To answer question number nine, a person would knowingly choose religious faith over truth because it gives a person hope. It gives someone a purpose for life and comfort when times get hard. Otherwise, I would wonder what is the purpose of life. Just to live for the point of living doesn't seem fulfilling. For a lot of people, religion and faith gives their life fulfillment. The truth sometimes is devastating, and it is sometimes better to not know the truth. People can become burdened with the horrible truths, so religion can lift the spirits of people. When one can cast all their cares and worries to God, then I would pick religion over truth any day. For most people, it is more comforting to be involved with religion rather than the truth.
The movie Crimes and Misdemeanors is very similar to the novel Crime and Punishment. Both plots include murders where the murderer gets away with the deed. Both also have characters struggling with self-hatred for not being successful and a loser. However, the difference is that Raskolnikov is incredibly guilty for his crime and he can't escape it. In fact, he nearly goes mad about it. At the end, he turns himself because he can no longer handle feeling guilty any longer. Judah in the film, gets away with the crime. He only feels guilt at first, but then his guilt flies away as his normal life returns. Judah already had a successful life and money, while Raskolnikov did not. The two characters had different reasons for their murder. Judah killed his mistress so that his secret wouldn't get out, while Raskolnikov killed because he felt that the old woman deserved to die and that he had the right to kill her. Both stories are similar, but definitely not the same.
For the first part of your post, I wonder if you are implying that people who are religious don't believe that their religion is true. That was the sense that I was getting and I know that, for me personally, I believe deeply the opposite. As for the second part of your post, I think it's interesting that you connected them by their guilt and, though their ends are different, I feel as though Judah would still carry with him the guilt of what he had done while Raskolnikov, having done the time for the crime (rhyme not intended), may have felt a sense of peace. Overall, well done!
ReplyDelete