12-29-2009, 12:00 AM
Avatar and Pantheism
By ROSS DOUTHAT
Published: December 20, 2009
It's fitting that James Cameron's "Avatar" arrived in theaters at
Christmastime. Like the holiday season itself, the science fiction epic is a
crass embodiment of capitalistic excess wrapped around a deeply felt
religious message. It's at once the blockbuster to end all blockbusters, and
the Gospel According to James.
Susan Etheridge for The New York Times
But not the Christian Gospel. Instead, "Avatar" is Cameron's long apologia
for pantheism - a faith that equates God with Nature, and calls humanity
into religious communion with the natural world.
In Cameron's sci-fi universe, this communion is embodied by the
blue-skinned, enviably slender Na'Vi, an alien race whose idyllic existence
on the planet Pandora is threatened by rapacious human invaders. The Na'Vi
are saved by the movie's hero, a turncoat Marine, but they're also saved by
their faith in Eywa, the "All Mother," described variously as a network of
energy and the sum total of every living thing.
If this narrative arc sounds familiar, that's because pantheism has been
Hollywood's religion of choice for a generation now. It's the truth that
Kevin Costner discovered when he went dancing with wolves. It's the
metaphysic woven through Disney cartoons like "The Lion King" and
"Pocahontas." And it's the dogma of George Lucas's Jedi, whose mystical
Force "surrounds us, penetrates us, and binds the galaxy together."
Hollywood keeps returning to these themes because millions of Americans
respond favorably to them. From Deepak Chopra to Eckhart Tolle, the
"religion and inspiration" section in your local bookstore is crowded with
titles pushing a pantheistic message. A recent Pew Forum
reporton how Americans mix and
match theology found that many self-professed
Christians hold beliefs about the "spiritual energy" of trees and mountains
that would fit right in among the indigo-tinted Na'Vi.
As usual, Alexis de Tocqueville saw it coming. The American belief in the
essential unity of all mankind, Tocqueville
wrotein the 1830s,
leads us to collapse distinctions at every level of creation.
"Not content with the discovery that there is nothing in the world but a
creation and a Creator," he suggested, democratic man "seeks to expand and
simplify his conception by including God and the universe in one great
whole."
Today there are other forces that expand pantheism's American appeal. We
pine for what we've left behind, and divinizing the natural world is an
obvious way to express unease about our hyper-technological society. The
threat of global warming, meanwhile, has lent the cult of Nature qualities
that every successful religion needs - a crusading spirit, a rigorous set of
'thou shalt nots," and a piping-hot apocalypse.
At the same time, pantheism opens a path to numinous experience for people
uncomfortable with the literal-mindedness of the monotheistic religions -
with their miracle-working deities and holy books, their virgin births and
resurrected bodies. As the Polish philosopher Leszek Kolakowski noted,
attributing divinity to the natural world helps "bring God closer to human
experience," while "depriving him of recognizable personal traits." For
anyone who pines for transcendence but recoils at the idea of a demanding
Almighty who interferes in human affairs, this is an ideal combination.
Indeed, it represents a form of religion that even atheists can support.
Richard Dawkins has called pantheism "a sexed-up atheism." (He means that as
a compliment.) Sam Harris concluded his polemic "The End of Faith" by
rhapsodizing about the mystical experiences available from immersion in "the
roiling mystery of the world." Citing Albert Einstein's expression of
religious awe at the "beauty and sublimity" of the universe, Dawkins allows,
"In this sense I too am religious."
The question is whether Nature actually deserves a religious response.
Traditional theism has to wrestle with the problem of evil: if God is good,
why does he allow suffering and death? But Nature *is *suffering and death.
Its harmonies require violence. Its "circle of life" is really a cycle of
mortality. And the human societies that hew closest to the natural order
aren't the shining Edens of James Cameron's fond imaginings. They're places
where existence tends to be nasty, brutish and short.
Religion exists, in part, precisely because humans aren't at home amid these
cruel rhythms. We stand half inside the natural world and half outside it.
We're beasts with self-consciousness, predators with ethics, mortal
creatures who yearn for immortality.
This is an agonized position, and if there's no escape upward - or no God to
take on flesh and come among us, as the Christmas story has it - a deeply
tragic one.
Pantheism offers a different sort of solution: a downward exit, an
abandonment of our tragic self-consciousness, a re-merger with the natural
world our ancestors half-escaped millennia ago.
But except as dust and ashes, Nature cannot take us back.
More:
http://www.nytimes. com/2009/ 12/21/opinion/ 21douthat1. html?ref= opinion
--
Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
Have a great day,
When I feed the poor they call me a saint. When I ask why so many people are
poor they call me a communist.
By ROSS DOUTHAT
Published: December 20, 2009
It's fitting that James Cameron's "Avatar" arrived in theaters at
Christmastime. Like the holiday season itself, the science fiction epic is a
crass embodiment of capitalistic excess wrapped around a deeply felt
religious message. It's at once the blockbuster to end all blockbusters, and
the Gospel According to James.
Susan Etheridge for The New York Times
But not the Christian Gospel. Instead, "Avatar" is Cameron's long apologia
for pantheism - a faith that equates God with Nature, and calls humanity
into religious communion with the natural world.
In Cameron's sci-fi universe, this communion is embodied by the
blue-skinned, enviably slender Na'Vi, an alien race whose idyllic existence
on the planet Pandora is threatened by rapacious human invaders. The Na'Vi
are saved by the movie's hero, a turncoat Marine, but they're also saved by
their faith in Eywa, the "All Mother," described variously as a network of
energy and the sum total of every living thing.
If this narrative arc sounds familiar, that's because pantheism has been
Hollywood's religion of choice for a generation now. It's the truth that
Kevin Costner discovered when he went dancing with wolves. It's the
metaphysic woven through Disney cartoons like "The Lion King" and
"Pocahontas." And it's the dogma of George Lucas's Jedi, whose mystical
Force "surrounds us, penetrates us, and binds the galaxy together."
Hollywood keeps returning to these themes because millions of Americans
respond favorably to them. From Deepak Chopra to Eckhart Tolle, the
"religion and inspiration" section in your local bookstore is crowded with
titles pushing a pantheistic message. A recent Pew Forum
reporton how Americans mix and
match theology found that many self-professed
Christians hold beliefs about the "spiritual energy" of trees and mountains
that would fit right in among the indigo-tinted Na'Vi.
As usual, Alexis de Tocqueville saw it coming. The American belief in the
essential unity of all mankind, Tocqueville
wrotein the 1830s,
leads us to collapse distinctions at every level of creation.
"Not content with the discovery that there is nothing in the world but a
creation and a Creator," he suggested, democratic man "seeks to expand and
simplify his conception by including God and the universe in one great
whole."
Today there are other forces that expand pantheism's American appeal. We
pine for what we've left behind, and divinizing the natural world is an
obvious way to express unease about our hyper-technological society. The
threat of global warming, meanwhile, has lent the cult of Nature qualities
that every successful religion needs - a crusading spirit, a rigorous set of
'thou shalt nots," and a piping-hot apocalypse.
At the same time, pantheism opens a path to numinous experience for people
uncomfortable with the literal-mindedness of the monotheistic religions -
with their miracle-working deities and holy books, their virgin births and
resurrected bodies. As the Polish philosopher Leszek Kolakowski noted,
attributing divinity to the natural world helps "bring God closer to human
experience," while "depriving him of recognizable personal traits." For
anyone who pines for transcendence but recoils at the idea of a demanding
Almighty who interferes in human affairs, this is an ideal combination.
Indeed, it represents a form of religion that even atheists can support.
Richard Dawkins has called pantheism "a sexed-up atheism." (He means that as
a compliment.) Sam Harris concluded his polemic "The End of Faith" by
rhapsodizing about the mystical experiences available from immersion in "the
roiling mystery of the world." Citing Albert Einstein's expression of
religious awe at the "beauty and sublimity" of the universe, Dawkins allows,
"In this sense I too am religious."
The question is whether Nature actually deserves a religious response.
Traditional theism has to wrestle with the problem of evil: if God is good,
why does he allow suffering and death? But Nature *is *suffering and death.
Its harmonies require violence. Its "circle of life" is really a cycle of
mortality. And the human societies that hew closest to the natural order
aren't the shining Edens of James Cameron's fond imaginings. They're places
where existence tends to be nasty, brutish and short.
Religion exists, in part, precisely because humans aren't at home amid these
cruel rhythms. We stand half inside the natural world and half outside it.
We're beasts with self-consciousness, predators with ethics, mortal
creatures who yearn for immortality.
This is an agonized position, and if there's no escape upward - or no God to
take on flesh and come among us, as the Christmas story has it - a deeply
tragic one.
Pantheism offers a different sort of solution: a downward exit, an
abandonment of our tragic self-consciousness, a re-merger with the natural
world our ancestors half-escaped millennia ago.
But except as dust and ashes, Nature cannot take us back.
More:
http://www.nytimes. com/2009/ 12/21/opinion/ 21douthat1. html?ref= opinion
--
Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
Have a great day,
When I feed the poor they call me a saint. When I ask why so many people are
poor they call me a communist.