Fundamentalists from Outer Space!

A major "what if" theme of science fiction revolves around first contact with beings from other worlds. Some of these aliens are hostile, such as the Martians from H G Well's War of the Worlds or the insatiable, parasitic monster in the 1979 film Alien. Others are benevolent like those in Steven Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind or Carl Sagan's 1985 novel, Contact. Rarely though, are they ever neutral or indifferent to us. We are, after all, Very Important Persons ...at least, in our own eyes.

 

Hostile or benevolent though, these aliens are often portrayed as having God-like powers that are far beyond our understanding. H G Well's martians have "minds that are to our minds as ours are to those of the beasts that perish, intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic" and Steven Spielberg's aliens not only possess unfathomably superior technology, but the ability to psychically(?) project compulsions into the human mind. But what if the aliens are not god-like but instead are, like many humans, obsessed with god?

 

I was reading an anthology of science fiction stories the other day, when I ran across one with just that premise by the late, great Poul Anderson (d. 2001). It was called The Word to Space and it was written in 1960 when our own space program was just taking its first, faltering steps above our atmosphere. Like Sagan's novel, Contact, it supposes that our first knowledge of intelligent life will be through signals received via radio telescope. The Akronite's world (yeah, the playful Poul named the planet "Akron" so the characters in the story give the star it orbits, mu cassiopeia, the nickname "Ohio") is about 25 light years from Earth, so a full circuit of questions and answers takes around 50 years to complete. That puts a considerable barrier in the way of communication and the first 75 years of contact are spent in getting to know each others' languages. After the non-human Akronites decide that we understand them well enough though, they stop sending anything but sermons, passages from their holy books and commentaries on the passages. Here's a sample:

 

"'...begat Manod, who reigned over the People for 99 years. And in his day lawlessness went abroad in the land, wherefore the Quaternary One smote the People wth ordseem (translator's note: apparently a disease) and they were sore afflicted. And the preacher Jilbmish called a great prayer meeting. And when the people were assembled he cried unto them: Woe betide you, for you have transgressed against the righteous command of the Secondary and Tertiary Ones, namely, you have begrudged the Sacrifice and you have failed to beat drums at the rising of Nomo, even as your fathers were commanded; wherefore this evil is come upon you.'

Book of Sheemish xiv, 6."

 

Yup. It turns out the Akronites are ruled by an iron-fisted theocracy with a mission to convert all beings to the One True Faith: theirs. The hopeful radio astronomers on Earth send them scientific information; the Akronites send back more holy gibberish. This goes on for another 50 years and the Earth-based radio-telescope project is slowly starved of funds as interest in the exchange wanes in all but the crank cults that have grown up around the Akronite religion (and no one wants to encourage them). Finally, one man steps forward with an idea that just might change the game. Rather than continue the status quo or, worse, risk offending the Akronites by asking them not to send any more sermons, he suggests replying to them with fulsome thanks for the gift of scripture and requests for answers about a few obscure questions on doctrine. For instance, for Earth worshippers of the Akronite religion, which Sol system planet would be the closest equivalent of (see the scripture sample) Nomos? Mars or Venus?  And if a worshipper gains merit by beating the drums at the planet's rising, would he not gain more merit by lofting himself into an orbit where the Nomos substitute would always be visible and he could beat the drums continuously for as long as he lived?

 

The idea, of course, is to break up the Akronite theocracy by stimulating arguments over interpretations of doctrine; arguments which will lead to some points of view being declared heretical and fought over... just as they have for thousands of years on Earth.

 

And the man who conceived this plan is the perfect candidate for formulating these poisoned questions; a Jesuit priest trained, as Jesuits famously are, in philosophical logic-chopping and theological hair-splitting. Here, he explains why the point about Nomos matters:

 

"...it raises the whole question of the relative importance of ritual and faith. Which in turn leads to the question of faith versus works, one of the basic issues of the Reformation. As far as that goes, the schism between Catholic and Orthodox Churches in the early Middle Ages turned, in the last analysis, on one word in the Credo, 'filioque'. Does the Holy Ghost proceed from the Father and the Son or from the Father alone? You may think this is a trivial question, but to a person who really believes his religion, it is not. Oceans of blood have been spilled because of that one word."

 

The plan which, after a little hair-splitting of its own, the Church has given its blessing to, is put into operation though the results, due to the distances between the stars, are not known for many years. When news finally reaches the Earth, it is everything that was expected. The theocracy dissolved into competing sects and the survivors, exhausted after butchering each other for a decade, have been forced to learn to live with one another. Akronite scientists, who were heavily restricted under the theocracy, are now free to exchange knowledge with their Earth counterparts and eager to get started.

 

***

 

The reason I bring up this story is because of something the author implies, but doesn't actually spell out. It's why religious disputes can so easily dissolve into bloodshed. Scientific debates can be very heated but they are about natural phenomena and, in most cases, experimentation and observation will settle questions in a manner which is acceptable to others because the results are reproducible by them. If the question can't be resolved in this manner, it remains open until it can ...and even then the answers aren't carved in stone. They are subject to revison any time new data are discovered that doesn't fit within their framework.

 

Religious disputes aren't like this though. They don't deal with tangibles, but instead with ideas taken on faith. How do you prove, for instance, that filioque means that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father and the Son rather than from the Father alone? It isn't something that can be demonstrated the way the statement, "an apple always falls down instead of up" can. It must always remain a matter of opinion. And when opinion is given the force of faith, no amount of argument will necessarily change it. No wonder the frustrated forces of orthodoxy and heresy so often resort to violence against each other. Tolerance of a challenge to what the faith-based know to be the absolute, revelation-vouched-for Truth, rarely occurs until every other option has been tried and one side has exterminated the other or mutual exhaustion has set in. That is the pattern that has repeated itself on planet Earth for thousands of years. No one should be surprised if it's the same on other planets.

 

One final note. I feel I should apologize to potential readers of Poul Anderson's wonderfully clever The Word to Space for revealing the meat of the entire story line to you. I do have a little bone to throw you though. Any Arthur Conan Doyle fans should look for a couple cute Sherlock Holmes references Poul threw in.

 

Photo Credit:

1) "Alien Pope" image by Stan Mircea

2) Space alien (Chutney Spears blogspot)

 

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