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orichalcum at 09:05pm on 18/03/2008 under death
orichalcum at 09:05pm on 18/03/2008 under deathRest in peace, Arthur C. Clarke.
I first got to know Clarke through the Rama series, which were increasingly flawed but wove together religion and science in ways that most science fiction writers, contemptuous of organized religion, never dreamed of. There's one sequence where the hero simply walks slowly through a cathedral, looking at the frescoes of a 21st century saint who was martyred by a dirty nuclear bomb in the center of Rome. In "The Star," the Jesuits are the heroes. In my favorite book, "The Fountains of Paradise," humanity must consider whether the claims of a millenium-old temple on a sacred mountain and its devout monks have precedence over the need for a well-situated space elevator. He offered a future in which hard science and research does not imply an abandonment or absence of faith, even while challenging the narrowness of many doctrines of human faiths.
Above all, he had hope in humanity and its potential.
I first got to know Clarke through the Rama series, which were increasingly flawed but wove together religion and science in ways that most science fiction writers, contemptuous of organized religion, never dreamed of. There's one sequence where the hero simply walks slowly through a cathedral, looking at the frescoes of a 21st century saint who was martyred by a dirty nuclear bomb in the center of Rome. In "The Star," the Jesuits are the heroes. In my favorite book, "The Fountains of Paradise," humanity must consider whether the claims of a millenium-old temple on a sacred mountain and its devout monks have precedence over the need for a well-situated space elevator. He offered a future in which hard science and research does not imply an abandonment or absence of faith, even while challenging the narrowness of many doctrines of human faiths.
Above all, he had hope in humanity and its potential.
sad