{"id":2987,"date":"2010-01-05T00:08:00","date_gmt":"2010-01-05T00:08:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2010\/01\/an-ambiguous-garden-in-the-desert\/"},"modified":"2010-01-05T00:08:00","modified_gmt":"2010-01-05T00:08:00","slug":"an-ambiguous-garden-in-the-desert","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2010\/01\/an-ambiguous-garden-in-the-desert.html","title":{"rendered":"An Ambiguous Garden In The Desert"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><div style=\"border-bottom: medium none;border-left: medium none;border-right: medium none;border-top: medium none\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.artcnet.com\/media\/Karro_media\/Water_in_Desert_small.jpg\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\"><img decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" src=\"https:\/\/www.artcnet.com\/media\/Karro_media\/Water_in_Desert_small.jpg\"><\/a>The polyvalent religious imagery and language was back again on <a href=\"http:\/\/paullevinson.blogspot.com\/2010\/01\/heroes-season-4-resumes.html\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Heroes<\/a> tonight [SPOILERS in what follows]. The \u201cfamily\u201d of the carnival is explicitly likened to a cult at one point, the first of the two episodes had Biblical resonances (\u201cUpon This Rock\u201d), and the motif of water flowing and flowers blooming in the desert evokes Biblical imagery \u2013 not to mention it being for all intents and purposes \u201cmiraculous\u201d, however much there may be an alleged \u201cscientific\u201d nature to the abilities people develop.<\/div>\n<div style=\"border-bottom: medium none;border-left: medium none;border-right: medium none;border-top: medium none\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"border-bottom: medium none;border-left: medium none;border-right: medium none;border-top: medium none\">Samuel describes himself at one point as \u201cnot a good guy\u201d but also \u201cnot all bad.\u201d That is a key part of the message of Heroes, and it has been all along. The good can go bad, and the bad can be redeemed, and so it is not a question of ontology or nature but of the choices we make, with the possibility of making different choices in the future.<\/div>\n<div style=\"border-bottom: medium none;border-left: medium none;border-right: medium none;border-top: medium none\"><\/div>\n<p>And to the extent that many religions (even ones that in theory emphasize the possibility of redemption) can engage at times in us-vs.-them language, the complicated ambiguous morality on Heroes provides a healthy corrective.<\/p>\n<div class=\"blogger-post-footer\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" src=\"https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/tracker\/7622297540113836091-8729213051533393029?l=exploringourmatrix.blogspot.com\" alt=\"\"><\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The polyvalent religious imagery and language was back again on Heroes tonight [SPOILERS in what follows]. The \u201cfamily\u201d of the carnival is explicitly likened to a cult at one point, the first of the two episodes had Biblical resonances (\u201cUpon This Rock\u201d), and the motif of water flowing and flowers blooming in the desert evokes [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2987","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>An Ambiguous Garden In The Desert<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The polyvalent religious imagery and language was back again on Heroes tonight . 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