Robert Heinlein - A Stranger in a Strange Land

"I'm decadent in that respect, too, Ben; I was born in a house with no more plumbing than an igloo - and I've no wish to repeat my childhood. But I assume that noses hardened to the stink of rotting blubber would not be upset by unwashed human bodies. But nevertheless, despite curious cuisine and pitiful possessions, the Eskimos were invariably reported to have been the happiest people on Earth. We can never be sure why they were happy, but we can be utterly certain that any unhappiness they did suffer was not caused by sexual jealousy. They borrowed and lent spouses, both ways, both for convenience and purely for fun - and it did not make them unhappy.

"One is tempted to ask: Who's looney? Mike and the Eskimos? Or the rest of us? We can't judge by the fact that you and I have no stomach for such group sports - our canalized tastes are irrelevant. But take a look at this glum world around you - then tell me this: Did Mike's disciples seem happier, or unhappier, than other people?"

"I talked to only about a third of them, Jubal� but - yes, they're happy. So happy they seem slap-happy to me. I don't trust it. There's some catch in it."

"Mmm� maybe you yourself were the catch in it."

"How?"

"I was thinking that it was regrettable that your tastes have grown canalized so young. There it was, raining soup - and you were caught without a spoon. Even three days of what you were offered - urged on you! - would have been something to treasure when you reach my age. And you, you young idiot, let jealousy chase you away! Believe me, at your age I would have gone Eskimo in a big way, thankful that I had been given a free pass instead of having to attend church and study Martian to qualify. I'm so vicariously vexed that my only consolation is the sour one that I know you will live to regret it. Age does not bring wisdom, Ben, but it does give perspective� and the saddest perspective of all is to see far, far behind you, the temptations you've passed up. I have such regrets myself but all of them are as nothing to the whopper of a regret I am happily certain you will suffer."

"Oh, for Pete's sake, quit rubbing it in!"

"Heavens, man! - or are you a mouse? I'm not rubbing it in, I am trying to goad you into the obvious. Why are you sitting here moaning to an old man? - when you should be heading for the Nest like a homing pigeon? Before the cops raid the joint! Hell, if I were even twenty years younger, I'd join Mike's church myself."

"Let up on me, Jubal. What do you really think of Mike's church?"

"You told me it wasn't a church - just a discipline."

"Well� yes and no, It is supposed to be based on the 'Truth' with a capital "T" as Mike got it from the Martian 'Old Ones.'"

"The 'Old Ones,' eli? To me, they're still hogwash."

"Mike certainly believes in them."

"Ben, I once knew a manufacturer who believed that he consulted the ghost of Alexander Hamilton on all his business decisions. All that proves is that he believed it. However - Damn it, why must I always be the Devil's advocate?"

"What's biting you now?"

"Ben, the foulest sinner of all is the hypocrite who makes a racket of religion. But we must give the Devil his due. Mike does believe in those 'Old Ones' and he is not pulling a racket. He's teaching the truth as he sees it even though he has seen fit to borrow from other religions to illustrate his meaning. That 'All Mother' rite - little as I like it, he seems merely to have been illustrating the versatility of the Female Principle, regardless of name and form. Fair enough. As for his 'Old Ones,' of course I don't know that they don't exist - I simply find hard to swallow the idea that any planet is ruled by a hierarchy of ghosts. As for his Thou-art-God creed, to me it is neither more nor less credible than any other. Come Judgment Day, if they hold it, we may find that Mumbo Jumbo the God of the Congo was the Big Boss all along.

"All the names are still in the hat, Ben. Self-aware man is so built that he cannot believe in his own extinction� and this automatically leads to endless invention of religions. While this involuntary conviction of immortality by no means proves immortality to be a fact, the questions generated by this conviction are overwhelmingly important� whether we can answer them or not, or prove what answers we suspect. The nature of life, how the ego hooks into the physical body, the problem of the ego itself and why each ego seems to be the center of the universe, the purpose of life, the purpose of the universe - these are paramount questions Ben; they can never be trivial. Science can't, or hasn't, coped with any of them - and who am I to sneer at religions for trying to answer them, no matter how unconvincingly to me? Old Mumbo Jumbo may eat me yet; I can't rule Him out because He owns no fancy cathedrals. Nor can I rule out one godstruck boy leading a sex cult in an upholstered attic; he might be the Messiah. The only religious opinion that I feel sure of is this: self-awareness is not just a bunch of amino acids bumping together!"

"Whew! Jubal, you should have been a preacher."

"Missed it by only a razor's edge, my boy - and I'll thank you to keep a civil tongue in your head. One more word in Mike's defense and I'll throw note 3on the mercy of the court. If be can show us a better way to run this fouled-up planet, his sex life is vindicated thereby, regardless of your taste or mine. Geniuses are notoriously indifferent to the sexual customs of the culture in which they find themselves, they make their own rules; this is not opinion, it was proved by Armattoe 'way back in 1945. And Mike is a genius; he's shown it more ways than one. He can therefore be expected to ignore Mrs. Grundy and diddle to suit himself. Geniuses are justifiably contemptuous of the opinions of their inferiors.

"And from a religious standpoint Mike's sexual behavior IS as kosher as fish on Friday, as orthodox as Santa Claus. He preaches that all living creatures are collectively God� which makes him and his disciples the only self-aware gods in his pantheon which rates him a union card by the rules for godding on this planet. Those rules always permit gods sexual freedom limited only by their own judgment; mortal rules never apply. Leda and the Swan? Europa and the Bull? Osiris, Isis, and Horus? The incredible incestuous games of the Norse gods? Of course� but why stop there? Take a hard look at the family relations of the Trinity in one of the most widely respected western religion (I won't cite eastern religions; their gods do things a mink breeder wouldn't put up with!). The only way in which the odd interrelations of the various aspects of what purports to be a monotheos can be reconciled with the precepts of the religion thereto is by assuming that the rules in these matters for deity are not the rules for ordinary mortals. Of course most people don't think about it; they compartment it off in their minds and mark it: 'Holy - Do Not Disturb.'

"But an outside referee is forced to allow Mike the same dispensation granted all other gods. There are rules for this game: one god alone splits into at least two parts - male and female - and breeds. Not just Jehovah - they all do it. Look it up. Contrariwise, a group of gods will breed like rabbits, every time, and with as little regard for human formalities. Once Mike entered the godding business, those orgies of his group were as logically certain as Sunday follows Saturday. So quit using the standards of Podunk and judge them only by Olympian morals - I think you will then find that they are showing unusual restraint. Furthermore, Ben, this 'growing-closer' by sexual union, this unity-into-pluralty and plurality-back-into-unity, cannot tolerate monogamy inside the god group. Any pairing that excluded the others would be immoral, obscene, under the postulated creed. And if such mutual, shared-by-all sexual congress is essential to their creed, as I grok it has to be, then why do you expect this holy union to be hidden behind a door? Your insistence that they should hide it would have turned a holy rite - which it was - into something obscene - which it was not. You just plain did not understand what you were looking at."