According to The Washington Times, in our world of over seven billion human beings, only 14 percent identify as “nonreligious, agnostic, or atheist”. The other 86 percent, in some way, are driven by some type of faith. People find an answer, a guidance, a hope in faith which they can not find anywhere else. While author Yann Martel was searching for a muse in India, he came across an old man who told him a story that would truly instill his faith in God. “Then the elderly man said, ‘I have a story that will make you believe in God’”(ix). The only detail more prominent in the story than a 450 pound Bengal Tiger is Pi’s faith. Moving to Canada, Pi is uprooted from the comforts of his home in Pondicherry, India. His move is accompanied by unique …show more content…
Often when the tables have turned out of our favor we are as quick to blame God for our lows as we are for our highs. My father has had an on and off relationship with God since the loss of his mother when he was 16 years old. He had trouble wrapping his mind around the concept that ‘bad things can happen to good people’. Having watched his mother die of breast cancer, he became a doctor to help others. He works alongside other doctors and nurses to carry out his own modern miracles, but there are cases which he cannot always explain. Almost 10 years ago he had a patient that entered cardiac arrest. Arriving in the Emergency Room unconscious, he remained so for the greater than 72 hours. Prolonged unconsciousness is generally a bad prognosticator. His unconscious state was caused by a 100 percent occlusion of his left anterior descending artery that led to ventricular fibrillation. The most optimistic of doctors believed that at best he would live the rest of his life brain dead. The patient walked out of the hospital 12 days later. Based on expected medical conditions, this patient should have died. My father could only reason that this situation was influenced by the hand of God. Similarly to the story of Pi, some occurrences are unexplainable, moving people to believe that God is …show more content…
Their effect is reliant on how those involved choose to look at them. A pair of brothers, David and Dan Newkirk, were separated by thousands of miles, yet they had an ability to sense danger in one another's’ lives. Dan was traveling abroad, running out of money in Israel. His desperation led him to sleep on a bench. At home, David sensed danger and prayed for his brother abroad. During the middle of the night, Dan was awakened by a fight between a feral dog and a chicken. Their quarrel persisted, forcing him to move to a bench a few blocks down. The next morning he was abruptly awakened by an explosion. A bomb had detonated near his previous sleeping arrangements. David was so moved by his brother’s luck, he viewed the experience as divine intervention. So moved in fact, David became a youth minister. The miracle that Dan experienced compares to that of Pi due to their power to instill faith in others. Pi’s miraculous voyage become known as ‘the story that will make you believe in God’. While Dan’s death-defying travels in Israel inspired David to pursue a career in faith. Whether they are close to home or halfway around the world, there are enigmatic events that have to the power to spur our faith. This faith gives us strength, and what we choose to do with it can change the directions of our entire
In his conclusion, Chappell admits, “First approaching this story as an atheist, I was surprised and skeptical to hear so many of my subjects – whom I admired from afar – expressing what Bayard Rustin called “fundamentalist” views.” Chappell goes on to describe his reluctance to believe his subject’s testimony of “miracles” had it not been for their frequency and key to the beliefs of his subject’s choices. In a catch-22 situation, perhaps only an atheist could tell this story with an objective mind, but perhaps a religious mind could have given more clarity to certain aspects.
Finding a way in life can be difficult. Following that way can be even more difficult, especially when it goes against someone's origin. In Acts of Faith, Eboo Patel tells his story of what it was like to struggle through finding himself. Patel asks the question of "How can I create a society of religious pluralism?" throughout the book, and raises implications about what our children are being taught in different societies throughout the world.
Last year, I read Life of Pi, and its focus on spirituality and the analysis of Pi’s religious experience moved me and heavily affected my own spirituality. I was an agnostic atheist beforehand, and that did not change, but instead, Life of Pi pushed me to find my own beauty and wonder, not in religion as Pi did, or in a vague spiritual sense as some others do, but in nature, science, and
As I continued to chat with my pastor that day, I really sensed the hurt in his eyes – the anger that comes from an unsolvable injustice, the tiredness of a problem. “What’s wrong?” I finally asked, “Having a bad day?” Sensing that I was truly concerned, he let the truth be told. “I talked with a woman today whose baby died suddenly of unknown causes. As we worked through her grief, she talked about how numerous friends and family, even a religious leader had patted her on the back, shook their heads and said, ‘It was God’s will.’ I find few things worse to say to a grieving parent. Saying nothing at all would be of more help.” It was obvious from our conversation that he had an understanding greater than I about God’s will, and his insight created in me a curiosity and desire to learn more.
It is estimated that around a dozen U.S. children will die in faith-healing cases each year. Typically associated with Christianity, Faith healing is founded on the belief that certain people or places have the ability to cure and heal sickness, disease, or injuries. Typically this “healing” is associated by a close connection to a higher power through prayer, divine intervention, or the ministration of an individual who claims himself as a healer. Faith has been scientifically proven in the field psychology to yield benefits to health. Although faith has promised a greater wellbeing for many individual’s lives, it has yet to be a significant replacement for medication many people but relaying on faith as a means for medication.
Faith is defined by acquiring substantial confidence in something that cannot be explained using definite material proof. Although faith is often mentioned when speaking of religion, one can have faith in anything. In Yann Martel’s Life of Pi and John Irving’s A Prayer for Owen Meany, both authors acknowledge the importance of faith in family, friends, and oneself; however, the main focus of faith in both novels is centered on religion. Both novels emphasize that a strong faith is fundamental in overcoming both emotional and physical obstacles. In the novels Life of Pi and A Prayer for Owen Meany, this is expressed through symbolism, characterization, and plot.
Faith is something a person must have inside them to be able to succeed. Success and failure are two completely different things, but faith is what separates the two. In the short story “A Fable with Slips of White Paper Spilling from the Pockets” by Kevin Brockmeier, the author illustrates the struggles a man must overcome in society and the obstacles he must overcome when his faith is tested to the limit. In the fable, the author uses symbols of faith, magical elements, and realistic struggles to divulge the morals and struggles of life.
5. Smith, J. M. (2011). Becoming an atheist in America: Constructing Identity and Meaning from
The belief in miracles is just not a wise man’s choice or they have their own purpose in
In the book the Life of Pi by Yann Martel, religion plays an important role in Pi’s life. When on the lifeboat, Pi used his faith as a way to motivate himself to live. Without his religious beliefs, there is no way to guarantee he would have made it off the lifeboat.
Religion is and always has been a sensitive topic. Some choose to acknowledge that there is a God and some choose to deny this fact to the death. For those who deny the presence of a higher being, “Life of Pi” will most likely change your thought process concerning this issue. Yann Martel’s, “Life of Pi”, is a compelling story that shows the importance of obtaining religion and faith. Piscine (Pi) Patel is both the protagonist and the narrator of Martell’s religious eye-opener who undergoes a chain effect of unbelievable catastrophes. Each of these catastrophic events leaving him religiously stronger because he knows that in order to endure what he has endured, there has got to be a God somewhere.
On its surface, Martel’s Life of Pi proceeds as a far-fetched yet not completely unbelievable tale about a young Indian boy named Pi who survives after two hundred twenty-seven days on a lifeboat with a Bengal tiger named Richard Parker. It is an uplifting and entertaining story, with a few themes about companionship and survival sprinkled throughout. The ending, however, reveals a second story – a more realistic and dark account replacing the animals from the beginning with crude human counterparts. Suddenly, Life of Pi becomes more than an inspiring tale and transforms into a point to be made about rationality, faith, and how storytelling correlates the two. The point of the book is not for the reader to decide which story he or she thinks is true, but rather what story he or she thinks is the better story. In real life, this applies in a very similar way to common belief systems and religion. Whether or not God is real or a religion is true is not exactly the point, but rather whether someone chooses to believe so because it adds meaning and fulfillment to his or her life. Life of Pi is relevant to life in its demonstration of storytelling as a means of experiencing life through “the better story.”
It is said the a person’s process of discovery is shaped by their personality, culture, history and values, however the opposite is also true, someone’s personal, cultural, historical and social contexts and values, their personal aspects, can also be shaped by the discoveries they make, with discovery acting as the journey towards a change in one’s personal aspects. This is true of the film, “Life of Pi,” directed by Ang Lee and the illustration, “Self Help,” by Michael Leunig. The most striking features of the film is Pi’s faith to God and his connection with religion. His discovery and spirituality rely on each other, depicted as a gradual progression that spans his life, his childhood all the way to his time with Richard Parker on the life
Pi is an indian, but except Hinduism, he also believes in Christianity and Islam. It is pretty unusual. However, these three religions save his life when he meets storm on the sea. Religion is a key component in Pi’s survival because it lets him understand that he has to coexist with other creatures, it leads Pi to accept that even if he did not survive he would be redeemed, and it gives Pi the hope for survival.
In drastic situations, human psychology uses coping mechanisms to help them through it. In the novel, Life of Pi by Yann Martel, Pi’s coping mechanism is his religions and his projection of Richard Parker. Martel’s Life of Pi shows how the projection of Richard Parker played a greater role in keeping Pi alive in comparison to his beliefs in his religions. During the period in which Pi was stranded on the lifeboat, Richard Parker kept Pi aware, helped Pi make the right decisions, and was Pi’s sub-consciousness.