# Any sci-fi about christian robots? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 10, 2003, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-sci-fi-about-christian-robots/206710 "2003-10-10T18:29:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![toadspittle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c0e974/32.png) [@toadspittle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/toadspittle)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2003, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-sci-fi-about-christian-robots/206710/1 "2003-10-10T18:29:36Z")
A GD thread ( [Would God accept A.I. beings as his own?](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=216446) ) made me wonder–have there been any sci-fi novels/stories about Christian robots? I can’t seem to recall any (Christian/Jewish aliens, yes, but not robots), and a web search was remarkably unhelpful. ---
**Author:** ![rjung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2003, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-sci-fi-about-christian-robots/206710/2 "2003-10-10T19:14:07Z")
I can’t recall any particularly religious robots. Unless you count golems, which are inherently Jewish. 😉 (Then again, Terry Pratchett’s **Feet of Clay** features an agnostic golem, which makes it tough for the gods to smite him… 😃 ) ---
**Author:** ![toadspittle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c0e974/32.png) [@toadspittle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/toadspittle)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2003, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-sci-fi-about-christian-robots/206710/3 "2003-10-10T19:16:20Z")
Well, I think I know what my next book will be about … (hurries off to write) ---
**Author:** ![PatriotX](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c4cdca/32.png) [@PatriotX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatriotX)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2003, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-sci-fi-about-christian-robots/206710/4 "2003-10-10T19:19:09Z")
Yes, there is, but i can’t remeber what it was called. It was in a Best of SF short story collection. A "miracle’ was a non-decomposing saint. In this world, Xianity was oppressed, (by technocrat overlords ?), they did the drawing in the dirt bit. however, it turns out that the saint was actually an android. More than that i don’t really remember. it was published before 1990 though. ---
**Author:** ![tanstaafl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ba8739/32.png) [@tanstaafl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tanstaafl)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2003, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-sci-fi-about-christian-robots/206710/5 "2003-10-10T19:20:22Z")
There was a TV series (the name of which I am currently drawing a blank on; starred Parker Stephenson and was created by Issac Asimov. _Probe_ I think.) that had an episode which featured an AI that was (essentially) programmed with Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics but was somehow killing people. Turned out the AI had gotten religion and decided that if it killed someone then they would simply go to heaven so it was actually doing them a _favor_ by killing them. Don’t know if that counts though. ---
**Author:** ![photopat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/e95f7d/32.png) [@photopat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/photopat)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2003, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-sci-fi-about-christian-robots/206710/6 "2003-10-10T19:23:00Z")
Well, there is [this](http://sprott.physics.wisc.edu/pickover/journalnews.html). I googled “religious robots” science fiction. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2003, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-sci-fi-about-christian-robots/206710/7 "2003-10-10T19:31:52Z")
The robot character – I forget her name – played by Winona Ryder in _Aliens IV_ wore a cross and prayed. The impression was that she was trying to be more human – which is quite literally the oldest cliche in SF, going back to Mary Shelley’s _Frankenstein._ ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2003, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-sci-fi-about-christian-robots/206710/8 "2003-10-10T20:24:27Z")
There’s a Robert Silverberg (I think) short story about a robot who becomes pope. I’ll try to find the title for you. Also, Isaac Asimov’s short story “Reason” is about a religious, though non-Christian, robot. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2003, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-sci-fi-about-christian-robots/206710/9 "2003-10-10T20:34:03Z")
The Silverberg story is “Good News From the Vatican”. ---
**Author:** ![Bippy\_the\_Beardless](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ac8455/32.png) [@Bippy\_the\_Beardless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bippy_the_Beardless)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2003, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-sci-fi-about-christian-robots/206710/10 "2003-10-10T20:36:00Z")
Don’t forget Douglas Adam’s Electronic Monk. From one of the Dirk Gently books. Though I don’t think it was specifically Christian. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2003, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-sci-fi-about-christian-robots/206710/11 "2003-10-10T20:39:14Z")
In James Morrow’s short story collection, _Bible Stories for Adults_, there’s a story about a robotic civilization that arises on an abandoned human colony, and builds a religion around Charles Darwin’s _Origin of the Species_. Centuries later, humans find the colony and try to teach the robots that they were, in fact, Created, not Evolved. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2003, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-sci-fi-about-christian-robots/206710/12 "2003-10-10T20:42:59Z")
> [@](#): > > Yes, there is, but i can’t remeber what it was called. It was in a Best of SF short story collection. A "miracle’ was a non-decomposing saint. In this world, Xianity was oppressed, (by technocrat overlords ?), they did the drawing in the dirt bit. however, it turns out that the saint was actually an android. The story was called “In Search of St. Aquin”, and I think it won a Hugo. But I can’t recall who wrote it. If I remember when I get home, I’ll check: I think it’s in one of the collections I have. And yes, I was going to mention it, too. While we’re on the topic of Asimov, R. Daneel Olivaw expresses approval for religion in _The Caves of Steel_, but there’s no indication that he believes the theology of it. And let’s not mention Daneel in the context of Asimov’s later works, where he _is_ a god. And **BrainGlutton** , what do you mean by “_Aliens IV_”? Was that a book? Because I’m quite certain that there were only two Aliens movies ;). ---
**Author:** ![rickh57](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/54ee81/32.png) [@rickh57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rickh57)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2003, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-sci-fi-about-christian-robots/206710/13 "2003-10-10T20:45:16Z")
Clifford Simak wrote a book, [Project Pope](http://www.tc.umn.edu/~brams007/simak/writings.html#pope), about this. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2003, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-sci-fi-about-christian-robots/206710/14 "2003-10-10T21:23:52Z")
But just as logically, if you progress from 12 to 12:01 am, that should be 12:00 am. The same for times approaching noon. The usual practice is indeed to assign am to 12 midnight and pm to 12 noon, but there is nothing automatic or indisputable about doing so. And there should be no surprise that people have to think about the convention or sometimes get it wrong. Conventions are arbitrary, pretty much by definition. “The Quest for St. Aquin” was written by Anthony Boucher. And in 1951, so too early for a Hugo. Here’s a [partial list](http://isfdb.tamu.edu/cgi-bin/pw.cgi?7f514d) of anthologies it is in. Of those you should check used book sites for [Other Worlds, Other Gods](http://isfdb.tamu.edu/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?THRWRGDSAA1971), one of the very few anthologies of religious science fiction. (Amazon’s z-shops have lots of copies of the paperback.) And _Alien: Resurrection_ is also known as _Alien 4_, according to the IMDb. It came out ih 1997, just after the third Aliens movie, [Alien Beach Party Massacre](http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0313187/), in 1996. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2003, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-sci-fi-about-christian-robots/206710/15 "2003-10-10T21:32:42Z")
Ouch. My apologies for the above. When I couldn’t connect to the Dope I wrote the post in a file of scratch SMDB material and copied too many lines back without looking. I’ve been having huge troubles trying to post and even to connect for the past couple of days. ---
**Author:** ![Kaspar\_Hauser](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/b3f665/32.png) [@Kaspar\_Hauser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kaspar_Hauser)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2003, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-sci-fi-about-christian-robots/206710/16 "2003-10-10T21:34:32Z")
" …and please let Lisa tell us a story… about robots… named Rod and Todd." ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2003, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-sci-fi-about-christian-robots/206710/17 "2003-10-10T22:03:40Z")
Speaking of which, have any of you come across an anthology called _Machines that Think: Best Science Fiction Stories about Robots and Computers_, published around 1984 by Holt? Been sitting on my bookshelf for over 15 years, and I haven’t cracked it open yet. Maybe tonight. I do love me robot stories. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2003, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-sci-fi-about-christian-robots/206710/18 "2003-10-10T23:04:30Z")
> [@](#): > > Speaking of which, have any of you come across an anthology called Machines that Think: Best Science Fiction Stories about Robots and Computers, published around 1984 by Holt? I’m pretty sure that I’ve read it. Edited by Asimov, no? It was pretty good, but the only story I distinctly remember from it was “A Logic Named Joe”, which was a remarkably prescient view of the modern Internet (written in the late '50s). ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2003, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-sci-fi-about-christian-robots/206710/19 "2003-10-11T02:34:47Z")
Last Rites by Charles Beaumont is all about this very question. It’s in the Monster Book Of Monsters. Though I assume it can be found elsewhere. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Hat\_s\_Rabbit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/9fc29f/32.png) [@The\_Hat\_s\_Rabbit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Hat_s_Rabbit)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2003, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-sci-fi-about-christian-robots/206710/20 "2003-10-11T03:34:05Z")
I know a christian robot. You can talk to him here: [http://www.oliverbot.com](http://www.oliverbot.com) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-sci-fi-about-christian-robots/206710.md?page=2)