"'I know - every genuine spaceman knows, down in his marrow like no deskman ever can - how God always makes surprises on us so we don't get too proud, or maybe just for fun. To me it became natural to ask myself: What joke might God have played on the theorists this time?'"
-Poul Anderson, "Lodestar" IN Anderson, David Falkayn: Star Trader (Riverdale, NY, 2010), pp. 631-680 AT p. 661.
Significant points:
van Rijn began his career on prospecting voyages although he has since become not a "deskman" but a lounger man;
he is Catholic so his talk of "God" comes naturally;
however, we can fully agree that the universe is surprising while regarding theistic language as metaphorical;
Manse Everard of the Time Patrol wants Carl Farness to know in his marrow that reality does not conform to textbooks (see here);
when two people converse, three factors are involved - two world-views and the world itself which is bigger than either of them;
theory is grey, life is green.
4 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
Old Nick a lounger rather than a deskman? Ha, ha!!! But, for all his obesity, he could be LETHALLY swift when it was necessary, as more than one of his opponents found out to their sorrow.
And I agree van Rijn's point, theories about the universe can become counter productive, even dangerous if their believers can't adapt them to new facts.
Sean
Paul:
I think it was Larry Niven who in one of his stories had a scene of an extraterrestrial having drawn a cartoon based on human religion. The picture was described as showing an adult god scolding a little-boy god who smirks as he holds a spiral galaxy which he's apparently just created. "Now that you've had your little joke...." The human who looked at the cartoon had to admit he found it fairly funny.
L. Sprague de Camp wrote a poem which discusses various Creation accounts, and says the one he likes the best,
"A myth from ancient Sumer, where perhaps the truth was guessed—
Asserts the gods created man one day, in cosmic jest,
When they were drunk."
"God's wife had been against the idea from the beginning."
Kaor, DAVID and Paul!
David: Very amusing, this story about the cartoon! MY reaction was to recall how the ancient Jews, inspired as I believe they were by God, took over and reshaped the Mesopotamian Creation and Flood stories to teach revealed truths thru allegories.
Paul, IF I'm recalling Mormon theology correctly, they believe "exalted Mormons" will become gods of other planets and have wives. Anyway that's what your comment brought up in my mind.
Sean
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