"Puzzles and codes, I imagine they lay down to you like lovers."

Last night I decided to be social, so I went to a friend's house with a couple of friends.  We all decided that it was the perfect movie-watching night, but we had some disagreements on which film to watch.  Some people wanted to watch a scary film, while one wanted to watch a Disney film. 

Somehow, we decided that The DaVinci Code was a compromise on these two things.

I'm still not really sure how that worked.

Anyways, we watched The DaVinci Code.  And in between squirming when Paul Bettany tortured himself "for Jesus' sake", wondering why Tom Hanks thought having long hair would ever be a good idea, being generally confused by the complexity of the plot, and questioning what was true history and what was "true" history, I found myself questioning how the filmmakers wanted me to feel by the end of the film.

The point of the film seemed to me to be that Jesus was married and had a child by Mary Madgalene, which apparently meant that Jesus was not divine, but just a regular Joe. 

This just seemed like the strangest point in the world to make.  Of all the reasons you could think of to "prove" that Jesus was not divine, really?  That's the one you chose?

 
Here's my thing: say Jesus was married to Mary and say he was just a man and say God doesn't exist and say we are all just hanging out on earth until we die and say there's nothing after we die, just blackness and the end.  Say all of that is true.  Say it's all true, and that believing in God and Jesus is stupid because there is no God and no Divine Jesus and nothing but us.

Alright, that's fine.  I'm still going to follow God, even if he is just make believe.

Here's why: if there's nothing more beyond us and life, then that means we are all living a pretty hopeless life.  And we're all just going to become nothing after we're done here.

If that is the case, I don't want it.  I don't want life.  If this is it, why keep living this?  There would be absolutely no point besides self-gratification.

So I'll just keep sticking with God, even if there is no God, and even if Jesus isn't Divine.  At least by believing in Him, even if it wasn't real, I'd be living for something besides my own self-gratification.  I'd be living for some kind of purpose.

And if God isn't real and it's all made up, it's not going to make a difference whether I believe in it or not, right?  I'd still become nothingness when I die, so why does Ron Howard care if I believe in it or not?

At least I have more hope and a point to my existence than he does.  At least I wake up in the morning and can embrace the day with a fake sense of security and hope, instead of waking up thinking, "One more day closer to becoming nothingness."

I wish I was as creative and brilliant as C. S. Lewis was and could say this as beautifully as he did, but I don't think I can.  So I'll just write out what he said:

"Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, all those things - trees and grass and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself. Suppose we have. Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important that the real ones. Suppose this black pit of a kingdom of yours is the only world. Well it strikes me as a pretty poor one... I'm on Aslan's side even if there isn't any Aslan to lean on... we're leaving your court at once and setting out in the dark to spend our lives looking for Overland. Not that our lives will be very long, I should think; but that's a small loss if the world's as dull a place as you say."

I'm glad I have hope.