Utilizing time dilation and suspended animation, Joshua Coffin has been away from the Solar System for eighty seven years. Since his return:
"He had seen abominations. There was a smiling idol where the white church in which his father had preached once overlooked the sea." (p. 19)
A smiling idol? A Buddha or Hindu deity? Unlike Coffin, I welcome the influx of Eastern philosophies and spiritual practices. The Lancaster Serene Reflection Meditation Group, renting a room in the historic Friends' Meeting House, meditates with a Buddha on the altar and images of Bodhidharma and Kuan Yin hanging to left and right.
Someone could write an endless series about a guy, like Coffin or one of the Kith, who returns to Earth every few decades or centuries. What extra-solar planets does he visit and how much has Earth changed every time he returns?
9 comments:
Paul:
The Forever War by Joe Haldeman involved the narrator, as a result of time dilation during his missions against the enemy, returning to human society only at long intervals. After his first return to Earth, he had no interest in going back there ever again.
"And though war in space was hell, Major Mandella soon learned it was nothing compared to coping with 1,200 drastically changing years back home!" [back-cover blurb]
David,
I did read THE FOREVER WAR but found the changes on Earth unconvincing.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
But I sympathize with Joshua Coffin's horror at seeing a pagan idol on the site of the church where his father had once preached. As Christians we would both agree on the sheer WRONGNESS of worshiping an idol as tho it was a god. Because we would believe that no other gods exist or can exist. Idolatry is also the worship of a creature, rather than the Creator.
Sean
Sean,
Pagans worship the divine in the wooden or stone image, not the wood or stone.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
SOPHISTICATED pagans might, but not all pagans, I strongly suspect. And the basic error remains, belief in a multiplicity of gods when only the One God is real.
Sean
Sean,
But Hindus can see the many as one.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Again, I strongly suspect this can only be true of the more sophisticated, philosophic minded Hindus. I would not be surprise if the vast majority of ORDINARY Hindus don't think like that. That is, they might well think more like "hard polytheists."
And, in any event, as a Catholic, I do not agree that this "many" is real or desired by God.
Sean
Sean,
While I do not believe that the transcendent is a person, I think that, if It was, then S/He would accept every different way of approaching Him/Her.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
I kinda discussed this point in my essay "God and Alien in Anderson's Technic Civilization." But the conclusion I reached (quoting from one of my sources) was that if aliens exist on other worlds, then God would have made provision for their salvation thru their own equivalents of a Judaeo/Christian tradition. Which has to include an absolute rejection of any kind of polytheism, hard or soft.
Sean
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