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GODDEATH

      The death of god
      has been greatly
      exaggerated.                   MORTALGOD


_Songs of Distant Earth_ by
Arthur C. Clarke is about
emergency missions to colonize
the stars around a time when
the death of the Solar System
looms.

They ship humans in the form
of raw genetic material.  At
their destination, the first
generation must be raised by
machines.

The emergency justifies taking
some extrodinary measures in
designing the curriculum for
these double-blinded humans:
they skipped the theology.

These new humans are raised
with no knowledge of any
religion, not even as history.

So how would this experiment
turn out?  Would these people
feel a deep lack in their lives?
Would they invent a religion all
on their own?

Clarke's answer is no.  They live
happy secular lives, with no need
for mysticism. In Clarke's view,         They kind of seem like
religion is merely the remains           polynesian islanders or
of primitive science.  A new             something.  A motif that
humanity raised with no knowledge        occurs in some Poul Anderson
of religion would not spontaneously      work as well.  A hold-over
invent any substitute for it.            from the 50s obsession with
                                         tiki-torches, luaus, "exotica"
                                         (like Martin Denny)?

     Myself, I'm afraid that
     religion is an outgrowth
     of a deep flaw in human
     beings.  The young child
     is throughly dependant on
     the parent, and how likely
     is it that the child can
     grow into an entity that's
     comfortably independant and
     autonomous?  Instead, many
     many people seem to spend
     their lives looking for a
     Big Daddy or a Big Mommy
     to take care of them.
     If it's not the Lord, then
     it's the Law.




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