(no subject)
Not long ago, tree_and_leaf did an interesting essay on RTD's Doctor Who era and how it revealed his Jesus issues, and as I read it through, I was suddenly struck with something out of the incomparable Perelandra, and thereon found myself running down new roads of cosmology - or maybe not new roads, but I was suddenly made aware of them.
Atheism and the attendant belief that the universe is fundamentally indifferent to humanity has some interesting consequences. It has to do with how we could possibly cope with being outside the little world of Earth. When Americans think of sci fi, right off the top of their heads would be Star Trek, which is, like a lot of popular sci fi, pretty atheistic. Or at least it started that way. In any case, it shows human beings (and a bunch of other races) shooting out among the stars in their shiny new technology, taking on the wonders of the universe with awe, enlightenment, and fascination. Sure, there's danger and sure, there's death, but it's seen as grander danger and grander death than anything they could have found at home, and definitely worth the price. More than that, these intrepid explorers are made better by their experiences, and live happy, interesting, and well-adjusted lives. Mostly.
Or that's what most people think when they think of secular humanistic sci fi.
Doctor Who is mostly this way, too. The universe is terrifying, but it's also wonderful, and one can travel in it for awhile and then leave it, perhaps missing the adventure and excitement and really wild things, but not regretting the decision in any way, and generally living a happy life. Or so it's usually assumed. Then Davies came along, and during his tenure, the show has had a worrying undertone. Donna called travelling with the Doctor "terrifying, brilliant and funny, sometimes all at the same time", but what she didn't say is that it's portrayed as addicting. And not in a healthy way. "Prettier it looks," says Riley in "42", "the more likely it is to kill you." We're given a world where the companions would run with the Doctor until it killed them, never thinking to leave him, never thinking to settle down. As if they get stuck in this one kind of existence and can't ever leave, addicted to a fatal drug.
I can't help but wonder if this is the creeping edge of an idea that since (as an atheist would say) we are the product of our own little Earth, with minds built for our own little Earth and its limited environs, taking us out of it is dangerous, damaging, and ultimately deadly. Douglas Adams touched on this, with the Total Perspective Vortex, theorizing that we depend on the perspective filters of our own minds to shut out all the parts of the universe that we don't inhabit, because if we didn't, we would instantly die. It's as if happiness can only exist in the thin film of life that we have on the skin of Earth, that if we were to venture out into wider space, we would go mad. Not from monsters, not from evil, not from any active force, but simply from the cold fact of infinity and the vastness of the universe.
And that makes sense in a materialistic universe. If all that exists beyond the membrane of life that we have formed here on earth is a infinite indifference, why would we imagine that we could survive our voyages through it, sanity intact? We have built a cocoon around us of calendars and rituals and relations and things, and to leave it would destroy the framework of our minds. That's when I started to think of Perelandra. There's a bit about halfway through when Drs Ransom and Weston are talking, the last time Weston is able to say much at all, and he starts raving about the true nature of the universe, that life is no more than a thin rind before we find ourselves pushed through to utter reality, into the realm of ghosts and nightmares, that as science reveals more of the nature of the universe, the more it discovers that the universe is cruel, and monstrous, and utterly without reason. And I started to think, well, if that's true, then what are we doing, staring out into space, pointing telescopes at things, trying to split matter into its tiniest components, and coaxing artificial alloys to do amazing new tricks? Science by its nature, then, as a means of discovering the workings of the universe, messes with us until we are bent, twisting and turning our perception until we are broken. Our world would cease to make sense.
I suppose there's truth in that: we're finite, and we can't hold everything we did in a single day in our heads, let alone everything that exists in all of Creation. But I can't help thinking that this leads to the idea that truth kills. If knowing what's Out There will make our brains explode, then what are we doing trying to find it out?
But if you take the view that we are not just meat and bones, that we are more than cultures and races, that we are a sort of "amphibian" (as C.S. Lewis called it in The Screwtape Letters) possessing both a material and spiritual nature, then you could almost say that the danger is all in our heads. Solomon mentioned that God has "set eternity in the hearts of men" (Ecclesiastes 3:11), and I personally think that means that while we can't comprehend the universe in its entirety, we can, somehow, deep down, deal with it. Properly. That rather than having our brains blown open, we can have them expanded beautifully, never losing the ability to notice the small along with the great. If we were designed by a Creator God, one who made us in his image and gave us curiousity and intelligence, knowing full well what we would get up to as we learned more and more about our world, which he had openly and decisively declared "very good" (Genesis chapter 1), then it seems a little weird that he wouldn't give us the capacity to enjoy it. I mean, everbody has things they can't handle, for various reasons, but God never told us not to go out and explore. With no prohibition against it, and the psalmist saying that "the heavens declare the glory of God, the sky above proclaims his handiwork," I rather think God expects us to enjoy the wonder that is His universe.
And you know, I was really intending that to be about Pagan Joy vs. Christian Joy, but I got a bit derailed. Oh well. I'm sure it'll come up some other time.
Oh, in other news: it snowed last night! It didn't stick around (too warm for that), but still... snow!
Atheism and the attendant belief that the universe is fundamentally indifferent to humanity has some interesting consequences. It has to do with how we could possibly cope with being outside the little world of Earth. When Americans think of sci fi, right off the top of their heads would be Star Trek, which is, like a lot of popular sci fi, pretty atheistic. Or at least it started that way. In any case, it shows human beings (and a bunch of other races) shooting out among the stars in their shiny new technology, taking on the wonders of the universe with awe, enlightenment, and fascination. Sure, there's danger and sure, there's death, but it's seen as grander danger and grander death than anything they could have found at home, and definitely worth the price. More than that, these intrepid explorers are made better by their experiences, and live happy, interesting, and well-adjusted lives. Mostly.
Or that's what most people think when they think of secular humanistic sci fi.
Doctor Who is mostly this way, too. The universe is terrifying, but it's also wonderful, and one can travel in it for awhile and then leave it, perhaps missing the adventure and excitement and really wild things, but not regretting the decision in any way, and generally living a happy life. Or so it's usually assumed. Then Davies came along, and during his tenure, the show has had a worrying undertone. Donna called travelling with the Doctor "terrifying, brilliant and funny, sometimes all at the same time", but what she didn't say is that it's portrayed as addicting. And not in a healthy way. "Prettier it looks," says Riley in "42", "the more likely it is to kill you." We're given a world where the companions would run with the Doctor until it killed them, never thinking to leave him, never thinking to settle down. As if they get stuck in this one kind of existence and can't ever leave, addicted to a fatal drug.
I can't help but wonder if this is the creeping edge of an idea that since (as an atheist would say) we are the product of our own little Earth, with minds built for our own little Earth and its limited environs, taking us out of it is dangerous, damaging, and ultimately deadly. Douglas Adams touched on this, with the Total Perspective Vortex, theorizing that we depend on the perspective filters of our own minds to shut out all the parts of the universe that we don't inhabit, because if we didn't, we would instantly die. It's as if happiness can only exist in the thin film of life that we have on the skin of Earth, that if we were to venture out into wider space, we would go mad. Not from monsters, not from evil, not from any active force, but simply from the cold fact of infinity and the vastness of the universe.
And that makes sense in a materialistic universe. If all that exists beyond the membrane of life that we have formed here on earth is a infinite indifference, why would we imagine that we could survive our voyages through it, sanity intact? We have built a cocoon around us of calendars and rituals and relations and things, and to leave it would destroy the framework of our minds. That's when I started to think of Perelandra. There's a bit about halfway through when Drs Ransom and Weston are talking, the last time Weston is able to say much at all, and he starts raving about the true nature of the universe, that life is no more than a thin rind before we find ourselves pushed through to utter reality, into the realm of ghosts and nightmares, that as science reveals more of the nature of the universe, the more it discovers that the universe is cruel, and monstrous, and utterly without reason. And I started to think, well, if that's true, then what are we doing, staring out into space, pointing telescopes at things, trying to split matter into its tiniest components, and coaxing artificial alloys to do amazing new tricks? Science by its nature, then, as a means of discovering the workings of the universe, messes with us until we are bent, twisting and turning our perception until we are broken. Our world would cease to make sense.
I suppose there's truth in that: we're finite, and we can't hold everything we did in a single day in our heads, let alone everything that exists in all of Creation. But I can't help thinking that this leads to the idea that truth kills. If knowing what's Out There will make our brains explode, then what are we doing trying to find it out?
But if you take the view that we are not just meat and bones, that we are more than cultures and races, that we are a sort of "amphibian" (as C.S. Lewis called it in The Screwtape Letters) possessing both a material and spiritual nature, then you could almost say that the danger is all in our heads. Solomon mentioned that God has "set eternity in the hearts of men" (Ecclesiastes 3:11), and I personally think that means that while we can't comprehend the universe in its entirety, we can, somehow, deep down, deal with it. Properly. That rather than having our brains blown open, we can have them expanded beautifully, never losing the ability to notice the small along with the great. If we were designed by a Creator God, one who made us in his image and gave us curiousity and intelligence, knowing full well what we would get up to as we learned more and more about our world, which he had openly and decisively declared "very good" (Genesis chapter 1), then it seems a little weird that he wouldn't give us the capacity to enjoy it. I mean, everbody has things they can't handle, for various reasons, but God never told us not to go out and explore. With no prohibition against it, and the psalmist saying that "the heavens declare the glory of God, the sky above proclaims his handiwork," I rather think God expects us to enjoy the wonder that is His universe.
And you know, I was really intending that to be about Pagan Joy vs. Christian Joy, but I got a bit derailed. Oh well. I'm sure it'll come up some other time.
Oh, in other news: it snowed last night! It didn't stick around (too warm for that), but still... snow!