Church of Scientism

The Encyclopedia Foundation was a fictional construct in the late Dr. Isaac Asimov’s Hugo Award winning “Foundation Trilogy”. It was about a group of scientists and scholars exiled to the outer edge of the galaxy, where they worked on preserving the knowledge of all mankind. They were putting into a book set famously called “The Encyclopedia Galactica”.

Life was not easy for those on that distant planet of Terminus. The Galactic Empire was falling, and the Prefects of the Periphery were seceding and declaring themselves Kingdoms. At one point in the history of Terminus, it was determined that the best way to spread knowledge was to start a proselytizing religion and introduce science that way.

It would also give the hierarchy on Terminus some control over the hostile Kingdoms. Elsewhere we have wrote of those priests who spread the faith, and how they must have been sincere. But what of the Church and its mission itself?

Oddly enough, it was never named. No where in the “Foundation Trilogy” does Asimov mention a “Church of Scientism”. It has simply been named that by fans since the works came out in the nineteen forties. There is even a Wikipedia article on it!

Could such a thing work? Well, yes and no. No, it could not work as described. But if we assume that there were some activities that were going on “off scene” so to speak, then yes, there would be a chance. But contrary to some people’s beliefs it is near impossible to just “make up” a religion.

A religion, true or false, needs several things. It needs a plausible origin. By which it is meant that it must either be a continuation or off-shoot of a presently existing one, or if it’s entirely new, it takes an enormous event or an enormously persuasive leader, not to mention enormously persuasive assistants. It is actually very, very rare for an entirely new religion to be created. Or rather, many new ones are started, but very few outlast their founders.

Christianity and Islam were offshoots of Judaism. Buddhism was a slow evolution from previous faith systems. Most all churches you know of come from Judaism, Buddhism or Hinduism, one way or another. Isaac Asimov was not actually trying to “create” a new religion, he just needed one for purposes of his books. Hence his not fleshing it out. It was peripheral to the overall story, and we only learned what we needed to for the story.

A religion also has to do something, besides aggrandizing the leader. At least if it expects to last longer than the leader’s lifetime. It must actually give something to the people. This in all cases must be real, and even the obviously fake religions do provide real service. Some such services are a sense of community and belonging. A shoulder to cry on. The solace of confession. The feeling of working for a greater purpose. Actual material aid in emergencies. Moral guidance for day to day living.

These are real and valuable things, and no religion that fails to provide them will last long, whether they are objectively true or not. This so-called “Church of Scientism” would have had to provide those things. It is funny, Asimov made such a great point of how it was just a device to fool the masses, but in his life he had far more regard for the masses than that. His kind hearted socialism was well known. But we know the quote he had Hober Mallow say, don’t we?

Whenever the Foundation Federation was attacked, such as in “Foundation and Empire”, the citizens of it, including from the planets of the original Four Kingdoms, always leapt to the Foundation’s defense. This is not the type of action one expects from the masses when the religion they follow is an entire fraud. Clearly, they had good reason to believe in it, far more than just “it keeps the lights on”.

It could be speculated that the religion of Terminus was based upon a variety of belief systems generally known to the Galaxy, and of some popularity in the Periphery. It would have to be presented as a “clarification” or “codification”, as opposed to out and out new. After all, if your planet has slipped into barbarism – as defined by having a coal and oil economy instead of nuclear – that does not mean you are a shivering peasant worshipping the moon. We on this planet are primarily coal and oil!

No, Hober Mallow had to have found some actual priests of other faiths, and got them to help him work out this “new” faith. It would have to have been real, previously existing, and fully believed by the line priests and missionaries trained to go out into the Kingdoms. And note that it had a “Bible”, called “Book of the Spirit”. That either existed already, or more likely was wrote by the priests and missionaries gathered together to form this new faith.

It could be granted that the highest of the leaders might not have believed, but the rest would have had to. There is a type of doublethink known as a “pious fraud”, that would have aided this.

In any case, we can see by this that such a church would have had to be about a lot more than simply guiding political policy. Heck, most all churches in America and elsewhere do that, or at least try! No, this church from Terminus would have to be fully about good works, not just good words. It can be assumed that while Asimov wrote about the church running the hospitals and naval yards, that they were also busy running soup lines and shelters. And surely schools.

And let’s not forget those temples. Each week, at no cost, the peoples of the variety of worlds getting moral instruction, a sense of community and a knowledge of working for a greater good. Politics would have been a distant, distant, second.

From all this we may believe that this church did not actually die, though it was not mentioned in the series after the book “Foundation”. But given that they were well established in many star systems, had a membership of billions, and that eventually so many planets were a part of the Foundation Federation that they’d not have cared about whether missionaries came or not, we may assume it continued to grow.

In fact, we may assume it grew a lot. Consider in the other books afterward how reverentially people spoke of the Foundation. “It is foretold it cannot fall!” and such awe-filled regard as that. Clearly the inhabitants of all the Foundation Federation, and the other third of the galaxy under their influence, and the last third of the galaxy that only had heard of them, all felt that there was something mystical about the Foundation Federation!

Clearly, the church, no matter how first started, grew! And could only have done so through good works. In these new Foundation novels that some are writing, it would be nice if some mention of that church could be made!