Robert Sawyer - Calculating God

“No, no. We have many methods of birth control.”

“Are they effective?” asked Hollus.

“Yes.”

“Are they painful?”

“Painful? No.”

“The Wreeds would say that abortion, then, should simply not be a moral issue because simple precautions would obviate the need to discuss it at all, except in a handful of unusual cases. If one can easily choose not to get pregnant, then surely that is the proper exercising of choice. If you can avoid a difficult moral problem, such as when life begins, then why not simply do so?”

“But there are cases of rape and incest.”

“Incest?”

“Mating within one’s own family.”

“Ah. But surely these are exceptional occurrences. And possibly the best moral lesson my own people have learned during our association with the Wreeds is that general principles should not be based on exceptional cases. That one insight has enormously simplified our legal system.”

“Well, then, what do you do in exceptional cases? What should you do in the case of a rape resulting in pregnancy?”

“Obviously, the woman had no chance to proactively exercise her reproductive rights via contraception; therefore, clearly she should be permitted to regain control of her own biology as fully and completely as she desires. In such cases, abortion is obviously an acceptable option; in others, birth control is clearly the preferred route.”

“But there are humans who believe artificial birth control is immoral.”

Hollus’s eyes looked briefly at each other, then they resumed their normal oscillating. “You humans do seem to go out of your way to manufacture moral issues. There is nothing immoral about contraception.” He paused. “But these are easy examples of Wreed thinking. When we get into more complex areas, I am afraid their responses do not make much sense to us; they sound like gibberish — our brains apparently are not wired to appreciate what they are saying. Philosophy departments at the Forhilnor equivalents of what you call universities had little status until we met the Wreeds; they are now extremely busy, trying to decipher complex Wreed thought.”

I considered all of this. “And with minds geared for ethics and for discerning underlying beauty, the Wreeds have decided that God really does exist?”

Hollus flexed his six legs at both their upper and lower knees. “Yes.”

I’m not an overly arrogant man. I don’t insist that people refer to me as Doctor Jericho, and I try to keep my opinions to myself. But, still, I always felt I had a good grip on reality, an accurate view of the world.

And my world, even before I was stricken with cancer, did not include a god.

But I’d now met not one but two different alien lifeforms, two different beings from worlds more advanced than my own. And both of these advanced creatures believed the universe was created, believed it showed clear evidence of intelligent design. Why did this surprise me so much? Why had I assumed that such thoughts would be, well, alien to any advanced being?

Since ancient times, the philosophers’ secret has always been this: we know that God does not exist, or, at least, if he does, he’s utterly indifferent to our individual affairs — but we can’t let the rabble know that; it’s the fear of God, the threat of divine punishment and the promise of divine reward, that keeps in line those too unsophisticated to work out questions of morality on their own.

But in an advanced race, with universal literacy and material desires fulfilled through the power of technology, surely everyone is a philosopher — everyone is privy to the ancient, once-guarded truth, everyone knows that God is just a story, just a myth, and we can drop the pretense, dispensing with religion.

Of course, it’s possible to enjoy the traditions of a religion — the ceremonies, the ties with the past — without believing in God. After all, as one of my Jewish friends has been known to observe, the only Jews who survived World War II were either now atheists or hadn’t been paying attention.

But, in fact, there are millions of Jews who believe — really believe — in God (or G-d); indeed, secular Zionist Judaism was on the wane while formal observance was rising. And there are millions of Christians who believe in the holy threefer of, as one of my Catholic friends occasionally quipped, Big Daddy, Junior, and the Spook. And there are millions of Muslims who embraced the Qur’an as the revealed word of God.

Indeed, even here, at the dawn of the century following the one in which we’d discovered DNA and quantum physics and nuclear fission and in which we’d invented computers and spaceships and lasers, ninety-six percent of the world’s population still really believed in a supreme being — and the percentage was rising, not falling.

So, again, why was I so surprised that Hollus believed in God? That an alien from a culture a century or two more advanced than my own hadn’t shucked off the last vestiges of the supernatural? Even if he hadn’t had a grand unified theory to justify his beliefs, why should it be so outlandish that he wasn’t an atheist?

I’d never questioned whether I was right or wrong when confronted by obviously deluded creationists. I’d never doubted my convictions when assailed by fundamentalists. But here I was, meeting with creatures from other stars, and the fact that they had been able to come to me while I had no way of going to see them made blindingly obvious which of us was intellectually superior.

And these aliens believed what I hadn’t since childhood.

They believed an intelligent designer had made the universe.

There are two reasons why a patient might wish to undergo chemotherapy,” Katarina Kohl had said to Susan and me, shortly after my diagnosis. “The first is in hopes of eliminating the cancer.” She looked at me, then at Susan, then back again at me. “But I will tell you the truth: the chances of eliminating your cancer are small, Tom. Lung cancer is only rarely cured.”

“Well, then I don’t want chemo,” I said at once. “I don’t want what’s left of my life to be spent suffering through that.”

Dr. Kohl pursed her lips. “It is certainly your decision to make,” she said. Then, nodding at Susan, “Both of you. But there are many misconceptions about chemo. It can also be palliative — that’s the second reason you might consider it.”

My mouth formed the word palliative. Dr. Kohl nodded. “You may very well experience a lot of pain in the months to come, Tom. Chemotherapy can reduce the severity of the pain by reducing the size of the tumors.”

“What would you do, if you were me?” I asked.

Kohl shrugged a little. “If this were the States — if you were uninsured and had to pay for the chemotherapy treatments yourself, perhaps you might want to forgo them and live with the pain — although of course, either way, I will be prescribing analgesics to help with that. I like to use a platinum compound when dealing with non-small-cell lung cancer, and those compounds are quite expensive. But since OHIP will pay the entire cost of the treatments, I would advise you to have them. We’d use a platinum in combination with vinblastine, etoposide, or mitomycin-C. The platinum drugs have to be administered in hospital, but they’re the best bet with lung cancer.”

“What about side effects?” I asked.

“There can be nausea. You may lose some or all of your hair.”

“I want to keep working as long as I can,” I said.

“The chemo can help; it won’t significantly extend your life, but it may make it more productive.”

Ricky was in school full days now, and Susan had her job. If I could continue to work, even a few months longer, that would be better than having to be home, requiring constant care.