"'...I went to Neo-Chasidic rabbinical school in Eopolis. A man can bear the marks of that his whole life, no matter if the faith has gone.'
"'Well, I am a Catholic of sorts, I think, but I must admit those years at Beta made me wonder a lot.'" (p. 206)
People will take their received beliefs out into the universe where they will learn much. I believe in "karma" in one basic sense of that word. "Karma" means "action." Actions matter because they have consequences in this life, whether or not there is another life. Each of us is predisposed from birth or earlier to act/live in a particular way: introverted or extraverted; proactive or indolent; truth-seeking or pleasure-seeking etc. Received beliefs are an extra layer added onto our basic, underlying "karma"/way of acting. A guy that I knew at University, brought up as a Catholic, observed that there were three kinds of Catholics: pious, intelligent or indifferent. None of us chooses to be what kind of person we are. We simply live in accordance with our most basic motivations/"karma."
I could not be content to be "...a Catholic of sorts, I think..." I had to seek some kind of understanding - which might have wound up as an acceptance of Catholicism. I could not know that in advance. But I did not confine my reading or thinking to what I had been told in school. But, as in every previous generation, my contemporaries took all sorts of different paths.
In this passage, Poul Anderson presents two men with different upbringings facing what they know about intelligence elsewhere in the universe. They do not have to reach any conclusion, certainly not in the course of a single conversation. It is enough that Anderson shows us two characters with different backgrounds and a similar interest in learning more.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
There are plenty of Catholics who are/were both devout and intelligent, such as the late Pope Benedict XVI, five of whose books I've read.
And I agree with what Stirling had Artorius saying about the Jews (in his second Antonine book) that one measure of the wealth and stability of a nation is on how well and justly they are treated.
Ad astra! Sean
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