Beliefs

Phillipe Rochefort reflects:

the reproductive process determines much about each intelligent species;

so are the cynics right that an organism is simply DNA's way of making more DNA?;

no, Jerusalem Catholics believe that evolution inclines but does not compel.

I think that we can say, not doctrinally but empirically, that evolution does not compel because genetically interchangeable human beings can organize social and individual life in different ways. By cooperatively acting on and changing their environment, human beings transcended natural, instinctive responses, creating the new realm of social and historical processes.

Are we simply DNA's way of making more DNA? We are not simply anything. Electric light is not simply a flow of electrons. It is also useful and beautiful.

Rochefort also reflects that human beings are reviving slavery whereas Ythrians are replacing wing-clipped slaves with automatic machines so which species is more moral? Then he responds, "Man is my race." (Rise Of The Terran Empire, p. 487)

Phillipe, your species is human but your religion, when confined to a single planet, was Catholic or "universal." Now that it operates in a galactic context, has it reverted to the role of a local religion with a deity distinct from that of the Ythrians?

(The Empire reviving slavery in Rochefort's time makes sense future historically because slavery is an established institution in Flandry's time.)

Addendum: See comments and here.