We Reach for Utopia (Part 1 of 2)

 

My window looks out over a sprawling city. It seems like every ten minutes, some sort of emergency vehicle speeds past, the wail of its siren growing louder, until it echoes eerily off the walls of my room, then fades into the distance.

There is something desperately wrong with society. We as humans know this to be true on a fundamental level. We want to fix it. We want to build a perfect civilization.

Thousands of years ago, the people of the world convened together, and decided to build a tower in celebration of the ideal society they’d thought they’d formed, marked by a single ambition, and united by a single language. This tower would be the crowning achievement of their humanist utopia. They thought that by their own power, by their own greatness, they could make their world perfect. They were wrong. (If you aren't catching my drift, read Genesis 11).

Ever since the failure at Babel, the diverse peoples of earth have continued to strive for such a world, one they could take hold of and make perfect. We seem to think there’s something inherent in our race that makes us great, that makes us conquerors, that makes us world-builders, and that if we can only tap into that something, everything will go right for us.

Don’t believe me? Look at our history. Dictators have gone to extremes to bring out the parts of the human race that they think will lead to a golden future. Look at our philosophy. Great thinkers have theorized on the flaws of society, and what people can do to cure them. Look at our stories. Authors dream up utopian cities, and worlds, and federations, quite similar to the dreams of Babel, where human intuition and goodness has solved all our problems. (Sci-fi fans. You know what I mean.)

But like Babel, all our ambitions lie there unfinished. Why? Why would we long so deeply for a perfect world if we can never achieve it?

You see, humanity lived in a perfect world once. The original man and woman were completely united with one another, and fulfilled to the core of their being. And it all centered around their Creator and Sustainer, God.

God was was the author of this original utopia. As His creations enjoyed, walked with, and came to know Him, they achieved the purpose of their existence. They lived in the only truly perfect society.

Then, as we are now too painfully aware of, they fell for the ruse we have been falling for ever since. They believed the lie that they could have perfection based on their own power, knowledge, and nature, apart from God. They were wrong. (This account is in Genesis 1-3).

So, now, here our race is. Delving further into the myth that we are the key to flawless existence. That if we only try hard enough, we can do anything. All the while, we are only one step away from the true answer to all humanity’s problems: our Creator and our Lord.

We reach for utopia in every direction but up.

Yeah, I know it's more depressing than my usual fare, but this is only the first part to the story. Tune in for my next Wednesday post, two Wednesdays from today, and I'll continue with the same theme, but with a more hopeful ending. In the meantime, there will be a top 5 Tuesday article that will probably just consist of geeky fluff. I hope you enjoyed. I hope I made you think. I'd love to hear from you!

Keep on glowing in the dark,
Elora

Bright Shining as the Sun

Hi all!

     I wasn't expecting to post today, but then I started poking around the geekier side of Pinterest and I came across this...

   Now I don't know about you all, but seeing the light of a star peeking up over a planet, while reading a passage about friendship and sacrifice calls to mind a story I once watched. (Once. Ha. That's a joke. I've watched The Wrath of Khan way more than once.)

    It also gets me thinking about how that story points back to the scripture. Laying our lives down for others isn't an instinct we're born with. In our humanity, we want to save ourselves. But God calls us to act differently. That's why so many good stories have elements of sacrifice

    They remind us that letting go of  ourselves, and our own interests is noble, and good. They stir something inside our souls that God built into us. And if we let them, stories of sacrifice can connect us to the atoning death of Jesus Christ on the cross.

    I wonder if the person who put this scripture art together was having similar thoughts. It would seem logical to me.

     Thank you for listening to my random ramblings. I hope they encourage you, (or amuse you, if nothing else).  If you have exciting thoughts on story and theme and Jesus, please comment! I'd love to hear from you. I'll be back tomorrow with a top five list- because who doesn't love a good list?

Keep on glowing in the dark,
Elora

It's Alive!

  

 Many people consider Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein to be the first novel that can be concretely classified as science fiction. It is the story of a scientist who discovers the secret of creating life. He uses the science of his day to construct a living creature out of dead tissue. In doing so, both the author and her protagonist stumble upon a moral conundrum that has fueled sci-fi ever since. What happens when man tampers with the affairs of God?

     The question is not so much ‘can man create life?’; that is the domain of scientists. It is the job of science to answer the ‘can we?’. It is the job of science fiction to answer the ‘what if we?’. What if we had the ability to create life?

    Where did we get this kind of a question? We got it in the Garden of Eden when we learned an important but tragic lesson about human pride.

"Then the serpent said to the woman, ‘You will not surely die. For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.’ So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate”. - Genesis 3:4-6 NKJV

     The thing that tempted Eve about the fruit was not that she thought it would taste good, but that she thought it would make her like God. God is the creator of life. Therefore, attempting to mimic this creation is attempting to control our own destiny as humans. Like Eve biting into the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, it is attempting to make ourselves like God. No wonder the search for the secret of life fascinates us so much. It has always fascinated us.

    Science fiction gives us a laboratory, if I may, in which to experiment with this idea. Oftentimes in fiction, ‘playing God’ results in disaster, just as it did in reality. Here are a few familiar examples. Though these categories don’t  always show the downsides of tampering with life, or even ask the questions I’m discussing, they very frequently do:

1. Man-made Monsters-

    Frankenstein's Monster, Mr. Hyde, and similar early science fiction and horror icons often leave death in their wake and cause the destruction of their creators.

2. Robots-

    (I’m not going to get into ideas of sentience and personhood right now. That’s a post for another time. Or a lot of posts for a lot of other times.) Though not technically alive, these machines with a personality (and sometimes a temper), can spell doom for humanity. They also have a tendency to try to become the dominant ‘species’ in the cosmos. Think of V’ger or Nomad from Star Trek, the Cylons from Battlestar Galactica, and Ultron from Marvel Comics. (Also, there is a Classic Doctor Who episode called “The Robots of Death”. I thought I would just throw that one out there. )

3. Clones-

    They are pretty similar to robots in their usage, only they’re biological, and made with already existing DNA. Some clones (as well as some robots), can be harmless and even heroic characters. However, they can also be the source of all sorts of moral and practical mixups, chaos and confusion. For example, in the Star Wars prequels, they were corrupted into a huge war-machine made up of identical, expendable soldiers.

4. Genetic Engineering-

     You could say it has its pros and Khans… (alright, that was terrible, but do you know how long I've been waiting to use that one?). On the one hand, you can get someone like Captain America. On the other, you can get someone like Khan Noonien Singh- which is bad.

(Fun and geeky side note- Another member of Khan’s genetically engineered super-race appears in the Star Trek Animated Series episode, “The Infinite Vulcan”)

5. Terraforming-

    Though this creates a different sort of life than the other examples, it is still an example of humans trying to shape and control life. Usually, terraforming stories end with the destruction of pre-existing life, or just failure.  Consider Stargate SG-1 episode, “Scorched Earth”, The Genesis planet of the Star Trek films, and the xeno-terraforming in The War of the Worlds.

    Should man tamper in the domain of God? What would be the result if he did? These are questions that we have grappled with since the beginning of science fiction, and really, since the beginning of humanity. We are created in the image of God, yet we are creatures who are subject to Him. When we try through our own ingenuity to make ourselves great, or exalt ourselves to the loftiness of God, we will always fail. Still, concepts of life from non-life are fascinating to us. There is much to explore, much to learn about the human condition and our place in the universe. What are the limitations? When is it right and when is it wrong? What are the consequences? Why are they there? These are the questions that will continue to inspire science  and fiction until the end of time. And when we genuinely search for answers, we will find them in the Creator and Owner of all life.


Hello again! I'm back! Now that it's summer, I'm hoping to post more regularly. So, don't join me next week, because I'll be out of town....But! After that, I'll try to post articles like this on Wednesdays, exciting top 5 lists on Tuesdays, and random snippets of geekiness on Saturdays. The next of these Saturday shorts will be an explanation of the name of this blog.

Hope you enjoyed this post. If you have any ideas or examples of your own on this topic, please comment! I'd love to hear from you!

Keep on glowing in the dark,
Elora