Friend switched religions four times, is he going to three different hells?

[Baruch]

See, you guys do like mythology, but with starships instead of chariots of fire ;-)

[trdsf]

With which ending?

I wasn't aware there was more than one.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I wasn't aware there was more than one.

Yep, questioning the need to kill an entire sentient race to provide a light for the event in question. (Not spoiling it for the people who haven't read it.) The regular ending is where they reveal why they're there. The second ending talks of the death of a race. The third tries to rationalize that necessity. I would have added a fourth, "We're on a fool's mission anyway!"

[trdsf]

Yep, questioning the need to kill an entire sentient race to provide a light for the event in question. (Not spoiling it for the people who haven't read it.) The regular ending is where they reveal why they're there. The second ending talks of the death of a race. The third tries to rationalize that necessity. I would have added a fourth, "We're on a fool's mission anyway!"

Ah, the version I'm familiar with ends on the second.  Which is profoundly powerful, and soul (whatever that is) shaking.

[Baruch]

I prefer Odysseus outwitting Polyphemus thanks very much.

[Cavebear]

In the story, Four Billion Names Of God ... once all the names are revealed, the universe ends.  Hope we are getting to the last name soon.

Read it, laffed at it...

[Cavebear]

But I will say that 'The Star' is probably the shortest saddest story I ever read.  It raised the hairs on my neck so quickly (well it WAS super-short) but it was like when I realized the Ender wasn't played a simulation any more. 

I had the pleasure of meeting Asimov and Card separately.  Asimov after he gave a rather odd speech at the University of Maryland around 1970,  He seemed dead drunk but still managed to make to sense about "The Future".  I met Card at an atheist convention (late 80s?) where he gave his "Sermon On The Monitor" routine.

Can't say which I liked better.  Asimov spoke to the future better.  Card was a bit more clever.  I like them both. 

The recent Scientific American had a whole theme of "The Future", discussing the basic impossibility of predicting what is to come.  Asimov was mentioned as getting about half his predictions right from a 1964 article looking to 2014 , which was very impressive.  Card makes no predictions. 

The SA article discusses the futility of predicting.  Worth reading.   But they said no one had ever wriitten about predictions on predictions.  I challenge that.  Asimov wrote The Foundation Trilogy which went from prediction to future prediction in several steps. 

I'm drifting.  Time to close.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

In the story, Four Billion Names Of God ... once all the names are revealed, the universe ends.  Hope we are getting to the last name soon.

The universe should end because you're not happy? Lovely.

The story itself is ludicrous, "we write down all God's names, that's why we're here."

First, a bunch of simians on a backwater planet are working on a mission from God? Does everybody get sunglasses? A black suit?

Second, all it would have taken is one monk to say "Why should I be part of the plan to end EVERYTHING? I'll just misspell this one name and the project will never be completed."

[Cavebear]

Second, all it would have taken is one monk to say "Why should I be part of the plan to end EVERYTHING? I'll just misspell this one name and the project will never be completed."

I'm impressed by that idea!  The rebellious logic is inescapable.

[Baruch]

Unhappy ... no, just pulling your chain ;-)