A few weeks ago I was asked to give a talk in the Pittsburgh 1st Ward about eternal progression, and while I was studying for the talk I thought about a story Pres. Kimball told about a lady who struggled with the commandments nearly all her life, and he asked the question "at what point was she 'saved'?" with the answer being "the moment she started progressing towards becoming like God." At least, I thought it was Pres. Kimball, it might have been something from Stephen Robinson.
Anyway, I thought I ought to do a search for the story, thinking perhaps it might have been in "The Miracle of Forgiveness." When I did a Google search for the book, unfortunately the top link that comes up appears to be a site trying to discredit Mormonism (mormonwiki.org, as opposed to mormonwiki.com which appears to have a positive slant). The third link that comes up is also hostile to the church. It appears this book is not used much in the church any more.
The gist of both websites, as far as Pres. Kimball's book is concerned, was that it is at odds with the message of forgiveness presented by, say, Paul in the book of Romans. They even encourage Mormons to read the book (just so they can make the contrast). I for one have not actually read the entire book, although I have read selections from it. I understand it is rather harsh in explaining sin and its consequences.
It occurred to me during church meetings today that Pres. Kimball is actually in good company, even if we ignore the even more harsh consequences of sin described in the Old Testament. In Mosiah 12:20-24, we see Abinadi similarly criticized for not preaching good tidings, joy, redemption, and salvation; focusing instead on warnings about sin and destruction. The following chapters (end of 12 through 16) contain Abinadi's response to this criticism, which is rather long and difficult to summarize. Possibly by the time you finish reading it, you've already forgotten the original question. Try to remember it next time. It shows that the messages of salvation and condemnation are in fact different sides of the same coin. (This is related to my earlier discussion on agency.)
PS: Jeff Lindsay came to the same conclusion about this chapter on his blog entry found here. Although I can't prove it, I actually didn't read it until I had already come up with the same idea about Abinadi's message. He did not, however, draw the parallel with Pres. Kimball.
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Monday, February 01, 2010
Avatar and hypocrisy
Erm, changed my mind. I think I'll keep this blog alive. That way I can post thoughts that I'm not entirely sure Sarah wants to be associated with.
Adam R and I watched the movie "Avatar" during my break between driving days as I was going to Pittsburgh. The special effects were great of course, and the story was... well, how do I put this... well told, but it still left me feeling a little empty. Certainly I felt like it was a bit trite to use the United States military as the "bad guys" (in spite of the director's insistence that it wasn't meant to be "anti-American") but something else bothered me about it. Then it occurred to me, the message was inconsistent. Dare I say, hypocritical.
The "Na'vi" aliens in the story, as pounded into our heads starting not long into the movie, are respectful-- even reverent-- for the environment of their planet/moon. They don't respect the humans because humans are destructive. In fact, they have no respect or reverence at all for human life. Oh I know, James Cameron will argue that they were only defending themselves. Aha, but didn't the female lead also kill one of those cat-like creatures in defense of the male lead near the beginning? And the cat-like creature got this whole mini-funeral scene. The "jarheads"? Nothing. They got an ignominious military defeat during which many were killed, and those who survived were sent packing back to their own "dying world" (presumably to die themselves?) except those who were graciously allowed to stay behind (under some unspecified criteria, but we are led to assume because they're the "good guys.")
I suppose Mr. I-Know-Bad-When-I-See-It Cameron will then argue that the humans were motivated out of greed, whereas the cat-like creature was acting out of instinct. Mmm, well, I guess some of them were, but by far most of them were military and acting under obedience. Then of course Mr. They-Should-Know-Better might point out that "just following orders" was established as an invalid defense at the Nuremburg trials. But then I would point out that the humans were under threat-- again, near the beginning of the movie, we see their machinery with clear signs of having been through an attack, including arrows sticking out from the truck wheels. We also witnesses a big orientation meeting in which they were told that many of them were going to die on this planet/moon. They were in a dangerous place, so I would argue that the marines felt that they were the ones acting in self-defense, and no impartial war-crimes tribunal would ever convict them.
If I were to make a happy ending to this movie (make no mistake, I do not consider its current ending as anything resembling "happy"), I would think Jake (the male lead) was in an ideal situation to be a sort of emissary. The aliens trusted him, the humans trusted him. We are only told the humans want to mine "unobtainium" (haha, very clever Mr. Less-Subtle-Than-A-Heavy-Blunt-Object, are you trying to send a message there?) We don't know what they want it for, but obviously it has some kind of value. Maybe it's an ideal material for making artificial hearts and saving lives, ever think about that? Anyway, whatever value it has, this emissary and the rest of the humans should have developed an explanation for why this is of value, and presented it in a way that the aliens were able to understand. There would have been no deadline imposed. Perhaps some compromise reached, in which the mineral could be mined at an angle to minimize the impact. I mean, the aliens weren't using the mineral at all. Surely they could put some smart people together to come up with a solution. If you want to share a message of peace, that would have been a happy ending, instead of Mr. Enlightened-Moralizer's same-story, different-sides approach of "kill the bad guys."
Yes I'm a grouchy old man. Now get off my lawn.
Adam R and I watched the movie "Avatar" during my break between driving days as I was going to Pittsburgh. The special effects were great of course, and the story was... well, how do I put this... well told, but it still left me feeling a little empty. Certainly I felt like it was a bit trite to use the United States military as the "bad guys" (in spite of the director's insistence that it wasn't meant to be "anti-American") but something else bothered me about it. Then it occurred to me, the message was inconsistent. Dare I say, hypocritical.
The "Na'vi" aliens in the story, as pounded into our heads starting not long into the movie, are respectful-- even reverent-- for the environment of their planet/moon. They don't respect the humans because humans are destructive. In fact, they have no respect or reverence at all for human life. Oh I know, James Cameron will argue that they were only defending themselves. Aha, but didn't the female lead also kill one of those cat-like creatures in defense of the male lead near the beginning? And the cat-like creature got this whole mini-funeral scene. The "jarheads"? Nothing. They got an ignominious military defeat during which many were killed, and those who survived were sent packing back to their own "dying world" (presumably to die themselves?) except those who were graciously allowed to stay behind (under some unspecified criteria, but we are led to assume because they're the "good guys.")
I suppose Mr. I-Know-Bad-When-I-See-It Cameron will then argue that the humans were motivated out of greed, whereas the cat-like creature was acting out of instinct. Mmm, well, I guess some of them were, but by far most of them were military and acting under obedience. Then of course Mr. They-Should-Know-Better might point out that "just following orders" was established as an invalid defense at the Nuremburg trials. But then I would point out that the humans were under threat-- again, near the beginning of the movie, we see their machinery with clear signs of having been through an attack, including arrows sticking out from the truck wheels. We also witnesses a big orientation meeting in which they were told that many of them were going to die on this planet/moon. They were in a dangerous place, so I would argue that the marines felt that they were the ones acting in self-defense, and no impartial war-crimes tribunal would ever convict them.
If I were to make a happy ending to this movie (make no mistake, I do not consider its current ending as anything resembling "happy"), I would think Jake (the male lead) was in an ideal situation to be a sort of emissary. The aliens trusted him, the humans trusted him. We are only told the humans want to mine "unobtainium" (haha, very clever Mr. Less-Subtle-Than-A-Heavy-Blunt-Object, are you trying to send a message there?) We don't know what they want it for, but obviously it has some kind of value. Maybe it's an ideal material for making artificial hearts and saving lives, ever think about that? Anyway, whatever value it has, this emissary and the rest of the humans should have developed an explanation for why this is of value, and presented it in a way that the aliens were able to understand. There would have been no deadline imposed. Perhaps some compromise reached, in which the mineral could be mined at an angle to minimize the impact. I mean, the aliens weren't using the mineral at all. Surely they could put some smart people together to come up with a solution. If you want to share a message of peace, that would have been a happy ending, instead of Mr. Enlightened-Moralizer's same-story, different-sides approach of "kill the bad guys."
Yes I'm a grouchy old man. Now get off my lawn.
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