How Science Fiction Found Religion

City Journal ^ | Winter 2009 | Benjamin A. Plotinsky

[Tax-chick]

Sigh. So many lectures, so little money ...

Maybe the library has Thucydides on tape or CD!

[phillyfanatic]

I enjoyed the article and have seen one like it years ago. Still, the liberal bent in SCI-FI writings dominates that field. And we know that our liberal brothers and sisters have become , were always, in their core of cores, socialist pacifist secular humanists with a smidge of religious zeal to now dominate the global scene. I cannot see them ever, ever finally seeing the Light of John 3:16. Ever. Still, they will end up dominating us unless somehow a great revival of unity in the conservcenterlibertarian groups decide to rise up and stop liberal domination.

[bpjam]

Star Trek was first of its kind but in retrospect the writing really wasn’t that great. Compared to something like BSG or even Firefly, it is like comparing the Post Office to Fed Ex on quality.

[happygrl]

BUMP to myself!

[KevinDavis]

A big thanks goes to Visualops for the Banner!!

[KevinDavis]

Actually it was Berman who destroyed the Star Trek franchise..

[KevinDavis]

Also divine intervention that our Earth was populated by humans..

[KevinDavis]

Despite that B5 was created by an Atheist.

[null and void]

Don’t forget Evangelion...

[null and void]

Is this a bad time to mention that HG Wells’ War of the Worlds has a solid religious undertone, all the more surprising given Wells’ attitude toward the Church?

[Toki]

/shivers
like I could ever.
However, I did forget the religious overtones
That series freaked me out. Probably why I haven’t watched since I was sixteen.

[null and void]

It was odd...

[mad_as_he$$]

Yup, sorry got them mixed up.

[VermiciousKnid]

Jalisco, an informative and interesting article — nice post.

Kevin, thanks for the ping — fascinating!

Regards,

[jalisco555]

Is this a bad time to mention that HG Wells’ War of the Worlds has a solid religious undertone, all the more surprising given Wells’ attitude toward the Church?

IIRC, the Curate came off looking rather badly.

[jalisco555]

Despite that B5 was created by an Atheist.

Yes, I know. But most athiests will acknowledge the importance of the religious impulse, even though they believe it comes from evolution.

[jalisco555]

Jalisco, an informative and interesting article — nice post.

My pleasure, amigo.

[KevinDavis]

True...

[Charles H. (The_r0nin)]

...the folks who teach that real “literature” can only be mundane are just a recent and sickening abberation [sic].

It was the Realists (folks like Henry James) and Victorians who led this charge. As sort of proto-Fabian socialist types, they believed that literature should express the ordinary problems (usually having to do with finance or romance or a combination... a cynical reaction to the Horatio Alger literary movements of folks like Dickens) of ordinary people (who tended to be upper middle-class, just like the authors). In other words, folks like James asserted that the only true literature was the kind that, through some coincidence, they happened to write. How amazing!

[Charles H. (The_r0nin)]

This is reflected to a great extent in the winners of the Nobel Prize for Literature. No genre writers (and certainly no science fiction), no children's writers, just Literature with a capital L.

That's actually not so true anymore. The movement called "magical realism" has become far more popular and critically recognized in the past 15 years (think Umberto Eco, et al.). These books could be considered fantasy, but written in the style of a realist novel. This movement might make speculative fiction (the "academic" term for Scifi) much more critically acceptable in the near future...