In a message dated 3/22/2005 8:07:16 AM Pacific Standard Time, urth-urth.net-request at lists.urth.net writes: Because we've all heard the story before. All 3 major Western religions are built on events in which either God Himself, or members of the religion with God's approval and help, kill bunches of other people. The holy books which are taught to us since childhood and inform our culture approve of the killing. So of course when somebody else comes along and says he had to kill a bunch of people for a supreme being we find nothing unusual.
Was Wolfe thinking of this? It makes some sense if we view Urth as stuck in a sort of pre-Old Testament mode, when things were done that way.
Enamel
I think this is a very good point. Sam Harris, perhaps the dean of American secularists, has been writing about the peculiar blindnesses of our various religious heritages for some time now. it is useful to examine the writings of a great fantasist such as Wolfe to see how arbitrary and cruel our own systems of belief are. Or rather how Christianity and Islam can be used by cruel people.
By the way, has anyone in Lupine circles heard about the new book in the Latro series?
Pippen.