Bruce Almighty and RS

A possbile exam question which could come up as part C worth 8 marks, is this...

Give one example of the media and explain how it might affect your belief about God

In our school, the example of the media was Bruce Alimghty. 

In the next few cards, I will go through what you need to include.

In order to get full marks, you need to write four paragraphs.. 

1st paragraph ... supporting an aethistic view

2nd paragraph ... supporting an agnostic view

3rd paragraph ... supporting an thiestic view

4th paragraph ... choose one of the 3 above.. in this case I chose aethist again

Possible Evidence from the film:

- "Oh yeah lets thank God", Bruce says sarcastically

- "Smite me, Oh mighty smiter", Bruce yells to the heaven.

- When Grace, his girl friend gives him prayer bead as protection, instead Bruce is stuck in traffic and as aresult late for his meeting. Then when he finally reaches his office, his jacket gets stuck to his car.

I will explain one of the evidence int he next card to give you an example, of what is expected :)

In the film there is a part where Bruce has an accident and is hurt. 

When he returns home, Grace says "Thank God your okay". In return Bruce responds sarcastically "Oh yeah lets thank God".

As Bruce says it sarcastically, he obviously doesn't really thank God. Bruce has lost faith in God, because if God was omnibenevolent and omnipotent then surely God could have stopped Bruce from getting hurt. 

This could support an atheism view, as they may argue ... How can God truly exist if he allows his creations, his people to get hurt ? Surely, God cannot exist as he is meant to be omnibenevolent but clearly we can see rather than God saving Bruce, he has allowed Bruce to get hurt. 

Possible Evidence from the film:

- When Grace gives Bruce the prayer beads, this shows Grace believes God will protect her and Bruce

- Near the end of the film, Bruce has the prayer beads in his hand, and he talks to God asking for help and guidance. This obviously shows Bruce believes in God.1

- When Bruce's phone continuously beeps, Bruce gets annoyed and throws it out in the street. Although a car goes over it and breaks it, the phone still continues beeping. this is because God has "called" him. A miracle, making Bruce believe in God.

- When Bruce gets hurt, Grace says " Oh thank God your okay" - shows the faith she has in God and she believes if God doesn;t exist then Bruce would have been seriously hurt.  

When Grace, gives the prayer beads to Bruce.

Although, Bruce may not believe in the prayer beads, Grace does supporting a theistic view. 

Grace believes in God, and she has faith that if Bruce does pray to God then Bruce will eb safe. 

She believes in the characteristics of God; that God is omnibenevolent, omnipotent and omniscent and she wants Bruce to have the same faith. 

Another key important point of which a theistic person might possibly argue:

God says to Bruce "you can't affect free will".

- This suggests that God is omnibenevolent but just because something has happened to us which we are not happy about that doesn't necessarily mean it is God's fault

- Us, as humans have free will and therefore we could chose whether to do evil or good

- Human beings cannot judge God just because the life is not easy 

- In the film, we can clearly see when Bruce was given the powers from God, he himself struggled to answer everyones prayers 

- Therefore, this support a theistic point of view, as we can see that God can be all loving and all powerful but sometimes our decisions are what leads us to the wrond doings and the mistakes

- Everything shouldn't be blamed towards to God

Possible Evidence from the film:

- When Bruce is annoyed that Evan gets the anchor job instead of him, he says 

"God is ignoring me completely. He is giving Evans everything he wants. "

- In the beginning of the film, Bruce says " God, why do you hate me ?"

"God why do you hate me?"

- Agnostic view - is when you are unsure if God exists or not

- In this quote we can see Bruce acknowleges God but at the same time he has lost faith in God as he thinks God hates him

- This supports an agnostic point of view as they belive in God to some extent but at the sam time they feel God can't exist when somethings bad happens to them