I'm currently reading Science fiction Omnibus which is a collection of short stories edited by Aldiss

Of particular note is An Alien Agony by Harry Harrison
writen in '62 it portrays what I would expect to have been an unusually athiest viewpoint. It is fairly remarkably so even in these times.

I wasn't around then, can anyone who was comment on how common athiesm was at the time?

Note: evidence-free.

I would imagine that out-of-the-closet atheism was not as common then (although still present), but actual atheism was not so different to now.

Harry Harrison is based out of the UK and Denmark, which have had a much higher level of atheism than the US over the last century or two. Given that 'modern atheism' started with the Enlightenment, it's wouldn't be too surprising to know that atheism was alive an well in the 60s. Moreover, science fiction has been a home for atheism pretty much since it began. Sure, there is Christian sf around, and Christian sf writers, but religious themed sf is quite unusual.

My Dad (WWII era) was a life-long atheist, and quite open about it. That didn't prevent him from having very close friendships with people of strong religious convictions.

It seems to me that we have much less tolerance today between believers and nonbelievers. Or maybe I just grew up in a little cocoon of tolerance that didn't represent anyone else's experience at the time.

I wasn't around, but I thought that in the 50's atheists were associated with godless communism.

ETA: Not actually associated, but associated in most people's minds.

Gönderi yazarı tarafından düzenlenmiş, Oca 24, 2008, 11:02am.

>4 Agreed. '62 would have been smack in the middle of the Cold War.

I hadn't considered the connection with communism, but it makes sense. I think that may have targeted the more outspoken atheists, but writing a short story advocating it might be considered outspoken. I stick to my idea that UK/Europe was a different situation. I don't know if the atheist-communist connection was as strong there.

ETA: The Wikipedia on History of Atheism implies that atheism being linked to communism was a primarily American notion, linked to McCarthyism.

Gönderi yazarı tarafından düzenlenmiş, Oca 24, 2008, 9:29pm.

I had assumed that Harry Harrison the author was in the US at the time he wrote it.

There's nothing of politics in it, just an out and out attack on christianity.

Without spoilers: an athiest merchant sets up shop on a pristine planet inhabited by "innocent" aliens. Then a travelling preacher comes past.

All the more interesting for the cultural background in the US at that time. Thanks.

Yes, you're right, r_f, he would have been in the US then, now that I've done a little digging. That would have made it a little more brave of him.

I vagely remember a snippet of a story from Niven, I think. Could it have been part of the "Known Space" stories?

A certain alien tells a human the story of some other alien civilzation that decided to take the bull by the horns so to speak, and research the religion question to get some reliable data. They discovered there's an afterlife, its hell, everybody goes, and it is worse the older you are when you arrive. So they all suicided ASAP.

The problem now is whether the first alien was pulling the human's leg.

Gönderi yazarı tarafından düzenlenmiş, Oca 30, 2008, 9:51am.