(urth) This week in Google Alerts

[David Stockhoff]

On 11/2/2011 10:14 AM, Gerry Quinn wrote:
> *From:* Lee Berman <mailto:severiansola at hotmail.com>
> > 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:
> *****************************************
> "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..”
> ****************************************
> 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.

Some excellent observations!