Wednesday, January 11, 2006

Stargate Writers are Atheist?

Now for those of you who don’t know about this most magnificent of series, Stargate SG1 is about a secret Govt. military organization that uses a ancient relic left by the ‘Egyptians’ to travel to distant plants. The Series follows the Adventures and exploits of the team named SG1.

Now for the first 7 seasons the main antagonists in the series have been creatures who, without going into too much details, proclaimed themselves to be false gods. As a result our Heroes find themselves fighting these ‘false gods’ and religious zealots while trying to convince the people that serve them that their "gods" were not real.

Throughout the entire ordeal, there has been an undertone of a lashing out against religious fanaticism. However due to the fact that from day one we saw that the Goa’ulds were nothing but parasites that use their advanced technology to fool people, and also the fact it was clear that they portrayed themselves as being the Pagan gods we know in our histories, the fact that they were fighting them went well with everyone, even me.

I mean we all know the Egyptian gods were false, so if they make a show that has them being revealed as frauds then hurrah :)

But alas the writers did not stop there. In the later seasons they introduce a the Ancients; A group of ascended beings. At this point I thought I had found the true religion of the writers, but alas there are subtle differences.

Where as many Asian religions speak of enlightenment and ascension, it is usually used in conjunction with some Universal Consciousness, whether collective or a sentient being.
In the case of Stargate, the ancients have found ‘enlightenment’ but its not entirely a spiritual process. The writers portray it as more of a fulfillment of potential, a natural progression for any sentient race.

Hmmmmm

Of course at the end of season 8 the Goa’ulds have been defeated and everyone seems to be aware that they are false for the most part. However Season 9 (the current Season) sees the introduction of a new set of villains.
These antagonists, more than any other, seem to spit in the face of most religions today.

Apparently the ascended beings have a split in the camp, one set being ‘good’, who don’t interfere in our mundane plain existence, and those who believe they should be worshiped, seeing that the have discovered how to ascend and ‘we’ haven’t.

These 'bad' Ancients call themselves the Ori, and the ‘religion’ they teach is Origin.
Interestingly their High preist (who are imbued with Impressive powers I must say)
are called Pryors (sounds familiar?). To top it of there doctrine of ‘believe or die’ makes one wonder if they are Crusaders Fighting Ji-Had, or just they feel it is the right unleash Genocide on the ‘philistines’.

In any case, it is clear to me that the writers of the show
Have little respect for religions, or rather, believe that choice and rational thinking is superior to blind faith.

3 comments:

Bashmentbasses said...

It is the diametric opposition of Religion and Science (espeially fiction) that makes my spiritual life uncomfortable. I'm always watching how much scifi I enjoy and quelling my imagination just in case a I cross some imaginary line I erected.

The Seeker said...

Its a delicate balancing act.
I seperate the two, or try to, matters pertaining to my personal spirituality are not viewed in the same context as everything else.

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