Here’s a post from Roy Jacobsen’s Writing, Clear and Simple blog, explaining an actual physiological reason why active verbs are better than passive verbs. So use active verbs, already!
Oh yes, he also has a blog called Dispatches from Outland.
I had an IM conversation last night with a friend who is an agnostic.
He talked about the idea of missionaries in space travel stories. He was assuming that if we found intelligent life on other planets, missionaries from various religions would go to them.
I suppose that’s probably true.
But I said that, for my own part, I’d never been certain whether the Atonement had anything to do with people on other planets (assuming there are any).
He had trouble understanding that.
I said that from a biblical perspective, sin is passed down from Adam, and the Redemption pays for that sin. But space aliens are not descended from Adam. So either a) they would not require redemption at all, or b) they might require an entirely different sort of remedy for whatever problem they might have gotten themselves into.
He said that that was a new thought to him.
It occurred to me that this might be a common problem of perception, and a sign that we Christians haven’t been making our case clearly.
He assumed (I take it. Could be wrong) that believers in proselytizing religions spread their messages out of a simple desire to make people agree with them. A conviction that “I’m right, and I won’t rest until I’ve convinced everybody else that I’m right.” A sort of intellectual bullying impulse.
While from my point of view, the central question is a purely practical one. I believe that there is something radically wrong with the human heart. It is literally “sick unto death.” And I have been entrusted with the medicine that cures that sickness. If I didn’t believe people were perishing, I wouldn’t be greatly troubled that people in Madagascar have a different world view than I do.
Context matters. A man running down a city street shouting, “Follow me to the exit!” is a nut. A man shouting “Follow me to the exit!” in a burning theater is very probably a hero.
I don’t know of many sf novels that deal with this issue. Reaching back in my memory pack I seem to remember… vaguely, ‘A case of conscience’ by James Blish; and ‘Night of light’ by Phillip Farmer.
– are there ‘aliens’ in space? A great book is ‘Fermi’s Paradox’
I’m with you on this, Lars. If intelligent life is on other worlds, it will need its own redemption story, and maybe it doesn’t have one. Maybe there are people made in God’s image without the curse of sin. I don’t think Roswell has anything to do with them.
C. S. Lewis dealt with this somewhat in his Space Trilogy.
There was a short story in the early 60s about a stareship captain racing from systemto system following rumors of visits by the Risen Lord. He always missed him. One of the crew stays behind on one worlkd and find him there.
I remember that story. Don’t have a clue who wrote it.
But wouldn’t this view leave room for universalism?
Say maybe members of ‘other’ religions at one time were aliens from planets with a different ‘redeemer’ who somehow ended up on earth?
Much to ponder.
Well that’s an interesting thought. I tend to rule out religions based on space aliens, but there are places where it would go over big…
I haven’t had an interesting thought in years.
Aitchmark and Lars, I wonder if the short story is “The Fire Balloons” by Ray Bradbury, in The Illustrated Man. It’s not a Sixties publication, though.