Religion and Science Fiction: Asking the Right Questions

Among the kinds of stories I like to see are ones that address seriously the idea of fidelity to something larger than oneself. Doesn’t have to be God by any name or no name (although I enjoy those too).

I find Lois McMaster Bujold’s Chalion series excellent for grappling with some of the issues about what the gods owe us and what we owe them. Fantasy rather than science fiction, though, and the literal existence of the gods in that universe is clear.

For science fiction, you might look at some of the books that were recommended in the discussion of “A Dazzle of Day” a couple of weeks ago. (Quakers in space.)

It’s probably redundant by now, but I too recommend The Sparrow. :-)

As far as science accepting lesser answers until better ones come along–Asimov discusses this in an interesting essay called “The Relativity of Wrong,” which can be read here…the gist of it being, as he says, that theories are not so much wrong as incomplete (but getting more refined and closer to “the truth” all the time).

I like your definition of religion as the attitude of being humble about what you don’t know. But many atheist scientists feel this too: a humbling and awe-inspiring sense of the mysteries of the universe, as well as our deep and intimate connection to it. The difference, I think, is that science strives to delve deeper into those mysteries and figure them out (which increases, rather than kills, scientists’ sense of wonder), while conventional religion is content to worship mystery and call it God, and feels threatened when that mystery is explained. (Now that I think of it, most religions usually aren’t humble about what we don’t know; they insist that their ancient texts explain it all!) Scientists seek truth through exploration, discovery, and evidence, and they reject “received” truth from authority and revelation, which is the preferred method of most religions; which is probably why most scientists are nonbelievers.

That doesn’t mean, as I said, that scientists are incapable of feeling wonder and deep connection with the cosmos. If by “religion” you mean the rush that Carl Sagan got when he contemplated the universe; or the feeling Neil Degrasse Tyson gets when he thinks of our chemical connection to the stars; or the exhilaration Richard Dawkins feels when he considers that we are biologically related to every single living thing on earth; then I’m down with that. :-)

I just thought of a classic Isaac Asimov short story that needs to be listed here: The Last Question.

You can even read it online (original text, or graphic novel!) here: http://www.multivax.com/

It has given me chills, because the “answer” is science fiction straight from Asimov’s clever imagination, but the question itself is both sobering and indisputably valid.

About this idea: “God is the name we give what we don’t know/understand”… the real problem there is that I’ve never met anyone who actually defines God this way in practice — only in theoretical arguments. The concept of prayer, of gratitude, of seeing the “actions” of God in everyday life, of finding meaning or purpose in God — all of these things only make sense if you change from God as “the unknown” to God as a sentient, powerful, mostly-benevolent entity that concerns itself with the affairs of humans.

Obviously anyone who reads traditional religious texts or participates in religious rituals to learn something about God doesn’t have anything to do with God-the-unknown.

I prefer Morrow’s Only Begotten Daughter to the Towing Jehovah trilogy, but that’s probably a result of my preferring to read books where the author is on the side of the characters, and given that Morrow is generally satiric, he often is not on the side of the characters he’s created.

Robert J. Sawyer’s Neanderthal trilogy posited a theory that Homo Sapiens brains are wired for religion, whereas the Neanderthals from the dimension next door were not.

I’d also add Dune to your list. The Fremen are intensely religious/spiritual to the extent that they regard the worms a physical manifestation of God. That’s not the quote unquote “problem”. As Frank Herbert himself said often, the (not very sub-)text of Dune was how very dangerous it is to put unquestioning faith in messiahs — be they religious, political or the unholy fusion of both Paul Atreides becomes.

One book that really ought to come up in any discussion of sf and religion, even though it’s almost prehistoric by now, is Olaf Stapledon’s “Star Maker.” Published in the 1930s, a HUGE influence on writers from Arthur C. Clarke to Greg Bear. Tough to summarize, but basically about a group of humans and aliens searching throughout the universe for signs of a creator — the “star maker” of the title. Stapledon invents an amazing number of alien planets and cultures, shows whole galactic civilizations rising and falling; earth’s history is barely a footnote. It was reissued a few years ago with a new introduction by Freeman Dyson.

I’m a bit late to the party but I had to say that I LOVED this post – very thought-provoking and enjoyable, as are most of the comments.

As for recommendations, I’d definitely go with Warbreaker (Brandon Sanderson) and The Sparrow, and Children of God (Mary Doria Russell). I realize both have been mentioned already but I wanted to reiterate that they are great choices, though for very different reasons. In The Sparrow, the big question is “what do you do when your belief in God is challenged to the core?” I LOVE that book. I’m still in the middle of Warbreaker so I can’t give you any specifics, but it does deal with the interpretation of religion and the combination of religion and politics.

Also, I’ll be cohosting a read-a-long of The Sparrow in March/April on my blog – you are more than welcome to join in. The goal of the read-a-long is to introduce this fantastic book to a crop of new readers and encourage discussion about it.

The examples that you give in Science Fiction movies aren’t really ‘religion’. That’s because they have real physical effects on the real world inside the story.

The gods of DS9 are real aliens, a measurable entity.

The Force in Star Wars is a measurable force, that the Jedi can demonstrate, over and over .

The Na’vi actually make a physical connection with natural plants on their planet. This could be measured and studied. They don’t just sit still and pray and then claim that God spoke to them.

It’s not what most people would call religion, because it’s real.

Teresa – the details haven’t been posted yet, but if you shoot me an email through my Blogger profile I’ll be sure to let you know when they are (I’m still working out the specifics w/ my 2 co-hosts).

I didn’t give this thread a through lookthrough to see if anyone else mentioned it, though I doubt it….My father had a 1974 paperback collection of religious themed sci-fi called “Other Worlds, Other Gods” edited by Mayo Mohs. Clarke’s Nine Billion Names of God is in it, which I figure you may already have read, plus a selection from Christus Apollo from Bradbury, but most of the stories, when I was a kid and pulled by science and religion in opposite directions (and eventually losing the faith :) in my own way), I still find myself drawn back to on occasion (I eventually sought out my own copy on eBay) as I feel for the most part that, like 9BNOG and also Asimov’s Last Question, the religious aspect(s) are not delivered so much as blunt as subtle and in some cases the religion is almost unimportant.

Just my suggestion, thanks for reading!

I loved this article. But the one thing that I didn’t see mentioned was Stargate?! The whole idea of Stargate came from the the question “Are these aliens gods, and are they worthy of our worship?” Some of the gods were good and some were evil and some just stood by and watched. While the ultimate goal of the humans seemed to be to evolve (or ascend) to a higher plan of resistance and BECOME gods.

I would recommend the Circle series by Ted Dekker, it isn’t the best example of great sci-fi but it some interesting views.

I think that science fiction borrows from religious ideology. Well I do anyway, and I’m not at all religious. Sci-fi is escapism, its ideas writ large that, while they may not necessarily be true, or even possible, they are certainly a philosophical candy for the mind.

As far as I can see religion is the same thing, stories about magical this and moral values that are borrowed themselves from things we experience during our life.

They will never end in repeating themselves either since generally speaking only one generation gets to read a book before its retired to the ‘old books home’ never to be heard from again. Same with movies and even the plot for computer games.

The story of Jesus itself is rather an old one. It certainly predates the guy in the new testament. Its the story of the long awaited leader that will deliver the ‘insert type of people here’ from drudgery and absolve them of all the ‘insert things that went wrong in the past here’ and then they will be all happy and joyful forever… and all they have to do is ‘present task the population need to do to join happy time’.

It also wasn’t the last such manifestation of this story. King Arthur, Star Wars (as the author pointed out), The Matrix, Even H.G. Wells. Nor the First manifestation of the story, Mithra, who done the sick healing and baptizing and all of the same stuff and saved people from the evils of, whatever it was back in the day. From the land of Egypt we have Horus. Again, a great man for the healing and baptizing and worshiping and even chased that darned Ra away…. until of course Ra killed him, but he rose again and saved the day. Then theres Buddha, same s**t different day, different culture too. 

The Time Machine’  is also the same story. Its all about a man (usually a man) that starts off as an innocent bystander and is pushed by circumstance to ‘Save’ the day….on his white horse, or millennium falcon, or whatever.

Its hard NOT to borrow such a story, its as old as the hills. I’d have a fair idea that 30k years ago in a cave somewhere the chieftain, Ug the large,was telling his children and his wife and his small group, over the campfire, of the man who showed them the way to the hunting grounds and started off as a single man, after being ostracized by his group, and this is the great shaman, and wizard, who will one day return to save them again. In fact I’d say a lot of such groups all had the very same story.

Its the same story twice in the bible, first with Moses, who saves his people from the evil civilization of the Egyptians, Although to be honest living the high life for your entire life in a desert is probably not the best ending. Bummer of an ending there, they’d have been much better off in Egypt… seemingly as it turns out they weren’t missed either since their departure was the ‘golden age’ of Egypt.

Same with Star Wars, the Matrix, King Arthur, A young boy grows up to find out he’s to save the galaxy, world, or England from the blah blah. 

It tells the reader that ‘they too’ could be either in the presence of, or themselves, the savior of everyone else from [insert problem or catastrophic state of affairs here].

Anyway this particular plot line won’t be going away any time soon.

Has no one noticed the Elephant in the room here? Religions are not exercises in philosophical speculation. Guess what happens to you when our beliefs disagree?

The Tor moderator rules would probably not even allow most people to state what their religious beliefs are, because it would be considered hate speech. And that is just as well.

But in that context, how can you even begin to discuss what sf has to say about religious belief? The only religious beliefs you could discuss would be the ones that most people don’t actually have.