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Oomphel in the Sky
Oomphel in the Sky
Since Logic derives from postulates, it never has, and never will, change a postulate. And a religious belief is a system of postulates ... so how can a man fight a native superstition with logic? Or anything else...?
Book Excerpt
uch possessions. That they had destroyed them grieved him. But the Last Hot Time was at hand; the whole world would be destroyed by fire, and then the Gone Ones would return.
So there were uprisings on the plantations. Paul Sanders had been lucky; his Kwanns had just picked up and left. But he had always gotten along well with the natives, and his plantation house was literally a castle and he had plenty of armament. There had been other planters who had made the double mistake of incurring the enmity of their native labor and of living in unfortified houses. A lot of them weren't around, any more, and their plantations were gutted ruins.
And there were plantations on which the natives had destroyed the klooba plants and smashed the crystal which lived symbiotically upon them. They thought the Terrans were using the living crystals to make magic. Not too far off, at that; the properties of Kwannon biocrystals had opened a major breakthrough in subnucleonic physics and initiated half a dozen tech
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Readers reviews
3.7
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An entertaining and enjoyable story, but a bit heavy on the side of humanistic religion. It's all about altering an alien race's religious beliefs, and ends up doing so by pronouncing mankind as soul-less beings. It is mostly enjoyable because the writing is professional and the characterizations are believable.
One other thing - if you're a die-hard liberal, prepare to be offended.
One other thing - if you're a die-hard liberal, prepare to be offended.
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Natives of a planet orbiting a binary star believe the end of their world is coming and begin burning their villages, which upsets the human emigrants to the planet. The earthmen gather all the shamans together and try to modify their world view. Kind of a talky, rationalistic, story, probably too optimistic to be real.
08/08/2013
Interesting short SF, exploring the possibility of manipulating religious belief system. It works out in the end, of which I'm sceptical in general. However, simple scientific demonstrations are certainly one way to achieve the goal.
07/18/2007
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