A Funny Thing Happened on the way to Dagobah . . . or, How Science Fiction Got Religion.

If you read early science fiction, religion is hardly to be found. Many authors did not mention it simply because it was irrelevant to the plots of their stories; others, however, saw it as a relic from the unenlightened past and depicted its well-deserved demise. In Arthur C. Clark's novella, Childhood's End, part of leaving human "childhood" and evolving to a higher level of being is shucking religion. The aliens who visit earth are able to show the past and demonstrate that the founders of the world's great religions were not what people believed them to be so that, according to Clark's narrator, religion all but disappeared overnight. The most vivid statement relating to the demise of religion was Lester Del Ray's "Evensong." In this short story, a fugitive is fleeing and finds a planet of refuge.

Soon, however, he is captured and taken into custody. His benevolent captor tells him he will be taken to a planet where he will be well-treated and have a nice home. The creature whimpers pathetically, "But I'm God!" His captor returns, "Yes, but I am Man."

Sci-Fi pretty much continued on this trajectory through the fifties and sixties. There were exceptions. In The Day the Earth Stood Still Klaatu believes in a higher power. One saw oblique references to belief in the supernatural here and there, but still religion barely raised its head in sci-fi--
until we got to Dagobah.

Dagobah was the swampy planet where Yoda lived in exile. We had already heard about the Force; on Dagobah we found that the Jedi Knights were a lot like Shaolin Monks. Obeying, following, and bowing to a higher power (the Force) was an absolute necessity to attaining power as a Jedi.

Once that door opened, religion was back in style--or at least it had a foot in the door. In the Star Trek franchise, where I can only remember one reference to "the maker of all things" in the Original Series, and where Picard once lambasted God (who was really a satellite) and told him his shortcomings, the Borg eventually had a yantra-like geometrical image they worshiped; Chakoty on Voyager described himself as a "spiritual man," had a spirit guide totem animal, and once helped Captain Janeway get her own spirit guide; the Bajoran race from Deep Space Nine were highly religious. While the prevailing mood is science fiction is not religious, we still might call it "religion-friendly." This is in contrast to what the literature was like fifty years ago.

Early sci-fi's negative stance toward religion was partly literary and partly ideological. The human race, however, has always had religions. To assume religion will simply go away because people can fly into space seems a bit specious. The more likely scenario is that religion will survive in a future society just as it has survived the history of the human race on earth. It may change, alter--or not change. At any rate, it will certainly be around.

In my sci-fi worlds the old religions of Earth thrive:  Hinduism, Christianity, Islam, the others are all there. Some non-human races have been converted to Earth religions. Some races of beings have religions unique to their cultures--or more than one religion exists on their planets. It was fun to invent these. The worship of Goddess Robinna on the Barzalian planets, the Mervogian worship of the Holy Light of the Besrid Nebula . . . my creations. Their interaction with other religious configurations makes for interesting plot twists and complications.

Over the month of April I'll be talking about how speculative fiction deals with religion, what I think writers should avoid in dealing with the matter, and some suggestions for presenting, representing, and inventing (yes, inventing) religions.

More to come . . .