(urth) Fairies and Wolfe

[Jeff Wilson]

On 4/3/2012 12:46 PM, Lee Berman wrote:
>
>> Jeff Wilson: Moses uses magic when he strikes the rock in defiance
>> of G-d's command.
>
> In my opinion, "defiance" is an overly strong word. IIRC, Moses had
> been ordered to strike the rock in the past to get water and it worked.
> This time he was supposed to speak to the rock but instead he struck it,
> as before, twice and got a nice gusher to flow. For this offense, God
> makes his long-suffering servant die in the desert, barred from the
> Promised Land. As I 've suggested before, the OT God seems a bit
> different from the NT God. Not very forgiving.

But He keeps giving Jonah second chances to deliver judgment to Nineveh. 
Perhaps G-d has higher expectations for Moses, arguably the most 
accomplished and best educated man in his world.


> I wonder what it means to take Gerry's position- that Severian is using
> science and technology. Is it possible that some uses of technology are
> a form of divine power while others are akin to magic, i.e. performed for
> selfish human wants?  Scary. (how many SF Holy Atomic Bombs have been
> created...how many real ones?) 		 	   		

It's not all one or the other. If divine power creates the universe and 
controls the destiny of its contents, as Severian is convinced, then 
then both magical and material forces are creations of divine power, and 
divine Providence gifts Joseph and Severian and Decuman with their 
mental powers, even if those psychic gifts work in ways ultimately 
explainable by science.

(I don't particularly think psychic powers are compatible with 
materialist science, but since John W. Campbell did, and was willing to 
pay good money for stories that supported that view, we're kind of stuck 
with them as part of the classic SF tool kit that BotNS relies on, right 
alongside the V2-style interplanetary rockets and the giant robots. )

-- 
Jeff Wilson - jwilson at clueland.com
Computational Intelligence Laboratory - Texas A&M Texarkana
< http://www.tamut.edu/CIL >