Church vs Art : Is this important?

Have you seen "Avatar," the movie?

Here is an essay I wrote sometime ago right after seeing the 3D version of Avatar. Since then the movie has gone to DVD, HBO, Netflick, and other formats, yet, I find now months later, that there is a message in the public response to the movie of anthropological interest. I think it touches a deeper nerve for our time, a message about our underlying beliefs about religion and art as cultural expressions.

I found the 3D version of the movie to be beautiful and impressive. The story line is predictable, as sci-fi goes. It deals with the question of technologically driven civilization verses the "primitive" world of sentient beings living in harmony with their world. On this simplistic level, it is pure entertainment. The battle scenes remind me of the final battle in episode 6 of Star Wars, albeit the CGI is generations more realistic and engaging.

I really enjoyed the nearly 3 hours of escape, as did my fellow audience members. Therefore it surprised me that the Vatican would get all upset by the movie.

Vatican says 'Avatar' is no masterpiece

Yet, this is a good example of super-organic (or institutional) competition. Religion vs Art, Religion vs Science and Art. The Roman Catholic church is one of humanity's great institutions with a life of approximately 1500 years, over a billion human cells world wide, and which has demonstrated an ability to survive many changes in its environment. It has both influence that environment and has reluctantly adapted to it. But it is also a example of one entity in the species of religion.

At one time in Western Europe, the Church was the patron of great art as well as the source of inspiration of great art. Religious art and religious themes have and do serve as a core of much of art today. The themes of art and the themes of religion overlap and complement one another. The nature of humankind, the reasons for suffering, the conflict between Good and Evil, mankind's place in the Universe, love and hate, judgment and forgiveness, death and resurrection, are universal themes which challenge all societies and cultures. They are part of the human condition.

The Church, which has both fostered and repressed scientific inquiry over its life time, is one institution of many that attempt to address these issues. Today it is attempting to act as the censor of the science that is leading to human spiritual progress, even when offered as a entertainment.

Science has added tremendously to our understanding of these issues, especially in the 20th century. Art, especially Sci-Fy, as a superorganic species made up of individuals and their corporate entities translate science into images and metaphors that bring these discoveries and understanding to the masses.

Today, we are in the middle of a great debate about mankind's future and its responsibility for the planet. Global warming and its consequences for humans and the global ecosystem are really important issues. Human technology and human institutions (the superoragnic manifestations of human inventiveness) are the source of much of recent change. Global pandemics, droughts, flooding, weather changes, pollution of all kinds, extinctions, are both the results of human superorganic activity, and the planet's response to that activity.

If Avatar has a spiritual message, it is just this. Technology, once a human tool for survival, has become a sentient super-organic life form in which individual human are but functional cells carrying out the will of the super-organism.

We see the short term greed represented in the "Corporation" and humans who inhabit it such as Colonel Miles Quaritch and Parker Selfridge, representative for the Resources Development Administration. The creature's need to feed off the much-desired natural resource, the mineral Unobtanium. According to Parker it can save Earth from its present energy crisis. This brings the moral conflict between harmony and chaos into focus.

Pandora, an apt name, is a living planet (actually a satellite of the planet of Polyphemus) whose dominant species, Na'vi, live in harmony with the other creatures who make up the organic structure of this super-organic entity.

The Pope apparently fears that this movie would lead to a neo-paganism. One thing is for certain by opposing the movie, he will generate even higher revenues for the film. He might also help to draw attention to the central moral problem of human existence and purpose.

But then his is but one voice and one opinion, for others check out the Wikipedia section on Avatar Critical reception and judge for yourself.

What is reality if there is no evidence?

As the Superorganic continues to emerge as the reality of the 21st century on the planet Earth, how are we to know it exists as a force in our lives? Primitive humans lacked the understanding and experience with many of nature's potentials and possibilities. For early humans, these were mysteries. They were mysteries that required explanation that the immediate experience could not answer. The human mind developed a method for coping with these events. It was through the invention of magic and religion that humanity attempted to gain control over nature.

Magic evolved into craft and then into scientific engineering while religion evolved into philosophy and then into science. While the roots of modern engineering and science lay in magic and religion, they have not totally replaced them as a source of explanation for the unexplainable.

In the 21st century, engineers and scientist are entering the realm of magic and religion through a backdoor. It is a backdoor that was first proposed millennium ago by religion -- the presence of invisible spirits that can manipulate and confound events in the visible world.

The world of human imagination has long contemplated the presence of spirits. Science fiction writers have toyed with the idea in various forms. Human art forms have relied on these ideas to create a universe of imaginary creatures and story telling techniques. The reality of these creatures has relied on the psychological nature of the individual and the cultural roles that influence it. We have evolved to discriminate between the imaginary, fictional, world and the physical events of the real world. As technology has become more and more "realistic" the challenge of distinguishing between the virtual world and the physical world becomes greater.

Today we are on the verge of making spirit technology a reality.

But what will be the social and cultural impact of such technology on the evolution of human psychology and the Superorganic's ability to control humanity?

  A recent article on Wired.com," Pentagon Scientists Use ‘Time Hole’ to Make Events Disappear" raises the question What is reality if there is no evidence?

 Tthe question could provide anthropologists with an opportunity to observe how a socio/cultural system adapts its definition of reality to a technology that challenges the basis of visual evidence. What happens when the essence of experience, based on the electo-magnetic spectrum, is manipulated technologically by light bending? By creating a black hole out of which the forces of the superorganic emerge?

Will it become the new magic or just a new problem solving technique to entertain or control the individual and society? Check out the story.