Thou Art God

This is my first attempt at writing a blog. In fact I have never even read a blog until a couple of weeks ago when I started to prepare for this assignment. So I am not really sure how to go about this but here it goes.

The book A Stranger in a Strange land by Robert Heinlein is the story of Valentine Michal Smith. Smith is born on Mars and raised by Martians. He has no contact with any humans until he is in his twenties, when a group of humans bring him back to earth. On Mars religion does not exist so Mike struggles to understand it. The main religion of the world in the book is that of the fosterites, an off shoot of Christianity. The fosterites view of morality is a relativist one a person can do whatever they want if it makes them happy. That is as long they join and believe in the religion. After a long time of trying to understand religion Mike finally “groks”(a Martian word for understand with your whole being) the concept. Smith relates the views of the fosterites to the Martian concept of “thou art god.”

Michal eventually creates a religion, based off of the idea thou art god. Smith really views it as more of a philosophy than a religion. He masks it as religion so it can appeal to more people. The author gives Mike and his preaching much similarity to that of Jesus Christ. Mike was born on mars and raised there making his birth as unique as the immaculate conception of Jesus. Like Christ, Mike also preaches a message of peace and love. Mike’s water brothers can be related to Jesus’s Apostles. Mike and Jesus both perform miracles. In the end Mike and Jesus go willingly to their deaths at the hands of angry mobs. I think A Stranger in A Strange Land is a futuristic retelling of Jesus Christ’s story.

Thou art God is an interesting concept to me. In the book Smith says I am god and you are god all that groks is god. I think the meaning of this statement is that God is being who understands everything completely and therefore is a part of everything. If a corporate being groks God then they are part of god.

I think Robert Heinlein has a few points to make about religion in this novel. One can be seen in the similarities between Michal Valentine Smith and Jesus Christ. I think the author re-tells the story of Jesus this way to make fun of how seriously people take religion. I believe he is also pointing out the dangers of religious fanatics. People who believe they have the one and only truth of the nature of God and try to force others to believe what they do. I think another point can be seen in the statement thou art god. I think the author point in this statement is that people should put aside their religious beliefs and try to understand one another. If all people perfectly understood each other no one would have any reason for hurting others or doing wrong.

So to sum up everything I think Robert Heinlein’s views on religion and morality are expressed in A Stranger in A strange land. His view on religion is not to take it too seriously. His views on morality understand others better, and the world will be a much better place.

Thank you,

Christopher Rock