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<pre wrap="">Yes, that is a difficult interpretation to accept, on many levels. It's unsatisfying to me, too---an atheist---even more than it would be in any other kind of story. I don't suggest it.
On the other hand, God DOESN'T cause the deaths of puppies, does he? We cause our own pain and each other's. So couldn't it be true that selfish manipulation by charlatans carries out the Work of God anyway---or even that it ALWAYS gets carried out DESPITE their manipulations?
The sticking point is what kind of Work is worth (or worth overlooking) such atrocities. John's link will take you right into a discussion of exactly that. I don't know the answer.
The Manvantara scheme sounds pretty mechanistic and pointless to me too, unless I missed something. It almost seems to propose a "hungry universe"---that the universe is just plain hungry, generating and destroying life like a cosmic woodchipper. This idea is closer to what most mythologies assume than it is to any Christian universe. All the astronomer societies believed that deep time crushes humanity repeatedly, on a vast scale.
You'd think the Increate would offer some escape from this if he is God. Maybe he isn't. Maybe he does.
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Message: 8
Date: Sat, 06 Dec 2008 00:16:57 +0000
From: "Son of Witz" <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E"
href="mailto:sonofwitz@butcherbaker.org"><sonofwitz@butcherbaker.org></a>
Subject: Re: (urth) Abaia and the undines
To: "The Urth Mailing List" <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E"
href="mailto:urth@lists.urth.net"><urth@lists.urth.net></a>
Message-ID: <W217641043543611228522617@webmail32>
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<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap=""><span class="moz-txt-citetags">></span>for example, I see no reason to assume that the Hierogrammates/Hierodules
<span class="moz-txt-citetags">></span>really work for the Increate at all, or do his bidding, or that the
<span class="moz-txt-citetags">></span>Increate caused the Flood any more than God causes the deaths of puppies).
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre wrap=""><!---->
What I find HARD to swallow, is the idea that a devout Catholic, a self-proclaimed "Catholic Author", would write a sprawling Messianic tale about Death & Resurrection which had it's ultimate point that everything that seemed to be the Work of God was just a bunch of selfish manipulation by charlatanes.
That is the most preposterous idea I've seen yet in conjunction with this work.
Does anyone thing a Believer in Christ would write a story this full of Christian symbolism just to yank the rug out from under you and say "sucker, you're faith is all a lie"?
I have to say, it's not a compelling reading.
~sonofwitz
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