Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Is Science Fiction Antithetical to Religion?
The conflict between science and religion dates back as least as far as Galileo and the Roman Catholic Church and has been debated endlessly over the years, but I ran across a fascinating discourse that attempts to answer a somewhat different question: Is Science Fiction Antithetical to Religion?
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2 comments:
Interesting piece. I was struck by this line in particular:
"If you believe that you already know everything there is to know, that you have the nature of reality handed to you in the form of carvings on stone tablets, and are utilizing your observations to confirm rather than test your presuppositions, you are not a scientist. And any fiction that flows from these presuppositions will be propaganda, not art."
I'm tempted to make the analogy "SciFi is to Science as Fantasy is to ..." more explicit than some people might be comfortable with. The idea that science (fiction) oriented people approach questions about the universe from a perspective of "what are the facts", whereas the fantasy (and religion) oriented crowd approach the same questions from a perspective that says "how *should* things be?", is, I think, a very telling observation.
Oh, and on an unrelated note: Congrats on wrapping up your second book!
Thanks, Chris!
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