Toby Barrett - 02 January 2009 01:58 AM

Doctor Who and Russell T Davies!

Just thought I’d add this a no-one seems to have mentioned it. I’ll forgive you as Doctor Who isn’t widely known in the US. The British Doctor Who sci-fi series (1963-1988) always championed science and critical thinking over superstition, but this alliance with atheism has become more prominent with it’s 2005-onwards revival under Russell T Davies. Davies is an outspoken atheist whose non-sci-fi TV work has dealt with these issues before (UK ITV, 2003 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Second_Coming_(TV))).

There are numerous small satires on religion in the new series (Davies has come under fire from some evangelicals for his use of Christian imagery - especially when the Doctor appears as God) and the 2008 series finale featured a cameo by Richard Dawkins.

Actually, wouldn’t Russell T Davis make an fascinating guest on Point of Inquiry? His writing has done a lot to expose the moral vulnerability of religious thinking by either mirroring it or examining it in high profile programmes.  As Toby says, the sci-fi series about the Timelord “Doctor Who” (one of the UK’s most popular programmes),  and the breathtaking drama “The Second Coming” being prime examples.

I hadn’t been aware of the sheer volume of secularist, even didactic-secularist sci-fi out there. I like sci-fi though I find much of it of poor quality regardless of positive pro-science messages (sorry, Stargate fans).

Certainly sci-fi does not particularly lend itself to any point of view nor does any major genre but the writers tend to be atheistic. I was interested to hear who led to sliding Trek into god-friendly ambiguity. In one Voyager episode featuring a people who ‘send’ their corpses into the ‘afterlife’ and the V’ger crew discover the bodies appear in an orbiting ring. It seems like a secularist anti-idiocy message until the end when Janeway informs us the ring pulses with “complex energy patterns” beyond immediate understanding which thus, could be the some sort of afterlife or soul porridge or whatever. Thanks Rick! You have the uncanny ability to ridicule both science and religion at the same time.

Thanks to Tom Flynn and D.J. for the recommendations of Morrow and Fowler.  Hadn’t heard of them and their books sound like a hoot.
I’ll also check into Tom’s books.

revmatty - 30 December 2008 02:14 PM

  Pretty much every family we know made a birthday cake for Jesus for their Christmas feast.  If you google “Jesus birthday cake” you’ll get hundreds of thousands of results.  Maybe it’s more of a midwest thing, as I never heard of it in California when I was growing up.

My thumping background is in Texas, Colorado, and New Mexico, and I’ve never heard of this practice, either.
Very interesting though.  So what do they do with the cake?
1)  Set the whole cake outside under a manger scene or a cross along with some candles until it rots?
2)  Cut a piece for Jesus and place it next to an empty chair at the table?
3)  Invite a priest over to place it in their mouths as a tasty communion?

(I know, I should google it, but it just hit my funny bone while I was here looking for the names of the authors mentioned in the show.)

OK, I googled it.  First thing I saw:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
BIRTHDAY CAKE FOR JESUS  

1 chocolate cake mix
Frosting

Make a round cake - chocolate to symbolize our sin.

Cover with white frosting - white to symbolize His purity that covers our sins.

Decorate with a star and an angel - they symbolize the bearers of the first glad tidings.

Add 12 red candles - 12 candles symbolize that Christ is our light through the 12 months and the color red stands for his blood sheet for us.

Encircle the cake with green frosting - symbolized everlasting life.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Sooooo, red symbolizes blood “sheet” for us.  Sheeeeeeet, doesn’t that sound yummy?
Wouldn’t it be great if this was just a joke?

Something else not to be missed is the range of sci-fi which considers alternative god-like alien sentient forms which we can only read and wonder about.  Who knows if the likes of the moon sized “god” envisioned in John Varley’s Gaea Trilogy:
Titan (1979)
Wizard (1980)
Demon (1984)
might not be watching us even now?  Truly a fav in my library.

Another cutie is
“They’re Made Out of Meat” by Terry Bisson
a short story/play in which two sentients composed of pure energy discuss the hopelessness of trying to incorporate the human race into the their galaxy-wide group of sentients.  This has been made into an amusing video available on the net.

Even Lord Kelvin, the leading scientist of his day and operating well outside the free idea realm of sci-fi could find it in himself to say this much:

“Vortices of pure energy can exist and, if my theories are right, can compose the bodily form of an intelligent species.” - William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin

Lord Kelvin also dismissed the future of a lot of the science and technology which we take for granted today such as aircraft, etc., but this might also indicate a conservative nature.  Consider, while his use of “intelligent species” in this statement would lead us away from any religious connotation, there are many religious views which consider beings of light or even fire as opposed to flesh. 

Could “vortices of pure energy” somewhere in the ranges of space-time have “evolved” into sentience/sapience?  Personally I feel such potential is at least as feasible as the fact that mere “meat” has managed to do so.

Read more, think even more…

“Dr. Who” is wonderful, plus he did actually whip the “devil” in one episode which I suppose would put him at least in the archangel league.

Have there been any sci-fi novels that included the “Benjamin Button” premise - that is, a world in which the life cycle proceeded in reverse?

Trail Rider - 26 January 2009 07:53 AM

Have there been any sci-fi novels that included the “Benjamin Button” premise - that is, a world in which the life cycle proceeded in reverse?

Yes, in my novel, where God dies with the Big Bang, and as chaos slowly turns into order through processes similar to natural selection in biology, He is born at end of time. But I haven’t published it yet. 

Trail Rider - 26 January 2009 07:53 AM

Have there been any sci-fi novels that included the “Benjamin Button” premise - that is, a world in which the life cycle proceeded in reverse?

YESSSS!

Asimov
[Asimov’s the last question]
[ (1956) Story is actually available on the Internet]

He also wrote the novel [  (1974) The end of Eternity—in this novel   {spoiler alert}  we discover that the universe is in fact evolving in reverse and that time goes the opposite] of what we think it does.  I like Asimov….

Thanks for the links, Jackson.  Am printing out “The Last Question” and will look for the novel.  I really like Asimov, too - great writer and humanist.

And thank you, George - will look forward to your novel in print.

Jackson - 26 January 2009 08:22 PM

[Asimov’s the last question]
[ (1956) Story is actually available on the Internet]

Great story—one of my favorites.