Babylon 5 - The Scripts of JMS

Very interesting so far, especially for those interested in the process of making a TV show.

Volume 4

Confessions and Lamentations

SHERIDAN They're not your own people. DELENN I didn't know that similarity was required for the exercise of compassion.

SHERIDAN In the last seven days we've learned that an entire race can judge itself to death. That fear and silence can be as deadly as the plague that spawned it. We've learned that there is no such thing as someone else's problem, that in the end, we are all connected. (beat) A human writer, John Dunne, wrote 1: "No man is an island, entire of itself. Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind. Therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls. It tolls for thee." If we can remember that lesson, then all this might not have been in vain, and their deaths will have meaning.

Religion plays a huge role in this story, as guidepost, tradition, and liability. I wanted to hilight the reality that religion has served a great many positive purposes over the centuries, but that at the same time we must accept the fact that on more than one occasion it has worked against humanity's best interests, in the currency of crusades, jihads and intolerance. Science and religion both emanate from the same wellspring, the desire to understand who we are, where we came from, and where we are going. The problem comes when the means of answering those questions is framed in the negative, i.e.: we are who we are because we are not those people over there, the infidels, the unbelievers, the heathens. The moment you do that, you create an atmosphere of us vs. them, of true believers vs. enemies. It is my opinion that very little good comes from that dichotomy.

This is an interesting episode in that JMS (an atheist) paints not only the negative side of religion, but the positive side at the same time. Even his final speach is mostly taken from a minister.

So a warning to James... this is a preachy episode :D

The two quotes above basically sum it up.