"All science fiction is fundamentally post-religious literature (or, as some would have it, another substitute for religion). This means that the universes described in science fiction are fundamentally knowable. What appears mysterious at a distance can be weighed and measured by the explorer or scientist who finds it. Faith dissolves, replaced by a sense of wonder at the complexity of creation."
Review by Jeremy Smith of The Renunciation of Transcendence:Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang.
Maybe this is one of the reasons I love science fiction so much.