For 6 seasons, one of the main lines in the sand was drawn between science & faith. Man of science vs. man of faith. Ultimately, TPTB had faith winning out. For example, it wasn't until Jack gave up science and accepted faith as his directive did he find what he was looking for, what he was meant for. Just one of many instances of faith trumping science. What hit me tonight is that the final battle of science versus faith was presented to us by the producers in the case of the finale. All of those people who are complaining about being cheated, of being had, just generally pissed over the finale......well, those are the men of science. They want concrete answers. They want empirical answers to mythology. They want tangibles they could hold in their hand. All of us, myself included, who are wholly and absolutely satisfied with the finale. Who absolutely loved the how the series ended in the finale. Who loved the afterlife of the sideways. We are the men of faith. For one last and final/finale time, faith trumps science.

- Floater99

We are the men of faith. For one last and final/finale time, faith trumps science.

I agree with you for the most part. Either you had "faith" that Darlton would give you a satisfying ending or you just wanted "answers." Those who enjoyed the finale were the ones willing to let go and put their faith in the storytellers. Those who wanted discrete answers, well, they've been vocal about how betrayed they feel.

But as far as the flash-sideways is concerned, it's not necessarily "faith trumping science." You can choose to view it as an "afterlife" in a religious sense or you can choose to view it as something created by the properties of the Island that allowed for one last set of human connections before death. Or, as Christian intimated, it's a place "they all created together" somehow.

You might not know how the sideways world was created, but you don't have to view it as Catholic purgatory or the Egyptian underworld or in any religious terms if you don't want to. It's open for interpretation. There is no right answer. And that's awesome.

I'm not sure about faith trumping over science. It may be just me, but the vibe I got off the show ever since this theme came up is best summed up with a quote from Babylon5 "Faith and reason are the shoes on your feet. You can travel further with both than you can with just one.".

Thus, the show, IMO, was never about Jack abandoning science and becoming a man of faith - just reconciling both, and if the writers wanted to show anything to triumph here - then it's a harmony between the two.

When Jack was strictly 'reason' and Locke was strictly 'Faith', both of their views were rather narrow-minded. To go back to season 2 - it was as foolish of Locke to accept on faith that pressing the button had a purpose, as it was from Jack to reason that it didn't.

If Locke had used a bit of reason in that scenario, it would not have led to his eventual crisis of faith and thus the destruction of the hatch.

If Jack had embraced the idea that there was a higher purpose for him to be on the island, he would not have had to go through his crises later on when he left it.

And I'm sure you can find numerous more examples.

All of those people who are complaining about being cheated, of being had, just generally pissed over the finale......well, those are the men of science. They want concrete answers. They want empirical answers to mythology. They want tangibles they could hold in their hand. All of us, myself included, who are wholly and absolutely satisfied with the finale. Who absolutely loved the how the series ended in the finale. Who loved the afterlife of the sideways. We are the men of faith. For one last and final/finale time, faith trumps science.

- Floater99

I think this is a mischaracterization of those who were unhappy about the finale and the way the series ended up. I don't know that answers in and of themselves were the priority so much as the story's internal coherence and the pile of inconsistencies that Darlton allowed to build up along the way by not giving proper answers. The inconsistencies and incoherence has been well documented in the Didn't Love It Thread during this season so I'm not gonna rehash them here but whatever...sorry to interrupt your self congratulatory moment.

i completely agree freighter hater...


i didn't need to know all the answers, i just needed to feel a sense of it all fitting together in some way.


the ending just kinda killed that for me. i have nothing left to imagine...


yeah they did give answers and it ruined what i came to love about LOST. their answers were too definitive and killed the mystery.


i would have been satisfied with a lighter or no sideways storyline. just give me those beautiful remembering moments that they presented in the final episode. just show a brief glimpse of the characters reunited in some mysterious way... let the viewer decide how that happened...


is that not FAITH? i don't believe we needed to see the church scene. ultimate faith in the story of LOST would be believing that they would indeed find redemption.


the disappointment came in the fact that we were spoonfed an answer.


personally, i was hoping to see ji-yon and aaron again. i felt that they gave the story HOPE...

i completely agree freighter hater...
i didn't need to know all the answers, i just needed to feel a sense of it all fitting together in some way.
the disappointment came in the fact that we were spoonfed an answer.

Many were spoon fed the same information & came away with a different view of the story. The ending & the unanswered mysteries make perfect sense to many. Some, for what ever reason have not put the pieces together & been able to figure it out. & falling for a writers misdirection is nothing to be ashamed of. It's how they build mystery & shock value for surprise endings.
Some people still don't get 2001 A Space Odyssey. I think some will never get Lost either.
I'm color blind & I can't see purple. I'll never know what purple actually looks like.
The finale deals with issues of faith. Perhaps with out a certain level of understanding of faith you just won't be able to see the Lost ending we see. :JC_thinking:

But that's my point... There wasn't a big surprise.

If there are people who really get it and have put all the pieces together, then please do explain.

I hope there is no implication regarding my lack of understanding faith...

I hate to break this to you, but I am a Faith person, and I hated the ending. Not kinda hated or sorta hated but the show just left a bad taste in my mouth, my woMan of Faith mouth.

I thought the episode dragged. They disposed of Locke really early on (I want to say it was less than halfway), and in a very anticlimactic way. It was an average, if long, episode.

Not everyone's reason has to do with revelations.

But that's my point... There wasn't a big surprise.

If there are people who really get it and have put all the pieces together, then please do explain.

I hope there is no implication regarding my lack of understanding faith...

When Jack & co dropped the nuke he caused the Incident.
The Incident DID NOT cause the after life.
It did create the conditions for the Swan to be built that allowed for Desmond to turn the fail-safe in 2004, allowing for Desmond's transformation to the Black Swan.

The after life is a gift from Grace. Not from exploding a bomb & killing people.

Jack needed to redeem himself for that act of dropping the bomb in 77. Then he was trying to DESTROY THE ISLAND, not save it. When he returned to sacrifice his life & save the Island, that was his redemption. FOR SAVING THE ISLAND!! Why would anyone be rewarded with the gift of a self created after life for trying to 'wipe away' his misery by nuking the Island?

Faith & redemption are the given answers on Lost. Saying the FS/afterlife was caused by dropping a nuclear bomb is clinging to a scientific explanation after the spiritual answer has been revealed. Some won't 'let go'. I just wonder why so many are so unhappy over the spiritual ending & are trying so hard to make it fit into their secular, scientific view points?

I loved the ending.

I understand why some are dissatisfied, even though I disagree with much of what they say.

I agree that a majority of those who are unhappy about the way the story ended are folk of science.

Another large group is comprised of those who were overly invested in whatever theory or fan fiction that they liked best, and who then didn't get the result they wanted.

Another large group is comprised of those who were overly invested in whatever theory or fan fiction that they liked best, and who then didn't get the result they wanted.

I am convinced in Titanic, Jack survives the icy water & is saved.

JOJO in Kill Bill is NOT dead!

Flash would beat Superman in a race!

Sawyer & Kate will have 6 kids as they get it on for the rest of their lives.

Twin Peaks will return. please!!

I get it. We see things through our own lenses.

Exiled, who is arguing about the bomb causing the afterlife? Certainly not me. That wasn't even close to my point. You have missed my point completely. Not everyone who feel something was missing from the ending are automatically "folks of science." Let go of that whole idea, please. Agree to disagree and leave it at that. I think it's rather presumptuous to assume you (or others on this thread) know what the writers were really going for... And it's a bit cocky to place yourselves in the "real fans" category and self-select others who don't see it your way to go in the "clueless" category.

Exiled, who is arguing about the bomb causing the afterlife? Certainly not me. That wasn't even close to my point. You have missed my point completely. Not everyone who feel something was missing from the ending are automatically "folks of science." Let go of that whole idea, please. Agree to disagree and leave it at that. I think it's rather presumptuous to assume you (or others on this thread) know what the writers were really going for... And it's a bit cocky to place yourselves in the "real fans" category and self-select others who don't see it your way to go in the "clueless" category.
Just offering my views on the thread topic. It boils down to my view of the Incident.
The rest of your post isn't worth a response.

I think they geniously made both relevant. Everything that happened on the island happened and was relevant, lending credence to empericism and logic...but ultimately the faith was real, too, and is what made the realities of what happened on the island relevant

Just throwing this out there but I'm much more a Man of Science than of Faith. And it's something I've struggled with for basically my entire life being that I was always sent to religious schools that preached about God's plan and reward/punishment in the afterlife and a bunch of other stuff that seemed so far-fetched that I rebelled very much against them. Only recently have I been able to find a middle ground between demanding answers to everything in life and understanding that some things just don't have an answer...or that I'll never get to that answer as long as I live.

That being said - I loved the finale and in light of it I loved the overall message of the series. Whether you look at it religiously (their souls congregated in a church before moving to Heaven) or scientifically (Jack, in his dying moments constructed this crazy fantasy to ease himself into death) - whatever way you choose to approach it (or like me where I'm somewhere in between option A and option B) or whatever interpretation you have can work regardless of where you are on the topic of God and the Great Beyond.

Oh and in today's SHOCKING twist - the_exiled...would you believe me if I told you that your avatar...IS PURPLE!!! That's right! It's the VERY COLOR YOU CAN'T SEE! WHAT DOES THIS MEAN for the future of the universe?!?!

(just kidding, little colorblindness humor to lighten the mood around here)

Just throwing this out there but I'm much more a Man of Science than of Faith. And it's something I've struggled with for basically my entire life being that I was always sent to religious schools that preached about God's plan and reward/punishment in the afterlife and a bunch of other stuff that seemed so far-fetched that I rebelled very much against them. Only recently have I been able to find a middle ground between demanding answers to everything in life and understanding that some things just don't have an answer...or that I'll never get to that answer as long as I live.

That being said - I loved the finale and in light of it I loved the overall message of the series. Whether you look at it religiously (their souls congregated in a church before moving to Heaven) or scientifically (Jack, in his dying moments constructed this crazy fantasy to ease himself into death) - whatever way you choose to approach it (or like me where I'm somewhere in between option A and option B) or whatever interpretation you have can work regardless of where you are on the topic of God and the Great Beyond.

Oh and in today's SHOCKING twist - the_exiled...would you believe me if I told you that your avatar...IS PURPLE!!! That's right! It's the VERY COLOR YOU CAN'T SEE! WHAT DOES THIS MEAN for the future of the universe?!?!

(just kidding, little colorblindness humor to lighten the mood around here)

haha, I drew that but someone else colored it. I NEVER saw the purple.:dizzy:
on topic, I understand your take on this view of the faith vs science battle. What I think some are missing is that science does not get thrown out with the bath water if you choose faith as your answer. The b & w must always work together.

The problem here on this board is some who want the science answer will not accept any spiritual aspect to the finale. The Faith side knows & accepts science as a big part of the answer. That's the way I'm seeing it anyway.

"Faith vs Science" was a theme in the show about CHARACTER, not about the core of the story's mysteries and its mechanics.

It was a laymanization of a problem many people of "reason" have - they want more and more evidence, but they're so used to wanting evidence that when they have enough evidence to believe something, they still cross their arms as if they don't have any evidence at all. They don't know how to ... ahem ... let go.

It was never about "faith beats science" or "science beats faith" - these are all simple concepts to stimulate the more basic demographic of viewers. The greater idea revolved around awareness . . . about knowing yourself . . . finding yourself . . .

And no, the ending was in no way definitively "spiritual" or to be more specific, supernatural. If you disagree, I think you're forgetting - well - a significant portion of the show.