For the dead are dead...
Jun. 27th, 2007 05:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ciroccojDoing a lot of musing on faith & related stuff in the last few weeks; as usual, a combination of outer and inner events coming together. Partly it's been due to re-reading Humans, the second book of the Neanderthal Parallax, a set of books about a rift that creates a bridge between our world, in which Neanderthals died out millenia ago, and a parallel Earth where our kind of humans died off and Neanderthals became the dominant species, with their own culture, technology, belief systems, etc.
There's a scene that takes place at the Vietnam Memorial in Washington that I find interesting, where a Neanderthal physicist (Ponter) is being shown around Washington by a Canadian geneticist now living in the States (Mary) and they end up debating the effect of belief in life after death on (our) human culture, as Ponter's people are universally atheist and Mary is Catholic. I don't really agree with everything Ponter says, but it does make me think.
***
Mary continued to read to him from letters and cards and plaques and scrolls that had been left leaning against the wall.
Phrases stuck in Ponter's mind.
"We know God is taking care of you..."
"I long for that day when we will all be together again..."
"So much forgotten / So much unsaid / But I promise to tell you all / When we meet among the dead."
"Sleep now, beloved..."
"I look forward to when we are reunited..."
"...on that wonderful day when the Lord will reunite us in Heaven..."
"Goodbye - God be with ye! - until we meet again..."
"Take care, bro. I'll visit you again next time I'm in DC..."
"Rest in peace, my friend, rest in peace..."
Mary had to pause several times to wipe away tears. Ponter felt sad, too, and his eyes were likewise moist, but not, he suspected, for the same reason. "It is always hard to have a loved one die," said Ponter.
Mary nodded slightly.
"But..." he continued, then fell silent.
"Yes?" Mary prodded.
"This memorial," said Ponter, sweeping his arm, taking in its two great walls. "What is its purpose?"
Mary's eyebrows climbed again. "To honor the dead."
"Not all the dead," said Ponter, softly. "These are only the Americans..."
"Well, yes," said Mary. "It's a monument to the sacrifice made by American soldiers, a way for the people of the United States to show that they appreciate them."
"Appreciated," said Ponter. Mary locked confused.
"Is my translator malfunctioning?" asked Ponter. "You can appreciate - present tense - what still exists; you can only have appreciated - past tense - that which is no more."
Mary sighed, clearly not wishing to debate the point.
"But you have not answered my question said Ponter, gently. "What is this memorial for?"
"I told you. To honor the dead."
"No, no," said Ponter. "That may be an incidental effect, I grant you. But surely the purpose of the designer-"
"Maya Ying Lin," said Mary.
"Pardon?
"Maya Ying Lin. That's the name of the woman who designed this."
"Ah," said Ponter. "Well, surely her purpose- the purpose of anyone who designs a memorial - is to make sure people never forget."
"Yes?" said Mary, sounding irritated by whatever picayune distinction she felt Ponter was making
"And the reason to not forget the past," said Ponter, "is so that the same mistakes can be avoided."
"Well, yes, of course," said Mary.
"So has this memorial served its purpose? Has the same mistake - the mistake that led to all these young people dying - been avoided since?"
Mary thought for a time, then shook her head. "I suppose not. Wars are still fought, and-"
"By America? By the people who built this monument?
"Yes," said Mary.
"Why?"
"Economics. Ideology. And..."
"Yes?"
Mary lifted her shoulders. "Revenge. Getting even."
"When this country decides to go to war, where is the war declared?"
"Um, in the Congress. I'll show you the building later."
"Can this memorial be seen from there?"
"This one? I don't think so."
"They should do it right here," said Ponter, flatly. "Their leader - the president, no? - he should declare war right here, standing in front of these fifty-eight thousand two hundred and nine names. Surely that should be the purpose of such a memorial: if a leader can stand and look at the names of all those who died a previous time a president declared war and still call for young people to go off and be killed in another war, then perhaps the war is worth fighting."
Mary tilted her head to one side but said nothing.
"After all, you said you fight to preserve your most fundamental values."
"That's the ideal, yes," said Mary.
"But this war - this war in Vietnam. You said it was to support a corrupt government, to prevent elections from being held."
"Well yes, in a way."
"In Philadelphia you showed me where and how this country began. Is not the United States's most cherished belief that of democracy, of the will of the people being heard and done?"
Mary nodded.
"But then surely they should have fought a war to ensure that that ideal was upheld. To have gone to Vietnam to make sure the people there had a chance to vote would have been an American ideal. And if the Vietnam people..."
"Vietnamese."
"As you say. If they had chosen the Communist system by vote, then the American ideal of democracy would have been served. Surely you cannot hold democracy dear only when the vote goes the way you wish it would."
"Maybe you're right," said Mary "A great many Americans thought the American involvement in Vietnam was wrong. They called it a profane war."
"Profane?"
"Umm, an insult to God."
Ponter rolled his eyebrow up his browridge. "From what I have seen, this God of yours must have a thick skin."
Mary tilted her head, conceding the point.
"You have told me," said Ponter, "that the majority of people in this country are Christians like you, is that not so?"
"Yes."
"How big a majority?"
"Big," said Mary. "I was actually reading up on this when I moved down here. The U.S. has a population of about 270 million." Ponter had heard this figure before, so its vastness didn't startle him this time. "About a million are atheists - they don't believe in God at all. Another twenty-five million are nonreligious, that is they don't adhere to any particular faith. All the other faith groups combined - Jews, Buddhists, Muslims, Hindus - add up to about l million. Everyone else - almost 240 million- say they are Christians."
"So this is a Christian country," said Ponter.
"Wellll, like my home country of Canada," said Mary, "the U.S. prides itself on its tolerance of a variety of beliefs."
Ponter waved a hand dismissively "Two hundred and forty million out of two hundred and seventy million is almost ninety percent, it is a Christian country. And you and others have told me the core beliefs of Christians. What did Christ say about those who would attack you?"
"The Sermon on the Mount," said Mary. She closed her eyes, presumably to aid her remembering. "'Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.'"
"So revenge has no place in the policies of a Christian nation," said Ponter. "And yet you say that is a reason it fights wars. Likewise, impeding the free choice of a foreign country should have had no place in the policies of a democratic nation, and yet it fought this war in Vietnam."
Mary said nothing.
"Do you not see?" said Ponter. "That is what this memorial, this Vietnam veterans' wall, should serve as a reminder of: the pointlessness of death, the error - the grave error, if I may attempt own play on words in your language - of declaring a war in contravention of your most dearly held principles."
Mary was still silent
"That is the reason why future American wars should be declared here - right here. Only if the cause stands the test of supporting the most dearly held fundamental principles, then perhaps it is a war that should be fought." Ponter let his eyes run over the wall again, over the black reflection.
Mary said nothing.
"Still," said Ponter, "let me make a simpler proposition. Those letters you read - they are, I presume, typical?"
Mary nodded. "Ones like them are left here every day."
"But do you not see the problem? There is an underlying belief in those letters that the dead are not really dead. 'God is taking care of you.' 'We will all be together again.' 'I know you are watching over me.' 'Someday I will see you again.'"
"We've been down this road before," said Mary. "My kind of humanity - not just Christians, but most Homo Sapiens, no matter what their particular religion - believe that the essence of a person does not end with the death of the body. The soul lives on."
"And that belief," said Ponter firmly, "is the problem. I have thought this since you first told me of it, but it is - what do you say? - it is driven home for me here, at this memorial, this wall of names."
"Yes?" said Mary.
"They are dead. They are eliminated. They no longer exist." He reached forward and touched a name he could not read. "The person who was named this." He touched another. "And the person who was named this." And he touched a third. "And the person who had this name. They are no more. Surely facing that is the real lesson of this wall. One cannot come here to speak with the dead, for the dead are dead. One cannot come here to beg forgiveness from the dead, for the dead are dead. One cannot come here to be touched by the dead, for the dead are dead. These names, these characters cared in stone - that is all that is left of them. Surely that is the message of this wall, the lesson to be learned. As long as your people keep thinking that this life is a prologue, that more is to come after it, that those wronged here will be rewarded in some there yet to come, you will continue to undervalue life, and you will continue to send young people off to die."
Mary took a deep breath end let it out slowly, apparently composing herself. She gestured with a movement of her head. Ponter turned to look. Another person - a gray-haired man - was placing a letter of his own in front of the wall. "Could you tell him?" asked Mary, speaking sharply "Tell him that he's wasting his time? Or that woman, over there - the one on her knees, praying? Could you tell her? Disabuse her of her delusion? The belief that somewhere their loved ones still exist gives them comfort."
Ponter shook his head. "That belief is what caused this to happen. The only way to honor the dead is by ensuring that no more enter that state prematurely."
Mary sounded angry. "All right, then. Go tell them."
Ponter turned and looked at the Gliksins and their ebony reflections in the wall. His people almost never took human lives, and Mary's people did it such large scales, with such frequency. Surely this belief in God and an afterlife had to be linked to their readiness to kill.
He took a step forward, but...
But, right now, these people did not look vicious, did not look bloodthirsty, did not look ready to kill. Right now, they looked sad, so incredibly sad.
Mary was still upset with him, "Go on," she said, gesturing with a hand. "What's the holdup? Go tell them."
Ponter thought about how sad he himself had been when Klast had died. And yet...
And yet, these people - these strange, strange Gliksins - were taking some comfort from their beliefs. He stared at the individuals by the wall, kept away from him by agents. No, no, he would not tell these mourners that their loved ones were truly gone. After all, it wasn't these sad people who had sent them off to die.
Ponter turned toward Mary "I understand the belief provides comfort, but..." He shook his head. "But how do you break out of the cycle? God making killing palatable, God providing comfort after the killing is done. How do you keep from repeating it over and over again?"
"I have no idea," said Mary.
"You must do something," Ponter said.
"I do," said Mary. "I pray."
Ponter looked at her, looked back at the mourners, then turned once more to Mary, and he let his head hang down at the ground in front of him, unable to face her or the thousands of names "If I thought there was the slightest possibility it would work," he said softly, "I would join you."
***
ETA: A few explanations: 'Gliksin' is the Neanderthal term for our kind of humans, Klast is Ponter's wife, who died a few years ago, and the Neanderthal world has far fewer than a billion Neanderthals in it.
ETA 2: Just realized just how appropiate my "contemplative" icon looks with this post. Hm. Serendipity.
There's a scene that takes place at the Vietnam Memorial in Washington that I find interesting, where a Neanderthal physicist (Ponter) is being shown around Washington by a Canadian geneticist now living in the States (Mary) and they end up debating the effect of belief in life after death on (our) human culture, as Ponter's people are universally atheist and Mary is Catholic. I don't really agree with everything Ponter says, but it does make me think.
Mary continued to read to him from letters and cards and plaques and scrolls that had been left leaning against the wall.
Phrases stuck in Ponter's mind.
"We know God is taking care of you..."
"I long for that day when we will all be together again..."
"So much forgotten / So much unsaid / But I promise to tell you all / When we meet among the dead."
"Sleep now, beloved..."
"I look forward to when we are reunited..."
"...on that wonderful day when the Lord will reunite us in Heaven..."
"Goodbye - God be with ye! - until we meet again..."
"Take care, bro. I'll visit you again next time I'm in DC..."
"Rest in peace, my friend, rest in peace..."
Mary had to pause several times to wipe away tears. Ponter felt sad, too, and his eyes were likewise moist, but not, he suspected, for the same reason. "It is always hard to have a loved one die," said Ponter.
Mary nodded slightly.
"But..." he continued, then fell silent.
"Yes?" Mary prodded.
"This memorial," said Ponter, sweeping his arm, taking in its two great walls. "What is its purpose?"
Mary's eyebrows climbed again. "To honor the dead."
"Not all the dead," said Ponter, softly. "These are only the Americans..."
"Well, yes," said Mary. "It's a monument to the sacrifice made by American soldiers, a way for the people of the United States to show that they appreciate them."
"Appreciated," said Ponter. Mary locked confused.
"Is my translator malfunctioning?" asked Ponter. "You can appreciate - present tense - what still exists; you can only have appreciated - past tense - that which is no more."
Mary sighed, clearly not wishing to debate the point.
"But you have not answered my question said Ponter, gently. "What is this memorial for?"
"I told you. To honor the dead."
"No, no," said Ponter. "That may be an incidental effect, I grant you. But surely the purpose of the designer-"
"Maya Ying Lin," said Mary.
"Pardon?
"Maya Ying Lin. That's the name of the woman who designed this."
"Ah," said Ponter. "Well, surely her purpose- the purpose of anyone who designs a memorial - is to make sure people never forget."
"Yes?" said Mary, sounding irritated by whatever picayune distinction she felt Ponter was making
"And the reason to not forget the past," said Ponter, "is so that the same mistakes can be avoided."
"Well, yes, of course," said Mary.
"So has this memorial served its purpose? Has the same mistake - the mistake that led to all these young people dying - been avoided since?"
Mary thought for a time, then shook her head. "I suppose not. Wars are still fought, and-"
"By America? By the people who built this monument?
"Yes," said Mary.
"Why?"
"Economics. Ideology. And..."
"Yes?"
Mary lifted her shoulders. "Revenge. Getting even."
"When this country decides to go to war, where is the war declared?"
"Um, in the Congress. I'll show you the building later."
"Can this memorial be seen from there?"
"This one? I don't think so."
"They should do it right here," said Ponter, flatly. "Their leader - the president, no? - he should declare war right here, standing in front of these fifty-eight thousand two hundred and nine names. Surely that should be the purpose of such a memorial: if a leader can stand and look at the names of all those who died a previous time a president declared war and still call for young people to go off and be killed in another war, then perhaps the war is worth fighting."
Mary tilted her head to one side but said nothing.
"After all, you said you fight to preserve your most fundamental values."
"That's the ideal, yes," said Mary.
"But this war - this war in Vietnam. You said it was to support a corrupt government, to prevent elections from being held."
"Well yes, in a way."
"In Philadelphia you showed me where and how this country began. Is not the United States's most cherished belief that of democracy, of the will of the people being heard and done?"
Mary nodded.
"But then surely they should have fought a war to ensure that that ideal was upheld. To have gone to Vietnam to make sure the people there had a chance to vote would have been an American ideal. And if the Vietnam people..."
"Vietnamese."
"As you say. If they had chosen the Communist system by vote, then the American ideal of democracy would have been served. Surely you cannot hold democracy dear only when the vote goes the way you wish it would."
"Maybe you're right," said Mary "A great many Americans thought the American involvement in Vietnam was wrong. They called it a profane war."
"Profane?"
"Umm, an insult to God."
Ponter rolled his eyebrow up his browridge. "From what I have seen, this God of yours must have a thick skin."
Mary tilted her head, conceding the point.
"You have told me," said Ponter, "that the majority of people in this country are Christians like you, is that not so?"
"Yes."
"How big a majority?"
"Big," said Mary. "I was actually reading up on this when I moved down here. The U.S. has a population of about 270 million." Ponter had heard this figure before, so its vastness didn't startle him this time. "About a million are atheists - they don't believe in God at all. Another twenty-five million are nonreligious, that is they don't adhere to any particular faith. All the other faith groups combined - Jews, Buddhists, Muslims, Hindus - add up to about l million. Everyone else - almost 240 million- say they are Christians."
"So this is a Christian country," said Ponter.
"Wellll, like my home country of Canada," said Mary, "the U.S. prides itself on its tolerance of a variety of beliefs."
Ponter waved a hand dismissively "Two hundred and forty million out of two hundred and seventy million is almost ninety percent, it is a Christian country. And you and others have told me the core beliefs of Christians. What did Christ say about those who would attack you?"
"The Sermon on the Mount," said Mary. She closed her eyes, presumably to aid her remembering. "'Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.'"
"So revenge has no place in the policies of a Christian nation," said Ponter. "And yet you say that is a reason it fights wars. Likewise, impeding the free choice of a foreign country should have had no place in the policies of a democratic nation, and yet it fought this war in Vietnam."
Mary said nothing.
"Do you not see?" said Ponter. "That is what this memorial, this Vietnam veterans' wall, should serve as a reminder of: the pointlessness of death, the error - the grave error, if I may attempt own play on words in your language - of declaring a war in contravention of your most dearly held principles."
Mary was still silent
"That is the reason why future American wars should be declared here - right here. Only if the cause stands the test of supporting the most dearly held fundamental principles, then perhaps it is a war that should be fought." Ponter let his eyes run over the wall again, over the black reflection.
Mary said nothing.
"Still," said Ponter, "let me make a simpler proposition. Those letters you read - they are, I presume, typical?"
Mary nodded. "Ones like them are left here every day."
"But do you not see the problem? There is an underlying belief in those letters that the dead are not really dead. 'God is taking care of you.' 'We will all be together again.' 'I know you are watching over me.' 'Someday I will see you again.'"
"We've been down this road before," said Mary. "My kind of humanity - not just Christians, but most Homo Sapiens, no matter what their particular religion - believe that the essence of a person does not end with the death of the body. The soul lives on."
"And that belief," said Ponter firmly, "is the problem. I have thought this since you first told me of it, but it is - what do you say? - it is driven home for me here, at this memorial, this wall of names."
"Yes?" said Mary.
"They are dead. They are eliminated. They no longer exist." He reached forward and touched a name he could not read. "The person who was named this." He touched another. "And the person who was named this." And he touched a third. "And the person who had this name. They are no more. Surely facing that is the real lesson of this wall. One cannot come here to speak with the dead, for the dead are dead. One cannot come here to beg forgiveness from the dead, for the dead are dead. One cannot come here to be touched by the dead, for the dead are dead. These names, these characters cared in stone - that is all that is left of them. Surely that is the message of this wall, the lesson to be learned. As long as your people keep thinking that this life is a prologue, that more is to come after it, that those wronged here will be rewarded in some there yet to come, you will continue to undervalue life, and you will continue to send young people off to die."
Mary took a deep breath end let it out slowly, apparently composing herself. She gestured with a movement of her head. Ponter turned to look. Another person - a gray-haired man - was placing a letter of his own in front of the wall. "Could you tell him?" asked Mary, speaking sharply "Tell him that he's wasting his time? Or that woman, over there - the one on her knees, praying? Could you tell her? Disabuse her of her delusion? The belief that somewhere their loved ones still exist gives them comfort."
Ponter shook his head. "That belief is what caused this to happen. The only way to honor the dead is by ensuring that no more enter that state prematurely."
Mary sounded angry. "All right, then. Go tell them."
Ponter turned and looked at the Gliksins and their ebony reflections in the wall. His people almost never took human lives, and Mary's people did it such large scales, with such frequency. Surely this belief in God and an afterlife had to be linked to their readiness to kill.
He took a step forward, but...
But, right now, these people did not look vicious, did not look bloodthirsty, did not look ready to kill. Right now, they looked sad, so incredibly sad.
Mary was still upset with him, "Go on," she said, gesturing with a hand. "What's the holdup? Go tell them."
Ponter thought about how sad he himself had been when Klast had died. And yet...
And yet, these people - these strange, strange Gliksins - were taking some comfort from their beliefs. He stared at the individuals by the wall, kept away from him by agents. No, no, he would not tell these mourners that their loved ones were truly gone. After all, it wasn't these sad people who had sent them off to die.
Ponter turned toward Mary "I understand the belief provides comfort, but..." He shook his head. "But how do you break out of the cycle? God making killing palatable, God providing comfort after the killing is done. How do you keep from repeating it over and over again?"
"I have no idea," said Mary.
"You must do something," Ponter said.
"I do," said Mary. "I pray."
Ponter looked at her, looked back at the mourners, then turned once more to Mary, and he let his head hang down at the ground in front of him, unable to face her or the thousands of names "If I thought there was the slightest possibility it would work," he said softly, "I would join you."
ETA: A few explanations: 'Gliksin' is the Neanderthal term for our kind of humans, Klast is Ponter's wife, who died a few years ago, and the Neanderthal world has far fewer than a billion Neanderthals in it.
ETA 2: Just realized just how appropiate my "contemplative" icon looks with this post. Hm. Serendipity.
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no subject
Date: 2007-06-27 09:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-06-28 02:23 am (UTC)It's one of my pet peeves with the series. In addition to the religious/spiritual stuff, there's a lot of really interesting stuff in there about environmentalism, aggression, democracy, male/female relations, criminal justice, etc etc and it's all really, really cool, but goes about two inches deep. It's almost like it's written for an audience of junior high students.
To be fair to this particular scene, though, it does take place halfway through the second book in the trilogy. Before that, Ponter's attitude towards spirituality has been mostly full of scientific curiosity and fairly non-judgmental, at least on the surface. This is the point where he finally has an opinion that he's willing to share with a non-Neanderthal.
no subject
Date: 2007-06-27 10:41 pm (UTC)This really does come to the crux of faith. If it can't be seen and tasted and touched and duplicated in a lab, some people won't believe. On the other hand, some people believe because some things can't be reduced to the level of science. Whatever form that belief takes - God, Jehovah, Allah, Pan, the flying spaghetti monster, whatever, even if it's just a generalized higher power or the Jungian collective unconscious - it all comes down to thinking there's something more. It's not a bargain. It's not about, "God, you do something for me, and then I'll believe in you." You believe all the time, because if you only believe when you get something out of it, it doesn't count.
But, sometimes, if we're lucky, we get moments where God's grace comes through and you can feel it, like the sun shining down on you, like a roomful of people applauding, like connecting with another person or group so completely that you can practically hear each other's thoughts, but so much more that it's indescribable.
no subject
Date: 2007-06-28 02:43 am (UTC)::snicker:: Flying Spaghetti Monster :D
That does depend on the faith and on the person, though, I think. I used to think that the idea of God was that he was either up there directing things or observing things, but that most people didn't think they could do much about getting "proof" of his existence. You were supposed to be grateful for what he gave you, and have faith that eventually things would work out, and draw strength from that faith, without proof or "results" of any kind. I had been taught that the whole "I believe in you, so you get me an A in Biology" was an outmoded way of thinking of God.
Then I was part of a regular Sunday service thing at a local Catholic soup kitchen, and was surprised to hear people talk about asking for - and getting - things from God. I was even (very gently) reprimanded for saying something like, "Well, my friend's got a lot of faith; I hope that can help him find the strength to beat his alcohol problem." I was told that the point of Christianity was not finding inner strength; the point was realizing that you had no inner strength, and that you could do nothing but ask God to solve your problem for you.
Um... OK.
But, sometimes, if we're lucky, we get moments where God's grace comes through and you can feel it, like the sun shining down on you, like a roomful of people applauding, like connecting with another person or group so completely that you can practically hear each other's thoughts, but so much more that it's indescribable.
I read a book once where a young man described how he got his "calling" to the priesthood. He described feeling like everything around him was golden, and the grace of God was palpable to him, even though he was in a rather ugly part of town.
I often feel something like that during choir rehearsals, especially when we sing Christmas music. Like there's incredible beauty and wonder all around, connecting us to the world around us in a way that goes beyond anything science can explain. I always wonder if that's what people mean by a sense of God's presence.
One of the things I found disturbing about the Neanderthal books was that in the third book the author goes into this thing about a God Gene, which our kind of human has and Neanderthals don't, which is basically responsible for creating this stupid delusion of godhood. Incredibly arrogant and a stupid idea, I thought. Then I found out that he hadn't made it up, and that some scientists have actually put that forth as a possible explanation for why most humans have a concept of God. Presumably, those of us who don't have the delusion gene are better off, what with not being vulnerable to these silly notions.
Except someone I know (interestingly, an atheist himself) said that another way of looking at the God gene, if it exists, is that it does enable humans to perceive God's presence, but that God is in fact there. And those of us who are missing the God gene don't feel his presence, in the same way that humans without sight cannot see, even though light does, in fact, still exist.
I don't suppose that's a mystery we'll be figuring out any time soon ;)