Category Archives: religion

James Cameron Interview: Avatar Canon, Pandora Depression, and “Geek Cred”

September 14th, 2010 | Posted in Avatar, fan cultures, geek cultures, James Cameron, religion

There was an interview with James Cameron in August in Entertainment Weekly that just came to my attention. I found three items in the piece of interest. First, an interesting question is asked about what may be referred to as the “cinematic canon.” The interviewer, Benjamin Svetkey, asked about the new version of Avatar with […]

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Ray Bradbury: God, Monsters and Angels

August 2nd, 2010 | Posted in Ray Bradbury, religion, science fiction

CNN Living included a feature on legendary science fiction writer Ray Bradbury which revealed a surprising aspect of the author’s life and writing inspiration. The title of the article is “Sci-fi legend Ray Bradbury on God, ‘monsters and angels’”. In the piece Bradbury describes himself as a man of religious faith, although not one to […]

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Science and Theological Imagination in Science Fiction

June 24th, 2010 | Posted in religion, science fiction, theology

My daily search for all things fantastic in popular culture resulted in my stumbling upon an announcement for an intriguing conference on Science and Theological Imagination in Science Fiction: Science fiction is a twentieth-century invention. In it writers and readers try to imagine life in a context wider than our present — perhaps requiring as […]

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Avatar: Psychedelics and Shamanism

April 27th, 2010 | Posted in Avatar, psychedelics, religion, science fiction, shamanism

In our age of re-enchantment in response to decades of secularization it is common for elements of ancient religion and spirituality to surface in pop culture, many times shaped into new forms. Erik Davis comments of this in his book Techgnosis: myth, magic + mysticism in the age of information (Three Rivers Press, 1998): The […]

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Avatar, Hollywood, and Warring Worldviews

March 12th, 2010 | Posted in Avatar, James Cameron, religion, science fiction

In my previous post I commented on Hollywood’s lack of public recognition of the significance of films of the fantastic as demonstrated through the Academy Awards. Although three such genre films were nominated, including District Nine, Star Trek, and Avatar, predictably none of them won in major categories, and Avatar did not win Best Picture. […]

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Christians and Vampire Mythology

February 22nd, 2010 | Posted in religion, vampire

With the success of Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight series of books, and the subsequent films, at least in the minds of some in popular culture, it is only natural that others would want to cash in on religiously-infused vampire literature. Meyer incorporated aspects of her Mormon faith in her novels, and now evangelicals are incorporating their […]

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Star Trek Fandom as a Religious Phenomenon?

February 14th, 2010 | Posted in fan cultures, religion, science fiction, Star Trek

For a while now I’ve been composing an essay on a religion that finds metaphorical inspiration from pop culture, in particular The Matrix trilogy of films, a religion called, appropriately enough, Matrixism. In my exploration of this hyper-real spirituality, I considered a number of interesting research threads, including myth, science fiction narratives as sacred stories, […]

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Na’vi Religion and the Damanhurians

February 6th, 2010 | Posted in Avatar, New Age, religion

A lot of commentary has been offered on the religious aspects of Avatar. I have offered my own thoughts on this in a previous post. But with this entry I draw the attention of readers to the suggestion of Massimo Introvigne of the Center for Studies on New Religions that James Cameron may have been […]

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Avatar’s Success: Romantic Narratives and Dark Green Religion

January 27th, 2010 | Posted in Avatar, fantasy, religion, science fiction

Earlier this week various news outlets reported that Avatar has surpassed Titanic as the highest grossing film in history. (For a different take on its place in cinema box office see this article.) This tremendous response by viewing audiences might have gone the other direction. With all the pre-release hype coming from James Cameron, and […]

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Bryan Stone: Changing Religious Imagery in Horror

September 4th, 2009 | Posted in horror, religion

As regular readers of TheoFantastique are aware, some of the facets of the fantastic genres discussed on this site are religion and spirituality. A while back I came across an article by Bryan Stone of the Boston University School of Theology that touched on this topic titled “The Sanctification of Fear: Images of the Religious in […]

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