I have just finished watching an episode of 30 Days (the show by Morgan Spurlock, the Supersize Me guy), it had a Christian American from West Virginia spending time in Dearborne, Michigan, a town with 30% Muslim population. He began by spouting off the tripe of intolerance: Islam preaches violence, there are terrorists under all Muslim floorboards, he felt he would be 'vulnerable'. He finished with questions but ultimately respect. As an atheist I believe in no religion, dogmatic or personal... I don't believe in an afterlife or deity of any kind. However, as much as I have disdain for dogmatic, organised religion, I hold tremendous respect in people who have faith. Faith is empowerment: be you Christian, Scientologist, Shinto or Raellian. I have faith, I have faith that my convictions on religion are correct, faith that is open to further information and later change. Respect for religion is important, but every religion should be open to criticism: defeating that criticism should be part of the relations that religion has with outsiders. Preaching is not so right, but easy to do: you believe you are right, I feel sure that I am right, we are bound to want to share that, even if it intrudes on other people's beliefs.

However, there was more to this show than religion... it was about intolerance. Faith promotes some degree of intolerance for the reasons it gives to preach, however, not all intolerance need be there. The man who did his 30 Days, had no idea that Allah was Jehovah or Yahweh, no idea that Islam was part of the Judeo-Christian tradition. Sure, there are important differences: Christians worship Jesus as the son (and ultimately part of God), Jews are still waiting for their Messiah, and the Muslims see no further word from God being forthcoming. But these differences needn't cloud the minds of each other... This disconnect between the Abrahamic religions is something that needs to be overcome to get rid of this dumb notion of Huntington's 'Clash of Civilisations'. Furthermore, we all need to address the false synergies that breed our intolerance: (being flippant, not preaching) foreigners commit crimes, ergo all foreigners are criminals; US illegal immigrants are Hispanic, therefore all Hispanic people are illegals; all modern terrorists are Muslim (not even correct), therefore all Muslims are terrorists. The beliefs will kill us, and the latter two of those are undermining the prestige America once had for its open arms... and ultimately undermining the fabric of its current mission.

However, I did want to discuss other things. I've seen three more films recently. Two days ago, I watched The Constant Gardener. This is an adaptation of John le Carre's novel of the same name, with major input from the author. It starred Ray Fiennes as the 'Gardener', Justin Quayle. He does a superb job, as do most of the cast. It's a brilliant film with the same sort of message as Lord of War: Africa is being screwed over.You really should watch it, it has real grit and is a brilliant, if slightly long film.

On that night, I watched A History of Violence. Pretty interesting, but ultimately disappointing. There was good grit and drama, but I did feel a little weird at seeing that very old cliche of a woman being raped by her husband, but beginning to enjoy it. It was uncomfortable, and ultimately that really let it down in my eyes. It ends at the start in story-telling terms, with an abrupt finish that makes you wonder how the family continues. Probably worth watching, although not much more than a rental in my eyes.

Finally, I sat down to watch One Night in Mongkok this afternoon. I'm not quite sure whether I really like this film or just find it okay. It is essentially a gang story, a man is brought to Hong Kong from his village on the Mainland to earn money as a hitman, his first time. He meets up with a hooker who he rescued and they hit the streets, while a gang war is brewing that the cops want to pre-empt. It's very gritty, the fight scenes are suitably bloody. It is about the corruption of humanity in the most densely populated city in the world. Worth checking out if you want to see something other than the flash of Infernal Affairs.

As for the dissertation, the new structure and narrower topic works much better and I'm at 7,300 words, only 700 away from the minimum word limit. I will easily get past that, probably past the 10,000 upper limit too, but that should give me nice meaty chunks to edit. Things are going good... I'm much happier with it.

Can I get a Hallelujah?

No?

You gits.