Let me just lay the foundation here for a moment in the area of
religion and Babylon 5. I'm an atheist, that simple. But that's me. If
you look at the long history of human society, religion -- whether you
describe that as organized, disorganized, or the various degrees of
accepted superstition -- has always been present. And it will be present
200 years from now. That may not thrill me, but when one is a writer, one
must deal with realities, and that's one of them. To totally ignore that
part of the human equation would be as false and wrong-headed as ignoring
the fact that people get mad, or passionate, or strive for better lives.
So we do deal with the questions of religion, and spirituality, and
their definitions, without being abusive. A couple of stories on this
area, like David Gerrold's "Believers" may be very controversial. On the
other hand, my script for "The Parliament of Dreams" is a straight-ahead
showcase, in which every species on B5 is encouraged to demonstrate his
or her dominant belief system, as practiced back home. So we learn more
about Minbari religion, more about the Centauri's rather Bacchanallian
form of religion, along with others. And Sinclair is put in the difficult
position of being asked to show what Earth's dominant belief system is.
The solution to which is, I think, kinda cool.
In the Babylon 5 universe, all the things that make us human -- our
obsessions, our interests, our language, our culture, our flaws and our
wonderfulnesses -- are all still intact.
jms |
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