{"id":3940,"date":"2008-02-03T09:02:00","date_gmt":"2008-02-03T09:02:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2008\/02\/eli-stone\/"},"modified":"2008-02-03T09:02:00","modified_gmt":"2008-02-03T09:02:00","slug":"eli-stone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2008\/02\/eli-stone.html","title":{"rendered":"Eli Stone"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><p>I taped Eli Stone after watching the season premiere of LOST, not only to see the <a href=\"http:\/\/exploringourmatrix.blogspot.com\/2008\/02\/oceanic-airlines-commercial.html\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Oceanic Airline commercial<\/a> that was promised to feature in it. The series is about a lawyer who begins having \u2018visions\u2019 or \u2018hallucinations\u2019. It is discovered that he has a brain aneurism \u2013 as his father presumably had, but it went undiagnosed and everyone assumed that he was simply a drunk.<\/p>\n<p>The pilot episode was not particularly gloomy, given that the main character is disgnosed with an inoperable condition that could result in his death at any moment. It <i>is<\/i> moving, but also lighthearted at times. Particularly amusing is the acupuncturist Eli visits, who turns out to be a well-educated individual who found that his degree in philosophy didn\u2019t lead naturally to employment, and thus he put on a Chinese accent and put on a good show while also giving people genuine counselling and advice.<\/p>\n<p>Eli\u2019s initial assessment of his situation is what might be expected. The things he has seen and heard (like George Michael singing in his living room) are \u201cjust my defective brain playing tricks on me\u201d. The \u201cacupuncturist\u201d gives a helpful reply. There are two explanations to everything, he says. Science may diagnose Eli as having a brain aneurism, but that doesn\u2019t rule out the possibility that his experiences, including but not limited to his visions, are also something more than that.<\/p>\n<p>This is precisely the sort of question we must ask about religious experience in our time. Let\u2019s say it turned out that Paul, the apostle, had an aneurism or epilepsy or anything else of that sort. Would that make his life and his writings any less significant? What if something similar turned out to be true of Moses, and Jesus, and Mohammad, and other prophets and visionaries of various sorts down the ages?<\/p>\n<p>Eli replies once more that, unlike other prophetic figures, he doesn\u2019t even believe in God. Yet again there is a sage reply: \u201cSure you do. You believe in right and wrong, in goodness, in love\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The show promises to be thought-provoking. Perhaps its most controversial element was the focus on a case involving <a href=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~r\/scienceblogs\/ScienceblogsSelect\/~3\/228926357\/at_least_eli_stone_was_good_for_one_thin.php\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">a link between a mercury-based preservative and autism<\/a>. The trial in question, however, merely suggests that it would make sense to err on the side of caution if there is even the possibility that there is a link in even some cases. Just to be safe, though, at the end they added a disclaimer that the events depicted are <i>fictional<\/i>, and viewers were directed to the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cdc.gov\/autism\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">web site of the Center for Disease Control<\/a> for more information about autism.<\/p>\n<div class=\"blogger-post-footer\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" src=\"https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/tracker\/7622297540113836091-6738815780796165379?l=exploringourmatrix.blogspot.com\" alt=\"\"><\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I taped Eli Stone after watching the season premiere of LOST, not only to see the Oceanic Airline commercial that was promised to feature in it. The series is about a lawyer who begins having \u2018visions\u2019 or \u2018hallucinations\u2019. It is discovered that he has a brain aneurism \u2013 as his father presumably had, but it [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3940","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Eli Stone<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I taped Eli Stone after watching the season premiere of LOST, not only to see the Oceanic Airline commercial that was promised to feature in it. The\" \/>\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\/2008\/02\/eli-stone.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Eli Stone\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I taped Eli Stone after watching the season premiere of LOST, not only to see the Oceanic Airline commercial that was promised to feature in it. The\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2008\/02\/eli-stone.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=\"2008-02-03T09:02:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/tracker\/7622297540113836091-6738815780796165379?l=exploringourmatrix.blogspot.com\" \/>\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. 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