Religion in Doctor Who

[Intodrkness]

First of all like I alreay said I am quite religious. So religious in fact that I am currently studying christian theology.
I’ve been trying to put my thoughts on the ending into coherent words since it aired.
But what @lwebb said in the thread comes pretty close to what I am feeling.

@lwebb

According to the Gospel of Matthew, the star over Bethlehem is not just to make the Nativity look pretty: it is a sign of Jesus’ divine favor and kingship that allows the Wise Men/ Magi to find him. By giving the star a “just so story” explanation, some Christians feel that it cheapens the miracle of Jesus’s birth, and takes God out of the Christmas story. (Even if Doctor Who is a work of fiction.)

Though the star is for me more about being a sign of hope/ a light in the darkness. It means a lot to me and just using as a tool for a story just doesnt sit right with me. To me it just feels disrespectful.

While I thought the “no wonder there was no room at the inn” was funny I do have some trouble with it, but that one is very nitpicky.

Generally I think anything discussed in the bible should be left alone in fiction. I am not talking about imagery or ideas taken from it, but things like actually traveling into that time or letting any chracters from it (including god) appear.
(This is entirely my opinion. Other christians might have other opinions (like some in this forum) and I am aware that I am quite sensitive in this regard.)

About the other topics mentioned in this thread:

@shauny

If you take the text of the Bible as literally true

Like others already have said I personally dont believe that the bible is literally true.

@shauny

So I guess I’m asking how you can be offended by what happens in one episode when it seems to me the entire premise of the show exists in a universe where it’s impossible for the Bible to be literally true? You must watch the whole thing with a suspension of disbelief anyway?

Even though I dont think the things you have mentioned so far (the evolution and the creation mythos depicted in the bible) necessarily contradict each other: To me there is a great difference between a fictional universe that includes things that might contradict the bible and directly interacting with things that are in it.
And while we are already talking about contradictions: I know several people who would disagree with what I am about to say, but the bible itself is full of contradictions. The very first and second story already contradict each other. There are two creation myths in the bible and they have a different order of creation.

@shauny

So saying that God created man in his image by using the entirely random and unpredictable method of billions of years of natural selection is a bit like saying you can write a book exactly how you planned to write it by selecting Scrabble tiles randomly from a bag and putting them down.

The way you phrased this I assume with “in his image” you mean the physical image of Adam when he was created. Once again there are different interpretations of this, but the way I read it is, that “in his image” doesnt mean the physical body, but rather “his” mind/soul. (I am putting his into quotation marks because in the version of the creation myth that has god creating the human in his image Adam and Eve are created at the same time. At this point I could ramble on about the singular/plural problem, but that would probably get too off topic.)

@shauny

what is the point?

We dont know. Nobody knows. Thats actually a very big thing that we do not know and can not know. God works in mysterious ways and no one knows why he does the things he does. But thats the thing about religion. We dont choose what we believe. To you it doesnt make sense and you dont believe. To me it doesnt make sense and I still believe. For me it bottles down to science telling me how things happened and religion telling me why.

@ThetaSigmaEarChef

I’ve said this before. I’ve said this about a thousand times before, I’ve given presentations about this, I’ve interviewed people who study and give lectures about this for a living - so, got a lot to say here. Look. Doctor Who is, at it’s heart, a Jewish show. It was created by Jewish people (Verity Lambert and Sidney Newman) with the first companion played by a Jewish actress (Carol Ann Ford), Jewish values as it’s very core (tikkun olam, the idea of the Wanderer in relation to the diaspora, the focus on names, Cybermen as Qlippoth…) Doctor Who is at it’s core, Jewish.

That is really fascinating! I did not know that. Is there anything about this topic you could recommend?

@SweetAIBelle

The bible actually can be somewhat entertaining at times.

One of my faves is the story where Jesus curses a fig tree, because he was hungry and it wasnt wearing any fruit. Even though it was explicitly mentioned that it wasnt even the right time in the year for it to be bearing any.

Sorry if this got a bit rambly.