Movies and Naturalism
August 7, 2009
I’ve seen three sci-fi movies in the last year or so that blend naturalism with spirituality.
Naturalism is basically the idea that all that exists is the physical (natural) world. Naturalism has implications for ethics, religion, international relations and a whole lot of other things.
Spirituality can refer to a number of things based on the context, but for our purposes, I mean it in a generic religious sense. Bland spirituality usually admits to being somewhat ignorant about who or what the higher power is. We feel like there is more to this world than meets the eye, but what that ‘more’ is we don’t know. It’s probably god or something like that, but who really knows?
Contact is the first movie I have in mind that blends naturalism with spirituality. It leans more toward the scientific naturalism side than the spiritual. It’s an odd thing, but atheist scientists sometimes report having religious-like experiences during their scientific pursuits. Elie has such an experience in the face of overwhelming beauty. By the end of the movie we discover that there are in fact higher beings, but they turn out to be aliens. Well, we knew that all along. But, what we discover is that there is no god. Life is hopelessly lonely, but at least we have each other. There is something more out there. The something more is us.
The second movie to blend naturalism with spirituality is the fourth installment of Indiana Jones. Prior to the fourth movie, you get the impression that religion is taken somewhat seriously. The trilogy embraces the stories of various religions. There are spiritual powers at work in the world and the relics that Jones is after are links between us and the spiritual world. But in The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, we find out that the higher powers aren’t really spiritual at all; they’re aliens. Who saw that coming? It might have been one of the most disappointing endings ever! Yet, the academic influences in our culture take aliens seriously, at least in principle. Some have actually suggested that life on our planet got started through alien ‘seed.’ If there are higher powers in the universe then these powers are advanced life-forms from far away galaxies. Jones stumbled upon the truth that our culture embraces. There is no god that exists beyond our universe. It’s just us and some smarty pants aliens.
The third movie that blends naturalism and spirituality is Knowing. This movie is a little more intricate than the other three but I think it solidifies the idea that our culture likes to reach out for something more but has to admit that the something more can be nothing better than aliens. Christianity is the religion of choice in Knowing. John’s parents are Christian, and the God that he is mad at is the Christian God. The visual images are biblical (the picture that John sees on the wall of the cabin is the same one that Caleb is coloring; they’re images from the book of Ezekiel in the Old Testament).
When John is finally convinced that the prediction of the end of the world will come true he calls his Dad. Turns out that John is now ready to take the bible seriously. He tells his Dad that he believes the part of the bible that says some people have the gift of prophecy. He even embraces the fact that there is life beyond the grave; a tidbit that he struggles with throughout most of the movie. But who turns out to be behind the mystical stories of the bible and the recent gifts of prophecy? Aliens. But not just any aliens, ones that look like angles. That’s right folks all those angelic appearances turn out to be alien encounters.
So what have we seen here? You’ll notice that many in the academic world reject the idea that there is some kind of god beyond our universe. Yet those same academics and scientists have religious-like experiences while working on their projects. Like the scientists, we all seem to long for something bigger than ourselves. Hollywood knows we long for something more, I think they do too. They give us movie after movie that explores the deeper issues of life. One of the ideas that is taken seriously is naturalism. If naturalism is true then religion can’t be. If religion is not true then we need to explain how it came about. These movies try to answer that question. Religion came about through our longing for something more. Religion came about through alien encounters with a select few. However it happened, religion certainly can’t be true, because naturalism is. If god doesn’t exist then the only other possibility for higher beings is aliens.
Sorry to spoil the ending for you.
Ummm… You do realize that this is Hollywood and Hollywood wouldn’t know what science or a scientist is if it bit them on the… you know what. These are fictional characters, and precious few films have characters that I would ever associate with being scientists. I can tell you quite truthfully that in my life as a scientist I have never felt any such thing. And I don’t know any that ever have.
Contact (the book) was indeed written by a scientist, Carl Sagan. I couldn’t stand the movie version. (Aside: Why does anyone think that religious professionals like priests and reverends etc. are experts on morality?) He did write about the wonderment he felt about science and discovery. I feel the same thing. But they are not anything like religious experiences.
You do realize you are talking about Holly- oh, I said that. Hollywood is an expert at manipulating people’s emotions to get a buck out of them. I wouldn’t put any stock in what fictional characters have to say about fictional situations. They don’t translate to reality well, even when they are based on a true story (whatever that means).
You’re right about one thing, though. I think religion and naturalism are fundamentally incompatible. As a naturalist, I reject religion based on the available evidence. Science itself is corrosive to religion, since it completely ignores the supernatural. It doesn’t even spend the time to say that the supernatural doesn’t exist.
Hi Shamelessly Atheist,
In regard to your first point, I wasn’t talking about fictional characters having religious-like experiences. Rather, I was referring to ‘real life’ scientists. This excerpt from Dawkins explains what I was getting at:
“Uplift, however, is where science really comes into its own. All the great religions have a place for awe, for ecstatic transport at the wonder and beauty of creation. And it’s exactly this feeling of spine-shivering, breath-catching awe — almost worship — this flooding of the chest with ecstatic wonder, that modern science can provide. And it does so beyond the wildest dreams of saints and mystics. The fact that the supernatural has no place in our explanations, in our understanding of so much about the universe and life, doesn’t diminish the awe. Quite the contrary. The merest glance through a microscope at the brain of an ant or through a telescope at a long-ago galaxy of a billion worlds is enough to render poky and parochial the very psalms of praise.”
The quote is from this talk that he gave: http://www.thehumanist.org/humanist/articles/dawkins.html
You make an interesting point as you close. “Science itself is corrosive to religion, since it completely ignores the supernatural.”
Science does not ignore the supernatural. Mainly, because science does not do anything. Science is a tool or a guideline for study that humans invented. Science does nothing of its own free will. It is not science that ignores the ‘supernatural’ it is scientists who ignore the supernatural.
I’m not sure what to make of your last sentence. “It doesn’t even spend the time to say that the supernatural doesn’t exist.” Again, science does not do anything (or fail to do anything). But if science does not bother to say that the supernatural does not exist then what does it say? Does it say, I do not care? Or, I have no way to tell?
My point throughout the post is that naturalism (or scientific naturalism) is a philosophical worldview that many have adopted.
My point now is that it is not science itself, or Hollywood by nature, that leads to naturalism. Naturalism is a philosophical explanation of the world around us. If scientists ignore the supernatural and Hollywood follows in their philosophical footsteps, then so be it.
Thanks for your thoughts.