There's been a lot of hype this year about the film Slum Dog Millionaire.I have to say, I loved that movie.
Why? Because, to me, Slumdog is a story about believing. The world is a cold, cruel place at times- alright, it's always a cold, cruel place. But how much colder is it without belief? I can't even see the point in living if there's nothing more to life that the material, the obvious, the day-to-day.
Slumdog is a movie about destiny. Here's Danny Boyle on the idea of destiny is Slumdog:
Some people don't believe in "destiny"-
they throw it into the same heap as Santa Clause.
It's fun for kids, but why wouldn't an adult believe in it?
I need to believe. Furthermore, I think that humanity needs to believe.
We need to believe in that there is more to life
than what we can perceive through our senses.
Robert Duvall sums it up much better than I can in Secondhand Lions:
"Sometimes the things that may or may not be true
are the things a man needs to believe in the most."
Why? Not only because they're "worth believing in,"
but because those beliefs, beliefs in things unseen, are the things which drive humanity.
They always have and always will.
And I think that's the real reason I'm not an atheist.
I feel a need to believe there's life after death,
a need to believe that love overcomes,
a need to believe I will be forgiven,
and a need to believe in God.
C.S. Lewis used a fantasy character to voice this idea, in The Silver Chair.
The children have journeyed through the underworld to rescue the prince of Narnia.
When they finally find the prince, the evil witch queen of the underworld has convinved him that Narnia isn't real,
that it was just a dream he had. When the children start to believe the witch is right, their friend and companion,
Puddleglum, the consummate doubter and pessimist, makes a speech. He tells the witch,
"One word, Ma'’am...One word. All you have been saying is quite right, I shouldn't wonder. I'm a chap who always liked to know the worst and put the best face I can on it. So I won't deny any of what you said. But there is one thing more to be said, even so. Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, all those things- trees 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 than 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. And that'’s a funny thing when you come to think of it. We'’re just babies making up a game, if you're right. But four babies playing a game can make a play-world, which licks your real world hollow. That'’s why I'’m going to stand by the play-world. I'm on Aslan'’s side even if there isn't any Aslan to lead it. I'’m going to live as like a Narian I can even if there isn't any Narnia. So, thanking you kindly for our supper, if these two gentlemen and the young lady are ready, 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 shouldn't think; but that's a small loss, if the world's as dull a place as you say."
I think Lewis was right, I for one would rather spend the rest of my days believing in the dream, than give up and live in a God-less, hopeless, pointless world.
