So Tell Us Honestly, Is There Too Much Religion In Sci-Fi?
Airlock Alpha columnist sparks debate across the Internet
"Lost" on ABC. "Battlestar Galactica" and "Caprica" on Syfy.
Science-fiction shows with critical acclaim, yet which heavily rely on religion.
Gone are the days when Gene Roddenberry shunned the inclusion of religion in "Star Trek." Today, it's not just politics in sci-fi, it's religion as well. And Airlock Alpha columnist Tiffany Vogt took some of television's genre creators to task saying enough is enough.
"Angels, purgatory, limbo and monotheistic/polytheistic religious wars -- each has its place in science-fiction, but they are merely an element," Vogt said. "They should not be the core of a science-fiction story. Relying too heavily on these elements in the place of true science-fiction only serves to alienate the very audience that such shows seek to engage."
But how much is too much? And did shows like "Lost" and "Battlestar Galactica" rely too heavily on religious, spiritual elements to get their point across?
"Locutus of Gourd," a poster at the TrekBBS who describes himself as an atheist, yet feels that religion works in television and movies, as long as it's properly integrated into the overall product and plotlines.
"I don't think including religion as an element in sci-fi ruins it," Locutus said, adding that he still derives a lot of enjoyment from shows that feature religion as an important element, like "Miracles," "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine," BSG and the like. "It's all in how it's presented, and whether it's used for preaching at the audience, or for quality storytelling."
Vogt said that if over religious elements suddenly popped up in the Terminator franchise, or maybe even "Doctor Who," it would be out of place. A commenter on Airlock Alpha, "tcurran," agreed, but not exactly for the same reasons.
Terminator and "Doctor Who," he said, were not set up to have religious elements. "'Lost' and 'Galactica' clearly were," he said.
Besides creating seven pages of discussion at TrekBBS and other message board sites, Vogt's story was discussed heavily at the social news aggregator Reddit, where it drew more than 225 comments over the 36 hours since the column was first posted on Airlock Alpha.
One poster, known as "yogthos," said he agreed with Vogt's column, especially in terms of how "Battlestar" used religion.
"The reason I expect sci-fi is because it's what the show led me on to expect," he said. "The religious bits feel tacked on and don't really fit in with the rest of the narrative very well in my opinion. So, if the religious bits were worked in properly, they may not have been offensive at all. They could have worked in some theological questions, and have some episodes that explore the possibilities, and it could've been interesting."
Even Vogt herself joined in on the conversation on Airlock Alpha, saying she didn't want her original point to be lost in all the online debate: sci-fi shows should end with sci-fi elements, and not rely on religion.
"'Lost' and BSG would have been better off ending on a sci-fi note and not a religious note," Vogt said in the comments section of her column. "I was perhaps not clear enough in my article in clarifying that the religious debates throughout both 'Lost' and BSG were helpful in propelling the story. But they should have avoided ending on that topic. It undermined their success as groundbreaking, thought-provoking sci-fi shows."
Has religion become a crutch for sci-fi writers, or is this much ado about nothing? Share your comments right here.
About the Author
by drayburn | Wed, 10/20/2010 - 22:11 #1
I invite everyone to read a different take on this idea next week in my column, Two Strips of Latinum, on this site.
Be careful what you wish for, boss! LOL!
by alphantrion | Wed, 10/20/2010 - 23:37 #2
I personally agree with Mrs Vogt's idea by saying that ending a sci-fi show on a religious basis seems nothing more than an easy way out. I believe religion can be an effective tool to be used to enhance the storyline of a show but just flat out ending a show by saying it was gods will or it was the angels, etc... seems to me like nothing more than lazy writing. It seems as though new generation of writers are not as creative in coming up with sci-fi ideas as effectively as older generation of writers. I believe this may also have something to do with the unfortunate stigma attached to sci-fi (which I believe is still quite relevant, hence the religious endings) that it doesn't attract much audience if a show is hard sci-fi at its core and only attracts a small number of "geeks". I believe that somehow the writers are believing that if they end a show with religion it will attract much larger audience.
by Snowkestrel | Thu, 10/21/2010 - 04:36 #3
It's possible to write a story with science-fiction elements and God, gods, or goddesses, or any number of other supernatural elements. Those stories may even be perfectly acceptable to a science fiction oriented audience, but as the writer/producer/director/etc., you need to provide that as part of the set up, just as you would the conceit that the sun is burning out and needs to be restarted, or that the cyborg needs to be sent back in time to save the future leader of the human resistance. The outrage at the inclusion of religion in a science fiction story is not the inclusion itself, it's the fact that if it's not what he story has clearly been about all along, it constitutes the ultimate deus ex machina cop-out (I think that 'deus ex machina' is Latin for lazy writer's plot device, but don't quote me on that).
In a completely purist sense, the inclusion of religion (realized, not as practiced by mundane humans) changes a sci-fi story to fantasy. Once you have a real (in the story) being of immense power that is outside the realm of scientific explanation, you can no longer append the term 'science' to your 'fiction' descriptor. Science fiction is just that, fiction with a scientific premise, testable, quantifiable, and explainable. Whether that science is fact, theory, or extrapolation, it's still science.
Now, that having been said, if you want to explore themes of religion, such as how (relatively) primitive cultures react to high technology and/or its bearers, or [spoilers] even looking at something like Robert J. Sawyer's Neanderthal Parallax books where he posits a particular segment in the brain of homo sapiens (but not in Homo neanderthalensis) that makes religious experience possible for humans but not for neanderthals [/spoilers], that sort of thing is still giving a scientific basis to the exploration of religious themes, and in my book, is a perfectly good use of the sci-fi form. Science fiction has often been used as a method of taking current events, and societally touchy subjects out of their real-world settings (and attendant baggage) and putting them at a remove so that we can explore them with fewer of our own biases and beliefs getting in the way.
There are those, I am sure, who would consider the inclusion of their own deity in science fiction as an element which does not invalidate the science-fiction element of the story. That's a perfectly valid point of view for the follower of that particular faith, but to any person who does not follow that particular religion, it is as much fictional as if that deity involved was "The All-Knowing- Unpronouncable-THROIE:DJSHKAJ". Not to mention that, as far as most religions are concerned, any deviance from the dogma set forth in that religion's holy book or books are at best misunderstanding, at worst heresy, and either way, fiction, even to the followers of that particular religion.
Is there too much use of religion in science fiction? I don't think so. I think there might not be enough, since the format can theoretically be used to examine religion itself, and how society can deal with religious differences without offending people. What there has been too much of, lately, is religion disguised as science fiction, and the sudden reveal makes people feel as though they have been duped. No one likes that. Please stop.
by amorris | Thu, 10/21/2010 - 04:53 #4
Religion does have its place in science-fiction if it is a characteristic of teh soceity in which a story unfolds but if it's there just to please religious members of the audience, it's not right to use it.
I dislike it intensely when an all powerful god cleans up a mess people have made in a science-fiction story. I hate it when people rely on religion instead of logical thought and science to solve a problem.
I watched the first half hour of "Lost" and was bored, so never watched again. I watched one season of "Battlestar Galactica" in which the rebels, one of whom was played by Richard Hatch, were tramping around in a forest a lot and liked it. Then, the next season, it seemed to move back to soap opera mode and I quit it. So, I didn't experience the unfortunate endings of these shows. I think that I would have felt cheated, especially by "Lost."
Religion and science don't have to be at odds unless the religion forbids a scientific search for knowledge and the use of science to solve problems. So, religion can be a part of a science fiction story but it can't be the solution to the problems. If it is, then the story is a religous story rather than a science-fiction story.
As with gay issues (something on which I commented concerning another Airlock Alpha article), television falls far short of literary science-fiction. All you have to do is read Roger Zelazny's LORD OF LIGHT or Robert Heinlein's STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND to find out what I mean.
I imagine that part of the problem with television science-fiction is that many of the writers don't actually understand science and therefore have a hard time solving a problem with it. If you want science in your science-fiction instead of religion, I'm afraid you have to go to the bookstore.
I like many supposed science-fiction shows but know that what they actually are is fantasy prorgrams. Now, religion in fantasy is a whole other deal, so I won't go there now.
by Kaelin | Thu, 10/21/2010 - 12:10 #5
I think the real problem is not how frequent religion used in science fiction, but how it is used. I see these kind of issues like a never-ending fight between two neighbour words: Science and Fiction.
Galactica's ending stabbed me in the back so hard, I haven't watched any sci-fi TV series from that day forward. This was because point of the need of coexistence between the creator and the creature being explained by something as dull as "because God said so!". It was gold mine! It could be the revelation of the decade! It could have pointed to the alienation of human from the rest of the ecosystem. It could be used to relieve the fear of AI. It could be so many things!
This was the victory of fiction over science. It was wild imagination over refined speculation, it was the popular choice over the right choice which the series itself mentioned many times in it's politic contexts.
But on the other hand, we have an immortal classic like Dune, where the supposed messianic properties of Kwisatz Haderach was used to comment on the dangers of dependency on tool use and to bring the expension of the power of the self as an alternative. It explained the messianic foresight as the power of the trained mind, and showed how hard it is to differ the prophet from the philosopher. Think how Paul used the prophecy Missionaria Protectiva laid on the planet many years ago to manipulate the fremen, and remember how he struggled not to be the dictator he foresaw he will be.
These two examples bring me to this conclusion: Our real problem is that religion is used by writers as a cheating plot device to conclude their speculations and plotlines which frees them from any kind of logical critisism. Because these kind of writers create their ideas as decors to entertain the eye of the audiance, rather than to prove a point.