British Science Festival 2011 - Science fiction and religion

[altariel]

Here's the text of my talk from the "Science fiction and religion" panel at the British Science Festival on Saturday. You can read more about the panel and my excellent co-contributors here. (Make sure you read the comments from the Doctor's parish priest!) It was a very enjoyable session; lots of enthusiasm for Doctor Who, and some great discussion about, for example, how a theologian might approach writing sf, what sociology can bring to the mix, and much more.

Some big images under the cut. I can't work out how to make them the right size and I'm a bit tired right now to try. You get the gist.

Alien conmen and mad computers: Doctor Who, Star Trek – and religion

In the time available, I thought I'd give a whistle-stop tour of how Star Trek and Doctor Who have treated religious practice and religious belief across the years, and that would give us some food for thought and discussion later on.

Now, both shows have been running, on and off, since the 1960s, and between them have racked up hundreds of episodes, but I think we can pull out some general themes. And if I had to sum up how Star Trek and Doctor Who have approached or shown religion over the years, I'd say both shows have had a pretty ambivalent attitude towards religious belief and religious practice. So I thought I'd start out by giving you a glimpse of how both shows historically dealt with religion. I do think that as the shows go on, they start to give much more nuanced reflections on the subject – I'll come back to that nearer the end of my talk. But first of all, let's think about when these shows started, and the context in which their early episodes are being shown.

Star Trek: the Original Series (1966-1968)	Doctor Who (1963-1989)

Well, as I said – both these shows began way back in the 1960s, back when the white heat of technology is firing us all up with enthusiasm about what science can do to transform our lives. Both over in the US – where Star Trek comes from – and here in the UK, there's a great sense of belief in what humanity can achieve if we put our mind to it. It's the period of manned space flight, of course – of voyages to the moon. Exactly like something out of science fiction! – but you're able to watch it happening, there on the television in the corner of the room. And this is the context in which our two TV shows are created.

Star Trek in particular, was deeply rooted in the idea that humanity could progress through its own efforts; that we didn't need gods or religions to make us better, and to make the world better. We just needed to be smart, or hard-working, or willing to work through problems.

The crew of the Enterprise: Gene Roddenberry's dream of what humanity can achieve through infinite diversity in infinite combinations

The creator of Star Trek, Gene Roddenberry, who was an atheist and a humanist, specifically wanted to show a future in which a diverse group of human beings – and Vulcans, and whoever – cooperated to solve problems using facts and using reason. Okay, occasionally Captain Kirk has to throw a punch and kiss a woman too.

Now it's not that Gene Roddenberry was hostile to religion or to spirituality, more that he didn't see how it helped us to progress – and in some of episodes of Star Trek, it's true that religion hinders. It gets in the way; it causes problems for people – it stops them making progress. And usually what's going on is some kind of deceit: it turns out that the entity that's being worshipped as a god is actually an alien lifeform, or else a computer with ideas above its station. It's not really a god, and these aren't really supernatural phenomena – there's a perfectly rational explanation for what's going on.

Alien conman… Apollo, from Who Mourns for Adonais? (1967)	…Mad computer Vaal, from The Apple (1967)

So, just a couple of examples from a couple of episodes of Star Trek. Here on the left we have a very nattily-dressed alien who turns out once upon a time in Earth history to have been the Greek god Apollo. But he's not a god: he's an alien. And, from a different episode, here's an image of the god Vaal, who turns out to be a supercomputer that has been controlling its worshippers so that they don't have any freedom. So rather than gods, we have aliens that have capabilities far beyond our own, or else computers with technology that looks so much like divine power that people worship them. But when the Enterprise turns up, these frauds or misunderstandings are exposed, and the gods are debunked.

And we see the same kinds of stories in Doctor Who: the same kinds of explanation for these apparently supernatural beings.

Alien conman... Azal, from The Daemons (1971)	...Mad computer Xoanon, from The Face of Evil (1977)

So here we have the Daemon Azal, an alien who has been terrorising the people of the village Devil's End, and who looks remarkably like our popular image of Satan (see the horns and hooves). And, from another story, here's the face of Xoanon, a super-computer that has become strangely obsessed with Tom Baker. It happens. Xoanon has developed a split personality and over centuries surrounds himself with a cult known as the Tesh. That word's simply a corruption of Techs – the technicians who work on the computer.

And what all these stories have in common is that the Enterprise or the TARDIS turns up, and Kirk and Spock or else the Doctor and his companion demonstrate that all these apparently supernatural events have a natural basis. If it a looks like a god, these stories seem to say – then it's probably an alien conman, or mad computer.

So both Star Trek and Doctor Who in their early days are really quite brisk about religious belief. But as the years go by, and the shows extend into different series or go off our screens and then come back again, I think we start to see more nuanced reflections about religious belief and, particularly, religious practice.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1993-1999)	Doctor Who (2005-date)

Nowhere is this more apparent than in the Star Trek spin-off series Deep Space Nine, which has a very long story arc about a holy war. The Federation and Starfleet – our humanist heroes – come under threat of total annihilation from a species called the Founders, who are worshipped as gods by their genetically-engineered servants. And our heroes are assisted in this battle by another alien species, the Prophets. The Prophets don't exist in linear time like we do, living one day after another. They live at all times, all at once. That means they're able to make accurate prophecies, hence the name. Deep Space Nine – which ran for seven years during the 1990s – has nearly two hundred episodes, and one of its major themes, and major sources of stories, is exploring the different belief systems of the many different alien species that appear in the show.

The Founders Shape-shifters and creators of a species of genetically-engineered super-soldiers	The Prophets Aliens existing throughout time that make true prophecies

So here on the left are the Founders. These are shape-shifting aliens that have genetically-engineered a species of super-soldiers to worship them as gods. The Founders really did create these soldiers: they genetically engineered them, they cloned them. They brought them into existence.

And here on the right we have a character being given a revelation by the Prophets. These are the aliens that exist at all times simultaneously, and can therefore make accurate predictions about the future. You just have to know how to interpret these revelations: they can be a bit obscure.

So we get lots of gods in Deep Space Nine; lots of religious belief, and lots of religious practice. But what Deep Space Nine doesn't do is imply that these gods are anything other than natural phenomena – it's quite careful about this. The Founders and the Prophets are almost always described by our Starfleet heroes as aliens – even while other people in the room might be calling them gods. So they're not supernatural: a natural explanation is always given for them. However, what DS9 does do is take very seriously the professed faith of characters in their gods. And that's a difference from the past, I think, when more often the Enterprise would leave a planet with its gods debunked. Some of the gods in Deep Space Nine are real trouble – like the Founders, causing the war that drives the story – but other gods, like the Prophets, are shown to be sources of strength, and inspiration, and consolation. And the show strongly suggests that this is a good and a valid experience for believers.

And I think we've seen the same kind of shift in Doctor Who in recent years. Much more use of religious imagery, and much more willingness to explore what religion might mean to people who practice. And I think this is even more interesting in that the man who brought back Doctor Who, and was until recently one of the producers, Russell T Davies, is an atheist who, in some of his other TV drama, has been quite scathing about religion. Yet, when writing Doctor Who, Davies seems to be willing to say, "Well, let's look at the power of religious belief in people's lives – not just for ill, but for good too." So although the programme remains committed to natural rather than supernatural explanations, it seems to be willing to assume that people have a good reason for religious practice.

So I'm going to finish up by showing you a little clip from Doctor Who, and this is from a story called 'Gridlock', written by Russell T Davies. In this story, the Doctor, played by the ever-watchable David Tennant, and his companion Martha, find themselves stuck in traffic on the Motorway. Something we can all relate to. However, this being Doctor Who, the Motorway is the size of a planet, and people have been stuck on it their entire lives. Many of them feel very lost, and very lonely, and so every day, they stop and hold what they call the Daily Contemplation. They stop and sing a hymn together.

I think this is a really beautiful moment (though I am very easily moved) as all these lost people find consolation singing their hymn together. Watch out for Martha, the Doctor's companion, who's also very moved by what's happening, and ends up joining in.

But most of all, what I'd like you to watch for is the Doctor's expression – because he's really alarmed by what he's seeing and hearing, and he thinks that all this hymn-singing is distracting people from their dreadful plight and stopping them doing something about it.

Well, what happens after this of course is that the Doctor leaps into action as only the Doctor can do; he discovers that the Motorway is operating automatically, he reboots the system, and everybody goes free.

But while the Doctor is very worried watching all these people singing this hymn, I think this story is again quite a bit different from those old stories where the Doctor or the crew of the Enterprise would turn up and expose an alien or a computer passing itself off as a god. The Doctor does get to the bottom of what's been happening on the Motorway, and he helps people escape – but there aren't any false gods, or evil villains imprisoning people and making them sing these songs – it's just what people have been doing to help themselves get by every day.

Faith pays off (with a little intervention from the Doctor) Doctor Who, "Gridlock" (BBC One, 14 April 2007)

And the episode ends with this beautiful and quite mystical image of all the little cars escaping the Motorway and rising up into the light. If I played you a clip here, you'd also hear that people were singing 'Abide With Me'. The Doctor has arrived and released people from bondage, but he hasn't taken away their faith or their belief – in fact, he may even have reinforced it.

So what I love about this story is that it shows how simple religious practice – singing hymns – has brought consolation to the people trapped for years on the Motorway. Yet at the same time it gently asks us to think that perhaps we don't have to be satisfied just with being consoled. Instead, we can remember that there's a wide world out there to be explored, and we can go and explore it. We're asked to keep on challenging our beliefs and our assumptions, but we're reminded that a really curious mind – like the Doctor's – will always want to understand, even if doesn't always agree.

So I think both Star Trek and Doctor Who have come a long way from those old days of exposing alien frauds and mad computers. And I think that in accepting the possibility that there may be more in this universe than we have dreamt of, both shows start to ask better questions about the nature of faith and the experience of the numinous, whilst still being confident that there will always be a rational explanation. We just have to set our minds to finding out what it is.

Comments

[katlinel.livejournal.com]

I thoroughly enjoyed reading that, and I hope that the discussion following was an enjoyable one.

I also liked the comments from the parish priest at the link, and especially the PS on the first one.

Hope you can get some rest.

[julesjones]

Thoroughly enjoyed that, thanks -- and the comments from the parish priest at the link. :-)

[jhall1.livejournal.com]

I enjoyed reading your piece. But it seems to include a typo: "I think we start to see more nuanced reflections about religious practice and, particularly, religious practice."

I think that at least one theologian has written some SF: CS Lewis. I read one of his science fiction novels (as opposed to his fantasy novels) when I was in my teens, and was rather saddened to discover that he seemed to regard science as evil and scientists as villains.

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much for posting this. And I, too, love the note from The Doctor's parish priest - especially the request to confirm the theories in his thesis!

[sensiblecat.livejournal.com]

A nice talk, Una - it was good to see Gridlock again. It's intriguing, isn't it, that almost against his will the experience in the city seems to get the Doctor to open up in quite a unique way (I still think that's the most moving scene of the whole RTD era for me, and that includes Doomsday). For me that final shot represents not just the freedom and hope of the city's future, but the importance of the act of memory. Re-membering means, literally, reassembling the limbs of a body to make flesh what had been lost. And that is precisely what Ten finds himself doing when he tells Martha what Gallifrey was like.

I wish, so much, that Martha had been able to continue to offer him that profound healing, and that RTD hadn't been derailed by the romantic love business. Although I think he does see something beautiful in romantic love, recognising it as a kind of worship. It fascinates him, even though he can't resist the urge to deconstruct it. The low point of Martha's servitude to the Doctor is the moment when she receives the TARDIS key, a humble acolyte. Everything that follows tells the narrative of Martha's growing independence, making her strong enough to leave the Doctor behind. A very typically RTD conclusion.

[communicator.livejournal.com]

It's a sensitive and generous piece. I am not sure whether the dominant emotional driver behind religious practice is consolation. Or is it rather fear?

'Twas Grace that taught my soul to fear/ And Grace that fear relieved'

Does religion function by bringing fear, or by bringing relief from fear? Or by bringing both pain and analgesic in the same package?

[alicambs.livejournal.com]

I have to admit that as an atheist nothing gets me out of a narrative faster than people banging on about religion, particularly if it one of the patriarchal, proselyting religions, so I thought I ought to give your piece a read. :-)

It's an interesting piece, but like the commentator above I'm not too sure what I should be taking away from it. I've always seen religion as a focus of control and way of ensuring that people conform. In a sense your piece supports that, although you can say it also offers comfort and peace but I'd say that peace comes only by accepting the control exerted by the particular belief / religion. In Gridlock the hymn offer comfort but also stops people from looking beyond and asking why their life is as it is.

Anyway, as I said, very interesting.

[toft-froggy.livejournal.com]

I really enjoyed this, thanks - I've been thinking for a while about the way religious imagery, and particularly Christian imagery, is used in sci-fi and fantasy shows. I admit that my main fascination has been with Supernatural, but I can't bring myself to watch it to find out more. This was very enjoyable and interesting. What about the doctor's god complex, though?

Love the comments from the parish priest.

[kerravonsen]

Good overview of the attitude towards religion in DW and ST.
As I said before, I wish I could have been there.
(now to dive into the comments)

[fallingtowers.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you had a great time at that conference - nd thank you for sharing your contribution with us. I didn't like much of RTD's use of religious imagery - since "subtle" is not his middle name and Tinkerbell!Jesus!Doctor comes to mind - but I did appreciate Gridlock for exactly the reasons you point out so beautifully in your interpretation above: because here, it is not whether about faith is wrong or right; it is all about whether it matters and why.

(here via munditia)

[tree_and_leaf]

Very interesting presentation! I agree that Gridlock is one of the (in my opinion very few) moments where RTD-era Who got the religious imagery right - often it just feels over-cooked. The other moment I found really successful is Tim's speech in "Family of Blood" - the "he's ancient and forever... and he's wonderful", which didn't explicitly compare the Doctor to Jesus at all, but had certain clear resonances with the religious experience. Of course, that was Paul Cornell, who doesn't have the same baggage as RTD (I believe he's moved from being pagan to being more-or-less Anglican; his wife's a priest).

Coincidentally I was watching DS9 "The Reckoning" last night; the Pah Wraith/ Prophet battle is exceptionally cheesy, but one thing that episode does beautifully is to capture the different ways people react to their friends or relative's faith, from massive discomfort (Dax) to simple worry for the other's well-being (Jake) to Odo's willingness to be supportive and affirming even though he doesn't understand. And then there's Kai Winn's jealousy of Ben, not just for his status, but of his religious experiences, which she's never had.

[wormwood-7.livejournal.com]

A very interesting article. Thanks for sharing it :)

Religion is a tricky subject, and tends to stoke intolerance among fervent believers and fervent non-believers alike.
I am not religious in the usual sense of the word, but reading some of the comments above, I think I know what you mean about "peak experiences". I don't really care all that much if such experiences are supernatural or not. They may be, or they may not.

Eliot sometimes expresses something I "recognise" in a strange kind of way, if that makes sense...