Seems like when I hear Tasmanian Christians get grumpy about Avatar, it's cause it's too blockbuster, and cliched and simply CG eye-candy.
Seems like all the noise I've heard on the net from American Christians getting grumpy about Avatar (like Driscoll and Southern Baptist Seminary) it's more because it's about nature worship and anti-capitalism.
So there's some truth to both. Although I reckon the Tassie Christians are being a little snobby and the American Christians are being a lot reactionary (I'm aware of the fact that comparing a State of 500 000 and a country of 300 million is ridiculous, btw).
I reckon you'd have to be a bit silly to think anyone will be moved and influenced deeply by Avatar's anti-capitalist message and even sillier to think Avatar is a powerful advertisement for animism. In reality, these things are merely the background presuppositions that give the film some thin semblance of a narrative. It's not really about either thing, as far as I'm concerned.
In my mind, the film is a documentary. And a beautiful portrayal of a wonderful, fantastic world. As a celebration of human imagination and a display of our deep longing for paradise, it's a huge success. As a vehicle for animistic or primitivist ideology its ordinary and definitely not something for Christians to get too worried about.
Grumpy about Avatar
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It's not really about Animism though - the planet that they are on is not being worshipped as a god, it is sentient, and they are literally talking to it. IE, they are just talking with another creature (that happens to be incredibly huge and with a massive 'brain', but still not a god).
It looked fantastic, but it's pretty much Pocahontas/Fern gully though.
yeah, good point.
perhaps there will be a deeper understanding and - dare I say - shalom between humanity and the created world in the new heavens and the new earth, too?
I doubt that people generally think that one movie is going to persuade someone about animism but I imagine people think it contributes to a zeitgeist. Personally, I just had no desire to see the blue people. I guess it seemed a little ABC kids fantasy series (I know, I know, I know it's not).
"Zeitgest"
Yes, you're right. In that sense, though, it's not a "problem" with Avatar, rather Avatar is simply reflecting its cultural context.
And I think there's something crummy about taking aim at a film for it's sharing in its cultural milieu, rather than for its unique contribution - in imagination, for instance.
"I had no desire to see blue people"
Cause you're one of the Tassie Christians I was slinging mud at ;-)
hear hear.
I feel the same way about The Shack.
To be brutally honest, I find the fact that Christians are getting grumpy about Avatar frustrating enough in itself.
There's a difference between being offended by a work of fiction which is actively attempting to undermine your faith, and picking holes in every single thing you watch/read/hear or play.
James Cameron isn't trying to promote Animism. He just thinks he's got a good story. Can't fiction just be fiction?
By the way, I play a lot of violent video games. Be careful how you answer because I might just fly off the handle.
Hi, I am from Melbourne.
One wonders why out of the films produced every year this film has attracted so much negative attention?
And why all this animosity to animism and/or shamanism?
I thoroughly enjoyed the film because it resonated with the themes in these essays written by a real living-breathing-feeling Avatar.
www.aboutadidam.org/readings/bridge_to_god/index2.html
www.fearnomorezoo.org/trees/sacred_trees.php
www.dabase.org/p2anthro.htm
www.dabase.org/p9rightness.htm
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