Comments

I have to say, although I used to subscribe to the idea that military budgets were bloated and that we ought to be funneling more of that money into "good deeds" around the world, I don't necessarily agree with that anymore. I'm hardly being "pro-war" here, but I am pointing out that evil is an abiding presence in the world, and you can't reason with it. I don't mean you can never reason with *people*, but I'm saying that evil will persist in different spots on the globe *all the time*, and sometimes it collects so much in one location that it explodes outward into other people's homes and nations, and those homes and nations must be defended. And I think high-tech weaponry is especially important for having that much more of an advantage over our enemies, especially in light of the Islamisation of Europe now ongoing. If the Muslims eventually take over Europe through sheer numbers, North America will feel that much more grateful for having high-tech on their side.

Clarke was definitely a giant intellect, as well as a fabulous writer. It's sad when we discover a brilliant person's blind spots, however. Clarke's blind spot was his own faith, though he claimed to be an opponent of faith. EVERYONE has faith in SOMETHING. If Clarke was an atheist, or at the very least an agnostic who practically lived as if atheism were true, then that was his faith. He placed faith in something he could not prove: the nonexistence of God. And he talked about religion as being a very negative force in this world, totally heedless of the fact that some of the worst atrocities in history have been committed relatively recently by NONreligionists: Stalin, Hitler, and Mao Tse-tung. EVERYONE believes in something that drives their day-to-day actions, including power-grabs and the persecution of others. And there is no conflict between science and religion, because science is ultimately founded on the nonscientific: a faith in the order and rationality of the universe, and our corresponding ability to interpret it. And our interpretations of nature's raw data are based on our precommitment to a certain worldview: if we have faith in naturalism - that nature is all there is and provides all the answers - then we will automatically interpret the data naturalistically. In such cases we haven't "proved" that a given phenomenon is strictly natural; we've just assumed that it is. A supernatural explanation may in some cases be equally logically possible. (Note: I am NOT suggesting we opt for a supernatural explanation whenever a scientific investigation is stuck. I am simply pointing out the underlying assumptions that exist in our reasoning.) Finally, while Clarke was good at predicting future technology, he was being quite ridiculous to hope for the eradication of religion. Man is an inherently and incurably religious creature. What's more, and this is very ironic, Clarke was an evolutionist, which means that by his own faith in naturalism he was forced to explain all human behaviours and character as the outcomes of the evolutionary process - which means, in turn, that religion in Clarke's view of the world must in fact be an outcome of evolution. If it is an outcome of evolution, then this must mean that it has been necessary for our survival, and apparently still is, since there are hardly any atheists on the planet. If atheists believe that, by virtue of their atheism, they have "evolved" beyond any possible need for religion, what that means is that they view themselves as higher up the evolutionary chain than religionists - which, when you think about it, is a lot more arrogant than they consider religionists! Another irony is that such arrogance about one's supposed position on the evolutionary ladder is what undergirded one of the great evils of recent history, Nazism. I like to think that Clarke ultimately found God before the end, but I have my doubts, sadly. In any case, he sure knows the truth now.