Science Fiction and Religion

I just reread Sword of Summer and I had a lot of thoughts, but most of those have been hammered out in other essays I’ve done so we’ll skip over that. I also reread Einstein’s Dreams, which carries the subtitle “A Novel” on the cover despite not even being a hundred fifty pages. It’s… okay, but it’s just a bunch of short, three or four page chapters that are like, “What if time worked like this instead of like in our world?” Each idea could easily be its own science fiction novel. I don’t know why I had to read it for my philosophy class in undergrad.

But I also read A Canticle for Leibowitz for the first time! And it’s fantastic!

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Science Fiction and Religion

Mainstream Science fiction doesn’t really have that great a relationship with religion, I think. To be fair, there aren’t a lot of mainstream genres that do; as pointed out here, fantasy novels tend to make religions into generic Scientology Inquisitions. Mainstream science fiction tends to sort of ignore religion in general; like, please tell me, other than the Jedi and Sith, what religions exist in the Star Wars universe? What does religion look like in the Star Trek universe? What is the religious scene of Fahrenheit 451? What does Tony Stark think about faith? And yes, I do know that some of these questions have answers, I know for a fact religion is discussed somewhere in Star Trek or in the Expanded Universe, but it’s not something that a casual fan is likely to know about.

And I also don’t think that a lot of science fiction really has anything other than a very shallow understanding of religion. The Scythe trilogy portrays a world where most ways of dying have been “cured” and the only way people permanently die is by these appointed officials called Scythes “gleaning” people. It’s explained that because people don’t worry about death, most religions have disbanded. Except death still exists, it’s just less common and run by certain officials. I don’t think all the Christian denominations would just pack their bags because of that and be replaced by the one religion that still exists in the books, which are Tone Cults who worship sound. Furthermore, there’s no way that the Scythes themselves wouldn’t be deified by someone.

Gene Roddenberry was also famously atheist, and had he been allowed to would have made Star Trek a future that did away with religion; that’s not really how things shook out, considering how many different people worked on the series and studio mandates and such, but I can’t imagine how that would even work? People will always believe things based on faith; that’s human nature. 

A Canticle for Leibowitz is a bit different. The main setting of the story is a monastery in a post-apocalyptic future. A huge theme of the novel is the repetition of history; and like in history, in a chaotic and unstable world, monasteries are some of the few places that are preserving knowledge of the past world. Except instead of classical texts on philosophy and literature, it’s scientific texts and technological manuals. And it’s amusing, but also sad, because the monastery doesn’t quite understand all of the knowledge it’s been keeping, but they get it more than anyone else, who are all baffled at the idea of a bunch of monks doing science experiments in their basements instead of becoming rich and famous off of their knowledge. 

There is post-apocalyptic fiction with religions represented, but more often than not they seem to be doomsday cults that want to kill our protagonists and eat them or something. Which isn’t completely out there, but I don’t think it’s the most likely answer. Like, of course in a cruel post-apocalyptic world there would be religious communities that would set themselves up and become sanctuaries of a sort. 

Firefly also does remarkably well with depicting religion in its character of Shepherd Book. And of course it makes sense; the series is working with the elements of an old time Western, and the small town preacher is part of that cast you see in plenty of Westerns. Book isn’t some anomaly either; we don’t see a lot of the Christian church in this far future, but it clearly exists and is pretty active, as just about everyone recognizes Book as a preacher when they see him.

[There’s also a lot more to Book than meets the eye, as is hinted at throughout the series but never fully expanded upon because the series got cancelled.]

There should be questions about religion and its applications in weird science fiction situations! Like, how does Christianity or Islam interact with the discovery of alien life? How does alien life feel about religion? Are there alien missionaries? What are their religions like? 

There’s this whole subplot in one of the Expanse books that’s a bunch of religious leaders from Earth getting together on a spaceship to discuss the developments that have been happening in the series and how this affects their religions. And it’s great, because none of them are depicted as being evil overlords or anything, though one of them gets a bit carried away when the Plot starts going haywire. But I liked that the authors recognized that everything that’s been happening in the series has massive implications for human beliefs and how religions react to that.

And I guess that’s kind of all I’m asking? I loved A Canticle for Leibowitz, but I know I can’t expect every science fiction story I read to contain monks. But there should be at least some recognition of religion, whether it be in the post apocalypse, or in the far future, in space, or in present day but with an element or two changed. But not as a silly stereotype of religion as written by angry teenage Redditors, but something that can be good or bad, but a part of people’s lives throughout all time.

And it must make sense! I think the atheists who write “In the future, we won’t have religion!” have a fundamental misunderstanding of human nature and how it works. As long as humanity exists there will be faith of some sort or another.

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