Science is my religion

Blog Post Number 54 Written: 07-30-2021 Uploaded: 04-14-2023

I know I said I was done with blog posts, and in a way, I am, I have written an article for all the preconceived topics I had already considered and it feels great to get that sheet of notes off my corkboard of stuff to do. It is a goodness to get that weight off my consciousness. But I was struck with another idea, so I figured I would write it down while it’s on my mind. Consider this a bonus post.

I say science is my religion, but maybe it would be more accurate to say Heinlein is my religion. I know I mentioned in a previous post how I read starship troopers and spent the next month using the phrase “on the bounce” so much it became a reflex and eventually annoyed even myself.

Well now I am reading Stranger in a Strange Land, and I am getting the same kind of experience from that. The sort of spiritual uplifting feeling I would expect religious followers would get from reading the text of their particular faith. I am not done with the book, and presently it feels like one of those books that you’re never really done reading, much as how the faithful approach their bibles. They are to be studied and analyzed. There have been many one-liners and phrases of ethical, philosophical, artistic, and even comical value. I grock that it is a goodness. Maybe I am crazy, or infirm in some way, but every now and then, a book latches onto me, or rather my mind latches on to it, and clings so desperately that I think in terms of the book. I grock it. It has been many books, Jack London and the Sea Wolf, Starship Troopers, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, Stranger in a Strange Land, Ender’s Game, Old Man’s War, Cry of the Icemark, Eragon, Joe Ledger, Alex Rider, Dirk Pitt and the like. And one time or another all of those books, those characters those authors held my world and shaped my beliefs in the same shadowy way the bible or the book or Mormon shapes others’ beliefs. Of course, when I finish the book I return to my ‘normal’ or neutral state. That state that I or we settle back into might not be exactly the same but it is a more neutral and stable state nonetheless, or at least in my opinion, but I am not here to debate the utility of faith, merely to state that I am reading a book, that I enjoy it, that I look forward to grocking it fully as I have with the other books mentioned, reflected, waited until fullness and grocked them as they deserve.

P.S. I know, that’s a controversial title, but in my defense I wrote it like 2 years ago. Since I have also not only finished reading stranger in a strange land, but even read it a second time. Such a fantastic book. I apologize for the jargon. it made myself cringe rereading this. I am also running low on pre written posts. So soon, I’ll have to write some more. original stuff…