On Heinlein, it may be tough to call him a humanist. I am a fairly avid science fiction reader (read 125 such novels since 1999 - its my major hobby), but I have not been able to get into Heinlein. Some call him one of the greatest sci fi authors after Asimov, Clarke and Bradbury, and this may be so, but politically, he was all over the place. Early on, he seemed to be a humanist and an atheist and perhaps a libertarian-socialist. Later on he lost the socialism and became a libertarian-capitalist. He may have been socially liberal in his feminism and sexuality wise, and did write some novels which intrigued the left such as Stranger in a Strange Land, but he was also quite militaristic (Starship Troopers) and almost as individualistic as Ayn Rand. I’d say Heinlein was an amazing thinker and writer, but not really a humanist.
PS: The science/technology/magic quote is about religion and atheism and maybe naturalism, but not humanism, as those qualities are only part of what humanism is.
As for Star Trek, it was far more based on humanistic ideals as it was created by a humanist (Roddenberry). Most of the messages on all the Star Trek series’ were about science, atheism/agnosticism, tolerance, diversity, equality, anti-homphobia, anti-racism, peace, critical thinking, democracy and a money-less, post-economic society. One could say there was a touch of hierarchy in that there was a world government and the President of Earth, but that was very leftist in the 60’s (certainly for TV) when Trek’s culture was formulated.
People always bring up the military uniforms, ships and organization of Star Fleet, but I remind them of what Roddenberry was doing (and no one would change after he died because of continuity issues)... First, Roddenberry had to get this on television which was fairly conservative in the mid-60’s. He decided that with the military undertones, he can both “get away” with the leftist ideas in the content/storylines of the show, and also show that a military did not have to act as we were at the time in Viet Nam.
Also, the wars and conflicts with alien races were not meant to be about a truly humanisitic future populated with advanced alien cultures (as 23rd and 24th Century Human culture was argued to be in Trek), but instead, the aliens were often (not always) supposed to represent cultures or dangerous ideas of 20th century Earth. The Klingons were warlike and were supposed to represent Imperial Japan or Stalinist Russia, and other races were Nazi-like such as the Cardassians, and the Ferengi were market capitalists, the Borg represented what could happen if we misuse technology as well as become a “Brave New World” with a “hive” mindset and lost our individuality alltogether… While other races were so overly individualistic that their societies broke down for lack of common ground and mutual cooperation… Etc, etc, etc.
