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Religion See other Religion Articles Title: 'Avatar' and the Faith Instinct 'Avatar' and the Faith Instinct You probably don't need a long synopsis of James Cameron's half-billion-dollar epic "Avatar," in part because even if you haven't seen it, you've seen it. As many reviewers have noted, Cameron rips off Hollywood cliches to the point you could cut and paste dialogue from "Pocahontas" or "Dances With Wolves" into "Avatar" without appreciably changing the story. In short, "Avatar" tells the tale of a disabled Marine, Jake Sully, who occupies the body of a 10-foot-tall alien so he can live among the mystical forest denizens of the moon world Pandora. Sully is sent in mufti, like a futuristic Lawrence of Arabia, to further the schemes of the evil corporate nature-rapists desperate to obtain the precious mineral "unobtainium" (no, really). Jake inevitably goes native, embraces the eco-faith of Pandora's Na'Vi inhabitants and their tree goddess, the "all mother," and rallies the Pandoran aborigines (not to mention the Pandoran ecosystem itself) against the evil forces of a thinly veiled 22nd-century combine of Blackwater and Halliburton. The film has been subjected to a sustained assault from many on the right, most notably by Ross Douthat in the New York Times, as an "apologia for pantheism." Douthat's criticisms hit the mark, but the most relevant point was raised by John Podhoretz in the Weekly Standard. Cameron wrote "Avatar," says Podhoretz, "not to be controversial, but quite the opposite: He was making something he thought would be most pleasing to the greatest number of people." What would have been controversial is if -- somehow -- Cameron had made a movie in which the good guys accepted Jesus Christ into their hearts. Of course, that sounds outlandish and absurd, but that's the point, isn't it? We live in an age in which it's the norm to speak glowingly of spirituality but derisively of traditional religion. If the Na'Vi were Roman Catholics, there would be boycotts and protests. Make the oversized Smurfs Rousseauian noble savages and everyone nods along, save for a few cranky right-wingers. I'm certainly one of those cranky right-wingers, though I probably enjoyed the movie as cinematic escapism as much as the next guy. But what I find interesting about the film is how what is "pleasing to the most people" is so unapologetically religious. Nicholas Wade's new book, "The Faith Instinct," lucidly compiles the scientific evidence that humans are hard-wired to believe in the transcendent. That transcendence can be divine or simply Kantian, a notion of something unknowable from mere experience. Either way, in the words of philosopher Will Herberg, "Man is homo religiosus, by 'nature' religious: as much as he needs food to eat or air to breathe, he needs a faith for living." Wade argues that the Darwinian evolution of man depended not only on individual natural selection but also on the natural selection of groups. And groups that subscribe to a religious worldview are more apt to survive -- and hence pass on their genes. Religious rules impose moral norms that facilitate collective survival in the name of a "cause larger than yourself," as we say today. No wonder everything from altruism to martyrdom are part of nearly every faith. The faith instinct may be baked into our genes, but it is also profoundly malleable. Robespierre, the French revolutionary who wanted to replace Christianity with a new "age of reason," emphatically sought to exploit what he called the "religious instinct which imprints upon our souls the idea of a sanction given to moral precepts by a power that is higher than man." Many environmentalists are open about their desire to turn their cause into a religious imperative akin to the plight of the Na'Vi, hence Al Gore's uncontroversial insistence that global warming is a "spiritual challenge to all of humanity." The symbolism and rhetoric behind Barack Obama's campaign was overtly religious at times, as when he proclaimed that "we are the ones we've been waiting for" -- a line that could have come straight out of the mouths of Cameron's Na'Vi. What I find fascinating, and infuriating, is how the culture-war debate is routinely described by antagonists on both sides as a conflict between the religious and the un-religious. The faith instinct manifests itself across the ideological spectrum, even if it masquerades as something else. On the right, many conservatives have been trying to fashion what might be called theological diversity amid moral unity. Culturally conservative Catholics, Protestants and -- increasingly -- Jews find common cause. The left is undergoing a similar process, but the terms of the debate are far more inchoate and fluid. What is not happening is a similar effort between left and right, which is why the culture war, like the faith instinct, isn't going away any time soon. Poster Comment: My original notion based on the commercials for this film was that it was simply a new one in the vein of showing off the Hollywood techies' new "special effects" toys with nary a plot to be found. Sounds more like a political diatribe that people should get paid to go see rather than pay for. Either way, sounds like a nominee for the movie crock-o-shit 2010 award.
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#2. To: Eric Stratton (#0)
goldberg will continue cutting a fat hog in the ass as long as the israeli american empire survives. it's no wonder he's trying to trash any effort to show empires are shit.
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how you gonna separate the truth from politics? if it's impolitic to tell the truth about empires, then films demonstrating the brutality of empires should be banned, huh? no wonder you're posting neocon bullshit.
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Here's Devvy Kidd's review of Avatar and Invictus: Avatar & Invictus: Glorifying communism and a communist
too bad imperialism and capitalism have become synonymous. too bad our capitalistic abuse of the planet is catching up with us. too bad capitalists have such a religious faith in the benefits of capitalism when the evidence of their idiocy is staring them in the face. too bad we cant all board a spaceship and move to a new planet once we've used this one up.
too bad our capitalistic abuse of the planet is catching up with us. too bad capitalists have such a religious faith in the benefits of capitalism when the evidence of their idiocy is staring them in the face. It's obvious that you hate capitalism and that's your right. Just what, however, would you replace it with?
capitalism is a good idea as long as the capitalists are not buying the people who make the laws. i dont know what the solution is, and there's probably no solution for america, seeing as how sustainable cultures founded on respect for their environment have been replaced by crypto-fascists disguising themselves as "free market capitalists".
They are only able to call themselves free market capitalists because the American people are so economically stupid and have no idea what the term free market means. We even see it here. I was arguing with a guy/gal just the other day who was blaming all of our problems on America's "free market." By his/her own admittance he/she was a right wing socialist. We do not have a free market in the United States. A free market does not utilize GATT, WTO, NAFTA, etc., etc., which consists of literally tens of thousands of pages which benefit multinational conglomerates. A free market is an individual or company being able to do business with anyone anywhere in the world without needing the governments permission and without government interference. We do not have this.
woe be unto anyone stupid enough to draw parallels between this "avatar" movie and european treatment of palestinians or european treatment of native americans.
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