I drink your milkshake

In an uncharacteristically half-assed rhetorical flourish, Mike D'Angelo claims that There Will Be Blood involves a "titanic battle between the worldly and the spiritual." This struck me as weirdly wrong-headed, since the spiritual never enters PT Anderson's masterpiece. It's clear to me that Anderson views Daniel and Eli as competing enterprises -- both surrender what principles they had (or claim to have had) for material gain, and then, in the film's view of capitalism, one has to destroy (or "eat") the other (hence the prophecy of the title). It's not clear whether Eli is sincere or a charlatan, and I don't think Anderson really cares, but there's certainly nothing "spiritual" about Eli as far as the movie is concerned. He's competition.

There are nuances and layers aplenty to the film, but I think the bird's eye view of it is actually a bit simpler than a lot of people are claiming. I could be wrong.