From: "Ori Kowarsky" <orik@sprint.ca>
Subject: Re: (urth) Ori hammer and tongs
Date: Sat, 20 Nov 1999 13:55:10 

Nicholas Gevers:


>I agree with Ori in some ways, in particular re the
>inexcusability of many of the Increate's actions, such
>as the immolation of the Commonwealth's people that
>Ushas may arise. But Ori, aren't you approaching the
>matter of whether the Hierogrammates serve the
>Increate or themselves rather unsubtly, with a
>curiously RELIGIOUS hammer-and-tongs zeal? Surely a
>striking attribute of Catholicism, in contrast, is its
>theological subtlety, its emphasis on the mediation of
>all Divine influences through sacraments, priests,
>etc.; so why not aliens? Wolfe is hardly going to show
>us the Increate giving Tzadkiel his instructions for
>the day; such a process is necessarily presented by
>remote implication only.

Hmmm ... well, you may have a point.  I'm not a Catholic, and so I've never
had to reconcile myself to the worldly actions of an institution which I
believe to be holy.  As I wrote in a previous post, perhaps that is the
"bridge" which some readers bring with them to the book and some others
don't.  As a result, then, if you do not believe that crimes on the material
plane are exculpabale or even laudatory on the metaphysical plane, then
TBOTNS serves equally well as a critique of such an institution as it does a
defense for those who do.

Ori


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