Merry Christmas!

I'm a bit late but I've been on some sort of vacation so it's really okay.

I saw Avatar Sunday with a couple of folks and I got to say, besides the 11 dollar fee, it was quite good. The thing that drew me to it most, besides the stunning visuals, was the sense of the spirituality drawn throughout the characters. That sense of spirituality could be compared to Taoism in many ways and, in a sense, Christianity and the other Western religions. In the movie, the religion and their god, is based on biological sources which is pretty cool because it leaves no doubt in anybody's mind of a false entity. The tribe of the movie, the Na'vi, believe - and rightly so - of a connection between all things and, because of this, make no insubstantial believe that they are superior to anything - especially the nature that surrounds their home. Life is taken (or borrowed, as energy) from the source and life is given back when it is used.
From the Te of Piglet by Benjamin Hoff,

"Taoism is a way of living in harmony with Tao, the Way of the Universe, the character of which is revealed in the workings of the natural world."

and

"Unlike the Confucianists [and perhaps the majority of Christians], Taoists saw the Power of Heaven as both masculine and feminine.. Heavenly Power at work.. has always been seen by Taoists as mostly feminine in its actions. It is gentle, like flowing water. It is humble and generous, like a fertile valley, feeding all who come to it. It is hidden, subtle, and mysterious, like a landscape glimpsed through mist. It takes no sides, grants no authority. It cannot be influenced or appeased by sacrifices and rituals. In dispensing justice, as in all things, it operates with a light touch, an invisible hand... Shying away from displays of arrogance and egotism, it communicates its deepest secrets not to high government officials, pompous scholarly, or wealthy landowners, but to penniless monks, little children, animals, and "fools". If it can be said to be biased in any way, it is in favor of the humble, the weak, and the small."

Through generations and ages of misconceptions and power control, Christianity has been used, - and that is the keyword, "used" not "lived" - and though some have found happiness, others have found confusion and depression from an otherwise wealthy source of joy and content. Perhaps this is because we have not been taught to live by this universal way and natural truth. We live unnaturally through the misconception of power and authority and do not seek to observe the laws that surround us. Perhaps there is a correlation between Taoism and Christianity that can be observed and used to live naturally. A God that is visualized as an old man that grants wishes to those He favors is non-spiritual and is non-fulfilling. This visualized old man cannot be understood and observed correctly because it is the human nature in Him that makes the misconception so unpredictable and dangerous. A God that is visualized as the source of all things - to be taken and used and observed in the relation to oneself and the world - and the end of all things can not necessarily be understood but once observed gives way to respect and compassion for all - because of this "one" source.

In this way, Christianity and God and Religion is biological because it is in the core of all things. It is what Henry David Thoreau went to Walden to find and what we go out to find within ourselves. It is the interconnection between all life and the realization that we, merely animals, are worked into the course of events and actions as any other. It is the spirituality that is (or should be) found in art, literature, science, education, wisdom, life.

"I went into the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived." - Henry David Thoreau

Your friend,
Alex