“The modern universe, as machine and man had come to understand it, needed no Creator; in fact, allowed no Creator. Its rules allowed very little tinkering and no major revisions. It had not begun and would not end, beyond cycles of expansion and contraction as regular and self-regulated as the seasons on Old Earth. No room for love there.
It seemed that Abraham had offered to murder his son to test a phantom.”

— Dan Simmons, book The Fall of Hyperion

Source: The Fall of Hyperion (1990), Chapter 45 (pp. 492-493)

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Dan Simmons104

American novelist 1948

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“With a sudden clarity which went beyond the immediacy of his pain or sorrow, Sol Weintraub suddenly understood perfectly why Abraham had agreed to sacrifice Isaac, his son, when the Lord commanded him to do so.
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Dan Simmons book The Fall of Hyperion

Source: The Fall of Hyperion (1990), Chapter 45 (p. 491)