NBC Heroes, Faith, Philosophy, Christianity

Posted by Anthony on September 23, 2008

So last night was the season opener for the NBC series Heroes.  Am I the only person left scratching his head?  I had hoped that the series would start making sense again but instead it seems to have become even more convoluted.  I want to enjoy the show but there is just way too much going on to keep track of from week to week.

In last night’s back to back episodes, one of the characters, Nathan Petrelli, credits the saving of his life to God and suggests at one point that perhaps he and his brother (Peter) could become angels.  ‘God’ popped up in a few other places as well.  It appears that one of the goals of the writers is to not turn off the religious folk.  Apparently interspersing the word ‘God’ and making statements alluding to the possibility that God is at work in the doings of the characters is enough to do this.  Maybe it is, but I’m not really impressed.  The series is placed squarely on the evolutionary worldview, though I doubt even many evolutionists are prepared to imagine natural selection could select for time travel, etc.

Theology and evolution don’t mix well, if they mix at all, but the series doesn’t have a single character representing a knowledgeable theistic point of view.  The series seems primed to have Nathan ride to power as a senator on account of the religious fervor of voters who are inspired by Nathan’s account of his experience with the divine.  But would competent Christian thinkers simply buy in?  The ‘miraculous’ healing is certainly something to take into account but the whole concept of God giving secret messages to individuals without any witnesses whatsoever apart from that individual himself is the approach of the Gnostics (heretics), Muslims, and Mormons.

According to Christianity, when God finally made his boldest move, he did so in public.  Jesus taught in the temples and synagogues and streets for three years and died right smack in the middle of a shouting crowd.  Later, he appeared to numerous people at the same time, including at least one incident where 500 people were present.

Heroes seems ready to embrace the notion that only atheists are skeptics and religious people will believe whatever is handed to them in the name of ‘God.’  Meanwhile, of course, survival of the fittest continues to play out amidst the characters (who unsuprisingly never seem to stay dead once killed) and we’re supposed to feel for them, despite the visual protrayal of a life that really is ‘nasty, brutish, and short.’

The series would be greatly improved if they got ahold of some writers who didn’t merely want to explore some philosophical concepts but who also could represent accurately those ‘on the other side.’  I might even be able to endure the plot upheavals that take place every five minutes.

NBC’s Heroes and a Christian Response … a warm up.

Posted by Anthony on October 30, 2007

NBC’s television show “Heroes” is pretty good, though I have to say that I agree in many respects with this guy who has grown tired of some of the plot elements.  I still have more hope, though, and I especially like watching deep philosophy play out on the TV screen.  In particular, I enjoy watching the evolutionary world view sink its claws into the imagination of Americans who would otherwise never think about it.

In this series, we are given to believe that evolutionary processes have allowed a class of people to emerge with special gifts like mind reading, flying, instantaneous regrowth, memory stealing, time travel, etc.  But at no point does the series try to explain how exactly a genetic mutation can allow a human to fly.  It isn’t like they sprout wings.  They just go, like Superman.  We have here the curious mental exercise of imagining that evolution can produce literally any phenomena we might imagine- including what would otherwise have been described as supernatural- while not bothering to explain what the actual mechanism is in terms of the laws of physics.

It is almost as if we are being prepped to be direct witnesses to a miracle and yet still prefer a naturalistic explanation (2 Thessalonians 2:9-12).

In the meantime, the characters themselves are mystified about their powers and we occasionally see arguments about the source of the ‘gifts.’  Is it God?  In the latest episode, Maya terms Sylar/Gabriel (I’m sure ‘Gabriel’ is unintentional) as a gift from God when of course we know that Sylar is a major punk.  We are led to believe, I guess, that God is perfectly happy with a woman being able to kill people at a distance when yucky stuff comes out of her eyes. And in an episode previously,  the argument is that there can’t be a God if all these bad things are happening.  Ok, but is there no counter-argument?

There are all sorts of interesting questions lurking behind all of this but the series lacks one critical element that would help diffuse the idea that we’re just being given atheistic propaganda:  a devout and intelligent and educated theist to serve as a counter-weight and counter-explanation to rival other explanations offered in the series.  Even Carl Sagan managed to muster one up in his book Contact, though naturally he couldn’t resist making religious nutjobs his main bad guys.  Because all religious people who really believe in God are nutjobs, didn’t you know?

Anyway, I hope to try to expand on these themes as the season progresses.   In the main, I do enjoy the show, but then I also know a little bit about those questions that are lurking underneath.

But personally, I’m starting to think Heroes is getting tapped out.  I am enjoying Journeyman because it is dealing with some of these issues in a more respectable way.  Just my opinion.