Do the Time Lords have a religion?By Jason Collins| September 4, 2022 TV Blogs Religions are born of necessity and used to maintain order and some resemblance to structure in society. Even our modern laws draw roots from religious scriptures that had dictated human behavior long before we had a written letter or state of law. With our modern interpretations of the natural and social laws, these archaic rules, though immensely useful, have become outdated, if not obsolete. This poses a question of whether a highly-advanced alien species, such as Time Lords from the Doctor Who television series, have a religion, and do they even need one? That question has caused a lot of stir among the Doctor Who fandom for decades — nearly six decades, to be more precise, considering that the show celebrates its 60th anniversary next year. Some believe that Time Lords from Gallifrey, the title and the home planet of our eponymous hero, worshiped more ancient Time Lords, while others believe that beings as cerebral and scientifically advanced as Time Lords wouldn’t have any use or need for religion. Sure, the universe is still filled with inexplicable mysteries that even Time Lords haven’t figured out yet. Humanity and religion have probably older history than recorded history itself. It initially served our cave-dwelling ancestors to at least try to conceptualize some natural occurrences. Then, as we evolved from small hunter-gatherer groups into large agrarian cultures, our ancestors needed a narrative that would encourage cooperation and tolerance among relative strangers. Thus, more organized religion was born as an adaptation to those challenges. Luckily, society overcame numerous challenges since then, and most of the things that were credited to deities were explained by science at some point. Death, for example, wasn’t much of a mystery for early man; the body would stop moving, and soon it would start to swell and decompose. Infections, however, were a different thing altogether. So early societies prayed to various deities, bringing sacrifices only to appease a deity that would lift the “curse” off the afflicted — the same “curses” we nowadays treat with antibiotics. For the Time Lords, however, this scenario might’ve happened when dinosaurs roamed the Earth, considering that the Gallifreyan civilization is much older than humans. Of course, this is purely speculative, as there isn’t a precise reference within the television show specifying how old the Gallifreyan civilization actually is. Still, some assume they’re so old that they actually seeded the universe. Whether that’s correct is a topic for another discussion. In the current canon of the Doctor Who television show, by the time William Hartnell’s First Doctor left, Gallifrey had no official religion. However, in an audio account, the Doctor stated that Time Lords believe in basic scientific principles in the universe, which is a philosophy, as he noted, that was similar to the teachings of Tibet. He added that he viewed religion as people explaining scientific phenomena they didn’t yet understand. So, for a super-advanced species, at least compared to humans, Time Lords have very little use of religion. That wasn’t always the case, as some surviving historical records show the presence of religion during the time of Pythia, when mysticism, psychic, and prophecies ruled Gallifrey. Another “religion” was later formed, a cult of Faction Paradox, which was a voodoo organization that reveled in the art of a paradox — something very sacrilegious on Gallifrey. Considering the height of their technological and intellectual advancement, Gallifreyans, as a society, truly had no need or use for religion. Humans use theoretical physics to try and explain unknown phenomena whose inner workings are still a mystery to modern science (gravity is a pretty good example). We use those theories and try and prove them through observational or experimental methodologies, basing further research upon those theories that have proved credible while discrediting those that weren’t. For example, Albert Einstein made certain predictions about black holes, for which he hasn’t had the technology to prove, and we recently proved some of his theories through the advancement in applied sciences. It’s entirely possible for Gallifreyan society to approach certain mysteries the same way we do — no, not by nuking them — but by developing a theory and an experimental methodology that would tackle mysterious occurrences throughout the universe, sidelining or perhaps completely removing comforting and often divisive narratives from their society.
