Sense of Wonder: A Century of Science Fiction (243 page)

Mix was close enough to hear them talking. The messenger brought news of the approaching enemy. The Fideans would have to board their ships soon and set sail for home. Otherwise, they would be trapped on land by a superior force.

Apparently the states on both sides of Albion had decided to band together and attack. Moreover, the Huns across the river had joined them.

Kramer replied that the Fidean fleet must return to its home base at once. Before doing so, however, they would burn the heretics.

Mix knew then that Kramer had not heard of the destruction of his capital city and the uprising of the slaves. Despite his pain and the knowledge of the fire waiting for him, he managed a smile. Kramer was doomed. If he were captured alive, he would undoubtedly be tortured and then burned. Mix hoped that he would be. Perhaps if Kramer himself experienced the flames, he might not be so eager to burn others when he rose again. But Max doubted it.

Kramer had quit giving orders and had resumed his course toward Yeshua. Mix called to him.

“Kramer! If Yeshua is who those men claim he is, and they’ve no reason to lie, then what about you? You’ve killed and tortured for nothing; you’ve put your own soul in the gravest of jeopardy.”

Kramer reacted as Mix had hoped he would. He shouted and ran at Mix with the butt-end of the spear raised. Mix saw it come down on him. Then he knew nothing.

* * * *

But he was not completely successful. He regained consciousness to find himself upright and tied to a great bamboo stake. Below him was a large pile of small bamboo sections and pine needles.

His eyes crossed, and all became blurred. But he could smell the torch as it was applied to the pile, and set him to coughing. Agony struck like a fist. Vision faded; he fell into oblivion.

But he heard Yeshua’s voice, distorted, far away, like thunder on the mountains.

“Father, they
do
know what they’re doing!”

* * * *

Copyright © 1966 by Galaxy Publishing Corp.

In past eras, it was primarily the purview of religious literature to speculate on celestial realms, their possible inhabitants, and human travel to them. Even though since the advent of the modern sciences these themes have come to be thought about in new ways and in light of new information, it should not surprise anyone to find a significant degree of continuity between ancient and modern literature that explores these matters. The question of when to begin a survey of religion in science fiction is largely a matter of figuring out when something that deserves to be called
science
gets incorporated into such stories, even if the science itself is speculative and fictional.

Mary Shelley’s
Frankenstein
is often regarded as the first work in the genre of science fiction, and if its action is limited to the terrestrial realm, it nonetheless shows continuity with themes in earlier religious literature and tradition. The book’s subtitle, “A Modern Prometheus,” alludes to the story of the tragic Greek god who brought divine knowledge to humans, a theme modernized and explored in many science fiction stories in which alien technology one way or another ends up in the hands of humans or other less technologically advanced beings. In Jewish tradition, the stories of the golem created through manipulation of the divine name represent a precursor to the story of Frankenstein. In the novel, the creature reflects on its status in direct comparison with Biblical and extrabiblical stories of God’s creation of humankind. And perhaps even more so in later cinematic retellings than in the original novel, the story of Frankenstein has become emblematic of another perennial theme at the intersection of religion and science fiction, namely that of “scientists playing God.”

It is difficult to organize an overview of religion in science fiction, since a purely chronological approach might fail to highlight distinct strands that persist or develop over time, while any attempt to systematize by traditions and influences runs afoul of the eclectic character that imagined future religion sometimes has. For instance, while Frank Herbert’s
Dune
series remains distinctive in its inclusion of Islam as a significant influence on future religion, its influence is only one contributor to a religious landscape populated by groups with syncretistic names like “Zensunni” and eclectic collections of Scriptures such as offered by the Orange Catholic Bible.

Not all future landscapes are characterized by such eclecticism and religious evolution, however. Sarah Zettel’s 1997 novel
Fool’s War
features two strong female characters who are devout Muslims, in a context in which there is wide prejudice against Muslims, who are blamed for causing a devastating war. In Dan Simmons’
Hyperion
, new religions as well as old are to be found, and the older traditions have not ceased to explore some of the same stories and questions as in the past—as for instance when Sol Weintraub, a Jewish intellectual, wrestles with the story of Abraham being called upon to sacrifice his son Isaac. In her two-volume story spanning the novels The Sparrow and Children of God, Mary Doria Russell focuses particular attention on the Catholic tradition, as Jesuits lead the first expedition to make contact with an extraterrestrial race. Judaism also features prominently in the story, and an issue important in both those monotheistic traditions as well as others—the problem of evil—is given poignant exploration. In Ray Bradbury’s story “The Fire Balloons,” a group of priests makes first contact with an alien race less like humans, and in the process reflects on the nature of sin and other theological considerations. In all of the aforementioned stories, adherents of traditional human faiths are depicted as reflecting on traditional concerns in a future context as well as new issues raised by new experiences, such as travel to other worlds and encounter with alien life.

For Christianity, with its tradition of exclusivism with regard to salvation, the possibility of multiple inhabited worlds raises the question of whether there could be multiple incarnations, or whether those humans committed to the spread of the Gospel would try to find ways of bringing the message to those who could not yet have heard. In Philip José Farmer’s “Prometheus,” one of the characters wrestles with the appropriateness of talking about his religious beliefs with a species at the verge of language use and the major cultural leap that would inevitably accompany it. Winston P. Sanders’s “The Word to Space” focuses on long-distance religious proselytization—with humans as the recipients rather than the senders. Harry Harrison’s “The Streets of Ashkelon” describes an attempt to share terrestrial religious beliefs with a species that seems to be completely innocent and to entirely lack religious ideas—with tragic results. And Arthur C. Clarke’s “The Star” looks at a Jesuit priest whose faith is shaken by the discovery that a supernova which destroyed a thriving culture was in fact the star of Bethlehem.

The aforementioned sort of theological science fiction is not at all rare, and in some instances there is a close connection between the themes explored and the author’s own faith. For instance, Orson Scott Card is one of the best-known authors connected with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. His stories not only explore general religious themes or even specifically Mormon ones, but go further still. In the
Homecoming
series, Card seeks to retell the Book of Mormon in a science fiction setting. And while C. S. Lewis is better known for his Narnia series in the fantasy genre, his trilogy
Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra
and
That Hideous Strength
in the science fiction genre gives voice to his theological outlook in comparable ways. Similar examples of science fiction that reflects the exploration of the author’s own faith tradition could be provided for other religious traditions, although as Isaac Asimov says in the foreword to the anthology
Wandering Stars
, the nature of Jewish identity as both a cultural and a religious heritage adds further complications to any discussion of “Jewish science fiction,” his own case providing but one example. Even fundamentalist Christianity may be said to have produced science fiction, particularly if one includes for consideration books such as the Left Behind series by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins. Books of this sort often include implanted microchips and other characteristic elements of science fiction in a story that purports to be based on the Book of Revelation. Some science fiction authors do not merely draw eclectically on religions in weaving a fictional religious environment for their characters, but engage in a similar creative process in developing their own spiritual vision—Philip K. Dick providing one famous example, but by no means the only one. Dick created fictional religions for use within stories, as in the case of Mercerism in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? But he also gave voice to his own religious views, heavily indebted to Gnosticism, in VALIS and Radio Free Albemuth.

Even that brand of science fiction that tends to adopt a secular humanist vision of the future finds it cannot avoid religious themes and issues. The first episode of the original series of
Star Trek
to air, “Where No Man Has Gone Before,” includes what at the time might have seemed to be “fringe science” but is now more frequently relegated to the sphere of pseudoscience, namely concepts like Psi and ESP. And as two characters begin to develop superhuman powers, Capt. Kirk finds himself discussing what the characteristics of a god are—or ought to be. Arthur C. Clarke explores a scenario in which—however tongue in cheek—computing “The Nine Billion Names of God” brings the end of the universe. And one of the stories in Isaac Asimov’s I, Robot depicts a robot reasoning that a creator must exist, and that its human constructors cannot be that supreme intelligence responsible for its creation, since they seem to lack the know how to do more than put a robot together from previously constructed parts. Carl Sagan’s Contact explores the interaction of faith and skepticism as it depicts the reactions of scientists, religious believers and others when the first extraterrestrial signal is detected. And Philip Jose Farmer’s Riverworld focuses on resurrection—but not in the manner or by the means anticipated by the Abrahamic faiths. As the series progresses its characters, taken from different periods in time, discuss many traditional human religious ideas, as well as inventing new ones.

In addition to the expression of religious views through the medium of science fiction, it is also possible to turn science fiction into religion, and in more than one sense. Fandom of
Star Trek
or
Star Wars
has often been expressed in a manner that is at least quasi-religious. Not only are there debates about “canon” and “pilgrimages” to conventions, but on recent censuses hundreds of thousands of individuals have self-identified as “Jedi” when declaring their religion. Even if one assumes that such self-identification is not offered with complete seriousness, this nonetheless suggests that a science fiction religion can resonate more with a significant number of people than traditional religions do. And in the case of Scientology, we have a science fiction author, L. Rob Hubbard, who has created a religion which incorporates a narrative that has key characteristics of this genre: aliens, galactic warfare, and technology, to name a few.

In discussions of religion and science fiction, the focus tends to be on the relationship to traditions and concepts that continue to exist and find adherents in the present. But even if sometimes relegated to the separate category of “mythology,” there is in fact no sharp conceptual distinction between the major monotheistic traditions that exist in our time, for instance, and the religions of ancient Greece and Rome. The latter likewise have numerous points of contact and intersection with science fiction. In the rebooted
Battlestar Galactica
series, human religion took the form of polytheistic worship of gods from the Greco-Roman pantheon. And in the classic
Star Trek
episode “Who Mourns for Adonais?” the crew of the Enterprise encounters Apollo, the ancient deity turning out to be an alien, one that would have seemed like a god to “the simple shepherds and tribesmen of early Greece,” according to Dr. McCoy. Science fiction incorporates many of the features of traditional religious/mythological narratives—heroes, beings with superhuman or even seemingly supernatural abilities, ascent to the celestial realms and encounter with the inhabitants thereof, and so on. Sometimes the similarities are intentional, as in the case of Star Wars. George Lucas deliberately drew on motifs and plot elements from Joseph Campbell’s work on heroes and mythology. In other cases, the similarities may or may not have been deliberate, and could quite plausibly be understood to simply reflect an ongoing tradition of storytelling and mythmaking, updated for a different era. In either case, the stories regularly include entities whose greater power than humans makes them analogous to the gods of humanity’s more ancient narratives. Q is but one of several such characters to be found in the various permutations of Star Trek. One could also include characters from comic books, such as Superman or the Silver Surfer, extraterrestrials who by virtue of alien evolution, advanced technology, or a combination of the two, serve in roles that overlap with those of ancient gods and heroes.

For the most part, science fiction explores what might be referred to as “natural gods”—godlike entities who may be biological in nature or composed of pure energy, but are ultimately components of the natural realm, produced at some point
by
a universe, even if they may also have a role at some point in creating new ones. Robert J. Sawyer’s
Calculating God
features aliens who believe in a form of “intelligent design”—but the creator in question is an advanced life form, not a spiritual being who answers prayer. Both Isaac Asimov’s “The Last Question” and George Zebrowski’s
Macrolife
explore human history from the near future until the end of the universe, when humans, other life forms, and artificial intelligence have evolved and merged into a macro-consciousness that hopes to survive the end of the universe. In both stories, this entity contemplates the situation as the universe draws to its end and responds with the words of the Creator in Genesis 1, “let there be light.” In this scenario, God is the end result of the evolutionary process rather than its beginning, akin to the notion of God as “Omega Point” in the theology of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. Teilhard’s thought is mentioned explicitly in Simmons’s Hyperion series, but similar ideas are explored in the work of many other authors.

Although science fiction tends to be focused on the future, through the use of speculative future technology to allow time travel, science fiction can also open a gateway to the past, which allows for other sorts of exploration of religion, including in the case of religions with a focus on historical events, the opportunity to investigate them, change them, or even cause them. Michael Moorcock’s story “Behold the Man” represents an irreverent and provocative exploration of the story of Jesus through this medium.

Science fiction provides a natural venue for exploring the potential implications of future technological developments. Since religion is closely entwined with morality and ethics for many people, numerous stories in this category touch on religion at some point. One particular traditional doctrine—the soul—appears with particular frequency, since the soul has historically been a means of denoting that which makes human beings unique, and uniquely valuable among living things. And so discussions about the rights or sentience of clones, of extraterrestrial organisms, and of machines is often couched in the language of whether or not they have souls. Jack McDevitt’s story “Gus” explores this issue in a very direct fashion, focusing on a computer simulation of the personality of Augustine—known as “Gus”—which appears to develop sentience, and becomes concerned about the fate of its immortal soul (if it has one) once it is deactivated. In Robert Silverberg’s “Good News From The Vatican” we find what could be a fitting sequel—a story about the election of the first robot pope. And Anthony Boucher’s “The Quest for Saint Aquin” features robots as both challengers to and encouragement for the faith of the main character, a Catholic priest named Thomas.