Oannes

Lee Berman · 21 Mar 2012, 12:56 · from 2012-March.txt.gz

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From: severiansola at hotmail.com (Lee Berman)
Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2012 08:56:56 -0400
Subject: (urth) Oannes
Message-ID: <SNT123-W62E8484A5B18F0BAA1154ECF400 at phx.gbl>

>Jerry Friedman: I agree that there's no clear evidence of God's 
>interactions with other gods.  But there's no clear evidence of 
>monotheism till Second Isaiah (Is. 44:6), I'm told, so it seems 
>likely that the authors of the books agreed with the characters 
>that there were other Gods, but the Israelites were supposed to 
>worship just one.

Nice summation.

>Dan'l Danehy-Oakes: Correct. Wolfe is not writing apologetics; he is 
>writing fantasy/sf in which the truth is, repeatedly and by different 
>devices, hidden, and its revelation is salvific.

Agreed, though I still think the main device Wolfe uses to reveal the 
validity of the Truth of Christianity is its absence.

>I would go so far as to say that there is _less_ ickiness and cruelty in
>Christianity than in most other religions (I might except Zen Buddhism)
>-- incluiding Marxism, which is a religion screaming that it isn't.  
>The fact that we in the Western World do not take slavery, the murder
>and rape of peasants by nobles, and so on as just "the way things are"
>is due to the civilizing influence of Christianity.

I could cautiously agree with a few qualifications. I think you have to
specify "modern" Christianity. For most of Western history, slavery and
other evils were tolerated within Christian societies,including by the
clergy.

Also, there are many religions which can be considered more inherently 
benign than Christianity; a few Asian faiths, certain native American
belief systems, Universal Unitarianism, etc.

But the thing is, most peaceful religions simply don't spread the way
the militant religions out of the Middle East do. So it might not be fair to
compare Christianity with Sikhism or Hopi beliefs, etc. I would agree that
modern Christianity is more benign than modern Islam or Judaism.

I certainly agree that the real world practice of Marxism has functioned like a
religion for its adherents and has an inherent violence within its philosophy.
Hard to have class warfare and social upheaval without bloodshed, not to
mention the need for draconian enforcement once Marxist principles are
established.

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