One thing that has long interested me, though that I have never taken the time to properly study, is religion. Both my parents got their degrees in religion so my house was always full of books talking about Islam, the life of Jesus, Hindu Gods, Judaism, and more. Though not particularly religious myself, a culturally focused reform Jew, these faiths, their differences, and their stories have long interested me.

Many years ago I watched Battlestar Galactica for the first time, it’s since been one of my favorites but I remember distinctly being particularly surprised at the way religion was used in the show. The humans prayed to a pantheon of gods stemming from the belief that their ancestors migrated to 13 planets (Earth included) from one original home world where humanity lived with these gods by the names of Athena, Hera, etc. Their core belief is that the scriptures are real, and that “all of this has happen

ed before, and all of this has happened again.” The Cylons (the evil (kinda) robots) pray to one true god, and believe that everything that transpires is part of Gods divine plan. The funny thing about the show is that at different times both religions are shown to be true. They (spoilers) find a magical planetarium with the map to Earth in a tomb of the human Gods, and things foretold by the human scriptures come to be literally true. At the same time, a human under the influence of the one God is able to know things that it is inconceivable he would already know if the messenger from God (a vision of a woman Cylon) hadn’t told him.

This, in combination with readings we’ve done in class with heavy religious imagery, made me wonder how SF deals with religion on a grander scale. What are the themes surrounding it’s inclusion and use?

In my research I found lists upon lists of SF stories in all sorts of media using religious themes or imagery. These ranged from frictional religions in Star Trek and the devil in Doctor Who, all the way to” 2112″ by Rush and short stories by Octavia Butler.

One article discussed a general shift in SF writing, discussing how pre-WWII alien religions were generally written as being foolish or misguided. Post-war, however, the attitude shifted to their religions being spiritual beyond the realm of human comprehension. The article also discussed how in the 1950s SF began experimenting with a dei

ties point of view, and spoke about the experiences of Phillip K. Dick.  There are even real-world religions with their roots in SF, just look at scientology.

But WHY include these themes? I found another article by the World Religion News discussing religion’s place in SF (link here: https://www.worldreligionnews.com/entertainment/religions-place-science-fiction) but honestly I didn’t find it very helpful. The article focused on mainstream SF movies and asked many of the same questions I am trying to find answers to, without answering them.

I think Religion is one of those things where t

he answer is “It depends.” Different authors in different stories have different goals with their portrayals of religion, and whether religion is found in themes or center stage varies greatly.

The main question SF authors answer when including religion or not in their stories is “What is the place of religion in the future?” Will we progress in science beyond any need for gods, will our future cause us to circle back to find that spiritual enlightenment is the most important pursuit, or something entirely other?