October 3, 2007

  • "I always had a lot of questions about the world, even in kindergarten. A big question to me was fairness. If I'd grown up in some other religion, would I get the same shot at Heaven as a Christian has? My mom would come into my room and talk to me. I was very fortunate to have that dialogue with her, but in high school I started to realize that I felt differently from others."

    Brad went to Springfield's Kickapoo High, excelling at school debates and sports. As he got older, his religious doubts increased.
     
    "I had crises of faith," he says. "I thought you had to experience things if you want to know right from wrong. I'd go to Christian revivals and be moved by the Holy Spirit, and I'd go to rock concerts and feel the same fervor. Then I'd be told, 'That's the Devil's music! Don't partake in that!' I wanted to experience things religion said not to experience."

    By the time he entered college, Pitt had scuttled his fundamentalist beliefs. "When I got untethered from the comfort of religion, it wasn't a loss of faith for me, it was a discovery of self," he says. "I had faith that I'm capable enough to handle any situation. There's peace in understanding that I have only one life, here and now, and I'm responsible."


    I ask Brad about the pivotal influences on his 1986 decision to abruptly leave the University of Missouri before his graduation Surprisingly, he mentions a girlfriend but asks me not to use her name.

    "You made me think about this girlfriend I had in senior year," he recalls. "She was a Methodist preacher's kid. She wasn't that into me, truthfully, although we were together for a semester. "

    When I tell him I am the son of a preacher, too, he smiles and nods.

    "Well," he continues, "she was tough, man, although really cool. She had an older brother who was killed in a four-by-four accident, which was not uncommon out there." He refers to a four-wheel drive crash. "She was a hardcore realist. She called me on so much bull—about any romantic ideas that I had grown up with about life. It was my first year in college."

    Brad studied journalism at the University of Missouri at Columbia, hoping for a career as an art director in advertising.

    "She helped me more than anyone else as far as setting off in my own direction," he explains. "It was my first year in college and I was pushing back against the religion thing. In my eyes it was a mechanism of guilt , this engrained system, used to keep the flock in servitude." Brad was raised a conservative Southern Baptist. "Guilt is the thing I find most evil about it. It's the thing I rail against the most. She helped me in defining what I believed.

    "Religion works," he goes on. "I know there's comfort there, a crash pad. It's something to explain the world and tell you there is something bigger than you, and it is going to be alright in the end. It works because it's comforting. I grew up believing in it, and it worked for me in whatever my little personal high school crisis was, but it didn't last for me. I didn't understand this idea of a God who says, 'You have to acknowledge me. You have to say that I'm the best, and then I'll give you eternal happiness. If you won't, then you don't get it!' It seemed to be about ego. I can't see God operating from ego, so it made no sense to me.

    Exceprts on Brad Pitt's recent Parade Interview on Religion

    Jennifer Aniston's remarks that Brad Pitt lacks a sensitivy chip, this interview surely has proven the truth to what she said. Not only that Brad is insensitive to Jennifer's feelings, he is also lacking a sense of responsibility to what his comments about God could do to the young generation of today who are already confused and self absorbed as he is.

    I've always liked Brad Pitt, but after reading this interview, my admiration for him is now waning. I've come to realize that he is just like all the rest of these "Hollywood anti-God and do not need God in their lives group of confused wealthy actors". Jesus Christ is right when he said

    on:

    Matthew 6:24 (The Message) 24"You can't worship two gods at once. Loving one god, you'll end up hating the other. Adoration of one feeds contempt for the other. You can't worship God and Money both.

    Luke 12:16-20 (The Message)16-19Then he told them this story: "The farm of a certain rich man produced a terrific crop. He talked to himself: 'What can I do? My barn isn't big enough for this harvest.' Then he said, 'Here's what I'll do: I'll tear down my barns and build bigger ones. Then I'll gather in all my grain and goods, and I'll say to myself, Self, you've done well! You've got it made and can now retire. Take it easy and have the time of your life!'

     20"Just then God showed up and said, 'Fool! Tonight you die. And your barnful of goods—who gets it?'

    Proverbs 29:18 (New Life Version)

    18 Where there is no understanding of the Word of the Lord, the people do whatever they want to, but happy is he who keeps the law.

     Mark 10:23-24 (The Message)

     23-25 Looking at his disciples, Jesus said, "Do you have any idea how difficult it is for people who 'have it all' to enter God's kingdom?" The disciples couldn't believe what they were hearing, but Jesus kept on: "You can't imagine how difficult. I'd say it's easier for a camel to go through a needle's eye than for the rich to get into God's kingdom."

    Brad Pitt has been absorbed in pleasing himself that his questions about God before he pursued acting were sidetracked by his desire to become what he is now.

    Knowing and seeking about God's true nature does not stop when someone said that he cannot watch Christian rock concerts because it's a devil's music. He was surely deceived by the devil, that's for sure. Not unless Brad experience being humbled to where it will make him come down to his knees, he will never find out that God is offering him an unconditional love that would lead him to life eternal after his life here on earth and; live forever in the presence of God. Brad, you are not going to be young and handsome forever (life is fleeting), Angie won't be there with you forever and when your kids are grown, and you are on the twilight years of your life, I pray that what Johnny Cash had discovered, that you would find it, too.

    God bless you Brad Pitt and may God's face shine upon your face someday.

    Jesus said on Mark 8:36 (New Living Translation)

    36 And what do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul?[a]