posted
It's 3000 years in the future and still christ hasn't returned to earth? I don't think any of the books mention anything about this but It would be interesting if a historical account of that event was included in the ender books.
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quote:Originally posted by Tara: Maybe he did and no one noticed.
Unlikely, unless we can conclude that all accounts of what he said concerning his second coming were spurious, as well as all prophecies preceding and succeeding his ministry.
It would all be wrong save the actual statement that he was coming again. Pretty bad ratio of true:false accounting.
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No, I don't think they did, but yeah it would be neat if it was in there. Maybe he was too far from Earth to care about it?
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Maybe it's post-rapture and everyone left, including Catholics and Mormons, decided to pretend that never happened.
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This brings up some pretty serious spiritual questions.
One I've had since I was a kid is, does Christ's return signify the redemption of the Earth, or the redemption of all humanity? Up until recently, those were synonymous terms, but not so any more.
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I would imagine it applies to all of humanity - decendents of Adam.
You might similarly ask if it applies to people in America, since the existence of North and South America was not known by the biblical authors at the time of Christ.
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OSC's fiction does not explicitly assume the truth of any particular religion, although he does assume that people will continue to be religious (of one stripe or another) far into the future. For fiction which does assume the exact truth of one religion, perhaps you'd like to try the Left Behind series.
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I would hope after 3000 years he would have already returned. It is never mentioned in the novels so I guess in that world he hasn't returned yet.
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I think that you have to keep in mind that if Card wrote a story set in a world where the Second Coming has occurred, that would be a whole story in itself. I mean, you can't really expect human life to be going on like normal after that, and obviously that's not the story that OSC is telling with the Ender books. Case closed.
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I dunno. How long did the Norse wait for Ragnarok before they concluded that, yeah, it wasn't going to happen?
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"It does raise the question: how long can a religion keep a Messiah myth going?"
" How long did the Norse wait for Ragnarok before they concluded that, yeah, it wasn't going to happen?"
Historically speaking? Until a new religion (such as Christianity in the case of the Norse) replaced it by force or cultural influences. Even then, sometimes the old messiah morphs and is reinterpreted into the one expounded by the new religion. I could easily see Ender become the new Messiah expected to return on the day of Earth's next great crisis with an overlay mythos similar to the Christ returning.
I think the underlying question of this post is "how can a believer like OSC write stories that don't inhabit his own religious convictions?" Its called imagination.
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posted
I think we're fairly accustomed to ignoring religious prophecies and the like when reading sci-fi, for the same "alternate universe" reason that we don't balk at dragons and giant spiders in fantasy fiction, rather than just saying "that's impossible!" and refusing to read the book. The level of one's belief in their own religion doesn't really have anything to do about it, and doesn't necessarily reflect on the author.
By the way, the title "Ender and Christ's Second Coming" is fairly funny. I don't think I'm the only person to misinterpret it.
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Well, off the top of my head, I could think of two references to anything about beliefs of Christianity in the Enderverse in this context. I looked up the quotes and here's what I got. The first one clearly states the world doesn't end is in Ender's Shadow, Chapter 4. It's at the beginning, during the dialog between Sister Carlotta and Colonel Graff (or perhaps Major Anderson). "You frighten me, when you say there isn't time." "I don't see why. Christians have been expecting the imminent end of the world for millennia." "But it keeps not ending." "So far, so good."
The second one is 3000 years later in Speaker for the Dead, Chapter 15. During the meeting about Jane and Starways Congress's intrusion into Lusitanian files, Bishop Peregrino says to Mayor Bosquinha; "Mother Church works with things of the Spirit, so our use of public memory is merely clerical. As for the Bible - we are so old-fashioned and set in our ways that we still keep dozens of leatherbound paper copies in the Cathedral." This would indicate that they follow the Bible such as it existed before the nets and then the ansible carried it throughout humanity (pre-Ender's Game). So the end of the world, or otherwise rapture, as depicted in the Bible has not yet happened, they're just still waiting.
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quote:Originally posted by Josh Cooper: This would indicate that they follow the Bible such as it existed before the nets and then the ansible carried it throughout humanity (pre-Ender's Game).
That-does-not-follow. There were any number of versions of the Bible prior to computers. For all we know their paper Bibles include some Apocrypha and drop the Gospel of Mark, after a controversial 150-127 vote at the Fifth Vatican Congress in 2472.
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quote:Originally posted by Josh Cooper: This would indicate that they follow the Bible such as it existed before the nets and then the ansible carried it throughout humanity (pre-Ender's Game).
That-does-not-follow. There were any number of versions of the Bible prior to computers. For all we know their paper Bibles include some Apocrypha and drop the Gospel of Mark, after a controversial 150-127 vote at the Fifth Vatican Congress in 2472.
I find that very far fetched. If that were the case, it would be noted. I wasn't answering a question of what could have happened. I'm saying what did happen in the Enderverse. When someone writes calling to the Bible by name, it's talking about the one that is known by the reader during the time frame the book (Speaker for the Dead) was published. By the Bishop saying that they keep still leatherbound paper copies, he's talking about the same old Bible that we know now despite what changes there may be in interpretation. A huge change such as your Apocrypha would redefine the Bible and the core of Christianity as we know it and Card wouldn't just write the Bible. It would be some spinoff of the Bible.
And if you think he wouldn't read his stuff. He loves to present his different ideas. He does a great job of depicting Starways Congress without writing a chapter dedicated to it.
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Card would not have a bishop say "The Bible according to the redefinition of 2472" unless it were a major plot point, because the bishop just thinks of it as "The Bible" with no qualifiers. In a similar vein, in historical fiction, nobody specifies that they are using the King James Bible. For the purpose of the scene, it doesn't matter if the Bible contains Jesus, the Holy Spirit, or the Noodly Appendages; the point is that the bishop is a traditionalist.
That said, my example was a little bit exaggerated for effect. My point is that Bible translations are numerous and continue to come out. The bishop could be using a feminist translation, or a white-supremacist one, or one made by some different faction around 2472 that we don't even know about because it's not important.
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I don't completely disagree with King of Men, but having a feminist, white-supremacist, or any number of agenda driven Bible translations is not the same as changing the Biblical content. I think that the Bible will remain intact for 3000 years under the direction of official mainstream Christian Churches if they continue to exist intact. After all, it has been a little over 1,000 years since the Bible came down to us as is for the Catholics that include the apocrypha and the Protestants that don't.
Currently there have been significant discoveries and rediscoveries of Christian and Jewish scriptures that are not included in the Bible canon as used by the major denominations. Some have been recognized as works used by the Bible writers themselves, with Enoch the best example. Despite such large numbers of historical documents, no changes have been made by anyone to expand or reform the Bible. The idea that the Bible is sacrosanct as is has a tremendous theological grip.
Even among the Mormons, who are known to believe in an open canon, the Bible itself has not been changed in contents. The apocrypha is even considered suspect although tentatively useful as apologetic rather than of theological importance. That means that I don't even see the Bible having a whole chapter on the Buggers. What I do see if at all, however, is what OSC's religion already has; books like the Book of Mormon that are considered scripture and yet thought of as distinct from the Bible. At best, again like the Mormon example, there will be a collection of the books between one cover (the Bible, Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, and Pearl of Great Price is called a "Quad") , but still considered different works. That is what I see in the Ender universe, although in reality I don't see any such changes ever among the mainstream religions.
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quote:Currently there have been significant discoveries and rediscoveries of Christian and Jewish scriptures that are not included in the Bible canon as used by the major denominations. Some have been recognized as works used by the Bible writers themselves, with Enoch the best example. Despite such large numbers of historical documents, no changes have been made by anyone to expand or reform the Bible. The idea that the Bible is sacrosanct as is has a tremendous theological grip.
I don't think you are thinking this through. The existence of sacred works currently not included in the Bible is in itself proof that the Bible has changed, to wit, it now excludes these writings, which was not always the case. Likewise your example of the Apocrypha, now excluded by the Protestants. (Or, for that matter, the New Testament, now included by the Christians.)
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Has everyone forgot that the Hive Queen was treated like holy writ across the colonies? If we're going to go so far as to point out examples of distinct apocryphal documents that are separate from the canon Bible, from the perspective of whatever denomination, we might as well just bring that up.
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In a way you are correct. However, the examples that you are pointing out is that there is a tendency to reduce the scriptural canon and not add to its contents. That is, unless you are a newcomer religion who is somehow separating themselves (by choice, tradition, or lack of theological proximity)and have prophets writing holy writ. That is why I said the change would be having "books . . . that are considered scripture and yet thought of as distinct from the Bible."
My own feelings as related to the Hegemony and the Hive Queen narratives? They would be rejected by the majority of religions, but become secular scriptures. They would, as implied by the novels, become sources of moral and ethical guides. What they wouldn't be is theological and paranormal guides. Most of the religious would condemn them of blaspheme and those who take them seriously as heretics or worse. As for the colonies treating them as holy writ? This may sound strange to some, but I consider it authorial hyperbole. It is a comparison of influence and not classification.
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Why? Speaking of the Dead is clearly a religious rite, and speakers are considered religious leaders.
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"Speaking of the Dead is clearly a religious rite"
No, it is a secular rite that can be incorporated into religious rites. I get no impression that the speakers are considered religious leaders. I believe that the books indicated religious leaders were actually weary of the speakers.
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Speakers have no doctrine and set up no rival organization. Calling them religious is like calling a detective following a murder case a priest. Not completely on the same level, but you get the point. Bishop Peregrino, a well educated man, believed that Speakers renounced all religious before taking the title. Of course this was not the case with Ender, but he didn't design Speakers for the Dead. He made the name and others made it. I think that only reason that it's classified as religion at all is so that they are protected under the Starways Code against those who would try get rid of them. (The other religions).
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quote:No, it is a secular rite that can be incorporated into religious rites. I get no impression that the speakers are considered religious leaders. I believe that the books indicated religious leaders were actually wary of the speakers.
Indeed, as one is wary of a rival! Just because it's a religion doesn't mean that a Catholic bishop will be glad to see a Speaker land in his domain! Rather the opposite.
We know that speakers are covered by the freedom-of-religion clause of the Starways Congress; it's an important plot point because Lusitania can be interdicted if they don't let Ender speak. Also, I believe it is mentioned at the end of Ender's Game that (paraphrasing from memory) "among spacemen, [speaking] was the only religion."
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Hmm, I was just reading Speaker for the Dead and came accross this in chapter two. "I want to be a speaker," she said. "Go ahead then. The computer will train you. It isn't like a religion-you don't have to memorize any chatechism. Now leave me alone."
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