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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.



              
              (Alt title: The Swampland.  Ref. Elliot o' course.))

              (Sounds like a comic strip.  A hyrbid of pogo and outland?
               eh.  Pogo needs no homage, and Outland is best forgotten
               completely.) 



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