From the beginning of the Boing Boing article:
Writing on the loony fundamentalist site “Way of Life,” David Cloud presents the startling intelligence that science fiction is rife with humanism, atheism, and is written by polyamorous nudists like Robert A Heinlein […]
<sarcasm>How horrible!</sarcasm>
The title of the post is “Beware of Science Fiction,” and I have to agree with the sentiment. After all, it’s terrifying to imagine a world where everyone actually thinks for themselves, and doesn’t automatically and mindlessly accept the dictates of their (often self-appointed) leaders.
At least, it’s terrifying to those leaders, and reveals just how insecure and fearful they really are.
I don’t get it. Why is this news? Yes, many science fiction writers are atheists, agnostics, or at least believe in evolution. And, of course, there will be fundamentalists that disagree and disparage the works of those authors. I don’t see anything here that we don’t already know. In fact, the article is a little funny because of its own irony.
“Way of Life” says: OH NO! Science fiction is written by atheists, agnostics and humanists! (No kidding!) Beware!
“Boing Boing” says: OH NO! Fundamentalists have a narrow-minded view of science fiction! (No kidding!) Beware!
P.S. Lots of science fiction involves situations where most people don’t think for themselves. 1982, for example.
P.P.S. According to the January 2010 calendar in your side bar, we jumped straight from Friday, January 2nd to Sunday, January 3rd, skipping Saturday completely. That sucks. I like Saturdays. 🙂
He forgot Xtians should beware SF because it has a lot of Jews involved in it. 😉 Authors like Isaac Asimov, Harlan Ellison, Harry Turtledove, and Robert Silverberg (probably there’s more but those are the ones I think off of the top of my head). Star Trek had three of them, Leonard Nimoy (Spock), William Shatner (Capt. Kirk), and Walter Koenig (Chekov). 🙂 It’s all a sinister plot! 😉
I admit since I became religious I’ve been reading less SF, but that’s because of gratuitous sexual content that’s often in the new stuff, not because it’s SF or has “humanism” in it. (There’s no real contradiction between theism and humanism, if you use the historical definition of humanism as value of the human being. The Torah says man was created in G-d’s image, how humanist is that?)
BTW, it is indeed horrible to think of a naked Robert Heinlein, at least when he was at the age he was when he first started writing the dirty stuff. 😉
c-square: you’re right, it’s not news that some people are stupid. It is kind of amusing though to read about them. 😉
By the way, I think you mean “1984”, not “1982”. Your calendar is inaccurate, maybe it has too many Saturdays in it.
The reason it’s funny, c-square, is because it demonstrates how stupid religious fundamentalists are. And I won’t apologize for that generalization — I’ve never met a religious fundamentalist of any stripe that was even marginally intelligent. And that most emphatically includes their leaders.
The “thinking for yourself” comment refers to the kind of people who read (and write) science fiction. Although since you mention 1984, I seem to recall that the main character’s crime was, essentially, that he was thinking for himself.
And yes, that’s curious about the calendar. It only seems to happen on the individual post pages, the main page is fine. I should probably report it as a bug, though I’m fairly sure someone would already have done so. (Just checked, and it was reported over a year ago. It’s marked as fixed in the current development version, we’ll see.)
Ploni, most Christians see Jews as sadly misguided cousins, not threats. Except the ones who see conspiracies everywhere, of course… to them, any group with more than two members can be a threat. 🙂
And as for how horrible you might find it to think of Heinlein naked… I hope you don’t own any mirrors, ‘cuz you’ll look like that soon too, if you don’t already. 😉 The human body is simply the human body, no worse than that of any other species on this planet, and a hell of a lot nicer to look at than many of them.
Um, I do look like that already. I’m 40, don’t remind me. 😉 Yeah, most American Xtians aren’t anti-semetic. I was mostly joking. Antisemitism got a bad name in the US after WWII, even amongst the culturally backward, one of it’s few beneficial results.
I’ve met a few decent people who are xtian fundamentalists, but most of them seem to ignore the “hate” part and do charitable works and the like; it’s mostly for them an expression of their own altruism then, which I find (mostly) harmless. I knew a lawyer who was like that, and I guess he wasn’t especially dumb, because he finished law school, after all. (College graduation doesn’t mean much, but law school and med school require a certain IQ level or you’re just not going to make it.) He tried to make me into a J4J, but other than that, he seemed like a nice person.
I’m actually technically a Jewish “fundamentalist”, but for the most part we’re pretty tolerant, unless you’re a Caananite, which don’t exist anymore anyway. 😉 It requires actually a certain amount of intelligence to be a Talmudic scholar, so we seem to be immune to the worst of the intolerant-types; though I admit there’s a few exceptions to that who are fanatical, like Dr. Goldstein (or whatever his name was) who opened fire on Muslims in the burial place of the Patriarchs in Israel, a holy site shared since Israel took it over by both faiths rather than only the Muslims as before. (And was widely condemned for it by all stripes of the Orthodox Jewish community.) A Jewish terorist though is really an exception rather than the rule. (I’d argue historically that was even the case for Islam, they were pretty tolerant in the Middle Ages.)
Oops! Thanks for the correction, both of you. Yeah, it was 1984 that I meant.
Head Geek said: “The ‘thinking for yourself’ comment refers to the kind of people who read (and write) science fiction.” Sure, some people who read science fiction definitely think for themselves. There are also a lot of people who read science fiction and mindlessly follow it (most Trekkers come to mind). So, I agree there’s a place in the world for science fiction, and good science fiction can and does push the boundaries of philosophical, political and sometimes even religious thought. However, in no way can I see the reading of science fiction bringing about “a world where everyone actually thinks for themselves, and doesn’t automatically and mindlessly accept the dictates of their (often self-appointed) leaders.”
Then I’m afraid we’ll have to agree to disagree, c-square, because that’s exactly what I see. The best science fiction authors present ideas that are different from the “normal” view of things, sometimes radically so; that makes people think, even if only to find ways to refute them, and that expands the mind. And as Oliver Wendell Holmes is quoted as saying, “a mind, once stretched by a new idea, never returns to its original dimensions.”
I agree with HG that Science Fiction makes you think, I like the term for it “speculative fiction”, because it makes you speculate.
It doesn’t have to be atheist or something though, there’s “A Canticle for Leibowitz”, The “Dune” series (Herbert uses Hebrew mystical terms for the Dune religion. He also wrote though “The Jesus Incident.” I guess he had to write some fiction too, to pay the bills. 😉 ) and all of Phillip K. Dick’s work is suffused with his unconventional gnostic perspective. I have yet to see good speculative fiction, with the exception of CS Lewis, that’s conventional xtian, which is probably why they are concerned. Instead of complaining though, they should write some of their own to read if that’s their cup of tea, though since they are critics of course they can’t write. 😉
To change the subject, maybe it would be good to read SF on the new iPad. I don’t know though, what do you think, “yeah!” or “meh”? 😉
“They” did write their own fiction — the Twilight series. GoddessJ could give you chapter and verse about them and specifically why they’re horrible, but I won’t comment, except to say that Stephenie Meyer is not up to the storytelling standards of J. K. Rowling, no matter how well her books sell.
Maybe we agree and just don’t know it. I agree with you, the best science fiction authors present enlightening and thought provoking ideas in their works. I think good science fiction is worth its weight in gold. I also believe that the worst science fiction authors present mind-numbing drivel that appeals to the masses who simply consume the next book in the series because it happens to have their favourite characters or is set in their favourite “universe”. Do you agree?
Ugh, Twilight. I can’t believe I packed those books. I need them to reference when in the midst of an argument with a Twihard though, so along they come. I personally think that the SF and Fantasy genres are picked on simply because they are more likely to challenge social norms. That’s bad for keeping people in line you know. So of course any group that relies on a group mentality is going to frown on that kind of fiction. Which is why they are bitching about SF and not storming the Harlequin Romance toilet paper mill, even though there’s WAY more sex in a lot of those. Romance generally always conforms to Western social norms (eg. gender roles etc.), so it’s perfectly ok. Apologies if this is incoherent, it’s really late.
Yes, c-square, I do agree with that. And there’s a lot more drivel out there (in the sense you mean, not the one that Geek Drivel is named after 😉 ) than really good science fiction. But then, half of anything is, by definition, below average.
GoddessJ: “Harlequin Romance toilet paper mill”? Good one! 😀
GoddessJ: good point, nobody seems to care that Harlequin Romance are really a form of pornography. I guess it’s because girls aren’t supposed to enjoy pornography anyway, so it couldn’t be pornographic.
I’ve read a page or two of them over GoddessJ’s shoulders… they’re definitely pornographic, text or no text.