Tag: science fiction

Religion as a Technology

I’m currently watching the Netflix adaptation of The Three Body Problem (or 3 Body Problem, as they have styled the title). The dialogue and exposition writing is so much better than the recent Avatar: The Last Airbender that I could cry. I finished episode six last night, and it’s taking a lot of my willpower bandwidth to continue working on schoolwork instead of finishing the final two episodes. It’s been a while since I read Liu Cixin’s book, and I have not read the other two books in the series, though with the amount of enjoyment I am getting from the show, they may move to the top of my summer reading list.

With all those caveats on my own ignorance in place, I’ve noticed an interesting religious theme in the show. In the first episode, Vera, a scientist who’s shortly going to commit suicide, asks another, “Do you believe in God?” This question is seemingly related to the fact that the particle accelerator they both work at is spitting out “Alice in Wonderland”-type results, like all the other colliders in the world. This implies that the only reason to consider religion is because you encounter things that don’t make sense.

Revelations in the show make it seem likely that Vera, like another protagonist, has also encountered a mysterious human who tells her that “the Lord” will take care of her if she stops her research and perhaps force her to commit suicide if she doesn’t. Later, it becomes clear what this group of fanatics refer to as “the Lord” is actually a group of technologically advanced aliens. This is a common enough science fiction explanation for God, but what makes this framing interesting to me is that these humans know that their Lord is a group of aliens. They are under no illusions that anything supernatural is going on. All of the aliens’ marvelous capabilities are scientific in their minds, and yet they still frame the aliens as a god, one who cares deeply about humanity’s best interests, and worship them accordingly.

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The Postsecularism of Arthur C. Clarke

If we’re going to talk about the connection between postsecularism and speculative fiction, there can perhaps be no better example than Arthur C. Clarke. According to his Wikipedia page, Clarke described himself throughout his life as an atheist or logical positivist. He demanded that no religious rites of any kind be associated with his funeral and famously said, “One of the great tragedies of mankind is that morality has been hijacked by religion.” On the other hand, Clarke praised C. S. Lewis’s Ransom Trilogy, which as a work of science fiction is just about as explicitly religious as possible. He was fascinated throughout his life by supernatural phenomenon, hosting several television series about unexplained events. He had “pantheist” printed on his WWII dog tags, and he sometimes claimed to be Buddhist (while insisting it wasn’t really a religion). Clear as mud, right?

This internal conflict is written all over Childhood’s End, Clarke’s third novel and the one that made him famous as a science fiction writer. The beginning of the book subscribes thoroughly to the secularism hypothesis, the idea that as science advances, religious belief will naturally decrease to the point of extinction. Childhood’s End begins with the invasion of Earth by a strange alien vessel that forces humanity and its governments to start acting in a logical, humane way. Working through the middle manager of the United Nations, the aliens stop all wars and conflicts, including the torture of animals. People’s standard of living increases dramatically overnight. Everything seems to be going for the best.

There are those who resist the alien takeover, and their resistance is portrayed as “a religious one, however much it may be disguised” (11). They claim some secular reasons, such as the right to self-determination and agency, but ultimately the narrative makes clear that these are all desperate excuses for their real concern. The UN Secretary General receives this perfect summary of the secular hypothesis from the Overlord when he explains the resistance to the imposition of a utopia:

“They know that we represent reason and science, and, however confident they may be in their beliefs, they fear that we will overthrow their gods. Not necessarily through any deliberate act, but in a subtler fashion. Science can destroy religion by ignoring it as well as by disproving its tenets. No one ever demonstrated, so far as I am aware, the nonexistence of Zeus or Thor, but they have few followers now” (19).

These religious resistors are portrayed negatively in the first half of the book. They kidnap the Secretary General in an attempt to get to the Overlord and are easily swatted away by his superior technology and benevolence. Their resistance is one of irrationality in the face of the obvious superiority of rationality and science-based progress.

At some point in the book, there is a turn in perspective. Mankind has everything it wants; people thrive in the post-scarcity culture brought on by the logical dictatorship of the Overlord. Yet something is dreadfully wrong. Humanity has lost almost all interest in the science of new discoveries, preferring simply cataloging of various species and other naturalistic pursuits. Additionally, the production of new art has almost completely stopped. The Overlord acknowledges this connection between the loss of humanities “superstitions” and the loss of human creativity near the end of the novel: “I am well aware of the fact that we have also inhibited, by the contrast between our civilizations, all other forms of creative achievement as well. But that was a secondary effect, and it is of no importance” (198). One scientist still seems to pursue the big questions in spite of the general malaise, and an artist colony nation forms in an attempt to reinvigorate the human spirit that has been somehow lost in the comfort of having all its needs provided for, but they are the exceptions fighting against the spirit of the secular age.

Why would someone who believed in the triumph of science write this? It becomes apparent that even though Clarke considered science edging out the old superstitions a good thing, he also believed something would be lost as it happened, and that this something was an essential part of humanity. The loss of religious belief seems, according to this book, to lead directly to the loss of everything that made humanity worthwhile.

Near the end of the story, humanity arises from this doldrum through what can only be called an ascension narrative. Children all over the world begin transforming from individual human beings into a metaphysical Overmind, eventually leaving their bodies behind to become part of the noncorporeal superbeing that sent the Overlords to Earth in the first place. There’s really nothing to distinguish this Overmind from a sort of supernatural God, other than the idea that it is the natural end-state of the evolution of most species. The Overlord describes it as something, while not identical, at least adjacent to the Latter-day Saint conception of God: “We believe—it is only a theory—that the Overmind is trying to grow, to extend its powers and its awareness of the universe. By now it must be the sum of many races, and long ago it left the tyranny of matter behind. It is conscious of intelligence, everywhere” (200). It is seemingly omniscient and omnipresent, and though it acts by commanding dead-end species like the Overlords, one could argue it is omnipotent as well.

This sense of the need for something beyond the rationality of science, the sense that in leaving behind religion we have lost something essential, is one of the major thrusts of postsecular literature. While science fiction might be the genre where we’d expect rationality to be celebrated, in fact I think we can find many authors, even in the golden age of sci-fi, who show this conclusion to be naive, including Arthur C. Clarke.

Why Fantasy and Faith?

This semester I’m taking a postsecular literature course from Mikayla Steiner. Postsecular is a term complicated by a multitude of definitions, but in essence, it represents the “religious turn” in modern literature. The death of religion predicted by those who worshipped at the temples of rationalism has mostly failed to come to pass, and many writers have turned back to the ideas of religion (in all shades of orthodoxy and non-orthodoxy) to seek the consolation that had been lost in modernism. (Understand that this definition is based on three weeks of reading and is certain subject to the flaws of my current naiveté, though it fits with things I had noticed but never been able to articulate.)

However, as we’ve been reading foundational essays on the topic preparing to study novels that fall under the postsecular umbrella, I’ve noticed something strange: many of these essays cite as examples books that could also fall under the moniker of speculative fiction. John McClure in Partial Faiths points towards Thomad Pychon’s Nebula winning novel Gravity’s Rainbow as a prototypical example of the half-in, half-out nature of postsecular faith. Rita Felski uses Miyazaki’s portal fantasy masterpiece Spirited Away as an example of the enchantment that the postsecular seeks to return to literature in Uses of Literature. Her argument on the importance of being transported by a work grasps at the exact same ideas as Tolkien’s discussion of escape On Fairy Stories while managing to never cite it. (“Who would speak loudest against escape? Jailers.”) Now I’m digging into the first novel of the term, Lousie Erdich’s The Round House, and I find that not only are the chapter titles all drawn from episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation, but that the show seems to be a major metaphor within the text.

red and orange galaxy illustration
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

The connection between the spiritual or religious in literature can seem obvious. Both deal with things that the rational mind would consider impossible. Angels are just as unbelievable to a rationalist as dragons. There’s just as little evidence for believing in miracles as there is to believe in magical realism.

But is the connection really that simple? Does it really make sense to align fantasy which is transparent about being fictional with faith-based ideas that claim to be about ultimate reality? It seems to align with those who accuse believers of being blinded to reality by a story, and not even one as interesting as the latest installment of Star Wars at that.

Granted, I’ve seen some believers make the same conflation. Some worry that fantasy will confuse readers about their faith. You know the sort of thing: Harry Potter will teach your kids witchcraft; D&D is at best a waste of time and at worst Satanic; a visit from Santa Claus will cause them to doubt Jesus’s existence; even simple unease about studying Greek mythology and the worship of false gods.

But these concerns usually come from people who don’t actually read or enjoy fantasy. Among those who are religious and also enjoy speculative fiction (and if the size of the first Salt Lake City FanX is any indication, there are many), there’s no confusion about products of the imagination and the equally impossible things that they believe are real. Perhaps there are believers who have been led away from the faith by reading fantasy novels, but I’ve never met one.

Perhaps the key to the massive overlap between the literature of speculative fiction and literature concerned with spirituality is that both tend to leave behind concerns with the everyday and focus on ultimate concerns. Despite the recent turn towards cozy SF, a good percentage of fantasy novels focus on epic events that are country-, world-, or even universe-imperiling. Even when the plot is smaller, the magic system or technological innovation at the center of the “speculation” often deals with the deep forces of the universe–at a word, metaphysics.

Related to this large scope is the attitude of wonder that pervades the speculative and the religious. Whether we call it awe or the sublime, both genres put humanity in its place as a smaller part of something vast, something in the end unexplainable by logic and reason. Even the science in science fiction is less based on logic (except in the hardest sci-fi) than on what Sanderson calls the “rule of awesome.” Though I’m sure he didn’t intend it, it’s easy to see the connection to our human impulse to awe in speculative fiction.

Does this mean that speculative fiction is intended to be a substitute for religion? I’m certain some stridently atheistic authors might see it that way. I recently read Childhood’s End by Arthur C Clarke, and it’s clear that he is substituting the sublime of cosmic aliens for the sublime impulse of religion. Yet this substitution fails to account for the vast number of believers who read and enjoy speculative fiction. I was not really surprised to find in our podcast episode about Mormons watching Star Trek that three out of the four of us shared the experience of watching Star Trek with our very religious families growing up.

I would argue instead that religious people are drawn to speculative fiction precisely because it flexes the same intellectual muscles that they use in their faith. It’s like cross-training for our spiritual sensitivities. When done well, fantasy scratches the same itch for deep meaning that we seek in religion, but rather than a replacement, it acts as a supplement for our ability to think and believe abstractly in things beyond our everyday experience.

What I Read: Oct-Dec 2023

I’ve had my October book reviews in my drafts folder since November, but again, grad school got the best of me. (I’m plotting how to do better at this next year.) So you’re getting a mega-three-month edition of book reviews.

Fortunately/unfortunately, I also had quite a few publications happen during these months, meaning they didn’t get nearly as much attention here as they ought to, but here they are in belated fashion. My essay “Turning the Corner” was published in the Fall 2023 print edition of Exponent II. You can’t find this one online, so you’ll have to track down a copy, but it’s about being sick at Christmas and moving to a new stage of parenting where your kids no longer need you to keep them alive from minute to minute.

My short genre confused piece “The Cost” was part of the 12th annual Mormon Lit Blitz. I was completely surprised when it won the judges’ choice award as well as fourth place in the audience choice because all of the pieces in the contest were really strong. I recommend reading them in order together because there’s a great theme of family and life stages that seems to naturally flow.

My creative nonfiction essay “Knit Together” was published in the latest issue of BYU Studies. It’s accompanied by some photographs of a few of the knitting projects that I mention in the essay. This essay was one I wrote over the course of about a week last year when I was still in the emotional throws of the events that happen at the end of the essay, so it’s a really vulnerable piece for me. I hope it can be helpful for others who struggle with family relationships.

I’m also experimenting with mirroring my blog over on Substack, so subscribe over there if you prefer to read on that platform.

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Irreantum Genre Issue: Editor’s Comments

I intended to post this after I finished releasing these comments on social media, but graduate school got the best of me. Nonetheless, they deserve a permanent home here, so apologies for the un-timely post.

Irreantum’s genre issue is alive in the world! I have been absolutely dying to share this issue with you all for months. These stories absolutely prove that combining Mormonism with genre elements doesn’t have to be gimmicky or silly; speculative fiction (and other genres, though most of these works have a supernatural slant) can lead to profound thoughts about our culture, about our beliefs, about human nature, and about the universe. Here are my thoughts as a co-editor of the issue on the stories contained therein. I’m going in reverse order of the table of contents just to make sure the ending pieces don’t get forgotten.

Could Brandon Sanderson Have Saved the Nephites? – Obviously, as someone who also writes criticism about Mormonism in Brandon Sanderson’s work, I feel really excited about this piece. Nick Fredrick is a very careful and reflective scholar; his analysis of the parables in The Way of Kings left me thinking about both Stormlight and The Book of Mormon in ways that I hadn’t before. After I listened to him read this piece at LTUE last year, I knew it needed to be published, and I’m so pleased that we were able to include it in this issue.

The Year the Graveyard Flooded – Emily Feuz Jensen’s piece straddles the line between realism and magical realism in the best ways. Are the people of the town just interpreting events in faith-promoting ways or is something really happening? Either way, this story features classic LDS themes of turning the hearts to the fathers in a lyrical, contemplative package.

The Incident at Burning Bush Ranch – I love the way Shayla Frandsen wields the tropes of the “found footage” genre in a written package. The ambiguities and corrections feel authentically folkloresque, and the story she tells plays off of an important but less-explored aspect of LDS culture, girls’ camp. This was one of the first submissions for this issue that I fell in love with.

Welded – I’ll admit to being intimidated by poetry, but I love what Makoto Hunter has done by mashing together poetry and historical research. I learned a lot about the history of polygamy from the footnotes and a lot about the human heart from the stanzas. Hopefully you’ll enjoy unraveling exactly what the author is implying as much as I did.

An Opportunity – This story is unique because Jeanna Mason Stay tells it from an outsider perspective; her protagonist is both outside the LDS community and outside her family’s special heritage. But there’s something undeniably Mormon about the magic system she presents and the wrestle the protagonist has with her past and her future. In an age of strained family relationships, this story will touch your heart and stay with you for a long time.

7 Devils – Declan Hyde gives this issue some classic demonic possession. I love the LDS twists on the lore, but the ending is what made my heart race in the best horror way. I recommend reading this one with the lights on and in a highly-populated area (or the inverse, if you like being scared).

The Archaemaji – This story is a Heavenly Mother story, but perhaps not like the ones you’ve read before. While it’s set in a secondary world, it makes commentary on an issue that’s important in contemporary LDS writing. D. C. Wynters’s ending struck as unique among the Mormon literature that longs for the divine feminine, and it’s one that couldn’t have been achieved without the unique fantasy set-up of the story.

Unidentified Faith-affirming Object – Gregory Brooks’s irreverent mash-up made me laugh out loud from the first line: “A column of light, gradually descending like a tractor beam.” Mormon readers might think they can tell exactly where this poem is going to go, but the scope quickly grows wider than you might anticipate. The radical recontextualization of everything you know will feel familiar and, dare I say, alien at the same time.

An interview with Sandy Petersen – I haven’t listened to the full interview yet, but I’m excited to learn about an aspect of LDS involvement in the nerd-space that I’ve previously only heard about. Sandy Peterson created The Call of Cthulu, an influential RPG game based on Lovecraftian mythos. His story is an important part of the history of Mormon speculative fiction. Thanks to D. J. Butler for conducting this interview.

Remember the Blood – When I first read Nate Givens’s story, it gave me strong early Orson Scott Card vibes. Partly this is because of the horror/dread aspect of this story’s lore. Part is the young male protagonist, both cocky and naive. And part is the unique blend of Mormon and Mesoamerican folklore, strongly reminiscent of Pastwatch or “America” from Folk of the Fringe. For me, the ending hits the perfect blending of fantasy and theology for a surprising-but-inevitable resolution that stuck with me.

The Case of the Missing Sacrament Bread – Katherine Cowley sets up a humorous mystery with the form of a ward history, a genre which perhaps only those who have to write them know about. I know none of the Relief Society histories I’ve written were half so interesting as this. You’ll recognize many characters from your local ward in her send-up of the quotidian aspects of LDS culture.

It’s About the People Under You – The concept of this one made me laugh out loud when I was reading through the slush pile, and I knew we needed it for the issue. Willow Dawn Becker satirizes so many aspects of Utah Mormon culture with the protagonist’s gradual downward spiral.

This is What Happened in Trígonus – Alejandro Seta’s work, presented in both English and the original Spanish, examines a familiar scripture story from a different frame of reference, you might say. I was so happy to see this submission right after finishing my analysis of how Mormons write about aliens as it fits right into the pattern of expanding the gospel story beyond a single planet. Gabriel González’s lyrical translation reflects the ethereal and dreamlike nature of the story.

The Double-Snatcher – I’ll admit that when I first started reading W. O. Hemsath’s story, I was skeptical as I’m not much of a consumer of talking animal stories. But when I realized what she was doing, I zipped right through to the heartbreaking ending. Maybe you’ll catch on more quickly than I did, but either way, I know you’ll enjoy this clever story that takes on an issue I never before considered.

You Are Beautiful, Dead, Whole – Chanel Earl’s story/poem takes fairy tale tropes and scripture stories, places them in a blender, and pushes “puree.” The result is a smooth refreshment composed of the real and the fictional, all of it with a special mythopoeic feel. Makes me excited to see what she comes up with for the upcoming folklore-themed issue of Irreantum she’s helping to edit.

The Haunted – I’ve saved another of my favorites for last (or first, if you’re reading the right way round). Mathilda Zeller’s story of a teen girl with a strained relationship with the church and with the ghosts who haunt her is a real achievement in Mormon speculative fiction. Her characters manage to be very real about their relationships to the institutional church while also dealing with a very unreal problem. I laughed, cried, and learned to love Moroni Alvarez and our unnamed protagonist, and I hope you do as well.

The genre issue, along with the rest of Irreantum, is freely available on the internet. That being said, if you feel you got some value out of this issue, please support the writers by joining the Irreantum Patreon. It only charges when a new issue is released; I believe the donations for this issue will be collected November 1st. The Patreon money goes straight to paying the authors who worked so hard to bring you these unique stories that might not have been published in a mainstream press. Plus by becoming a patron, you’ll get early access to Irreantum’s next issue. There are currently three themed issues accepting submissions, one on folklore and one on the restoration. I’m sure you’re gonna want to see what comes next!