Secular Sci-Fi & The Transcendent
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- čas přidán 8. 09. 2024
- What does it mean to be human? How do we interact with the Divine or find meaning in a universe that sometimes seems completely devoid of meaning?
It used to be that fantasy was the genre that most aptly responded to these monumental questions, yet I've realized that this is no longer the case!
I've found that it is actually the contemporary, secular, anti-Christian storytellers who are doing the best job right now at being honest and compelling about the questions of man’s encounter with the unknown, the Divine, the transcendent.
Resources mentioned in this episode:
Orson Scott Card's Homecoming series (www.amazon.com...)
My Raven Son series (www.amazon.com...)
Bari Weiss Article on Hollywood (bariweiss.subs...)
Raised by Wolves on HBO Max (www.hbomax.com...)
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I’m Nicholas Kotar. I write epic fantasy and science fiction inspired by Slavic fairy tales. My publishing house, Waystone Press, publishes several authors, all of whom believe in the power of stories to transform readers, giving joy to their lives through an experience of beauty.
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I've thought the same thing about dealing with human conditions in the genre(s) for a while, but for different reasons.
Fantasy and Sci-Fi strike me as the same genre with different reflexes. There's fantasy that's basically materialism, and there's long been sci-fi that wasn't materialist. In sci-fi, magic is just technology. They're fairly interchangeable. Starships? Make them airships that travel the aether. Dragons? Make them aliens.
I think what makes them different is that sci-fi takes the world we see as the new norm and projects it indefinitely into the future, either optimistically or pessimistically, and usually adds fantastic elements. Fantasy, however, is defined by rejecting the modern world and retreating to an idealized past with fantastic elements built in. Granted, both can happen in the present day, but the core reflex is the same.
Taken this way, fantasy is an attempt to escape what is, and that reflex has the same problems dealing with human nature and the transcendent that occur with a computer doing the same. For the same reason, most table-top RPGs are fantasy; it's already escapism. Likewise sci-fi is going to attract those materialists who fancy themselves realists.
Hello Father Deacon, this is my knee jerk reaction to your question of why secular atheist storytellers are doing a better job of describing the unknown, or the encounter with the transcendent. For decades we have thrown away the map. In my work I have met a 40+ year old patient who didn't know the story of Christ. Oddly enough he was familiar with Adam and Eve. The younger they get the more completely oblivious they are of any of the accounts from the bible in a way that absolutely astounds one who was raised hearing these stories as true accounts of history and reality. They have no map. it was destroyed or forgotten by their ancestors or else actively discredited as false or harmful. They are actively exploring what they see as new and unnavigated territory. There is great adventure in such an endeavor and reality being what it is leaks through in their stories (even despite the propaganda) because they are actively engaged with it, hacking through the weeds as it were. We natives of course are viewed as savages who shouldn't be trusted. If we tell them there is a short-cut they believe we are leading them into a trap, if we tell them honestly that a certain area is ridden with man eating beasts, they suspect hidden treasure. For to be fair, certain of our people have dealt with them treacherously both individually and as a group. We as Christians have a map, and know that it is necessary for our survival and we know that these explorers are mad and many if not most of them will get themselves killed. We, however, for the most part as Christians stay in the safer areas of the known territory or at least the easier ones. We go to Church and to work confident in our little spot on the map and our ability to maintain our position on it. Most of us would be hard pressed to be called adventurers. Of the Explorers, arrogant and doomed as they may be, many of them are sincere in their search for truth, and will often tell a better story.
So how do we become better explorers then? Find a way to tell the stories in a new ways? That's what I think...
There is no way to show the transcendent without showing the transcendent. Good must truly be good. That is what the incarnation is. We don't perceive it through the opposite, but from within the light that God already bestowed upon us from the moment of creation, a light which may be different for every person but which is nonetheless ineradicable from our very natures. There is something in our nature which mysteriously keeps us from ever falling completely outside of God's uncreated energies. The image of the divine within man allows us, and God within us, to return to right relationship with the transcendent.
I dont get it, it's like you're about to get to the point but you go on a tangent at the last second. what does raised by wolves do? it shows what the devouring mother is like? but that's just what a simple morality tale does, and this series isn't some simple sermon, otherwise you wouldn't make a video about it.
I think what I was trying to get at is that whether it wants or not, it's telling a very traditional sort of story but by working in the negative space. It seems to want very much to be a secular, avant-guard anti-morality tale, but everything it does seems to only to reinforce old fairy tale tropes. Instead of making an atheist paradise, it makes the garden of eden something that is dead and can only support succulents. Instead of showing how people, freed from the shackles of religion, will all just get along, the exact opposite happens. Instead of protecting her charges, the android turns into a killing machine that turns on her own. What does it all mean? I'm not sure yet because I'm only four episodes in. But I'm intrigued that it's these non-traditional stories that seem to be the best at telling compelling truths. Thanks for keeping me honest :)
@@NicholasKotarauthor ok, now I get it. And to give you more insight, it seems like this ridley scott guy would be the most likely progressive to direct such a story, I heard a quote from him when making the premethean movie, that he thinks of humanity as a terrible thing, that ruin everything, that are full of hate, and etc etc etc and if we were actually to "meet the aliens that made us" (and this guy thinks he's an atheist) they'd be appalled by our behaviour and disapointed in their creation.
So the guy is a progressive that has a fallen view of humanity, what Sowell called the constrained vision, which is almost a contradiction, he's like a unicorn.
@@acuerdox That's a really interesting point. It's rare, like you suggest, for progressive secular people to view humanity as fallen.