Evan Almighty

Funny, interesting discussion with my nine year old that will interest you.

Okay it was sparked by me, my wife and nine-year-old watching of Evan Almighty which is the extremely lame follow-up to Bruce Almighty.

I basically agree with the rotten tomatoes website assessment, like 3/10.

But I think the deists here will want to watch it strictly out of interest of how it handles God.

What it does is literally modernize the story of Noah and the ark.

And you can imagine that that is an athema to a deist, that is a literaly translation from any holy book.

That would be like Isaac Asimov, if he were living, witnessing his three laws of robotics being abrogated. Just can’t happen, man (which was apparently the case when he watched his good friend and rival’s Arthur C Clark’es 2001 with Hal taking over.

So we watch this movie, and the premise is thus (yes I’m going to give this one away on the basis that it is a modernization of the Noah story and therefore not giving too much away really.

But here it is.

Evan prays to make family closer.

God then gets him to build the ark.

How God does this is mysteriously provide the wood to build the ark, collect a lot of twosomes of animals for the ark, and make the Office star grow a beard to make him look like a Bible poster boy (??????).
Naturally his wife and kids thinks he’s certifiable (ya’ah). Until that is God in disguise utter two sentences to them, and somehow he's sane again (?????). Ahh kay
But he builds it and the nonsensical collectin of animal twosomes go on board and eventually he saves the entire subdivision which is originally there mainly to leer at him (ya'ah).
Now, if this was hilariously funny I would even forgive the insult to my deist sensibilitites. (yes I have that weakness, make me laugh and I will forgive the plot a lot). But franly there’s not that many laughs.

So any way I really had a good discussion with my nine year old but more interested in his views than mine.

So I do tell ‘em, well, you know in my deist views this just can’t happen., I mean why would God save this village while their was no overtly omnipentent effort to save any victims of Katrina or that Indian ocean tsunami (one of the worst in recorded history). Why Why.

And I have to preface this to say that while I can be a damn site ornery and combatitive 'round these parts, I take pride that with my son I’m almost neutral, while still not denying my deist-ness. I mean the purpose is to let him work it out, not to prove my views against a nine-year-old.

And I’m saying you’re nine, you gotta lotta time to work it out.

But his assessment seems to be, well God can’t get to everyone.

And I really gently, gently say but why couldn’t he, if he’s all powerful.

But my nine year old correctly summed up that millions of mini events were also taking place around the world, so God couldn’t get to them all.

So, then I asked, who would he get to?

And he thought 'bout it and said, well, random, I guess, who ever he could get to.

Oh? I said.

So I’ll let ya know how it turns out.

Again, I’m not at all combatitive and, at this point, just really puttin’ questions out there for ‘em.

In fact I knew I had handled it well when he said he wanted to talk more ‘bout it on Monday. If he does, I’ll let ya know. IF he doesn’t, well I probably won’t even bring it up.

Oh yeah and I forgot the one delicious irony, and I kid you not, and maybe there is an intervening god, but sweart to God, I flicked to a religious channel and the televangelist, sorry can't remember the dude's name, was proving the old testament was indeed correct by the fact that jesus (in the new testement) referred to the Noah story as being authentic. Literal.

Man I can't make this stuff up.

The thing 'bout Evan Almighty that pleased me (eventhough I do not believe in providence) is that it gives a very rational and passive explanation of God's intervention in the world--the kind of intervention that made our classical Deist predecessors believe in providence. When Evans and his wife are at a low ebb of their relationship, God (Morgan Freeman, of course) comes up to one of them and explains it thus: When someone prays for patience, does God give them patience or the opportunity to be patient in tribulent times? When someone asks for love, does God give them love, or the ability to show their love when it matters most? When someone asks for success, does God make the successful, or give them the opportunity to seek their own success?

And that is what made the movie all worth watching.