Wednesday, April 18, 2018

Podcast on The Theology of Battlestar Galactica


I had never watched Battlestar Galactica until now. I've still only watched through the first season at this point, so no spoilers, please! But my friend John Weldy already had me convinced to start watching it at some point. And then another friend, Chuck McKnight realized that there seemed to be a lot of us who really like theology and science fiction and fantasy, so he started a new facebook group: Theology, Science Fiction and Fantasy And when John suggested we watch BSG as a group and have a few of us discuss it on his podcast, I said sure. Why not? Sounds fun! 

We recorded our first episode on Saturday night. It covers the miniseries and season one, so if you haven't watched those episodes yet, you probably want to do that first to avoid spoilers!

We plan to record six more episodes over the next several months as we watch the rest of the show. Out of the four of us on the podcast, I'm the only one who is watching the series for the first time.

Some of the questions we talk about are:

When man can create life in his image, how does this affect theology?
Do Cylons have souls?
How is Battlestar Galactica influenced by Mormonism?
Is Cylon theology essentially Calvinism?
Who are the fundamentalists and who are the mystics in the show?

Listen to this episode here.


(Subscribe on iTunes)

Panel:


A couple of interesting quotes from the miniseries:
“The Cylon War is long over, yet we must not forget the reasons why so many sacrificed so much in the cause of freedom. The cost of wearing the uniform can be high ... [after looking at crowd] but sometimes it's too high. You know, when we fought the Cylons, we did it to save ourselves from extinction. But we never answered the question, why? Why are we as a people worth saving? We still commit murder because of greed, spite, jealousy. And we still visit all of our sins upon our children. We refuse to accept the responsibility for anything that we've done. Like we did with the Cylons. We decided to play God, create life. When that life turned against us, we comforted ourselves in the knowledge that it really wasn't our fault, not really. You cannot play God then wash your hands of the things that you've created. Sooner or later, the day comes when you can't hide from the things that you've done anymore.” - Adama, decommissioning of the BSG
*** 
Leoben: "Maybe the Cylons are God’s retribution for our many sins. What if God decided he made a mistake, and he decided to give souls to another creature, like the Cylons?"
Adama: "God didn’t create the Cylons, man did. And I’m pretty sure we didn’t include a soul, in the programming."

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