Religion In SF

Science fiction will sometimes address the topic of religion. Often religious themes are used to convey a broader message, but others confront the subject head-on—contemplating, for example, how attitudes towards faith might shift in the wake of ever-advancing technological progress, or offering creative scientific explanations for the apparently mystical events related in religious texts (gods as aliens, prophets as time travelers, etc.). As an exploratory medium, science fiction rarely takes religion at face value by simply accepting or rejecting it; when religious themes are presented, they tend to be investigated deeply.

Some science fiction works portray invented religions, either placed into a contemporary Earth society (such as the Earthseed religion in Octavia Butler's '' Parable of the Sower''), or in the far future (as seen in ''Dune'' by Frank Herbert, with its Orange Catholic Bible). Other works examine the role of existing religions in a futuristic or alternate society. The classic ''A Canticle for Leibowitz'' explores a world in which Catholicism is one of the few institutions to survive an apocalypse, and chronicles its slow re-achievement of prominence as civilisation returns.

Christian science fiction also exists, sometimes written as allegory for inspirational purposes.

Orson Scott Card has criticized the genre for oversimplifying religion, which he claims is always shown as "ridiculous and false".

Afterlife

* ''The Palace of Eternity'' (1969) by Bob Shaw
* The ''Riverworld'' series, by Philip José Farmer
* ''Ubik'' (1969) by Philip K. Dick — In the novel, companies use a form of cryonic suspension ("cold-pac chambers") to preserve the deceased in a state of "half-life" which allows for limited consciousness and the ability to communicate with both the living world and others in half-life. (The half-life concept was first explored in Dick's novella, "What the Dead Men Say" (1964))
* ''The Divine Invasion'' (1981) by Philip K. Dick — Dick revisits cryonic suspension in this novel, with two principal differences being that, here, (A) the clinically dead can be brought back to life with proper medical procedures (provided they do not lose brain function for too long a period before being suspended) and (B) the dreamlike state of one in cryonic suspension often takes the form of extended memories from the person's life. ''The Divine Invasion'' also explores more traditionally religious visions of afterlife; ''e.g.'', deities discuss a sifting bridge that must be crossed by the souls of the newly dead to be judged and the coming-about of an "Advocate" who speaks on behalf of those souls so that they need not be "plunged into the fiery pit of hell" (pp. 134–138).

Angels

* In '' Out of the Silent Planet'' (1938; part of the Space Trilogy), by C. S. Lewis, the protagonist meets "eldila", mysterious beings of light native to the void of interplanetary space (who are actually what Christianity defines as "angels", and who are also identified as Mars, Venus and other deities of Greek and Roman mythology), and are completely loyal and obedient to God, and have never wanted to be worshiped as gods themselves (although the ancient Greeks and Romans mistakenly did so)

Creation myths

* The film ''Prometheus'' (2012) explores the myth that human life did not arise spontaneously by chance, but that a humanoid species, the "Engineers", created life on Earth. They also taught humans how to use technology and visited the Earth sporadically. Some elements are similar to the ancient astronaut myths. The story develops when a scientific expedition travels to confront their creators.
* In the film ''Blade Runner'' (1982) based on Philip K. Dick's novel ''Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?'', Roy Batty is an artificial person looking to confront his creator, while Rick Deckard searches for lost humanity despite his job: hunting and "retiring" runaway replicants.
* Mary Shelley's ''Frankenstein''
* The short story ''The Last Question'' (1956) by Isaac Asimov – Humans of the future ask the supercomputer Multivac how the net amount of entropy of the universe can be massively decreased. Multivac fails, displaying the error message "INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR MEANINGFUL ANSWER". The story continues through many iterations of computer technology, each more powerful and ethereal than the last. Each of these computers is asked the question, and each returns the same response until finally the universe dies with the exception of Cosmic AC – Multivac's final successor. At that point it has collected all the data it can, and so poses the question to itself. As the universe died, Multivac drew all of humanity into hyperspace, to preserve them until it could finally answer the Last Question. Ultimately, Multivac did decipher the answer, announcing " Let there be light!".
* The early part of Tolkien's ''The Silmarillion'' provides a detailed creation myth, with the world being created through the singing of Angel-like beings under the direction of God. Similar to the Christian account of The War in Heaven, this myth includes the rebellion of Melkor (equivalent of Lucifer/Satan) but considerably different in detail from the Christian account.

Demons

* In the ''Doom'' series demons from Hell have come into the universe through an inter-dimensional portal which is located on Mars.
* In '' Princess of Wands'' by John Ringo, a Christian housewife and soccer mom gets involved in an organization which co-operates with the FBI in dealing with demons.
* In ''That Hideous Strength'' by C. S. Lewis, the villains of the story are guided by beings they call "macrobes" which are clearly meant to be demons.
* In ''Warhammer 40,000'' series, some of the villains of the story appear to be demons, beings of immense power and strength. They can be summoned by certain groups of people with arcane knowledge. They are known as daemons, and the people who hunt them, daemon hunters.

Devil

* The television series ''Futurama'' features a recurring character called the Robot Devil.
* In the 1975 ''Doctor Who'' episode "Pyramids of Mars", the Doctor states that Satan is one of the names the last of the Osirians, Sutekh (who considers all life his enemy), is known by.
* In the 1978 television series ''Battlestar Galactica'', the two-part episode "War of the Gods" features a character very much like the Devil who is portrayed by Patrick Macnee. His name is Count Iblis — Iblis being the Islamic name of the Devil.
* The 2006 ''Doctor Who'' episodes "The Impossible Planet" and "The Satan Pit" feature an ancient being known as the Beast, which claims to be the basis of the Devil figure in all religions and mythologies; earlier in "The Dæmons", it is shown a race resembling the typical image of the Devil had visited Earth and become the basis for both Gods and Demons.
* In '' Perelandra'' by C. S. Lewis, the protagonist must fight against a man possessed by a demon, hinted to be the devil himself.
* ''Ubik'' (1969) by Philip K. Dick — In the novel, companies uses a form of cryonic suspension to preserve the deceased in a state of "half-life" which allows for limited consciousness and the ability to communicate.  The recently deceased protagonist Joe Chip finds the "reality" of the half-life world around him decaying and temporally regressing and discovers that Jory Miller, another half-lifer, is the cause of this; Jory devours the life force of others in half-life in order to prolong his own existence. Ella, who has been in "half-life" for many years, instructs Joe Chip on the usage of the spray "Ubik" (whose name is derived from the Latin word '' ubique'' meaning "everywhere") which can preserve people in half-life from Jory's deleterious influence. While Ubik can be seen as a metaphor for God, Jory Miller can be seen as an allegorical representation of the Devil.
* ''The Divine Invasion'' (1981) by Philip K. Dick — In this second installment of the ''VALIS'' trilogy, Belial (also referred to as Satan, the Adversary, and the bright morning star who "Fell from heaven and began it all (p. 80)) is depicted as a little, foul-smelling goat kid who is accidentally released from his cage (p. 221). Satan is described as the "prosecutor of man in the divine court" who "impugns and indicts" souls, a role contrasted with "the Advocate who defends the accused human" (pp. 137–138). Belial is also presented as protagonist Herb Asher's '' yetzer ha-ra'', whom Herb must not choose over his '' yetzer ha-tov'' (p. 253).
* In the episode "Something Ricked This Way Comes" (2014) of the science fiction comedy television series ''Rick and Morty'', a character "Summer" reports to her first job in an antique shop run by the Devil that sells items that fulfill a desire for the owner but come at a price making the item essentially worthless (the shop and the Devil's name, Mr. Needful, are both references and parodies of the Stephen King novel ''Needful Things''). During the episode, a protagonist "Rick" sets up a competitive counter-business across the street that removes the curses and runs the Devil out of business. The Devil is so dismayed that he tries to kill himself but Summer finds himself in the middle of his suicide attempt and revives him. They relaunch with a new dot-com company that becomes wildly successful. As it turns out, the Devil had no plans to include Summer in reaping the profits and has her hauled off by security. Betrayed by the Devil, she and Rick build muscle mass to get physical revenge.
* In an episode of '' Star Trek: The Animated Series'' called " The Magicks of Megas-tu", the Devil is captured by space-faring Puritans and is to be destroyed. Kirk argues in his defense.
* In an episode of '' Star Trek: The Next Generation'' called " Devil's Due", a character named Ardra is an alien that uses technology to appropriate the religious myths of several planets. She takes the holographic form of several "devils", to extort goods and services from a terrified populace.

Eschatology and the ultimate fate of the universe

* In the far future of ''Le Dernier Homme'' (1805) by Jean-Baptiste Cousin de Grainville Earth is becoming sterile and the human ability to reproduce is failing. A man travels to the last fertile woman to begin a rebirth of the human race and at return meets Adam, the first man, who has been condemned by God to watch all the damned among his descendants enter Hell, and is now charged with persuading the pair not to prolong the life of humanity, which God has determined must now end. The world then begins to end the dead to rise from their graves while Ormus, the spirit of Earth, who cannot survive without humanity, despairs.
* '' Omega: The Last Days of the World'' (1894) by Camille Flammarion
* The poem ''Darkness'' (1816) by Lord Byron
* ''Star Maker'' (1937) by Olaf Stapledon
* ''The Nine Billion Names of God'' (1953) by Arthur C. Clarke
* ''The Last Question'' (1956) by Isaac Asimov (see #Creation myths)
* ''City at the End of Time'' (2008) by Greg Bear
* '' That Extraordinary Day'' (2012) by Predrag Vukadinović
* At the end of ''Tau Zero'' (1970) by Poul Anderson, the universe collapses in a Big Crunch and then explodes in a new Big Bang. However, the starship with the book's protagonists on board survives because there is still enough uncondensed hydrogen for maneuvering, outside the monobloc, and eventually they could colonize one of the new universe's planets.
* '' Manifold: Time'' (1999) by Stephen Baxter begins at the end of space and time, when the last descendants of humanity face an infinite but pointless existence. Due to proton decay the physical universe has collapsed, but some form of intelligence has survived by embedding itself into a lossless computing substrate where it can theoretically survive indefinitely. However, because there will never be new input, eventually all possible thoughts will be exhausted. Some portion of this intelligence decides that this should not have been the ultimate fate of the universe, and takes action to change the past, centering around the early 21st century.
* ''Left Behind'' is a series of 16 best-selling novels by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins, dealing with Christian dispensationalist End Times: the pretribulation, premillennial, Christian eschatological viewpoint of the end of the world. The primary conflict of the series is the members of the Tribulation Force against the Global Community and its leader Nicolae Carpathia—the Antichrist. ''Left Behind'' is also the title of the first book in the series. The series was first published 1995–2007 by Tyndale House, a firm with a history of interest in dispensationalism.

Evangelism

* In S. M. Stirling's ''Nantucket'' series, the entire island of Nantucket is suddenly transported into the past, to about 1300 BC and the modern Americans marooned in the past must make the best of the Bronze Age world in which they find themselves; the Christians among them face the dilemma of whether or not to embark on missionary activity and spread their religion – even though Jesus Christ had not yet been born, and the very act of their spreading Christianity might so fundamentally change the world that Jesus might never be born at all.
* In '' The Sparrow'' by Mary Doria Russell, most of the Jesuit missionaries sent to investigate a radio transmission from an unknown planet (believing that they have been chosen by God to be the first to set foot on an alien world) are killed by the planet's inhabitants; and the sole survivor is enslaved but eventually escapes and returns to Earth with his faith in tatters.

Fictional religions

* A main theme of Philip K. Dick's novel ''Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?'' (1968) is the fictional religion " Mercerism". It is Earth's main religion, in which Empathy Boxes link simultaneous users into a collective consciousness based on the suffering of Wilbur Mercer. In the shared experience of the Empathy Box, Wilbur Mercer takes an endless walk up a mountain while stones are thrown at him, the pain of which all users share. Television broadcasts of "Buster Friendly" represent a second religion, designed to undermine Mercerism.
* The Earthseed religion in Octavia Butler's '' Parable of the Sower''
* The Bajoran religion – '' Star Trek: Deep Space Nine''
* ''Cavism'' in Gore Vidal's novel ''Messiah'' – a religion founded by John Cave, an American undertaker. Cave teaches, among other things, not to fear death and to actually desire it under certain circumstances. Later followers come to glorify death, and even enforce it on other members. The founder John Cave is himself ironically killed by his followers when he proves inconvenient for the new religion's development. Cavism eventually completely displaces and destroys Christianity, even to the extent of all Gothic Cathedrals being blown up and destroyed to erase all trace of it.
* The Klingon religion and various other religions from ''Star Trek''
* Bene Gesserit, Buddislam, Maometh Saari, Mahayana Christianity, Zensunni Catholicism in Frank Herbert's ''Dune'' series
* Bokononism in ''Cat's Cradle'' by Kurt Vonnegut
* Chernobog, the Satanic, cannibalistic, human-sacrificing god whose worship displaced Christianity in the remnants of Russia in the post-apocalyptic world of The Peshawar Lancers by S. M. Stirling.
* Church of All Worlds (inspired a non-fictional religious group of the same name) and other religions from ''Stranger in a Strange Land'' by Robert A. Heinlein
* Church of the Second Chance in Philip José Farmer's Riverworld series.
* Cylon monotheistic religion – ''Battlestar Galactica''
* Divine Order of His Shadow – ''Lexx'' TV series
* Robotology, Robot Judaism, The First Amalgamated Church and other religions from the animated television program ''Futurama''
* Foundationism – ''Babylon 5''
* Fordism – ''Brave New World''
* The various religions ( Sith, Jedi) of ''Star Wars''
* Gorgolorism – in ''The Goblin Tower'' by L. Sprague de Camp, the city state of Tarxia is a theocracy dominated by the priesthood of the frog god Gorgolor, who is considered the One True God. In other places, Gorgolor is just a minor god in a larger Pantheon. However, saying that in Tarxia might result in being burned as a heretic.
* Goa'uld religion – most Goa'uld pose as gods to control slave armies. "Goa'uld" means "God" in the Goa'uld language from the television series ''Stargate SG-1''
* Hemilkism in '' The Gate of Time'' by Philip José Farmer - in an alternate history where there never was a Roman Empire and European culture has many Semitic elements, a major religion was founded in the Fourteenth Century by a charismatic Irish religious figure named Hemilka. While having some resemblances to Christianity, Hemilkism is not an imperialist faith and therefore does not dominate its world in the way Christianity does in ours.
* Monism (specifically, Evangelical Monism) in Robert Heinlein's ''Tunnel in the Sky''. In the last decades of the 21st Century, great waves of Monist proselyting swept out of Persia and numerous Westerners were converted. Two generations later, when the plot takes place, Evangelical Monism is one of the main religious denominations in the US, many American families observing the Monist ritual of lighting the Lamp of Peace during dinner. From references in the book, the Monist faith appears to be Deistic, with a generalized acceptance of a deity having no particular defining characteristics or abilities, and including significant elements of Fire worship – suggesting the influence Mazdaism, the pre-Islamic fire-worshiping religion of Persia. For such a religion to be strongly established in modern Persia/Iran implies a major upheaval in the position of Islam there – for which Heinlein provides no informatio


* Ori (Stargate), Ori religion - the main antagonist in ''Stargate SG-1'' after the fall of the Goa'uld. Ori, ascended beings, relatives and mortal enemies of the Ancients, thrive on the life force stolen from their worshippers. The clash is finally resolved in the movie '' Stargate: The Ark of Truth''.
* Church of Science – the bogus religion established by Salvor Hardin in Isaac Asimov's ''Foundation''
* ''Soterism'' - in the alternate history of L. Sprague de Camp's ''Aristotle and the Gun'', Christianity never arose. Its place during the Roman Empire was taken by Soterism, an Egypto-Hellenic synthesis founded by a fiery Egyptian prophet, whose followers called him "Soter" – the Greek word for "Savior". Soterism did not become as powerful as Christianity in the history we know, with Mitraism and Odinism surviving at its side. In later times, followers of these religions hounded the scientist Georg Schwartzhorn (much as Galileo was persecuted in our history).
* Church of Humanity Unchained - the primary religion of the Grayson and Masada systems in David Weber's the Honorverse. (Two churches, with one origin, but now mutually implacably hostile, with massively different theologies.)
* In John Varley's story "Equinoctial", the Rings of Saturn are inhabited by the followers of two mutually antagonistic religions. ''The Church of Cosmic Engineering'' (informally ''The Engineers''), founded by Ringpainter the Great, considers it a Sacred Duty to paint red the Rings of Saturn - a duty holy enough to be worth the devoting of one's entire lifetime to it. The opposing ''Conservationist Church'' (''Consers'' in short) is equally certain that painting the Rings is the Ultimate Sacrilege and that undoing all such painting ''is'' the task to which one should devote one's life. The two are involved in a centuries-long, fierce religious war - both equally certain that the issue of painting or unpainting the Rings fully justifies killing on sight any member of the opposing Church (see Eight Worlds#Symbiotic spacesuits).
*In Fallout there is a religious, cult-like group known as The Children of Atom. They worship a god-like entity known as Atom and believe in an afterlife of sorts, which is known as the great beyond. The group is known for worshipping nuclear weapons. They set up churches in radioactive areas to stay closer to Atom.
* Cthulhu Mythos deities
* In ''The Magic Labyrinth'', the fifth volume of Philip Jose Farmer's Riverworld series, humans from different times and places who were resurrected on the banks of a great river in another world found the pacifist Church of the Second Chance, offering resurrected people a second chance to live a more moral life than their earlier one. Both Hermann Göring and Erik Bloodaxe take this chance in all sincerity, becoming adherents of the pacifist Church.
* The Eclesiarchy- the state sanctioned church worshipping the Emperor of mankind, which is ironic as he denounced all religions and stated as a fact that he wasn't a God. And as a further ironic twist the Eclesiarchy had based itself off of the Lectitio Devinatatus, a book written by his son Lorgar who later denounced his father, threw in with the Chaos gods and became a Daemon prince of sorts.
* Dinosaur religions in the ''Chicxulub Asteroid Missed Stories'' by Harry Turtledove, featuring several races of intelligent dinosaurs. The technologically advanced Greenskins believe in a pantheon of gods with some variants. The World Egg theology holds that the gods cracked open a large egg and built the world from its contents. The Down from the Sky or Out of the Sky theology believes that the gods deposited people from the sky in the Beginning. The theory of evolution, however, is beginning to challenge Greenskin theology. The Brownskins, whose territory is being aggressively colonized by the Greenskins, have their own pantheon of gods who are depicted in giant statues on a Mountain. They believe that the gods Shingto, Fferso, Incol, and Oosev created them, and that other gods or demons created the Greenskins.

God or deities

* In " 2112", the inhabitants of the planets of the Solar Federation venerate Greek nymph Syrinx.
* ''Absolution Gap'' by Alastair Reynolds
* In the film ''Avatar'' (2009), the Na'vi, an alien race, worship a goddess named Eywa
* In '' For I Am a Jealous People'', by Lester del Rey, Jehovah abandons humanity and sponsors an alien race in an invasion of Earth
* The video game ''Homeworld'' features a single god called Sajuuk
* In ''Lord of Light'', by Roger Zelazny, a nobleman re-creates a rival religious movement to dethrone a false pantheon of Hindu-inspired "Gods" on a world where magic and science coexist
* ''The Man Who Was Thursday'', by G. K. Chesterton
* '' Neverness'', by David Zindell
* '' Parable of the Sower'', by Octavia E. Butler, features a religion called Earthseed, where "God is change".
* In the television series ''Stargate SG-1'', and the 1994 ''Stargate'' film, the supposed ancient gods are revealed to be powerful, parasitic aliens posing as supernatural beings to exploit mankind. Stargate SG-1 later introduces the Ancients and the Ori, who are basically indistinguishable from actual gods - particularly the Ori who command worship and actually gain power by it.
* In the '' Star Trek: The Next Generation'' episode "Who Watches the Watchers", a serious accident with a hidden scientific observation post starts a chain of events that leads to a primitive civilization becoming convinced that the Starfleet personnel are divine beings with Captain Jean-Luc Picard being the supreme one; and the crew of the Enterprise struggle to prevent the reestablishment of religion in the civilization.
* In the ''Star Trek: The Original Series'' episode "Who Mourns for Adonais?", the Enterprise crew encounters an alien figure who is the ancient Greek god, Apollo.
* In Philip K. Dick's novel, ''VALIS'', the protagonist faces an all-powerful God who subtly manipulates the actions and thoughts of humans in an effort to redeem humanity.
* ''Ubik'' (1969) by Philip K. Dick — After dying and being placed into a form of cryonic suspension called "half-life," protagonist Joe Chip and his colleagues find the "reality" of the half-life world around them decaying and temporally regressing; one-by-one, Joe Chip's colleagues are shrivelling up and their consciousnesses are dying.  Ubik, a spray product whose name is derived from the Latin word '' ubique'' meaning "everywhere", can preserve people in half-life from this regression.  Dick's former wife Tessa remarked that "Ubik is a metaphor for God.  Ubik is all-powerful and all-knowing, and Ubik is everywhere.  The spray can is only a form that Ubik takes to make it easy for people to understand it and use it".UBIK Explained, sort of
Tessa Dick, It's a Philip K. Dick World, December 4, 2008  The metaphor is also made clear in a passage of the book.
* The protagonist of ''The Worthing Saga'', by Orson Scott Card, keeps himself in hidden stasis over the years, and becomes the target of worship by the descendants of the very settlers that he delivered to a new world
* James K. Morrow's ''Godhead'' trilogy considers the literal death of God, when the two-mile-long corpse of God is found floating at sea. In the first volume, '' Towing Jehovah'' (Harcourt Brace, 1994) the angel Raphael calls on supertanker captain Anthony Van Horne to tow the body to an icy tomb in the north, while the faithful and unbelieving alike seek to deal with the fallout of the death of God.
* In the short story ''The Last Question'' (1956) by Isaac Asimov humans of the future ask the supercomputer Multivac how the net amount of entropy of the universe can be massively decreased. Multivac fails, displaying the error message "INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR MEANINGFUL ANSWER". The story continues through many iterations of computer technology, each more powerful and ethereal than the last. Each of these computers is asked the question, and each returns the same response until finally the universe dies with the exception of Cosmic AC – Multivac's final successor. At that point it has collected all the data it can, and so poses the question to itself. As the universe died, Multivac drew all of humanity into hyperspace, to preserve them until it could finally answer the Last Question. Ultimately, Multivac did decipher the answer, announcing " Let there be light!" and essentially ascending to the state of God in the Old Testament.
* In Sara Paretsky's novel '' Ghost Country'', an ancient Mesopotamian fertility goddess calling herself Starr appears in present-day Chicago. She exudes an overwhelming sexuality, affecting both men and women, and attracts an enormous crowd of worshipers, especially from among Chicago's poor and homeless. To the chagrin and scandal of Protestant and Catholic clergy alike, she emulates many of the miracles of Jesus Christ - feeding many people with minute amounts of food, healing the sick and also bringing the dead back to life. Finally she is lynched by a mob of bigoted Christians inside one of the city's most prestigious churches – but her body unaccountably disappears from the morgue three days later, though no one actually saw her rise. Thus disappearing, she has had an enormous – and on whole, positive – impact on the lives of all the book's cast of characters.
* In the universal roleplaying setting ''Nova Praxis'', a supercomputer with the ability to process theoretical environments encompassing all laws of physics, was created. It started inventing all kinds of obscure technology and jumped human technology and civilization forwards by over a millennium, before suddenly shutting down after 3 months of work, likely due to system overload. The computer, called Mimir (pronounced "me-mer"), is considered by some to be a deity, prophesied to return to gift humanity with the ultimate ascension, and the virtual-reality library that contains all the data produced by "her", called "The black library" due to its black-and-white design, is considered a holy place of pilgrimage.

Heaven and paradise

* "The Reformers" ('' Weird Science'' #20) — When three space men dressed in scifi versions of religious garb land on a planet to "free it of evil;" they are greeted by a man named Peter who informs them they are not needed (for there is no crime, no immorality, nor any of the evils seen in other societies); so they plan to create evil for which they can blame literature, clothing, and alcohol (as they have done on previous worlds)—including Earth—they are contracted by their leader (the Devil) who informs that their efforts are doomed...because they have landed in Heaven.
* In an alternate scene of ''Prometheus'' (2012) astronaut Elizabeth Shaw who survived the clash with god-like aliens who turned out to be rather malicious asks the AI David to navigate a stranded alien spaceship toward where the alien came from instead of back to Earth, saying "I don't want to go back to where we came from...I want to go where they came from...I want to go to paradise."Quote from the alternate scene:
''David'': Dr. Shaw! Over here!

''Elizabeth Shaw'': Where is my cross?

''David'': The pouch in my utility belt...the other pouch.

...even after all this...you still believe, don't you?

''Elizabeth Shaw'': You said you could figure out their navigation....use their maps.

''David'': Yes, of course. Once we get to one of their other ships...finding a path to Earth should be relatively straightforward

''Elizabeth Shaw'': I don't want to go back to where we came from...I want to go where they came from...I want to go to paradise. You think you can do that, David?

''David'': Yes. I believe I can. May I ask what you hope to achieve by going there?

''Elizabeth Shaw'': They created us. And they tried to kill us. They changed their minds. I deserve to know why.

''David'': Does it matter why they changed their minds?

''Elizabeth Shaw'': Heh. Yeah...yes, it does.

''David'': I don't understand.

''Elizabeth Shaw'': Well, I guess that's because I'm a human being...and you're a fucking robot. Do you mind?

''David'': Mind?
Previously Shaw has been portrayed as a deeply religious person whose first encounter with the concept of heaven or paradise stems from when her mother died – a memory David coexperienced during Shaw's hypersleep. Previously an additional dialogue between Shaw and David was shown:

''Elizabeth Shaw'': Before that thing ripped your head off, what did he say, David?

''David (AI)'': "Thing;" Dr. Shaw? Not too long ago, you considered them gods.

''Elizabeth Shaw'': God never tried to kill me. So... what did he say? Where did he come from?

''David'': There is no direct translation, but... Several of your ancient cultures had a word similar to it... "Paradise".

:When David asks her what she hopes to achieve by going there she tells him that she wants to know why the aliens (the "Engineers") created humanity and why they later intended to destroy them.

Hell

* In the cult science fiction/horror movie ''Event Horizon'', the titular ship passes through an extra-dimensional realm, and the crew—possessed by an entity from Hell—are driven murderously insane.
* " A Nice Place to Visit", a 1960 episode of ''The Twilight Zone''
* The short story "A Planet Named Shayol" (by Cordwainer Smith), was inspired by Dante's ''Inferno''
* ''The Divine Invasion'' (1981) by Philip K. Dick — The novel states that "a sifting bridge had to be crossed by the newly dead person. If he was evil the bridge got narrower and narrower until he toppled off and plunged into the fiery pit of hell" (p. 134). Although this bridge was originally mechanical in its punishment of sinful souls, there one day came a new figure, the "Beside-Helper" or "Advocate," who would defend and speak for anyone who accepted his assistance before stepping upon the bridge (p. 135), thereby "feed ngmercy into the circuit" (p. 136).

Jesus

* H. G. Wells