How come SciFi always recycles the 'false gods' premise?

[Christopher]

SG-1 is the main "False-Gods" show, but in some cases it's a bit of a grey area - did the gu'auld start the whole god thing, or did they impersonate deities that the ancient religions had? Yu never even impersonated a god, but was an emperor.

SG-1 made it pretty clear on a number of occasions that the Goa'uld copied existing beliefs from Earth. Although from the chronology, it's possible that Ra the Goa'uld was the source of belief in Ra the deity, which is presumably what the makers of the original movie intended.

 

[sidious618]

Well, in BSG we still don't know the nature of the Cylon God so that's probably the closest we'll get to a "real" one. There's no drama involving a proven God.

 

[Silvercrest]

Well, they stated that the Goa'uld copied existing beliefs, but I don't see how they could know that. Besides, it seems more characteristic that egomaniacs like the Goa'uld would choose to start their own legends, not copy them.

 

[Trent Roman]

Then you need to read the couple of posts which I quoted in mine, hence the reason for my cautioning. Some have responded directly, while others have not. This thread has excellent potential and is not going to be allowed to devolve into petty insults and biased bickering or any other kind of histrionics, which all too often accompany discussions centered around the differences in religion.

What histrionics? You're the only one here getting panicky about this. Also, I wasn't aware there was a new rule in effect stating that only direct responses were permitted. Any other handball rules we're thinking of applying to online conversations?

Back on topic (if that's 'allowed' ), one also needs to consider, beyond questions of characterization, how difficult it is to accurately represent an entity that ought to transcend our comprehension to the extent that conventional ideas about space, time, existence and morality are slippery if not entirely inapplicable. Think of the wormhole aliens: their conceit was existing eternally outside of time (a quality that's been used on Abramic deities as well), and just that one feature proved extremely challenging to both relate to linear characters (and the linear audience), where existing at all points in time is so outside our experience that it is difficult to phantom their motivations and the causality (if any) of the actions they undertake. Now imagine a deity with several more universal qualities, some of them logically self-contradictory, and try to represent that onscreen.

Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman

 

[sidious618]

Back on topic (if that's 'allowed' ), one also needs to consider, beyond questions of characterization, how difficult it is to accurately represent an entity that ought to transcend our comprehension to the extent that conventional ideas about space, time, existence and morality are slippery if not entirely inapplicable. Think of the wormhole aliens: their conceit was existing eternally outside of time (a quality that's been used on Abramic deities as well), and just that one feature proved extremely challenging to both relate to linear characters (and the linear audience), where existing at all points in time is so outside our experience that it is difficult to phantom their motivations and the causality (if any) of the actions they undertake. Now imagine a deity with several more universal qualities, some of them logically self-contradictory, and try to represent that onscreen.

Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman

Even off screen, in novel or comic form, it is difficult becaue God would be intrinsically human no matter how hard the author(s) tried.

There's also the idea that God is boring because he's supposedly all knowing, all powerful and all good while Satan is much more interesting in dramatic terms. I happen to agree with that line of thinking. Remember that "Paradise Lost" is much more popular than "Paradise Regained."

 

[Neroon]

What histrionics? You're the only one here getting panicky about this. Also, I wasn't aware there was a new rule in effect stating that only direct responses were permitted. Any other handball rules we're thinking of applying to online conversations?

Nope, I'm not panicking, nor am I saying that you are guilty of those histrionics. However, it is a fact that this type of thread nearly always degenerates into such. I am simply putting a stop to it as it starts, but before it ruins the good efforts of those who are discussing an excellent and intriguing topic.

If you have any further comments on that, then you need to direct them to PM.

Back on topic (if that's 'allowed' ),

Always has been.

 

[stonester1]

Babylon 5 took a very open minded and speculative attitude towards faith and it's subject. The Vorlons and Shadows weren't presented as gods, just ancient aliens.

Battlestar Galactica is very open minded towards the matter of faith and strange forces moving in the lives of people.

Star Trek tends to take a more secular humanistic look, but as others have pointed out, have never completely dismissed the idea.

Now, what the writer supposes, an all powerful diety demanding absolute worship and smiting opposition, that those who worship it are by default good, and those who don't, by default evil...that was "explored" in the Left Behind series.

That series started out interesting about the first third of the books. But the further along the series got, with the characters having fewer and fewer options, evil not only being absolute but cartoony, good being absolutely right (even though they did some things we might consider brutal and horrible at times). But worst of all, the story increasingly seemed like it was on a rail, with ultimately only one conclusion, spelled out, and the only being that had any say in the story at all, was the Diety.

It became DULL. When you remove free will and the complexity of life, that simply is no longer an interesting narrative.

 

[Christopher]

Well, they stated that the Goa'uld copied existing beliefs, but I don't see how they could know that.

Well, that's easy: by studying history. It's possible to track the evolution of cultural beliefs through the historical record and confirm they originated among humans, just as it's possible to track the evolution of humans through the fossil record and confirm we originated on Earth.

And this is one of the many ways in which the SG-1 producers took the corny, cliched ideas of the movie and brought more intelligence to them. The idea that our own biological or cultural heritage was brought wholesale from Beyond is an ignorant one, easily disproven with a little research. By establishing clearly that the Goa'uld took what we had provably created, the SG-1 producers made the notion that much less ridiculous.

Besides, it seems more characteristic that egomaniacs like the Goa'uld would choose to start their own legends, not copy them.

Except that the Goa'uld were routinely described as a species that did not innovate but only took what others had created. There's no reason why that wouldn't apply to culture as well as technology.

 

[Silvercrest]

Hmm... The arrival date of the Goa'uld has not been described very consistently. I may be wrong, but it seems to predate most of the mythos used on the show except for Babylonian and MAYBE Egyptian. Certainly deities like Svarog and Olorun don't date back that far. Same with Cronos and Amaterasu as far as I know. The Goa'uld would have arrived in advance of those mythologies.

I guess there are several ways to interpret it.

 

[Trent Roman]

^ There's nothing to say that all the Goa'uld arrived at the same time. And since the show has established that, unlike in the modern era where Goa'uld don't share territory, many Goa'uld co-existed in the various geographic areas of Earth, it's possible that the Goa'uld had a kind of staggered migration to this host-rich environment, where each newly arriving Goa'uld would claim one particular parcel of the planet (or was distributed that parcel by Ra) where no Goa'uld had previously installed him/herself as the local deity. I've always wondered what Earth would be like at that time, a single planet divided amongst so many Goa'uld lordlings and even other alien species like the Asgard.

Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman

 

[Christopher]

We know that Ra ruled Earth for several thousand years, and he would've been reluctant to share it. Most of the other Goa'uld seem to be based in mythologies and cultures considerably more recent than the date of the Stargate's burial; it seems that after the rebellion, Ra relocated his power base to Abydos, and over the subsequent millennia, other Goa'uld came along in ships or possibly made use of the Antarctic Stargate. Actually the chronology of the SG-verse is wildly inconsistent.

But it's very clear that the producers of the show favor the interpretation that we originated the mythologies and the Goa'uld stole them.

 

[Sheliak]

The intelligent scholar of religion doesn't claim there's only one truth

I beg to differ.

 

[Christopher]

The intelligent scholar of religion doesn't claim there's only one truth

I beg to differ.

No comment....

 

[Silvercrest]

Heck, the more I think about it, the less sense it makes. Most of those cultures existed at different times. More importantly, the Japanese, Slavic and African mythos (at least) all arose after Ra departed! Not to mention Lord Yu. Did they not bother with a gate and just come in ships? One at a time? Ruling one little section of the planet at a time? And then why did they leave?

If we use history as a benchmark to analyze Goa'uld activities, then we have to conclude that the Goa'uld's priorities are a lot weirder than we thought. Or our history is.

 

[Silvercrest]

Follow-up: Okay, Christopher beat me to it.

 

[Navaros]

I gotta disagree with all the the posters saying that Babylon 5 didn't recycle/exploit the false gods premise just as much as everything else. Shadows/Vorlons were very much presented as false gods IMO. Calling them 'ancient aliens' instead to gloss over the idea that they actually represent anything other than the old 'false gods' premise is merely semantics IMO.

 

[ATimson]

Whenever Buffy or Angel experienced Hell or Heaven, it was described in terms of being a hell-like or heaven-like "dimension," skirting the question of exactly what religion's interpretation of the afterlife was being referenced.

Most of the time, yes, but I thought it was made fairly explicit that, between seasons 5 and 6, Buffy's soul was residing in Christian Heaven before she was pulled back.

 

[Christopher]

I gotta disagree with all the the posters saying that Babylon 5 didn't recycle/exploit the false gods premise just as much as everything else. Shadows/Vorlons were very much presented as false gods IMO. Calling them 'ancient aliens' instead to gloss over the idea that they actually represent anything other than the old 'false gods' premise is merely semantics IMO.

Since you seem to be determined to selectively interpret the evidence to fit your preconception, it will be impossible to convince you otherwise. But the fact is, the Vorlons were only briefly shown as having linked themselves with images of deities in the minds of the races they'd manipulated, whereas the Shadows did nothing of the kind, scorning the Vorlons' desire to dominate and control younger races and instead preferring to stir them up to strive violently for higher achievement. Presenting themselves as gods would have been anathema to the Shadows.

Most of the time, yes, but I thought it was made fairly explicit that, between seasons 5 and 6, Buffy's soul was residing in Christian Heaven before she was pulled back.

She did say (or sing) "I think I was in Heaven," but we never got explicit confirmation, and it certainly was never defined in explicitly Christian terms. "Heaven" is a fairly generic term in English; we even use it to (mis)translate the Chinese concept of tian, which doesn't pertain to an afterlife at all but rather to a cosmic force of righteousness, like a sort of ethical law of physics.

 

[Trent Roman]

^ When asked about the existence of God in Season 7, Buffy's answer was agnostic. So she experienced something heavenly, but since the Christian notion of heaven usually involves the presence of God or Christ and Buffy didn't report that, it is unclear whether this was the Christian Paradise or 'merely' a paradisiacal plane of existence. Like you said, it was all very generic.

Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman

 

[Mr. Adventure]

I think Q would have to qualify as a god.