Life of Pi

Over Thanksgiving break I saw the new movie, “Life of Pi.” I believed this to be an incredible movie and would recommend seeing it. Not only was the picture  absolutely stunning, but the movie left me thinking about it and reasoning it for quite awhile afterwards. It left a lasting impression on me and caused me to question things that I was completely certain of.

The main character, Pi, peruses three religions: Confucianism, Christianity, and Muslim. In Confucianism, there are many gods, but Pi considers only one of these gods to be the alpha god, which was the one that he addresses and prays to. Pi was raised a Confucianist, and when he was young, he became interested in Christ after he snuck into a Catholic church. Pi was drawn to Jesus and eventually embraced Christianity. Later he discovered Muslim and began worshiping Allah. Although Pi now claimed three religions, it seemed that he still only had one God rather than a different god for each religion.  So the question is, is believing in three religions the same thing as not believing in anything at all? Are all religions separate, or are some of them actually worshiping the same God: the one true God?

In the movie, Pi finds himself on an escape boat stranded in the middle of the ocean with nothing but an ordinary bangle tiger for company. When this tragedy happens, Pi immediately turns to God saying to Him that he is God’s vassal for whatever purpose He had In store. In addition to the shipwreck, the loneliness, and the vicious animal on board, Pi faces many other trials and storms. There are several times when Pi addresses God, not understanding why these things were happening. Whenever Pi turned to God, I always naturally thought of Him as “my” God that Pi was talking to. I related everything to “my” religion, thinking wow, what would he do without God? I completely forgot, until the end of the movie, that it was not necessarily my God that Pi was talking to, and a Muslim or Confucianist watching the movie would probably naturally think of him as “their” God.  The same boy, the same situations, the same words, the same feelings, but is it the same God?

I know that there is only one true God, and the Bible is clear that we need Jesus to get to Him, but ii was certainly something that got me thinking. Was Pi just really messed up? Did he need to pick one of the three and solely follow it? Or could it be that since Pi accepted Christ and later prayed to Allah, that Allah could  still be the Lord that Pi was praying to?