February 19, 2002
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Indiana Jones and Religion
One of the networks (ABC?) had the first two Indiana Jones movies on over the last week. I didn't think about it too much at the time I originally saw the movies, but in the marathon-ish format they were using, I got to see a little something: Spielberg was basically saying all the religions are right.
Think about it. In Raiders of the Lost Ark the Nazis find the Ark of the Covenant. They open that sucker up, and get turned into piles of goo because they're evil. Indy and his lady-friend, by not daring to look into the light coming out of the Ark, are safe. I'd say that's pretty much akin to saying the Jews had it right all along.
Then, in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom the plot revolves around the Thuggee cult -- which the Brits thought they had exterminated. The dark magic of the Thuggees works, since the leader of the cult is able to remove a man's heart and keep the man alive only to be lowered into a pit of lava. The heart, magically connected to the man, bursts into flames as well. At the end of the movie, Indy is able to defeat the leader guy by using the power of the Shankara stones, which were given by the Hindu god Shiva. Score one for Hinduism and the related wackier stuff.
Finally, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade takes the Nazis (didn't they learn last time?) and Indy in search of the Holy Grail. When found, it is shown to have kept a knight of the Crusades alive for a millennium and then heals a gunshot wound suffered by Indy's father. When those silly Nazis try to remove the Grail from the cave, against the knight's warning, the cave destroys itself, taking the bad guys with it. Oh yeah, it has a similar Nazi-nuking affect to the Ark. Score one for Christianity.
Thus, according to Spielberg's movies everyone's right. Of course there a mutually exclusive bits between religions, so it also means everybody's a bit wrong too. So, either Spielberg's trying to make a statement about how it's not the religion you choose or the means one uses to worship, as long as one does it. (Doesn't leave much room for atheists like me, though. Oh well.) Or he just needed some big mythical item for Jones and Co. to find, and you need multiple religions for enough magic to make three blockbuster movies.
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