Stranger in a Strange Land: Review of....

Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Heinlein is a master of the literary craft.  Here in Stranger in a Strange Land he interweaves human relations, large ideas (theology), and the art of the story. The story a Stranger in a Strange Land takes place in a New America, that is one world ordered hegemony.  The world has made missions to mars and has set up a space colony there.  The space colony had been deserted on the planes of Mars.  The man from mars is found after many years of exposure to an alien race. The climax resolves whether Michael Valentine Smith will be excepted by the people of Earth.  At times this book gets bogged down in Heinlein's philosophy, so it can be a difficult read. 

What I liked about the book is its deep analysis of Faith. Heinlein first looks at the cult of the Fosterites. A cult where everyone is happy, and everyone thinks as a one happy unit.  (I would like to go deeper into describing the Fosterites, but I am afraid that this would lead you down a rabbit hole and would maybe bore you deeply.) 
Then he looks at how Michael Valentine Smith twists the Abrahamic religions to make a cult that combines elements of Confucius, Buddhism, Hinduism, Catholicism, Protestantism, Islam, and Judaism.  
The religion is based on the wisdom of the old ones (Confucius).  (I am only all that I Grok.(Buddhism)) The perfect wisdom of the elders is not to be disputed at all.   The cult members become entwined by a sharing of water together.  They see each other as all Gods.(Brahman Hindu)  Thou art god and so are my Guinea pigs and Lovebird.  The religion replaces God and put man in God’s place, this allows man to worship created things.
When God’s proper place, to be above all, is replaced all is left in Chaos.  A chaos I imagine to be like the ending of the Demolished Man by Alfred Bester.  This chaos is a place of no form at all, the lizard eats his own tail and poof he is no longer. 
Because man is now God like, the divine things are the things that connect man in deeper communication.  Sex is seen as sharing deeper with many people.  The communal orgasm is sacred, a great religious experience.(Athenian Greek Goddess Cults)  Cannibalism is the holiest way to die for it is taking the spirit of the other deeply into the body of the collective (Native American Ritual).
Stranger in a Strange Land  raised the questions: 

What does it mean to be both God and man? 

Why could not Joseph and Mary give birth to the messiah? 

Why did it need to be a virginal birth?    

What becomes lost when the Messiah is merely a superman?

(Loved this book and Clucked it Loud)



View all my reviews

Things We May not Notice!

God's wild kingdom will keep us in grateful worship. New Technologies reveal the fascinating world that was once invisible. One example is seen in the Common Snipe: "The tail feather has special adaptations, which means it acts just like a flag blowing in the wind!" Roland Ennos, from the University of Manchester's Faculty of Life Sciences. 


Note: When I look at the picture I am not sure what I am seeing.

Off the Grid

Off the Grid is a heartfelt film about a bunch of bumbles living in New Mexico, in the middle of the desert. The film shows the lives of people who live Off the Grid; 

Off the Grid is defined by Urban Dictionary as - 


 1) Living without using the services of public or private utility companies (grids) such as electric, gas, or water, by generating and providing for one's needs such as by using solar power, etc. 

2) One who disdains all recordable common forms of commerce, such as eschewing any form of credit extension, banking services or reportable payroll activities, using only cash so as to avoid any traceable transactions, e.g., living completely 'underground.'))  


It is easy to overlook or gossip about people who live in an alien community: 

"Look at what they are doing!"

"They can't do that!"

"You can't live there!"

"Look at those Dharma Bums!"

But what is needed to live freely is defined in different ways; some people want absolute freedom, to live like they want to live, and do what they want to do; these people find life is best lived "Off the Grid".  Some people need the solitude only a place off the grid can offer. Some people live off the grid because they enjoy shooting guns. Some find Off the Grid the safest place to protect themselves from their former dangerous lives.  Some live off the grid because they fear society will brain wash their kids.
There is danger in living off the grid. Drugs are common here. And the law is the law of the people, vigilante old west style.
But without a full portrait, we are left arrogant. Jeremy and Randy Stulberg do a fine job of presenting these people objectively.  The people of the mesa are given a fair space to share their free formed lives.  

8 turnips out of a possible 10

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Emerging through Vision into Deep Outer Space

"A Child of three is excited by being told that Tommy opened a door." 

 G.K.Chesterton Orthodoxy page 96.

I need to work on my drawing abilities, my wife thought the Vision Spaceship was a Cake.   It is a spaceship, I assure you.