<br><div class="gmail_quote"><br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">And so I get frustrated when, on this list, many who are not<br>
Christians themselves sort of imply that this monstrous act in the<br>
book is something that I should just be gung-ho about because, well,<br>
the Christian God is pretty much a monster Himself. I don't buy that,<br>
and I don't think Wolfe does, and I think it misses the mark in<br>
understanding the New Sun.<br>
<br>
Anyway, that's my take. I've said it.<br>
<div class="Ih2E3d"><br>
</div></blockquote></div><br>I can totally understand that. I wouldn't say the Christian God is a Monster at all. In fact, I think that, for myself (admittedly a non-Christian, but not an Athiest or even Agnostic really) part of my understanding of the Absolute (for want of a better word) is an understanding of the 'impersonal' nature of destruction. That while the Christian God, in his old testament form, destorys the world so Noah can survive and give rise to a better humanity, or destorys Sodom because of it's wickedness, or encourage the Jews to smash the infants of their enemies upon th rocks...these things to not indicate Evil. The situation is bigger than that. And the sorts of arguments where people try to 'disprove' or 'invalidate' God in these terms are juvinille and unsublte. (And here, I'm not attributing these arguments to you...the opposite actually).<br>
<br>So, for me, the destruction of Urth to create Ushas is not a monstrous act. If there is no afterlife in New Sun, if the Increate isn't real (no matter how conscious his servants are of his wishes), then the destruction of Ushas is a brutal and monstrous one. If the Increate is real, and there is some sort of Life of the Soul in the books (of which textual evidence you've asked for I would posit all of the discussion of the survival of Severian's 'personality' through so many types of death, and the corridors of time themsevles) then this act, the destruction of Urth, the 'hitting of the reset button' is no longer monstrous, but another instance of the Increate hitting the reset button like he did with Noah, or Sodom, or countless other examples. <br>