This is just a little something to chew over I'd like to throw out there. Bet no-one can guess what I was watching when I came up with it.
Anyway, so as far as I understand it, the deal goes a little something like this:
We've got complete free will to choose to accept the GodCorp™ of JC and his dad into our hearts and be saved. It's not coercion, it's a completely free choice; but if we don't choose correctly, then we will instead have chosen to suffer terrible punishment as a consequence.
Well, feel free to correct me here (and I'm sure someone will), but isn't that essentially the basis behind every game in the Saw movies?
For those who've never seen them, the games usually run like this. You wake to find yourself chained, strapped or bolted into some ingeniously cruel device - a 'trap' - engineered to cause maximum pain and suffering. A creepy voice on a tape tells you why you have been judged to be in this situation (usually some perceived character flaw about not appreciating the life you have) and gives you the rules of the game; most often you will have a very limited time to inflict some terrible mutilation on yourself to get free of the mechanism before it kills you or you bleed to death. Whatever the outcome, you chose it yourself. Even your playing the game is a result of your life choices (at least as judged by John Kramer aka the Jigsaw Killer).
There are some pretty fundamental differences between the two scenarios, however. Though judging you on them, Jigsaw isn't actually responsible for your life choices in the way that JC/YHWH is meant to be; he is not regarded as our creator who knows everything that will happen in advance. Also, Jigsaw only selects those whom he deems as needing salvation; GodCorp™ apparently holds everyone culpable - innocent or guilty, it cuts no ice.
Finally, the biggest and most telling difference: if you choose to play his game and actually succeed in escaping with your life, albeit with maybe a few missing parts, then as far as Jigsaw is concerned you win. Game over and you go free, wiser, probably shorter, and with a new-found appreciation for the world and your place in it. The GodCorp™ version? Even if you win, you lose. Either you've surrendered your will, your rationality and your freedom to take responsibilty for your life or you're condemned to be tortured forever. The trap is inescapable, the game unwinnable. In the context of the Saw franchise, Jigsaw despised those of his followers who devised this kind of game and ensured that they faced his signature brand of judgement themselves.
In short, the Jigsaw Killer is, in his own way, much more of a moral teacher and demonstrates so much more compassion for his victims than JC and the whole GodCorp™. If nothing else, it shows that our capacity for creating stories is many orders of magnitude more sophisticated than it used to be.
Anyway, so as far as I understand it, the deal goes a little something like this:
We've got complete free will to choose to accept the GodCorp™ of JC and his dad into our hearts and be saved. It's not coercion, it's a completely free choice; but if we don't choose correctly, then we will instead have chosen to suffer terrible punishment as a consequence.
Well, feel free to correct me here (and I'm sure someone will), but isn't that essentially the basis behind every game in the Saw movies?
For those who've never seen them, the games usually run like this. You wake to find yourself chained, strapped or bolted into some ingeniously cruel device - a 'trap' - engineered to cause maximum pain and suffering. A creepy voice on a tape tells you why you have been judged to be in this situation (usually some perceived character flaw about not appreciating the life you have) and gives you the rules of the game; most often you will have a very limited time to inflict some terrible mutilation on yourself to get free of the mechanism before it kills you or you bleed to death. Whatever the outcome, you chose it yourself. Even your playing the game is a result of your life choices (at least as judged by John Kramer aka the Jigsaw Killer).
There are some pretty fundamental differences between the two scenarios, however. Though judging you on them, Jigsaw isn't actually responsible for your life choices in the way that JC/YHWH is meant to be; he is not regarded as our creator who knows everything that will happen in advance. Also, Jigsaw only selects those whom he deems as needing salvation; GodCorp™ apparently holds everyone culpable - innocent or guilty, it cuts no ice.
Finally, the biggest and most telling difference: if you choose to play his game and actually succeed in escaping with your life, albeit with maybe a few missing parts, then as far as Jigsaw is concerned you win. Game over and you go free, wiser, probably shorter, and with a new-found appreciation for the world and your place in it. The GodCorp™ version? Even if you win, you lose. Either you've surrendered your will, your rationality and your freedom to take responsibilty for your life or you're condemned to be tortured forever. The trap is inescapable, the game unwinnable. In the context of the Saw franchise, Jigsaw despised those of his followers who devised this kind of game and ensured that they faced his signature brand of judgement themselves.
In short, the Jigsaw Killer is, in his own way, much more of a moral teacher and demonstrates so much more compassion for his victims than JC and the whole GodCorp™. If nothing else, it shows that our capacity for creating stories is many orders of magnitude more sophisticated than it used to be.
At the age of five, Skagra decided emphatically that God did not exist. This revelation tends to make most people in the universe who have it react in one of two ways - with relief or with despair. Only Skagra responded to it by thinking, 'Wait a second. That means there's a situation vacant.'
