Was Humanity Doomed To Fail From The Beginning?

[Tsyal Makto]

A lot here, including me, lament about humanity's ills in this world, and how we somehow have lost touch with the natural world, but were we doomed to fail from the beginning?

I believe we were, since we can only be faithful about whatever deity we believe in. We never are able to make direct contact with our deities - we can only believe what our deities want from us. So much evil has been justified in the past through what we think our gods want - genocide, slavery, imperialism, etc - George W Bush described the Iraq war as a "crusade". We can pray, but that is still not direct contact, and when we get what we believe is a message from god, we still must interpret it.

The Na'vi on the other hand are able to make direct contact with Eywa through the Sacred Trees. Sure, there are many mysteries, but they can still hook up to the afterlife through their queue. They KNOW exactly what Eywa wants, and they act it through their daily lives - they don't have to guess and interpret like we do.

Sorry if I offend any devout people on these forums, I just think it would make a fantastic debate.

[Einherjar]

As an antitheist I dont think much good has come out of any religion. But creating gods and religions was a great way for some people to get power.

It is hard to say if we were doomed to fail 10 000 years ago, but it might be possible. Beeing such an intelligent animal has probably just been a bad thing for this planet in the long run.

[SaphirJD]

I Don't believe in any religions at all.

The central thaught of a higher power is nothing bad in my opinion. This brings people together, they have faight. So much to the theory.

The other side of the coin is that religion stopped our advance in the past a lot, because the facts given by the leaders where the only true facts and everything else was wrong. Other Problem is that One Religion always tries to improve over the others, in gathering more members. In the Past this ended in the crusades.

But like i wrote above, its not that all bad things.

But there is more threat thanks to mass killing weapons and greed as a possible beeing doomed by religions.

[ZenitYerkes]

The Na'vi had contact with Eywa, and Eywa was actually the moon itself. Think about the planet had like 10¹²*10⁴ connections, more than in the human brain; so Pandora would be like a giant being that takes care of its fauna.

Our God is based on the "believe in what you don't see" rule, and that's why most of the current religions seem nonsensical if you don't have real faith in them.

[steinmetz]

The Na'vi had contact with Eywa, and Eywa was actually the moon itself. Think about the planet had like 10¹²*10⁴ connections, more than in the human brain; so Pandora would be like a giant being that takes care of its fauna.

Our God is based on the "believe in what you don't see" rule, and that's why most of the current religions seem nonsensical if you don't have real faith in them.

lol thats my approach too, exactly the same

[HufweMakto]

Eywa is perhaps the greatest mystery of Avatar, but in a way, she's the goddess/creatrix of their world. But unlike any religion we're familiar with, she is not the one who sets a dichtomny, there is good and evil in this world (the Na'vi have words for "good" and "evil"), but Eywa never picks sides in ANY conflict, unless it disrupts the balance of life, or threatens the world of Pandora. It's probably a long shot, but I think that's what people find offending is that Eywa doesn't conform to modern religious dichtonomy of good vs evil; Eywa is as much a part of nature as the Na'vi and the wildlife of Pandora is. I thought that was a very interesting choice in how Eywa was depicted. What people tend to forget is that in the very begining of human civilzation, the gods were seen as the very forces of nature, it's only when human civilzation became more and more "advanced" did the gods start to be less like forces of nature and more human.

Also I find it very interesting when people blame religion for stopping human progress. It's oddly enough that people forget that monks in medieval Europe were busy copying old manuscripts to preserve the writings of the Romans and Greeks, and Galieo wouldn't have gotten into trouble if he hadn't started ragging on the nature of God and the Church in one of his manuscripts; it's something that isn't well explored in history classes. It's rather the people who do horrible things in the name of religion and god that are the real problem, not the religion itself.

If Avatar indeed teaches us anything, it's the importance of nature and our connectness to nature and the natural world, which we have cut ourselves from entirely. On a new note, it should be interesting when Quadritch talks about Eywa to his troops at one point, they laugh at that concept. I wonder what's the message in that?

[Einherjar]

Well it is no secret that for example Christianity was slowing down science as an example many ideas made by Copernicus and Galileo Galilei as they threatened the very foundation of the vaticans power and the word of God.
Now when the Church has lost alot of its power and the religion has become more secularize they cannot stop our scientists from making new discoveries.

But some discoveries and inventions that would prove useful to the Church were ofcourse encouraged. I mean if you needed a hospital in the middle ages you would go to the monastary.

Many wars have been made to convert infidels and heathens or to kill the enemy that believes in a false God. And if there is something good that comes out of a war it is new inventions that can be adapted to have a function for civilians.

[sullyjakes14]

i do believe that human was not failing in the begining but is the time and technology that fail us and suck us in and make us fail with the world.. and the war, anarchy and such.

[ElBartoME]

I think that the humanity was doomed from day one. As long as money reign the world, nothing will change.
The problem is greed. Greed does not appear since 1900. It was there all the time. In the ancient world or in the medieval times for example.
I don't think that this will change too soon...

[HufweMakto]

It's interesting to note that the religion of the Na'vi help them be a part of their world, Eywa is different from the usual fictional depictions of god or any other diety associated with creation or leadership. It's more unique than I had expected, far from the manichian dictonomy of usual fantasy series (you have Palin and Takhasis from Dragonlance for example). The humans, in the movie, have no more connection to the Earth or to nature. Their lack of compassion for the natural world aided by Jake telling Eywa about Earth ("they killed their mother..." and so on) just fueled their fail.

I also have to note again that the humans aiding Quadritch have a lack of faith in things they can't understand (seen in the base scene before they go to war and when Dr. Augustine explains why bulldozing the sacred grove was wrong to Selfridge). Isn't it interesting that there's a literal "deus ex machinia" at the end of the film?