See:
It is clear that the idea of "...a supposed entity dwelling beyond the stars..."
-A Stone In Heaven, VIII, p. 150 -
- had never occurred to any Ramnuan until Banner had mentioned it to Yewwl. Banner had said in IV that "'...Ramnuans don't have religion of human type...'" (p. 59)
Such non-theism, casually mentioned here, is a big problem in some other sf works:
in Anderson's "The Master Key," introducing the idea of God causes conflict on the planet Cain;
in James Blish's A Case Of Conscience, the good but Godless Lithians are a theological problem for a Jesuit scientist;
Harry Harrison has a short story where aliens, disturbed by a Christian missionary, test his teaching of the Resurrection by crucifying him.
CS Lewis assumes theism. When Ransom asks the Malacandrians whether their ruler, Oyarsa, made the world, they in turn ask whether the people in Thulcandra (Earth) do not know that Maleldil the Young made and still rules the world. Answers to further questions from Ransom disclose that Maleldil lives with the Old One who is not the sort that he has to live anywhere. The Malacandrians are telling Ransom what he had been wondering whether he should tell them.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
But as Ramnuans became more deeply aware of those ultimate questions which had troubled so many human minds over the millennia, then I can imagine some Ramnuans coming to share that sense of inquiry.
One of the things I recall as characterizing Cainites, as Old Nick pointed out, was of them being intelligent but narrow, perhaps even some what lacking in imagination. But what most interested van Rijn about the Cainites was how they were natural anarchists. Other issues, like the Lugals, need not detain us just now.
Ad astra! Sean
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