[Tate]

I agree with Burt that it’s a good thing to discuss religious matters. As long as we stay on a friendly level, discussions of this nature can help us to come to a better understanding of other points of view, and hopefully point us to the truth of the issues. I have some opinions myself, and I’ll try to address some of the points Jedi made in his latest post.

(By the way, I hope no one will object to me focussing my discussion on Christianity. I realize that there are other beliefs and organized religions involved in the world today, but Christianity is the religion I am most familiar with; not to mention being the faith I believe is true. Unless otherwise stated, whenever I mention ‘religion’ in this post, I will be referring to Christianity—both the organized Church and the universal body of believers.)

Any organized religion will by it's very nature be resistant to change.

I think this may be a misunderstanding. While there are many instances of religion resisting change, it can also be an agent of change. Christianity derives its values from the Bible, which we believe is the inspired world of God. These values include moral standards and guidelines, in addition to historical, philosophical, theological, and scientific beliefs. If Christians realize that their society is not following these values, they will try to change their society.

This is, in part, the motive behind the American abolition movement (if God made all men in His image, it is wrong to degrade that image by subjecting some men to slavery), orphanages (God commands us to take care of fatherless children, rather than leave them to starve on the streets), and the American education system (it is important for everyone to be able to read, so they can understand the Bible for themselves).

When society begins to change on its own, and to reject biblical values (or what the Church assumes to be biblical values), Christianity does tend to resist. But the point of religion is not to resist change and remain in the past, but, rather, to adhere to its own standards. If society does not conform to these standards, religion will be in favor of change, but if society changes without regard for the standards, religion will resist the change.

…what's not acceptable is when that resistance to change has a directly negative impace on people's health and wellbeing.

I agree with this. Even though I believe Christians have a legitimate reason to act when society turns away from biblical values, we must take care how we act. We should follow the example of Jesus, speaking the truth with love. Though we shouldn’t compromise our beliefs, neither should we resort to unkind language. We should be careful not to condemn those who disagree with us, knowing that we have no righteousness of our own—nothing we have done makes us any better than anyone else.

Above all, Christians should not resort to violence to get our point across. Anyone who does so demonstrates a lack of faith in God; they feel that God doesn’t know when to act and that they have to take matters into their own hands. I’m not saying that no one who uses violent force is ever justified—certainly force can be used in national defense, for instance. But I don’t believe that Christians should use any violence in order to win converts or frighten unbelievers; such violence would be opposed to the teachings of Christ.

In conclusion, I do not believe that religion is always opposed to change. Religion holds to its own principles, and will promote or resist change depending on how the change lines up with those principles. And while I believe that religion is justified in resisting many types of change (including current social changes) I also believe that religious people should take care how we resist. We should remain civil and promote our values in a manner in keeping with the political and social frameworks we find ourselves in. There’s more I’d like to say, but I think I’ll leave it at that. I've probably bored everyone enough by now.

I hope that this debate will help us to be understanding of other opinions, and I hope it will help us to know the truth.

P. S. Lest this thread stray too far from the original topic, let me make a comment on the opening question. I think that sci-fi is a neutral medium. While it is easy for science fiction to reject spiritual things, it is also possible for sci-fi to promote a Christian viewpoint (The Space Trilogy by C. S. Lewis and The Firebird trilogy by Kathy Tyers are excellent examples of this). Sci-fi may turn someone away from religion, or it could turn someone to religion; it depends on both the sci-fi and the person. But I don’t think there is a fundamental conflict between the two.