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To: Mr. Jeeves
Who is Robert A. Heinlein? What authority does he bring to the subject? On what foundation does his assertion rest? If it is just his opinion of right and wrong, then he is being morally relativistic. After all, who's to say that his definition is the right one? I could just as easily argue:

"Sin lies only in hurting other people unnecessarily things that impede upon my own happiness. All other 'sins' are invented nonsense."

Just because murder is a sin to you doesn't mean it is to another.  And who wants to be the moral arbiter on "unnecessarily"?  What if I find it "necessary" to hurt others who "impede upon my own happiness"?  Who is Robert Heinlein to tell me I can't do that?  Who decides these moral questions?

Only One Being has the right to make a Universal Judgment on issues of sin and right and wrong and his name is not Robert Heinlein.

597 posted on 05/22/2005 9:12:12 PM PDT by streetpreacher (God DOES exist; He's just not into you!)
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To: streetpreacher
I'll fire off a quick explaination. Robert A. Heinlein (1909-1989) was a science fiction writer with a considerable following. He wrote books like "Farnham's Freehold," "Stranger in a Strange Land," and "Starship Troopers." Politically, he leaned conservative/libertarian, he's a wee bit too libertarian for me, but I don't toss the baby out with the bathwater, he does have some good ideas where people need to be more responsible.

In "Starship Troopers," the book (1959), he did foresee the problems of libertines where they wreck society so much with their PC claptrap, we ended up with an anything goes society to where things go to pot until military veterans rose up and took over to where before one can vote, theyh ave to serve for a term in the military. That's a wee bit too far for me, but I understand the logic to where one should be responsible and have a stake in society and understand it before having a say in it. I have posted my thoughts elsewhere on this.

In "Farnham's Freehold," (1964), it is about a family that survives a direct hit from an H-Bomb which caused them to go 2000 years into the future only to find out that the Third World survived the US/USSR atomic wars and generally took over. The religion of the people the family encountered seems to be Moslem based and anybody who is from the former First and Second (Communist Bloc/Warsaw Pact) World countries were kept as slaves or at times, eaten as food. Very chilling, kept me up at nights. I remember the Third World people called their god "Uncle" and they were experimenting with time travel. Towards the end, the protagonist and his girlfriend along with their twin sons were deemed to unruly for his owner but the owner had a soft spot in his heart for him so they made him go back to our time with a homing device so they can prove time travel exists so the Third World society from the future can go back in time to get more assets to become even more powerful. Well, when they got back to our time just before the missiles fly, he didn't want to help his master and society so he took the device, tossed it onto the target of one of the nukes so it would be vaporized and hid out until it was over to go on with his and his family's life and to hopefully break the cycle that would lead to what he saw in the future. I know I left a LOT out but it was a good story.

I think Robert A. Heinlein is one of the best SF writers out there, again there are things I don't agree with him on, but he does put out a good story and makes one think at times. Of course, like all of us, he is not infallible.
599 posted on 05/23/2005 8:46:24 AM PDT by Nowhere Man (Lutheran, Conservative, Neo-Victorian/Edwardian, Michael Savage in '08! - DeCAFTA-nate CAFTA!)
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