Sin, Redemption and Extraterrestrial Intelligence

Ray Bradbury

Ray Bradbury wrote a story titled The Man that can be summarized thus:

In its expansion through the galaxy, the human species encounters many extraterrestrial intelligences. The captain of an interstellar Earth ship arrives on a distant planet and hears about something recently happened there. Little by little he discovers that God has become man on that planet and has granted them Redemption, although not in a bloody way. The captain wants to meet him, get in touch with him, but it’s too late: he has left (at least, he thinks so). Then the captain decides to dedicate his life to traveling to other planets in the hope of finding Christ on one of them.

Narciso Ibáñez Serrador adapted this story for the radio, and in doing so he changed a few things: the title, which became The Triangle, and the form of Redemption: they kill the Redeemer by nailing him to a triangle, rather than a cross.

Jesus of Nazareth: The Infancy Narratives

Pope Benedict XVI

In his book The Spaniard and the seven deadly sins, Fernando Diaz Plaja criticizes what he considers an example of the sin of pride rather common among Spaniards: criticizing a book without having read it. He offers the following example:

Literary judgment is easiest in Spain. I once listened to a radio broadcast where a few writers commented Dr. Zhivago, by Pasternak. The opinions were so hard, sharp and negative, that a lady of the group, with a probably Russian accent, was astonished and asked humbly:

“But how can you say..., where did you read that?” “I have not read the book,” was the astonishing reply. It turned out that, of the four writers who had gathered to discuss the novel, she was the only one who had read it.

November 21st 2012, near the beginning of the Christmas season, was the date of the publication of the book about the infancy of Jesus, third in the trilogy that Pope Benedict XVI dedicated to Jesus of Nazareth (he also signed them in his own name, Josef Ratzinger).

Let’s look at a review issued in a major daily journal in Spain on the same day of the publication of the book: