Why do so many skeptics like science fiction and fantasy?

[MRC_Hans]

Why do so many skeptics like science fiction and fantasy literature?

It puzzles me.

It just seems odd that people who don't believe in the paranormal or the unscientific should love these genres.

Am I missing out?

Same reason as why other people like them, I presume. After all, religious people are as aware as skeptics that SF&F is ..fiction, so why would there be a difference?

Hans

 

[GrandMasterFox]

Pardon me if I'm repeating, haven't all all of page 1.

Why do so many skeptics like science fiction and fantasy literature?

My question to you would be this:

Have you considered you're confusing cause and effect?
Perhaps skeptics don't like science fiction as much as science fiction readers love skepticisim?

Jeff Dee once said his love for sci-fi was partly what brought out his atheism. The fact that he loved looking at all sorts of possible alternate versions of reality and analyse them for their flaws helped him look at the same flaws in the biblical version of reality.

 

[Theofrak]

Why do so many skeptics like science fiction and fantasy literature?

It puzzles me.

It just seems odd that people who don't believe in the paranormal or the unscientific should love these genres.

Am I missing out?

Science fiction opened my mind, which led to my skepticism.

 

[Jorghnassen]

I'm a sucker for a good story, regardless of genre. Well, not entirely. I love some good horror or fantasy, and the occasional sci-fi, but all those are rare.

 

[Humes fork]

Same reason as why other people like them, I presume. After all, religious people are as aware as skeptics that SF&F is ..fiction, so why would there be a difference?

Hans

It always puzzled me how Christians could play Age of Mythology with a straight face.

 

[Bram Kaandorp]

It always puzzled me how Christians could play Age of Mythology with a straight face.

"What, Christianity isn't a myth, it's the truth!"

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

Funnily enough, that justification is at least as old as Justin Martyr. He actually argues at length basically: WTH, why can you accept virgin-born sons of Zeus and not Jesus? We're not asking you to believe anything you don't already find believable. They're practically the same thing, right? Except... erm... Jesus is the real deal, while the others were done by Satan in a advance to confuse people

 

[Bram Kaandorp]

Funnily enough, that justification is at least as old as Justin Martyr. He actually argues at length basically: WTH, why can you accept virgin-born sons of Zeus and not Jesus? We're not asking you to believe anything you don't already find believable. They're practically the same thing, right? Except... erm... Jesus is the real deal, while the others were done by Satan in a advance to confuse people

Now that is indeed funny.

 

[xtifr]

Funnily enough, that justification is at least as old as Justin Martyr. He actually argues at length basically: WTH, why can you accept virgin-born sons of Zeus and not Jesus? We're not asking you to believe anything you don't already find believable. They're practically the same thing, right? Except... erm... Jesus is the real deal, while the others were done by Satan in a advance to confuse people

That seems like a peculiar story, given that the Romans generally didn't object to other people having their own beliefs about their own gods as long as they were willing to acknowledge and pay tribute to the gods of Rome as well. Notable exceptions, of course, were the Druids and the Christians, who were considered--correctly or not is still debated--to be human-sacrificing serial killers and Zeus-denying terrorists respectively.

I can't help but wonder if that story hasn't been subject to some historical revisionism in the intervening centuries.

 

[Humes fork]

"What, Christianity isn't a myth, it's the truth!"

I know they think that, but I had primarily in mind the fact that worshipping (non-Christian) gods is an essential part of the game.

 

[crimresearch]

Why do so many skeptics like science fiction and fantasy literature?

It puzzles me.

It just seems odd that people who don't believe in the paranormal or the unscientific should love these genres.

Am I missing out?

I like good writers, especially if they toss in a bit of sarcasm or irreverent perspectives. Some of them write mysteries. Some of them write philosophy. Some of them write science fiction.

It has nothing to do with the genre, there is a lot of garbage (including massively popular garbage), in many genres.

 

[Dinwar]

That seems like a peculiar story, given that the Romans generally didn't object to other people having their own beliefs about their own gods as long as they were willing to acknowledge and pay tribute to the gods of Rome as well. Notable exceptions, of course, were the Druids and the Christians, who were considered--correctly or not is still debated--to be human-sacrificing serial killers and Zeus-denying terrorists respectively.

I can't help but wonder if that story hasn't been subject to some historical revisionism in the intervening centuries.

Well, like all good propaganda there's an element of truth to these. The Celts were rather vicious. Their methods of public execution included religious elements, as I understand it. So technically they DID engage in human sacrifices--but really, it was no worse than what the Romans did, public executions of captured enemies being a common occurance back then. And as for the Christians, they were a subset of the Jewish people for a long time (something Christian antisemites conveniently forget), and the Jews did include Zeus-denying terrorists.

It has nothing to do with the genre, there is a lot of garbage (including massively popular garbage), in many genres.

90% of everything is crap.

 

[gumboot]

That seems like a peculiar story, given that the Romans generally didn't object to other people having their own beliefs about their own gods as long as they were willing to acknowledge and pay tribute to the gods of Rome as well. Notable exceptions, of course, were the Druids and the Christians, who were considered--correctly or not is still debated--to be human-sacrificing serial killers and Zeus-denying terrorists respectively.

I can't help but wonder if that story hasn't been subject to some historical revisionism in the intervening centuries.

Zeus is Greek, not Roman.

 

[Dinwar]

Zeus is Greek, not Roman.

Jupiter, then. Though to be honest, it's not much more than a difference in name--the god was the same in all the aspects that matter, from my reading (mostly Bulfinch's work).

 

[Bram Kaandorp]

I know they think that, but I had primarily in mind the fact that worshipping (non-Christian) gods is an essential part of the game.

That's the fun of being religious. You get to have two levels of suspension of disbelief. One for the things you're supposed to think are real but aren't (holy books and such), and one for fiction.

 

[Noztradamus]

Well, like all good propaganda there's an element of truth to these. The Celts were rather vicious. Their methods of public execution included religious elements, as I understand it. So technically they DID engage in human sacrifices--but really, it was no worse than what the Romans did, public executions of captured enemies being a common occurance back then. And as for the Christians, ...

I never expected the Spanish Inquisition!

Auto-da-fé exactly what it says on the package.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

That seems like a peculiar story, given that the Romans generally didn't object to other people having their own beliefs about their own gods as long as they were willing to acknowledge and pay tribute to the gods of Rome as well. Notable exceptions, of course, were the Druids and the Christians, who were considered--correctly or not is still debated--to be human-sacrificing serial killers and Zeus-denying terrorists respectively.

I can't help but wonder if that story hasn't been subject to some historical revisionism in the intervening centuries.

I wouldn't be surprised if it did get revised anyway, but Justin WAS denying the gods of the state. His whole apology is in the context of being accused of being an "atheist" for denying the official gods.

He's not saying that Jesus is as real as Hercules or Theseus. He's just saying that everything he believes about Jesus is, after all, no different from what the Romans already believed about Hercules or Theseus. But, of course, in the case of Jesus it's the real thing, while Hercules or Theseus are just made by Satan to confuse the people.

Basically Satan figured out that something like Jesus would happen, so he went in advance and made a lot of false sons of gods as decoys

In fact, that's the funny part. He effectively realizes that his Jesus story is a mashup of standard hero story tropes, but still cames out the other side with the cognitive dissonance resolved to Jesus being the real thing, although the others are just Satan trying to confuse people.

 

[Bram Kaandorp]

I wouldn't be surprised if it did get revised anyway, but Justin WAS denying the gods of the state. His whole apology is in the context of being accused of being an "atheist" for denying the official gods.

He's not saying that Jesus is as real as Hercules or Theseus. He's just saying that everything he believes about Jesus is, after all, no different from what the Romans already believed about Hercules or Theseus. But, of course, in the case of Jesus it's the real thing, while Hercules or Theseus are just made by Satan to confuse the people.

Basically Satan figured out that something like Jesus would happen, so he went in advance and made a lot of false sons of gods as decoys

In fact, that's the funny part. He effectively realizes that his Jesus story is a mashup of standard hero story tropes, but still cames out the other side with the cognitive dissonance resolved to Jesus being the real thing, although the others are just Satan trying to confuse people.

Here's one (related to science fiction, no less):

Let's take those things as true.

1. Satan made those myth's to make jesus look less special, thus;
2. Satan can travel in time.
3. God didn't go back in time, because they don't say he did, thus;
Satan is more powerful than God, because he can go back and change things.

No wonder God needs all those humans to fight Satan; He can't handle it on his own.

This is also something that bugs me in science fiction (there's the relation). If you can go back in time to change things, and paradoxes don't exist (as is the case in many soft science fiction stories), then why (other than "the writer thought it would be a bad idea") don't they just do whatever?

 

[arthwollipot]

I can't help but wonder if that story hasn't been subject to some historical revisionism in the intervening centuries.

What history hasn't?

 

[quadraginta]

I like good writers, especially if they toss in a bit of sarcasm or irreverent perspectives. Some of them write mysteries. Some of them write philosophy. Some of them write science fiction.

<snip>

I think it is a mistake to look at SF as somehow different from those things. Rather it is one (or more) of those things in a setting which isn't contemporary or historically accurate. Mystery, or philosophy, or drama, or comedy ...

The stage is potentially much bigger, and the scenery is limited only by the writer's imagination and his skill at communicating.

When authors like Haggard and Conrad chose exotic locations as backdrops for their novels they were doing much the same thing, but for some reason most people don't disparage King Solomon's Mines or Heart of Darkness the way they might an SF novel.

Regarding the OP. I think that an awful lot of the most well respected SF is social philosophy of the 'what if' sort, exploring concepts which are more disturbing when viewed as fact.

Gene Roddenberry did this quite intentionally with Star Trek. He said that he put social issues into a context which would let him slip them by TV censors, even though most of the audience knew exactly what he was trying to portray.

It doesn't surprise me much that minds of a skeptical inclination are entertained by a genre which as often as not challenges cultural assumptions in a way which might be uncomfortable to those who are less questioning and more complacent.