I've already mentioned how Cameron uses the born-again concept in the religious culture of Pandora. He almost directly quotes the Old Testament when Jake says the Pandorans say that "Eywa will provide." Even the name Eywa is close to Yahweh. Then, there's the Pandoran worship services that are performed around the Tree of Souls; they look like a Charismatic/voodoo service. The process, passing through the eye of Eywa, attempted upon the Dr. (Grace) - unsuccessfully, but successful upon Jake, is basically the death - resurrection process of the bible. To give the benefit of the doubt to Cameron, he perhaps used symbols and principles to which we can relate in order to draw us into the story and relate sympathetically to the Pandorans. However, a not-so-subtle attempt to suck the viewer into a sympathetic view of environmentalist, anti-capitalist, nature worship cannot be ruled out either.
Then, after uniting the clans, Jake prays to Eywa. He sounds like Elijah praying humbly to Jehovah. His prayer is a contrast to the swaying, chanting, shaking worship of the Pandorans. It's as if Jake is praying to Eywa as if Eywa is Jehovah. Not only does Jake mix the true worship of Jehovah with Eywa, speaking to her as if she's Jehovah, but he even adds modern science. He tells Eywa that the Dr. is with Eywa. Eywa is omniscient, for she can see earth and how humans have destroyed all the trees - "There's nothing green there," according to Jake. This scene indicates that Cameron, if his beliefs are somehow reflected truly in the movie, believes that all beliefs can be combined into the truth. Such a perspective calls forth the judgment of God, which distinguishes, which divides, the true from the false and rewards the righteous and condemns the wicked. Otherwise, how would the God of the bible be distinguished from Eywa, or Allah, or any other false god.
Jake's "prayer" to Eywa portrays a human approaching a pantheistic tree-goddess as is she's Yahweh. Notice the similarity in the names. Also, Eywa responds like the God of Sabaoth, the God of armies, the Lord of Hosts, and as the flood of water in the Book of Revelatino swallows up the lies of the dragon, the forest animals and dino-birds attack the humans like a flood. Interestingly, the Colonel's aircraft is names "Dragon."
ReplyDeleteIn his "prayer," Jake tells Eywa that the humans have no more green on their planet. "They've killed their mother." So in the odd mixture of deities in his prayer, he is acknowledging many gods, an Eywa for Pandora and an earth goddess for earth. Each planet has its own god, just like each people and location of culture in the Old Testament had a god for their location. Except, of course, the Jews, whose God governs all the earth and the heavens. Thus, the ostenbile theology of the movie is one of polytheistic planet worship.
The believability behind James Cameron's set-up of religious conflict is the failure of the humans to worship the true God. Based on the Colonel's full briefing, which you will only see in the deleted scenes portion of the DVD includes an acknowledgement of religious pluralism. He refers to the humans as coming from a diversity of belief systems. No one "god" is their God. There may be Christians mixed in with the others, but the system is based purely on acquisition, humanloid life and the created vegetation be damned. Technological prowess is their god. Therefore, if the true God, not Eywa, is the sovereign of all things, including his creation of Pandora, then what reason would He have in supporting the technology- and money-worshipping humans over the tree-worshipping Pandorans? At least the Pandorans don't wantonly destroy the creation, even if they worship the wrong god. Therefore, in his environmentalist, pantheist message, Cameron has unwittingly gotten something right. If Pandora were real, and if humans had such a mission as portrayed in the movie - mine unobtainium at any cost, then I would predict that the God of the bible would oppose the humans. "Some trust in chariots (armored flying machines) and some in horses (missile-armed helicopters), but we will remember the name of the Lord our God." Since no one in the movie is calling on the Name of the Lord, why would He favor the technocrats over the tree-huggers?
ReplyDeleteAnd that is the dilemma facing the United States in its present pluralist state. What do we stand for? Technological prowess, capitalist enterprise, western civilization without the Christian root of that civilization? When will God decide in His judgment that someone else, less avaricious and neglectful of Him or His creation, is more worthy of, at least, temporary victory over us?
Through Neytyri's eyes we get a vision of the technocrat's war, and the pictures are revealing. The technocrats bring a world of explosive fire, and as the Pandorans retreat on their horses and on foot, fighting as brothers for their homeland, the picture is one of hell. Thus goes the way of all civilizations that would deny the God of mercy and truth; their power brings only hell, not civilization. The humans could have brought the light of the gospel to the Pandorans, but instead, they ravage them and their planet. Again, why would the God of the bible favor such a people?
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