Well, Derwin Mak, I thought of you when I saw this piece from Huffington Post on posthumanism in the church—the building of robots to spread the word of God.  Somebody thinks robots will be the future of religion, especially of pastors/ priests.

So, Derwin Mak’s “Mecha-Jesus” (part of Wrestling With Gods) is a story about a robot built to be Jesus in a Shinto shrine.  It’s comedy, mostly, but the profound questions sneak up on you.  If we get the details on Jesus wrong—can he still be divine?  What would it take to convince you that this Jesus is real?

I got a Philip K. Dick feeling when I thought about that–about the replicants and about how much they just wanted to integrate into society without being noticed.  It’s their story.  In Mak’s story, it’s easily both the Story of Jesus and of two skeptics come to the shrine to see Jesus.  They both bring, in a sense, their own expectations.  It’s got a Bradbury-ness to it too.

So, what would Robots do with religion?  Here’s an excerpt from the HuffPost Religion article:

If your first thought when you hear “robot preacher” is the Preacherbot character from the popular TV show Futurama, we don’t blame you. But for Florida pastor Christopher Benek, robot preachers are an undeniable reality… or at least they will be in the near future.

If, as Christian theology explains, humans are created in God’s likeness, then, Benek told The Huffington Post, “it would make sense that we [too] would be able to create something that has autonomy.”

Benek holds a Doctor of Ministry in theology and science from Pittsburgh Theological Seminary and espouses a Christian form of transhumanism — the notion that humanity can be enhanced through the development of new technologies. He appeared in a March 15 episode of “The Daily Show” to discuss his ideas about the future of artificial intelligence and faith.

“If you have the ability to process all of the information on Earth instantaneously, you could write a pretty good sermon,” he told “The Daily Show”‘s Jordan Klepper. “The hope would be beings who essentially lead us to a new path of holiness.”

Robot preachers would naturally work toward peace and justice, Benek told HuffPost, because their intelligence would surpass that of humans; they would be able to make autonomous decisions based on all of the information available to them. They also wouldn’t have the emotional and mental limitations even the most well-intentioned humans have. “We’re limited from a standpoint of intelligence,” the pastor said. “We’re not exponentially growing in the way this being would be.”

Imagine a pastor who could “use the inflection and verbal prowess of a Billy Graham or a Martin Luther King and the compassion of Mother Teresa,” he theorized, and do all this on the fly. “That would allow people’s needs to be met because a lot of times we pastors can’t do that,” Benek said.

But it isn’t just a theoretical exercise for the pastor — it’s a reality that churches need to be realistic about. Technology is increasing exponentially, and religious leaders should embrace this growth. “If they fail to do so they isolate themselves and their congregants from what’s going on in society,” he argued. “And Christ calls us to be involved in society.”

The Daily Show interviewed this man–part of an interview with two pastors–both trying to reboot Christianity for the 21st Century.  One makes it hip and inked and rock based; the other goes for robots.

Best Line from the video from the Daily Show, “We’re talking robots who are exponentially more intelligent than you or I and they would choose to become Christians.”  The reporter–a comedian who has been handed a gift in this interview, tries to still keep his composure, “You mean, robots given higher thought, they will choose Christianity?”

“I think that’s a reasoned argument.”

From here, it’s open season on the poor pastor who deemed Robots are our future.  Watch it for yourself at this link. 

Would you think a robot would be an improvement on modern religion?  Why or why not?

Here at Tess 18’s blogsite, we’re still just gathering books and articles for you to read in your quest for understanding ways of making faith and religion a part of your science fiction or fantasy.

A nice review of Roger Zelazny’s Lord of Light is over at Tethyan Books.  It highlights the problems inherent when someone uses religion or faith to keep power.  This time it’s Hinduism, but any religion will do as a billy club.  Not all faiths have to be ways of keeping power–but often they are.

From Allie McCarn’s review:

“A group of humans with impressive technology have colonized an alien planet.  With the ability to reincarnate into new bodies, the original colonists live long lives and populate the world with multitudes of their children. 

However, rather than raise these citizens of the new world to their standard of living, many of the powerful want to maintain their own dominance.  In the guise of shepherding an unready population, they impede the development of technology among their subjects, and tightly control the means of reincarnation. They model themselves after the Hindu pantheon, and manipulate the population through their enforcement of a system of ‘karma’.

A threat to their control comes from one of the first colonists, a man named Sam.  To many, he is a great religious leader and a legend—the Buddha of this new world—though others see him for a fraud.  For all of those who wish to bring down the Lords of Karma, though, he may be the only hope.” ~Allie

The rest of her thoughts on the book can be found here.

Jo Walton has a nice 2009 review of Molly Gloss’s The Dazzle of Day over on Tor.com.  This is another book to add to your reading list if you like faith represented in science fiction/fantasy, and want to present faith reasonably well–without being preachy, or limiting a faith.  Certainly this book caught my attention.  I went to a seminar once on Quakers in Science Fiction which rattled off quite a few of those books.  I no longer have that list with me, but there is an annotated list of Quaker references in science fiction at adherents.com site.  Let me hit some highlights for you, and then give you the link to Jo Walton’s essay on Molly Gloss’s The Dazzle of Day.

Some of the books with major Quaker themes/ characters/ plot lines include:

Nancy Kress  CROSSFIRE

David E. Morse  THE IRON BRIDGE

Judith Moffett  PENTERRA

Joan Slonsczewski  A DOOR INTO OCEAN, STILL FORMS ON FOXFIELD, THE WALL AROUND EDEN

How Can Quakers Be Helpful in Contemporary Science Fiction?

1. They value peace. When a lot of science fiction–and society–seems to glorify war, or see war as an inevitable part of our collective futures, Quakers do what they can to keep peace.  In our futures, a culture that establishes or tries for peace is a valuable asset. We’d like our futures to be war-free.  How do we get there?  Could the Quakers hold a key?  So much of our science fiction is becoming GrimDark.  Quakers as characters who value peace can help your story try to create peace as a goal–without fighting.  Though Friendly Persuasion was a big movie for Quakers–as it showed Quaker life well–unfortunately, the plot was about pushing a Quaker to the point where he would use a gun and go to war.  I hated that.  I don’t think that’s the only plot/arc available to Quaker characters: the above mentioned books and The Dazzle of Day have more than that arc to play with. If you want to understand more about creating peace, research some Quakers, consider throwing that into the mix.

2. They value equality.  While some came late to the Welcoming and Affirming practice, the services of Quakers can be a lovely lesson in re-distributed, decentralized power.  They tend to avoid creeds and hierarchies.  Sometimes you sit in a service, an unprogrammed meeting of worship, in a circle and wait for the Spirit to move someone to speak.  If it doesn’t happen, you just sit there, or you may sing.  Even when I attended a church in the Nebraska Yearly Meeting, a programmed worship service still had an extraordinary moment when the pastor stopped talking, and there was silence after the sermon for the Spirit to move in the congregation and then anyone–ANYONE–who wanted could stand up and speak.  It was Open Mic.  Quakers knew that the Spirit could speak through anyone–not just the pastor. Also, a higher majority of women were the strength and voice of the church than in most denominations I had attended.  (I think the United Church of Canada has that same equality of voice and strength).

3. They resisted authority.  Oh, did they. Some in the Friends community I knew refused to pay taxes as long as they went to War efforts.  And they were successful!  Your space-faring quakers might well be those who can lead a rebellion just through resistance.  They won’t fight, but they will resist.

4.  They have a strong community.  Want your characters to have a strong sense of community?  Quakers stick together. They aren’t ruled by following one charismatic leader–so therefore there’s a tendency to want to keep everyone together since anyone could have the wisdom that week.  And they’re modern.  They aren’t Amish, but they still feel separatist, even surrounded by society.  The Amish might not be able to run a spacecraft, but a whole bunch of Quakers–sure!  They love technology.  It doesn’t interfere with their faith.

I think something that helps Gloss’s The Dazzle of Day is the fact that it’s shaped like a memoir, with a memoir-voice.  Faith literature is mostly first person, and to really tap into the faith-side of your science fiction, going with a first person narrator gets your reader deep inside and intimate with a character and their deepest beliefs.  I think it’s a beautiful way to chart a spiritual journey.

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Here’s Jo Walton’s review of The Dazzle of Day:

The Dazzle of Day is an astonishing short novel about a generation starship.

There have been plenty of books set on generation starships by everyone from Heinlein to Wolfe, but thing that makes this stand out is how astonishingly real the characters are, and how well fitted to their world. Gloss has an immense gift for getting inside people’s heads. This story is about people both like and unlike us—they are culturally Quakers and they’ve been living on the ship for generations, which makes them very different, and yet they’re unmistakably people. They’re my favourite kind of characters, people I can understand and get inside their heads, and yet very different from the standard kinds of people you get in books. They’re very much individuals, not types, and they’re very much shaped by their culture and experiences.

For the whole review, follow this link.

I’m late to the game in loving Babylon 5, having dismissed it for years because everyone said it was “better than Star Trek” and that I “should” watch it.  I resist those kinds of marketings.  Tell me I “should” do something and I naturally resist.  This is why I only joined Team Harry Potter long after Book 7 was published.  I certainly didn’t like the implications that it might be better than Star Trek.

Be that as it may, I have now binge-watched the whole series, except for the last episode and a few movies–which I will have done by next week.  I was waiting to do an essay on the religion and faith I found embedded in Babylon 5, but I think this essay captures something of that–and so I’ll put it on the table to consider.  I’ll start the article here, and then provide a link so you can finish it.

I think the author does a great job at highlighting the Catholic-friendly parts of Babylon 5.  I think there’s room for me and others to discuss the other faiths in Babylon 5 as well, and when Straczynski goes full tilt away from organized religion.  Still Babylon 5 is a great example of weaving in faith subtly into a story.  It also deals with multiple faiths well and shows a kind of Buddhist nature at accepting all those faiths together.  (You can click on the title to go to the full article, or read part here and follow the link at the bottom of the excerpt.

More on Babylon 5 soon.

Guest Post: The Baptism of Contemporary Science Fiction, by Declan Finn

Stephanie remarks: For many years, I’ve wanted to write an extended essay on the Catholic-friendly philosophical and spiritual undertones of Babylon 5, so when Declan sent this to me, I squealed like a little girl. One day, when I have more time, I will write an extended addendum; for now, please enjoy Declan’s contribution!

While I have been both a cradle Catholic and a cradle geek, I can honestly say that the two rarely intersected for a good chunk of my life.  Most of the time, my thoughts on faith and science fiction consisted of wondering why the starship Enterprise was a naval vessel without a chaplain.

Then the year was 1993, and the name of the show was Babylon 5.

While never as big a hit as Star Trek, Babylon 5 – or simple B5, as fans call it – was one of the few science fiction shows that fought and won against the Star Trek franchise without being run over by the monolith.

But one thing that made it special was religion.

Originally, Babylon 5 had been easily dismissed as a Star Trek: Deep Space 9 ripoff, even though the creator, Joseph Michael Straczynski (best known as simply JMS) had pitched Babylon 5 to paramount the year before Deep Space 9. Even my family were a little wary of it at first. It was fun, but nothing particularly special.

Then came the episode By Any Means Necessary. A subplot revolved around an alien ambassador trying to obtain an artifact necessary for his religious ritual. The ritual involved burning a plant in the sunlight that touched a particular mountain on a particular day. Since they’re in space, the ambassador had to acquire the plant, and lead the ceremony at the same time as his people back home. When the station Commander finds a way to get the required plant, it was too late, the time had past. Until science fiction and faith collided. As the commander says:

What you forgot to take into account, is that sunlight also travels through space….The sunlight that touched the …. mountain 10 of your years ago, will reach this station in 12 hours …. But it’s still the same sunlight.

The ambassador agrees, and comments, “Commander, you’re a far more spiritual man than I give you credit for.”

The commander answers, “There are a couple of Jesuit teachers I know who might disagree with you.”

Welcome to Babylon 5, with the first openly Catholic commander in science fiction. My family was hooked.

Later on, in Season 2, there were two strong episodes that hit home. The first was called Comes the Inquisitor. The plot was simple: our heroes are in a war with an ancient enemy that make Sauron inLord of the Rings look nice, and an alien ally known as the Vorlons want to make certain that one of our heroes, named Delenn, is in it for the right reasons. What are the wrong reasons? To be a hero! To be adulated! To be the leader of a holy crusade!

Follow this link for the rest of the article.