Reading Time: 8 minutes The first season of Strange New Worlds started with Captain Pike grappling with foreknowledge of a terrible fate that awaits him in Star Trek canon. Meanwhile, Spock this season has struggled with a relationship that The Original Series tells us is doomed. In both cases, SNW made the road to these futures feel uncertain in […]
science fiction
Posted inFilm/TV
Can any civilization ‘Lift Us Where Suffering Cannot Reach’?
Reading Time: 9 minutes There are many useful narrative structures for humanist stories, and all tend to get airtime in classic Star Trek series. Some involve a juxtaposition of multiple storylines, to hold different crises and outlooks in tension. Others present the full problem early on, allowing different perspectives and conflicts to emerge as characters struggle to find a […]
Posted inFilm/TV
Strange New Worlds: Star Trek’s return to humanist form
Reading Time: 9 minutes I almost didn’t watch Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, which started airing this month. I’m glad I did: it’s deservedly being called the best of the recent Treks, and there’s a lot to be said about this series as a humanist. I had reason to be reluctant. The franchise hasn’t been in great shape for […]
Posted inFilm/TV
Q and Yahweh: Unworthy gods
Reading Time: 5 minutes Star Trek’s omnipotent prankster Q shows the folly of worshipping beings who possess superior power, but not superior morality or wisdom.
Posted inMeaning & Purpose
Douglas Adams: There is no normal
Reading Time: 3 minutes If the universe were in any way fair or kind, satirist Douglas Adams would be turning 70 today. Adams was one of those people whose sensibility slapped me awake—not completely awake, but that’s good for a reason I’ll get to. Most of the time, despite the help of Adams and others, I’m fast asleep to […]
Posted inBooks
My personal science fiction/fantasy canon: ‘Weirdo Feminist’
Reading Time: 4 minutes The spring semester is over but my brain is still melted from it and the rest of me is burnt out too, so here’s a fun little personal essay I’d submitted elsewhere and that had been rejected (yes, that happens to even the great Dr. Jorgensen). Ruminations on identity and SFF (science fiction/fantasy) follow.
Posted inGeneral
A Star Wars Retrospective: May the Fourth Be With You
Reading Time: 7 minutes Hi and welcome back! It’s Star Wars Day! Man, that whole series has some serious staying power, doesn’t it? Today, let me show you how the first movie impacted me, back in the day — and what its legacy still means today. (Posts touching on Star Wars: Yes, Virginia, There Is An Obi-Wan; The Awesome Power […]
Posted inReligion
Christianity’s Evangelicalism Problem (LSP #42)
Reading Time: 8 minutes Leia knew that controllers only speak one language, that of control. That, literally, is what they seek and what they try their best to maintain. When problems arise, they always involve threats to their control. And solutions always look to them like finding more–and more effective–means of control.
Posted inReligion
The Weird Alternate Reality That Is Christian Pseudoscience
Reading Time: 9 minutes Pseudoscience has been a serious part of Christianity ever since Christianity was, well, Christianity. And it wasn’t until recently that Christians’ rock pile of alternative facts got so unwieldy that it simply collapsed in on top of them. Today we’ll have an overview of pseudoscience–what it is and why it’s so important–because we’re about to head into that CPC manual again and it’s going to be relevant!
Posted inReligion
The Weird Alternate Reality That Is Christian Pseudoscience.
Reading Time: 9 minutes Pseudoscience has been a serious part of Christianity ever since Christianity was, well, Christianity. And it wasn’t until recently that Christians’ rock pile of alternative facts got so unwieldy that it simply collapsed in on top of them. Today we’ll have an overview of pseudoscience–what it is and why it’s so important–because we’re about to head into that CPC manual again and it’s going to be relevant!