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From: js2j@mhuxt.UUCP (sonntag)
Newsgroups: net.religion
Subject: Re: Yellow Press in SciFi?
Message-ID: <454@mhuxt.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 7-Jan-85 10:19:17 EST
Article-I.D.: mhuxt.454
Posted: Mon Jan  7 10:19:17 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 8-Jan-85 03:14:15 EST
References: <1253@hou4b.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill
Lines: 32

Mark Terrible writes:
> As I was walking past a colleague's desk, I picked up a copy of Heinlein's
> ``Friday''. The story takes place in the wreckage of earth future.  I flipped
> though it, and came up against a paragraph which described how the Catholic
> Church claimed that people who were the product of genetic engineering were
> not human, did not have immortal souls, etc.
> 
>A couple of years ago, I flipped through another scifi book about the wreckage
> of earth future, and the church was depicted as a medevial inquisition.  The
> sacrament of Penance was turned into torture-confess-execute, and the
>accusations included ``having sex with an unblessed [ie untaxed] prostitute''.

> Are my observations typical of scifi writings?  If so, why?  Is perversion of
> religion just a good way to depict a damaged society?  Or do these writers
> consider religion a malady of society? And is the Catholic Church singled out
> the way that IBM is singled out when we think of computers -- ``They have an
> IBM machine'', or do these writers have a grudge against Catholicism ?

I seem to remember reading another story once where the man who discovered the
fact that the earth revolves around the sun was put on trial by the catholic
church for heresy.  And another where some religious nuts run something called
the 'Spanish Inquisition', where they tortured lots of innocent people.  And
another story where religious people accused each other of being 'witches'
and burned, hung, tortured, crushed beneath stones, etc each other.  Those
writers must really have some kind of private grudge against religion!  I
guess I'll just have to agree with Mark Terrible on this one.  :-)
    Wait a minute!  I just remembered where I read those stories!  My high
school history class.
-- 
Jeff Sonntag
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   "Hey, my new .signature file really works!"