Re: Stirling, EF Russell, McGann, Castro, Di Filippo

>It gets sort of grandfathered in... if someone today made the
>*exact same claims* as early Christians (my buddy/cult leader
>rose from the dead! He heals the sick!) they would be laughed at.
>You know it and I know it.

Yes, that's precisely my point. The finer points of *any*
theology look laughable to nonbelievers.

I was not saying that Wicca is any less "stupid" than
any other religion; I'm saying that they are all equally
"stupid", and that the inherent "stupidity" of a religion
is no bar to belief in it.

>>I'm not interested in getting into a theological debate over
>>a scifi novel,

>Too bad, that's the sort of thing this newsgroup is for.

No newsgroup is meant for pointless name-calling,
and I doubt very much that I can hold a civil debate
with a person who doesn't see a problem with
dismissing an entire religion as "stupid".

>Wiccans generally don't even believe it themselves! Why
>should I not point that out?

Feel free--but don't do it by saying "This is stupid". Do it
by saying "The origins of this are known, so it doesn't
get the same kind of grandfathering as most mainstream
religions, and as far as I can tell even most self-professed
Wiccans don't believe it the way they're portrayed doing
in the book." (And if you honestly think that most
Wiccans don't believe it, may I gently suggest that your
sample size is, at best, limited. Not going 'round telling
everyone you meet how great your God is is not the
same as not believing in your God...)

That is, you are free to look skeptically at the mass
conversions, but you should not do it by saying "Wiccan
theology is stupid". Saying that someone else's
theology is stupid is, bluntly, rude.

>Still don't buy it. I wouldn't. So some aliens screwed
>over humans; that doesn't mean all of fundamental reality
>goes out the window.

The characters don't *know* it's aliens. They don't know
*anything* about the cause of the Change. Ken Larsson
has decided it's Alien Space Bats because that
explaination works for him, as it would clearly work for
you (and I kinda like it myself, if only for the name). That
doesn't mean he's right, or that everyone in the world
thinks it's aliens.

>The difference between fiction and reality is that fiction
>has to make sense.

Mmmmm, argument by cliche. What is it, precisely,
that stops an author from constructing the rules of a
world such that magic "makes sense"? The fact that
we have seen no overt magic doesn't mean it's not
there; similarly, the fact that we have seen no Alien
Space Bats doesn't mean they're not there either.
But we don't know, either way, because it has not
been shown.

It's entirely possible that, within the reality of the
fictional world, the reason Juniper and Mike
succeed is because of the favor of their respective
gods. Or it could be that they're Just That Good,
and lucky. Until we have some evidence, we don't
and can't know.

--Neon Fox

.

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