The Android's Dream

[kerravonsen]

Finished reading "The Android's Dream" by John Scalzi. First bit of non-fanfic fiction I've read in a while. Initially hard to get into, but soon got caught up in the shenanigans. So many shenanigans! It was fun.

The Church of the Evolved Lamb

Yeah, I'm going to wax philisophical about a fictional religion. It's me, what do you expect?

First:

The most impressive thing about the Church of the Evolved Lamb was how they didn't split into two churches, one for the "Ironists" and one for the "Empathists". Seriously, that is totally impressive.

Second:

The ironists' goal of basically proving that prophecy is bunk by making fake prophecies come true... doesn't actually prove that prophecies are bunk. It might prove that predictions are bunk, but prophecies aren't predictions.

Okay, to be more precise, Biblical prophecies aren't predictions; people get pretty confused about that, even followers of Abrahamic religions get confused about that, because the word "prophet" has multiple meanings, and sure, most of the time, people think of a "prophet" as "someone who makes predictions", but if you dig into the Old Testament Scriptures and look at Moses, you'll find that a "prophet" is someone who speaks on behalf of someone else, someone who is a messenger, who passes on the words they heard (word for word) to other people. When Moses said that he was terrible at public speaking, God suggested that "Aaron shall be your prophet." So... Biblical prophets aren't people who make predictions, they are messengers/town-criers/heralds (of God). Prophecies aren't predictions, they're an Agenda - God's agenda. Sometimes the words of the prophets are about what's happening right then when they're speaking, and sometimes they're about the future. And that's fine, because God's still going to be around in that Future, available to carry out his agenda.

Because another interesting thing about future-prophecies? They're often conditional. IF this THEN that.

IF you turn your back on me, THEN the Assyrians are gonna pound you into the dirt. IF you return to me, THEN I will rescue you.

Agenda. Not prediction. So... somebody actively working to make a prophecy come about? That's exactly what a prophecy is about; because God is actively working to fulfill his stated agenda.

And the Church of the Evolved Lamb? Well, they decided to make "bringing about the Evolved Lamb" their agenda. Same diff.

Comments

[thewayne]

You might like his Agent To The Stars. Written around the same timeframe, similarly silly. I thought Android's Dream was fun and I re-read it occasionally.