{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/3311", "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": 3311, "subject": "Christians and Christs: A new RPG?", "messages": 4, "voices": 4, "first": "2002-06-12T16:27:45+00:00", "last": "2002-06-17T14:39:06+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes", "address": "ddanehy at siebel.com" }, "date": "2002-06-12T16:27:45+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Christians and Christs: A new RPG?", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Crush declaimed:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "... Actually, I think the operative sentence here is \"Severian is a\nChristian rather than a Christ.\" Although, to me for some reason,\nsaying Severian is a Christian is a more jarring statement than\nsaying he's a Christ." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Well, here you fall afair of the common Catholic theological concept\nof the \"anonymous Christian\" -- the person who, for whatever reason,\nis not given the grace to know and believe in Christ in this life, but\nbelieves in what the closest conception available to him/her. This is\na hair, but a critical hair, separater from syncretic universalism: it\ndoesn't say that everyone will be saved; rather, it says that God \nplays fair and that everyone has the opportunity to be saved.\n\nHow many hit points does a Jesus have, anyway?" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "James Jordan", "address": "jbjordan4 at cox.net" }, "date": "2002-06-14T17:13:22+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Christians and Christs: A new RPG?", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "At 09:27 AM 6/12/2002 -0700, you wrote:\nCrush declaimed:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "... Actually, I think the operative sentence here is \"Severian is a\nChristian rather than a Christ.\" Although, to me for some reason,\nsaying Severian is a Christian is a more jarring statement than\nsaying he's a Christ." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Well, here you fall afair of the common Catholic theological concept\nof the \"anonymous Christian\" -- the person who, for whatever reason,\nis not given the grace to know and believe in Christ in this life, but\nbelieves in what the closest conception available to him/her. This is\na hair, but a critical hair, separater from syncretic universalism: it\ndoesn't say that everyone will be saved; rather, it says that God\nplays fair and that everyone has the opportunity to be saved.\n\n--Blattid" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " I'm inclined to think that there is Christianity in the Urth \nworld, but that we don't see it except very indirectly. Wolfe has left it \nin the background, but hinted at it with his Byzantine setting, the \nByzantine theological terminology (Increate, Pancreator, Theoanthropos), \nthe confused but still somewhat faithful nuns of the Pelerines (sp?) with \ntheir saint-relic shrine, etc. Severian utters a prayer as he commits his \nfirst book to the stellar winds. So I don't think we're supposed to think \nof Sev as an \"anonymous Christian\" but as a person living in a confused and \ncompromised Christian world (as all Christian worlds are, because of sin, \nand Byzantium certainly was) and as having a background that makes him a \nvery \"undisciplined\" Christian of some sort. He's a believer, but a weak \none. He shares the common faith of his society.\n BTW, when Wolfe told me that he was thinking of Briah as a \nprevious universe, I took it at face value. Maybe all this means is that \nthis is what he was thinking when he started out. He was \"playing\" with the \nnotion of a cyclical universe. I certainly don't have anything invested in \nit, and the 11 or 12 volume super-novel is in a lot of ways simpler if we \nassume it is \"our\" universe. I don't think it matters much, for I have not \nbeen able to see that it is some kind of major interpretive clue -- except \nthat it does allow him to have a flood over the earth, which in our \nuniverse would be problematic because of the promise to Noah. That aspect \nof the narrative is \"cleaner\" if this a pre-Noah universe.\n FWIW.\n\nNutria" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Jeff Wilson", "address": "jwilson at io.com" }, "date": "2002-06-17T00:55:09+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Christians and Christs: A new RPG?", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": " From: \n James Jordan " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": " BTW, when Wolfe told me that he was thinking of Briah as a \nprevious universe, I took it at face value." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "The transcript does not render your question clearly at all; what\nexactly =did= you ask him, if you can recall at 11 years' remove? " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I don't think it matters much, for I have not \nbeen able to see that it is some kind of major interpretive clue -- except \nthat it does allow him to have a flood over the earth, which in our \nuniverse would be problematic because of the promise to Noah. That aspect \nof the narrative is \"cleaner\" if this a pre-Noah universe." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Is it possible to dodge the promise some other way? Was Urth ever\nabandoned by humanity? Could the flood be local in nature, or due to\nsome other cause, perhaps Abaia? The flood lasts far too long to be due\nto the White Fountain alone." }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "Jeff Wilson\nHow Am I Posting? 1-800-555-6789\n\"If your SecOp can see you, so can the enemy.\" -Cpt Law\n\n\n-- " } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "James Wynn", "address": "crushtv at hotpop.com" }, "date": "2002-06-17T14:39:06+00:00", "subject": "RE: (urth) Christians and Christs: A new RPG?", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "The thought occurs to me that the Deluge of Ushas *could* be the Deluge of\nNoah - that the Story of Noah could be the a mythological telling of the\nUshas Deluge...OR the Noah story could be a PROPHECY of the Ushas Deluge!!!\n\n...or (as I'm inclined to believe) Wolfe was toying with the idea of the\nultimate beneficial intent of even G-d's most punitive actions - and took up\nthe icon of the world-wide flood to show it (I'm pretty certain that Wolfe\ndoes not believe in a historical Deluge).\n\nSeen this last way, Wolfe's NS, LS, and SS books stories are \"mythological\"\nsci-fi rather than \"speculative\" sci-fi. That is, one cannot expect to draw\na line from the Messiah's Earth to the Conciliator's Urth. You can do it\ntechnologically, linguistically, geographically, and in literature. But\nBiblically? No. That's just too much to ask even from Wolfe. Even Tolkien\nbalked at attempting to create such a world - insisting that there is NO\nreligion in Middle Earth (except the false worship of Sauron by the Swarthy\nMen).\n\nC. S. Lewis DID draw such a connection in both his Space Trilogy and the\nNarnia series. But when he attempted to add a tenuous connection (in the\nspace trilogy) to Middle-Earth, Tolkien deeply resented it.\n\nIf Wolfe IS bringing into the Long Sun and the Short Sun books the actual\nG-d he worships at Mass, then I'll bet a dollar he does not see Silk's world\nand history as any more potentially \"actual\" than Tolkien saw Middle-Earth\nwhen he included in it the origin of \"Hey-diddle-diddle\".\n\nI'm not sure I'm making myself clear. Sorry about that.\n\n-- Crush\n\n\n-----Original Message-----" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "From: Jeff Wilson [mailto:jwilson at io.com]\nSent: Sunday, June 16, 2002 7:55 PM\nTo: urth at urth.net\nSubject: Re: (urth) Christians and Christs: A new RPG?\n From:\n James Jordan " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": " BTW, when Wolfe told me that he was thinking of Briah as a\nprevious universe, I took it at face value." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "The transcript does not render your question clearly at all; what\nexactly =did= you ask him, if you can recall at 11 years' remove?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I don't think it matters much, for I have not\nbeen able to see that it is some kind of major interpretive clue -- except\nthat it does allow him to have a flood over the earth, which in our\nuniverse would be problematic because of the promise to Noah. That aspect\nof the narrative is \"cleaner\" if this a pre-Noah universe." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Is it possible to dodge the promise some other way? Was Urth ever\nabandoned by humanity? Could the flood be local in nature, or due to\nsome other cause, perhaps Abaia? The flood lasts far too long to be due\nto the White Fountain alone." }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "Jeff Wilson\nHow Am I Posting? 1-800-555-6789\n\"If your SecOp can see you, so can the enemy.\" -Cpt Law\n\n\n--\n\n\n\n-- " } ] } ] }