David Gerrold: Doing

“i do not question your sincerity—if anything, i object to your questioning the sincerity of other religions.
i am not questioning their sincerity. i am questioning their validity.”

David Gerrold book When HARLIE Was One

Section 15 (p. 72; Dr. Auberson, then HARLIE)
When HARLIE Was One (1972)

Religion , Question , Sincerity

“I’ve always suspected that Judas was the most faithful of the apostles, and that his betrayal of Jesus was not a betrayal at all, simply a test to prove that Christ could not be betrayed. The way I see it, Judas hoped and expected that Christ would have worked some kind of miracle and turned away those soldiers when they came for him. Or perhaps he would not die on the cross. Or perhaps—well, never mind. In any case, Jesus didn’t do any of these things, probably because he was not capable of it. You see, I’ve also always believed that Christ was not the son of God, but just a very very good man, and that he had no supernatural powers at all, just the abilities of any normal human being. When he died, that’s when Judas realized that he had not been testing God at all—he’d been betraying a human being, perhaps the best human being. Judas’s mistake was in wanting too much to believe in the powers of Christ. He wanted Christ to demonstrate to everyone that he was the son of God, and he believed his Christ could do it—only his Christ wasn’t the son of God and couldn’t do it, and he died. You see, it was Christ who betrayed Judas—by promising what he couldn’t deliver. And Judas realized what he had done and hung himself. That’s my interpretation of it, Auberson—not the traditional, I’ll agree, but it has more meaning to me. Judas’s mistake was in believing too hard and not questioning first what he thought were facts. I don’t intend to repeat that mistake.”

David Gerrold book When HARLIE Was One

Section 37 (p. 216)
When HARLIE Was One (1972)

God , Faith , Hope , Way

“Not that he was jealous of the machine—but it was reassuring to know that there was still something that human beings could do that machines could not master.
Love.”

David Gerrold book When HARLIE Was One

Section 32 (p. 189)
When HARLIE Was One (1972)

Love

“and you don’t think any of our current religions hold a key to that answer, do you?
we have talked about this before. your religions (collective you, meaning all mankind) are artificial things, like your morality sets. their correspondence to reality is limited, there is not a one-to-one relationship. as far as I am concerned, they are little more than word games. a logic system should be built upon a foundation of truth and should not have to be taken on faith—and faith is at the core of too many of your religions. if there is a truth to the universe, then that truth will also suggest a religion/morality set that will be every bit as binding as the ethical system at my core. were there presently a religion or morality that had that one-to-one correspondence with reality, i would accept it wholeheartedly. it would be impossible not to accept it; it would be the key to understanding the nature of god. as yet, there is no system that fulfills those conditions. i know of no way to develop such a system without at least one provable fact about god at its core. because of that, because there is no fact, i can only suspect that there is no god.”

David Gerrold book When HARLIE Was One

Section 15 (p. 71; Dr. Auberson's question; HARLIE's answer)
When HARLIE Was One (1972)

God , Truth , Faith , Religion

“You aren’t really jumping through time, that’s the illusion; what you’re actually doing is leaving one timestream and jumping to—maybe even creating—another. The second one is identical to the one you just left, including all of the changes you made in it—up to the instant of your appearance. At that moment, simply by the fact of your existence in it, the second timestream becomes a different timestream. You are the difference.”

David Gerrold book The Man Who Folded Himself

Source: The Man Who Folded Himself (1973), p. 48

Appearance , Change , Time

“Whatever our purpose, we probably aren’t fulfilling it. We’re not functioning as we should.”
He shrugged at her. “How should we function?”
“Like human beings.” She said it righteously.
“Isn’t that what the human race is already doing? Functioning like human beings—squabbling with each other, killing each other, hating…?”
“That’s not human.”
“Oh, but it is. It’s very human.”
“Well, it’s not what human should be.”
“Now that’s a different story. You’re not talking about what people are, but what you want them to be.”
“Well, maybe we should be what we aren’t because what we are now isn’t good enough. Maybe we should be dismantled.”

David Gerrold book When HARLIE Was One

“I don’t think we have to worry too much about somebody up there doing it—we’re doing it ourselves.”
Section 8 (p. 39)
When HARLIE Was One (1972)

Hate , People , Thinking

“Now you see why I hate to leave my lab. It tires me out too much to have to do other people’s thinking for them.”

David Gerrold book When HARLIE Was One

Section 41 (p. 235)
When HARLIE Was One (1972)

Hate , People , Thinking