Contact - Carl Sagan [109]
"That's a warmhearted and noble view of the world, I'm sure, and I'd be the last to deny that there's goodness in the human heart. But how much cruelty has been done when there was no love of God?"
"And how much cruelty when there was? Savonarola and Torquemada loved God, or so they said. Your religion assumes that people are children and need a boogeyman so they'll behave. You want people to believe in God so they'll obey the law. That's the only means that occurs to you: a strict secular police force, and the threat of punishment by an all-seeing God for whatever the police overlook. You sell human beings short.
"Palmer, you think if I haven't had your religious experience I can't appreciate the magnificence of your god. But it's just the opposite. I listen to you, and I think. His god is too small! One paltry planet, a few thousand years-hardly worth the attention of a minor deity, much less the Creator of the universe."
"You're confusing me with some other preacher. That museum was Brother Rankin's territory. I'm prepared for a universe billions of years old. I just say the scientists haven't proved it."
"And I say you haven't understood the evidence. How can it benefit the people if the conventional wisdom, the religious `truths,' are a lie? When you really believe that people can be adults, you'll preach a different sermon."
There was a brief silence, punctuated only by the echoes of their footfalls.
"I'm sorry if I've been a little too strident," she said. "It happens to me from time to time."
"I give you my word. Dr. Arroway, I'll carefully ponder what you've said this evening. You've raised some questions I should have answers for. But in the same spirit, let me ask you a few questions. Okay?"
She nodded, and he continued. `Think of what consciousness feels like, what it feels like this minute. Does that feel like billions of tiny atoms wiggling in place? And beyond the biological machinery, where in science can a child learn what love is? Here's-"
Her beeper buzzed. It was probably Ken with the news she had been waiting for. If so, it had been a very long meeting for him. Maybe it was good news nevertheless. She glanced at the letters and numbers forming in the liquid crystal: Ken's office number. There were no public telephones in sight, but after a few minutes they were able to flag down a taxicab.
"I'm sorry I have to leave so suddenly," she apologized. "I enjoyed our conversation, and I'll think seriously about your questions…You wanted to pose one more?"
"Yes. What is there in the precepts of science that keeps a scientist from doing evil?"
CHAPTER 15
Erbium Dowel
The earth, that is sufficient, I do not want the constellations any nearer, I know they are very well where they are, I know they suffice for those who belong to them.
-WALT WHITMAN Leaves of Grass "Song of the Open Road" (1855)
IT TOOK years, it was a technological dream and a diplomatic nightmare, but finally they got around to building the Machine. Various neologisms were proposed, and project names evocative of ancient myths.
But from the beginning everyone had called it simply the Machine, and that became its official designation. The continuing complex and delicate international negotiations were described by Western editorial writers as "Machine Politics." When the first reliable estimate of the total cost was generated, even the titans of the aerospace industry gasped. Eventually, it came to half a trillion dollars a year for some years, roughly a third of the total military budget-nuclear and conventional-of the planet. There were fears that building the Machine would ruin the world economy. "Economic Warfare from Vega?" asked the London Economist. The daily headlines in The New