Re: "Dog-whistle Catholicism"

Andrew Plotkin wrote:

Here, David Cowie <david_cowie@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
A couple of months ago I read a magazine article about religion and
pop music, which claimed that Bruce Springsteen's records had always
featured "dog-whistle Catholicism", meaning that only people who had
been brought up in the faith would notice (examples were not
provided, so don't ask me).

This made me wonder if any SF/F authors have been using religious
imagery that only people with inside information will spot.
I expect that Orson Scott Card will feature here, and discussions
about Tolkien often take a religious turn, but who else?

As an atheist, I am poorly situated to answer that, so I'll go ahead
anyhow. Hm. Is there such a thing as "dog-whistle atheism"? If so,
does it include all of science fiction? No doubt some theists react
histaminicly to any story in which gods are aliens, machines, past
humans, future humans, created by humans, ... Heck, I'm sure there are
people out there who think that a story is promoting atheism if it
features a rocket taking off without a prayer ceremony.

But anyhow.

The original "Battlestar Galactica" is continually cited for
crypto-Mormonism. I've never asked a Mormon about it, mind you.

Cited by Orson Scott Card; I've read what I think was the text of a
speech. And Card is a Mormon.

I had the experience, as many have, of having read the Narnia books as
a kid and not noticed anything particularly Christian about them. (As
best I can recall, I was always aware they were about faith --
that's overt.) It may not be subtle to an adult, but who comes to
Narnia as an adult?

...Pun not intended, but accepted when I saw it coming out on the
screen.

--Z



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