The Maverick's Mind-Space

Many people would have watched 'The Matrix' and enjoyed it as a movie-- A movie known for its amazing fight sequences, action scenes etc. But there is much more in the movie apart from all these. . Now, Let me tell you that most of the names of the characters in The Matrix are meaningful. They tell about the character. They speak for themselves. Here are some of the names and what they mean:

Thomas Anderson
This is the name of Keanu reeves in The matrix. 'Ander' means 'man'. So 'Anderson' means 'Son of man'. This is an intended irony since we come to know later in the movie that Anderson was not 'born'. He was 'manufactured' by the machines.

Neo
Neo means 'new'. Since Keanu reeves becomes a new man in Zion, He is called Neo. Moreover, Neo is an anagram of "one".

Morpheus
Morpheus was a God of dreams in Greek mythology. He was one of the sons of Hypnos, the God of sleep. He took human form and appeared to people in their sleep. To be "in the arms of Morpheus" means to be asleep, and the drug morphine is named after him. This name is very apt since Morpheus believees he would be able to defeat the machines one day or the other.

Oracle
Oracle, in the ancient Greek world, was a shrine where people consulted special priests or priestesses. These priests and priestesses were believed to have the power to reveal the will of the gods and to foretell the future. The word oracle also refers to the priest or priestess and to the message or prophecy.

Zion
'Zion' is the city in which the anomalies from the matrix live. It is the only place not under the control of the machines.I suppose the word 'Zion' is related to 'Scion' as in 'The Priory of Scion'. The priory of scion was a secret society in the past. Its mission was "to safeguard not just the treasure of the Crusades, but to preserve the Grail.."

The other names that are of historical importance are:

*Merovingian- An old French dynasty (The Merovingian speaks French) who claimed they descended from the line of Jesus Christ.

*Persephone- A beautiful goddess in Greek and Roman mythology.(a fitting name for Monica Bellucci!!)

*Niobe- A Greek goddess who wanted to be adored for being a mother.

*Nebuchadnezzar- A king mentioned in the bible who is haunted by bad dreams.

The other day, I asked my fellow members of a community called 'Crazy theories' about what God is. The feedback I got was really interesting. Here they are...

Abinand:
what is God? 4/23/2005 7:19 AM
why do we people personify god? why do we believe that God is a "him"? I believe that God is an energy like kinetic or potential energy. Like other forms of energy, God can also be harnessed. we call the harnessing of energy as prayer. Do you agree?

Sav
4/24/2005 5:20 AM
here's what i think...... there had to be some way of refering to god.... so ppl just gave him a form... and being the egotistical race that humans are... they gave him a human form..... and since men have had more power for most of history, and are physiologically the stronger sex..... god was given the form of a male human.....
thats why he's called HE
(tho if you think of the qualities typically asociated with god... compassion, love, mercy, pity, peace...... it wud be more fitting to call him a SHE........ just my 2 cents! im not being a feminist here)

C.J.
4/25/2005 8:44 AM
I guess calling God a She or He would be unfair. Can't call God an It because that implies inanimate objects or animals according to the proper English grammar rules (that I was taught anyway; can be debated). How about a mixture of She, He and It? Umm... SHIt?!
"...and God said unto thee that those who believe in SHIt shall find themselves in heaven."
Not that I have anything against God but frankly, debating about what gender to assign to God sounds rather futile because God's supposed to be one of a kind. Besides, we bend so many rules of English language in our daily usage, why not invent a distinctive 3rd person (?!) singular for God? Preferably other than SHIt, which does in a way say A LOT more than the literal meaning of the word. God's not a person hence emphasis is on the "limitations of human languages". I guess it would be a different category altogether.
Consider it a "thinking outside of the box" exercise. You have my suggestion. That is if you can get past the literal meaning.

C.J.
4/25/2005 10:25 PM
To answer the real question, I somewhat agree with that idea. Praying could be harnessing the energy that is God. But my version is a little more detailed/specific in a sense cuz I think that "thinking is praying"... Why? Well, that depends entirely on whether anyone wants to know or not.

Sav
5/7/2005 9:47 AM
okay lets for just a min agree that god is in fact some sort of energy (tho im not sure i totally agree with it)
i dont think praying is a way of harnessig it... i think its just a way of accepting the energy and recognising that its something greater than us... (which is just a nice way of saying praying is a way of kissing up to what we think is the ultimate power)
thinking is praying.... NO i dont think so. praying may consist of a little amount of thinking (and even that is debatable) but the two are essentially different things!
as for energy egtting exhausted.... well according to the laws of physics (which i tend to believe more than the laws of religion) the total amount of energy in the universe remains constant!! its never exhausted!!

C.J.
Think about it... 5/11/2005 3:25 AM
A lot of things I've said before already, like in the original "What is God?" thread and so on. Without repeating and going into too much detail again, I'll just touch on some things:

1) God as "The Idea" and not "just an idea". (This actually relates to Plato's Theory of Forms and there's much available in regards to that on the net and in books). You may take God as The Perfect Idea or The Idea of Perfection. God does not have a form because that would impart limitations and thus imperfection.

2) If worship/prayer has one function other than some unnecessary physical exercise and repeating the same old prayers and giving us something "constructive" to do, it is that it REMINDS us of God. If you're "thinking" of God, you're not committing sins and being generally stupid (or so you could assume). I'm not trying to deter anyone from praying/worshipping but only highlighting the "main reason" as far as my humble intelligence permits.

3) Now then, if God is The Idea and worshipping/praying "reminds" us of God too, then to think of God is to pray. Gives "idealism" a whole new twist, doesn't it?

4) I realize I said "thinking is praying" and not "thinking about God is praying" but again refering to Plato's Theory of Forms, when God is The Perfect Idea and The First Idea, then all ideas are derived from God because God is derived from nothing (and thus "Hinduism says God is Nothing"; quoting my best buddy Rahul). So even thinking about things in general is paying tribute to (or giving credit to) the source of all ideas: God. Another interesting tidbit: Happy people do not think! Yes or no?

Sidenote: The debate about whether God came first or humans is just like the age-old debate about the chicken and the egg. Do you really wanna get into that? Well then... my votes are reserved for God and the chicken.

5) Therefore, thinking is praying and thinking can make the most out of an idea or The Idea. The more you think, the more you understand and the more you understand, the more... okay, shit! I'm at a loss for words here. No, I wasn't gonna say "the more money you make". What I was about to say doesn't exactly matter to that many people. Oh well... *sigh*

There's a whole lot more I could say still but I'm gonna leave it at this for now. It's a lot like a neverending story. Trust me. Goes on and on.
Oh, and if I may recommend a book: The Silva's Mind Control Method. The Silva Method. That'll tell you a lot about the power of ideas.
To me, the Mind and the Soul and the Conscience are the same thing. Not a body part but something that makes us more than the sum of our (body) parts. From that perspective, God as The Perfect Idea is also The Perfect/Greatest Soul. In that, I'm equating the mental and the spiritual. *sigh* I realize that a whole lot of what I've said may not make sense. In which case, I'm just another idiot rambling. So be it. Oh, well!

Sav
5/11/2005 6:40 PM
hinduism says God is nothing??
oh and you might want to verify some things before you blindly repeat them!
thinking of God is NOT praying.... praying is when you try to communicate with a greater power (this included kings back in the early days)

Ali
5/11/2005 8:44 PM
giving a specific word a fixed unversal meaning would go on to say, in my humble opinion, that human language as a mode of communication, is perfect. which i'm sure u all would agree to, is not.

poets and writers use differnt words in differnt contexts. praying for some people would mean communicating with a higher athaurity (who take a litteral meaning of the word), for others would mean say, ... hmm... asking for God's grace (in any possible form). and Gods' grace could mean alota things too, his guidance, forgiveness, strenght to do right or even could be used to define "harnessing" Gods' power.

C.J. does have some good thoughts here. whn ur thinking of God ur not doing nething wrong that you couldve been doing. thats good in a way.

u know, the thing about hinduism saying "God is nothing", one of my friends said the same thing to me. but considering the fact that there are so many differnt sects in hinduism (the same way we have in islam and christianity), saying that C.J. should reconfirm his data would be asking too much of him now wouldnt it. he couldnt be expected to go to a devoted follower of each hindu sect and prepare a statistical report on what each sect believes in and what they dont believe in.

Sarosh:
5/12/2005 9:29 AM
I dont know where to start as we have confused the scientific beliefs with absoluteness of the highest truth quite a big deal.
First of all, when we talk about energy in physical meanings, we dont talk about "different energies" but "different forms of energy". Taking this belief of science, of course you want to say that any other energy can be transformed into God or God can be transformed into any of those. At least I dont pray such a God.
My God is not energy but the Creator of Energy, and this is the first display of His being God, because in our physical world we believe that energy cant be created or destroyed but only transformed from one form to the other and hence we use the term "produce" with energy instead of "create". But my God is the one Who created it (Khaaliq) and who can destroy it (Moákhir).
Secondly, my God can't be harnessed with prayers; my God has established values and applies those values to make the things happen instead of going with whome has prayed the most; NO, my God is not that helpless in front of prayers. When I pray I ask Him for something, and He Only gives me what I deserve, and Yes He Gives me what I want when its a matter of choice.
The last but not the least; My God can't be surrounded in words, or HE wouldn't be My God.