Nope! There is likely a short-term reaction and a long-term reaction of trying to incorporate the new knowledge into the faith. Even the Catholic Church now accepts that the earth revolves around the sun. Will Islam, Judaism, and Christianity react the same way? After all, they each have different views of the same God (of Abraham). What of Hinduism? Zoroastrianism? Shinto? Animists? Tribal religions? No this is VERY interesting, and no one seems willing to explore it!
I want to re tell The Holy Bible... And... I'm talking personal beliefs of time travel from our future and ancient scripts being documented incidents of time travel.
Let's just say, in my take of the Bible I'm writing, Adam and Eve are a generation of people from another world and Earth is populated with fire breathing dinosaurs when we arrived and, I'd take it from there to say man walked with dinosaur and dinosaurs were dragons and that dragons were real. I want the story of the nativity to be a beacon shining brightly that really guided the three wise men who thought it was a star, and I want the resurrection of Christ to be like a hologram like how I saw on YouTube and Tupac's hologram was performing with Snoop Dogg. From what I can gather, any time machine might have to be based in orbit anyway (the heavens).
That's still better than what I can stage if you asked me to stage that in my bedroom. Kind of depressing when I can't speak on how bad that was because it's still better produced than what I could have done.
There are so many ways you can incorporate Christianity into your work. Have you ever listened to BE by Pain of Salvation? It is a concept album about humanity and God but witj futuristic scifi elements. One story that I wrote can be Christian SciFi. It is a story told through emails in the year 2029. Two people are trying to pursuade a Christian architect to build them an ark as the world starts to fall apart. I submitted it to different places and got one editor who might be interested. Have to see what happens next.
Arthur Clarke wrote a short story entitled (spoilers in link) The Star in which a Jesuit priest had to confront an event that tested his faith. Spoiler A human expedition travels to a star system that had intelligent life before its sun went nova and destroyed it. The priest realizes that the light of that nova was the Star of Bethlehem, and that an entire civilization died to herald the birth of Christ.
I'm a Christain writing a Sci-Fi novel. I do occasionally add in God references but don't overdo it. I feel your pain.
There's a wonderful thing called challenging your faith: The op-ed, or opposition piece. A technique by which you think like a non-believer, in order to clarify your own belief. A writer's 40 days in the desert. The challenge is following it through, which is a dramatic story in itself. Godspeed.
If I were a Christian (I did attend a Methodist church for a while as a kid; Mom stayed with it and I stayed home and cooked the Sunday bacon and eggs, which I assure you was a better thing for the bacon and eggs.) I would assume that the Bible is a metaphor about the creation of sentient life, not a documentary about this specific planet. I really see no appreciable conflict.
BUT . . . You aren't a believer, you don't have a faith that could be shaken. I'm not a particularly religious person, but I've been around the spiritual block a time or two, and I understand that faith is a LOT like Science Fiction, you have to be a willing participant in the suspension of your disbelief. A person of faith says, "OK, I'll believe this, but I won't believe, THAT." That person of faith has an emotional investment in the Universe being a certain way. Proof that it isn't that way, means a major re-allocation of spiritual assets. I wonder just how many people are up for that sort of task?
(ETA: Oops. Wreybies has rightfully pointed out the potentional for my post to be considered debate (or debateable). Sorry Wrey, Sorry all. It is wrapped in Spoiler - to be considered ONLY as food for thought (inspiration) on WRITING as a challenge to one's personal identity. Hopefully this suffices. Carry on.} Spoiler: Belief changes with the believer, Belief changes with the believer,who merely convinces themself to accept some other's truth. Faith is a thing unto itself, like Love, Truth, or Trust. They transcend religion, and belief, which dies with the believer. The original Christ, for example, knew God, and went to the East. He came back a Bhuddist-pre-Islamic, and having learned the Path, and the Parable, and taught as such. He had Faith, not religion. He was killed for it. His direct disciples, certainly more than twelve, walked the Path as The Christ, to carry his legacy, some becoming Gnostics. The following converts were not allowed to walk as The Christ, but only carry the message. They would later be labeled as Christians. By declaration they were not The Christ. The secularized believers slaughtered the Gnostics, to consolidate power, that Constantine annexed, and the ironic mis-nomer 'Christian' solidified into the lovely complex simulated woodgrain finish we see today. If you are not a believer, you are more than fit to challenge your Faith, as Christ did. If all the religions of the world can't be right (many no longer exist), then an expanded view must be taken, through Faith. Anyone can be up for that task.
I'm here all week. Please avoid the veal. Don't forget to trip the waitress! ETA: Doh!! That's it SG, dig yourself a hole, Friggin Genius! I may change my name to WHACKaMOLE!!
If you want to you can go the path of personal growth and struggle and have scifi-spefi-fantasy-whatever as your storyworld, inspiration and allegory. Do you know Matrix? You can watch it as an allegory of a salvation via thruth. Do you know Terry Pratchett? He uses his Discworld as an allegory of our world and it's phenomena. Or you can write about what Bibble tells. You could for instance read the book of Ezekiel to seek inspiration. Go for it in any way you want and see fit! [Wreybies.... I suppose this is ok?]
I read a sci-fi book entitled 'The Ark' and truthfully I was expecting there to be some sort of religious lean to it, but I can't really recall anything of the sort. What I do recall though is there wasn't any crude language, there weren't any sex scenes of note, suggested perhaps but none that would cause someone who was looking to avoid that kind of narrative any question. As well the book focused on meeting a sentient race, who had a distinct love of culture, art, and of music. There was a brief war scene, but it was quickly rectified by some quick thinking between one of the tribesmen of the planet of note and a human. I wouldn't say it was a phenomenal read. However, it did show me that a tasteful book could be written and still be a relatively good story/read.
I'm not actually positive that what I said would be a problem for the minister of that particular Methodist church. Christianity seemed to be very different just thirty years ago, at least in that corner of the world. I remember being startled that anyone saw any conflict between Christianity and evolution.
