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The Environment & Wildlife Cause
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Loading...Is nature a creation to defend or a divinity to worship? The Vatican takes issue with Avatar.
When I posted last week on the intensely cool movie Avatar, I mentioned the harmonious balance and respect for nature that permeated the native culture on the foreign moon of Na’vi as a central theme of the movie.
Apparently, the reverence of nature portrayed in the film has the Vatican crying ‘foul’. The AP reports that L’Osservatore (the offical Vatican newspaper) criticized the film because it “gets bogged down by a spiritualism linked to the worship of nature.” The Vatican Radio said it “cleverly winks at all those pseudo-doctrines that turn ecology into the religion of the millennium”, and objects to the idea that “Nature is no longer a creation to defend, but a divinity to worship.”
The current pope, Benedict XVI is no green-basher. In fact Vatican City is the world’s first carbon-neutral sovereign state, and Benedict is sometimes called the ‘green pope’, and a strong proponent of sustainable development. The BBC reports that he recently criticized world leaders for letting “economic and political resistance” get in the way of an agreement in Copenhagen. But…as the AP reports, the Pope is apparently also concerned about a new ‘neo-paganism’, and that a correct relationship between man and the environment should not lead to “absolutizing nature” or “considering it more important than the human person.”
In the book of Genesis, god pretty clearly creates the plants and animals to serve man, and the Bible, like the Pope, sees our role as stewards. On the other hand the Gaia Hypothesis views the Earth and biosphere as a single interrelated organism. And then there’s Michael Pollan, who in the Botany of Desire portrayed man as an an unwitting slave to nature. Finally, much of the modern green movement seems to be based simply do no — or at least less — harm.
So what does it mean to be an environmentalist? Worshipping nature? Being a good steward? Serving nature? Simply trying to do no harm?
Is this a question for philosopher or theologians? Since I am neither, I’ll leave the pondering to you. What’s your thinking on the subject?
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233 comments
+ add your ownI'm Catholic and I love this movie :D Anyways, I thought that the idea was that on Pandora, all the living creatures were literally---not spiritually, but physically, psychologically connected? Hense the funky tail USB thingies? And the mother goddess Eywa was actually just the conbinded sentience of everything---not a divine being, but a cool sci-fi consept. But that's just me.
With all that is wrong and needs fixing in this world, the Vatican has nothing better to do than bash some stupid movie? Really??
Interesting. thanks.
I do not worship nature, but I revere it and attempt to take care of it as part of my God's creation, as he would have us do. It IS just a movie and as such I hope it makes people think more about what is happening around them.
We were born with brains and should have the sense not to "step in our own drinking water". Any harm we do to nature, we do to our selves. If we push to ecosystem too far it will eventually collapse and it will all end. When nature ends, so do we.
I think it is a great film. We are part of nature as much as plants and animals. We have to take care of them as much as we can.
Stewards. And we better get damned good at it ASAP or there wil be nothing left but another lifeless planet orbiting Sol.
Interesting article; thank you, Dave. I believe we should be stewards. Saving nature not serving it. Appreciating it not worshiping it. I could never worship it since I'm not about to give up trying to kill fire ants and palmetto bugs! I guess that means I'll never accomplish "do no harm".
We should worship the nature because it is the creation of God, and we should tend to save life that God gave us and all living creatures on this planet, animals, plants as well as humans and the Earth it self. We should worship nature , because by worshiping the nature we worship the God. GOD IS LIFE, GOD IS CREATOR OF EVERYTHING, AND GOD IS IN EVERYTHING HE CREATED.
thanks for the great info
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