List of Religious Ideas in Science Fiction

List Of Religious Ideas In Science Fiction

Science fiction often addresses the topic of religion, despite the long history of conflict between the disciplines of science and religion. Some stories use religious themes to convey a broader message, but others confront the subject head-on — contemplating, for example, how attitudes towards faith might shift in the wake of ever-advancing technological progress, or offering creative scientific explanations for the apparently mystical events related in religious texts (gods as aliens, prophets as time travelers, etc.). As an exploratory medium, science fiction rarely takes religion at face value by simply accepting or rejecting it; when religious themes are presented, they tend to be investigated deeply. Orson Scott Card, however, has criticised the genre for oversimplifying religion, which he claims is always shown as "ridiculous and false".

Some science fiction works portray invented religions, either placed into a contemporary Earth society (such as the Earthseed religion in Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sower), or in the far future (as seen in Dune by Frank Herbert, with its Orange Catholic Bible). Other works examine the role of existing religions in a futuristic or alternate society. The classic Canticle for Leibowitz explores a world in which Catholicism is one of the few institutions to survive an apocalypse, and chronicles its slow re-achievement of prominence as civilisation returns.

Christian science fiction also exists, often written as allegory for inspirational or propaganda purposes.