| this is caveman talk, honey |
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"Without a belief that you will be rewarded or punished after the end of your life--what drives morality among your people? . . . I know that you're a good person. Where does that goodness come from?"
"I behave as I do because it is right for me to do so . . . by the standards of my people." "But where do those standards come from?" "From . . . from our conviction that there is no life after death! . . . A person's life is completely finished at death; there is no possibility of reconciling with them, or making amends after they are gone. . . . If I wrong someone . . . under your worldview I can console myself with the knowledge that, after they are dead, they can still be contacted; amends can be made. But in my worldview, once a person is gone . . . then you who did the wrong must live knowing that person's entire existence ended without you ever having made peace with him or her." --Neanderthal- and Cro-Magnon-descendent discussing the afterlife in Robert J. Sawyer's "Hominids". This passage is quoted in Gabriel McKee's "The Gospel According to Science Fiction", a survey of various SF books with religious implications my mom got me for Christmas |
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