And here is another feature of the strange universe:
apparently supernatural feats are mental accomplishments;
"magic" is hypnosis;
"prophecy" is precognition;
gods are invoked but do not intervene;
a sibyl wrote a "future history" by space-time projection, not by divine inspiration.
It follows that these stories are not fantasies. And, in fact, their being set on other planets entails that they are science fiction, as is also implied by the title Planet Stories, but of a rather strange kind that merely provides extraterrestrial settings for swords and sandals action-adventure fiction. The old Empire had "machines" and spatiotemporal physics so there had after all, to my surprise, been some progress before the (inevitable) decline and regression.
Our hero, Alfric, shows how religion can be reformed instead of rejected. Fighting the priests of the Two Moons, he thinks, "All honor to the Moons, but not to tyrants and murderers in their name." That is the point. Let's not fight about whether the gods exist, just about whether priests should rule. Freedom of religious assembly and worship but church-state separation! And I did not expect to end this post with a political slogan!
3 comments:
Hi, Paul!
In Christianity, the danger has far more often been the STATE meddling with or seeking to control the Church or churches. Caesar, whatever form he takes, tends to resent the existence of institutions or "spheres of life" he does not control. Hence the many quarrels between Church and state we have seen wherever Christianity has taken firm root. A recent example being how the Obama Administration in the US tried to force religion believers to pay for abortions and birth control drugs as part of "health insurance," despite that violating their beliefs. The Administration was, happily, forced to back down.
I recall reading in Poul Anderson's essay "Thud and Blunder" that fantasy and SF writers who set their stories in milieus where the Catholic Church exists would do well to remember how varied and ever shifting relations between Church and state were in actual history.
And, of course Islam, which unlike Christianity, does not believe on rendering unto God and Caesar what belongs to them SEPARATELY, is theocratic in nature. Islam explicitly believes in merging state and mosque. A merging which inevitably results in tyranny and the oppression of non Muslims. An oppression which is all too plainly to be seen in many Muslim controlled nations right now!
Sean
Sean,
I thought that, historically, Muslim rulers, e.g., in Spain and Jerusalem, tolerated Jews and Christians?
Paul.
Hi, Paul!
I have more time now to respond to this note of yours. What I urge you to keep in mind is that Muslim "toleration" of Jews and Christians was always, at best, grudging and limited, and given only under the laws codified as "dhimmitude," laws designed to degrade and humiliate non Muslims. Moreover, this "toleration" was always limited in time and scope. That is, dependent on the favor of this or that Grand Vizier, sultan, or caliph. I.e., a more "tolerant" Muslim ruler would die and might be succeeded by a more fanatical ruler.
The convulsions we are seeing in the Mid East strongly fits this pattern. That is, less fanatical rulers like President al-Sisi of Egypt or King Abdullah II of Jordan are threatened by the Muslim Brotherhood, al-Qaeda, ISIS, etc.
Because, periodically, resurgences in jihadism has been accompanied by attacks on Muslims considered less orthodox or zealous.
One book I would like to bring to your attention discussing in massive details questions of this sort is Bat Ye'or's THE DECLINE OF EASTERN CHRISTIANITY UNDER ISLAM. Another good one is Bernard Lewis' ISLAM AND THE WEST.
Btw, Poul Anderson himself was aware of this tendency for jihadism to periodically burst out of Islam. He has Anson Guthrie mention in HARVEST OF STARS how Islam in his time seemed set to go on the war path.
Sean
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