Babylon 5: Believers

[Wild_Kraken]

I hate this episode with 100% of my heart and soul. What makes it worse is that the very next episode is the one where Sinclair brings representatives from all Earth's religions onto the station for some lovey dovey bullshit. You have an episode that shows off one of the worst aspects of religion, and then the next you're all "uhhh actually religion is awesome." Fuck off.

[Yukaphile]

It's like putting the crusades back to back with Jesus's teachings.

[Redem]

I'm strongly incline to think this episode only exist because JMS wanted to have an episode where a kid die

[TheLibrarian]

To me, Franklin's only failing is that he didn't do his follow up research on these yahoo's idiot beliefs. In my country we yank kids away from parents who'd rather get their kid dead than treated.

And maybe if they were on Earth or an Earth colony, Franklin would have that option. But Babylon 5 is a unique circumstance--like Sinclair says, it has to at least try to maintain a non-judgmental stance with regards to all visiting and resident alien cultures, because that's the whole point of the Babylon Project. (Yes, that all goes to shit in Season 3 but Sinclair can't see the future--yet. )

How could a species get to spacefaring technological status if they had such a strong disbelief in medicine, that seems like the sort of socially limiting belief that would have doomed them to extinction long before that.

Our species has sent people to the moon, and there are still many educated people who don't vaccinate their children despite all the scientific evidence in support of it. There's never been a case in human history where the majority of the population are as informed and knowledgeable as their civilization's body of knowledge as a whole, and even very intelligent and educated people are capable of holding incredibly irrational beliefs. Plus, we don't know if the Children of Time ever independently developed space travel. Maybe they were visited by another spacefaring culture and just hitched rides, were transported against their will, bought spacecraft from other species--any number of other possibilities.

I doubt they'd even have got to industrial revolution level, hell, even the Ancient Greeks and Romans believed surgery was necessary and acceptable, so there is the upper bounds of that one.

Fun fact: the original Hippocratic Oath has physicians swear to never use a knife. But who said there's a 1-to-1 relationship between medical advancements and manufacturing? The Industrial Revolution killed thousands upon thousands through unsafe and unhygienic work conditions, environmental poisons, and disdain for the plight of the working class for decades before most modern medical techniques were even in their infancy.

You cannot organise a society if you are letting people go around believing that a single cut of the scalpel dooms you, not on any scale or for any length of time.

I don't think they believe accidentally nicking yourself while making dinner means you'll be possessed by demons. I think they believe opening up your chest cavity is bad news. Which for a people who never developed anesthetic or antiseptics might also be really practical advice. Even if you do have those major surgery is always a risk.

Why is their belief ludicrous to me. 'Any puncture of the torso' Why are they not wearing body armor? That is rather easy to do. So I have trouble seeing them as a space faring race with this holding them back.

Why would expect your torso to be punctured unless you were entering into a violent or dangerous situation? I could hit my head and suffer brain damage at any point, with the potential of removing my ability to consent to or refuse any treatment, but I don't go around wearing a helmet while walking down the street or sitting at my desk.

[MyUserName]

I'm only partially through the review, but just wanted to say something.

In the words of Dennis Miller; "Now I don't want to get off on a rant here but..."

Anyone who gets offended because Chuck has to say something about political or religious aspects of an episode really needs to take a step back from whatever it is they got offended about and maybe ask "Am I just being reactionary on this one?

I'm sick of victim mentality. Not everything that disagrees with you does so because it hates you, your culture, your gender, your sexual preference, your religion, and whatever others flavors of self-pity and loathing you happen to entertain this week.

Chuck has to toe the line to keep viewers, and I really sympathize with him that he has to do so. But in the name of respecting all the colors, shades, and beliefs out there, yes including those I personally and fundamentally disagree with, allow me to say that regardless of how passionately you hold to your beliefs, if part of those beliefs involve railing on, hating, belittling, and/or dismissing someone for the sole crime of believing differently, than you sir or madam, are in deep need for some self evaluation.

I don't know when things became so damn "us vs them" in western society. I grew up respecting all the differences in life and still do. Doesn't mean I agree with them, just means I'm not going be horrible to anyone who says something I disagree with. The other day a youtuber I respect, Mecharandom42, put out the theory that maybe there needs to be no further Batman or Superman films, as their stories have been told and retold so many times that its tough to really do anything different with them. As a comic book fan, I disagree. Immensely. But as a person, I see no reason to make a difference of opinion personal or hostile. I just shrug my shoulders on the disagreement and keep supporting people with good content and attitudes, like Chuck.

Of course, that's just my opinion. I could be wrong.

[Wild_Kraken]

Some additional thoughts: Chuck's analysis is fundamentally flawed because the example given in the show is of a child. In his slippery slope scenarios, "would you force an obese person to have their stomach stapled or induce vomiting in an alcoholic?" presumably any adult could simply not consent to the procedures. The slippery slope ends right there and goes no further.

Children on the other hand, can't consent, and require adults to act on their behalf. If a parent or legal guardian is negligent or abusive, it is absolutely justified to intervene on behalf of the child and remove them from that situation. If the religious beliefs in the episode required that their child be starved to death, would Chuck really say "It's your right to be fucking stupid and starve your child to death." ????????

It's like putting the crusades back to back with Jesus's teachings.

"Kill them all. God will know his own!" Next episode "But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also."

[Nealithi]

You cannot organise a society if you are letting people go around believing that a single cut of the scalpel dooms you, not on any scale or for any length of time.

I don't think they believe accidentally nicking yourself while making dinner means you'll be possessed by demons. I think they believe opening up your chest cavity is bad news. Which for a people who never developed anesthetic or antiseptics might also be really practical advice. Even if you do have those major surgery is always a risk.

Why is their belief ludicrous to me. 'Any puncture of the torso' Why are they not wearing body armor? That is rather easy to do. So I have trouble seeing them as a space faring race with this holding them back.

Why would expect your torso to be punctured unless you were entering into a violent or dangerous situation? I could hit my head and suffer brain damage at any point, with the potential of removing my ability to consent to or refuse any treatment, but I don't go around wearing a helmet while walking down the street or sitting at my desk.

I left these two in for my response because they fit the point. They did not say 'opening the chest cavity' They said any puncture of the torso results in the soul being lost. Then they have a ritual to end the empty husk of a being you become for this happening. IE you get your chest nicked making dinner, then they will kill you because you are a soulless monster. This is so strong a conviction they held up holy symbols to their child to ward him off. So it is so strong a concern. Why not protect yourself? If you put yourself in an environment where you can easily be killed. You wear a helmet. They made a condition where it is easy to accomplish the blasphemous.

[CareerKnight]

I left these two in for my response because they fit the point. They did not say 'opening the chest cavity' They said any puncture of the torso results in the soul being lost. Then they have a ritual to end the empty husk of a being you become for this happening. IE you get your chest nicked making dinner, then they will kill you because you are a soulless monster. This is so strong a conviction they held up holy symbols to their child to ward him off. So it is so strong a concern. Why not protect yourself? If you put yourself in an environment where you can easily be killed. You wear a helmet. They made a condition where it is easy to accomplish the blasphemous.

To quote JMS on this "The area that cannot be opened is the chest area, primarily; a nick or cut or scratch really doesn't count; it's puncturing to the body cavity wherein the soul is housed."

For one, it ignores the worldbuilding that has already been done because “souls” are straight-up real. The senior staff and Sinclair especially knows this because, just a handful of episodes previously, they had definitive, objective proof that the soul is a real thing that really exists in a measurable, provable way. Not only that, but the soul being real later becomes a cornerstone of the mythology of Babylon 5 in a huge way. Which means either JMS was full of crap when he claimed he had the entire five-season story planned out that he "forgot" a huge part of it involved souls being real...or he decided climbing up on his soapbox was more important than plot, world, or character consistency.

As others have said just because souls exist doesn't mean their beliefs about them are correct.

I hate this episode with 100% of my heart and soul. What makes it worse is that the very next episode is the one where Sinclair brings representatives from all Earth's religions onto the station for some lovey dovey bullshit. You have an episode that shows off one of the worst aspects of religion, and then the next you're all "uhhh actually religion is awesome." Fuck off.

There are people who argue that this episode is pro religion. And yes I would like to see their argument for that too.

If anyone is curious for more info on this episode from JMS here is a link to the archive.
http://www.midwinter.com/lurk/countries ... e/010.html

[Cassandra]

Despite early B5's being very heavily influenced by Star Trek, the show was insistent that it really wasn't Star Trek, but, lacking the confidence to be truly original, the only way the show could make that point was to use shock value to petulantly scream 'I'm not like you, daddy...uh...Star Trek' at anyone who would listen.

Hence, dead children.

[Abstruse]

There's souls in B5, but there's no reason for Franklin or Sinclair to think someone's soul will start leaking out of the body if that person has a surgery, gets a cut, or whatever. This is also one of the minority of episodes not written by JMS; this is David Gerrold's script.

Except Sinclair for sure knows that souls exist. He knows they can be removed. He's seen it personally. So how can he be sure? There isn't even a throwaway line with Sinclair or Delenn either asking about it or stating that they've researched souls since the run-in with the Soul Hunter. So how does he know how the soul can be removed from this alien species? Franklin must've read the reports, but there's nothing alluding to it from him either. It's treated as if it's some wacky belief by these backward aliens who don't have the fancy book learnin' us humans have.

And even if it wasn't written by JMS, he was still showrunner which means he had to have read and approved the script. It's especially frustrating considering this was eight episodes after "Soul Hunter" and ten episodes before "Babylon Squared" where they put in so much attention to detail so they could come back to that story again seasons later to link it perfectly with "War Without End". Which, without going too far into spoilers, is one of the major plots where souls existing plays a huge role in the story. Considering that, you'd think JMS would've looked at this script and said "Hey wait a minute, we've got a problem here..."