{"id":12012,"date":"2013-01-01T23:24:26","date_gmt":"2013-01-02T04:24:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/?p=12012"},"modified":"2013-01-01T23:24:26","modified_gmt":"2013-01-02T04:24:26","slug":"seeking-a-friend-for-the-end-of-the-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2013\/01\/seeking-a-friend-for-the-end-of-the-world.html","title":{"rendered":"Seeking a Friend for the End of the World"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"\"I just watched the movie Seeking a Friend for the End of the World<\/a>\"\". It is a great movie to start the year with. It has Steve Carrell in the lead role, and is billed as a comedy. It does have amusing moments. But I would not classify it as a comedy. It is about the meaning of life, and is profoundly serious and moving.<\/p>\n

The movie focuses on two people who live in the same apartment building, but have never met. And an asteroid is approaching Earth and will destroy it, and the last attempt to do something to stop it has failed.<\/p>\n

That's all revealed early on, so those aren't spoilers. And I will not include anything that could be considered spoilers in the rest of this post, either. I want to focus on major themes, not plot details.<\/p>\n

What do you do if the world is about to end? Throughout the film, we see people doing many of the things we might expect, from carrying on as usual, to shooting heroine and having orgies. It is a stereotype in some religious circles to associate these behaviors with atheism. But that doesn't seem to be what motivates particular responses. For some people, these things were on their bucket list<\/em>. They always wanted to do these things, and \u201cthe apocalypse just gave them the courage.\u201d<\/p>\n

The guy who doesn't want to do that stuff seems like an oddball, and he himself thinks that he does not know what he wants. But he at least knows what doesn't satisfy and isn't worth spending his final days on (although he is arguably mistaken about one of them, in a sense).<\/p>\n

\"\"Realizing the end is near makes you realize what is important to you<\/em>. But that doesn't mean that what you prioritize is actually worthwhile.<\/p>\n

What makes life valuable is the connections that we make with other people. And even if you only have a matter of weeks, it is possible to do that.<\/p>\n

And the things that make life worthwhile, like just lying next to the person you love and talking with them, are worth doing even if they are the last moments of our existence.<\/p>\n

I've held the view in the past, and thus understand it, that life has to go on forever in order to be meaningful. It is a common view among religious people.<\/p>\n

I no longer hold that view. (And as my Sunday school class transitions from discussing the Book of Revelation to exploring concepts of afterlife and eternal life, I look forward to pondering this subject in conversation with others who are bound to view things differently than I do.)<\/p>\n

I am now convinced that ephemeral things are beautiful. Moments that we spent and will never recapture can be beautiful.<\/p>\n

My hope is that somehow such things will be remembered. That will add to their preciousness. That seems to me an appropriate form for religious hope to take. For my ego to continue ad infinitum<\/em>, on the other hand, would not in and of itself seem to add anything to the value of past moments, one way or the other. As I said in a post last year<\/a>,<\/p>\n

If you have not found anything worth living for, anything valuable and precious in the life you now live, then to imagine that somehow another life will resolve all the problems and answer all the questions seems misguided. If you cannot here and now find things that are worth living for, then what would you live forever for?\u2026 If there is an afterlife, surely it will not involve regretting having found meaning and joy in existence. But it might well involve regret at having failed to do so.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\nThis movie is beautiful and profoundly spiritual. It features snippets of superficial God-talk that are inevitable when characters are faced with the end of the world. But that isn't where its intersection with religion is really to be found. It is in its core, in its essence, about the meaning of life.<\/p>\n

The movie's story, ultimately, is a symbol of the fact that we all have limited time<\/em>. Rarely do we have a clear sense of how long our lives may last, but we do know that death<\/a> is inevitable. And the truth that we so often avoid is this: If we would not continue doing the things we are doing now if we knew the end was near, then they are not the things we ought to be focusing our lives on<\/a> now.<\/p>\n

The things that are truly worthwhile are worth spending your last moment alive on<\/a>.<\/p>\n

David Hayward posted a cartoon today<\/a> about how to approach 2013. I'll include the cartoon at the end of the post below. But he also put its point memorably. We often say that there is \u201cno time like the present.\u201d But the truth is that, at least as most of us view time, there is no time but<\/span> the present<\/em>.<\/p>\n

I'd recommend spending the less than two hours it will take you to watch Seeking a Friend for the End of the World<\/a>\"\". Use it as an opportunity to reflect on what you would do if you knew that, unlike silly things like yet another claim about a rapture or Mayan apocalypse<\/a>, the world \u2013 or your world \u2013 was really going to end by a certain day and time. And then find a way of prioritizing those things that would be worth doing, even in the midst of the life we live<\/a> without knowing precisely how long we may or may not have.
\n\"\"<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I just watched the movie Seeking a Friend for the End of the World. It is a great movie to start the year with. It has Steve Carrell in the lead role, and is billed as a comedy. It does have amusing moments. But I would not classify it as a comedy. It is about […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[121,135,62],"tags":[702,853,3059,3158,4005,6117,6741,7194,10169,11887],"class_list":["post-12012","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-afterlife-theology","category-eschatology-theology","category-movies","tag-apocalypse","tag-asteroid","tag-end-of-the-world","tag-eternal-life","tag-god","tag-keira-knightley","tag-love","tag-meaning-of-life","tag-religion","tag-steve-carrell"],"yoast_head":"\nSeeking a Friend for the End of the World<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I just watched the movie Seeking a Friend for the End of the World. It is a great movie to start the year with. It has Steve Carrell in the lead role, and\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2013\/01\/seeking-a-friend-for-the-end-of-the-world.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Seeking a Friend for the End of the World\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I just watched the movie Seeking a Friend for the End of the World. It is a great movie to start the year with. It has Steve Carrell in the lead role, and\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2013\/01\/seeking-a-friend-for-the-end-of-the-world.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Religion Prof: The Blog of James F. McGrath\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:author\" content=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/religionprof\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2013-01-02T04:24:26+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/content.lifeandstylemag.com\/2012\/06\/21\/steve-carell-keira-knightley-seeking-a-friend-for-the-end-of-the-world-movie-review.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"James F. McGrath\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@ReligionProf\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"James F. McGrath\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2013\/01\/seeking-a-friend-for-the-end-of-the-world.html\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2013\/01\/seeking-a-friend-for-the-end-of-the-world.html\",\"name\":\"Seeking a Friend for the End of the World\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2013-01-02T04:24:26+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2013-01-02T04:24:26+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/#\/schema\/person\/78342576667b872e3d259c153ce4c5bf\"},\"description\":\"I just watched the movie Seeking a Friend for the End of the World. It is a great movie to start the year with. It has Steve Carrell in the lead role, and\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2013\/01\/seeking-a-friend-for-the-end-of-the-world.html#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2013\/01\/seeking-a-friend-for-the-end-of-the-world.html\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2013\/01\/seeking-a-friend-for-the-end-of-the-world.html#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Seeking a Friend for the End of the World\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/\",\"name\":\"Religion Prof: The Blog of James F. McGrath\",\"description\":\"The Blog of Dr. James F. McGrath, Clarence L. Goodwin Chair in New Testament Language and Literature at Butler University, Indianapolis\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/#\/schema\/person\/78342576667b872e3d259c153ce4c5bf\",\"name\":\"James F. McGrath\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/88ca096942acd474313f7ef4227a49da?s=96&d=identicon&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/88ca096942acd474313f7ef4227a49da?s=96&d=identicon&r=g\",\"caption\":\"James F. McGrath\"},\"description\":\"Clarence L. Goodwin Chair in New Testament Language and Literature at Butler University in Indianapolis, Indiana, USA. BD University of London, PhD Durham University. Author of John's Apologetic Christology, The Only True God, Theology and Science Fiction, and The Burial of Jesus, as well as (with Charles Haberl of Rutgers University) the two-volume Mandaean Book of John critical edition, translation, and commentary. Also author of numerous articles (and a few science fiction short stories) and the editor or co-editor of several volumes.\",\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/3Ge8ul5\",\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/religionprof\/\",\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/jamesfmcgrath\/\",\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/jfmcgrat\/\",\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ReligionProf\",\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/religionprof\",\"https:\/\/soundcloud.com\/religionprof\",\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/James_F._McGrath\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/author\/james-f-mcgrath\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Seeking a Friend for the End of the World","description":"I just watched the movie Seeking a Friend for the End of the World. It is a great movie to start the year with. It has Steve Carrell in the lead role, and","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2013\/01\/seeking-a-friend-for-the-end-of-the-world.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Seeking a Friend for the End of the World","og_description":"I just watched the movie Seeking a Friend for the End of the World. It is a great movie to start the year with. It has Steve Carrell in the lead role, and","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2013\/01\/seeking-a-friend-for-the-end-of-the-world.html","og_site_name":"Religion Prof: The Blog of James F. McGrath","article_author":"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/religionprof\/","article_published_time":"2013-01-02T04:24:26+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/content.lifeandstylemag.com\/2012\/06\/21\/steve-carell-keira-knightley-seeking-a-friend-for-the-end-of-the-world-movie-review.jpg"}],"author":"James F. McGrath","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@ReligionProf","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"James F. McGrath","Est. reading time":"5 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2013\/01\/seeking-a-friend-for-the-end-of-the-world.html","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2013\/01\/seeking-a-friend-for-the-end-of-the-world.html","name":"Seeking a Friend for the End of the World","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/#website"},"datePublished":"2013-01-02T04:24:26+00:00","dateModified":"2013-01-02T04:24:26+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/#\/schema\/person\/78342576667b872e3d259c153ce4c5bf"},"description":"I just watched the movie Seeking a Friend for the End of the World. It is a great movie to start the year with. It has Steve Carrell in the lead role, and","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2013\/01\/seeking-a-friend-for-the-end-of-the-world.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2013\/01\/seeking-a-friend-for-the-end-of-the-world.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2013\/01\/seeking-a-friend-for-the-end-of-the-world.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Seeking a Friend for the End of the World"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/","name":"Religion Prof: The Blog of James F. McGrath","description":"The Blog of Dr. James F. McGrath, Clarence L. Goodwin Chair in New Testament Language and Literature at Butler University, Indianapolis","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/#\/schema\/person\/78342576667b872e3d259c153ce4c5bf","name":"James F. McGrath","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/88ca096942acd474313f7ef4227a49da?s=96&d=identicon&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/88ca096942acd474313f7ef4227a49da?s=96&d=identicon&r=g","caption":"James F. McGrath"},"description":"Clarence L. Goodwin Chair in New Testament Language and Literature at Butler University in Indianapolis, Indiana, USA. BD University of London, PhD Durham University. Author of John's Apologetic Christology, The Only True God, Theology and Science Fiction, and The Burial of Jesus, as well as (with Charles Haberl of Rutgers University) the two-volume Mandaean Book of John critical edition, translation, and commentary. Also author of numerous articles (and a few science fiction short stories) and the editor or co-editor of several volumes.","sameAs":["https:\/\/amzn.to\/3Ge8ul5","http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/religionprof\/","https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/jamesfmcgrath\/","https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/jfmcgrat\/","https:\/\/twitter.com\/ReligionProf","http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/religionprof","https:\/\/soundcloud.com\/religionprof","https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/James_F._McGrath"],"url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/author\/james-f-mcgrath"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12012","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/136"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12012"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12012\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12012"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12012"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12012"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}