Happy Hannukah to Jews All Over the World
Posted on December 1, 2010 at 6:00 pm
Interview: Roger Nygard of ‘The Nature of Existence’
Posted on November 21, 2010 at 8:00 am
The Nature of Existence is a new documentary from Roger Nygard, who visited people all over the world to ask them the hardest and most important questions he could think of, about our purpose and the nature of existence. His interviews included Indian holy man Sri Sri Ravi Shankar (The Art of Living), evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins (The God Delusion), 24th generation Chinese Taoist Master Zhang Chengda, Stanford physicist Leonard Susskind (co-discoverer of string theory), wrestler Rob Adonis (founder of Ultimate Christian Wrestling), confrontational evangelist Brother Jed Smock, novelist Orson Scott Card (Ender’s Game), director Irvin Kershner (Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back), Stonehenge Druids Rollo Maughfling & King Arthur Pendragon and many more. The DVD will be released tomorrow.
He was kind enough to take time to answer my questions:
Why are we here?
It took me four years, interviewing over a hundred experts, collecting hundreds of hours of footage,and tons of airline miles to find my answer. The most common answer I got from people was religious, variations on, “To serve God,” “To know God,” “To praise God,” etc… But then that begs the question, what is God? I found that definitions varied widely. As Gandhi said, “there are as many religions as there are individuals.”
We also seem to have this notion that as a goal in life we should be pursuing happiness. But as Julia Sweeney told me, happiness is a false goal, you can’t pursue an emotion — happiness comes as a byproduct of having a purpose in life. So the real question is, how do we find purpose? You can’t give somebody else a purpose, they have to arrive there themselves. But you can give clues; you can help show people where to look, which is what my film is about. I believe the answer is in the film — it’s part of the experience, the journey we’re all on. In the film, you get to see my journey; you see what I learned from Christians, Muslims, Jews, Jainists, Buddhists, Hindus, Sikhs, Confucianists, Taoists, Atheists, Pagans, Native Americans, Baba Lovers, Satanists, everyday people, scientists, and more…. And now I have collected in one movie all their answers to the biggest questions.
What unexpected similarities did you find in the different ways people have of making sense of the world?
I was surprised to discover that religious and scientific motivations stem from the same drive within us. We all share a curiosity about the world, and the Universe. Where we look for those answers is what’s different. I’ve heard the religious describe it as being born with a God-shaped hole in your heart. As you grow and mature you fill that space with something…religion, spirituality, drugs, adventure, sex, or some other pursuit, God being the most perfect fit. The scientists fill that space with questioning and learning. They describe humans as pattern-seekers making connections between things in their environment as they attempt to exert control in their lives. But control is an illusion. There is an old joke, if you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans. Quantum mechanics has made it even clearer that we exist in a Universe that is variable and unpredictable. But we have made great strides in the thousands of years that our species has existed. Where religion used to be the exclusive holder of cosmic explanations, science has been encroaching on religion’s domain, providing more and more answers for how things are the way they are. Who’s right? Whenever I asked a scientist, “Why do we exist?” They would often correct me and say the proper question is, “HOW did we come to exist?” They leave the why question to the religious and the philosophers. I think conflict between religion and science occurs when the “why” and “how” domains get confused as the same thing. To each it’s own. Render unto Caesar….
Did you find some approaches more hopeful than others?
Some approaches are more tolerant than others. I find proselytizing to be destructive. Our best hope for the future is to accept the fact that we will NEVER all agree. Given that, our most hopeful course is to allow others to have different beliefs. Jesus (and others) preached the Golden Rule: do unto others as you would have them do unto you. This is somewhat invasive, however, in that it assumes that everybody else would want the same thing as you. Confucius is known for a negative version of this, also known as the Silver Rule: Do not do to others that which we do not want them to do to us. Essentially, live and let live. To quote Julia Sweeney again, I also like her rewrite of the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you, but ask them first if it’s okay.
What do people understand least well about those with other beliefs?
Most people (including myself before I began this journey) are unfamiliar with the fact that there are so many other belief systems. There are over a thousand active religions on the planet. How do you know that you were lucky enough to be born into the right one, unless you investigate the others? The whole point of this journey for me was to get to know people with different beliefs, ask them what they believe and why they believe it–without trying to change them into what I think they should believe. I found there are more similarities than differences. As Mark Twain said, “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness.”
What have you learned about the importance of laughter?
Even though The Nature of Existence deals with some very serious subjects, to me they are comedies. People are fascinating, surprising, and funny. Life is absurd and if you don’t laugh you go insane.
What are some different ways people have of dealing with grief?
Grief, sadness, and loss are necessary to know joy. As one young man says in my film, “We exist to experience emotions.” There has to be a balance, you can’t have only happiness in life. But when we are in the downward part of the cycle, laughter is our strongest tool for coping with setbacks, for combating the infinity of death. The more serious a topic, the more jokes we tell about it.
What inspires you?
I am inspired by great art, great movies, great writing, great musicians, great speakers, great teachers, greatness in human endeavor… And on the contrary, bad movies, bad television, bad art, bad music, I find it depressing that somebody at some time thought that terrible work was good. If you want to be inspired, expose yourself to greatness.
How is your journey continuing? Where will you go next?
I have continued to learn from people at question and answer sessions and post screening discussions. This movie makes people want to talk. A lot. Only half kidding I sometimes announce before a screening, “I should warn you all not to see this film because it will mess with your mind. — But if your mind is already sort of messy, you’ll be fine. If your mind has everything stacked in nice neat piles, they may get jostled though.” Taking on the most challenging questions is a self-perpetuating process, because the result is so rewarding. After finishing the film I was faced with a bit of a dilemma, however: what to do next? What topic could be even more challenging than the very nature of existence itself? I finally found one, a topic even more perplexing and inexplicable: The Nature of Marriage. Check back in a couple years for some answers on that one….
Interview: Marc Erlbaum, Maker of Inspiring Films
Posted on November 14, 2010 at 8:28 am
Marc Erlbaum wants to make films that touch people’s souls. He is the man behind Nationlight Productions, a film and television production company focused on creating inspiring, meaningful content for mainstream audiences of all backgrounds and affiliations. He was nice enough to take some time to answer my questions about his company and his films.
How did this project get started?
I’m a film-maker. I had made a couple of small films that I wrote and directed and about a year and a half ago I formed this company, Nationlight Productions, with an explicit mandate to make more positive and uplifting films. That was what I was doing already with my projects but I thought the time was right to create a more structured company focused on that mission. So we went out and raised money from some philanthropists who were interested in affecting the world through positive mass media. We made this film “Cafe,” an ensemble drama that we shot here in Philadelphia, that tracks intersecting stories of the patrons and workers in a little cafe, all of whom are dealing with life challenges. It’s infused with spirituality, but most of my work is about putting that in a subtle way.
One of the characters is a guy who’s always sitting in the cafe on his laptop and a young girl appears on his computer screen one day and informs him that he and everyone else in the cafe are avatars in a virtual world she has created. And of course he doesn’t believe her at first. But then things start to happen exactly as she says it will. Ultimately, it becomes a conversation with the Creator, an allegory. She wants him to do something and he asks her why she doesn’t make him and she explains she has built free will into the program. There’s nothing explicitly religious or spiritual but ultimately it is a meditation on a conversation with God.
What is your background? Have you studied theology?
I am a religious Hassidic Jew myself. I was not born that way but got into it in college and became very committed. But our goal, as someone who grew up very mainstream and very secular, my goal is not to preach to the choir but to create content that is going to appeal to people who are more like those I grew up with and instill some thematics without being heavy-handed or didactic.
Why do mainstream films stay away from spiritual themes?
Appealing to people’s baser natures is an easy way to make a buck. It’s easier to seduce people than it is to challenge them. What’s happening in recent years is that people are saying, “We’re not as ignorant as you think we are. If you do challenge us and provide us with messages of hope and redemption, that will appeal to us more than all the thrillers and genre stuff you’ve been feeding us.”
What films inspire you?
The films that don’t preach but that have inspiring themes without being heavy-handed, like “The Matrix,” which has a real message that this reality we’re living in is only superficial and there’s something much deeper. A similar thematic was developed in “The Truman Show.” And others, obvious but just as powerful, “Freedom Writers,” “Pay it Forward,” “The Blind Side.” That’s a great example of a mainstream film with positive values at its core.
What makes your company different?
We are unabashed in our mission. When I started writing, I wrote something with a clear moral framework. I was put in touch with a producer who demoralized me and told me that any art with an agenda is not art at all. I studied literature and I certainly have experienced that intellectual elitism. But we do have a mission and we are not afraid to say that. Great art has the ability to inspire. The images people expose themselves to will affect their outlook and their conduct. If we can participate in that, don’t we have a responsibility to do that in a positive way?
Michael Medved’s book Hollywood vs. America: The Explosive Bestseller that Shows How-and Why-the Entertainment Industry Has Broken Faith With Its Audience
Anybody who has strong beliefs or opinions will have to face people who don’t agree with them. You can either go through your life backing off or taking a stand. Even before I was religious I was always raised to take a stand. My personal and religious beliefs are that you don’t try to force anyone but if you act with kindness, the majority of people will respond with kindness.
What is the status of your films?
“Cafe,” with Jennifer Love Hewitt and Jamie Kennedy, won the Crystal Heart award at the Heartland Film Festival. “Everything Must Go” stars Will Ferrell as a guy who loses his job and his wife and hits rock bottom before he can pick himself up and start over again. It co-stars Rebecca Hall and Michael Pena. That will be released this spring.
How can people stay in touch with what you’re doing?
We’re really focused on building up a community of people who are interested in our mission and our content. So we’ve launched a community page for Nationlight on Facebook. We want people to come on and say “We want more positive fare.” It’s really a call to action. The more people we have on this community, the more we’ll be able to do.”
‘God in America’ Comes to PBS
Posted on September 29, 2010 at 3:58 pm
The US Religious Knowledge Survey, released Tuesday from the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, found that Americans are more willing to say that they are religious than they are willing to learn about the history and beliefs of their religion. The highest scorers were the non-believers and the Jews. The survey asked for a fairly wide range of knowledge of different religious practices and beliefs and included two questions about what teachers can and cannot do under the terms of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the Bill of Rights.
A new series on PBS can help American understand religion and its role in our culture For the first time on television, God in America, a presentation of “American Experience” and “Frontline,” will explore the historical role of religion in the public life of the United States. The six-hour series, which interweaves documentary footage, historical dramatization and interviews with religious historians, will air over three consecutive nights on PBS beginning Oct. 11, 2010.
To extend the reach of the series beyond the television screen, God in America has formed strategic partnerships with The Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life, The Freedom Forum First Amendment Center, the Fetzer Institute, Sacred Space International and other organizations. An integrated multimedia campaign set to launch six months prior to broadcast will include community engagement activities, media events and a comprehensive God in America Web site. The campaign will deepen public understanding of religion and spiritual experience in the life of the nation by encouraging the public to explore the history of their own religious communities and their individual spiritual journeys.