The Matrix ( 1999, Lana And Lilly Wachowski Essay

Stephen Prothero’s “God Is Not One” is a survey of world religions, comprising vital information on a vast array of different sets of belief. As someone who has never studied religion before, nor belongs to a particular faith, the variability within these religions is staggering. One might be satisfied to define religion as “how a person goes about believing in God,” but soon finds that even that definition has its holes. Thankfully, “God Is Not One” does an amazing job of cluing its reader into the nuances that are sometimes forgotten about the religions it approaches.

Descartes wonders what else that he can know by using this same logic, but first must establish the idea of God and that God is not deceiving him. He reasons that God exists because he as a mortal could not create the idea of such a powerful being, and only a being as powerful as God could have caused an idea of a God that is perfect. Descartes goes on to reason that because God is perfect, then God would not deceive him about anything. It’s not that Descartes is being deceived, but rather his lack of knowledge or understanding about the matters at hand is causing the problem he is facing.

John Berger, in his non-fiction work, “Ways of Seeing” (1972), asserts that art is a representation of history and it has been manipulated by the ruling class for control of the lower-class. Berger supports his assertion by showing examples of historical paintings that were commissioned by the higher-class to show favor towards them instead of the true representation of history, thus “A person or a class which is cut off from its own past is far less free to choose and to act as a people or class than one that has been able to situate itself in history” (Berger 33). His purpose is to make his reader aware of the manipulation that has been done to the lower-class viewer on what has been taken away from them in order to control the populist to deter rebellion. In the Wachoski siblings film, The Matrix (1999) centers around the concept that one’s reality may be distorted from what is real. The Matrix is about the human race living in a artificial reality ignorant of their true existence and their oppression by the machines. John Berger asserts in “Ways of Seeing” that art is a representation of history and it has been manipulated by the ruling class for control of the lower-class, in the film the Matrix, the agents of the matrix are controlling society by manipulation of the innocent, they exercises control by mystification similar to Berger’s assessment of the art historian.

The Matrix and the Allegory of the Cave focus on one central idea: What is real?. They engage the audience in a fictional world where people live in false realities without knowing it. They make us question our own knowledge. Their storylines connect in that the protagonist discovers that everything he knows is a big lie and now he must discover the truth. The protagonist is thrown all of the sudden into the real world and then, he continues to seek the absolute truth. Neo and the prisoner inquire whether knowing the truth is a blessing or a curse.

Christianity is one of the dominant religions on the planet, and Christian Theism has played a major role in shaping the development of Western culture. Thanks to the pioneering efforts of Christian missionaries, Christian doctrine has even influenced the views of non-Christians. Nevertheless, the contemporary world is a pluralistic and diverse one, and postmodern perspectives have arisen to challenge the wide-ranging influence of Christian Theism. The purpose of this paper is to show how a belief in Christian Theism can help one understand the nature and meaning of life, and this paper will show evidence that this belief brings both uniformity and order to everything.

The movie, “The Matrix” is an outstanding example of the term “Marxism”. Simply put, Marxism is the political and economic theory of Marx, advocating abolition of private property, and state provision of work and subsistence for all, and to be a Marxist, is to follow Karl Marx’s theories. Along the lines of Marx’s theories; a reality and way of life in the Matrix is maintained, oppressed, discovered, and eventually explained. Marx advocates a violent change, and The Matrix demonstrates this type of propaganda. The character Trinity sets the tone from the very start with her defying antics, and Neo’s role is realized; as this reality that is the Matrix is explained. The Wachowski brothers’ film, The Matrix, easily lends itself to a Marxist

This will be based on the chapter 4 Religion as "Truth-Claims", posted on Blackboard. First of all, Dianne L. Oliver makes a preface about her writings saying that religions claim to get the truth, and followers of diverse religions say that their truth is the only one true, and cannot be compare with any other. Also, she remarks that many of those religion followers use violence to uphold their own version of truth. Moreover, she let us know that she is going to consider the "True-Claims" of different religions, and show how those claims can influence the practices, behaviors, and ideas of religion followers. Next to the introduction, she considers that religion is very essential for understanding the fundamental questions in our daily lives.

This essay will analyse how the 1999 movie, ‘The Matrix’ reveal Neo as a messiah figure. Most people argue that it is a Christian sci-fi movie as it portrays the doctrine and the life of Jesus from birth, death, resurrection and ascension through indexical and iconic signs. This movie suggests a juxtaposition between Neo and Jesus Christ as he is being referred to as ‘the one’ through the movie. He is seen as a messiah that would save the world from the matrix- computer-generated illusion and unite humanity with the ‘real’ as Jesus reunited the human race back to God. Also, this essay will gradually unfold the parallelism that exists between the characters in the movie, and the people in the time of Jesus in succeeding paragraphs.

The Matrix, released in 1999, is a science fiction action film that depicts a dystopian future. In this reality, what is perceived by humans is only a computer simulated reality called ‘The Matrix’ which was created in order to sustain human delusion while their bodies were used as an energy source by machines. The main character, computer hacker Neo (played by Keanu Reeves, respectively) is drawn into rebellion against the machines once he is united with those that have been freed from the false reality. The characters, suffering from the reality of a broken illusion, make specific choices and decisions which can be explained or validated by sociological perspectives discussed by Berger. First off, ‘The Matrix’ can be defined as a social institution with the ability to give those that live within the false reality a fulfilled existence and exert social control over it’s residing victims. Second, the betrayal of Cypher touches upon the concept of sociological knowledge; specifically, the reference group ideology. Lastly, Neo’s previous feelings of unease and change of character after he joins Morpheus’ rebellion shows the importance a reference group can have on the overall personality and ideology of a person. Therefore, the Sociological Perspective understands the personalities, actions, and story of the movie ‘The Matrix’ in a variety of ways.

Imagine living through life completely bound and facing a reality that doesn’t even exist. The prisoners in Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” are blind from true reality as well as the people in the movie “The Matrix” written and directed by the Wachowski brothers. They are given false images and they accept what their senses are telling them, and they believe what they are experiencing is all that really exists. Plato the ancient Greek philosopher wrote “The Allegory of the Cave”, to explain the process of enlightenment and what true reality may be. In the movie “The Matrix”, Neo (the main character) was born into a world of illusions called the matrix. His true reality is being controlled by the puppet- handlers called the machines who

There are times when a movie is made that is said to have themes that are parallel to themes in various religious cultures; the Matrix, written and directed by The Wachowski Brothers, is one of those movies. The Matrix series eventually ended in a Trilogy with fans stating that there were various religious connections throughout all three movies. For the purpose of this reflection I will be focusing on the original Matrix movie. I will also focus mostly on the Christian religious ties that are sprinkled throughout the first movie. Finally, I will explore the idea that Neo, is represented as a savior of sorts and how this can tie into saviors of any religion.

On occasion, authors approach cultural subjects as historians. However, Huston Smith limits the historical facts to stay focus on the values of the religions (Smith 10,12). Having an history filled book can cause readers to lose interests in his discussion. To keep the numbers down, Smith picks the religions that most people acknowledge and would share the most common themes in their life (11). He is passionate about his studies, and he wants the audience to find their own appreciation for religion. To accomplish this, Smith simply states that,”This is a book about values”(12). Some books describe a certain faith’s good and bad qualities and can sometimes put more emphasis on the bad if the

From such an understanding, it is well reasoned to develop an interpretive framework for analyzing such systems that is rooted in what Ken Wilber, borrowing from Leibniz and Huxley, refers to as the Perennial Philosophy. (7-8) This is the idea that the world’s great religions and wisdom traditions possess a “transcendental unity”. That is, manuscripts and teachings the world over, spanning thousands of years of human history, can be viewed as together describing one unified vision of the cosmos. In this way, each text is like a section on a quilted tapestry, seeming to approach reality from a distinctive position due to the unique contextual medium out of which it emerges, but essentially congruent with the other sections in terms of certain key themes and ideas. This being the case, the entire tapestry, of course, is likely to provide us with a more acute representation of those themes and ideas than would any individual portion thereof.

In their film, The Matrix, Andy and Larry Wachowski have included many literary allusions and symbols to enhance the appeal of this groundbreaking science fiction film. As incredible as the special effects and cinematography are in this film, the Wachowski brothers have significantly bolstered the appeal of The Matrix by an elaborately constructed story spanning time and reality. These allusions and symbols include references from infamous writers such as Lewis Carol, Jung, John Bunyan and Descartes. However, the most meaningful and abundant references come from The Holy Bible.1

Have you seen the movie the Matrix? Well, there is a popular scene where the main character Neo is given the choice of living in disillusion or waking up to reality. This important segment of the movie is captured by the scene of the "red pill." I interpret Hornbeck to be individual who offers the “red pill” to deviate the social norms created by religious doctrine. It started when a schoolteacher, Bertram Cates when he violated the norms of teaching. Causing an uproar in the town and managed to get to the city. Hornbeck is a newspaper reporter from the Baltimore Herald, travels to Hillsboro to cover the story of evolution being taught in the classroom. Hornbeck throughout the play does not have a change in character, rather we see his character unfold at the end. From every appearance, we can add a better understanding of the personality and participation of his discourses. From the very beginning, the initial thoughts of his character was seen neutral as a reporter, but not until the end where his true self is seen as the antagonist, for his egoistic persona that makes him be unemphatic. The discourse of his beliefs are a progressive thinker, being non-religious, and to some degree a narcissist which plays a role in this conflict of helping others.