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During his prolific career as a published writer, lain M. Banks was a vociferous proponent of atheism, humanism and secularism; his eclectic fictional oeuvre is permeated with such expressions of a rational worldview. As an Honorary Associate of the National Secular Society and a Distinguished Supporter of the Humanist Society Scotland, Banks frequently wrote related letters of protest to the Guardian, including a call in 2009 for state funding to faith schools to be abolished. Banks was a reader of New Scientist for thirty years and also sang the praises of its sister publication New Humanist, gracing its cover in 1996 and frequently appearing in its pages discussing his work and his views. As pointed out in an obituary for Banks on The Freethinker website, various obituaries failed to mention Banks' atheism and how it shaped his work (Duke).
In his mainstream fiction, Banks frequently found a direct outlet for his views on matters pertaining to religion, sometimes writing from the perspective of characters whose views seem to directly align with his own, such as atheists Mr Munro in 'Piece' {The State of the Art 1989) and Stewart Gilmour in Stonemouth (2012), or featuring more incidental characters with similarly adamant views, like Kenneth McHoan in The Crow Road (1992) and Guy in The Quarry (2013). It is arguably in Banks' sf, however, especially in the texts depicting the secular civilization, the Culture, that his engagement with such issues becomes most complex and most interesting. When discussing Banks' engagement with religion, critics have focused largely upon his mainstream work rather than his sf. Some exceptions include Victor Sage, who briefly mentions Banks' use of the Gothic trope of civilization versus barbarism in the Culture (Sage 21-22), Timothy C. Baker who places Banks' Culture series within the context of Scottish utopian fiction (Baker 91-117), and Moira Martingale whose monograph, Gothic Dimensions: lain Banks - Time Lord (2013), contains probably the most extensive exploration of the Culture relating to religion, faith and belief, identifying elements of the Gothic in the series, and arguing, like Baker, that Banks' so-called rational system merely cloaks elements of the spiritual or supernatural in pseudoscience.
This essay explores how Banks' worldview has inspired, shaped and driven his work, especially in relation to the...