Science Fiction/Fantasy Atheists

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Comment by Mike Hein on February 4, 2010 at 12:40pm

You folks should start a whole discussion topic on this

Comment by John B Hodges on February 3, 2010 at 10:50pm

Reply to Jo Jerome and Dan DuPree - "I Am Legend" with Will Smith was less overtly proselytizing than the others I listed, but note that the believer lives and the atheist dies, the believer is successfully guided by her feelings and intuitions, and the sanctuary she reaches at the end has two big obvious features, the military and the church. As in medieval cities, the two buildings that show are the castle and the cathedral.

When seeking the underlying message of a movie, look at (1) who the characters are, what types of people they represent, and (2) what happens to each of them in the course of the story- who wins and who loses, who lives and who dies, who is shown to be right and who wrong, who changes and who stays the same. Some examples: in "Chocolat" the protagonist is rumored to be an atheist at the beginning, but is attending church at the end. In "Flatliners" (as in many other movies) the atheist character gets religion by the end. In "The Day After Tomorrow" the (nerdy, obnoxious) atheist saves one book out of the frozen and flooded NY Library, guess which book.

Lots of movies are anti-feminist propaganda. One really egregious example not too long ago was "13 Going On 30". Summary of the plot: shouting "Don't be a career woman, be a WIFE!"

Comment by Jo Jerome on February 3, 2010 at 4:48pm

I assume you're talking about "I am Legend?" While the film overall left me wanting, I liked that there was the little conflict between the god-believer and Will Smith's character. When he said something like, "God had nothing to do with this. There is no God." A couple of people in the theater audibly pooh-poohed the line. I audibly applauded and said, "Go Will Smith!"

Overall though, I would have liked it better if there were no religion reference at all.

Comment by Dan DuPree on February 1, 2010 at 10:14am

Woops, without help from the supernatural

Comment by Dan DuPree on February 1, 2010 at 10:14am

For John B Hodges:

What did you find "religious" about Legend? I thought it expressed that humans are perfectly capable of destroying themselves with help from the supernatural, and capable of acts of sacrifice and goodness without religion.

Comment by Aaron Sikes on January 31, 2010 at 11:18pm

Heading to WonderCon in San Francisco, April 2-4, 2010. Anyone else going?

Comment by Jo Jerome on January 21, 2010 at 2:58pm

Thanks Howard ... and this while I'm slowly brainstorming a story where I invent religions.

Comment by Howard S. Dunn on January 19, 2010 at 1:27pm

http://io9.com/5451262/why-does-science-fiction-invent-new-religions

Interesting article on SF and religion

Comment by John B Hodges on January 16, 2010 at 3:34am

Greetings- I am a regular moviegoer (don't own a television) and I
generally like action movies, science-fiction, etc... so the previews of The Book of Eli henceforth TBoE looked interesting. But I read in one of the reviews this morning that TBoE is in fact the Bible, the only surviving copy in a devastated world... The protagonist wants to use it to do good, the antagonist wants to use it as a means of gaining power over others.

Now, I have been annoyed by "science fiction" movies that turn out to be thinly disguised religious propaganda, and actually anti-science in their message. "Knowing" with Nicholas Cage was a recent example of this kind, as earlier was "Signs" with Mel Gibson. "Legend" with Will Smith. "Solaris" with George Clooney.

But with only what I read in this morning's review, I can't tell which
way this latest movie is going to go. Given that the "power over others" guy is the bad guy, I might suspect it goes the usual way. But it could be more thoughtful than that. I might hope, for example that it ultimately says "religion is whatever you make of it", and that if you bring a good heart TO it, you can make OF it a positive thing. It does at least admit that religion CAN be used by the bad guys.

Of course lots could be said in criticism of whatever the movie may say or imply about Christianity. The protagonist, for example, carries a machete, and is very skillful and practiced at killing people with it. So I really don't think he's read the Gospels at all seriously. But that is a different debate.

I want to ask for comments from anyone who has actually seen it, whether this movie is at all thoughtful or nuanced in it's message about the Bible.

Comment by SJ on January 5, 2010 at 6:47pm

FIAWOL

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