Opus 2022-193: Here We Go Again

I just finished Omega by Jack McDevitt.  Once again I see someone writing a science fiction story that is really a theological treatise.

The theology comes in when the rescuers from Earth are driven to masquerade as deities of the natives they are trying to save in order to warn them about a coming catastrophe.  They are laboring under a policy of non-intervention, The Protocol, but find that they only way they can save the alien civilization is to intervene.  So they appear in the guise of a goddess and pass on the information the natives need.  It was a simple message, “Flee to the high ground for a few days.”  

The theological statement has two elements.  First, it looks at the past in our history where there have been strange occurrences that need an explanation.  Since science fiction authors as a whole reject the idea of God, it is necessary to bring in the advanced aliens from outer space to save our cookies.  It is the same approach that evolutionists take in trying to figure out where advanced life came from on earth.  They know it could not have happened by chance.  They can figure the odds.  They know how probability works.  They know there was not enough time for evolution to take place even if they overlook the Original Cause or Prime Mover problem.  By having advanced humans save beings on another planet that says it could have happened here.  It is a popular theme in science fiction.  It also overlooks the problem of where the aliens came from.

The second theological position is that religious traditions come from people faking the activity of the gods.  Miracles are slight of hand.  Prophecy is theater.  There is no God so it must have been some legend that developed among credulous humans.

I have started the next volume in the series.  I am not sure I will finish it.  In the first few chapters there has been repeated reference to how the oceans are rising and all of that nonsense that is being pushed by the global warming lobby.  It is always introduced as if it is a done deal.  If he drops it and moves on I may keep reading.  If he keeps playing the most recent Song of Indoctrination, I will find something else to read.

McDevitt, Jack.  Omega.  New York:  Ace Books, 2003.

homo unius libri