ARTHUR C CLARKE,
PROFILES OF THE FUTURE
and A SPIRITUAL ODYSSEY.


As a teenager I read all of Arthur C Clarke's
books. He is widely known as a writer of
science fiction, but he also wrote articles
about the future of science and technology.
As an ardent teenage atheist I shared in the
rosey technocratic vision of the future when
humanity would shake off the petty
superstititions of the past and launch itself
into the Cosmos to forge a brave new
world. Of course it was rather naive but
it was the 1970's and I was a teenager,
come on!

One book by Arthur C. Clarke was called
"Profiles of the Future" and it made a
real impact on me at the time.
If I recall correctly it was in this book that
he made a startling assertion; that there
was a 'timebomb ticking underneath
Christianity' and went on to say that
contact with Extra Terrestrial Intelligence
would deliver a fatal blow to the Biblical
worldview that mankind was made in
God's image and, as such, is the pinnacle
of God's creation. As a juvenile argument
this might pass muster, but the question is
what "image" does AC imagine God
shares with humanity? And, in any event,
I fail to understand why extra-terrestrials
wouldn't share God's 'communicable
attributes' - after all what have those to
do with mere physical form? Since then,
the reader will realise, that I have come
to a much richer understanding of who
God is.

Any student of the history of the sciences
will realise that ever since humankind
realised that the points of light in the night
sky we called planets are worlds in their
own right it was commonly supposed that
they were all inhabited. This caused no
great problems theologically for the
millions of believers at the time. Allan
Chapman wrote an excellent article on
this topic in "Astronomy Now" magazine
a few years ago.

In fact the Christian author CS Lewis wrote
a series of science fiction novels which
predate AC Clarke's work. CS Lewis had
no problem with non humanoid extra
terrestrial intelligent beings. If you read
his novels you will realise that the people
he had most problem with were the
de-humanised humans bent on cosmic
colonisation not these other much more
sympathetic beings to whom the Earth
is known, not without reason, as "The
Silent Planet"!

As a teen I was also deeply impressed by
AC's "2001: a space odyssey", this novel
(and movie) had the fundamental merit
of ending in mystery as mankind makes
its first contact with a higher extra
terrestrial civilisation (there was a
numinescent encounter with beings
utterly "other"). "2001" was based
on AC's previous novel "Childhood's End"
and a short story "The Sentinel". The
subsequent sequels "2010" and "3001"
clarify AC's vision of this mysterious alien
civilisation - a rather creaky computer
programme, with some dodgey ethics
(actually they are only us writ large aren't
they?) to which plucky humanity upload a
computer virus in the name of "deicide"!
AC's vision of God is very limited and, not
unlike Philip Pullman's interpretation
of God, is ultimately a reassuring comfort
blanket to the atheist. Incidentally isn't
the Pullman series 'His Dark Materials'
just Terry Pratchett's 'Discworld' with
the humour stripped out?!

AC's understanding of religion in "3001"
seems shockingly one dimensional and
ignorant (sorry, that's the only word
which will do!) and it isn't surprising
therefore that he regards "religion"
(whatever that means!) as a "socio-
pathology".

Most atheists - and I used to be one -
are surprisingly ignorant for intelligent
people... I guess that's why they hold
such rosey views about humankind...
most atheist visionaries do... but the
reality when such visions become
concrete is always hideous. Atheist
visionary utopias always are.