Some links from the last month

Continuing the great catch-up project, here are some links from the last month or so:

At Tor.com, Teresa Jusino ponders religion, science, and science fiction. I'm interested in her approach to the "provable" deities of (for instance) Avatar and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine:

Most people who debate science vs. religion tend to ask the same boring question. Does God exist?  Yawn. However, the question in all of these stories is never “Do these beings really exist?” The question is “What do we call them?” It’s never “Does this force actually exist?” It’s, “What do we call it?” Or “How do we treat it?” Or “How do we interact with it?” One of the many things that fascinates me about these stories is that the thing, whatever it is—a being, a force—always exists. Some choose to acknowledge it via gratitude, giving it a place of honor, organizing their lives around it and allowing it to feed them spiritually. Others simply use it as a thing, a tool, taking from it what they will when they will then calling it a day. But neither reaction negates the existence of the thing.

I like the treatment of "Does God exist?" as a dull and tired debate. The first thing that question brings to my mind is "How are you defining 'God'?" Chances are the questioner is rolling up more than a few assumptions with that word. Even the most atheistic of scientists (and, yes, I'm thinking specifically of Richard Dawkins) can start to sound downright mystical when they start talking about the vastness of the universe or the philosophical concept of a "scientific law." So, yes, I think Jusino is right to argue that "what we call it" and "how we treat it" are more interesting ways to approach the interplay of science and religion than tired old atheist-versus-creationist fight.

Joe Laycock reviews Daybreakers for Religion Dispatches, finding Eucharistic themes amidst the blood-soaked chaos. I haven't seen the movie, but its vampire society is an intriguing premise (however much it may crib from the end of I Am Legend). And for the Marty Martin Center, Mr. Laycock has also penned a brief discussion of Avatar that draws a parallel between the planet-ravaging, sinful humans of that film with the planet-ravaging, sinful humans of C.S. Lewis's Out of the Silent Planet and its sequels. I recently read Joe's excellent exploration of real life vampires, Vampires Today, which is an intriguing and extraordinarily well-written look at a subculture with some unexpectedly religious elements. And you can read it too.

For the Guardian, Toby Lichtig takes a quick look at secular apocalypticism. He points out an interesting contrast between environmental nightmares and Cold War nuclear scenarios:

Put simply, the difference between the current threat and older ones is this: we are all, personally, to blame. Almost everyone (especially in the well-read west) is doing their bit to make the world a warmer place, and thus we are all implicated in the calamity that will this time surely spell the End.

This pushes secular apocalypse back into religious territory. Nuclear war can't be framed as punishment for individual sin, but environmental collapse can. Of course, it's not just climate-change nightmares that can be framed this way: as I pointed out in my review of Cloverfield, some giant monster attacks may be caused by your inconsiderate cell phone use. 

Scott Timberg has written a six-part series on Philip K. Dick's Orange County years for the Los Angeles Times, which is particularly interesting because it was in those years that Dick had his vivid religious experiences. Timberg tackles that topic in part four, treating it generally as a "mystery" that can never be solved, and giving a bit too much credence to Thomas Disch, who I believe was sorely mistaken about the nature of Dick's religious thought. It would have been nice to have a paragraph or two about the actual content of Dick's theological writing-- but I guess asking for theology in the LA Times might be a fool's errand.

Religion Dispatches is running a weekly feature on Caprica. 

And that is all for now-- though I'm not actually quite caught up on my RSS feeds, so more may follow shortly.

Comments

[Ben]

Hey Gabriel! I laughed when I saw you recommending the Tor.com post. I was the number two commenter there, and if I'd remembered your name and the name of the blog when I was typing my comment, I would have linked to here. I remember thinking 'Hmm, what would Gabriel think of this post?' Now I know!