{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/1663", "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": 1663, "subject": "Blish's CASE OF CONSCIENCE", "messages": 3, "voices": 3, "first": "1999-06-02T03:47:51+00:00", "last": "1999-06-04T14:26:43+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Nicholas Gevers", "address": "potto at webmail.co.za" }, "date": "1999-06-02T03:47:51+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Blish's CASE OF CONSCIENCE", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "There's been a degree of controversy in the last couple of years about\nthe influence of Blish on later writers - Mary Doria Russell has been\naccused of rehashing A CASE OF CONSCIENCE in her novels THE SPARROW\nand CHILDREN OF GOD. But she's told me Blish played no such role.\n//--------------------------------------\nNicholas Gevers\npotto at webmail.co.za" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Michael Straight", "address": "straight at email.unc.edu" }, "date": "1999-06-02T12:14:22+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Blish's CASE OF CONSCIENCE", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "SPOILERS for CASE OF CONSCIENCE here.\n\nThe central dilemma of Blish's book was hard for me to take seriously. \nHumanity discovers an alien race which seems to have no knowledge of God,\nyet also seems to be free of the sin which Catholics (and other\nChristians) believe is the reason humanity does not have complete\ncommunion with God. If they have no sin, why are the ignorant of God? \nPossible answers include: \n\nA. There is no God.\nB. The alien race is an illusion of Satan designed to deceive humanity.\nC. God exists, but his relationship to this alien race is something\n we don't understand.\n\nEveryone in the book seems to think A and B are the only two\npossibilities. No one even considers C. C seems so obvious and B so\nfar-fetched that I was unable to believe in the characters or their\ndebates. I didn't for a moment think that the priest's exorcism would\nhave been effectual. I had trouble believing he would even try such a\nthing[1]. \n\nThe whole \"this must be a trick of Satan to fool us\" strikes me as\narrogant and human-centric in a way that seems foreign to Wolfe. Wolfe's\nwork has a kind of humility, a sense that the universe (a fortiori the\nCreator) is weirder and wilder than our schemes for explaing it all.\n\nIf Wolfe had written this story, he might have had characters who believed\nthe dilemma, but I think he would have written the events such that they\nwould undermine the \"we understand how God works, and since this doesn't\nfit, it must be a satanic illusion\" idea. \n\nBlish's story has ambiguity, but it's only ambiguity between A and B.\n\nWhich reminds me of another question I have about Wolfe's Catholicism. \nThere's a statement of his which gets quoted frequently, something like\n\"I'm a practicing Catholic, but that probably tells you less about what I\nbelieve than you think.\" I wonder if he meant that he's not entirely\northodox in his beliefs, or that most people's ideas about what orthodox\nCatholics believe are wrong.\n\n-Rostrum\n\n[1] Ok, so yes, there have certainly been Catholics and other Christians\nwho were arrogant and human-centric, and maybe that was part of Blish's\npoint, but the Roman Catholic Church seems to have learned something from\nthe past, and I'd like to think Jesuits and Popes in the future might be\nable to think a little better than the characters in Blish's story. " } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Damien Broderick", "address": "damien at ariel.ucs.unimelb.edu.au" }, "date": "1999-06-04T14:26:43+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Blish's CASE OF CONSCIENCE", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "From: \"Nicholas Gevers\" \n\n< There's been a degree of controversy in the last couple of years about\nthe influence of Blish on later writers - Mary Doria Russell has been\naccused of rehashing A CASE OF CONSCIENCE in her novels THE SPARROW\nand CHILDREN OF GOD. But she's told me Blish played no such role. >\n\nI've seen a comment of hers to that effect on the web, but still one has to\nwonder. Of all the Jesuits in all the cases of conscience in the galaxy,\nhow come JB names his Father Ramon Ruiz-Sanchez and MDR names hers Father\nEmilio Sandoz? This is the political unconscious as Jung.\n\nI'd blame the big-eyed greys, myself. (Has anyone tried exorcising *them*?)\n\nDamen Broderick" } ] } ] }