"'That idiot Boatright managed to wander into a Mesoamerican region of the hell universe. A Mayan analog, at a first approximation. Of all the places to look for allies against the forces of evil!'" (1, pp. 167-168)
Observations
(ii) Yes, this is a composite Hell with many ethnic regions.
(iii) Boatright is in "...a region of the hell universe." This does not sound as if he is on the surface of a planet in a stellar universe.
(iv) Boatright does not seem to have understood the Matucheks' experience. While Steve and Virginia were in the hell universe, she invoked beings that were friends of mankind and enemies of Chaos and that responded from elsewhere, not from within that same universe. Two of the responses were from Asgard and Olympus. We see part of the Norse universe in Operation Luna.
"None of the early pagan religions were what you'd call filled with the milk of human kindness." (ibid.)
Are we to understand that the pantheons of all those religions are to be found in diverse infernal regions?
Our narrator reflects that the main premise of the underlying belief system that had created Mesoamerican deities and spirits was that human blood drawn from pain and suffering fed the gods that maintained the universe. Does the multiversal hypothesis entail that some universes are maintained in that way?
Christians believe that the blood, pain and suffering of a single perfect victim does satisfy their deity.
3 comments:
Well, to be fair, the point of Christ's sacrifice is not the suffering, but the willingness to undergo it. The sacrifice is assumed, not imposed.
There are many attempts to theologize the Crucifixion. Some say that we deserved punishment and he suffered it for us.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Exactly! Altho I would say that since the fall of mankind alienated the human race from God thru one man's sin, then it made sense that it would take the willing sacrifice of Another, Christ, to bridge the gulf between God and mankind. And since no mere man, as man, could do that, God did so Himself, by having his Son, the Second Person of the Trinity, uniting to Himself a human nature (and body) to his divinity.
God did not have to suffer and die on the Cross, but He CHOSE this means of bringing redemption to mankind.
Ad astra! Sean
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