Judaism and SF

[cellio]

Wandering Stars is the classic compilation of SF around Jewish themes, including halachic issues that just don't arise in day-to-day life like whether space aliens can convert (and, IIRC, managing the calendar on other planets). Some of my readers might be interested in the following speculative questions that have been asked on Judaism.StackExchange:

Does the torah discuss (space) aliens?

Time travel and Judaism

If a pig was genetically modified to chew its cud would it be kosher?

(I just posted these on an old entry in response to a comment (was cleaning out spam and noticed it), but I then thought they might be of more general interest.)

Edit:

The following were contributed by Isaac Moses in a comment:

Can a robot be your rabbi? (As if we don't have enough trouble with people thinking that a website can be a rabbi.)

Does Robot = Golem?

Can a robot be your official agent? Looks like your anthology can have a whole section on robots.

If you can drive a car using only your brain, can you do that on Shabbat?


And based on another comment, I just asked: When does somebody living in space observe shabbat?

Comments

[isaac moses (from livejournal.com)]

Nice anthology!

[cellio]

Thanks! I'm much newer to the site than you are, so if you know of others that would fit in here, please share the links and I'll edit them into the post.

[isaac moses (from livejournal.com)]

If you check out my user ID on the site, you'll find that you're far from alone in that condition. 8^)

Challenge accepted! Here are some good candidates:

• Can a robot be your rabbi? (As if we don't have enough trouble with people thinking that a website can be a rabbi.)


• Does Robot = Golem?


• Can a robot be your offical agent? Looks like your anthology can have a whole section on robots.


• If you can drive a car using only your brain, can you do that on Shabbat?

[cellio]

If you check out my user ID on the site, you'll find that you're far from alone in that condition. 8^)

You're a moderator (and I think creator of the previous incarnation), so you've seen it all go by. I followed a link from Joel Spolsky to the proposal a few months ago and have not read every question in the archive. :-)

Thanks for the additional questions! And this discussion prompted me to ask one more (see comment to dagonell).

[dagonell.livejournal.com]

Have any of the astronauts been Jewish? How do you observe the Sabbeth when you can watch a sunset every twenty minutes?

[cellio]

Jewish shuttle astronauts have been advised to use Cape Canaveral time (last place they were that had sunrise/sunset). I just asked how one living in space for an extended time would observe, since relocation might be different from a quick trip.