Donald Brandis's Page

Another Ishmael/Isaac story is Speilberg's film "Artificial Intelligence" (2001). The conflict here is between natural humans and 'artificial' humans or robots, a classic human vs machine story. Though distorted by Speilberg's Peter Pan fixation, the story like many says more than it knows. The little boy robot David, lovingly created by the human robot maker played by Wm Hurt - like the doll-maker in Pinochio, which this story is an acknowledged reworking of - is shown to be more human than…

We watched a movie last weekend called Stranger Than Fiction (2007), about an IRS agent living a very ordinary, competent but boring and unfulfilling life, when he begins to hear to voice-over narrator we in the audience are hearing, describing and assessing his life. When the voice announces he is about to die, he decides to do something about it. A psychiatrist he consults tells him he is schizophrenic, but he insists on a second opinion and she recommends he see someone who knows…

What do we need an inner sense of the Word for? Isn't the literal sense good enough?

This would be a frequently asked question if it were widenly know that there is a inner sense of the Word, and has been since the time of the American Revolution. That it isn't widely known shows why it became necessary. The Word is the link between heaven and our world, allowing people of faith formed by it to live heavenly lives, charitable lives now in the world. This is true of the literal…