CONTACT
Do you think that Faith and Science are compatible in light of the film “Contact.” ?
Other questions to think about:
Pay attention to the importance of sound in the film. What does the pulse sound remind you of?
Would discovering intelligent life elsewhere in the universe have an impact on humaniy’s religions?
Why are religious people threatened by science? Can science give us meaning?
How does the image of computers, science, and technology in “Contact” compare to how these are portrayed in “The Matrix.”?
Please leave your comments about the film in light of these questions.
November 19th, 2008 at 4:00 pm
the pulse sound i would say reminds me of a heart beat…signifying that there is some kind of life in the outer space. i would not say that religious people are threatened by science i would say that religious people just do not agree with some parts of science. people use science to prove something and a lot of times it is false. like with evolution science says that the earth is many many millions of billions old and that people wore monkeys before and that does not agree with religion. Science and religion do not get along!!! in both films a lot of technology was used and that shows us that we rely on technology a lot in our life. without technology we can not do anything. nowdays we need technology in our everyday life and these two films show us what part technology plays in our life. we accept it and use it not thinking about the harm it could couse us in the future. overall it was a good film.
November 19th, 2008 at 6:09 pm
Scientists in many fields have contributed to many accomplishments that has increased our knowledge oif the universe. Scientists have improved ways of treating illnesses and injuries. The computer age has altered our lives from its sophisticated advancements. In the case of evolution, this is believed to have been accomplished without intelligent or supernatural intervention. On the other hand, Creation, of living things can be only explained by God or according to the Bible. Faith and Science in this film is suggested.Is there an all-powerful Creator? Is there little green men in Mars or some other planet, like us or different? Are we all alone in the universe? The movie Contact attempts to try and discover these pondering questions. Genesis states how earth formed from darkness to light to then creating man. Whereas scientists state the Big Bang theory on how earth and other planets came to exist.I believe that there are people who choose to believe that a Creator known as God established life and the universe for explanation. Then there are some who believe that science can only prove the real truth about life and the universe because the proof can be made visible and not resting upon an invisible God for answers. Is life a deliberate result of an act of creation caused by accident or by God? Everyone can speculate but there is no real definite answer. We have fossil evidence and have been shown how all animals have changed through time but how does this all connect to man? In Contact, Ellie is a representation of every human being with the need to understand if we are all alone in this universe and how we got here. Staring at the stars and planets allow everyone’s curiosity to soar by wondering and believing if there maybe some other intelligent life out there.We have marveled at the starry heavens foir thousands of years and yet we assume there is a chance of other planets with other life besides us because we cling to hope. Astronaunts have visited space for decades and yet no evidence of life has been confirmed only from Earth do some claim of witnessing alien life forms or have been inducted or in direct contact with aliens.The human mind is complex and succeeds with great intelligence yet researching about the universe this has left us stumped.This movie, like science textbooks, display the awesome size of the galaxies,solar system. In fact Earth seems dwarfed when compared to the Milky Way galaxy and trillion stars. Ellie is obviously shown as an intelligent human being with her unshakable quest to find intelligence beyond Earth. One of the best debates we have is to whether or not some power put all this into orbit whether by accident or by God.Every machine, computer, building,even a pencil had a maker so logically we can assume that the universe must have had an organizer too.Scientists will claim that the universe did have a begiunning but are not willing to entertain this instant was created by God.Although we personally were not on hand when the universe was created we remian limited by our beliefs and by the observations of science. In my opinion,I believe that there must be someone else out there in the universe which seems to continue forever. The universe does not seem to have any limits or boundaries and if we have been able to find away to reach the moon and some other planets it is my hope that one day we may find that we are not alone. Perhpas the government keeps us from this important inforamtion because they fear hysteria and in order to keep us all in line is to establish religion with God as our teacher,creator and judge/jury. The pulse sound reminds me of life inside the womb.Fetuses inside the womb seem alien-like and move/react towards light and sound perhaps aliens not only communicate in a mathematical way but in other ways. BESIDES I am a huge fan of the Xfiles and I believe!!! Intlleigent life somewhere else may shake some people’s religious views if proven wrong. Alien life form would not prove God but that He made others not in His likeness….God may have had a mutating side hahhaha!Science can try and prove or disprove the theories that religion bases their claims upon but if science can prove that life was in fact created not by God but by another greater source then religion would seem like an allusion/conspiracy or to avoid us from the real truth. One image that seemed simliar in the Matrix and Contact was when Ellie became distorted once she was passed through the wormhole. This wormhole looked like the same vortex that Neo passed through which awakned both characters to another reality. Ellie claims she had an experience with her father in Vega. She had no evidence but could explain everything in detail and even claimed to have felt the touch of her father and its surroundings.Perhaps Dr. Hayden was like Morphues who set this machine to manipulate the mind and to find truth by having faith in what you experience. If we find evidence then perhaps religion would become secondhand. For ellie people wanted to believe, like her, that we are not alone.Its that sense of hope that makes our experience worth holding onto.Ellie is also like Neo who was willing to die for this project in order to have a chance to find out why we are here and to determine between what is real and what is not and what exists of doesn’t exist beyond us. Personally, I swore I saw a UFO and my family laughed at me. I described everything from the lights to how it could not possibly been a beacon of light off a tower or low lying plane,it danced around and seemed very odd enough to catch my attention. I would love to know if someone else exists besides us or is there a place we all end up clustered together after we pass…until we are given definite proof I will always wonder.
November 19th, 2008 at 9:14 pm
In response to the questions why are religious people threatened by science? Can science give us meaning? I would have to say that religious people are threatened by science because it has the ability to prove many or all religions wrong. Science is backed up by proof and experiments, in accordance with the scientific method. Religion does not have much fact or proof behind it. It is mostly based on retold stories that were passed on through generations. For example, the fact of God in the Bible is only fact because someone wrote it in and there is no proof that all the things of the Bible are actually fact. To be a fact it must be proven beyond a doubt that it is true and as far as I know there has never been proof that God exists. As for science giving us meaning, I would say yes it does. We can prove that evolution happened because of science and that the earth existed before man. This could give us the answer that we are all just another form of an animal and that we as humans are just a higher developed species.
November 19th, 2008 at 11:16 pm
I was a little disappointed with this film. I was hoping to see some aliens at the end.
Why are religious people threatened by science? I feel that in order to be religious you must have blind faith. Because in religion, there are things that can’t be explained. You just have to believe. But in science, everything that is proposed or suggested must be proven with known facts. Science must be proven with real hard evidence. That is why religious people are so threatened by science. Science might suggest that the things religious people believe are a complete hoax.
November 19th, 2008 at 11:40 pm
It was nice to finally see the movie Contact all the way through. I particularly enjoyed this film’s ability to make the typical ‘love story’ a secondary plot to the science vs religion issue.
The pulsating signal from Veda immediately reminded me of a beating heart. I think this quite literally represents life coming from another planet. Other sounds, such as the use of momentary silence to build suspense and the mystical dream-like music being played when Ellie is having her ‘experience’, are also used intrinsically in the film. The magic of the music played during her trip to and stay on Vega make the audience unsure of whether or not Ellie is actually experiencing something real, or just having a very detailed delusion. The pulse sound, however, seemed to be the most symbolic.
November 19th, 2008 at 11:54 pm
I enjoyed contact better the second time around as compared to the first. It looks at the interesting question of can science replace or put an end to faith or religion. I have never got why religion is threatened by science, because if you are a believer that God created life and the universe, maybe God created more galaxies and planets with intelligent lifeforms. Just because their could be another planet out their with alien beings, doesn’t mean that you can’t believe that God or whatever you believe in was also responsible for that. Science can explain was things happen, but whose to say that all the things science explains(ie the big bang theory) was created from God. I just never got why it has to be one or the other. The sound from the contact too reminded me of a heartbeat. I also thought the end with her vision of her father on the planet was interesting as it was kind of like the matrix in that the alien lifeform was downloading her thoughts and creating a visual world that would be pleasing for her to see. It did though make me want to see what that planet really looked like and also what the alien lifeform was like. Science vs Faith will always be debated, but i think a person can believe in the scientific explainations for the universe and also believe in a higher power guiding it all. The film was alittle long, but good overall.
November 20th, 2008 at 1:57 am
I enjoyed the film contact, it makes you wonder if there is really life on te universe other than earth. I do not think that faith and science are compatible. Science is simply in search of natural explanations using the method of scientific inquiry. The scientific method is based on hpothesis formulation followed by testing, where test depends on observation. Religous people use systems of beliefs that does not require experimentation and evaluation. A belief system simply requires that one believes. The noises that were illustrated in the film sounded like aliens could have been talking to earth. I do believe that dscovering intelligent life in the universe would cause some issues. Religous people strong beliefs about messing with mankind, there are no such thing of aliens, but how do we know! I think that religous people might be threatened by science merely, because they do not undestand it. I also, believe that science can give us meaning, scientist can give a better understading if there really is existing life on other planets, I think everyone oftens wonder if aliens really exist. Some of the same images were portrayed in Cotact were portrayed in The matrix, artifical intelligence, lots of communications possibly wth aliens. The film was very long, but interesting.
November 20th, 2008 at 10:50 am
I personally don’t think that science can dispute religious beliefs. Maybe I’m just too open-minded for my own good, but isn’t faith about simply believing? Like Palmer says in the scene on the balcony, “Do you love your father? … Prove it.” Just because there is a logical explanation for something doesn’t mean that it can’t coincide with any sort of a supreme force (like God). I understand the implications that science has on a religion like Christianity, in that in the case of this movie if there are alien life forms, then humans can’t be God’s only children. That kind of existence would completely undermine what Christianity is based on. However, being a Christian myself, I still cannot imagine that Earth is the only planet in the UNIVERSE that has intelligent life. The universe. A never-ending vastness of space. Come on! Humanity’s a little narcissistic sometimes.
I understand that my take on things is really ambiguous, but I take it for what it is. I don’t pretend to know all of the answers on this, but I don’t intend to either. It would be impossible and useless to try and find explanations for something I would never be able to find. I’m completely content with believing in what I believe and letting my faith speak for itself.
November 20th, 2008 at 11:15 am
Faith and science are very intertwined. It takes just as much faith to believe that there is no God. Science takes faith, just like religion does. We do not have all the answers. As much as science tries to, it can not disprove the existence of God. Some things will most likely always be a mystery. It took faith to believe that the signal was from aliens. It was pure faith that the aliens were friendly, that led to building the machine. No matter what you believe, whether it be in science, religion, both, or neither, all take faith.
November 20th, 2008 at 11:42 am
Throughout Contact it seemed as though many of the conservative religious figures believed that science discounts religion. What the film attempts to portray, however, is that perhaps they can coexist. Both require faith. I thought the use of Occam’s Razor was a perfect example of this. At the celebration of Elly’s discovery of intelligent life, she explains to Palmer that she does not believe that there is an all-powerful God who refuses to prove he exists yet supposedly is responsible for the creation and fate of humanity. Rather, she prefers the simpler explanation that science gives to account for human life. However, Elly quickly learns that the simplest explanation is not always correct when she tries to account for what happens to her in the machine. She realizes that everything is not completely rational or simple. There are things that require faith and belief beyond what is backed up by hard evidence. I think it is also important to note how critical some people are of Elly’s story. It provides an interesting contrast to the fact that 95% of people believe in a God that has no proven existence. I think the film ultimately attempts to show that one should not take everything at face value. It is important to believe there is something more out there than what we see on the surface– whether it is science or religion that can show us that is a personal choice.
November 20th, 2008 at 11:46 am
The movie Contact, though extremely long, does raise some interesting points. Many scientists believe in truths that come with facts, not blind faith. Religious people would, in fact, begin to question their faith if life on other planets, in other galaxies did exist. Christians tend to think that God made humans in His image, that we are special and that He created us as unique, intelligent beings. To find out that other intelligent beings existed, would make us seem less important, and would make Christians question if God did in fact make us..or if He really does exist. The majority of people do believe in a higher being (not just God) and the discovery of other intelligent beings would flip their world upside down.
As for the pulse sounds, they reminded me of a fetal heart beat….until a mother hears that, its like the baby isn’t really there, it isn’t real yet…but once they hear it, they know that their is another life. The pulse sounds indicated that there was other life.
November 20th, 2008 at 12:29 pm
I will not be in class today however I wanted to leave my thoughts.
I tend to agree with Andrew and Angie on this. I am a person of modest faith yet I consider myself to be scientific as well, and I don’t feel that there is a contradiction there. I think that if your mind is open enough they can complement each other, and if you need explanations very badly, there are some to be offered if you are not closed off to either side.
People of faith claim that everything is created by a higher power and that there is no scientific explanation for everything. The purely scientific side would say that there is evidence that science is behind everything. There is no reason why the two can’t be intertwined, aside from people being so devout in their beliefs that they shut the other side out.
November 20th, 2008 at 1:32 pm
The conflict between Science and Religion I think comes from the fact that they are two opposing forces. Religion requires faith, almost at its heart, things are done out of obedience to a higher power, and questioning that power is looked down upon. This is less so in the East, but then the debate between Philosophy and Religion comes into play, where the lines are less clear. Science is built on the foundation of questioning everything, and testing those questions rigorously. Religion is usually based on an infoulable God, where as science is based on an ever expanding pursuit of truth.
November 20th, 2008 at 2:08 pm
I think that Faith and Science can be compatible because they can compliment each other in the search for truth. The signal intitially reminded me of a heartbeat as heard through an ultrasound. Finding life on other planets would most likely have an impact on humanities religions especially if the species we encountered was quite different from us. If the species turned out to be just like us but more intelligent and advanced, it might make humans questions why we do not have access to such knowledge as well. Machines, for the most part, are seen as a way to acquire information. What is similar in “Contact” and “Matrix” is that machines and technology are aslo used to manipulate information, or as a means of control. For example Hadden uses technology to his advantage in “Contact” as do the characters that James Wood and Angela Basset play.
November 20th, 2008 at 10:57 pm
Electricity is scientific correct? But can anyone explain how it really works? The few of us that can explain electricity, does this allow them to turn on lights or save energy any better? So since I am of the many that can not explain electricity, or possibly understand or prove how it works, can I not still turn a light on and off? Can I not still benefit from the fantastic miracle of electricity even if I can not explain it?
Something to ponder.
Also….
So people who have faith can not explain the miracles and the mysterious religious legends but they believe in it and it works for them. The same way electricity works for me.
If we contrast the scientist and the religious person in the film. ie Ellie and Palmer are they really that different?
Ellie can not understand people who have believe things without evidence, and Palmer cannot understand scientific people who always need proof to validate their beliefs. But both characters are in search of a truth that offers them validation, in their lives and their purpose. Ellies proof is in the pudding and Palmer’s proof is in his heart. Regardless of how an individual goes about getting to the core of their beliefs is it not the age old cliche of the journey being more important then the destination more critical here. Is it not a general theme of most religions that the gifts are in the seeking. Are Palmer and Ellie both seeking truth in their own way, as one more conservatively and one less traditionally?
I am wondering what the class thinks about these questions and wondering really what the big deal is about religious people in general. Wy do some people get so afraid that someone will come wash away their religion? Are they that insecure in their beliefs?
November 24th, 2008 at 8:38 pm
I will be using my first film review “skip”. I left a lengthy comment on Nov. 19th and will leave it at that. The only thing this movie missed besides green aliens was speed…….it was soooooooo slow. I was not confident that I would write a great paper/response to this film.Sorry.