Avatar and the Beginning of Religion

As a sci-fi geek, I have to make an admission: I’ve always hated the Force.

The entire concept strikes me as little more than dorm-room spirituality . . . validating the idea that one can access mystical powers without ever dealing with messy concepts like divine will, that “destiny” exists without any entity actually making choices, and the ultimate result of mysticism is self-empowerment on a scale that make’s Barry Bonds’ drug-induced transformation look like nothing more than an extra day at the gym.  Take a spirituality-obsessed nation (as we’ve always been), sprinkle in some primitive adaptations of eastern mysticism — such as the “yin” and “yang” -- sprinkle in a dash of the “me decade” of the 1970s, and you’ve got the Force.

Sadly the Force has been with us, and with sci-fi, for a very long time now.  It’s been everywhere.  Surrounding us, permeating us, empowering us . . . to make more sci-fi centered around particularly hokey spirituality.  Arguably, the next “great” sci-fi film of my lifetime (after the staggeringly awesome one-two punch of Star Wars and Empire Strikes Back) was the “Matrix.”  Here, the filmmakers cast a bit broader theological net — borrowing from basically every religion they’d ever read about — but the result was the same: a “chosen one” without a Chooser, unexplainable power, and the idea that some of us can access something that makes us particularly powerful, particularly indestructible, and particularly important.  When there is destiny without divine will, the focus is on the person, not the divine.  But when destiny is the product of divine will, then the focus inevitably shifts to the divine.

And isn’t that, ultimately the difference between “spirituality” and religion?  A religion, after all, is quite simply man’s attempt to understand divine will, from worship rituals, to scriptures, and to personal conduct.  It’s not as if Jews or Catholics or Mormons or Presbyterians or Muslims said to themselves, “Let’s fashion rituals of worship and conduct that are self-empowering.”  Instead, the rituals of worship and conduct flow directly from the perceived will of God.  Our understandings may be flawed, and our perceptions differ (hence the existence of different denominations and religions), but the motivation is the same: to know and do the will of God.

But what of spirituality?  There the focus is not on following anyone’s will, but on empowering your own.  It’s as if we’re all gas/electric hybrids who can’t reach our full potential until we plug in to the external power source.  The power source doesn’t tell us where to drive, but it just allows us to drive farther, faster, and longer.  It makes us better and serves nothing more than ourselves.

Something is changing, however.  Sci-fi is becoming downright religious.  The Force is dead . . . long live Providence.

In the last five years, we’ve had a new one-two punch of sci-fi awesomeness.  First came Battlestar Galactica, the best science fiction television series, well, ever.  In “Battlestar,” Ron Moore took a rather campy 1970s show based on the near-annihilation of humanity by their (former) robot slaves, and turned it into a meditation on suffering, human nature, and religion — all against the backdrop of some of the most gorgeous space battles ever filmed (you should see them on a 62 inch high-def TV).  During four complete seasons, both the humans and their human-like robot tormenters struggled with questions like: Is God real?  Is there one God or many gods?  What is His (or their) will?  Is He loving?  Is He vengeful? 

By the finale (spoiler alert!), the questions are answered.  Not only is God real, but He intervenes directly into the lives of man and robots to set things right. 

Battlestar Galactica was followed by Avatar.  Here, the writing is less creative — it really is “Dances With Wolves in space” -- but the effects are astounding, the characters are well-drawn, and the “spirituality” is pervasive.  Or is it?  Smart conservative commentators like Ross Douthat and Jonah Goldberg have called it pantheistic (Douthat) or derisive of traditional religion (Goldberg).  After all, the movie does emphasize the interconnectedness of all living things and there is scarcely a mention of classical religious thought.  Eywa, the Na’vi’s goddess, is first perceived as essentially the sum total of the connection of the living things on Pandora, whose sole concern — to the extent that a connection can have a concern — is with “balance.”  (Echoes of the Force?)

But all this is proven wrong.  As one character exclaims with her dying breath, “She is real!”  And “She” goes on to intervene quite directly in the lives of man (and Na’vi) to set things right.  It’s an old plot device, the oldest.  Just ask Moses.

It’s a fundamentally religious story.  Because once humanity grasps that “He is real!” the necessary next pursuit is to discover what He wants, to know and do the will of God.  And that is where “spirituality” ends and “religion” begins. 

Why the change?  Why the move from a “Force” to “God” or “Eywa?”  Here’s where one risks reading in too much (as if that hasn’t been done already).  It could be that the storyteller simply couldn’t figure out a way for arrows and dragons to beat rockets and attack helicopters (Avatar) or for the humans to find their new home (Battlestar Galactica) without divine intervention.  Or maybe it’s something else.  Maybe after long decades of self-empowerment, we’ve realized that the “self” is far more limited than we’d thought, and that the “power” we plug into may actually believe that self-actualization should not be our highest goal . . . and that He not only has His own ideas, but will actually intervene to set things right in the end.