Joan Of Arcadia - Discussion: God in JoA

Kimberly · 01-12-2005, 11:50 PM

I have often wondered how people view God in JoA. Does the show represent God in a similar way as you understood before? Or has their representation of God changed your opinion? If so how, if not why not. I also came across an article based on Barbara Hall's The 10 Commandments of Joan of Arcadia Do you agree with the statements that Barbara Hall made about God.

Here is what Barbara Hall wrote for the commandments of how God was to interact and behave on the show:

Quote:

1. God cannot directly intervene.

2. Good and evil exist.

3. God can never identify one religion as being right.

4. The job of every human being is to fulfill his or her true nature.

5. Everyone is allowed to say no to God, including Joan.

6. God is not bound by time — this is a human concept.

7. God IS NOT A PERSON and does not possess a human personality.

8. God talks to everyone all the time in different ways.

9. God's plan is what is good for us, not what is good for Him.

10. God's purpose for talking to Joan, and to everyone, is to get her (us) to recognize the interconnectedness of all things, i.e. you cannot hurt a person without hurting yourself; all of your actions have consequences; God can be found in the smallest actions; God expects us to learn and grow from all our experiences. However, the exact nature of God is a mystery, and the mystery can never be solved.

I know religion is a hot topic so please make sure to keep your posts respectful and not aimed at other posters.

I myself agree with the way JoA has described God for the most part. I think they do a great job stressing the importance of free will and how everything is interconnected. Many times at the end of the show I will find myself being awestruck at how wonderful the point of the show and how they get to it without being obvious.

Since I have started watching the show I have come to appreciate the hard falls in my life a lot more. I now think to myself that maybe there are unseen things coming that I will come to understand later. I feel like everything I do has more of a purpose.

Basia77 · 01-13-2005, 01:11 AM

Very interesting topic - thanks for starting it. It is also a very touchy subject, so I hope everyone can stay open-minded because I would love to see what other people think.

For me, the God on JOA is pretty close to how I always thought God is and how he operates. I've always believed in the free will stuff, and I've never seen God as a punisher or one who favors some over others. I especially like the 10th commandment on that list, because I think it is the one most people tend to forget. I also liked the definition of religion that the JOA God gave in "The Book of Questions" - that religions are basically filters through which people see and understand God and they choose the one that makes the most sense to them - sometimes it is the same as your family's and how you were raised, others look elsewhere and convert to a different religion that makes more sense to them.

One of the main questions this show raises is "Why Joan?" They say God talks to everyone, but why does Joan get such a direct line? Why does she get to see him and get direct missions from him?

Someone on another board mentioned a Native American belief that basically stated that if you take one step towards the gods, they will take 10 towards you and they take delight in helping you, that "they love to collaborate with our strong intention." I don't know if this is anything like Barbara Hall had in mind, but it fits for me because it seems to fit in with the "fulfill your true nature thing."

Somehow, Joan took that first step towards God, and God in turn took 10 towards her. This theory would also explain why Joan hasn't been told to save the world or start an army or do anything huge - because none of these things are part of her "strong intentions" or her "true nature." Joan may not understand or like many of her missions, but they are part of a much larger picture that she can't see (because she is only capable of that one step), but God can and he knows how all these little things will lead to Joan fulfilling her true nature (God taking those 10 steps).

This also makes sense because God's missions seem to address what is in Joan's heart. At the beginning of the first season, Kevin was really struggling and so many of her missions helped him. Maybe so many of the missions last season dealt with Adam because of her developing feelings for him, and this season she feels badly for him for having to work at the hotel and missing out on art classes and boom! God gives her an assignment that leads to an internship that allows Adam to quit the hotel and gain some experience in art/graphic design. Joan wishes that her friends would accept Judith and she gets the garden assignment that eventually brings everyone together. On some level, Joan knows that she needs to let Judith go, so she is nudged along that path. This season, the missons seem to primarily be self-improvement lessons for Joan, so maybe the missions are a reflection of her desire to find herself again after losing herself because of the Lyme disease and crazy camp and find her "thing."

WBoverlay · 01-13-2005, 06:30 AM

K46, this is a wonderful topic and like Basia says, I hope all posters here will try to be open-minded. The subject of God and Religion can be a pot-boiler. It can cause war and misunderstanding among families and nations but the discussion of this subject (I would hope) can also bring about a knowledgeable awareness of what other people really think about God. Maybe we're really not so different even though we may practice a particular Religion. We also have to accept the fact that some people just don't believe God exists.

I think God at first was just trying to prove to Joan, after the accident with Kevin, that He does exist. That He is in her life and there is a connectiveness or ripple effect in each move we make. I believe God does talk to everyone and the simple cliche of "but not all of us stop to listen", might just be the simple answer. Why Joan? Why not Mr. Girardi, who seems to blame God for Kevin's accident and up until now at least, chooses to think God doesn't exist. Maybe Joan will be the common touchstone for God to work through in healing Joan's family. I think Joan was ready to hear God, even though she might not have realized it and God knew working with a young less worldly or jaded person would better fit into His plan. To say God works in strange ways is an understatement.

God doesn't interfere but somehow Joan keeps following His directions even when all or most of the time she doesn't understand why. There was one point in the show when I think Joan was hoping she was just momentarily crazy or hallucinating from her illness. God never told her "Don't tell anyone I talked to you", yet she still keeps it a secret because she doesn't want the crazy stigma to haunt her. And after all that, Joan still keeps following God's directions.

Joan's mother seems to be caught in the middle of a personal dilemna between choosing to become a catholic and dealing with her husband's unacceptance of this. I liked the fact that she sort of told him off in the last episode about her confirmation. Women of today need to be strong and not dominated or constantly look for approval and acceptance from their male counterparts. That's the part of Joan of Arcadia and even the Joan of Arc story that I like the most. God talks to a young girl and she somehow reaches other people in striking ways.

MoonbeamDancer · 01-13-2005, 11:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Basia77

One of the main questions this show raises is "Why Joan?" They say God talks to everyone, but why does Joan get such a direct line? Why does she get to see him and get direct missions from him?

Who knows except for God, maybe that's why she's here; to work for him.

Quote:

Somehow, Joan took that first step towards God, and God in turn took 10 towards her. This theory would also explain why Joan hasn't been told to save the world or start an army or do anything huge - because none of these things are part of her "strong intentions" or her "true nature." Joan may not understand or like many of her missions, but they are part of a much larger picture that she can't see (because she is only capable of that one step), but God can and he knows how all these little things will lead to Joan fulfilling her true nature (God taking those 10 steps).

That's true. It also could be true for just now, who's to say that Joan isn't meant to do something on that big of a scale, maybe she's just not ready in anyway to handel that big of a deal yet and God is getting her ready for it.

And yeah, I agree that a lot of Joan's missions have been for her self improvement, to show her that God is still there, is still watching out for her, and is giving her something new to stand on since her world got shaken up and fell around her.

shrams · 01-13-2005, 12:50 PM

One of the reasons I'm so drawn to this show is that I love the way God is portrayed. It does fit in very well with my own presonal belief, that God takes different forms to interact with different people; sometimes individuals, sometimes whole societies. I love the 3rd commandment in BH's list, that God won't ever identify one religion as being right. So many people are uncomfortable with what they were taught growing up, that God takes a particular form, and they don't like what that image represents to them. Sometimes it makes it difficult for them to try to find God in any other form, or in another set of teachings. What's great about this show is that it's opening Joan's mind (and hopefully the audience's minds) to the idea that God can appear in many unexpected forms, and we can never truly know or understand what God actually "looks" like. We're not ready for "the big picture" because it's greater than human beings are capable of comprehending.

For much of my life I've found comfort in believing that everything that happens, happens for a reason, and I don't have to know the reason. I want to know, but whether I actually learn it is irrelevant; what's important is to accept it and learn from it. With my imagination, I can always think of ways that anything that happens to me could be worse...much worse. I'd rather think that all things are working together for some greater good, and I am just a tiny part of that, so maybe something that is difficult for me to handle is something that needs to happen for an ultimate positive result or lesson, if not for myself, then for someone else. The interconnectedness and ripples are wonderful to see, when we can recognize them in the show, and sometimes we might not "get" them until later. I hope that's what's happening with the aspects of the show that I haven't really liked this season; maybe they were necessary to create something that wouldn't have happened, or made sense, without those events or character interactions.

I'm really glad to see a show that can be embraced by so many people of different ages, different beliefs, and that we can have interesting, intelligent discussions about so many things that are brought up. It's really a good way to learn about other people's feelings, thoughts and beliefs, and it's certainly helping me understand human nature overall a little better. It's hard to get these in-depth discussions in real life, and there's much more variety of people and views to be found on the 'net, I think, than we usually see in our day-to-day lives.

WBoverlay · 01-13-2005, 01:58 PM

I have an odd or maybe just stupid question to pose and I'd genuinely like to hear your input on this one. When Joan talks to God as cute boy, cafeteria worker, film director, little girl or whatever, do those people really exist in the real world Joan lives in? Does God just temporarily take over the personna of these people to give Joan a message and then they just go back to being real cafeteria workers or whatever? Or Do the God people only exist in that moment as a physical fragment of God and then no longer exist at all after the message is delivered?

I like to think that part of God's message to all of us is that there is a little bit of God or His spirit, light, grace, soul (whatever form your beliefs' are) in everyone we meet.

shrams · 01-13-2005, 06:57 PM

My impression has been that God creates various personas. Sometimes he sticks around after he talks to Joan (like as the substitute teacher who stood up to Price), just to hang out and see what it's like to be a teacher, or a janitor, or a doctor, for a day. Other times the persona may cease to exist once the message to Joan has been delivered. OTOH, t would be interesting if we were to see any of the familiar incarnations (Goth God, Mrs. LandingGod, CBG) at some time when they're obviously not God; that would pretty much answer the question. But I think it's significant that Joan has never seen any of these people when they weren't, indeed, God. It may be one of those questions that's never answered in the show, or not until late in the series, but it's an intriguing one.

MoonbeamDancer · 01-14-2005, 09:57 PM

I don't know if it's been officaly said, but I think I remember reading that the people that God shows up as are personas that he/she makes, they aren't actual people.

Basia77 · 01-14-2005, 10:40 PM

My guess would be that God creates the personas. If he were just taking over other people that would violate the whole "free will" thing that he is so fond of.

shrams · 01-14-2005, 10:55 PM

I think God really enjoys creating these different personas or avatars or whatever you want to call them. He gets to play around with being human, and experience a lot of diversity, and genuinely seems to enjoy it. It's not entirely for Joan's benefit, but I do think God derives some amusement from her reactions. My impression is that God spends a lot of time "playing human" and it's not only the times Joan is around.

WBoverlay · 01-18-2005, 06:48 AM

It seems to me that the God/People/Avatars are evolving. In the first episode of Season one, it seemed like only Joan saw cute boy God and we actually would see him disappear as he walked away. Slowly over time it seems like the God/avatars are sticking around and continue to perform the functions or jobs of each personna they inhabit. Other people see them and in "Zombies...", there was a major interaction between Broadway show director and everyone who crossed his path. I somehow think that this evolution was meant to happen and the writers have cleverly advanced this notion. Maybe the implication is that through whatever Joan does, whatever assignment God has for her, it eventuallly does cause that ripple effect and more people are beginning to recognize God in everyday life.