fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2323 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2323 ⌋

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Oh God, that's the worst.

Actually, no, the worst is when such writers write fictional stories in which it is obvious or provable that no gods exist, or in which religion is evil, and somehow expect that to function as a serious critique of actually-existing religion

looking at you, Melinda Snodgrass

....Bzuhwha? I don't remember that from her Star Trek novels. That was a long time ago for me, tho.

Not her Star Trek novels (although IIRC she was responsible for some of the Trek episodes with some of the more... grating commentary on religion) as her urban fantasy - specifically, the Edge of Ruin series, which is just not great, and in which literally all gods are actually Lovecraftian horrors out to destroy humanity, and also people who don't believe in them are Just Better than religious people, and there's just a lot of really obnoxious, dumb stuff about religion in them, as though the fact that she made a fantasy world where atheists are inherently better people than religious people meant that it were so, or that writing divine figures as Lovecraftian horrors was in some way an effective critique of religion

WOW. That's. Yeah. I never had any issues with her writing on TNG, but maybe it sailed way over my head at that age. Def. not interested in that fantasy series tho. Thanks for the heads-up!

*tilts head* I read Lovecraft, and I honestly cannot see how one can get "effective critique of religion" from Lovecraftian gods. Dude! They are ELDRITCH ABOMINATIONS! I mean...Yog Sothoth for the more uhhhhh institutional (yes that's a good word let's go with that word) churches maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaybe as a very oblique, very generalized metaphor, but even that's a pretty far stretch....

You could argue Nyarlathotep as a Christ/Antichrist/Satan figure, what with the wandering-the-earth, the wearing human forms, the acting as the avatar of outer gods on earth, the caring (for given values of the word) for the cults/churches formed by lesser beings, etc. He also slots in with tricksters from other systems, as well as prophets, priests, apostates, itinerant preachers and used car-salesmen. Provided you also believe that any of those people/figures will up and murder you for shits and giggles at a moment's notice, but that's arguably a commentary in itself.

Because most religions and religious systems are so old and so ingrained, it's possible to get some semi-meaningful commentary from any fictional depiction of a religion/mythology, even if the author never actually intended it.

AYRT

You make good and valid points, but something tells me that's not quite what Melinda Snodgrass was aiming for, from nonny's description above.

AYRT

Haven't read the woman. I was just commenting specifically on the 'Lovecraft as religious commentary' part :)

Ah, I see! Sorry for any confusion. :-)

Snakes can't talk, women can not become pregnant through magic, there is no historic record of Jesus existing out of magical stories written many years after his supposed death, humans do not survive being eaten by whales, humans can not live for thousands of years, the only mention of Lucifer in the bible is not about a fallen angel, but of a Babylonian king who is likened to Jesus.

There, the Bible is fake, just like every other religion ever created.

(a) None of that is relevant to the comment you replied to, and (b) that last bit isn't even relevant to arguing the Bible is fictional. It's relevant to arguing Christian mythology as commonly understood has diverged substantially from its primary sources.

Calling something fake implies someone made it up to screw with people, and I think that's unrealistically harsh in most cases. The Bible is mythology, a casserole of history and legend and embellishment and transcription errors like anything else that's been around for that long.

As long as people aren't trying to use it to deny actual empirical evidence, who cares if they do some mental gymnastics to believe it's essentially or symbolically true? (The ones who are using it to deny actual empirical evidence can hit themselves in the face with it.)

Gosh, what a devastatingly intellectual powerhouse of argument that was.

/lol, regurgitated first grade atheism for the kiddies.

So you think that an all-powerful being capable of creating universes would be incapable of using a metaphor?

(I'm not Christian, I just loathe stuck-up people.)

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