Television Archives - CatholicManiacs

Lost Commentary and How It Should Have Ended

DeaconTim — Thu, 27 May 2010 03:39:37 +0000

First off, the way it should have ended as seen at The Daily What.

Of course the ending of Lost has the blogosphere all a blogging and the twitterverse all atwitter. What did it mean? Which timeline was real? Was any of it real? What answers did we get and what didn’t we get?

Personally, I was both satisfied and disatisfied with the ending. Early on it was theorized that the island was Purgatory and that all the plane crash survivors were actually dead. It would seem that we had that idea backwards. The new Flash-Sideways scenes where the plane didn’t crash appear to be Purgatory. We can presume that the real world was the island since the people in the Flash-Sideways remembered that reality, not the other way around.

Catholic elements abound of course, from Charlie’s sign of the cross as he died to the church at the end, not to mention the whole Purgatory thing. Many are complaining about the Coexist window behind Jack and his Dad, saying that it means all religions lead to Heaven. That’s open to interpretation, which is true of just about all of the show. I see the window as a sign that all religions have at least SOME truth, but only the Catholic Church has the fullness since the window was a part of the Catholic Church they gathered in. This is a teaching of the Church by the way.

I liked that mostly everyone got a happy ending. Notably absent from the church and outside who we know did die were Michael (apparently doomed to an eternity of muttering on the island), Rousseau, Alex and Anna Lucia. Will they be along later? If the island was the real world, and he’s hanging around there whispering to people… Is he really in Hell or not? Do Rousseau and Alex remain behind because they are the “things” Ben still has to work out? Will they all come along together? What about Anna Lucia? She played a small role in getting Kate and the others sprung, so it would appear she is there in Purgatory along with many others like Charlotte, Whidmore and Daniel’s mother. I presume they will all enter the church later too.

The thing I disliked the most was that all these “Questions” that were setup in the previous episodes weren’t explained. I didn’t need a technical answer to it all, but I would like to have found out the following things:

Who were the Others and how did they get there? They weren’t the descendents of the people Smokey lived with. His mother killed all of them.
What is Smokey’s name???? I always thought it should Esau.
What’s up with the Egyptian style statue? The temple? Why was Smokey not able to go to the temple?
What was the light? Why did it turn the Man in Black into the smoke monster, but didn’t do that to Desmond and Jack? Was it because they were already (or on the way to being) purified?
How did Jacob leave the island to touch everyone when the Man in Black couldn’t?
How could Jacob kill his brother when Mom said it couldn’t happen?
Time travel and the wheel. Why do the electromagnetic anomalies of the island affect time and space? How or why does the wheel apparently built by the original(?) inhabitants of the island (Man in Black’s people) move the island in space and time?

Seems like #7 and a lot of other things left asquestions were merely plot devices without meaning. To me that is like cheating. It’s saying, “I don’t have a frigging clue to what I am doing, but this sounds cool.”

There’s lots more I would like to know, but these are just off the top of my head.

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Looks Like I Owe No Apology

DeaconTim — Fri, 30 Dec 2005 05:00:00 +0000

Missed the first half of the “investigation” because Mrs. Fric and I were watching Lost episodes. What can I say?

What I did see was pure crap. The sane people (those that contend Pope Joan is a lie) pointed to things like no gap in the Papal record and Papal coins with correct dates and dated documents signed by a Pope that should not have been Pope if Joan were true.

The Joan proponents made vague allegations about Papal coverups and distortions and the hatred of and suppression of women. They even tied Joan to the celibacy and the all-male priesthood. Apparently Christ didn’t institute these. Joan caused them.

Right.

OK.

Nothing but male bovine excrement.

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ABC to Air Pope Joan Investigation

DeaconTim — Thu, 29 Dec 2005 23:24:00 +0000

Tonight on ABC Diane Sawyer will host a special on the infamous and non-existent “Pope Joan”. This so-called Pope was supposed to have lived in the early part of the ninth century during a time when the Church was still united. The story goes that Joan had long disguised herself as a man and entered the priesthood, eventually rising to the Papacy. Her identity was only discovered when she went into labor and gave birth while making her way somewhere (I forget the destination) in Rome. The crowds supposedly killed her on the spot.

Almost as sensational as the Duh Vinci Code, huh?

Too bad it’s not anywhere near the truth.

Too bad for the anti-Catholics that is. As the brief article at World Net Daily points out, the story of Pope Joan didn’t even appear until some 400 years AFTER her supposed Papacy. There have been plenty of books and articles debunking this myth over the years, but it still rears it’s ugly head.

I first encountered it when I was doing research for a paper while studying at Bellarmine College (now Bellarmine University) in Louisville, KY back in the mid 80’s. I went to the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary to look up some resources they had. Most of the local colleges and universities in Louisville have an agreement about making such resources available to each school’s students. While there I came across an old book containing a listing of the Popes and in it was Pope Joan listed as fact. No mention was made of the controversy surrounding this mythical figure. Being non-Catholic at the time, I had no reason to doubt it.

Now, after doing lots of research and reading about the Church, I realize how much hooey it is. Shame on anyone who presents this either as fact or as something that even COULD be true. It’s been debunked over and over and over. It’s pure and simply anti-Catholic trash put out there as fact or at least as plausible theory.

Those not secure in their faith, those looking for an excuse and those who already dissent from Church teaching will find in this a reason to leave, protest or cry hypocrisy. Those who already hate the Church will point to it as proof of the Church as the Whore of Babylon that lies about its past and makes things up as it goes along.

Some will say that this could simply be an investigation into the myth with the purpose of debunking. However, given that the promotions are treating it as a serious subject whose authenticity could be verified and the MSM’s long history of bias against the Church, I will not hold my breath waiting for that debunking.

However, if I am wrong, I will post here tomorrow my sincere apology.

Somehow I don’t really think it will be necessary though.

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More Proof of European Culture Downturns

DeaconTim — Mon, 08 Nov 2004 14:33:00 +0000

OK… We all have seen the reality shows, or at least seen them advertised. I never have chosen to watch one myself beyond the ones I see when my wife is watching TV. She prefers the makeover types as opposed to Surviror, etc.

Here in the USA we have had Temptation Island which was designed to induce couples to cheat on each other.

We have Bachelor and Bachelorette and Who Wants to Marry a Millionnaire, etc. etc. etc.

All of these type of shows objectify people in a sexual way. They treat sex as either the goal of all relationships or they see sex as a tool to get what you want. Catholic theology tells us this is intrinsically evil behavior by the way, because it totally takes sex outside the marital relationship and turns it into an instrument of self-gratification.

In England there is a new show… Sex Inspectors… that shows actual sex (though the naughty bits are supposedly pixelated) and then a sex therapist will critique the couples on technique. The show boasts that they help women achieve more orgasms and even quote one woman who called the therapist back to thank her. The therapist claims the show is NOT titillating. I suppose for British TV with its nudity and raunchiness, that may be true. But that doesn’t mean it’s a good idea.

It’s just another example of the Old World culture’s gasping, weezing slow death on the altar of liberalism, self-gratification at all costs and of course the all important it’s only sex.

Remember that often these things find their way here. Especially the British reality makeover shows. And is there a better makeover than teaching a woman to have an orgasm?

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