13.3 Religious Themes in Science Fiction and Fantasy

Science fiction and fantasy often explore religious themes in imaginative ways. These genres use speculative settings to examine faith, morality, and existence, offering fresh perspectives on familiar ideas and challenging readers to reconsider their assumptions.

Authors reimagine religious concepts by placing them in new contexts, like AI deities or tangible gods. They also subvert and critique religious ideas, using the genre's freedom to question dogma, expose hypocrisy, or envision alternative belief systems.

Religious Themes in Speculative Fiction

Common Themes and Motifs

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• Explore ideas, concepts, or questions related to faith, spirituality, divinity, morality, and the nature of existence
  • Common themes include good vs. evil, faith vs. doubt, destiny vs. free will, suffering and redemption
• Incorporate recurring images, symbols, or narrative elements that convey religious meanings or ideas
  • Examples include messiah figures, holy quests, creation myths, apocalyptic scenarios, and symbolic representations of deities or supernatural beings
• Incorporate religious themes and motifs into speculative settings
  • Alien religions in sci-fi or divine magic systems in fantasy
  • Can be inspired by real-world religions or invented by the author
• Add depth and resonance to speculative fiction narratives
  • Allow stories to grapple with fundamental questions of human existence and meaning through imaginative scenarios

Reimagining and Reinterpreting Religion

• Transpose religious concepts into new contexts
  • Envision a technologically advanced society that worships AI as a deity
  • Create a fantasy world where gods are tangible beings who interact with mortals
• Reinterpret specific religious narratives by adapting them to fit speculative settings
  • A sci-fi retelling of the Garden of Eden story set on a distant planet
  • A fantasy series loosely based on the Book of Revelation
• Offer fresh perspectives on familiar ideas
  • Challenge readers to reconsider their assumptions
  • See timeless stories in a new light
• Subvert or critique religious concepts and narratives
  • Use the imaginative freedom of the genre to question dogma, expose hypocrisy, or envision alternative belief systems

Reimagining Religious Concepts

Transposing into New Contexts

• Reimagine religious concepts by placing them in speculative settings
  • A technologically advanced society worshipping AI as a deity (Dune's "Butlerian Jihad" against thinking machines)
  • A fantasy world where gods are tangible, interactive beings (American Gods by Neil Gaiman)
• Adapt specific religious narratives to fit sci-fi or fantasy environments
  • Retell the Garden of Eden in a distant planetary colony (The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell)
  • Base a fantasy series on the Book of Revelation (His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman)
• Offer fresh perspectives by recontextualizing familiar stories and ideas
  • Prompt readers to reexamine assumptions and see timeless themes anew
  • Explore how religious concepts might manifest in radically different circumstances

Subverting and Critiquing Religion

• Leverage the imaginative freedom of speculative fiction to question religious dogma
  • Depict a world where traditional religious tenets are proven false (The Gods Themselves by Isaac Asimov)
  • Show how religious institutions can be corrupted by power (The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood)
• Expose hypocrisy by exaggerating or literalizing religious double standards
  • Create a society that preaches asceticism while its leaders live in opulence (The Priests of Psi by Frank Herbert)
  • Depict gods who demand moral purity from mortals while engaging in debauchery themselves (Dragonlance Chronicles by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman)
• Envision alternative belief systems that challenge the supremacy of real-world religions
  • A universe with no supreme deity, only lesser gods who are indifferent to humanity (The Broken Earth series by N.K. Jemisin)
  • A world where advanced aliens reject the concept of religion as primitive superstition (The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell)

Religion in World-Building

Shaping Fictional Societies

• Create detailed religious systems, mythologies, and institutions that influence the development of imaginary worlds
  • The complex polytheistic religion of Earthsea, with its emphasis on balance and the sanctity of true names (Earthsea series by Ursula K. Le Guin)
  • The Bajoran religion centered around the Prophets, a race of non-corporeal aliens living in a nearby wormhole (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine)
• Use religion to shape the cultures, values, and conflicts of speculative societies
  • A civilization that reveres nature spirits and opposes industrial technology (Princess Mononoke by Hayao Miyazaki)
  • A galactic empire that justifies its conquests through a belief in manifest destiny (Hyperion Cantos by Dan Simmons)
• Generate rich plot tensions from the clash of religious worldviews
  • Wars between theocratic nations with opposing belief systems (The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis)
  • Philosophical debates between characters with differing spiritual perspectives (Contact by Carl Sagan)

Influencing Character Arcs

• Use religious beliefs and practices to provide motivation, moral frameworks, and personal challenges for characters
  • A monk who takes a vow of pacifism in a violent world (A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller Jr.)
  • A scientist who struggles to reconcile her faith with her discoveries (The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell)
• Depict characters grappling with crises of faith, religious persecution, or the consequences of adhering to or defying religious norms
  • A priest who loses his faith after witnessing atrocities (The Priest of Blood by Douglas Clegg)
  • A woman who is exiled from her community for practicing forbidden magic (The Broken Earth series by N.K. Jemisin)
• Cast religious figures as influential mentors, allies, or antagonists
  • A wise priestess who guides the hero on their quest (The Tombs of Atuan by Ursula K. Le Guin)
  • A corrupt pope who seeks to control the world through religious manipulation (The Accidental Time Machine by Joe Haldeman)

Speculative Fiction and Philosophy

Posing "What If" Questions

• Imagine scenarios that probe the nature of religion, divinity, and human existence
  • How would the discovery of alien life impact Earth's religions? (The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell)
  • What if humans could scientifically prove the existence of an afterlife? (Riverworld series by Philip José Farmer)
• Use speculative premises to explore the logical consequences of religious or philosophical ideas
  • A world where Judeo-Christian mythology is literally true (His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman)
  • A society that achieves utopia by eradicating all emotions, including religious sentiment (Brave New World by Aldous Huxley)
• Envision realities where certain beliefs are objectively true or false
  • A universe created by a flawed demiurge, as in Gnostic theology (The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect by Roger Williams)
  • An alternate history where the existence of God is empirically disproven (The Gods Themselves by Isaac Asimov)

Wrestling with Abstract Concepts

• Literalize abstract religious and philosophical concepts to make them tangible and confrontable
  • Personify good and evil as physical entities that characters can interact with (The Amber Chronicles by Roger Zelazny)
  • Create a world where platonic ideals have concrete reality (The Alchemy of Stone by Ekaterina Sedia)
• Use speculative elements to represent and resolve questions that are otherwise difficult to depict
  • Illustrate the problem of evil by giving a character the power to eliminate all suffering (The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas by Ursula K. Le Guin)
  • Explore the nature of the soul by imagining a machine that can extract and transfer it (Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan)

Encouraging Reflection and Empathy

• Provide a "safe space" for readers to contemplate challenging religious and philosophical questions
  • The fictional context creates distance and deniability, making it easier to engage with controversial ideas
  • Speculative scenarios can defamiliarize real-world issues, encouraging fresh perspectives
• Deepen and complicate understanding of religion by imagining alternative possibilities
  • Prompt readers to question assumptions and consider different viewpoints
  • Foster empathy by depicting sympathetic characters with diverse beliefs and experiences
• Push the boundaries of the possible to illuminate the mysteries of existence
  • Speculate about the nature of reality, consciousness, and the divine
  • Embrace ambiguity and paradox to reflect the complexity of religious and philosophical questions