"James Patrick Kelly - St. Theresa of the Aliens" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kelly James Patrick)

She spoke first of Jesus then of the Judeo-Christian tradition and then as a
seeming afterthought the other religions of the world. You could tell that
Islam was not her favorite word and she did not even distinguish between
Hinduism and Buddhism, lumping them together as the "faiths of the East." It
sounded as if she were improvising. Round One to the alien.
Terry asked the first question. "Who caused the Big Bang?"
"By cause you mean a sequence of events in time. Time does not exist
prior to the Big Bang, therefore no causation is possible."
"Time did not exist!" Terry gave the camera a sly, play-act grin and
nodded to the millions of scientific illiterates who might one day be
watching. "What may I ask did exist?"
I was not going to allow her to violate the ground rules on the first
question, but Awful Truth replied anyway. "As creatures of time, we can never
know."
"Then even in your science there are some things you must take on
faith?" she said.
"Excuse me," I said firmly, "but you have spoken out of turn, Sister
Teresa. Awful Truth, you may now ask a question."
"Her beliefs are invalid. Asking questions in this context equates her
unsupportable opinions with theories which can be verified empirically.
Therefore there are no questions. I am content to respond."
I was as dumbfounded as the audience. I wondered if I should stop the
cameras and explain the debate to the alien again. I wondered if I should just
stop the camera, period. While I wondered, Terry spoke up.
"Thank you, Mr. Truth. Many of those who believe in God wonder how you
aliens are able to tell the difference between good and evil. Some, in fact,
claim that you do not care. Do you?"
"We do not recognize such absolutes in the universe. Good and evil are
emotional attitudes; they have no truth value."
"Is that why you were attracted to Russia? Without God, there is no
reason to be concerned with human rights. You don't have to recognize such
minor problems as repression, torture, political murder ..."
"Sister!" I had to interrupt. "Is this a speech or a question?"
She sighed. "A question, Mr. Crimmins."
"Our anthropologists," said Awful Truth, "are most interested in this
aspect of religion. Some believe that you have invented your gods to generate
an ethics. We do not understand why you should need such an elaborate
machinery. We recognize ethical concerns but we do not deceive ourselves into
believing that they are woven into the fabric of space-time. Ethics cannot
pre-exist intelligence. They must be created by each thinking species using
the tools of logic. To pretend otherwise is to license such acts of
intolerance as you have mentioned."
Most of this last speech I have reproduced from tape. Just as Awful
Truth started to speak, Laszlo, down in our telelink truck, whispered through
my earphone. "Sam, I've got a general on the satellite line. Claims he's
Defense Force. Wants to know what the fuck we're doing. Something stinks
about this setup; you smell it up there?"
I held up my hands to both debaters. "Excuse me. I'm sorry but I've
just heard from my production crew. Tape problems. If you'll just be patient
for a moment I'm sure it won't take long to fix. Thank you."