Warlords reshape people, territory, wealth, and loyalties according to their vision of a more perfect world – more perfect because the warlord thinks himself to have more total control which is a dillusion.
I finally got to see the movie Avatar and was bored. All the hype and it was just a blue tinted rerun of hundreds of cowboy and Indian movies I have seen all my life.
All the fearful rhetoric from the church about “pantheism” and the worship of nature was overstated. While nature is worth restudying and in some ways reconnecting to in this plastic present world, it will never return us to the awe and importance it had in the hearts of our ancestors.
Putting the movie aside, I jotted a few notes while watching it.
Can you imagine a new world that nature created in the form of Pandora?I suppose in the overall scheme of things, and on a timeline, mono-warlordism has been a way to unite tribes under one title or one faith. As the world shrinks I can only see conflict as the unique visions of the warlords Moses, Constantine and Mohammed try to gel together.
A new exotic uncorrupted world. North America with its virgin forests back. Cut down a forest. Plant a farm. New plants, new foods, new insights.
Goddess. It must be something fearful in that name. Mention of a goddess brings fear into hearts of the man-made religion of the Roman Army. Lack of a penis is potential for a heart.
Eywa. Network of energy. Thought provoking for a brain dead humanity numbed by hundreds of channels of cable TV, cell phones, Blackberries, Ipads etc. etc. etc.
Borrowed energy. You have to give it back. Perhaps the church knows that it has borrowed energy from all the faithful through the ages and are at present not using that energy wisely. The contract, or covenant made with God is on shaky ground. In the past the faith ran itself and a few princes got fat on the results of hard work by those of the faith. Now the princes are all fat and corrupt and there seems to be more princes than faithful.
The movie Avatar’s script is simple, contrite, predicable – cliché. Cameron knows how to bake a good puff pastry.
It is not so much mono-god – one god, so much as it is one Warlord or mono-warlord (corporation) and his demand that you believe in his personal god (and quarterly statement).
A hostile place can also be a place of beauty. A sacred tree scares the shit of the church. It thought that it had burned all the forests down centuries ago in terms of the Celtic belief in such things centered around nature and trees.
Civilizations rise and fall. So too for blue people on distant planets. Better to die in battle than live a thousand generations trapped in the dream of the Warlord’s personal vision.
Better to have a vision of your own…
Better to be a frog on a lily pad than want to help various Mono-Theistic faiths find fictional common ground.
In the spirit of Avatar, this Unitarian type believer sees the simple faith of the Native Americans, and their forgotten culture as a good and simple belief system. It is right to thank animals that we eat, for their sacrifice. It is right to stay in balance and not take more than we need. And in the end a happy Hunting Ground to go to when we die.
Not much of a faith, but it is my vision that counts and not that of any unholy warlords whose ghosts still haunt our global culture.
