Stranger in a Strange Land

Jubal learned that: (a) Mike did not know that the Fosterite service was religious; (b) Mike remembered what he had read about religions but had filed such for future meditation, not having understood them; (c) Mike had a most confused notion of what «religion» meant, although he could quote nine dictionary definitions; (d) the Martian language contained no word which Mike could equate with any of these definitions; (e) the customs which Jubal had described to Duke as Martian «religious ceremonies» were not; to Mike such matters were as matter-of-fact as grocery markets were to Jubal; (f) it was not possible to separate in the Martian tongue the human concepts: «religion,» «philosophy,» and «science» — and, since Mike thought in Martian, it was not possible for him to tell them apart. All such matters were «learnings» from the «Old Ones.» Doubt he had ever heard of, nor of research (no Martian word for either); the answers to any questions were available from the Old Ones, who were omniscient and infallible, whether on tomorrow's weather or cosmic teleology. Mike had seen a weather forecast and had assumed that this was a message from human «Old Ones» for those still corporate. He held a similar assumption concerning the authors of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

But last, and worst to Jubal, Mike had grokked the Fosterite service as announcing impending discorporation of two humans to join the human «Old Ones» — and Mike was tremendously excited. Had he grokked it rightly? Mike knew that his English was imperfect; he made mistakes through ignorance, being «only an egg.» But had he grokked this correctly? He had been waiting to meet the human «Old Ones,» he had many questions to ask. Was this an opportunity? Or did he require more learnings before he was ready?

Jubal was saved by the bell; Dorcas arrived with sandwiches and coffee. Jubal ate silently, which suited Smith as his rearing had taught him that eating was a time of meditation. Jubal stretched his meal while he pondered — and cursed himself for letting Mike watch stereo. Oh, the boy had to come up against religions — couldn't be helped if he was going to spend his life on this dizzy planet. But, damn it, it would have been better to wait until Mike was used to the cockeyed pattern of human behavior… and not Fosterites as his first experience!

A devout agnostic, Jubal rated all religions, from the animism of Kalahari Bushmen to the most intellectualized faith, as equal. But emotionally he disliked some more than others and the Church of the New Revelation set his teeth on edge. The Fosterites' flat-footed claim to gnosis through a direct line to Heaven, their arrogant intolerance, their football-rally and sales-convention services — these depressed him. If people must go to church, why the devil couldn't they be dignified, like Catholics, Christian Scientists, or Quakers?

If God existed (concerning which Jubal maintained neutrality) and if He wanted to be worshipped (a proposition which Jubal found improbable but nevertheless possible in the light of his own ignorance), then it seemed wildly unlikely that a God potent to shape galaxies would be swayed by the whoop-te-do nonsense the Fosterites offered as «worship.»

But with bleak honesty Jubal admitted that the Fosterites might own the Truth, the exact Truth, nothing but the Truth. The Universe was a silly place at best … but the least likely explanation for it was the no-explanation of random chance, the conceit that abstract somethings «just happened» to be atoms that «just happened» to get together in ways which «just happened» to look like consistent laws and some configurations «just happened» to possess self-awareness and that two «just happened» to be the Man from Mars and a bald-headed old coot with Jubal inside.

No, he could not swallow the «just-happened» theory, popular as it was with men who called themselves scientists. Random chance was not a sufficient explanation of the Universe — random chance was not sufficient to explain random chance; the pot could not hold itself.

What then? «Least hypothesis» deserved no preference; Occam's Razor could not slice the prime problem, the Nature of the Mind of God (might as well call it that, you old scoundrel; it's an Anglo-Saxon monosyllable not banned by four letters — and as good a tag for what you don't understand as any).

Was there any basis for preferring any sufficient hypothesis over another? When you did not understand a thing: No! Jubal admitted that a long life had left him not understanding the basic problems of the Universe.

The Fosterites might be right.