Real-world religions on futuristic sci-fi

[Morpheus 02]

I seem to recall some sympathetic Muslim characters in Pitch Dark.

yeah, i think Pitch Black did a good job making his religion seem serious-but-natural.

I had an interesting conversation with my wife recently after watching a particular episode of "Babylon 5", where Commander Ivanova sits Shiva in memory of her father. To the best of our knowledge, this is nearly the only time in any futuristic Sci-fi where any human character follows any kind of religion that's directly recognizable from our current human practice. The later "Dune" novels also feature a band of travelling Jews, and just like Ivanova, their form of Judaism is entirely recognizable based on modern 21st Century practice.

In addition to the example Jan cited, there was also the recurring character of Brother Theo who was decidedly Christian, Roman Catholic monks in fact, though I don't know their specific order.

i definitely think Babylon 5 did a great job of showing a multitude of views, and showing not just religious nuts, but honest good religious people as well.

However, i'm a little annoyed that religious people seem to have to be in a very formal religion, and we don't really see religious lay people .

And for me , personally, it's not about religion, but a relationship with God. But that would be hard to portray if your universe doesn't actually believe there is a real God.

 

[Vendikarr]

Speaking of B5, didn't Sinclair reference the Jesuits on more than one occasion. I think he went to a Jesuit school.

 

[Gov Kodos]

Speaking of B5, didn't Sinclair reference the Jesuits on more than one occasion. I think he went to a Jesuit school.

I recall the same, though I couldn't tell you the episode. I think it's mentioned once when he helps Garibaldi pull a prank on her at breakfast one morning. Also, Capt Lochley was a Catholic. That was mentioned in Lost Tales, I believe.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Speaking of B5, didn't Sinclair reference the Jesuits on more than one occasion. I think he went to a Jesuit school.

I recall the same, though I couldn't tell you the episode. I think it's mentioned once when he helps Garibaldi pull a prank on her at breakfast one morning.

Babylon Squared

 

[Vendikarr]

Given Sinclair's final fate, I have to wonder if his Jesuit upbringing had any influence on Minbari religion. Just imagine a branch of Christianity being one of the roots of an alien faith.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Philip Jose Farmer wrote a series of short stories featuring a character called Father Carmody, who is Catholic. He also wrote a book called Jesus on Mars which features a version of Judaism that accepts Jesus as the Messiah. Night of Light is another Farmer book featuring Catholic characters.

Then there's Behold the Man by Michael Moorcock, about a Jewish man who travels back in time to find Jesus.

A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller is set in a Roman Catholic abbey.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

A classic is The Fire Balloons from The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury.

 

[Melakon]

In TOS: Balance of Terror, Angela Martine makes the sign of the cross while grieving at the ship's chapel.

 

[JoeZhang]

The Seafort saga is about a Christian theocracy and I think also features Muslim characters (been a while since I read them).

 

[Beagleman]

There were Mormon settlers in Starship Troopers... were.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

Flashforward written by Robert J. Sawyer and published in 1999 predicted there would a Pope Benedict XVI in 2009, six years before Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger actually became Pope Benedict XVI in 2005. Perhaps Ratzinger had read the novel, which includes religious themes framed in a scientific context.

 

[T'Girl]

In TOS: Balance of Terror, Angela Martine makes the sign of the cross while grieving at the ship's chapel.

She also kneels in prayer at her wedding, Keiko is wearing traditional Shinto dress at her wedding to Miles.

In one episode, Picard waxes philosophic about his belief in a afterlife, although not tied to any particular religion.

 

[alpha_leonis]

I just remembered reading the Mars trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson -- which features a band of traveling Sufis among the Martian colonists.

 

[Mistral]

In TOS: Balance of Terror, Angela Martine makes the sign of the cross while grieving at the ship's chapel.

She also kneels in prayer at her wedding, Keiko is wearing traditional Shinto dress at her wedding to Miles.

In one episode, Picard waxes philosophic about his belief in a afterlife, although not tied to any particular religion.

I was going to cite this. Also, in Firefly, Anarra seems to have some kind of meditation/Buddha thing going on at times in her quarters. In written fiction, there is the Warlock series by Christopher Stasheff, featuring the monks of St Vidicon, a technologically oriented branch of Catholicism. In the B5 episode Deconstruction of Falling Stars, there is an homage sequence to Miller's Canticle monks preserving technology. Arthur Clarke writes about a priest's struggles with scientific revelation in the fantastic story The Star. Heinlein wrote about theocracy in America in the novella If This Goes On..., and Star TrekS9 had the Bajorrans.
Point is, religion in science fiction has been tackled from various angles for a long time. And that doesn't even scratch the surface- try digging into Eric Flint's 1632 series and you'll find whole sections about religion, including the novel 1634: The Galileo Affair, which is practically totally devoted to religious debate.

 

[FreezeC77]

Context of the question: my wife is actually an ordained Christian minister of a progressive denomination. But she laughed out loud watching Spock's funeral in TWOK, when Scotty started playing "Amazing Grace". Her comment: it's not like Spock should conceivably be a Christian. He's not even human.

He is half-human.

I would think finding intelligent life on other planets would be a drastic blow to most established religions on this planet (especially those who are of the Judao-Christian origin)

 

[alpha_leonis]

... Star TrekS9 had the Bajorrans.
... try digging into Eric Flint's 1632 series and you'll find whole sections about religion, including the novel 1634: The Galileo Affair, which is practically totally devoted to religious debate.

I was aware of these, but left them off this thread deliberately. The Bajorans aren't human (therefore their religion falls into the "made-up" category.) And 1632 isn't set in the future. (I read about the first 6 or 8 novels in that series, but gave it up because the universe got too complex to keep track of, with all the multitude of contributing authors and story threads.)

Likewise David Weber's "Safehold" series features a made-up religion for a set of future humans who've been cut off from their original Earth history. Interesting read, but not exactly "on topic" for what I was looking for.

 

[DarthTom]

Kirks like from "Who Mourns for Adonais?" ; "Mankind has no need for gods. We find the one quite adequate."

TNG was even at times more abrasive towards people with religious beliefs. in, Who Watches the Watchers, Picard outright says that it's backward and primitive for cultures to worship a deity

 

[alpha_leonis]

TNG was even at times more abrasive towards people with religious beliefs. in, Who Watches the Watchers, Picard outright says that it's backward and primitive for cultures to worship a deity

Granted, though, this example was more personal for him. The "deity" in question was how Picard himself was seen by a primitive culture.

I also just remembered another reference from TNG's "Data's Day". In addition to the O'Briens' Shinto-style wedding, Data also makes a reference to the shipboard celebration of the Festival of Lights. This implies that there are practicing Hindus on board.

 

[DarthTom]

Granted, though, this example was more personal for him. The "deity" in question was how Picard himself was seen by a primitive culture.

What about the TNG episode where Ardra [sp?] returns to take her planet back and Picard and crew expose her powers as not one of a deity but rather technology.

There are many, many examples in Trek where the series outright insults people with religious beliefs using metaphors.

Here is another, Voyager episode where Janeway's father returns to take her to the afterlife only to find out it was an evil alien trying to kidnap her.

The only thing close to a "deity," on Trek are the Q. And they are portrayed as nothing more than evolved aliens who act like petulant children.

 

[Lapis Exilis]

IIRC Gene Roddenberry specifically rejected a network request to include a Christian chaplain on the Enterprise during TOS, since it went against his ideas of a diverse crew base (including religious diversity.)

Roddenberry was a sworn atheist and fairly hostile to Christianity. He was occasionally forced by the network to include Christian references in TOS, however - such as the quote mentioned above in Who Mourns for Adonis and the reference to the Son of God in Bread and Circuses.

In one if the newer Twilight Zones there is an episode that is set in the future and deals with the Starbof Bethlehem.http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Star_(The_Twilight_Zone)

I wonder if that was an adaptation of the Arthur C. Clarke classic (1956) "The Star" which tells of an astrophysicist and Jesuit priest who is part of a crew on an exploration mission to a remote star system - which Mistral mentions above.

Another example - Book in Firefly is a practicing Christian minister or monk. He is shown reading the Bible on more than one occasion, spends time at a monastery, is referred to as "Shepherd" Book, a pretty plain reference to some sort of ordained or lay preacher, and gets into an argument with River about fixing the scientific inaccuracies in the Bible. Likewise, Mal is portrayed as a former Christian (he kisses a cross before diving into battle in the pilot episode) who has fallen from the faith.