Engineer Yu Wenji produces a hand-held device. A horizontal section has a control board and guidelines while a longer vertical section has screens showing moving characters on its front and back and also produces sounds. The devices can be operated by human or Tahirian fingers although the latter seem flexible and boneless like elephants' trunks. We have become used to communicating with hand-held devices although with fellow human beings at a distance, not with members of another intelligent species standing or squatting in front of us. Yu must work with the linguist, Sundaram.
I am preparing to attend a meeting this evening and to be out of town for most of tomorrow.
Everything is peaceful between the Envoy crew and the Tahirians but the serpent in the garden is Brent. And we know from other chapters that life is not good back on Earth.
8 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
Since mankind is a Fallen race I expect human affairs and history to always be chaotic, unpredictable, contingent. With plenty of bad as well as good mixed in inextricably.
Ad astra! Sean
sean: I'd use different terminology, but I basically agree.
Sean,
Mankind is not Fallen. We have risen from animality, not Fallen from Paradise. Therefore, we can (not inevitably will) rise further.
Paul.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling and Paul!
Mr. Stirling: As a Catholic I naturally tend to think in Catholic terms. (Smiles)
Paul: Patently not true. All I have to do is look around and inside myself to know mankind is Fallen. No matter how advanced our tech might become we are always going to be flawed and imperfect.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Patently not true. "Fallen" implies that we were created in a sinless state as in Genesis. The evidence is that we have evolved from apes but we have transcended animality by cooperating in ways that have developed language and reason.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Except I urge you to keep in mind the Catholic Church does not interpret the Bible as evangelical Protestants do. Far too briefly the Church teaches that what God revealed to mankind in the Bible were those truths which are needed for our salvation. The Bible is not supposed to be used like a biology or physics textbook.
Nor does the Church deny evolution or regard it as contradicting the doctrine of Original Sin. It was not till 91 years had passed since Darwin's THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES was first pub. in 1859 that any official mention of evolution was made by the Church. In paragraph 36 of his encyclical letter HUMANI GENERIS (1950) Pius XII wrote: "...the Teaching authority of the Church does not forbid that, in conformity with the present state of human sciences and sacred theology, research and discussions, on the part of men experienced in both fields, take place with regard to the doctrine of evolution, in as far as it inquires into the origin of the human body as coming from pre-existent and living matter--..."
Also, in 1996, during his address to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences*, Pope John Paul II declared in Section 4 that evolution, as such, could no longer be considered merely a theory, due to accumulated evidence supporting it. The rest of the Pope's Address discussed various kinds of evolutionary theories, sound and unsound. I'll send you a link to the complete text of John Paul II's speech.
I also have a vague, uncertain recollection of reading somewhere of St. Augustine discussing in one of his works that the variations seen in human and animal life forms over the world was due to changes thru time. But I'm not sure.
Ad astra! Sean
*The Pontifical Academy of Sciences was founded by Pius XI in 1936 to inform and advise the Church in matters involving the sciences.
That is a better discussion than just "Patently not true"!
Kaor, Paul!
The naive, unnuanced insistence of so many evangelical Protestants on abusing the literal sense of the Genesis creation account makes them, and Christianity look ridiculous. Even as long ago as Origen Catholic commentators were discussing how the Scriptures had multiple legitimate meanings. I'm also reminded of Anderson's essay "Science and Creation," discussing how perfectly kind well meaning evangelicals were unwittingly subverting their own civilization.
What a catastrophe the "Reformation" has been!
Ad astra! Sean
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