"Robert Rankin - The Fandom of the Operator" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robert Rankin)

not exist. You had to have people in the universe to be aware that there was a universe. You didn't
actually need God, who it was claimed created the universe, He was completely unnecessary. You could
just assume that the universe had always been there, always would be there, for ever. But without people
to see it was there, what was the point of it being there? No point! That's an original concept, you know:
I thought of that. That was what being alive was about.

But dying, what was the point of that? You spent your life being aware, taking in information, creating
things, like P. P. Penrose created Woodbine, or Mr Doveston his wonderful bed. And then you died.
And that was it. No more awareness, no more creativity, no more anything. What on Earth, or off it, was
the point of dying?

It's a big question, you know. A really big question.

I won't labour it too much here, because I don't want you get-ting bored and closing the book,
especially as it does get really exciting as it goes along. But it's important that I do address the issues that
led me to take the course of action that I took.

You see, even though I was young, I did have this thing about death. It bothered me, it upset me, it
annoyed me. And even way back then, when I was so young and all, I felt that there had to be a point to
it. It couldn't be that you just appeared out of nowhere, into the universe, lived for a short while, then
were just snuffed out and were gone for ever more. That seemed utterly absurd. Utterly wasteful. Utterly
pointless. There had to be something more. Something beyond life. Something we weren't being told
about.

But then, of course, wewere being told about it. We were being told about it all the time. I was being
brought up in a Christian society. I was being told what would happen to me when I died. If I was good,
I'd go to heaven; if not, then down below to the bad place. For ever.

Nowthat didn't make any sense to me. The proportions were all wrong. You only got sixty, seventy,
eighty years alive, then your creator decided your eternal future. That certainly wasn't fair. That was
ludicrous. So whatdid happen after you died? Did anyone know? My conclusion was, no, they didn't.
They were only guessing.

People believed that they knew. But that was all it amounted to, belief No one really knew for sure. It
was all very well having faith in a religious hereafter, but having faith in a belief didn't mean it was correct.
I'm sorry if I'm going on about this, but it is important. I personally believe that the whole God thing was
invented by some clever blighter, because he knew that it was the best way to keep society behaving in a
decent fashion. And, more than that, he realized that without some belief in the hereafter, with rewards
for the good people and punishment for the bad, society would go all to pieces.

I think that whoever that person was, he (or she) was probably right. I mean, imagine if it was proved
conclusively that there was no life beyond death. Imagine if all those Christians and Muslims and Hindus
and Jews suddenly found out for certain that the whole thing was a hoax. I'll bet they'd be really upset.
I'll bet a lot of them would go down to the nearest pub, get commode-hugging drunk and then go looking
for a vicar or a priest to punch.

They would, they really would.

I'd been brought up as a Christian, but at that time in my life I didn't believe in a hereafter. It didn't
make any sense to me. I remember my Uncle Tony dying. He'd had Alzheimer's, although they hadn't