Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club
Thomas More, Utopia
Inevitably, I began studying Mars and the Martians. In his spare moments, Deacon joined me to watch videos of ugly people living in tin shacks that clung grimly to the soil of an unloved place. Mars had never had much to offer in the way of water or oil or even dirt. Any natural beauty it might once have had now lay concealed behind billboards, neon-lit casinos, auto graveyards, dark forests of wells, bright gashes of mining operations, files of giant pybons bringing power to seas of ugly little houses.
The Martians were not without religion, we learned. There were over 23,000 registered sects in the main population centers, ranging from the exotic (Hermetic Lodge of the Ninth Zoroastrian Affinities) to the familiar (Church of Christ Dry Cleaner—Alterations While U Wait; First Church of the Snodgrass Family of 112 Oakland Avenue West). Every other house seemed to be some kind of tabernacle. The television channels were clogged with ranters, chanters, rollers, healers. A Bible was probably being thumped, somewhere on Mars, every two seconds.
"It all signifieth nothing," said Deacon. His own hand (cracked and bleeding from washing dishes) made an automatic Bible-thumping gesture. "If these people ain't been saved by the Reverend Flint Orifice Crusade, they ain't been saved at all. We got to throw down and break all these false idols, so the good folk of Mars can see the light."
Our main enemy was a popular creed called Reformed Darwinism, which came about through an accident of history. At the time the colony was being established, a debate was going on in America over the controversial claims of someone called Charles Darwin, a foreigner. Darwin evidently claimed that animals evolved, one species turning into another. This was supposed to happen by means of "natural selection", in which the fittest members of a species survive, while the less fit perish. The question was, was this science?
It was found in some states that the real guardians of science and scientific truth were religious leaders and lawyers, unswayed by facts. Scientists were generally so dogmatic and arrogant as to claim that some facts were just facts and not matters of religious preference at all.
The debate raged on until the turn of the century, when some of the more anti-Darwin sects lost a lot of their steam. Many of them had been counting on the end of the world in 1999. When it didn't end, a great many of their flock stopped putting money in the collection plates and took up hobbies: fishing, car-washing, TV criticism.
But then a counter-sect arose, embracing persons who thought they believed in Darwin's novel theory. What they actually believed in was Reformed Darwinism, a religious and social theory combining "survival of the fittest" with "Devil take the hindmost". The important thing was to be a survivor. Take care of your tribe and your territory. Be selfish. God helps those who help themselves.
To the new Martian colonists, this seemed a tailor-made religion. They lived where tribalism and selfishness really counted, where territory was money. Many of them had already served prison sentences for selfish acts. Reformed Darwinism captured their hearts and rudimentary minds.
"This is going to be tough," said Deacon Cooper. "We have to make our message look good to people who would kill each other for a plastic harmonica."
"Are we going to tell them how Jesus said we should all love one another and—"
"No, definitely not. That's the last thing they want to hear. We got to show them, I don't know, I guess that Jesus Christ was the toughest guy on the block. I looked up a few gospel items here, there's the story of how he's sitting there with his gang one day and a woman comes up and pours some expensive after-shave over him, and the other guys say shouldn't we be giving money to the poor instead of wasting it like this? Only he says, 'Forget the poor, the poor you have always with
Thomas More, Utopia
Inevitably, I began studying Mars and the Martians. In his spare moments, Deacon joined me to watch videos of ugly people living in tin shacks that clung grimly to the soil of an unloved place. Mars had never had much to offer in the way of water or oil or even dirt. Any natural beauty it might once have had now lay concealed behind billboards, neon-lit casinos, auto graveyards, dark forests of wells, bright gashes of mining operations, files of giant pybons bringing power to seas of ugly little houses.
The Martians were not without religion, we learned. There were over 23,000 registered sects in the main population centers, ranging from the exotic (Hermetic Lodge of the Ninth Zoroastrian Affinities) to the familiar (Church of Christ Dry Cleaner—Alterations While U Wait; First Church of the Snodgrass Family of 112 Oakland Avenue West). Every other house seemed to be some kind of tabernacle. The television channels were clogged with ranters, chanters, rollers, healers. A Bible was probably being thumped, somewhere on Mars, every two seconds.
"It all signifieth nothing," said Deacon. His own hand (cracked and bleeding from washing dishes) made an automatic Bible-thumping gesture. "If these people ain't been saved by the Reverend Flint Orifice Crusade, they ain't been saved at all. We got to throw down and break all these false idols, so the good folk of Mars can see the light."
Our main enemy was a popular creed called Reformed Darwinism, which came about through an accident of history. At the time the colony was being established, a debate was going on in America over the controversial claims of someone called Charles Darwin, a foreigner. Darwin evidently claimed that animals evolved, one species turning into another. This was supposed to happen by means of "natural selection", in which the fittest members of a species survive, while the less fit perish. The question was, was this science?
It was found in some states that the real guardians of science and scientific truth were religious leaders and lawyers, unswayed by facts. Scientists were generally so dogmatic and arrogant as to claim that some facts were just facts and not matters of religious preference at all.
The debate raged on until the turn of the century, when some of the more anti-Darwin sects lost a lot of their steam. Many of them had been counting on the end of the world in 1999. When it didn't end, a great many of their flock stopped putting money in the collection plates and took up hobbies: fishing, car-washing, TV criticism.
But then a counter-sect arose, embracing persons who thought they believed in Darwin's novel theory. What they actually believed in was Reformed Darwinism, a religious and social theory combining "survival of the fittest" with "Devil take the hindmost". The important thing was to be a survivor. Take care of your tribe and your territory. Be selfish. God helps those who help themselves.
To the new Martian colonists, this seemed a tailor-made religion. They lived where tribalism and selfishness really counted, where territory was money. Many of them had already served prison sentences for selfish acts. Reformed Darwinism captured their hearts and rudimentary minds.
"This is going to be tough," said Deacon Cooper. "We have to make our message look good to people who would kill each other for a plastic harmonica."
"Are we going to tell them how Jesus said we should all love one another and—"
"No, definitely not. That's the last thing they want to hear. We got to show them, I don't know, I guess that Jesus Christ was the toughest guy on the block. I looked up a few gospel items here, there's the story of how he's sitting there with his gang one day and a woman comes up and pours some expensive after-shave over him, and the other guys say shouldn't we be giving money to the poor instead of wasting it like this? Only he says, 'Forget the poor, the poor you have always with
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