Right after the saints, van Rijn refers to God:
"'I think sometimes God likes a little practical joke on us mortals, when we get too cockish.'" (p. 121)
And again:
"'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 came natural to ask myself - What joke might God have played on the theorists this time?'
"'I hope it is only a joke,' Coya said."
-Poul Anderson, "Lodestar" IN Anderson, David Falkayn: Star Trader (Riverdale, NY, March 2010), pp. 631-682 AT p. 661.
Before that, van Rijn had said:
"'You better hope, you heathen, and I better pray, the supermetals what the agents of Supermetals is peddling do not come out of a furnace run by anybody except God Himself.'"
-ibid., p. 655.
First, van Rijn is in fact a monotheist and indeed a Christian. Secondly, however, references to God's jokes or to His furnace can be just ways of speaking. It might be that we can treat scientific surprises as if they were jokes at our expense.
Einstein said that God does not play dice but does it follow that he was a monotheist? He also said that he believed in Spinoza's God which would make him a pantheist.
6 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
Yes, but I think Old Nick was very concerned that the supermetals being sold by Supermetals was made artificially. If so that would imply the manufacturers had such vast powers they could be very dangerous to Technic civilization.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
That was indeed van Rijn's concern in that passage.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
An example of how forward looking van Rijn could be. It was not always about the bottom line for him!
Ad astra! Sean
van Rijn liked making money, because it was the 'counter' in the game he played.
People who make a -lot- of money aren't usually motivated by what they can buy with it; that's strictly secondary.
Eg., Elon Musk usually lives in a $50,000 prefab house.
He's interested in what he can -do- with the money -- money as "power to do", in other words.
The prefab house is located at Starbase in Texas, for example.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I agree with your comments and wish I had thought of them. Yes, Old Nick had fun with the game of making lots of money. Because he was so good at wheeling and dealing. I would add he did indulge in the pleasures of the flesh--more than either of us might have!
And I greatly admire what Elon Musk is trying to do--and I hope we soon see him sending that colonizing expedition to Mars. Far better than using the money devoted to SpaceX for wallowing in ostentatious luxury.
Ad astra! Sean
But I also believe in the right of anyone using his own money for however he wished, as long as it was legal and not criminal.
Ad astra! Sean
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