Posted on 03/27/2009 5:38:49 AM PDT by jalisco555
Perhaps your SF ping list might find this interesting.
Science fiction and police fiction (private detective, police procedural, etc.) have always taken religion seriously and explored both religion and ethics in complex and thoughtful ways.
Of course, if sci-fi is drawing on the ‘War on Terror’, it’s still really drawing on religion—however much we try to avert our eyes from the fact by using euphemisms like ‘the War on Terror’, the war between the West and Islam is a religious war.
Star Trek never really took religion seriously. In fact it went almost unmentioned, except for the one episode in TOS set in the Rome like planet. I always thought that Roddenberry believed it was something childish that we’d outgrow. Babylon 5 and Battlestar Galactica on the other hand do take it very seriously, and are better fiction.
This guy doesn’t read. All his examples are TV and movies, whereas if he read, he’d know one of the most compelling supporting examples of his premise is the final Harry Potter novel.
As is the human-Cylon war on BSG, which draws very much from current events.
Well, he does reference Dune and Stranger in a Strange Land, as well as the final Potter book in the article. But you're right, most of his examples are TV and film.
“Star Trek,” and some earlier pieces, are a sub-trend, as it were, in that way. (By always, I meant “throughout the existence of these genres,” not “every individual piece.”)
The fantasy of a world without religion, money, poverty, ignorance, and so on goes way back ... although it appears that more people believe such a scenario is both possible and desireable than used to.
Oh, wait, he did mention HP too. I just had my eyes glaze over in the middle of his piece because he takes forever to get to his point.
No politics in Star Trek either. Just a benevolent UN writ large.
It's actually easier on the eyes if you read it at the link. I posted the entire piece since people get upset over unnecessary excerpting.
I like to print long articles out to read, if it looks like they’ll be interesting enough.
Serious denial of observable reality, even at the time of the original ST.
Not flaming you at all, but perhaps you missed this? Or did I misunderstand what you were saying?
To say the least. I really agree with though. SciFi and religon have always intermingled past the fifties anyways (alot of the early works seem to have it less, including Bradbury and Wells [or what I’ve read of them]). Look at Dune, written 60’s, it’s chocked full of religion (not any religion I would like to be part of but still...) It’s one of the best selling (if not the best selling) Science Fiction books. Also B5, X-files, Stargate (good grief the whole premise of the show starts out with re-imaging religions) all have tackled this, them being the three biggest Sci-fis of the last 20 years on TV. Before that with Star Trek, and other shows, I didn’t see it as much (I also wasn’t alive also).
Yeah, missed it. Eyes glazed over, it’s early. I think this article could have used a little editing since it takes four times as long to say what it’s saying as it needs to.
I think in the future I will excerpt long articles whether or not it’s required.
Apparently, the author had not seen the final episode of Battlestar Galactica. It ended on a very religious note. It implied VERY strongly that the Humans and Cylons ended up where they ended up through divine intervention. It was very powerful for me.
There’s a saying that science fiction is never about the future, it’s always about the present. It simply projects present day concerns into the future. So when religion is high in people’s consciousness many religious stories are written. Likewise, when Wells wrote Science and Progress were practically worshiped as secular religions, so his fiction reflected this.
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