Thursday, January 19, 2006
Visions of the future
I am big fan of science fiction novels. I recently got my hands on a "Top 100" list of the best sci-fi novels of all time and I am making my way through these. It turns out I had already read 17 of the top 20, so I am trekking down to the used book store to work through the rest.
One of the things I have noticed in reading science fiction is that the authors tend to take one of two views about the future of earth: either it will degenerate into chaos, with life on earth being filled with crime and shortages (doomsday) or mankind will solve their problems and work together to explore the stars (utopian). This is, of course, a generalization and not all SF novels do this. But it gets me wondering about the mindset of these authors. The "doomsday" authors have a very low view of man and are very pessimistic about the future that technology will bring. The "utopian" authors believe in the goodness of men to overcome our problems and come together as a world. It would be an interesting study to classify all the SF written in the past fifty years or so and see what sorts of trends we could find.
But this gets me thinking: as Christians, what sort of future are we envisioning? On the one hand, we can look at the fallen nature of man and the coming apocalypse described in Revelation and take a very pessimistic, or doomsday view. On the other hand, we can be working for bringing Christ's kingdom to earth and take an essentially positive, though probably not utopian, view.
I, myself, take a middle road. I don't expect to see any of the doomsday scenarios play out, at least not until the Lord returns. I also don't see any utopias coming any time soon. As human beings, we will always be faced with the same problems of good and evil, they just may be in different forms. What I do hope for is that advances in science and technology can help us overcome many of the physical problems we encounter: cures for sickness, help for the disabled, better quality of life as we age. I also see that technology can be used as a way to spread the gospel to the ends of the earth. Now that is something to be working towards. ¶ 11:22 AM 0 comments
One of the things I have noticed in reading science fiction is that the authors tend to take one of two views about the future of earth: either it will degenerate into chaos, with life on earth being filled with crime and shortages (doomsday) or mankind will solve their problems and work together to explore the stars (utopian). This is, of course, a generalization and not all SF novels do this. But it gets me wondering about the mindset of these authors. The "doomsday" authors have a very low view of man and are very pessimistic about the future that technology will bring. The "utopian" authors believe in the goodness of men to overcome our problems and come together as a world. It would be an interesting study to classify all the SF written in the past fifty years or so and see what sorts of trends we could find.
But this gets me thinking: as Christians, what sort of future are we envisioning? On the one hand, we can look at the fallen nature of man and the coming apocalypse described in Revelation and take a very pessimistic, or doomsday view. On the other hand, we can be working for bringing Christ's kingdom to earth and take an essentially positive, though probably not utopian, view.
I, myself, take a middle road. I don't expect to see any of the doomsday scenarios play out, at least not until the Lord returns. I also don't see any utopias coming any time soon. As human beings, we will always be faced with the same problems of good and evil, they just may be in different forms. What I do hope for is that advances in science and technology can help us overcome many of the physical problems we encounter: cures for sickness, help for the disabled, better quality of life as we age. I also see that technology can be used as a way to spread the gospel to the ends of the earth. Now that is something to be working towards. ¶ 11:22 AM 0 comments
