My sci-fi roots may be showing, but when John W. Morehouse posted a story on TheoFantastique’s Facebook page about Dune, I had to follow up.The story was from Wired magazine, and the title asks “Should There Be a Religion Based on ‘Dune’?”Although I grew up on Poe, science fiction was my favorite genre as a kid.Frank Herbert’s classic was published when I was only three, but it was experiencing a resurgence before the movie came out.Dune wascomplex world building.It was immersive, and compelling.The movie, I felt, didn’t do it justice.I’m not surprised that people are now wondering if it shouldn’t become a religion.Other sci-fi-based religions do exist.Star Wars and Avatar have both developed fan bases that consider the films their religion.
Movies have a way of becoming part of our reality.The other day I was reflecting on how much my frame of reference for life is based on movies.I quote from them frequently.I draw wisdom, and sometimes just plain inanity from them.But I remember them.I spend a lot more time reading than I do watching movies.If a book is engaging I’ll remember it well, but it isn’t unusual to forget—although I hope it’s still there somewhere in deep storage—a book that failed to make much of an impact.I suppose that’s true of movies too, but I recall my first viewing of The Jungle Book in theaters.How those hypnotic snake eyes scared me!And there was a film whose title I can’t recall, but I remember it was vignettes of Hans Christian Andersen stories, I believe.One was called “The Tinderbox.”I still remember it well although I was probably about five when I saw it and I never watched it again.
This staying power of movies suggests their religious potential.People today, I suspect, are less concerned with the antiquity or bona fides of a religion than they are with the practical issue of whether or not it works for them.Does it bring them near some sense of transcendence?While the Wired article doesn’t seriously suggest a religion based on Dune, I sometimes ponder how the wisdom of ancient religions is often entombed in forms and structures that “true believers” mistake for the actual essence of the religion itself.Sci-fi based religions reach for the newly created realms of transcendence.They are filled with wonder.But it will only be a matter of time before that awe fades into arguments about which canonical version is literally true.It’s happened before.
