In article <486706e3$1@news.povray.org>, dne### [at] sanrrcom says...
> Patrick Elliott wrote:
> > but the central premise was, in fact, "Don't 
> > follow dogma from people who desperately want to control things they 
> > can't comprehend at all, imagine are dangerous when they are the exact
 
> > opposite and who know absolutely nothing about what they claim to be 
> > telling you about."
> 
> Except the scientists who understood exactly what they were doing were 
> all evil as well. At least those from Laura's world.
> 
Hmm. Yes and no. There are always scientists that opt to side with the 
lunatic fringe and only use the science when/if it helps that agenda. We 
only really get to see that side in the books, since its connected to 
the theme. However, you do get the hint that some, those working with 
the college and in scholarly circles, where skirting the edge as much as 
possible, trying to avoid helping people who would undermine the very 
purpose of their existence. Someone had to make, for example, the 
alethiometer, back before the Magesterium tried to destroy them all and 
everyone the dared to challenge them directly. What sort of scientist do 
you "expect" to find in such a world?

> > It wasn't evil leaking into the world, it was "life" leaking out.
> 
> I was referring the the monsters that only ate the adults that came in 
> from between the worlds. The invisible shades monsters. Not the dust.
> 
Ah. Yes, those. But it does involve dust anyway, since there its "that" 
which they feed on, in the end. And yeah, that was a bit of the sort of, 
"Try at least to be cautious what you bring into the world.", sort of 
message with that. The scientists that did that where no evil, they just 
didn't recognize what they where doing. They made their pursuit of 
knowledge "into" a sort of religion as well, denying consequence, and in 
the end, they gave up one "everything" other than that pursuit.

> > I wouldn't even call it anti-religious, save in the sense that its main
 
> > message was, "Don't limit yourself to the silly BS some church come up
 
> > with. They don't have a clue, just dogma, and they might be completely
 
> > wrong about *everything*."
> 
> Yeah. Except the *author* said it's anti-religious, and indeed that was
 
> his purpose in writing it. Just as the author of the Narnia stuff said 
> he explicitly wrote it to make children more credulous so they'd more 
> easily believe in the fantastic claims of religion without any proof.

Oh, and it definitely is. But in a way that, despite the necessity of 
introducing one fanciful other explanations for everything, to counter 
all the "presumptions" the rest had about what was true, clearly says, 
"The person that figures this out is going to be the one that keeps her 
eyes open, thinks, and looks for answers, not the clown who thinks they 
already have them." Its unclear how you show this, without "inventing" a 
lot of silly fantasy elements to "replace" the existing silly ones. 
Well, at least without making reaching anyone with it impossible. Its 
one thing to say, "Angels could be real, but what if they are not what 
you imagine them to be", and another entirely to say, flat out, to some 
believer, "They just don't exist at all, and its all made up nonsense."

I think the intent was to make a story that was anti-religious, but in a 
way that might be subtle enough, at least initially, to get people to 
think, before making it absolutely clear what the message is. And, he 
almost manages it. Unfortunately, the message is hinted at, for the far 
gone, enough in the first book to keep them from reading it at all, it 
gets "too" explicit about it in the second, and before you even open the 
cover of the third you know that religion and blind faith in made up 
ideas, where truth gets ignored or discounted, is the absolute enemy 
running through the whole series. The knife simply wasn't subtle enough. 
;)

-- 
void main () {

    if version = "Vista" {
      call slow_by_half();
      call DRM_everything();
    }
    call functional_code();
  }
  else
    call crash_windows();
}

<A HREF='http://www.daz3d.com/index.php?refid=16130551'>Get 3D Models,
 
3D Content, and 3D Software at DAZ3D!</A>

Post a reply to this message