The movie media, (which seems to have an addictive influence in all of our lives), actually become one the sources that finally gave me permission to HONESTLY take a look at what my beliefs were about Christianity, Mormonism, JS and the BOM, and what damages those beliefs were doing to myself, and eventually to all those I loved.

Early in my departure, a movie that seemed to strike a deep spot in my unconscious recognition to the deception of religion was "The Matrix". No matter how hard I tried to look at this and align it with my youthful perspectives of the "only true church on the face of the earth", it just wouldn't let me! Of course I was still just beginning my new journey towards freedom and had NO IDEA where it would take me to questioning EVERYTHING.

After that, there was a flood of other shows, both mainstream media, and other not so commonly known or acknowledged sources of entertainment, that came into my life and prodded me along the way to finally give me what I was earnestly searching for....FREEDOM!

Main stream movies available at your local video store or ordering via mail include:

The Man From Earth

The Golden Compass (LOVED THIS ONE!)

Inception

Cloud Atlas

What the Bleep do we Know and Down the Rabbit Hole (Separate movies, but an enhancement on the same theme.)

The Secret


Other movies that provided me with the space to challenge my previous beliefs were/are:

Who Wrote the Bible
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCXlFWBcxBo

The book of Abraham
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcyzkd_m6KE

DNA vs the BOM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GF_SxbPLb0

How about you? What "flicks" flipped your switch and adjusted your beliefs about life?

There was a scene in The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc that really demonstrates how one should be careful when quickly attributing something to evidence of God/miracles. If I remember correctly Joan of Arc comes across a sword in the ground and recognizes it as a sign from God but later in the movie her a devils advocate type character portrayed by Dustin Hoffman, shows her various logical ways that sword could have gotten there that didn't involve the divine, such as a soldier in battle dropping it there.

Bill Maher's Religulous. Absolutely hysterical.

These movies gently opened my mind to the idea that my experience of life and my testimony or promptings of the spirit aren't necessarily real. (Also the idea that we can choose our own "real.")


M. Night Shyamalan's "The Village"

What Dreams May Come

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Vanilla Sky



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/07/2013 11:39AM by morgana.

I don't know what's happened to Shyamalan...things seem to have gone downhill with his creativity.

But I watched that movie about 2 weeks after ending my activity in the Church and it freaked me out.

My TBM brother thinks it's a beautiful movie, and is touched by the fact that the village is so much like the Church. I guess he agrees with the parents of that community, that the means of protecting their children are justified by the resulting naivety and ignorance (which in his mind are presumably good things).

STARGATE SG1

There was one about a young girl in India who was forced to marry an old man, then he died, and she was banished to a poor home for widows. I can't remember the name of the movie, but it I kept thinking..."there is nothing keeping you from walking away from this ridiculous situation" and yea, I thought about me "trapped" in Mormonism.

I saw that one too. But she was so little, walk away to even more poverty? I mean, half the women there were horrible scheming users, but the one old old lady was sweet to her, and she wouldn't even have that outside the widows' ...convent, for lack of a better word.

I really loved how she got the old lady a ladoo, because then it seemed like she felt she could die happy.

The whole caste system with the "uncleans" is kind of like what mormonism wishes it was, and _everybody_ participated. Imagine there being nowhere to go and everybody knows you are "unworthy", an apostate sinner, and treats you accordingly... *shudder*

The Truman Show

+

Seaside, the town in the movie, is an actual real place in Florida, just west of Panama City Beach. Extremely beautiful, and they do a really good job keeping the place up. A bit expensive to stay there, but the extra money you pay a night keeps the bums away.

Twilight. Realizing that the best that a creative Mormon mind could come up with was Twilight really opened my mind to the fact that something was wrong with the church.

As someone pointed out, all the adult R rated movies that spoke to me, moved me, taught me valuable life lessons, but were condemned by the church because some arbitrary council of non-Mormons decided it should be rated R. My father taught me to watch R rated movies when we were both still TBM, with the advice, "the church doesn't set the ratings for movies, so they shouldn't tell us what to see based on a rating system they do not control."

The Temple Movie

The whole time I was watching it the spirit was prompting me with "You ARE in a cult!!".

A made for tv movie of the series Midsomer Murder : "Hidden Depths"
CDI Barnaby was telling DS Scott about how he thought the things had went on about a particular murder as they were trying to get out from an old wine cellar where they had been locked in by the murderer or his/her accomplice and the crime seemed to have involved wine and the wine cellar.

Anyways, at one point he says, "And you know there is nothing like a little bit of truth to sell the biggest lies." And for some reason, at that moment Joseph Smith's face and name came very clearly in my eyes and in my ears. And I say “in” because it was as if it had come from without and within me at the same time. … Very difficult to describe.

The Invention of Lying

I watched it after I was already out, but I could sure relate with Ricky Gervais pretending to speak to God, and everyone believing him.

The Life of Brian had a memorable impact. I recall watching
it with fellow seminarians, and continuing a discussion of
its impious humor into the classroom and lunchroom.

It can be liberating -- when we first learn he to laugh
at our own religious norms, and not just at others'

UD

I was in my early twenties and still had some vestiges of Christian thought, but this movie exposed all the foolishness of religion. And with loud laughter.

I saw it at the midnight movies in Fresno. It was so funny it kept me awake.

I've always loved religious humor. The way people reacted to Life of Brian helped me realize that people will protest something without knowing anything about it. It made me wonder how often people were condemning things that had nothing wrong with them.

Life of Brian, although it does have some very irreverent humor, is anything but blasphemous as it never claims that Jesus was anything but the Son of God. It actually supports the idea that Jesus is a divine miracle worker and it holds him in high regard, but it gets laughs at everyone mistaking Brian for the Messiah. Yet there has been, ever since Life of Brian was in pre-production, a hysteria around it that the film that it mocks Jesus and is filled with dangerous blasphemy.

I love what Eric Idle said about it - "the point of the film is that Jesus said 'love you neighbor' and we've spent the last 2000 years killing each other over how he intended us to do it."

The Matrix

Inception

Dead Poet Society

Star Trek DS-9 (TV Series)

Didn't mean to post here.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/07/2013 10:36PM by joesmithsleftteste.

Dogma

Found out a Muse does not have a vagina. So much for artistic inspiration.

I was out of LDSinc before its release, but

The Truman Show is an excellent provocation to take a closer look at *all* perspectives.

I was very carefully guarded from a lot of media before I made my escape.
But I suppose some Disney movies helped, once I looked past all the misogynistic crap they are full of...
Most of them are about a bit of rebellion and wanting to find the right place in life for the main character. Even though a lot of them wind up walking the mormon life script anyways... Grrr.

Still catching up on media 17 years later.

Truman show made me shudder a lot because of the parallels to mormonism, and because "god and spirits are always watching you" gave me a delusion of being on some kind of show with an audience when I was a child.
But I didn't see that one until I was several years out.

If my parents knew how it would affect me they never would have allowed me to watch it.

What Dreams May Come

The Thin Red Line

And M*A*S*H.

Authority figures as incompetent or criminal...

Institutions perverted to serve the leaders...

Subversives being the only sane ones...

ALL "R" rated movies that have nothing corrupting about them and teach a good moral or cause you to think about moral issues. All PG-13 movies that were more morally corrupting than the previously mentioned "R" rated films.

Son of Rambow - Most people who have questioned their beliefs would be able to relate to this film in one way or another. It is a wonderful, heartwarming movie. I was already doubting before I first saw it, so it may be more the case that it helped me have the courage to leave when I made up my mind.

There were aspects of The Matrix and The Truman Show that helped me to realize that my perception of reality could be flawed. That subject even came up with an investigator on my mission once.

Oddly enough, neither "What Dreams May Come" nor "Dead Poets Society" (a film I despise) ever had any effect on me.

The story of a closeted gay missionary and a hedonistic twink falling in love and turning each other's world upside down. It made me come out of my own closet, and question my own beliefs in God.

I consider this one of the best videos I've ever watched - totally changed how I think about things (was uncertain about my religious beliefs before I watched it and remained uncertain after - changed nothing in that regard, but made me step back and appreciate science and how insignificant this world really is):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6w2M50_Xdk

Also, not really a video/movie, but "The Alchemist" by Paulo Coelho is an amazing book that was extremely influential in how I think and approach things.

Doubt is a very thought-provoking movie

Fight Club
The Island
Gattaca
Shutter Island

Logan's Run.
Pleasantville.

Technically, it wasn't movies that got me thinking, but TV shows that I became interested in over time.

Stargate SG-1
Stargate Atlantis
The show with Sam and Dean Winchester (apparently the title of the show is banned on this site)
Doctor Who
Torchwood

I would've put more, but apparently something I used in my original message is 'banned from use'. I deleted any cuss words, so I don't know what it is....