(urth) Oannes

[Lee Berman]

>David Stockhoff: I agree. I don't see how an evolving deity could be 
>anything but an evolving perception of that deity. Plainly, that has 
>always fascinated Wolfe.

I agree about the fascination. And Wolfe's use of a first person narrator 
throughout the Sun Series ensures we understand that all we are hearing is 
filtered through human perception and writing.
 
Such a premise is based on an assumption. One assumption is atheistic:
that there is no real God.  God consists only of what human minds think 
about him.  Before the first humans there was no God and he will disappear
when there are no longer any humans around to think about him.  Is Wolfe
suggesting this scenario?
 
Another assumption is that there is a one true God who is perfect and 
choiceless and unchanging. As you suggest, any perceived changes or
personification of such a God (including calling it "He") are false. They
are simply projections of human imperfection on a perfect God. But this 
means all religions are equally valid and/or equally false. Hindus, Christians 
and animists are all equally human and thus equally right and wrong about the 
unknowable perfection of the "real" God. How could one group of humans have
a better grasp of the infinite than another?
 
Well, I'm frustrated at the digression. What I'm saying is this: In Long/Short
Sun we have a pantheon of false electronic gods who are shuffled like cards and
replaced in new forms, becoming closer and perhaps a part of The Outsider in the 
process. In BotNS we have a pantheon of sea (and earth) gods who are similarly
replaced. Was this shuffling important to The Increate/Outsider? Did it have an 
impact on Him? If not, why even tell the stories? (my impression of The Increate
from BotNS is that he might best be described AS a universal story, which is being 
played out). Ah never mind. I don't know what I'm saying.