Ken MacLeod

You must rely on reason and science,_ she said, __nd be guided by a likewise rational ethic of human concern. You must do your utmost as individuals to improve your understanding, ability and compassion.

The Christians had an almost miraculous talent for turning wine into water.

The idea of determinism combined with complete human responsibility struck me as very hard to reconcile with an idea of justice, let alone mercy.

Change the problem by changing your mind.

As far as I was concerned, the best thing one could do for the poor was to not add one__ self to their number.

But isn't it enough that I just don't want it?""No," said Fiona. "It isn't enough.""Why not?""Well, if that was enough, if just saying no and not giving a reason was enough, where would we be? It would just be chaos.

On this rock we had built our church. We had founded our idealism on the most nihilistic implications of science, our socialism on crass self-interest, our peace on our capacity for mutual destruction, and our liberty on determinism. We had replaced morality with convention, bravery with safety, frugality with plenty, philosophy with science, stoicism with anaesthetics and piety with immortality. The universal acid of the true knowledge had burned away a world of words, and exposed a universe of things.

I was overcome by a wave of wonder at how much good was going on, and how you heard about the bad things that happened so much that you overlooked the immensely disproportionate majority of other acts done to the real benefit of self and others without which none of this would be here at all.

That there was no God was a given, as far as Hope was concerned, and being nice to people and making the most of your life struck her as a reasonable enough conclusion to draw from it, and in any case what she wanted to do. But besides the spires of theology and the watch-towers of ideology, it seemed a very shaky hut indeed, and not one that offered her much shelter or would stand up in court.She couldn't see a way to make her objection to the fix a deduction from any body of thought. It came from a body of flesh, her own, and that was enough for her. She doubted that this would be enough for anyone else.

English is so past,_ she said. __ure, we need people who can write about what we do, but they don__ have to be English graduates. Theology graduates who don__ believe any of it _ that would be useful.