Nothing in the War of the Worldviews blurb begins to say that faith
is inevitably in conflict with science and rationality. If the
panel goes in that direction it will be veering completely
off-topic. What the blurb says is that there is an irrational,
religious worldview and that it is currently an impediment to
rational progress (and that this was not foreseen by Golden Age
sf). If only that weren't hugely and distressingly true. (Last time
I looked, the Dalai Lama and the Reform Rabbinate were not exactly
drowning out the fundamentalist right.)
Mitch, your second take on the first blurb is much closer to what
the panel is supposed to be about than your initial complaint. The
Catholic worldview is more obvious in some Wolfe novels than others
(and always more so on a second reading). It's perhaps strongest in
_The Book of the Short Sun_, which is also my favorite Wolfe novel.
The panel simnply observes that (in this example) even someone who
finds Christian theology abhorrent is beguiled, seduced, by a work
of fiction that seems to have that theology as a central premise.
It seems to us to be a phenomenon worth discussing. As a
counter-example, I don't think it's possible to love Ayn Rand if
you have as low regard for her philosophy as some Wolfe lovers do
for Christian theology. So Gene is doing something Ayn is probably
incapable of. We're curious as to what that is (and whether it's
possible to emerge from Wolfe without changing, if even only
subconsciously, one's attitudes towards his worldview).
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