[nathanbedford]

I've had some fun in the past posting my idea that science fiction is a potentially wonderful instrument for forcing the observer to see the world in a new way. However, when a genre such as science fiction, or whatever Harry Potter is as a genre, there is always a danger that it can lapse into a Greek drama in which the plot is solved dues ex machine because the author writes the rules of his universe. That is somewhat different than in author being true to the unwritten rules of the genre such as in Western fiction. In science fiction the author gets to change the laws of physics.

If you can change the laws of physics, you come close to playing God and that is, of course, the ultimate as well as the first sin. I suppose if one looks at science fiction as allegory of a spiritual type one could justify what I would regard to be a blasphemous appropriation of the Providence of God.

[Borges]

You could take the next step and say that fiction is ‘lies’ and inherently sinful, the Puritans thought so I think? (the difference is that fiction doesn’t claim to be ‘true’) Someone like Wagner fully admitted that his operas were an attempt to replace the reigning Judeo-Christianity with the older Norse Pagan ethos.