Monday June 15, 2020

Earthseed isn’t the first religion invented within the context of science fiction. Scientology comes to mind as another, invented by science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard. I’m also reminded of Discordianism, a religion of sorts propagated in part by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson’s Illuminatus! trilogy. Like Hubbard’s Scientology, Earthseed is nontheistic — at least in the sense that the latter’s god is simply “change,” a process said to lack consciousness, yet capable of being “shaped” toward humanity’s “destiny” among the stars. Earthseed refuses to console with any promise of an afterlife. (A bit like Stoicism, in that sense.) As a belief system, I find it overly grim.