Avatar and the Pandoran Rules

Jake Sulley first arrives on the planet Pandora and meets with Colonel Quaritch while the Colonel is explaining the Pandoran Rules to all of the new people. The Colonel is trying to impress on the minds of each person that Pandora is dangerous and that certain rules are required to be obeyed if they plan to live and return to Earth. The primary rule is that the wildlife on the planet can be very dangerous and that many people have died when forgetting that life is dangerous on Pandora. I am sure that the Colonel would have told people about the large predators, and the big animals that while not carnivores can still hurt people. Then there was the indigenous peoples the Na’vi who were much bigger than Earthlings, and while having bows and arrows the arrows were coated with a neurotoxin that could kill in two minutes. All together Pandora would be a dangerous place if not dealt with seriously. To forget the Pandoran rules, even for a short period of time would be very dangerous and very likely to end in death for those who forgot the rules and did not live in harmony with them.

In God’s kingdom He has the same thinking. God knows that He has established the laws of life and all who want to live will keep His laws. God knows that His laws are not something He just made up to be difficult but He shared His laws which are the best things that He could possibly do for His people. God knew that His laws were to be life for His people (Deuteronomy 30:14-20) and that they were all based on love, for God is purely and simply love. I John 4:8 God knew that the world was a dangerous place after Adam had sinned and Satan perceived himself as the God of this world (II Corinthians 4:4). God knew that to believe anything that Satan taught was dangerous and would eventually mean the loss of the physical life of the person as well as the spiritual life of the person. So God gave us an interesting progression of truth. God identifies Himself as love, and then He states that all of His laws are centered in two laws – to love God with all your heart and mind and to love your neighbor as yourself. Jesus claimed that these two laws are the central laws of God and that all of the other laws that God gave were to hang off these two laws. Matthew 22:35-40 so law is the basis of all of God’s laws.

In the books of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy God gives us His laws. He gave us His ten commandments, written on stone and then He gave us many other laws to amplify and clarify the original ten. All of the rest of the books of the Bible show how these laws are to function, and are to be carried out, and lived out, by God’s people so that all of the rest of the world could see these laws and then decide if it would be worth their time and effort to learn these laws.

God gave the Ten Commandments to Israel 50 days after they left Egypt. God wanted to use these laws to establish the foundation of God’s government for Israel as a nation, and to establish the foundations of God’s covenant with mankind – they were to obey God in all that He asked them to do, and God would support and care for them in all that He asked them to do. God spoke them to Israel at Mount Sinai and they were listed as follows:

And God spake all these words, saying,

I am the LORD thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.

Thou shalt have no other gods before me.

Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.

Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.

Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.

Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee.

Thou shalt not kill.

Thou shalt not commit adultery.

Thou shalt not steal.

Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.

Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour’s.

And all the people saw the thunderings, and the lightnings, and the noise of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking: and when the people saw it, they removed, and stood afar off. Exodus 20:1-19

These Ten Commandments are the simplest and most comprehensive testimony that God could give to mankind so that they would understand what He wants from them and what they can do for His children. For those who follow these laws blessing and life are promised and for those who disobey any of these laws, then chaos and death were sure
to follow. Like Colonel Quartich’s Pandoran rules, so we can listen and learn from truths of God as revealed in His law. If we follow them we will live and if we choose not to follow them we will die.