Why is it, when spirituality and religion are such a HUGE part of every culture on earth, do we find so few references to it in fiction? It is odd to me that something as basic to the human existence as spirituality and religion is rarely dealt with, particularly in science fiction and fantasy.
There are exceptions, of course, like "Dune." But for the most part writers seem to ignore their existence.
I'm curious as to why you, as a writer, choose to 1) incorporate spirituality/religion in your story, or 2) leave it out.
This question has been triggered by two things. 1) I just did a crit for someone in my writing group who DID use religion in his story, and it struck me as rare. And 2) I just watched a (very bad) movie last night that SHOULD have delved into this topic and ran from it like a scared rabbit.
The movie I watched... "Birth" starring Nicole Kidman for any of you who want to be wary of it... revolved around a 10 year old boy who claims to be the reincarnation of Kidman's dead husband. Not once in the movie did the characters mention a religious belief when discussing the plausibility of this boy's claim. (The movie degenerated into a pretty creepy portrayal of a woman who becomes willing to allow a 10 year old boy to have a husband's privilege, if you know what I mean. The movie was bad on several other levels, too...IMHO.)
But back to the topic at hand... other than the opening voice-over of the soon-to-be-dead husband who states he doesn't BELIEVE in reincarnation, there was no mention whatsoever by any character of it being a spiritual/religious question.
I want to know why? It would have enriched the dialog. (heck, allowing the characters to talk instead of pout pensively might have enriched the dialog).
But the point remains, writers tend to shy away from portraying the influence of spirituality in stories. It makes no more sense to me than ignoring sexual attraction, or greed and lust, or any of the other plethora of human motives.
I'm just curious: Why?
I'll state right now that I hope any discussion about this topic can remain polite and non-judgemental. The intention is not to explore whether religion and spirituality are right or wrong, the intention is to explore the question of why these influential facets of human culture rarely warrant even a brief mention in fiction?
[This message has been edited by Elan (edited November 28, 2005).]
Elan, this is a very interesting topic. The MC of my huge, obsessive WIP is highly influenced by spirituality. First, there is the belief system of her native culture, from which she is displaced. She clings to the memory of her original beliefs, and they shape her in a large way. Then there is the spirituality of the culture of which she later becomes a part. Somewhere in the middle I even treat how she is affected when she gives up on faith for a time.
Why did I include it? Perhaps this is a handicap of mine, but I just can't see how a person can live without spirituality. I look around me every day and am baffled by this. How can someone not seek something more beyond their own self? I'm sure I feel this way because my own faith goes beyond just 'beliefs', and is so very intrinsically a part of my daily life.
Maybe when I become a very good writer I'll be able to write characters who don't have spirituality, but until then I can only write what I know.
[This message has been edited by sojoyful (edited November 28, 2005).]
Even in Dune, we never really delved into what Zensunni believed, just scetchy details. And Navichristianity was even a bigger blank. I guess we delve more into the BG for all thier powers are at thier heart agnostic, and who's purpose is for some fuzzy goal involving bring humankind to maturity. We see the effects religion has on people, sometimes positive, more often negative, but never delve into what they really believe and how that translates.
Science Fiction on the other hand does seem to lean towards aetheism or at least agnosticism.
Spirituality, in some form, is such a great tool to use to motivate characters or people that I would not write a novel without using it.
If nothing else it gives me, the writer, a chance to poke fun at aspects of earth bound religions without having anyone actually be offended since it doesn't really target anything. It just lets me give people something to think about without immediately kicking in the judgemental.
However, I prefer my SF with religion. Firefly/Serenity still had it even if Star Trek never really embraced it beyong an aspect of minor cultures usually defined by a super-culture pretending to be gods.
I never want to include religion into my story as I usually have a tendency to somehow make fun of a certain religion. I feel that religion in fantasy, the major category I write, isnt really needed. Yes there are times when I feel that if I want to make a religions I will base it off some of our own worlds finest religions.
So all in all, I say I don't write about religion, or spirituality for that matter, too much, but it depends on the aspect I'm trying to write.
Just because a reader doesn't recognise the spirituality in a piece doesn't mean it isn't there.
Consider the difference between The Chronicles of Narnia and Lord of the Rings both firmly rooted in Christian ideas but one is more overt. Many people just don't see it in either.
I guess how much I put in depends on story imperatives. Sometimes it will detract from the story and not help it at all. Sometimes it will help. Done poorly it could turn the Alien movies into Touched by an Angel--in Space.
[This message has been edited by hoptoad (edited November 28, 2005).]
However, having just finished a book and several articles on "Generation Y" which touch on the rise in spirituality in the last few years, I think this trend is going to be reversing itself. Questions of the spiritual are something people will have to deal with at some point in their life, and I think after a time of avoiding it for fear of offending or forcing beliefs on others, the need to address those questions is growing. Movies are already catching onto this and becoming much more spiritual in nature. I think writing will go there, too (And perhaps it already is, at least in part, with books like The Five People You Meet in Heaven or The Da Vinci Code *gag*)
The post asked about spirituality and religion.
Yes, many fantasy stories talk about spirituality and include magic, after all a lot of people see them as the same thing.
What it seems like you are asking is: why is religious observance less prominent in these books?
You may ask the same of Science Fiction rather than fantasy and get just as interesting an insight.
Edit to remove definitive statement in favour of gentler, more accurate one.
[This message has been edited by hoptoad (edited November 28, 2005).]
In George R. R. Martin's new saga he uses religeon as a cultrual nesseccity (which it is-aitheism can be argued as a religeon) but he never dleves into or starts making allegorical story lines. Those kind of story lines have been hashed over since the sixteenth century and we really don't need anymore. Unless they're well done.
Author's should use religion where it naturally would reside, but sometimes they don't and we still get pretty good stories. ANd sometimes not.
Also I see it as more of a 20th / 21st century development than at times before then, part of the so-called Decline of Western Civilization.
quote:
Well, I think there's less spirituality and less religion in literature because, by and large, writers aren't spiritual or religious people.
Do you really think that? That's a ridiculous generalization with no basis in any kind of truth. Where did you come up with that?
[This message has been edited by wetwilly (edited November 29, 2005).]
I suspect one reason for this is that any overt portrayal of religion risks being a "turn-off" for a lot of people. I'm not qualified to discuss the US market in detail (I notice Mike mentions the "Christian market", and I have seen some evidience that it's growing in the US - but so far as I can tell, it barely exists elsewhere), but here in the UK, many people - even those who avow their own Christianity -will literlly cross the road and pass by on the other side to avoid any overt protrayal of it. If it's seen as a turn-off by publishers, than they aren't likely to select overtly religious fiction.
Additionally, religion is a matter of faith. I know many people who genuinely and completely believe that they have been "touched by"/spoken to God; just as I know many people who believ they are utterly mistaken (and doubtless there are some people - I'm not aware of knowing any - who believe that one person's "God" is actually Satan, delusing them from the true path). Now I can't ever truly see what someone who has been "touched by God" has experienced, so I have to make my own judgements. But as an author, you're (basically) trying to make your readers experience what your character is experiencing. I suspect I would feel VERY uncomfortable reading a book in which the MC really did have a divine revelation (indeed, I remember critting a short story which seemed to have this as the ending, and I found it a very difficult one to comment on dispassionately).
I don't really read widely, but what I do tends to be very spiritual in nature. Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Card, Lewis. There is spiritual stuff out there if that is what you are looking for.
It may be the simple fact that publishing is a marketplace and you can't serve God and Mammon. Those who are writing to the marketplace (which many authors do- no matter how we may say one can't and shouldn't). I've heard that Stephen King has a form of spirituality, but I haven't really been curious enough about it to look closer. Harry Potter is certainly spirituality of a form.
I do recall reading a book in 7th grade about a girl going through her parent's divorce and I didn't find out till near the end that she was skeptical of religion and I felt really cheated by that. In the same sense that I feel it was wrong for that author to recruit my sympathies toward their lack of belief, I do think the believing author has to be honest with readers about where their work is going.
But it just seems to me to be a bit odd that spirituality, as a component of the human existance, is so noticeably absent as a human trait in fiction.
My theory is that authors are afraid of the topic. While they tackle sex and profanity with gusto, they shy away from delving into the divine as a topic. Perhaps it's because religions tend to draw lines in the sand and you instantly alienate yourself from readers if you aren't standing on someone else's turf.
A Gallup poll taken in May 2004 says that 90% of adults believe in God.
http://www.pollingreport.com/religion.htm
I find it intriguing that so many people believe in some sort of divine power, yet so few writers integrate this human belief into their writing. It's sort of like the elephant in the living room. It's there, people are aware of it, yet no one talks about it in fiction. Odd, since (in the US at least), religion has become such a lightning rod for politics.
It's not the lack of sermonizing that bothers me. In fact, I myself gag when someone shakes a finger and moralizes at me.
No, I'm bothered by the fact that there is a huge chunk of the human existance that is largely ignored in entertainment, and no one seems to notice it isn't even there.
Writers seem to have no problems delving into the deepest depravity of the human condition. But the divine seems to frighten us. To quote Marianne Williamson:
quote:
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness that frightens us.
Just food for thought.
And most (not all) memoirs or biographies or personal accoutns by / about / from writers generally don't bring up either subject at length. I would assume that (a) they don't want to talk about it, or (b) they don't have it. Since assumption (b) is the easier of the two to make, it's the operating assumption I work with.
For the most partm, the only time you will see religion in writing is when a)its fantasy fiction and the gods are characters too or b)historical fiction with realistic views of the historical church.
Any writer who includes religion in any other way knows that they risk alienating people who don't respect other faiths. But, then again, some writers will clearly alienate said people and enjoy doing so. Now, getting a publisher to do it...
The main reason you don't see religion in books is people are afraid to offend.
I will rarely discuss my personal religeous beliefs, but I will write about people of any faith that I have studied and a few that I just made up. Religion often fills a needed character motivation when a rational motivation would take too long to explain.
Once when I was much less prolific I tallied up the stories I'd written in terms of what they were really about. I found that few of them were about God or relating to him (but some were). For me it may just be that if God shows up center stage, the story is now about him, and I don't feel up to the task!
Also I want to interest lots of readers, and some have a strong bias against religious expression and won't read.
I'm getting better at having characters in very foreign cultures to me (Maya, say), speak from their religious perspective. I still expect a violently negative reaction if my Christian characters do the same thing. Sometimes I get it. I offended a critiquer by having a Catholic character at a Catholic university identify "spirituality" with Christ.
[This message has been edited by wbriggs (edited November 30, 2005).]
I do think that in a fantasy setting (most of the time) it is an implied facet of that particular world. Why? because it is a facet of our particular world. We need to make our fictional fantasy world seem as real as possible, in order to suspend disbelief. So sprituality is lingering in the background all the time. Fantasy worlds usually have gods. People pray, sacrifice, draw wisdom and power, pervert the truth, destroy civilizations, etc... all in the name of sprituality and religion. It is the same in our life, so it must be in fiction, to be well rounded and believable. Again, it doesn't need to be in the forefront of the story line, but believe me it is usually there. If it isn't, the writer is missing out on some very interesting plotlines. Oh the conflicts religion creates! It's a family sized barrel o' monkeys! Just remember it is your character you are creating, keep your personal beliefs out of theirs, (if that is possible) and you should be fine.
Oh, and as to why writers might not want dwell on the subject of sprituality and religion in fiction? Well, I believe that it is very hard to keep your personal beliefs and opinions out of your writing. Perhaps too hard at some points in a story. So rather than broach the subject they just leave it out. It is important to try and create a character that is in itself not a reflection of you. Or something like that...
[This message has been edited by TruHero (edited November 30, 2005).]
I would have thought "Dune" and its sequels worked this kind of take on religion and spirituality...though I admit I've only read, oh, the first five books I think, and those some years ago when I was less attuned to things like this. (If the recent biography of Frank Herbert is any guide, he does seem to be one of the few authors I've run across who have a spiritual side.)
My work in progress deals heavily in religion, since the MC is a spiritual leader of her people. It is a natural part of the story. Any story with this character would have to deal in religion, because that is such a strong part of her.
My next WIP (possibly my next one, anyway), will deal with death and the 'soul', so it will probably touch on religion here and there. However, that isn't the subject, so it won't be so strongly present.
I think it is valuable to be aware of the fact that most people are touched by religion in their lives, at some point. Even people who seem very non-religious have some history of it or with it, if you can get them to talk about it. Most people have seen at least some deaths, births, marriages, divorces, etc. and those things tend to prompt spiritual feelings, even deep ones that are never expressed. They often have strong feelings, too. The question of if they come up in any story, depends on the character and the story.
C.S. Lewis. Fantasy-Chronicles of Narnia, Science Fiction-Space Trilogy, especially his Screwtape Letters delved right in.
Stephen R. Lawhead. The Pendragon Cycle, many characters discussing not only the druid beliefs but also christianity. Been years since I read him.
Piers Anthony. Incantations of Immortality, Ok, so it was a strange series, but in its way it touch on different aspects of peoples faiths.
Phillip Pullman, His Dark Materials Series, loaded with imagery that held his beliefs and crushed the christian faith.
Dean Koontz, Odd Thomas, Life Expectancy, especially The Taking. All of his books have some aspects of Koontz's connection to Catholism. I know. And yes I read Dean Koontz.
OSC. Nuff said.
Every Anime that has the world as Gia, and that's a lot.
Even Issac Asimov made a robot into God.
Yes, sometimes it's subtle. Unfortunately, many stories seem to completely leave it out. Faith is a part of human culture and should be put in stories. cya, Sam
Ps. Stephen King, Dark Tower Series. Crimson King, Green Man, hell, even his Ka's.
I also believe writers who themselves are religious are more likely to try to avoid having religious elements. That is, out of fear, or just being careful, not to let their own beliefs drive their plot too much. Then there's what OSC has said many times about a writers subconscious beliefs will automatically come out in their work, whether they want it to or not. I guess, if what you say is true, most theist sci-fi writers don't feel strongly enough about their own religion for this to happen.
For science to have value, then you need only one belief: cause-and-effect. If X and Y happen then Z must happen. Science is our means of exploring all the causes and all the effects that make the Universe tick.
Sciece and religion get along fine until you insert a supernatural force that transcends cause and effect. If the omnipotent will of God can change the rules at any moment, then why bother to study anything about the Universe?
Because science fiction has a great big SCIENCE in its name, the religions we see portrayed therein are often muted, less than omnipotent faiths. Consider Dune or Star Wars. Their religions don not transcend cause-and-effect. There are components of faith, redemption, and even the supernatural, but no omnipotence.
The only sci-fi story* I can recall that dealt with omnipotence was the Hitchiker's Guide. In it, the omnipotent God was only around for about one paragraph. Keeping Him in the story longer would be a challenge for any writer.
*considering its plot structure, the term "story" barely applies to the Hitchiker's Guide.
The first thing that comes to my mind is the fact that most sci-fi completely contradicts the major religions. Take the TV show Stargate for example. It regularly shows the origin of man as an offshoot of a more advance race, a race that has since ascended to become god-like.
Evolution plays a large roll in a good chunk of sci-fi, if not the idea of ape becoming man but how man will/can evolve in to something greater. Star Trek the Next Generation is great example on how man can become better and full fill its destiny.
When aliens are through into the mix, I have only seen a couple of books approach the subject of how do these new beings fit in to the concept of God. Most stories throw out even referring to God, but have no problem diving in to the religious beliefs of the aliens. The religion of the aliens usually ends up being the major source of conflict.
The last thing on my mind has been touch upon several times already and I think is a major reason the major religions are rarely referred to directly. No writer wants to offend his or her readers. I have to admit I threw away a book that I felt was throwing another religion in my face and had to take a break from my fav author when he kept bashing my beliefs (I had finished reading six books of his in a row).
As for what I do, I try to take the approach of Lewis and Tolkin in my sci-fi stories. I stay away from aliens and only use micro evolution concepts.
I hope this wasn't too much of a ramble on my part.
I wonder where their quest would lead them? Be cool if they found the world but couldn't stand the people.
Edit: heh heh : how to extract the divine from the the earthly Gloria in Altissimis Genome
[This message has been edited by hoptoad (edited December 01, 2005).]
For some their belief system enters into their writings even if it is not intentional. It happened to me and at the time I was very active in my chosen religion, and I made the discovery that when you are involved like I was, your faith tends to weave itself into all of your life.
Just the other day one of the major netwrorks carried a news story about Narnia and Faith in the movies. My aunt thought I was insane when I told her that Narnia is Christian and very much so. She thought it was just fantasy, and so did I until I took a college home study course on the Bible as Literature, and reading C.S. Lewis was part of the course.
Madeleine Lengle's books are also Christian Fiction, but it is not that ovious. Marion Zimmer Bradley wrote books that were strongly Pagan when she was practicing Wicca.
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quote:
How often do you talk about your religion/spirituality? How often does it significantly affect the things you do? That is basically about how often it should occur in fiction if we are being true to our characters.
Personally I talk about mine a good deal when I am with others that are interested. I live with family that is not at all pleased that I don't follow their way of belief . For me it affects everything from food, to speech, to dress, to tv and books.
As far as characters go, it depends on the market. If you are writing for people envolved in a particular Faith, then you need to make sure the characters are true to that Faith.
My fantsy novel has religion as a strong part of the plot as nearly everyone in it is part of an upper class that fated them to be the priesthood of that world. The gods, when they appear, are very human, including the god that is evil.
I based the religion on Paganism, but I also added some twists so that this is not a outright pagan tale.
I think there are probably many authors who leave out religion because they don't think it's relevant to the story they are telling and if they were to include it, it would be perceived as gratuitous.
Writers who belong to the first group will be more likely to include in some way, shape, or form, something that could be considered of a religious nature, whether they intend it to be there or not. Writers who belong to the second group will not be likely to.
A goodly number of the SF writers I know seem to belong to the second group, and some have even indicated that this is why they write SF--because to them it is about a universe in which we are on our own, and they like showing that we can manage pretty well that way*.
I haven't heard much one way or the other on the subject from most of the fantasy writers I know.
* Some of those same writers have also indicated that they think fantasy is about a universe in which there IS someone out there helping us out, and that horror is about a universe in which we are not only on our own, but someone or something out there is actively against us.
This is a really good question but I think you need to read a bit more broadly. I'm not one to talk. I am a very finicky reader, blindering myself into SF and maybe a baker's dozen of authors BUT, I read non-fiction on how to write and oftentimes (uhh, 100% of the time?) the how-to author will mention this or that book as an example of this or that idea.
I have no recollection now of who it was (maybe OSC, since I like his how-to stuff ;-) might also have been over at Baen's Bar) nor the name of the author referenced but I do recall the reference itself. There was a discussion of a culture built (perhaps in a series of stories?) where women were living and breeding without men. How exactly? Yes, they were human but well, I haven't read the book(s) so I can't go into detail. The point was, in reference to your question, this female culture had developed a whole religion around or on top of their social structure to accommodate their breeding practices.
The religion was extremely sophisticated in its development and presentation, according to the how-to author (or whoever it was that told me about this, somewhere around a month ago) The author went to great pains, in fact, to develop and EVOLVE the religion across stories (I'm 99% positive it was a series author, maybe McCaffrey or LeGuin?)
Fantasy, more than straight SF, does definitely incorporate religion as a pre-existing facet of human culture and society, reflecting it both as one of the "evils" and as one of the "great gifts" we, humankind, take with us wherever we go, which light depending on the author's opinion, I suppose.
A second reason I think SF writers might shy away from adding religion to their human-based environments is the same reason (I believe) many gloss over or avoid sex. It's uncomfortable for them, the Author, to expose their own feelings on the subject to a deep enough level as to be useful to the story. After all, exposing one's most intimiate feelings and thoughts is a scary prospect. Humans have serious emotional responses to both sex and religion, neither of which is exclusively an emotional "activity." Putting characters through the motions of religious liturgy really wouldn't work well, would it? We'd have to know how the character FELT about the religious practice--just as we want to FEEL a character's lust or lack thereof to believe in a sex scene. For a religion to work as an emotional hook, the Author her/himself needs to be willing to expose her/his religion to others. That security is not as common as we'd like to think. We are, after all, still a young species and when it comes to religion...uh, how many of them do we have on this planet? I'm tempted to say "as many as there are people" at times. Without a "universal" understanding of what "religion is" it's hard to write religious feelings to a "generic" audience.
That's my take anyway. One of my pieces in F&F, On Second Thought, is a faith walk story, by the way. The protag does not believe in G-d (understatement) when he starts out and has taken that "leap of faith" by the end of the book. The faith is Judiaism (because I'm Jewish) and it took my emigrating to Israel before I was willing to admit I really did feel this way about the whole thing. I am NOT an observant or religious Jew, even today. But I had to "live in the middle of it" to feel what it was INSIDE MYSELF that my story needed to work.
-sry
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Sarah R. Yoffa
http://books.sarahryoffa.com/
books@sarahryoffa.com
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What God we choose tells almost as much about us as the quality of our service. Different things, to be sure.
That's the one strong point of fantasy, you can make up whatever kind of gods you like, and then have your characters pick and choose which ones to serve and how diligently. If someone is pretending to serve one god but secretly serves another, it's usually a conscious thing rather than the more oblige self(?)-deception you see in real life.
As KDW has mentioned, for some people "Science" or "Humanity" or whatever stands in for "God" in the value systems of some writers and characters. I would like to point out that I have a constant wrestle with the temptations of self-worship, and while I doubt there are many humans with as much reason to worship their selves, I still think it likely that it is a common temptation.
Particularly among those who claim to be in the service of "Humanity" or somesuch. At least I don't abstract the issue with such bland hypocrisy, when I consider whether I should go ahead and serve myself.
I don't really know if I'd have had a similar longing to meet something higher and better than myself if I hadn't already done so. As it is, sometimes I sense a wish within myself that I hadn't already met such an entity, so that I could act as if I were the greatest being I knew to exist. Thus far, I have never really indulged the longing to not have met such a being so that I could seriously look for something greater than myself, so maybe it's disingenuous to say I don't know whether I would do something like that if the situation were so.
On a moderately unrelated note, your friend sounds tasty, it might be better if we...er, don't do lunch anytime soon
Crossthreading, I have no idea why it is sometimes so hard for me to pursuade people I'm quite evil.
quote:
I don't really know if I'd have had a similar longing to meet something higher and better than myself if I hadn't already done so. As it is, sometimes I sense a wish within myself that I hadn't already met such an entity, so that I could act as if I were the greatest being I knew to exist. Thus far, I have never really indulged the longing to not have met such a being so that I could seriously look for something greater than myself, so maybe it's disingenuous to say I don't know whether I would do something like that if the situation were so.
Everytime I think I met someone like that, I realize their imperfections are not as perfect as mine and I have to keep looking.
Hope that helps. 
I think the film took out all the spirituality, and left us with nothing relating to Aslan but plot points. Now I have to define "spirituality." Maybe it's the sense that someone is so delightful he deserves worshipping. In this case.
As for the other third of the host of heaven, I'm pretty sure they also believed I was evil.
IMHO
quote:But how do you know which is which? Something that often troubled me about Seventh Son was how Reverend Thrower was set on his course by a miraculous apparition.
You can have "good" spirituality and "evil" spirituality.
This is thematically similar to the Star Trek model as Pantros mentioned. Religion is either viewed as an artificial mechanism of social control or explained in terms of science, and the expansion of scientific knowledge portrayed in most science fiction doesn't allow a lot of room for the unknowable.
I agree with wbriggs that 'deus ex machina' becomes a problem when religion becomes a major component of a fictional work. The religious systems that do work well in science fiction often tend towards the abstract without specific deities or revelations that are typical in mainstream religions today i.e. closer to the Buddhist and Taoist model. The actual presence of omniscient deities inside a story invites reader disbelief.
Generally, tackling religion and maintaining suspension of disbelief is a tough challenge for the author. Although humans in our current time appear to have an infinite capacity for belief, creating a believable religious system from scratch is difficult. L Ron Hubbard is an example of an author who fails my personal litmus test. Creating a believable religious system inside a speculative genre that supports advanced scientific knowledge and starfaring civilizations is exceptionally difficult, and authors seem to avoid it or end up explaining it away using science.
In philosophy, this is similar to the 'God of the gaps' argument and it is well demonstrated in human history. As our scientific knowledge of topics like astronomy, biology and geology has expanded, the perceived role of the supernatural in day to day life has retreated to fewer and fewer gaps. In my experience, religious belief inside fantasy novels always comes across as more believable simply because of the limited scientific knowledge that comes with the societies portrayed in the fantasy genre as compared to science fiction.
I don't think political correctness comes into it, except perhaps as a commercial imperative not to isolate some readers. The trend of religion being trumped by science in speculative fiction dates back at least a century or more. I don't recall HG Wells or Jules Verne tackling much religion. Maybe I've just forgotten it.
Will you marry me? :-)
It is jarring to see a post on this board about not incorporating religion or spirituality into fiction when OSC is such a prevalent component of this community. He incorporates Moromon/Christian fundamentals in so much of his work, without being obtrustive, and I like it :-)
Generally writers tend to be of a liberal ilk and currently religion and spirituality are not high on the priority list of the left, so to appear religious or judgemental (which oddly arises when you have a sense of right and wrong) are not popular among the entertainment quarters.
Hmm, perfect example, I'm looking over my text trying to make sure I don't come across as some kind of zealot, which if you knew me, you would realize is ludicrous.
Anyway...Survivor let me know if you want to set a date so I can clear it with my wife :-)
I was merely observing that even though 90-95% of people believe in a higher power, it's odd that you rarely see characters who make even a casual acknowledgement of having a spiritual life.
People talk about their jobs, their spouses, their kids, their sex lives, as well as the people they know at church in real life. As writers, we endeavor to have our characters seem as real as possible.
So why is it that characters in stories mention the jobs, the spouses, the kids, the sex life... but rarely mention they have a spiritual life?
Here's an example of what I mean:
Joe: I don't know, Sam. I'm not sure I should buy one of these cars.
Sam: One of the guys at my church bought one. He really likes it.
See? A brief reference to a spiritual life establishes a little about the character, just as mention of a spouse, a job, or a child would. So why don't more people use spirituality as a point of character development?
I'm only dropping my two cents in because it occurred to me when reading the original post that you compared books and movies - I dont agree that religion is left out of sff novels - it seems to me to be quite well used in fantasy novels in particular, but I do think it is excluded from hollywood movies. The reason? The fear of upsetting/excluding any part of their audience. The Chronicals of Narnia, as already mentioned, is a case in point - Aslan is a character, the rightful King, rather than being portrayed as a God. I can't imagine how they plan to attempt The Last Battle. The BBC did a version of a few of the stories several years ago but stopped at The Silver Chair.
We all know that religion is an extremely emotive subject, in some areas more than others. I think that film, with its focus on immediate, worldwide entertainment shies away it. Of course there are films that deal with religious matters - The Passion of the Christ, The Last Temptation of Christ - but I think they are counting on the contraversy they can generate. The two approaches are polar opposites.
The only novel I can think of that used religion in this way is (I'm ashamed to say) the Da Vinci Code!
Anyway, my 2 cents
Ruth
[This message has been edited by Corky (edited January 02, 2006).]
The reason that science fiction/fantasy has little religion in them simply boils down to the writers. Take Tolkien and Lewis as a prime example. If a writer values religion it will find expression in their work.
The impetus for the series I've been working on was reading the Death Gate Cycle by Hickman and Weis. I was so discouraged by the weak conclusion of their religious allusions that I decided someone needed to be writing fantasy with the kind of theological perspective that I desired. I for one wholly intend to let my beliefs inform my writing, as should every one whose beliefs are different than mine for that matter.
It inspired me to work on something similar (someone comes back from the future and tries to convince his younger self to make better choices).
I think that many writers (and the literature they produce) trends more towards spirituality (of whatever kind) than towards religion. It's important to note that a number of religions deny that such a thing as the spirit exists, or at least deny that humans have such a thing. Religious observance and spirituality are not the same thing, though one usually indicates something about the other (just what it indicates depends a great deal on the particulars of what the religion has to say on the subject of spirituality).
Also, as I mentioned, spirituality can be directed towards totally evil ends. It is as possible to hate someone in a spiritual sense as it is to love. That is, to desire the diminishment and destruction of the spirit, rather than its nurture and protection. A very spiritual character could be the anti-christ, after all.
I recognize it a lot more since my wife is a professor of Religious Studies and her field of study is religion in culture, notably religion in literature.
Dracula, Frankenstien and Interview with a Vampire are steeped in religion, man's pursuit to become God like either through immortality or by creating life, which in the long run makes a man immortal.
To Kill a Mockingbird, choosing between the fast and easy choice and the hard righteous choice. Not to mention, the Christ like characters of Atticus Finch and Tom Robinson.
Heart of Darkness: The journey of a soul into the depths of darkness and madness while it tries to hold onto its last strings of purity. In Kurtz we see the downfall of man in the garden of eden. In his Congo domain, Kurtz becomes godlike to the natives and in his quest for more materialistic trappings he suffers the fall from grace. Kurtz' fall is unsettling to Marlow, as it is to many of us, as we see Kurtz as a case of a soul crying out that it is saved but is more lost than ever before.
For Catholics out there a good book to read by a Catholic author that deals with reconcilation is Beloved by Toni Morrison. A ghost story set in 18th century slave narrative that shows the importance of forgiving yourself after God has forgiven you. Sethe, a former slave living in post Civil War Ohio, has to deal with the ghost of her child whom she killed so that the child would not have to grow up in the bonds of slavery. The child's name is Beloved because that was what she scratched into the child's makeshift wooden tombstone. To make matters worse, Sethe actually had two fhildren. She killed one child and the other child, Denver, survived. When Sethe eventually learns to forgive herself she finds the peace for which she has been searching. And Beloved realizes, in weird sort of way, the love her mother had her.
There are religious themes in The Grapes of Wrath, Of Mice and Men, The Great Gatsby, The Lord of the Rings, All's quiet on the Western Front, The Harry Potter series, A gathering of Old Men, A Lesson Before Dying, The Color Purple, The Red Badge of Courage, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Great Expectations, The Scarlet Letter and many more.
In the movies there are the Christ like characters of William Defoe's character in Platoon Sigourney Weaver's character in all three Alien movies, especially the last one...Resurrection.
There are religious themes in Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven and Stephen Kings' The Shawshank Redemption. I think religion is all around us.
Peace,
Scott