Religious Faith Problems

The movie “Dogma” addresses religious faith as something very temperamental and full of uncertainty. Characters were presented as having problems with their faith, like the angels Bartelby and Loki having a hard time reconciling with the fact that humans are God’s most loved creations even though they are such sinners. Another example is Bethany Sloane saying she has lost her faith in God because He (or She) never answered any of her prayers. She is not completely sure what to have faith in anymore. But the purpose of faith is to believe in something even if you have never personally experienced it to be true (note: this is not to be confused with gullibility). Even the definition of dogma is “a religious doctrine that is proclaimed as true without proof” meaning you need to have faith for your religion. But Bethany’s uncertainty of her Catholic religion reflects the doubts that many have of their own faith. I think what the movie is trying to say is that this “seeing is believing” attitude that people apply to their religion is easier to come to terms with instead of faith, and people are not quite sure what to believe anymore. So many different religious organizations are saying that their religion is the right one to follow, yet there is no real way of telling. We can see this competition between religions today with people such as Brother Jed in Speaker’s Circle or Jehovah’s Witnesses soliciting houses on weekends. According to the movie, no one has the completely correct story of God. As the character Serendipity says, “It’s not about who's right or wrong. No denomination’s nailed it yet, and they never will because they’re all too self-righteous to realize that it does not matter what you have faith in, just that you have faith.” Someone should be able to decide on their own what they want to believe, and people should just be accepting of whatever religion that person decides to believe in, if they even decide to believe in a religion at all.
Another problem is the abuse of someone’s religious faith, such as Cardinal Glick trying to convert people to Catholicism through the “Catholicism Wow” campaign simply to get more money to the Catholic Church. Not only does he try to appeal to the public with ‘Buddy Christ,’ but he even goes as far to bless his golf club, which is a terrible misuse of his position. Changing aspects of his faith just for publicity seems shallow and by using the money people donated to their faith just to use it for such a purpose is horribly taking advantage of people’s beliefs. People put trust in their religion, but if that trust is abused there can be uncertainty as to the matter of whether or not their beliefs are right. As a real-life example, when some Catholic priests were found to have sexually harassed a few of their parishioners, there was doubt about the honesty and beliefs in the Catholic Church. So between competition of various religions over which group has the right beliefs, and the abuse of someone’s trust in their faith, it’s no wonder there is a lot of uncertainty over one’s religious faith.
This movie was meant to be offensive to all beliefs, but I think it was also partly meant to show how we should be accepting of other’s views, whether or not you agree with them, since even your own faith can be offensive to someone else’s. For instance, Catholics portray the cross with Jesus on it, but to some other Christian religions this can seem disrespectful. While I was offended by parts of this movie such as ‘Buddy Christ’ and the selfish liberties Cardinal Glick took with his position in the Catholic Church (like blessing his golf club), I think they served the purpose of allowing us to see that we should have faith in what we want to believe and not what others try to get us to believe in. I was deterred by the new version of Catholicism that the “Catholicism Wow” organization presented in the movie, and it made me strongly prefer my own, non-Buddy Christ Catholic beliefs. Although there are instances where I have been skeptical about some views of the Catholic Church, I was certain that I did not want to be a part of the fictional version of it represented in the movie. So maybe, in a weird, twisted sort of way, this movie allowed us to better identify with what we have faith in, and remove some of the uncertainty we have in our beliefs.