{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/1609", "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it. Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.", "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'" }, "archive": "urth", "thread": { "id": 1609, "subject": "Digest urth.v026.n008", "messages": 2, "voices": 2, "first": "1999-05-01T12:48:51+00:00", "last": "1999-05-01T17:54:10+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Alex David Groce", "address": "adgroce at eos.ncsu.edu" }, "date": "1999-05-01T12:48:51+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Re: Digest urth.v026.n008", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Apr 30, 5:48pm, Kieran Mullen wrote:\nSubject: (urth) Re: Digest urth.v026.n008" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "From: \"Ori Kowarsky\" \nSubject: Re: (urth) Are TBOTNS and UOTNS Christian Texts?\nDate: Thu, 29 Apr 1999 18:45:04 -0700" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "I think we're talking to cross-purposes here. The fact that bits and pieces\nof the Christian story crop up in TBOTNS may mean nothing more than that\nChristianity was once part of the culture, once informed its myths and\nlegends, and still remains in the form of a half -remembered cultural\nsubstrate. If by \"theological overtones\" you mean that physical miracles\nare happening, then we'll have to agree to disagree." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": " Hmm... resurrection from the dead, miraculous healing. Seems like a\nfew miracles to me. " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "The question is, does the BOTNS necessarily mean Christianity has\ncompletely failed in Urth? Well, as far as being a clearly present\nreligion,\nyes. However, the church invisible, as I understand it, can continue even\nif the visible church has vanished--and as I see it, the patterning of\nSeverian's" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "I'm sorry, I don't know what \"the church invisible\" is." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": " The \"church visible\" is the worldly manifestation of christian religion\nin organizations, hierarchies, clergy, buildings etc. The \"chruch\ninvisible\" is the deeper mystical elements that would exist even if\nall churches were destroyed." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Severain is a torturer who goes on a journey to his new place of work, on\nthe way he picks up a gem which appears to have magic powers, meets a\nvariety of people, arrives at his job, leaves his job, goes to war, becomes\nan emperor. Which book of the New Testament should I pick up to compare\nthese events with?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": " Wolfe has written in one of his essays about Jesus the carpenter, who\nlike many carpenters in his time, may have been called upon to make a\ncross for some other person's execution. You may feel it's silly, but\nthis are Wolfe's words, not mine. I think that TBOTNS is an \"ascending\nChristology\", a story about a person who grows into the role of\nIncarnation. But that's just my view." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "\t\n\tI have to agree with James Jordan's take here (after Wolfe talked him\nout of the gnostic universe with Sev. as Antichrist) and say that Severian\nisn't an Incarnation, but a \"Christian\" figure--he works out the acts of\nChrist's life, but is, as it were, participating in Godhead rather than being\npart of it himself." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "In what sense is the New Sun an\neschatological completion? It's the opposite--it starts things up, and\nprevents the icy/entropy future of Abaia & co." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": " Well, it depends upon your eschatology. We only see what happens in\nthe physical world. Maybe they're all partying it up in Heaven. The\nfact that on Earth the world is restored to a fecund state seems to be\na good thing. It's a renewal." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "I don't understand what you mean by point (A). Did not the coming of the\nNew Sun kill every human on the planet save a few here and there? Oh, and\nthe genetic breeding stock thoughtfully supplied by the Hieros. As for\npoint (B), Silk cannot restore Christianity unless he knows what it is;\nthat involves somehow learning about, and then believeing in, the death,\nresurrection, etc. Until Silk (or Sev) starts witnessing, again, we're\ngoing to have to agree to disagree." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": " The New Sun didn't kill everyone, just lots of people. And that is\nnot an absolutely bad thing if you believe in an afterlife, since \n*everyone* is going to die anyway. (You may not like this argument, but\nit is an inevitable consideration in any theology involving life after\ndeath.) \"Christianity\" can survive in some sense even if no one hears\nabout some guy from Nazareth. In this world there is still the story of\nthe Conciliator, who reconciles the created world with the Pancreator,\nand suffers in the process. There is still a sense of incarnation.\n\n You seem to be saying that there is no Christianity in Sev's world\nwithout televangelists. I think that Wolfe is saying that Christianity\nis woven more deeply into the nature of things, and that our understanding\nof the ultimate Christianity may be shallow." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "What are these underlying patterns of salvation? In UOTNS the survivors\nare: Sev, an undine, two men and two women of indeterminate character, who\nmay be very nice people, but are not Christians because they don't believe\nin Christ. " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": " In certain Christian theologies, that's not necessary. The clams on\nMars have never heard of Christ, but this doesn't mean that (in this view)\nthat they don't live in a universe created by the Christian God and that\nsome day there would not be a clam Conciliator. \n\n (I nominate the \"clam Conciliator\" for silliest concept on the\nlistserver this year.)" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "The underlying pattern of salvation that I see is that human\nbeings apparently chosen (or bred) for some purpose have been deposited by\nthe Hieros on the planet after the original population has been\nexterminated. I certainly hope that this isn't a sign of the Christian God." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": " So God can only work via a Holy Zap? If he guides a doctor to heal\nsomeone's arm rather than doing it supernaturally, that's not holy? God\ncan work in mysterious ways. Or maybe not. Wolfe is often ambiguous." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "A new chance for whom? 99.99% of the planet is dead! The choice between\nUshas may be the lesser of two evils, but that shouldn't blind us to the\nfact that it *is* evil." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": " How can it be evil? Evil is the willful infliction of unecessary pain.\nYou've said that the other choice is worse. Now you can ask why a\nbeneficent God would allow the Earth to get to that state, to force such a\nchoice, but that's a different question. \n\n *Everyone* dies. The very very scary thing about religion is that it\nallows for \"greater goods\" that seem to allow killing. (Read Chesterton.)" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "\tTrue--although I hardly think Chesterton would have hurt a fly unless\nit were in defense of something he loved that was under mortal attack (Wolfe\nloves the story of his buying a pistol on his wedding day to \"defend his\nwife\"). Of course, any civil order that allows war under certain circumstances\nallows for \"greater goods\" that allow killing. Which includes most religions\nand all states I can think of. In the 20th century at least, the \"greater\ngoods\" of the state have the numbers--off the top of my head somewhere on the\norder of 100 million of their own citizens exterminated by the various attempts\nto bring a secular eschaton/Utopia to poor old Urth--hence, I'd imagine, BOTNS\nseeming to imply that although war against the Ascians is necessary and even\ngood, the Ascians themselves are human and to be pitied (and fought \"for\")." }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "\"And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.\" - John 8:32\n--\nAlex David Groce (adgroce at eos.ncsu.edu)\nSenior (Computer Science/Multidisciplinary Studies in Technology & Fiction)\n'98-99 NCSU AITP Student Chapter President\n608 Charleston Road, Apt. 1E (919)-233-7366\nhttp://www4.ncsu.edu/~adgroce" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Carlos Martinho", "address": "carlosom71 at yahoo.com" }, "date": "1999-05-01T17:54:10+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Re: Digest urth.v026.n008", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "The \"chruch\ninvisible\" is the deeper mystical elements that\nwould exist even if\nall churches were destroyed." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "This is a very interesting point. When I started to\nread TSOTT (and I didn't know where things were going\nto), I thought, at first, that the myths about the\n\"Conciliator\" and the \"New Sun\" were some sort of\nmemory of Christianity, just weakened, warped by time.\nAnd I don't know why, but I always thought of Dr Talos\nplay as some sort of Gospel, just warped by time and\nage (as the Minotaur myth, in the story of the\ncannon-boat in the labyrinth). \n\nSeverian as the Second Coming? I guess it's a possible\ninterpretation. But it leads us to a sort of\negg-and-chicken question: in the past of TBOTNS world\n(suposing that the history, there, was similar to\nours) was Christianity just a mythical interpretation\nof alien/science events, or are the alien/science\nevents of TBOTNS a materialistic interpretation of\nmystical ones? Or doesn't it matter at all?\n\nThose questions, I believe, make the whole of Wolfe's\nwork even richer; they are not meant to be answered,\nbut to enlarge the reader's worldview while pondering\nabout them.\n===\n\"The nostalgia of things unknown, of lands forgotten or\n unfound, is upon me at times. Often I\n long for the gleam of yellow suns upon terraces\n of translucent azure marble, mocking the \nwindless waters of lakes unfathomably calm\"\n\nClark Ashton Smith, \"Nostalgia of the Unknown\"" } ] } ] }