Silk for calde blog: Wolfe thesis

Dan'l Danehy-Oakes · 22 Sep 2009, 18:49 · from 2009-September.txt.gz

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From: danldo at gmail.com (Dan'l Danehy-Oakes)
Date: Tue, 22 Sep 2009 11:49:07 -0700
Subject: (urth) Silk for calde blog: Wolfe thesis
In-Reply-To: <0B1704BE-B464-4041-BCD9-A6D8D8C03055 at io.com>
References: <370421.87684.qm at web50705.mail.re2.yahoo.com>
	<3306B551-9B74-41C4-A201-76CE02ADEAF7 at optusnet.com.au>
	<0B1704BE-B464-4041-BCD9-A6D8D8C03055 at io.com>
Message-ID: <1f7617370909221149h12f31355q8f269b0fef702965 at mail.gmail.com>

On Tue, Sep 22, 2009 at 8:39 AM, Adam Thornton <adam at io.com> wrote:

> Something I'd *really* like to see someone play with is: why is such a
> large proportion of religion-oriented SF Catholic?

One reason is that Catholicism is the Big Dog of Christianity. There is no
Protestant sect that comes near Catholicism in terms of total membership;
thus, if you want to present a generic Christian, a Catholic is the logical
choice.

In addition, there is a huge and interesting dynamic between Catholicism,
specifically, and science. Catholicism is the most "rationalistic" of the
Christian religions, with its theology heavily based on the Aristoteleanism
of St Thomas Aquinas. Yet Catholicism is -- or was, until fundamentalism
reared its head and began resenting biology and geology -- the sect which
has the most significant history of conflict with science and rationalism
(can you say Galileo? I knew you could).

Plus, as Jerry observed below, there is all the nifty colorful baggage that
comes with Catholicism - though if that's what you're looking for, Eastern
Orthodoxy is even better.

If it reflects the background of the authors, then why are Catholics
> overrepresented in SF authorship (and, concomitantly, why are there
> relatively few Jewish SF stories) ?  I mean, just off the top of my head:
>

Relatively few Jewish SF stories? Heavens, man, what about Asimov's "Robot"
stories? Those are all basically Talmudic disputation.

There are two excellent anthologies of Jewish SF edited by Jack Dann in the
'70s, "Wandering Stars" and "More Wandering Stars."

> Where's, for example, the Lutheran SF?  (If I were being snarky I'd ask and
> answer where the Baptist SF was.)  Or even specifically *Protestant*
> Christian SF?
>

I can't think of any Lutheran SF offhand, but there's an excellent Quaker SF
novel called "Pennterra" by Judith Moffatt.

-- 
Dan'l Danehy-Oakes
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