Most Popular Posts
Search
-
Spider Star
The human colony on the planet Argo has long explored and exploited the technology left behind by an extinct alien race. But then an archaeology team accidentally activates a terrible weapon...
Read More. -
Praise for Star Dragon
"Seldom does a storytelling talent come along as potent and fully mature as Mike Brotherton. His complex characters take you on a voyage that is both fiercely credible and astonishingly imaginative. This is Science Fiction."
-- David Brin"Star Dragon is terrific fare, offering readers a fusion of hard science and grand adventure."
-- Locus Magazine"Star Dragon is steeped in cosmology, the physics of interstellar travel, exobiology, artificial intelligence, bioscience. Brotherton, author of many scientific articles in refereed journals, has written a dramatic, provocative, utterly convincing hard science sf novel that includes an ironic twist that fans will love."
-- Booklist starred review"Readers hungry for the thought-provoking extrapolation and rigorous technical detail of old-fashioned hard SF are sure to enjoy astronomer Brotherton's first novel."
-- Publishers Weekly"Mike Brotherton, himself a trained astrophysicist, combines the technical acuity and ingenuity of Robert Forward with the ironic, postmodern stance and style of M. John Harrison. In this, his debut novel, those twin talents unite to produce a work that is involving on any number of levels. It's just about all you could ask for in a hardcore SF adventure."
-- Paul di Fillippo, SCI-FI.COM
Everywhere you look in Geekdom…SATAN!
January 10th, 2010
I love the Adam Sandler movie The Waterboy. His mother, wonderfully played by Kathy Bates, sees the Devil in everything, much the way the Church Lady on Saturday Night Live would blame things on Satan.
Those are comedies, with ridiculous and exaggerated characters played for humor. Or…are they?
Unfortunately the religious extreme exaggerate themselves in real life, and that’s not so funny.
For instance, some warn us to “beware of science fiction” because of all the atheism. Yikes! Just imagine… (it’s the Beatles, too, not just science fiction). Of course, beyond those damn atheists, agnostics, and free love advocates like Heinlein, Asimov, Haldeman, and Sagan, there are a bunch of excellent and thoughtful science fiction novels that depend on religion, like James Blish’s A Case of Conscience, Mary Doria Russell’s The Sparrow, and Robert Sawyer’s Calculating God. But god damn the whole field for being full of independent thinking people writing about anything and everything they want to!
And then there’s the frumpy, middle-aged Mom who says that Video Games were Invented by the Devil. She later recants…but not really. Damn bait and switch, liar Mom! Voldemort is the devil, too.
This all makes me pretty pissed off when people, especially atheists, criticize atheists for being vocal and visible in the world. We have religious nutjobs walking around and accusing smart, geeky things of being hellspawn on a daily basis. OK, maybe Mom isn’t that bad, but she sure isn’t that good.
There are all sorts of things in our world and their effect depends on how they are approached and used. Anyone can go too far with everything. Let me suggest the real problem here is that some people have gone to far from speculating about our creation and purpose and have dived into the goofy juice. Can’t handle science fiction or video games? Why not pray about it? Or at least try some Guitar Praise. That should work!
Personally, I think we need to beware of the sloppy thinking and irrationality of religion. But that’s just what Satan would say, isn’t it?
Related Posts
Related Posts
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
<
January 11th, 2010 at 2:04 pm
I don’t know of any religious-based SF, although Alastair Reynolds earlier books have religious sounding titles such as Redemption Ark and Absolution Gap (though perhaps with an intended irony to them – any religions are more like cults). I certainly hadn’t detected any spiritually-based content in his later work (the protagonist dies and is brought back to life through neural engineering, with no mention of any soul.) That’s not to say that any exploration of humanity is left out.
On the subject of computer games: I have to admit to have been somewhat addicted to FPShooters, particularly the ones where you have to reach a checkpoint to progress. Some of them, such as Half -life2, it could be argued at least develop your problem-solving skills. There are times when they are good distractions from real life though. Can’t really comment on MMORG type games like World of WC since I don’t play them, but can see how they become like a second life, and will be more addictive with better immersion technology. Perhaps some of those truly addicted to these games would have otherwise become drug addicts or alcoholics. Cyber drugs instead!
January 11th, 2010 at 4:54 pm
Well, let’s take a moment to look at it from the perspective of a christian god. He (not it or she but he) created humans & set up rules to live by, & if you don’t follow them, at best you’ll never be happy after you die, at worst you’ll burn in hell forever. He doesn’t make it clear to everyone what the rules are. Maybe he has told some or maybe he hasn’t but several different groups claim he’s given them the rules & that if you follow any of the other groups claiming the same thing you’ll burn in hell forever. Each group claims this. Now, he’s god so he knows that this is going on & he allows it to continue. So, try to plug into that, someone that can setup a game where the stakes are higher than any other game possible yet not be sure that everyone playing even knows what the rules are. Who knows, maybe the “sloppy thinking and irrationality of religion” is exactly why god likes it.