The reviews for Avatar have been overwhelmingly good, except from conservatives such as columnist Ross Douthut, who complains bitterly that:
“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…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 report
on 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.
To Douthut, this is grim news, because after all, "if there's no God to take on flesh and come among us, as the Christmas story has it, it's a deeply tragic [story]."
But a lot of environmentalists and scientists see no need to apologize for the home planet that brought us into being and consciousness, any more than we need to apologize for blue skies and starry nights. Jeez. This isn't enough — you expect consciousness and eternal life as well?
Grow up, Ross Douthut.
In the words of Oliver Sacks on Big Think:
[Albert] Einstein always used to say that the most beautiful thing
in the world is the mysterious. And I think that the fundamental sets
of mystery and awe and of the sublime is behind all science and art.
Basically, I think, science springs from a sense of nature’s
mysteriousness and the wonder of nature. And there is no need to invoke
anything supernatural. Indeed, I think too much involvement in the
supernatural may blind one to the wonder of nature. And I’m slightly
terrified by certain fundamentalist who say, let the planet go to hell,
the Final Coming is going to be soon. God will take care of it all.I live, for myself, happily and completely within nature. I love it.
I have a sense of being at home. I don’t pine for anything else. And
so, I think, those parts of my temporal lobes are devoted to, as it
were, to an almost religious feeling for nature.
More on Avatar after I have a chance to see it again. This is the rare blockbuster that really does deserve to be seen more than once. This much I know: The idea of tsahaylu — neural connection — will surely become iconic, just as did E.T.'s bulbuous glowing finger.
Which is as it should be, for one of the biggest movies ever. After all, to connect is what storytellers are supposed to do. Until I can find a better image of that fusing of filaments, this one will have to do:
Kit Stolz 
Speaking of pantheism, here is a quote from my recent book, in which a quite rational framework is laid out for the panteistic beliefs that are more hard-wired to our psyche than is the Biblical story.
“Simply because we human beings pick up our perception of the world around us through the tools to hand, it does not follow that they are therefore the only tools through which the world may be experienced. We can hardly guess at what other vessels consciousness might inhabit, complex or simple. For all we know, the tree might be tickled by the ripple of a breeze; the volcano excited by its own eruption; the thundercloud proud of its lightning; the mountain sublime in its majesty.”
more at http://www.sunofgod.net
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The Question of God and Religion can be a very difficult topic to discuss. When people ask me about my faith, I tell them that I am a pantheist and I get a lot of questions and sometimes even mockery. Pantheism to me is the only form of religion that makes sense, and in this article I will try to explain why.
http://thenegativepolarity.com/2011/06/08/everything-is-god-and-god-is-everything/
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Interesting piece, Jonel. This reminds me of another exploration of the idea by a former writing teacher of mine, the wonderful Sharman Apt Russell, who has written a book on scientific pantheism that i need to read. But here’s an op-ed start, from High Country News:
Today, in the philosophy called scientific pantheism, the universe with all its laws and properties is an interrelated whole that we can rightly consider sacred. In this marvelous universe, we are connected to everything. We have a relationship with everything. I have come to suspect that some of my existential loneliness — and my angst about the future of this planet — comes from the fact that I focus on just a few of these relationships and ignore so many others.
https://www.hcn.org/issues/43.8/walking-in-the-body-of-being
Her new book is Standing in the Light: My Life as a Pantheist.
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