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Rebuttal
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
December 26, 2022
19 December 2022
Before rereading the story, a note about what comes to mind about it now. And the answer is "nothing except the awful discovery."
***
21 December 2022
I mean, the Jesuit astrophysicist was kind of a dick, since he only cared about this civilization because they made graceful stuff. God slaughters innocents all the time in the Old Testament, including his son, in the New, but that's cool because....? He doesn't mention other civilizations
that people interact with, but notes that remains of other extinct races have been discovered, and those don't bother him. Pretty clear who is the asshole in this story.
In looking for a copy to read I came across "Rebbutal" by Betsy Curtis, which is available from Project Gutenburg. It ran in the same magazine, sometime in the year after Clarke's. It has a unique point to make, but fair warning, it is even less a story, although presented as a diologue.
To my mind, both of these stories suffer the same deficiency: they both are based on the same premise: that the god of a culture of a certain place and time, one who implies the existence of others in his insistence on primacy, and one who seemingly did not reveal himself to any other culture at the same or earlier time, that god and no other is indeed the Supreme Ruler of the universe, and that humans cannot go on without him despite ample evidence that a great many humans have managed to go on no better or worse without that god.
Review cross-posted with The Star.
Personal copies
Before rereading the story, a note about what comes to mind about it now. And the answer is "nothing except the awful discovery."
***
21 December 2022
I mean, the Jesuit astrophysicist was kind of a dick, since he only cared about this civilization because they made graceful stuff. God slaughters innocents all the time in the Old Testament, including his son, in the New, but that's cool because....? He doesn't mention other civilizations
that people interact with, but notes that remains of other extinct races have been discovered, and those don't bother him. Pretty clear who is the asshole in this story.
In looking for a copy to read I came across "Rebbutal" by Betsy Curtis, which is available from Project Gutenburg. It ran in the same magazine, sometime in the year after Clarke's. It has a unique point to make, but fair warning, it is even less a story, although presented as a diologue.
To my mind, both of these stories suffer the same deficiency: they both are based on the same premise: that the god of a culture of a certain place and time, one who implies the existence of others in his insistence on primacy, and one who seemingly did not reveal himself to any other culture at the same or earlier time, that god and no other is indeed the Supreme Ruler of the universe, and that humans cannot go on without him despite ample evidence that a great many humans have managed to go on no better or worse without that god.
Review cross-posted with The Star.
Personal copies
November 3, 2025
The rebuttal is BC's attempt to revise the outcome of Arthur C. Clarke classic short story "The Star". A story in which it is stated that a creator "god", as the christians envision him cannot exist. And BC just set wants to set all those naughty atheists straight and prove that there actually is a "god".
And so this sucked.
But what did you expect? It's a sequel after all.
Also it isn't a story. There is no set-up, plot development or final revelation at the end.
It's just a dull dissertation from one priest to another, the "objective" being to restore Father Philip Burt's faith. He's the guy from "The Star" which I am now assuming, that you being an ardent student, have read.
If you haven't read it yet, what the hell are you reading this cheesy review for!!! Go back and read "The Star" and then come back here!!!
1. It's first failing is that all the elements of this story are set up to counteract the elements of the first story.
So....instead of being alone, and the only christian far out in space visiting a destroyed culture....FPB is back in earth, a patient in a very catholic hospital (st. Luke's), being cared for by Sister White Teflon Overall, and being doctored by Father Niccolo Molina. The point being that the M.D. in this dialog is a christian and not an atheist like the M.D. in the first story.
2. Next failing is that many of the crew from the Poenix Expedition are dying of some unspecified "disease". The implication that it is there lack of christianity that is causing them to die. It's god's wrath! How sacrosanct! Ol' FPB has a wound on his leg that got him put into the hospital. Hmmm....curious.....
3. Biggest failing is that the dialogue is told in 1st person from FNM's point of view. And since HW is the genius of the story who has made a "great" discovery, and since he is the one who not only saves FPB but also restores his faith with his genius....... the story comes off sounding extremely pretentious. UGGH! to phrase it politely.
4. Then there's a bland middle section where the two priests have a boring discussion about faith and the root cause of dying from illness. According to FNM, when a person's body succumbs to an illness, it's because the person subconsciously actually tells the cells of the body to be sick and die. And the cells hears the person and thus die.
This part gets a little wierd as he starts comparing a man and his relationship to his cells as being like "God". Comparing this to god's relationship to man, and how they are simular concepts. Just for the sake of argument, of course.
Why? Because each little cell actually has a conscious and a soul. Which is, of course, the conscious of the person whose body they make up. The soul of the cell is passed down from mother cell to daughter cell so a cell's soul never dies. It becomes immortal. These cells with souls are what eventually go to heaven and live forever with the angels and god. Seriously! I'm not making this up.
So thus, FPB should not feel sad that the destruction of Poenix Culture become the light for the star of Bethlehem. It was god's way of telling Earthlings that THEIR redemption was now on the way. As for the Poenix Culture? They are resting easy in the hands of god in their particular heaven, taking comfort in the knowledge that their death served as a becon of hope for the earth. After all, all of god's creation is one flock.
(Holy Flock!)
5. So now comes the biggest failure of this dialogue. Neither FPB nor FNM nor Sister Mary Teflon will ever know if this reason is true. They can never know. They have to take it one faith, and faith alone. Yeah, gid only knows.
6. And FPB buys into this shtick. He is happy and full of hope and faith as the dialogue ends and he is being wheeled out back into the real world. And miracle of miracles, his leg wound is healing and the puss is drying up. Hmmmmm......
7. So you may ask. How did Father Genius know that cells have souls, you may ask.
Well, in the basement of st. luke's he a a fancy machine called a infrascope, basically a hand-waving, super-duper type of microscope with which he has seen "the scintalations on the plate which signaled the accent of the souls of the cells, the binding energies. One flash for each dying cell body."
Thus "I can show you the endurance of personality in the energy quanta after the cell body is dead."
And thus cell souls ascend into heaven.
8. So, you may ask, how does he know this is all true. Well he just uses the scientific method, i.e. deduction, or more accurately, he just makes a guess at it.
He says he uses the same method men use to suggest there has been a transference of energy, or a change in energy level of a lone electron. You use readings from a measuring device. If it was once there, and now it is not, it has moved on to another electron.
Mind you, nowhere does FNM ever show any readings or collected data to prove his deductions. He says he relies on "intuition". After all, it's impossible to prove the existence of god with physical, real data. So one always has to rely on intuition. Oh......!
"I have seen the souls of 'dead' cells in heaven."
"I have witnessed the immortality of the cell."
And on it goes. Basically the dialogue is a wierd load of pseudo-scientific imagination and religious, circular reasoning. If ol' BC had been a half decent writer with some basic grounding in science, it could have an interesting sequel and maybe even a bit of fun.
But instead, it's just a lame religioustic dud.
Postscript:
I wondered if this is where Frank Herbert got his idea for the death of Leo in "God Emperor of Dune". When Leo was dying, he told Duncan Idaho (who never seems to die) that a small essence of his consciousness will live on in every cell of his body scattered across the desert.
Curious.
And so this sucked.
But what did you expect? It's a sequel after all.
Also it isn't a story. There is no set-up, plot development or final revelation at the end.
It's just a dull dissertation from one priest to another, the "objective" being to restore Father Philip Burt's faith. He's the guy from "The Star" which I am now assuming, that you being an ardent student, have read.
If you haven't read it yet, what the hell are you reading this cheesy review for!!! Go back and read "The Star" and then come back here!!!
1. It's first failing is that all the elements of this story are set up to counteract the elements of the first story.
So....instead of being alone, and the only christian far out in space visiting a destroyed culture....FPB is back in earth, a patient in a very catholic hospital (st. Luke's), being cared for by Sister White Teflon Overall, and being doctored by Father Niccolo Molina. The point being that the M.D. in this dialog is a christian and not an atheist like the M.D. in the first story.
2. Next failing is that many of the crew from the Poenix Expedition are dying of some unspecified "disease". The implication that it is there lack of christianity that is causing them to die. It's god's wrath! How sacrosanct! Ol' FPB has a wound on his leg that got him put into the hospital. Hmmm....curious.....
3. Biggest failing is that the dialogue is told in 1st person from FNM's point of view. And since HW is the genius of the story who has made a "great" discovery, and since he is the one who not only saves FPB but also restores his faith with his genius....... the story comes off sounding extremely pretentious. UGGH! to phrase it politely.
4. Then there's a bland middle section where the two priests have a boring discussion about faith and the root cause of dying from illness. According to FNM, when a person's body succumbs to an illness, it's because the person subconsciously actually tells the cells of the body to be sick and die. And the cells hears the person and thus die.
This part gets a little wierd as he starts comparing a man and his relationship to his cells as being like "God". Comparing this to god's relationship to man, and how they are simular concepts. Just for the sake of argument, of course.
Why? Because each little cell actually has a conscious and a soul. Which is, of course, the conscious of the person whose body they make up. The soul of the cell is passed down from mother cell to daughter cell so a cell's soul never dies. It becomes immortal. These cells with souls are what eventually go to heaven and live forever with the angels and god. Seriously! I'm not making this up.
So thus, FPB should not feel sad that the destruction of Poenix Culture become the light for the star of Bethlehem. It was god's way of telling Earthlings that THEIR redemption was now on the way. As for the Poenix Culture? They are resting easy in the hands of god in their particular heaven, taking comfort in the knowledge that their death served as a becon of hope for the earth. After all, all of god's creation is one flock.
(Holy Flock!)
5. So now comes the biggest failure of this dialogue. Neither FPB nor FNM nor Sister Mary Teflon will ever know if this reason is true. They can never know. They have to take it one faith, and faith alone. Yeah, gid only knows.
6. And FPB buys into this shtick. He is happy and full of hope and faith as the dialogue ends and he is being wheeled out back into the real world. And miracle of miracles, his leg wound is healing and the puss is drying up. Hmmmmm......
7. So you may ask. How did Father Genius know that cells have souls, you may ask.
Well, in the basement of st. luke's he a a fancy machine called a infrascope, basically a hand-waving, super-duper type of microscope with which he has seen "the scintalations on the plate which signaled the accent of the souls of the cells, the binding energies. One flash for each dying cell body."
Thus "I can show you the endurance of personality in the energy quanta after the cell body is dead."
And thus cell souls ascend into heaven.
8. So, you may ask, how does he know this is all true. Well he just uses the scientific method, i.e. deduction, or more accurately, he just makes a guess at it.
He says he uses the same method men use to suggest there has been a transference of energy, or a change in energy level of a lone electron. You use readings from a measuring device. If it was once there, and now it is not, it has moved on to another electron.
Mind you, nowhere does FNM ever show any readings or collected data to prove his deductions. He says he relies on "intuition". After all, it's impossible to prove the existence of god with physical, real data. So one always has to rely on intuition. Oh......!
"I have seen the souls of 'dead' cells in heaven."
"I have witnessed the immortality of the cell."
And on it goes. Basically the dialogue is a wierd load of pseudo-scientific imagination and religious, circular reasoning. If ol' BC had been a half decent writer with some basic grounding in science, it could have an interesting sequel and maybe even a bit of fun.
But instead, it's just a lame religioustic dud.
Postscript:
I wondered if this is where Frank Herbert got his idea for the death of Leo in "God Emperor of Dune". When Leo was dying, he told Duncan Idaho (who never seems to die) that a small essence of his consciousness will live on in every cell of his body scattered across the desert.
Curious.
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