This week in Google Alerts

Gerry Quinn · 02 Nov 2011, 14:14 · from 2011-November.txt.gz

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From: gerry at bindweed.com (Gerry Quinn)
Date: Wed, 2 Nov 2011 14:14:00 -0000
Subject: (urth) This week in Google Alerts
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From: Lee Berman 
> As previously mentioned, I think the crux of the disagreement is 
> whether there is a Christ at all in Briah. If there is, Urth is the 
> future of Earth. If there is no Christ, Urth is some previous version.
> It all boils down to that.(and it makes sense that some here would 
> be more open to the idea of a universe without Christ than others.)  
I don?t think it boils down to anything like that at all.  The question of whether Urth had a Christ is one that you find significant, but it is only in your theory that it has any relevance to the which cycle of the universe Urth exists in.
There is plenty of textual evidence, particularly in Long Sun, suggesting that Urth did indeed have a Christ, and that the cult of the Outsider is a successor to or evolution of Christianity.  I think you have argued that Christianity, if it existed on Urth, seems to have vanished.  But I recently re-bought my lost copy of Nightside, and perhaps I have found it:
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"When we were outside like him [The Outsider], living in the Short Sun Whorl before this one was finished and peopled, we worshipped him. No doubt you knew that already, Patera."

"I'd forgotten it," Silk admitted, "but you're right It's in the tenth book, or the twelfth."

"We chems didn't share in sacrifices in the Short Sun Whorl." Maytera Marble fell silent for a moment, scanning old files. "It wasn't called manteion, either. Something else. If only I could find that, I could remember more, I..?
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In Typhon?s empire, Christianity has retreated to the downtrodden and disparaged: that is to say, it is mainly to be found among the chems.

We don?t know what happened between that time and Severian?s, but it seems a stretch to argue that it has died out completely, when we know little or nothing of the religion of the vast majority of characters.

- Gerry Quinn
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