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STRANGER

In _Stranger in a Strange Land_
Heinlein writes about a new    
religion loosely based on many 
other religions, but centered      One of the more notable
around some sexual ceremonies.     tenents:
Orgies for the inner circle.       "Thou art God."
                               
                                    A fairly neat little philosophy:
The book was very popular           Intelligence, consciousness, anything
in sixties.  Among the              that can understand the statement
various social experiments          "Thou art God." is definied as godlike.
of the time, a version of    
this relgion was actually    
tried out by some people.    
It doesn't seem to have      
caught on, though I suppose         Heinlein publically refused to be         
some people may practice it         associated with this religion,            
to this day.                        evidentally consciously choosing          
                                    not to follow in the footsteps of
                                    his friend L. Ron Hubbard.       
                                                                     
In the novel, the religion has problems,                
but _only_ external problems.  The                      
masses are outraged, the powers that be                 
are threatened, so there is an all out                  
attack on the faithful.  The main             (Perhaps Heinlein's reason
character is stoned to death.                  for not playing the new         
("Look at me... I am a son of man.")           religion game?)                 
                                        
Among the insiders, there are no                                    
attacks of jealousy.  No power          (Christ without a Judas?) 
plays.  No disgruntled betrayals.        
                                                       

In the real world, the various
experiments with "alternate             
lifestyles" of the sixties saw            It's been pointed out to 
relatively little of the extreme          me that here I seem to have 
degree of hostile opposition that         forgotten about the 
Heinlein predicted.                       "war on drugs"; the 
                                          harrassment of long-hairs; 
Instead, they all seemed to fizzle        and the threat of jail    
out due to internal pressures...          for draft-dodging and     
because of the imperfections built        political demonstrations.
into the experimenters?                                            
                                                 Actuallly I haven't     
Like it or not, you carry your                   forgotten, it just        
culture with you, wired into your                isn't the kind of          
consciousness...                                 thing I had in mind.
                                                                        
                                                      So much for clarity...
               Thou art Mrs. Grundy.                  written or thought.


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