Original Sin and pagan gods

Dan'l Danehy-Oakes · 09 Aug 2006, 18:22 · from 2006-August.txt.gz

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From: danldo at gmail.com (Dan'l Danehy-Oakes)
Date: Wed, 9 Aug 2006 11:22:02 -0700
Subject: (urth) Original Sin and pagan gods
In-Reply-To: <004b01c6bb74$1750a780$8c3ec6d8 at rclackey.stic.net>
References: <004b01c6bb74$1750a780$8c3ec6d8 at rclackey.stic.net>
Message-ID: <1f7617370608091122m6a40363csbd5d26cde50f16d8 at mail.gmail.com>

On 8/8/06, Roy C. Lackey <rclackey at stic.net> wrote:

Text deleted, but ...

> That sounds like sin to me, and it was certainly on a grand scale.

Certainly the grand scale. I'm not 100% on "sin," but it's certainly ugly.

> I assume you are using "Hierodules" in a figurative sense here,

No, I just screwed up. There isn't really a term for uplifted humanity
in the books; people here have taken to calling them Hieros without
a suffix, which has managed to confuse me.

> Somewhere is a statement to the effect that with each cycle there is some
> slight improvement made. Maybe, given enough repetitions, something
> approaching heavenly perfection will be achieved. Eternity can't get any
> longer. <g>

I don't recall such a statement, but I've often wondered about this. It
implies a structure not unlike that in Stapledon's STAR MAKER, in
which the Star Maker creates successively more complex and successful
universes (ours being somewhere in the middle) until It creates one which
achieves a level of universal sentience and perfection that allows that
universe to become, well, the Star Maker. Import that construct to the
Christian framework and you get a Creator whose "practice" universes
gradually get better and better until finally one is "good enough" for the
Creator to be born in it as Christ.

I'm not saying this is what Wolfe has in mind, but it does fit the evidence.

-- 
Dan'l Danehy-Oakes, writer, trainer, bon vivant
-----
http://www.livejournal.com/users/sturgeonslawyer
"Shovels are essential to the fantasy genre.
However, they are primarily used by the authors rather than the
characters." -- Stephen R. Donaldson

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