Trish -

I thoroughly enjoyed reading of the many ironies presented in the film, but one of your final statements, for me, sounds like the very apex of this argument, which you introduce in the last paragraph: "But it is chilling to think about how utterly sure people can be that they're doing the right and godly thing, when to other mindsets, they are just plain wrong, sometimes even evil".

To my end, this suggestion that opposing factions can believe so strongly in conflicting standards, all the way up to and including the desire to murder those who feel differently, defines the very weakness of war - and of man. It is almost an unspoken concept that war is to be called a last resort. We go to war to appease and fuel our aggressive nature, and because our worlds have become so driven by personal survival that we fail to see that we as a race would scarcely have survived sans difference. That may be unfair to state - that we as a race have the fatal flaw of a deeply near-sighted worldview - but, given the fairly limited possibility that we cause death and destruction on mass levels for reasons of religion (which is, essentially, a celebration of our collective existence), it may also be reasonable to say that embracing difference may be too involved an ideal to complete in one or even two generations.

We focus on patriotism and banding together - as a country; This is the problem: We should be uniting as a species. Belief is in your head, Being a homo sapien is a physicality we all have in common. We can be different as individuals - but we can't shake off our universality of species.
 
 
 

"I'm not a pacifist, and I'm not saying that there aren't causes worth killing for and dying for -- no, there definitely are such "good wars." - Patricia Matson

"The best works of art are those who throw the box out instead of stepping into it." - Patricia Matson