| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"words of truth" |
| Date: |
17 Dec 2005 04:45:48 PM |
| Object: |
Science Fiction Writer John C. Wright Becomes A Christian |
http://www.idlefellows.com/speculativecatholic/2005/12/john-c-wright-on-becoming-christian.html
John C. Wright on becoming a Christian
John C. Wright, author of the best science fiction series of the
millennium (to date) - The Golden Age trilogy - as well as one of the
most interesting fantasy series - Everness - has become a Christian.
He appears in the comments box of an SF Signal review. It's so
interesting, I'm going to reproduce a portion at length, but I suggest
you read the rest too, plus his books!:
My conversion was in two parts: a natural part and a supernatural part.
Here is the natural part: first, over a period of two years my hatred
toward Christianity eroded due to my philosophical inquiries.
Rest assured, I take the logical process of philosophy very seriously,
and I am impatient with anyone who is not a rigorous and trained
thinker. Reason is the tool men use to determine if their statements
about reality are valid: there is no other. Those who do not or cannot
reason are little better than slaves, because their lives are
controlled by the ideas of other men, ideas they have not examined.
To my surprise and alarm, I found that, step by step, logic drove me to
conclusions no modern philosophy shared, but only this ancient and (as
I saw it then) corrupt and superstitious foolery called the Church.
Each time I followed the argument fearlessly where it lead, it kept
leading me, one remorseless rational step at a time, to a position the
Church had been maintaining for more than a thousand years. That
haunted me.
Second, I began to notice how shallow, either simply optimistic or
simply pessimistic, other philosophies and views of life were.
The public conduct of my fellow atheists was so lacking in sobriety and
gravity that I began to wonder why, if we atheists had a hammerlock on
truth, so much of what we said was pointless or naive. I remember
listening to a fellow atheist telling me how wonderful the world would
be once religion was swept into the dustbin of history, and I realized
the chap knew nothing about history. If atheism solved all human woe,
then the Soviet Union would have been an empire of joy and dancing
bunnies, instead of the land of corpses.
I would listen to my fellow atheists, and they would sound as innocent
of any notion of what real human life was like as the Man from Mars who
has never met human beings or even heard clear rumors of them. Then I
would read something written by Christian men of letters, Tolkien,
Lewis, or G.K. Chesterton, and see a solid understanding of the joys
and woes of human life. They were mature men.
I would look at the rigorous logic of St. Thomas Aquinas, the
complexity and thoroughness of his reasoning, and compare that to the
scattered and mentally incoherent sentimentality of some poseur like
Nietzsche or Sartre. I can tell the difference between a rigorous
argument and shrill psychological flatulence. I can see the difference
between a dwarf and a giant.
My wife is a Christian and is extraordinary patient, logical, and
philosophical. For years I would challenge and condemn her beliefs,
battering the structure of her conclusions with every argument,
analogy, and evidence I could bring to bear. I am a very argumentative
man, and I am as fell and subtle as a serpent in debate. All my arts
failed against her. At last I was forced to conclude that, like
non-Euclidian geometry, her world-view logically followed from its
axioms (although the axioms were radically mystical, and I rejected
them with contempt). Her persistence compared favorably to the behavior
of my fellow atheists, most of whom cannot utter any argument more
mentally alert than a silly ad Hominem attack. Once again, I saw that I
was confronting a mature and serious world-view, not merely a tissue of
fables and superstitions.
Third, a friend of mine asked me what evidence, if any, would be
sufficient to convince me that the supernatural existed. This question
stumped me. My philosophy at the time excluded the contemplation of the
supernatural axiomatically: by definition (my definition) even the word
"super-natural" was a contradiction in terms. Logic then said that, if
my conclusions were definitional, they were circular. I was assuming
the conclusion of the subject matter in dispute.
Now, my philosophy at the time was as rigorous and exact as 35 years of
study could make it (I started philosophy when I was seven). This meant
there was no point for reasonable doubt in the foundational structure
of my axioms, definitions, and common notions. This meant that,
logically, even if God existed, and manifested Himself to me, my
philosophy would force me to reject the evidence of my senses, and
dismiss any manifestations as a coincidence, hallucination, or dream.
Under this hypothetical, my philosophy would force me to an exactly
wrong conclusion due to structural errors of assumption.
A philosopher (and I mean a serious and manly philosopher, not a
sophomoric boy) does not use philosophy to flinch away from truth or
hide from it. A philosophy composed of structural false-to-facts
assumptions is insupportable.
A philosopher goes where the truth leads, and has no patience with mere
emotion.
But it was impossible, logically impossible, that I should ever believe
in such nonsense as to believe in the supernatural. It would be a
miracle to get me to believe in miracles.
So I prayed. "Dear God, I know (because I can prove it with the
certainty that a geometer can prove opposite angles are equal) that you
do not exist. Nonetheless, as a scholar, I am forced to entertain the
hypothetical possibility that I am mistaken. So just in case I am
mistaken, please reveal yourself to me in some fashion that will prove
your case. If you do not answer, I can safely assume that either you do
not care whether I believe in you, or that you have no power to produce
evidence to persuade me. The former argues you not beneficent, the
latter not omnipotent: in either case unworthy of worship. If you do
not exist, this prayer is merely words in the air, and I loose nothing
but a bit of my dignity. Thanking you in advance for your kind
cooperation in this matter, John Wright."
I had a heart attack two days later. God obviously has a sense of humor
as well as a sense of timing.
Now for the supernatural part.
My wife called someone from her Church, which is a denomination that
practices healing through prayer. My wife read a passage from their
writings, and the pain vanished. If this was a coincidence, then, by
God, I could use more coincidences like that in my life.
Feeling fit, I nonetheless went to the hospital, so find out what had
happened to me. The diagnosis was grave, and a quintuple bypass heart
surgery was ordered. So I was in the hospital for a few days.
Those were the happiest days of my life. A sense of peace and
confidence, a peace that passes all understanding, like a field of
energy entered my body. I grew aware of a spiritual dimension of
reality of which I had hitherto been unaware. It was like a man born
blind suddenly receiving sight.
The Truth to which my lifetime as a philosopher had been devoted turned
out to be a living thing. It turned and looked at me. Something from
beyond the reach of time and space, more fundamental than reality,
reached across the universe and broke into my soul and changed me. This
was not a case of defense and prosecution laying out evidence for my
reason to pick through: I was altered down to the root of my being.
It was like falling in love. If you have not been in love, I cannot
explain it. If you have, you will raise a glass with me in toast.
Naturally, I was overjoyed. First, I discovered that the death sentence
under which all life suffers no longer applied to me. The governor, so
to speak, had phoned. Second, imagine how puffed up with pride you'd
be to find out you were the son of Caesar, and all the empire would be
yours. How much more, then, to find out you were the child of God?
I was also able to perform, for the first time in my life, the act
which I had studied philosophy all my life to perform, which is, to put
aside all fear of death. The Roman Stoics, whom I so admire, speak
volumes about this philosophical fortitude. But their lessons could not
teach me this virtue. The blessing of the Holy Spirit could and did
impart it to me, as a gift. So the thing I've been seeking my whole
life was now mine.
Then, just to make sure I was flooded with evidence, I received three
visions like Scrooge being visited by three ghosts. I was not drugged
or semiconscious, I was perfectly alert and in my right wits.
It was not a dream. I have had dreams every night of my life. I know
what a dream is. It was not a hallucination. I know someone who suffers
from hallucinations, and I know the signs. Those signs were not present
here.
Then, just to make even more sure that I was flooded with overwhelming
evidence, I had a religious experience. This is separate from the
visions, and took place several days after my release from the
hospital, when my health was moderately well. I was not taking any
pain-killers, by the way, because I found that prayer could banish pain
in moments.
During this experience, I became aware of the origin of all thought,
the underlying oneness of the universe, the nature of time: the paradox
of determinism and free will was resolved for me. I saw and experienced
part of the workings of a mind infinitely superior to mine, a mind able
to count every atom in the universe, filled with paternal love and
jovial good humor. The cosmos created by the thought of this mind was
as intricate as a symphony, with themes and reflections repeating
themselves forward and backward through time: prophecy is the awareness
that a current theme is the foreshadowing of the same theme destined to
emerge with greater clarity later. A prophet is one who is in tune, so
to speak, with the music of the cosmos.
The illusionary nature of pain, and the logical impossibility of death,
were part of the things I was shown.
Now, as far as these experiences go, they are not unique. They are not
even unusual. More people have had religious experiences than have seen
the far side of the moon. Dogmas disagree, but mystics are strangely (I
am tempted to say mystically) in agreement.
The things I was shown have echoes both in pagan and Christian
tradition, both Eastern and Western (although, with apologies to my
pagan friends, I see that Christianity is the clearest expression of
these themes, and also has a logical and ethical character other
religions expressions lack).
Further, the world view implied by taking this vision seriously (1)
gives supernatural sanction to conclusions only painfully reached by
logic (2) supports and justifies a mature rather than simplistic
world-view (3) fits in with the majority traditions not merely of the
West, but also, in a limited way, with the East.
As a side issue, the solution of various philosophical conundrums, like
the problem of the one and the many, mind-body duality, determinism and
indeterminism, and so on, is an added benefit. If you are familiar with
such things, I follow the panentheist idealism of Bishop Berkeley; and,
no, Mr. Johnson does not refute him merely by kicking a stone.
From that time to this, I have had prayers answered and seen miracles:
each individually could be explained away as a coincidence by a
skeptic, but not taken as a whole. From that time to this, I continue
to be aware of the Holy Spirit within me, like feeling a heartbeat. It
is a primary impression coming not through the medium of the senses: an
intuitive axiom, like the knowledge of one's own self-being.
This, then, is the final answer to your question: it would not be
rational for me to doubt something of which I am aware on a primary and
fundamental level.
Occam's razor cuts out hallucination or dream as a likely explanation
for my experiences. In order to fit these experiences into an atheist
framework, I would have to resort to endless ad hoc explanations: this
lacks the elegance of geometers and parsimony of philosophers.
I would also have to assume all the great thinkers of history were
fools. While I was perfectly content to support this belief back in my
atheist days, this is a flattering conceit difficult to maintain
seriously.
On a pragmatic level, I am somewhat more useful to my fellow man than
before, and certainly more charitable. If it is a daydream, why wake me
up? My neighbors will not thank you if I stop believing in the mystical
brotherhood of man.
Besides, the atheist non-god is not going to send me to non-hell for my
lapse of non-faith if it should turn out that I am mistaken.
What's that quote about conversion stories and love stories being the
same thing?
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| User: "Paul Duca" |
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| Title: Re: Science Fiction Writer John C. Wright Becomes A Christian |
18 Dec 2005 10:39:10 AM |
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And this improves your life....HOW?
Paul
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| User: "Enkidu" |
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| Title: Re: Science Fiction Writer John C. Wright Becomes A Christian |
17 Dec 2005 08:14:26 PM |
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"words of truth" <wordsoftruth@hoshmail.com> wrote in
news:1134859548.061313.59090@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com:
John C. Wright on becoming a Christian
Who?
--
Enkidu AA#2165
http://www.musings.leaddogs.org/
EAC Chaplain and ordained minister,
ULC, Modesto, CA
PGP ID: 0xC4CE8CF0
You believe in a book that has talking animals, wizards, witches, demons,
sticks turning into snakes, food falling from the sky, people walking on
water, and all sorts of magical, absurd and primitive stories, and you say
that we are the ones that need help?
-- Jon Stoll
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| User: "Matt Ruff" |
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| Title: Re: Science Fiction Writer John C. Wright Becomes A Christian |
24 Dec 2005 09:58:23 AM |
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Enkidu wrote:
"words of truth" wrote:
John C. Wright on becoming a Christian
Who?
You know, that guy at the thing we saw that time.
-- M. Ruff
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| User: "Denis Loubet" |
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| Title: Re: Science Fiction Writer John C. Wright Becomes A Christian |
17 Dec 2005 06:18:29 PM |
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"words of truth" <wordsoftruth@hoshmail.com> wrote in message
news:1134859548.061313.59090@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
http://www.idlefellows.com/speculativecatholic/2005/12/john-c-wright-on-becoming-christian.html
John C. Wright on becoming a Christian
John C. Wright, author of the best science fiction series of the
millennium (to date) - The Golden Age trilogy - as well as one of the
most interesting fantasy series - Everness - has become a Christian.
Never heard of him.
--
Denis Loubet
dloubet@io.com
http://www.io.com/~dloubet
http://www.ashenempires.com
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| User: "Malibu Skipper" |
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| Title: Re: Science Fiction Writer John C. Wright Becomes A Christian |
18 Dec 2005 01:05:28 PM |
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Denis Loubet wrote:
"words of truth" <wordsoftruth@hoshmail.com> wrote in message
news:1134859548.061313.59090@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
http://www.idlefellows.com/speculativecatholic/2005/12/john-c-wright-on-becoming-christian.html
John C. Wright on becoming a Christian
John C. Wright, author of the best science fiction series of the
millennium (to date) - The Golden Age trilogy - as well as one of the
most interesting fantasy series - Everness - has become a Christian.
Never heard of him.
Wright used to be an Objectivist. Now he's a fundy. Big surprise.
His books are nicely conceived, but generally pedantic and obvious in
execution. One of the Everness books, for instance, contains a entire
chapter in which the villians do pretty much nothing but drive around
cackling "Thank God for gun control! Now we can rule the world!"
In interviews, Wright tends to go on and on about how much better
educated and more intelligent he is than everybody else he knows.
Unfortunately, he is quite shy about giving evidence of this.
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| User: "John S Novak, III" |
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| Title: Re: Science Fiction Writer John C. Wright Becomes A Christian |
18 Dec 2005 07:52:06 PM |
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In article <Ypipf.864$pk4.185@tornado.southeast.rr.com>,
says...
His books are nicely conceived, but generally pedantic and obvious in
execution. One of the Everness books, for instance, contains a entire
chapter in which the villians do pretty much nothing but drive around
cackling "Thank God for gun control! Now we can rule the world!"
In interviews, Wright tends to go on and on about how much better
educated and more intelligent he is than everybody else he knows.
Unfortunately, he is quite shy about giving evidence of this.
One may then infer that he knows very few people.
--
John S. Novak, III
The Humblest Man On The Net
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| User: "" |
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| Title: Re: Science Fiction Writer John C. Wright Becomes A Christian |
19 Dec 2005 12:01:17 PM |
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Malibu Skipper wrote:
Denis Loubet wrote:
"words of truth" <wordsoftruth@hoshmail.com> wrote in message
news:1134859548.061313.59090@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
http://www.idlefellows.com/speculativecatholic/2005/12/john-c-wright-on-becoming-christian.html
Wright used to be an Objectivist. Now he's a fundy. Big surprise.
"Turncoats & True Believers: The Dynamics of Political Belief and
Disillusionment" by Ted Goertzel is quite a good book on the
interaction between personality types and ideologies. A person
converting from a harshly dogmatic X to a harshly dogmatic anti-X, for
any value of X, is absolutely textbook.
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| User: "Malibu Skipper" |
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| Title: Re: Science Fiction Writer John C. Wright Becomes A Christian |
19 Dec 2005 08:40:07 PM |
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wrote:
Malibu Skipper wrote:
Denis Loubet wrote:
"words of truth" <wordsoftruth@hoshmail.com> wrote in message
news:1134859548.061313.59090@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
http://www.idlefellows.com/speculativecatholic/2005/12/john-c-wright-on-becoming-christian.html
Wright used to be an Objectivist. Now he's a fundy. Big surprise.
"Turncoats & True Believers: The Dynamics of Political Belief and
Disillusionment" by Ted Goertzel is quite a good book on the
interaction between personality types and ideologies. A person
converting from a harshly dogmatic X to a harshly dogmatic anti-X, for
any value of X, is absolutely textbook.
Precisely. Scratch many an extreme right-winger, and you'll find an
ex-Trotskyite.
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| User: "" |
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| Title: Re: Science Fiction Writer John C. Wright Becomes A Christian |
21 Dec 2005 07:51:24 AM |
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I just read the conversion story, sorry to join so late...
The whole thing sounds a little contrived: The loving, patient
Christian wife, the life-changing "sign from God", the emotional
release...
Seems like he's using an awful lot of hackneyed plot devices, but who
knows? Maybe it really happened that way.
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| User: "Gene Ward Smith" |
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| Title: Re: Science Fiction Writer John C. Wright Becomes A Christian |
18 Dec 2005 01:10:04 PM |
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Malibu Skipper wrote:
Wright used to be an Objectivist. Now he's a fundy. Big surprise.
We discussed this on rec.arts.sf.written a while back, and the claim
was made that he was never a believing, born-again Objectivist.
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| User: "Mike Schilling" |
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| Title: Re: Science Fiction Writer John C. Wright Becomes A Christian |
18 Dec 2005 01:11:27 PM |
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"Gene Ward Smith" <gwsmith@svpal.org> wrote in message
news:1134933004.424800.284460@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
Malibu Skipper wrote:
Wright used to be an Objectivist. Now he's a fundy. Big surprise.
We discussed this on rec.arts.sf.written a while back, and the claim
was made that he was never a believing, born-again Objectivist.
There's nothing worse than a heretical Objectivist.
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| User: "Sean OHara" |
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| Title: Re: Science Fiction Writer John C. Wright Becomes A Christian |
18 Dec 2005 03:08:48 PM |
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In the Year of the *****, the Great and Powerful Mike Schilling declared:
There's nothing worse than a heretical Objectivist.
How about a thirteen year old Objectivist who thinks he's the first
person in the world to discover Ayn Rand, and believes that he is a
Randian Ubermensch while those around him are too stupid to live?
Oh, wait, isn't that most Objectivists?
--
Sean O'Hara | http://diogenes-sinope.blogspot.com
Gretchen: Donnie Darko? What the hell kind of name is that? It's
like some sort of superhero or something.
Donnie: What makes you think I'm not?
-Donnie Darko
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| User: "John S Novak, III" |
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| Title: Re: Science Fiction Writer John C. Wright Becomes A Christian |
18 Dec 2005 07:52:46 PM |
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In article <40m1f0F1avt2aU1@individual.net>, says...
In the Year of the *****, the Great and Powerful Mike Schilling declared:
There's nothing worse than a heretical Objectivist.
How about a thirteen year old Objectivist who thinks he's the first
person in the world to discover Ayn Rand, and believes that he is a
Randian Ubermensch while those around him are too stupid to live?
Oh, wait, isn't that most Objectivists?
Most thirteen year old boys, except for the Ayn Rand/Objectivist thing.
--
John S. Novak, III
The Humblest Man On The Net
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| User: "Malibu Skipper" |
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| Title: Re: Science Fiction Writer John C. Wright Becomes A Christian |
18 Dec 2005 03:11:18 PM |
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Sean O'Hara wrote:
In the Year of the *****, the Great and Powerful Mike Schilling declared:
There's nothing worse than a heretical Objectivist.
How about a thirteen year old Objectivist who thinks he's the first
person in the world to discover Ayn Rand, and believes that he is a
Randian Ubermensch while those around him are too stupid to live?
Oh, wait, isn't that most Objectivists?
It probably describes most thirteen year olds.
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| User: "Gene Ward Smith" |
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| Title: Re: Science Fiction Writer John C. Wright Becomes A Christian |
18 Dec 2005 04:05:55 PM |
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Malibu Skipper wrote:
Sean O'Hara wrote:
How about a thirteen year old Objectivist who thinks he's the first
person in the world to discover Ayn Rand, and believes that he is a
Randian Ubermensch while those around him are too stupid to live?
Oh, wait, isn't that most Objectivists?
It probably describes most thirteen year olds.
Thirteen year olds are slans.
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| User: "Malibu Skipper" |
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| Title: Re: Science Fiction Writer John C. Wright Becomes A Christian |
18 Dec 2005 01:30:25 PM |
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Gene Ward Smith wrote:
Malibu Skipper wrote:
Wright used to be an Objectivist. Now he's a fundy. Big surprise.
We discussed this on rec.arts.sf.written a while back, and the claim
was made that he was never a believing, born-again Objectivist.
That's possible. I'm not going by any knowledge of religious
affiliation, but only by the content of his books. At any rate, he's
always struck me as somebody who was utterly convinced that whatever
ideas he held were right; so I'm not at all suprised by his religious
conversion.
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| User: "dearcilla" |
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| Title: Re: Science Fiction Writer John C. Wright Becomes A Christian |
23 Dec 2005 07:53:43 PM |
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Malibu Skipper wrote:
Gene Ward Smith wrote:
Malibu Skipper wrote:
Wright used to be an Objectivist. Now he's a fundy. Big surprise.
We discussed this on rec.arts.sf.written a while back, and the claim
was made that he was never a believing, born-again Objectivist.
That's possible. I'm not going by any knowledge of religious
affiliation, but only by the content of his books. At any rate, he's
always struck me as somebody who was utterly convinced that whatever
ideas he held were right; so I'm not at all suprised by his religious
conversion.
By contrast, most people are utterly convinced that whatever ideas they
hold are wrong.
Except me, of course. I'm an exception.
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| User: "Malibu Skipper" |
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| Title: Re: Science Fiction Writer John C. Wright Becomes A Christian |
24 Dec 2005 03:06:03 PM |
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dearcilla wrote:
Malibu Skipper wrote:
Gene Ward Smith wrote:
Malibu Skipper wrote:
Wright used to be an Objectivist. Now he's a fundy. Big surprise.
We discussed this on rec.arts.sf.written a while back, and the claim
was made that he was never a believing, born-again Objectivist.
That's possible. I'm not going by any knowledge of religious
affiliation, but only by the content of his books. At any rate, he's
always struck me as somebody who was utterly convinced that whatever
ideas he held were right; so I'm not at all suprised by his religious
conversion.
By contrast, most people are utterly convinced that whatever ideas they
hold are wrong.
Except me, of course. I'm an exception.
Well, I think the operative word here is "utterly". I think the ideas I
hold are right, but I try to remain open to the notion that they might
be wrong.
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| User: "Howard Brazee" |
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| Title: Re: Science Fiction Writer John C. Wright Becomes A Christian |
18 Dec 2005 07:32:41 PM |
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On Sun, 18 Dec 2005 19:05:28 GMT, Malibu Skipper <mad@my.mama> wrote:
Wright used to be an Objectivist. Now he's a fundy. Big surprise.
Bigger built-in market for people who don't seem to sell by the
strength of their fiction.
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| User: "Gene Ward Smith" |
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| Title: Re: Science Fiction Writer John C. Wright Becomes A Christian |
17 Dec 2005 06:26:10 PM |
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Denis Loubet wrote:
John C. Wright, author of the best science fiction series of the
millennium (to date) - The Golden Age trilogy - as well as one of the
most interesting fantasy series - Everness - has become a Christian.
Never heard of him.
I guess that proves he's no good.
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| User: "Abraxas" |
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| Title: Re: Science Fiction Writer John C. Wright Becomes A Christian |
17 Dec 2005 06:53:18 PM |
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"Gene Ward Smith" <gwsmith@svpal.org> wrote in message
news:1134865570.150947.83500@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
Denis Loubet wrote:
John C. Wright, author of the best science fiction series of the
millennium (to date) - The Golden Age trilogy - as well as one of the
most interesting fantasy series - Everness - has become a Christian.
Never heard of him.
I guess that proves he's no good.
Haven't seen any reviews of this fellow, and I keep abreast of current
literature. Haven't seen any listings even in a best of 100 top science
fiction/fantasy posting.
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| User: "Kurt Busiek" |
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| Title: Re: Science Fiction Writer John C. Wright Becomes A Christian |
17 Dec 2005 07:11:15 PM |
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On 2005-12-17 16:53:18 -0800, "Abraxas" <gunnetc@suscom.net> said:
"Gene Ward Smith" <gwsmith@svpal.org> wrote in message
news:1134865570.150947.83500@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
Denis Loubet wrote:
John C. Wright, author of the best science fiction series of the
millennium (to date) - The Golden Age trilogy - as well as one of the
most interesting fantasy series - Everness - has become a Christian.
Never heard of him.
I guess that proves he's no good.
Haven't seen any reviews of this fellow, and I keep abreast of current
literature. Haven't seen any listings even in a best of 100 top science
fiction/fantasy posting.
I've seen discussions of his books here on the newsgroup (in this case,
rec.arts.sf.written) and picked up one of his novels -- Orphans of
Somethingorother -- but haven't read it yet.
Judging from the discussion, the book sounds like imaginative fantasy
with a lot of erotic spankings of adolescents in it. How the series
will progress post-conversion, I couldn't say.
kdb
--
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| User: "Mike Schilling" |
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| Title: Re: Science Fiction Writer John C. Wright Becomes A Christian |
17 Dec 2005 07:58:49 PM |
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"Kurt Busiek" <kurtbusiek@aol.comics> wrote in message
news:2005121717111577923-kurtbusiek@aolcomics...
Judging from the discussion, the book sounds like imaginative fantasy with
a lot of erotic spankings of adolescents in it.
When did Piers Anthony start using pseudonyms?
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| User: "Gene Ward Smith" |
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| Title: Re: Science Fiction Writer John C. Wright Becomes A Christian |
17 Dec 2005 07:30:29 PM |
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Kurt Busiek wrote:
Haven't seen any reviews of this fellow, and I keep abreast of current
literature.
Obviously, you do no such thing.
I've seen discussions of his books here on the newsgroup (in this case,
rec.arts.sf.written) and picked up one of his novels -- Orphans of
Somethingorother -- but haven't read it yet.
He's been discussed reasonably often on rec.arts.sf.written.
Judging from the discussion, the book sounds like imaginative fantasy
with a lot of erotic spankings of adolescents in it. How the series
will progress post-conversion, I couldn't say.
Publishers Weekly says readers will be rewarded with mildly erotic
spanking scenes involving underage characters. I guess it depends on
what rewards you are after.
"At first glance, Wright's myth-infused fantasy looks like something
older Harry Potter fans might enjoy with its creaky British boarding
school setting and its five ageless orphans-Colin, Quentin, Victor,
Vanity and Amelia-each with a supernatural gift. But the underlying
theme of dominance and submission plus a fair amount of physics and
theology make this definitely a book for adults. A spanking scene
involving the precocious Amelia Armstrong Windrose, who can travel into
the fourth dimension, may offend some readers, but others will find it
playful. Wright (Mists of Everness) doesn't fully develop the
intriguing premise of these unusual students trapped in a school run by
Greek gods as hostages in a bizarre war, but presumably he'll do so in
later installments. Those who like sophisticated fantasy with a mild
erotic charge will be most rewarded."
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| User: "erikc" |
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| Title: Re: Science Fiction Writer John C. Wright Becomes A Christian |
18 Dec 2005 03:24:13 PM |
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On Sat, 17 Dec 2005 17:11:15 -0800, Kurt Busiek <kurtbusiek@aol.comics> wrote:
On 2005-12-17 16:53:18 -0800, "Abraxas" <gunnetc@suscom.net> said:
"Gene Ward Smith" <gwsmith@svpal.org> wrote in message
news:1134865570.150947.83500@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
Denis Loubet wrote:
John C. Wright, author of the best science fiction series of the
millennium (to date) - The Golden Age trilogy - as well as one of the
most interesting fantasy series - Everness - has become a Christian.
Never heard of him.
I guess that proves he's no good.
Haven't seen any reviews of this fellow, and I keep abreast of current
literature. Haven't seen any listings even in a best of 100 top science
fiction/fantasy posting.
I've seen discussions of his books here on the newsgroup (in this case,
rec.arts.sf.written) and picked up one of his novels -- Orphans of
Somethingorother -- but haven't read it yet.
Judging from the discussion, the book sounds like imaginative fantasy
with a lot of erotic spankings of adolescents in it. How the series
will progress post-conversion, I couldn't say.
Perhaps erotic crufixions?
Erikc (alt.atheist #002) | "An Fhirinne in aghaidh an tSaoil."
BAAWA Knight (retired) | "The Truth against the World."
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| User: "Mike Schilling" |
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| Title: Re: Science Fiction Writer John C. Wright Becomes A Christian |
17 Dec 2005 06:35:03 PM |
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"Gene Ward Smith" <gwsmith@svpal.org> wrote in message
news:1134865570.150947.83500@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
Denis Loubet wrote:
John C. Wright, author of the best science fiction series of the
millennium (to date) - The Golden Age trilogy - as well as one of the
most interesting fantasy series - Everness - has become a Christian.
Never heard of him.
I guess that proves he's no good.
I've never heard of him either, which casts at least some doubt on his being
the author of the best SF series of the millennium. *This* millennium,
anyway.
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| User: "Andrew Plotkin" |
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| Title: Re: Science Fiction Writer John C. Wright Becomes A Christian |
18 Dec 2005 01:23:35 AM |
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In rec.arts.sf.written, Mike Schilling <mscottschilling@hotmail.com> wrote:
"Gene Ward Smith" <gwsmith@svpal.org> wrote in message
news:1134865570.150947.83500@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
Denis Loubet wrote:
John C. Wright, author of the best science fiction series of the
millennium (to date) - The Golden Age trilogy - as well as one of the
most interesting fantasy series - Everness - has become a Christian.
Never heard of him.
I guess that proves he's no good.
I've never heard of him either, which casts at least some doubt on his being
the author of the best SF series of the millennium.
You don't remember my use of the line "...instead of writing an
ending, Wright pulls the decaying corpse of Ayn Rand out of his butt"?
I'm disappointed.
--Z
"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the borogoves..."
*
I'm still thinking about what to put in this space.
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| User: "Sean OHara" |
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| Title: Re: Science Fiction Writer John C. Wright Becomes A Christian |
18 Dec 2005 10:21:58 AM |
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In the Year of the *****, the Great and Powerful Mike Schilling declared:
I've never heard of him either, which casts at least some doubt
on his being the author of the best SF series of the millennium.
*This* millennium, anyway.
There are still 995 years left in this millennium; the odds of you
having encountered the best SF series of it are vanishingly small.
Obviously this message comes from the future, and is a blatant
attempt to force John C. Wright to convert, a la R.C. Wilson's The
Chronoliths.
--
Sean O'Hara | http://diogenes-sinope.blogspot.com
There are more fools in the world than there are people.
-Heinrich Heine
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| User: "Gene Ward Smith" |
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| Title: Re: Science Fiction Writer John C. Wright Becomes A Christian |
17 Dec 2005 07:25:01 PM |
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Mike Schilling wrote:
I've never heard of him either, which casts at least some doubt on his being
the author of the best SF series of the millennium. *This* millennium,
anyway.
You never heard of John C. Wright, or you never heard of Denis Loubet?
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| User: "David Johnston" |
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| Title: Re: Science Fiction Writer John C. Wright Becomes A Christian |
17 Dec 2005 09:22:36 PM |
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On Sat, 17 Dec 2005 18:18:29 -0600, "Denis Loubet" <dloubet@io.com>
wrote:
"words of truth" <wordsoftruth@hoshmail.com> wrote in message
news:1134859548.061313.59090@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
http://www.idlefellows.com/speculativecatholic/2005/12/john-c-wright-on-becoming-christian.html
John C. Wright on becoming a Christian
John C. Wright, author of the best science fiction series of the
millennium (to date) - The Golden Age trilogy - as well as one of the
most interesting fantasy series - Everness - has become a Christian.
Never heard of him.
He wrote the Golden Age as a rampant display of his objectivism. I
shudder to think what he'll write next as an objectivist Christian.
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| User: "Guy Gordon" |
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| Title: Re: Science Fiction Writer John C. Wright Becomes A Christian |
18 Dec 2005 03:48:21 AM |
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"words of truth" <wordsoftruth@hoshmail.com> wrote:
the chap knew nothing about history. If atheism solved all human woe,
then the Soviet Union would have been an empire of joy and dancing
bunnies, instead of the land of corpses.
Yes, the Christian explanation for this makes so much more sense:
Devils and Original Sin. Yep.
<snip>
I had a heart attack two days later. God obviously has a sense of humor
as well as a sense of timing.
Ah! It begins to make sense.
Nothing like a close call with death to make one get religion.
But what I can't figure out is why you think this makes a convincing argument.
I also note that he did not turn to God to fix his heart, but to the science of
medicine. He just gives the *credit* to God. Hmmmmm.
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