Religion in Science Fiction: The Evolution of an Idea and the Extinction of a Genre (Scientific Studies of Religion: Inquiry and Explanation)

End of Part Th ree: Conclusion of the metanarrative Contents ix Part Four 11 Th e Extinction of SF (or, at least, gSF) Conclusion 12 Cultural Evolution Th e social use of narratives Memory Humor Whitehouse's Modes Conclusion Notes References Index fiction. Some may be surprised at how problematic these choices can be. Imagine a volume of stories, imagining the use of computers and other technologies to remove the consciousness of individuals from the body, perhaps giving them practical immortality in a database. Would this describe "religion"? It does, after all, describe an afterlife-a commonsense definition of religion for many people. What if the technique was not electronic but medical, and immortality was achieved in the body? Would that be "science fiction, " or is medicine the wrong science? (Incidentally, one needn't imagine this volume: see Dann and Dozois's Beyond Flesh [2002].) Having defined our terms, Parts Two and Three take us through these texts in chronological order, analyzing each for what they have to say about religion and comparing each representation to its contemporaries and predecessors. Taken together, they show a sequence of steps in the evolution of science fiction's understanding of religion from the "Gernsback" period of 1926 to 1937 ( Chapter 4 ), through the 1990s ( Chapter 10 )-a "story" about religion told by many authors, with the full cooperation of a community of readers, over generations. It is my hope that anyone with at least a casual interest in either science fiction or religion will find a few titles worth exploring further; when possible, I'll try not to ruin the endings. Part Four puts this "metanarrative" in broader contexts. Chapter 11 asks if the metanarrative for religion has concluded, and if so, has the science fiction genre similarly ended. Then (in Chapter 12 ), what are the theoretical implications of the existence of this coherently evolved metanarrative and the method described in Chapter 1 ? I employ a cognitive anthropological perspective: what does science fiction as a case study suggest for our cognitive and behavioral flexibilities in light of historically novel ecological conditions? Specifically, does science fiction give us a clue about how social groups may form in a dispersed, globalized world? Despite generations of philosophers predicting religion's imminent demise (Karl Marx, Max Weber, Marcel Gauchet, etc.), it has inexplicably failed to disappear. Richard Rorty and Gianni Vattimo, for example, predict that we are (or perhaps already have) moving from the Age of Reason into the Age of Interpretation, in which religion becomes merely personal and ethical, as the "man of postmodernity" learns to accept his finitude (Rorty and Vattimo 2005: 12). My own field, cognitive anthropology, takes a different view. Given that beliefs in supernatural agency seem to have been part of our history for longer than that history has been recorded, and that a growing amount of research in the cognitive science of religion demonstrates that this trait is intimately associated with our most basic and universal mental processes, it seems unlikely to the extreme that Homo religiosis will abandon religion en mass any time soon. However, religion has changed significantly before: compare the small-scale imagistic rituals of prehistory (and their modern hunter-gatherer analogs) to the strongly centralized Catholicism of the High Middle Ages to individualistic New Age philosophies. Perhaps religion is not dissipating, but transforming, as it has before. But transforming into what? Given the importance religion has played in human culture up to this point, this is a possibility we should play close attention to. Science fiction authors have been asking the right questions for over a century; their speculations are worthy of consideration. Cover -- Half-title -- Title -- Copyright -- Dedication -- Contents -- Introduction -- Part One -- 1 The Rules -- Defining religion -- A cognitive anthropology of narratives -- Defining genre science fiction -- 2 The Raw Materials of Science Fiction -- Poe: Another mother? -- Science fiction on a desert island -- U- and dys-topias -- Conclusion -- 3 Uncertain Paternity -- The fatherhood of Mary Shelley -- H.G. Wells' social speculations -- Olaf Stapledon: The last Victorian -- Conclusion -- Part Two -- 4 Gernsback and the Pulps -- Walter Kateley, "The Fourteenth Earth" (1928) -- Fred Barclay, "The Troglodytes" (1930) -- Arthur Jones, "The Inquisition of 6061" (1933) -- Conclusion -- 5 Campbell's "Social Science Fiction"--Isaac Asimov, "Trends" (1939) -- Robert Heinlein, "If This Goes On-" (1940) -- L. Sprague de Camp, "Ultrasonic God" (1954) -- Lester del Rey, "Into Thy Hands" (1945) -- Conclusion -- 6 The Rise of the Novel -- Arthur C. Clarke, Childhood's End (1953) -- Walter Miller, A Canticle for Leibowitz (1959) -- Leigh Brackett, The Long Tomorrow (1955) -- George Stewart, Earth Abides (1949) -- James Blish, A Case of Conscience (1958) -- Conclusion -- 7 Poli-Sci-Fi -- Fritz Leiber, "When the Change-Winds Blow" (1964) -- Roger Zelazny, "A Rose for Ecclesiastes" (1963) -- Robert Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land (1961) -- Frank Herbert, Dune (1965) -- Conclusion -- End of Part Two: Mid-point of the metanarrative -- Part Three -- 8 The Need to Believe -- Ray Bradbury, "The Messiah" (1973) -- Lawrence Manning, The Man Who Awoke (1975) -- Michael Moorcock, "Behold the Man" (1966) -- Jack L. Chalker, Midnight at the Well of Souls (1977) -- Conclusion -- 9 The Humanity of God (and Vice Versa) -- Piers Anthony, "Incarnations of Immortality" (1983-1990) -- James Morrow, Only Begotten Daughter (1990) -- Theodore Sturgeon, Godbody (1986) "This book teaches you not only about the important role writers of science fiction play in leading us to novel insights into religion, but also about the relationship between scientific and religious approaches to the world-and especially the usefulness of cognitive science in explaining the life of the imagination. -- E. Thomas Lawson, Editor, Journal of Cognition and Culture A delightful read that fills a much needed gap in the study of religion's occasionally ambiguous relationship with science fiction. Hrotic takes us on a lovely ride through a wide variety of imagined futures. Highly recommended. -- Douglas E. Cowan, Professor of Religious Studies and Social Development Studies, Renison University College at University of Waterloo, Canada I started reading Religion in Science Fiction with the intention to review it -- and ended up just devouring the book. Hrotic's study is a learned, intelligent, often original, and highly readable contribution to research; in short: unputdownable. -- Susanne Bach, Department for English and American Studies, University Kassel, Germany Religion is a major preoccupation of science fiction, though this has not always been acknowledged. Steve Hrotic has constructed a persuasive narrative about the different ways in which genre SF writers have approached religion, considered primarily as a special type of social system. -- Rowland Wymer, Professor of English, Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge, UK"--Bloomsbury Publishing. Religion in Science Fiction investigates the history of the representations of religion in science fiction literature. Space travel, futuristic societies, and non-human cultures are traditional themes in science fiction. Speculating on the societal impacts of as-yet-undiscovered technologies is, after all, one of the distinguishing characteristics of science fiction literature. A more surprising theme may be a parallel exploration of religion: its institutional nature, social functions, and the tensions between religious and scientific worldviews. Steven Hrotic investigates the representations of religion in 19th century proto-science fiction, and genre science fiction from the 1920s through the end of the century. Taken together, he argues that these stories tell an overarching story-a 'metanarrative'-of an evolving respect for religion, paralleling a decline in the belief that science will lead us to an ideal (and religion-free) future. Science fiction's metanarrative represents more than simply a shift in popular perceptions of religion: it also serves as a model for cognitive anthropology, providing new insights into how groups and identities form in a globalized world, and into how crucial a role narratives may play. Ironically, this same perspective suggests that science fiction, as it was in the 20th century, may no longer exist.