the after-life (or life, if your faith believes in that). This has gone on longer than I had planned and might not have been worth stating, but I figured others who struggle with faith might appreciate some additional complications thrown in (that, again, may have been excluded from the video with good reason). Anyway, sorry for the rambling and thank you for another amazing video!
kinnikufan If it matters, Pascal himself understood there were people like you (that is to say, people who might want to believe, but struggled with actually having faith) when he made his wager. His advice was to simply do as the Romans do, i.e go to church, pray, participate in religious festivals, do all the things your religion expects you to do (and avoid doing things your religion expects you to avoid) and eventually religion (and the belief it stems from) will become as natural as anything else.
Now I don't know how much that would actually help, since as you said belief is something one either has or doesn't have, but it's something, at least.
"Nazis! I hate these guys!" -Indy
"Not me. They got some very fine people." -Trump
Indy for president? The White House decor would be pretty amazing.
Dude nice work. I'm a indy fan (only the first two) and never got this deep. I must say you're right.
I had never thought about these movies Inn this way. Thank you! Additionally, prima facie means something like 'at first glance'. Am I the only one who keeps seeing Immanuel Kant as a real pissant who was very rarely stable?
"Prima facie" can also mean "accepted until proven otherwise"
@@renegadecut9875 Really now? Well, you live and learn.
If God exists, will he be fooled into rewarding the phony, calculating belief inspired by Pascal?
Man i wish Indiana jones was my professor
Wasn't expecting a summary of my journey with faith in a video about Indiana Jones, but hey, you do you.
What if one of the Nazis was blind?
That was really interesting, I've never really thought about the distinction between items which just work because of some inherent supernatural power and the ones which function as a way for God or a god to work their power on earth. Do you think that in this movie the way the arc works comes from a deliberate choice on the writers' part or because they interpreted the way it works in the Bible wrong?
A good way to counter Pascal’s Wager is to simply add a 3rd option. An all powerful God exists, he is responsible for the Bible, is testing humans to decide their afterlife, BUT following the Bible results in eternal damnation.
If the Bible=salvation God and the Bible=damnation God have comparable or inconclusive levels of evidence then there is no point in trying to appease a possible unknowable diety.
Holy shit! You made The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull matter.
yay
What a well-research and in -depth discussion! Loved it!
This was very well done. From a fellow Baltimorean!
that is truly sad... as compared to kubricks filmography asking us to open our eyes...
8:38. Really? Huh. I didn't know that.
This isn't Bumbershoot
This video serves to cement my atheism, and to reinforce the opinion I hold that questioning our existence, life beyond death and higher power are totally impractical, nonsensical and time wasting pursuits. Thanks..!
Wow.
very nice....vid.
Emmanuel what? lol