Babylon 5: Believers

[DisgruntleFairy]

This is a hard episode to review and I think Chuck did a great job with it. The beliefs of the parents and the child are odious to the viewers as we can clearly see in this thread. That makes defending them really hard. But at the same time that is part of what makes it such a interesting episode. If there beliefs were less repellent then it would have opened up a lot more middle ground.

This is an episode that aims to create an emotional reaction and it does. So in a lot of ways its very successful.

[CareerKnight]

Imagine if we got some time displaced Aztecs on B5 which wanted to sacrifice people so the world would not end. Would this be acceptable?

Well going by what JMS said about the aliens not being arrested (because they did it to one of there own so would be judged according to their laws) no it would not be cause Humanity doesn't tolerate murder in the name of religion and the station wouldn't tolerate it if they murdered aliens either.

[Sir Will]

The obvious parallel seems to be Jehovah's Witnesses and their refusal to have blood transfusions, and shunning of members of their faith who do accept them.

That's what I thought of. And I know my country has intervened in situations like that before to get them treatment. They're children.

On the other hand, there's also examples of allowing a child to stop cancer treatment to pursue... holistic BS. She predictably died. She might have been a little older than this kid, not sure how old he is. I don't know. I don't blame Franklin.

[CharlesPhipps]

Bluntly, this is one of the nicer prime directive works that's out there. Yes, you can certainly step in when cults (or religions) have the view against a live saving medical practice. However, in this case, the action was done from the perspective of no knowledge how this can and would affect their entire lives.

A similar episode was done in, of all things, LONGMIRE where Caddy is determined to get a kid treated for Scarlet Fever because his parents won't take him to the doctor. This destroys her relationship with the Reservation because IN THE SHOW ITSELF kids have been ripped from their homes on the basis of bullshit excuses to be raised by white families (by people doing it for money) and also who sterilized kids while in the hospitals.

Caddy adopted her white savior attitude and all it did was actually make it impossible to get the kid treated because it became political.

Franklin could have done this any number of ways--including doing the surgery and lying about it, but the consequences are on him.

This is a hard episode to review and I think Chuck did a great job with it. The beliefs of the parents and the child are odious to the viewers as we can clearly see in this thread. That makes defending them really hard. But at the same time that is part of what makes it such a interesting episode. If there beliefs were less repellent then it would have opened up a lot more middle ground.

This is an episode that aims to create an emotional reaction and it does. So in a lot of ways its very successful.

Honestly, I think it's not a matter of "Franklin versus the parents. It's Franklin vs. Cultural Relativism." The child ended up dead because of Franklin's actions so it was a zero sum game. You can blame the parents for that but the simple fact was Franklin's handling of the matter was repellent. His attempt to save the child basically just illustrated not an unwavering love of life but a sheer willingness to ignore any and all wishes or culture issues. Which was the justification for sterialization and other forced "medical benefits" on many natives. Plus taking away children from their parents in many indigineous cultures.

Yes, the show wants to say Franklin's side is right(er) but he could have tried any number of other ways to treat the kid, less effective perhaps, but ones that might have ended with the kid alive.

[BunBun299]

My earlier rant aside, I do not hate this episode. I think it was quite well done as a work of sci-fi. I just think two of the characters in it are monsters who should have been thrown out the airlock.

[Imperator-zor]

Imagine if we got some time displaced Aztecs on B5 which wanted to sacrifice people so the world would not end. Would this be acceptable?

Well going by what JMS said about the aliens not being arrested (because they did it to one of there own so would be judged according to their laws) no it would not be cause Humanity doesn't tolerate murder in the name of religion and the station wouldn't tolerate it if they murdered aliens either.

Alright, lets say that some aliens scooped up twenty five thousand Aztecs and their surrounding vassal peoples from around 1500, plopped them down on an alien planet with access to a library of technology allowing them to accelerate their technological development as they kept up their religion (adjusting it in light of scientific insight but retaining The Gods Demand Sacrifice parts) so that by 2259 they had Spaceships of their own and an Aztec Priest from what is effectively an alien civilization removed from the Earth Federation arrived.

Zor

[cdrood]

The thing to remember is that B5 isn't Star Trek and Earth isn't The Federation. This boy would literally have no place within his own society. Even if his parents had chosen the surgery, they couldn't go back. They'd be citizens of nowhere, only with whatever rights wherever they end up grants to aliens with no diplomatic relations.

Once his parents died, he'd have no place at all. He'd likely be unable to marry as even a half human Delenn marrying Sheridan wasn't exactly accepted with open arms and while different species having sex is references and even (somehow) the possibility of a Narn/Human hybrid being possible, there's really nothing to show the galaxy is at a point where inter-species marriage or relationships are acceptable.

I've had a child die. The only thing that helps is knowing I've already experienced the worst time in my life. I would never make the choice these parents made. However, this isn't Earth, where the child could be given to another family and live among humans of different beliefs and have a chance to belong.

[Formless One]

For example, not even the Soul Hunters belief in an afterlife or reincarnation, unlike anyone on this planet would assume if smoething like a soul would be proven to exist

I'm going to have to disagree with you on that, because if I recall correctly that is exactly what some religions believe. IIRC, in Judaism there is no promise of eternal life or heaven, and one valid interpretation of the classic "dust to dust" quote in the bible (in that religion) is that when you die, that's it, you cease to be. Likewise, in certain Bhuddist sects the soul (or some part of the soul) may reincarnate, but that isn't necessarily seen as good, since existence is suffering. Ending the cycle of reincarnation is part of the point of the religion's practices.

Likewise, for a scientific secularist or even atheist there is no basis for assuming anything about the soul and its properties besides being some kind of intangible object tied to one's consciousness. If it could be scientifically proven that such a thing exists and is a necessary part of our existence, there would still be many questions left to resolve about it from a secularist's perspective. And since JMS is a secularist, that's almost certainly the whole point of the conflict between the Soul Hunters and the Minbari-- its impossible to know which culture is correct or even whether neither of them are, as some of the human characters assert.

[Durandal_1707]

For example, not even the Soul Hunters belief in an afterlife or reincarnation, unlike anyone on this planet would assume if smoething like a soul would be proven to exist

I'm going to have to disagree with you on that, because if I recall correctly that is exactly what some religions believe. IIRC, in Judaism there is no promise of eternal life or heaven, and one valid interpretation of the classic "dust to dust" quote in the bible (in that religion) is that when you die, that's it, you cease to be.

That's not quite right; Judaism has the concept of Sheol, doesn't it? There's even a passage in 1 Samuel where Saul goes to Endor to get a medium to call Samuel's spirit so he can ask him for advice (Samuel, of course, just gets pissed off at being bothered. Saul should have found someone less annoying than an Ewok to do it. Oh well, live and learn).

[Formless One]

For example, not even the Soul Hunters belief in an afterlife or reincarnation, unlike anyone on this planet would assume if smoething like a soul would be proven to exist

I'm going to have to disagree with you on that, because if I recall correctly that is exactly what some religions believe. IIRC, in Judaism there is no promise of eternal life or heaven, and one valid interpretation of the classic "dust to dust" quote in the bible (in that religion) is that when you die, that's it, you cease to be.

That's not quite right; Judaism has the concept of Sheol, doesn't it? There's even a passage in 1 Samuel where Saul goes to Endor to get a medium to call Samuel's spirit so he can ask him for advice (Samuel, of course, just gets pissed off at being bothered. Saul should have found someone less annoying than an Ewok to do it. Oh well, live and learn).

Oh, Judaism definitely has a concept of a soul, but the point is that it isn't necessarily immortal. There definitely isn't a Christian-like promise of going to heaven after death in Judaism, I'm certain of that. You will find biblical characters from the Old Testament/Tanakh who are stated to have been lifted into heaven, but they are always presented as the exception, not the rule. I'm also pretty sure that at least one of them-- Yoda, as I recall-- got to keep his body or something to that effect. Its different is what I'm saying.