Last night I had a chance to see Creation, the independent film by British director Jon Amiel that presents an account of the life of Charles Darwin and his struggle to write his great work, On the Origin of Species, while mourning the death of his beloved daughter Annie. The movie is based on Annie's Box, the biography of Darwin written by his great-great-grandson, Randal Keynes.

The movie opens promisingly, with Darwin's eldest daughter Annie asking him to tell her a story. He obliges her by describing how Robert FitzRoy, captain of the H.M.S. Beagle, kidnapped four children from the "savages" of Tierra del Fuego and brought them to England to be raised as Christians. On the Beagle's second voyage (the one Darwin joined as ship's naturalist), FitzRoy returned the children to their tribe with the intent of having them act as missionaries, but the outcome wasn't at all what he had expected. (This is a true story, if you were wondering.)

Back at Down House, Darwin's home in the English countryside, he's visited by his friends Joseph Hooker and Thomas Huxley. Both of them are aware of the theory Darwin has been working on for years, and both of them urge him to collect and publish all his research. Huxley, a firebrand agnostic, is gleeful at the prospect of striking a fatal blow against religious orthodoxy, while Hooker is less anti-clerical and motivated more by what he sees as the scientific merit of the idea. Darwin himself is conflicted, recognizing his theory's potential to undermine religious belief, but far less certain that this would be a good thing. As the movie goes on to show, this is due mainly to the influence of his staunchly Christian wife, Emma.

As the backstory expands, we learn more about why Darwin has delayed publishing his theory for so many years. He's been grappling with a mysterious illness that renders him an invalid for long periods; his family life is increasingly strained and his wife increasingly distant; but most important, we find out, is the death of Annie. She died at the age of ten, and her absence still hangs like a shadow over the household. Of all Darwin's children, she was his favorite, and he's wracked by grief over her passing and tormented by the thought that he was somehow responsible. In repeated flashbacks, we see his affection for her, her budding talent as an amateur naturalist, and her clashes with her mother and the local vicar as she begins to speak up for her own father more passionately than he ever did for himself. Her spirit still haunts Darwin - literally, as she pops up throughout the movie, whether as memory, ghost or hallucination, to converse and at times to argue with him as he puts off writing and agonizes over whether to set pen to paper. Of course, we know how this story ends!

If there's anything I didn't like about Creation, it was its tendency to veer into melodrama. The middle third of the movie seemed overwrought to me, in particular an especially silly nightmare sequence where Darwin dreams that his stuffed and pickled lab specimens come alive and attack him. And while Darwin's imagined conversations with Annie's ghost were acceptable as a narrative device, it got excessive in some places. There's more than enough genuine dramatic gold in the historical details of Darwin's grief over his daughter's death, his struggling with his loss of faith, and his clashes with his devout wife over whether he was jeopardizing his eternal fate by publishing his theory. And the movie did touch on all those points, but I really don't think it was necessary to have a scene where Darwin dashes through the grounds of Down House, shouting out to a hallucination of Annie, while his servants look on in horror. The movie also makes very frequent use of flashbacks, and at times I found it hard to tell whether a scene was supposed to be occurring in the present or the past.

That said, there was much to like about the movie as well. It was extremely well cast: Paul Bettany, who plays Charles Darwin, gives a brilliant, deeply human depiction of a man who is tormented, fallible, but bears a deep love for his family and a fierce devotion to the truth. Jennifer Connelly, Bettany's actual wife, is fully believable as the straitlaced Emma, who loves and fears for her husband but ultimately comes around, to an extent, to his point of view. ("You have made me an accomplice," she says in one of the movie's most memorable lines.) Jeremy Northam, who plays the local reverend, serves as a dramatic foil to Darwin in some extremely effective scenes. And Martha West, who plays Annie, is a treasure.

The movie was also gorgeously shot, giving a strong sense of time and place to the story. The scenes of nature, whether in Darwin's cabin on the Beagle or the forests of the English countryside, were well chosen to complement Darwin's unfolding ideas and to give a sense of where he got his inspirations. And it was a very smart touch to have Bettany narrate parts of the story by reading actual passages from Origin of Species. Charles Darwin wrote some true poetry, and his words are mesmerizing when spoken aloud.

The last third or so of the movie was especially powerful, with some outstanding scenes that more than made up for the weaker ones earlier on. When Darwin pleads in prayer for Annie's life, there wasn't a dry eye in the theater, including mine. And that, I think, is Creation's greatest strength: it shows Darwin not as a stuffy, gray-bearded scientist or a Christian-hating polemicist, but as a human being, a father and husband, who's deeply conflicted about what he's about to unleash on the world but ultimately must go ahead because of his devotion to the truth. This nuanced, sympathetic portrayal of Charles Darwin the man could be just the kind of thing we need to increase public acceptance of his theory (and if you need any further proof, consider that the Christian reviewers loathed it). If this is a subject that appeals to you, Creation is definitely worth your time to see.

Summary: A compelling atheist thought experiment, wrapped inside a cleverly plotted and fast-paced tale of transhumanist fiction.

This isn't the first time I've reviewed a book written by a fellow blogger, but it's always a pleasure for me to do, and this one was particularly pleasurable to read. The Quantum Mechanic is a novel written by the blogger D - you may know her as the author of She Who Chatters - for 2009's National Novel Writing Month.

The hero of TQM is Douglas Orange, a mild-mannered Midwest physics professor who discovers one day that he has an extraordinary power: the ability to influence the workings of reality on a quantum level through pure will. He can't change the past or foresee the future, but other than that, Douglas' powers seem to be bounded only by the limits of his imagination. As he grows more skilled in controlling them, he becomes able to do almost anything, from reading minds to teleporting objects through space to creating matter and energy out of nothing.

At first, Douglas uses his power for nothing more than some remarkably convincing stage magic. But after a visit from a certain famous magician offering a million-dollar prize, Douglas is persuaded (and wouldn't you be persuaded?) to become a vigilante superhero. Under the moniker of the Quantum Mechanic, he launches into a career of fighting crime and rescuing people from disaster, much to the consternation of politicians, police departments, and the moralist commentators of Fawkes News.

This is ground well-traveled by novels and comic books, of course. But most of those creative works fail to follow through on the logical implications of their premise, and assume that people in possession of awesome powers would use them for nothing more inventive than foiling petty crime. I'm happy to say that TQM transcends this hoary cliche, and the second part of the novel breaks into new territory. Having cured violence and war, Douglas turns his vision to grander goals, and his power launches humanity into a technological Singularity. Under the all-seeing eye of the Quantum Mechanic, disease, poverty and death become things of the past, and humanity begins to step into its birthright as explorers and settlers of the universe.

But not all is well. Just when the human race seems poised to take the final step into this-worldly paradise, ominous signs and portents begin to arise: the faithful start disappearing from the earth; the seas boil and the skies turn red as blood; and a strange new star appears in the heavens. And on the heels of these omens, humanity receives a visit from a sinister messenger straight out of the Old Testament, a menacing angel of light known only as the Entropic Engineer. Douglas' powers don't seem to work against him, and after delivering a prophecy of doom for all sinners, he promises to return soon at the head of Heaven's vast army to usher in Judgment Day. It's the Singularity versus the Second Coming, as the Quantum Mechanic faces off against the Entropic Engineer in a cosmic war for humanity's eternal destiny... but is this destroying angel all that he seems?

Aside from the audaciously high-concept premise, there were three aspects of this novel that I enjoyed greatly. First of these, as you might have guessed, is its unapologetic advocacy of the atheist perspective. One of my favorite lines is early on: when Douglas denies God's existence and a heckler demands to know if he's searched the entire universe to be sure, he deadpans, "Why, yes." And there are several great dialogues between Doug and his interlocutors on faith, on meaning and purpose, on morality and harm, and on other philosophical topics where the author lays out and defends an atheist and humanist viewpoint with clarity and compelling reason.

Second, TQM accomplishes something that I haven't often seen done well: it tells an enthralling story even as society changes dramatically around its protagonists. Most of the transhumanist fiction I've read lacks the human perspective necessary for readers to identify and empathize with the characters. One could argue that this is unavoidable, since this kind of fiction by definition describes a world radically different from our own; but however necessary it is by the logic of the plot, it doesn't usually make for good storytelling. This book neatly dispenses with that problem by anchoring its plot in Douglas, who retains his fundamental humanity despite his powers, and letting us see through his eyes.

Third, even aside from its explicit advocacy of our perspective through dialogue, this entire novel advances the atheist viewpoint in a more subtle way. The basic story implicitly takes the form of a thought experiment: If you had the power to end evil and suffering, would you do it?

Of course, we have always answered yes, reasoning that an allegedly good God's failure to intervene in the same circumstances casts strong doubt on his existence. If there was a person with the power to stop evil, they wouldn't stand idly by or hide themselves away, but would take action when they saw it was needed. Philosophically, we all know this to be true. But this book vividly illustrates that argument by clothing it in story, and - at least for me - thereby made it far more persuasive and convincing to me than it's ever been before.

Douglas has the power to do almost anything, but he doesn't hide away from the world. He uses his power for good: he stops violence, he cures disease, he answers people's requests in obvious fashion, he shows up to respond to critics, and he acts based on a clear set of principles and not in an arbitrary or capricious manner. He acts, in short, exactly as atheists have always said a rational and benevolent god would act. And as the author shows us how the human race flourishes under his guidance, it drives home the point that evil is not - as advocates of theodicy often claim - an inherent part of the universe that can't be eliminated. Nor does doing so compromise our free will, except in the sense that people are no longer free to inflict harm and suffering on others.

This is by far the most persuasive answer to theodicy I've ever seen: not a philosophical argument pointing out its flaws in a neutral and logical manner, but simply sketching another possible world where such excuses are not needed, and showing how they inevitably suffer from the comparison. And it doesn't hurt that this compelling moral is wrapped inside a slam-bang, fast-paced tale of Earth's ascent into a posthuman future, with a thoroughgoing humanist as its main character and a plot that an atheist can't help but love.

(You can buy a copy of the book from CreateSpace.)

(Author's Note: The following review was solicited and is written in accordance with this site's policy for such reviews.)

Summary: Sparkling writing; marvelous characters; could have benefited from a tighter narrative.

This is the first time I've ever reviewed a work of fiction for Daylight Atheism, but this one was well in tune with my site's mission and merited the exception: Rebecca Newberger Goldstein's 36 Arguments for the Existence of God. Despite the title, it's a novel, not an academic textbook or a work of theology; and despite the title, it's not an apologia for theism. If anything, the opposite is true. (Potential conflict of interest alert: Ms. Goldstein is the wife of Professor Steven Pinker, who served as the judge in a writing contest that I won, and who asked me if I'd be interested in reading the book.)

The main character of 36 Arguments is Cass Seltzer, an atheist psychology professor who's found unexpected success and fame in a book debunking religion. Supporting characters include Lucinda Mandelbaum, his current significant other and a renowned mathematician; his old girlfriend, Roz Margolis, an anthropologist who's researching life extension; Jonas Elijah Klapper, a windbag literary scholar who is Seltzer's former mentor; and Azarya Sheiner, a young mathematical prodigy from an ultra-orthodox Hasidic Jewish community.

Cass is a professor at the fictional Frankfurter University in Massachusetts, but has just received a job offer from Harvard and is mulling whether to accept it, while at the same time he prepares for a debate with a religious apologist that centers around the arguments in his best-selling book. But this story, though it takes place in the present (from the novel's perspective), is arguably not the main one. In fact, there are several plot threads, and the story skips back and forth between them - each one chronicling a different time in Cass' life, explaining how he met the other characters and how he came to be where he is at the novel's beginning.

First things first: I loved Goldstein's writing style. It's sparkling, exuberant, erudite, leaping into paragraph-long sentences as if the author is breathlessly trying to narrate everything as fast as it happens. In its best moments, it achieves the sublime. She's obviously thoroughly informed about the history and development of the atheist movement, and the way its defenders respond to criticism (some of the quotes will likely be familiar to you). And I loved the characters she crafts - so much so that I'd gladly read a sequel that follows up on some of them.

Azarya's inner battle between his dreams of nurturing his mathematical gifts, and his desire to stay faithful to his community and its traditions, is compellingly depicted and evoked an unexpected pang of sympathy from me, even for a sect as insular and narrow-minded as Hasidic Judaism. Cass is a glowingly sympathetic protagonist - for once, a novel that treats atheism as a normal and even sympathetic viewpoint, and not as a disease that a character has to be cured of! - and when he celebrates his good fortune, the reader is drawn in to celebrate with him, to make his triumphs our own and to share his fear that they may all be snatched away. And when, at the end, he steps up to the podium to do battle with his adversary, we're cheering him on (well, I was). And Roz, especially, was a magnificent creation, a tigerish free spirit who makes an already bright book even brighter whenever she appears in it.

There was only one character I didn't like, and that leads me to my one major complaint. Cass' mentor, Jonas Elijah Klapper, was pompous, egotistical, and insufferably self-absorbed - and I have no doubt that Goldstein intended us to find him so - but then, why does he have so much face time in the book? The plot noticeably drags whenever he appears, and in fact, the plot thread that involves him is never really brought to a satisfying resolution.

To tell the truth, for all that I liked about it, the book in general could have used a tighter narrative focus. There's not really a single, overarching plot that drives the story as much as there is a series of extended episodes from the life of its major character, and the "main" story - the one that occurs in the novel's present, rather than being backstory - has a fairly anticlimactic ending. There were several intriguing plot threads, especially Roz's involvement with a group studying life extension, that offer tantalizing possibilities but never really develop. Some of these have enough potential to be books in and of themselves, and if they ever do, I'd be glad to read them.

I should have mentioned this story much earlier, but better late than never.

If you're an atheist and a regular reader of sci-fi and fantasy, you probably know the name Terry Pratchett - and if you don't, you should. He's the award-winning and much-loved author of Discworld, a series of fantasy novels set in a flat, circular world that's carried through space on the back of a giant tortoise. Discworld began as a straight-up parody of other fantasy novels, but it's moved on to parodying all different aspects of our culture, and doing so in the midst of surprisingly deep and affecting storytelling. Pratchett is also an atheist, and many of the Discworld books (including my personal favorite, Small Gods) show the virtues of atheism and humanism - no small feat in a riotous fantasy world where, as the author puts it, "the gods had a habit of going round to atheists' houses and smashing their windows".

And if you're a fan of Pratchett, you may also know that in December 2007, he announced he was suffering from early-onset Alzheimer's disease - a grim prognosis, since the early-onset form of the disease tends to be the fastest-developing, and treatment options tend to do no more than delay the spread. As Pratchett himself said, "I know three people who have successfully survived brain tumors but no one who has beaten Alzheimer's."

Although he's still writing and still cheerful, Pratchett has said in recent weeks that he does not believe in "a duty to suffer the worst ravages of terminal illness", and that when the time comes when he faces an irreversible disintegration of self, he would rather end his life on his own terms:

Now, however, I live in hope - hope that before the disease in my brain finally wipes it clean, I can jump before I am pushed and drag my evil Nemesis to its doom, like Sherlock Holmes and Moriarty locked in combat as they go over the waterfall.

...I am enjoying my life to the full, and hope to continue for quite some time. But I also intend, before the endgame looms, to die sitting in a chair in my own garden with a glass of brandy in my hand and Thomas Tallis on the iPod - the latter because Thomas's music could lift even an atheist a little bit closer to Heaven - and perhaps a second brandy if there is time.

Oh, and since this is England I had better add: 'If wet, in the library.'

In recent weeks, he's also spoken out against assisted-suicide guidelines which appear to leave open the possibility that citizens of the U.K. could be prosecuted for murder for helping a terminally ill loved one take their own life.

Of course, I hope Terry Pratchett, despite the diagnosis, has many more years of happy and productive life ahead of him (and not just for my own selfish reason of wanting to read more of his books!). I hope with all my might that a cure for Alzheimer's will be found in time. But when my time comes, as it will for all of us, I hope to face the inevitable even half as well as he has this far: with good humor and courage, a fearless self-determination to take my destiny into my own hands, and a hope that some greater good can come about from individual tragedy.

And I'm encouraged to believe that comfort and acceptance in the face of mortality may not be as hard to come by as people think (or as religious proselytizers would like us to believe). There have been many freethinkers who exited life in peace and dignity, such as Edward and Joan Downes, whose story I mentioned this past July. It's likely that the more high-profile examples there are of atheists peacefully coming to terms with the inevitable, the more common and accepted it will be, and the easier it will become for all of us.

In the world of Philip Pullman's fantasy series His Dark Materials, each human being is accompanied everywhere by their daemon, an intelligent animal-shaped spirit that is the outward manifestation of their soul. When Pullman's heroine, Lyra, meets a boy who's been severed from his daemon by a cruel experiment, her reaction is one of disgust and horror:

Her first impulse was to turn and run, or to be sick. A human being with no daemon was like someone without a face, or with their ribs laid open and their heart torn out: something unnatural and uncanny that belonged to the world of night-ghasts, not the waking world of sense.

There are no daemons in our world, but we atheists often face a similar situation. We have the ability to arrive at a code of ethics without the dubious help of revelation, basing our moral decisions on reason and a sense of empathy for our fellow human beings. But still, far too often, we meet believers who insist that this is impossible. They're used to following a code of rules handed down by authority - by a text, or by other religious believers - and have become so accustomed to obeying that they literally believe it's not possible to come up with an ethical code on your own. They've lost the capacity even to imagine how this might be done.

One would think the existence of the vast majority of atheists who are ordinary, decent people would force these people to reconsider, but often it doesn't. Instead, they perceive atheists the way Lyra perceives that daemonless boy: as freaks, as bizarre and unnatural aberrations - and the evidence of our manifestly moral lives does not change that.

The flip side of this coin is that people who are unquestionably evil (or ones whom the speaker merely disagrees with) are often labeled "atheist", as though the word were just a generic synonym for "wicked". I've written about this before in "The Atheist Crew", but this example from David Hankins of the Baptist Press surpasses them all:

We do have some recent examples of societies that do not believe in God nor recognize a mandated divine value on human beings. They are associated with names like Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao Zedong, Idi Amin, and Saddam Hussein. Devoid of any sense of God or godliness, they created a social order of mayhem and evil that destroyed millions of lives. So much for the morality of godlessness.

Yes, you read that last one right: this apologist claims that Saddam Hussein was an atheist. That would be the same Saddam who died while reciting a Muslim prayer, the same Saddam who ordered the Muslim creed called the takbir placed on the Iraqi flag, allegedly in his own handwriting. By the standards of the Islamic world, Saddam's Iraq was a relatively secular state, but to call it a "godless" or atheist state is insanity. (I've written also about how Hitler was emphatically not an atheist. Idi Amin was also a Muslim. I should probably write some later posts on the beliefs of the other tyrants cited.)

As I said, as a purely factual claim, this would be insane. But I don't think Hankins intended it as a factual claim, but as a statement of the way he divides up the world: in his eyes, there are the good Christians, whom he agrees with, and then there's everyone else, the evil and wicked atheists. (The first Christians were accused of atheism by the Roman Empire for similar reasons. The fact that he's using the logic of the Christians' erstwhile persecutors is an irony he undoubtedly fails to appreciate.)

For people who think this way, there's probably no hope. They're clearly not concerned about what the facts say, just as racists are not concerned about the facts regarding the intellectual ability and capacity for achievement of blacks. But I think most people are not so set in their prejudices, and their minds can be changed. If they see that atheists are good people, the notion may become less unnatural to them, and in time they may come to accept it as normal and expected.

It's important to remember, therefore, that we are ambassadors for atheism. Fairly or unfairly, atheism in general will be judged by the standards of behavior that individual atheists display. Thus it's important that we be the best ambassadors possible - that we show ourselves to be moral people and present a good image of atheism to the world. This means of changing minds, in the long run, is more likely to help us than any number of rational arguments.

I awoke from my sleep with a start.

It had been a long and wearisome day. I had turned in early, as the late autumn light waned from the sky, and it was now dark and deep outside my window. But now something had roused me, and I had the distinct feeling that I was not alone.

I went from room to room, searching for intruders. At first glance, my home seemed silent and empty. The Observatory was silent, its holographic displays a pale flickering in the darkness. The screens in the Rotunda were banked to a dim blue glow. The Library was wrapped in shadow, its shelves of books motionless and still, and through its high windows, the Garden slumbered in the depths of fall, yellow and black, with only a few tiny jack-o-lanterns glimmering in the moonless night. I checked the empty Foyer, where the fireplace had died to a few feeble embers, and was about to put it down to a stray dream and return to bed - when something caught my eye. Up above in the Loft, a light was on.

I climbed the stairs and emerged into the room. In the far corner, at my writing desk, a reading lamp cast a pool of yellow light from its green shade. Someone was sitting at the desk, his back to me.

I was not taken entirely by surprise. I had almost been expecting it, given the date. But this time, I was going to take the lead. Anger rising, I crossed the room... and then the person in the chair turned around, and it was not who I had expected.

My opening accusation died into surprise. "You— Who are you?"

My unexpected visitor smiled. "Not who you expected, perhaps?"

Then, although his countenance did not change, I looked more deeply at him - saw him suddenly, as if a veil had been lifted away, and I knew who he was after all.

"You look different this time," I observed.

The Tempter smiled a slow, lazy smile. "Of course."

I tried to hide my astonishment. The Tempter was here. He had not accosted me while I was traveling, or in the wild; he had come here, to my home, to confront me. It was either a bold show of confidence or a risky gamble, and I wasn't sure which. I knew he was going to challenge me, but I had to get in a question before he did. "Last year, in the wilderness on the way home from the desert, I met a stranger. He looked - and sounded - a lot like you. Was he?"

He shrugged. "One of my shadows, perhaps. But that's not why I'm here. I trust you've had much to think about since last we met. I've brought some new ideas for you to consider."

Once the Tempter has found you, there's no way to get him to leave without hearing him out. "Fine. I'm ready."

"Are you now." He grinned that patient, amused smile again. "We'll see. I hear there's an election coming up soon. Hopeful, are you?"

"The polls say—" I began, but he waved me to silence. "I'm not interested in polls. It's not specific candidates I care about, but a more general conclusion I want to establish."

"And that is?"

"The pundits and the media say this is a 'change' election. And it does look good for your side, I have to admit. But have you ever considered how much ever changes because of an election, really?"

"Of course things change because of elections. Are you really denying that?"

"Yes, I am." His teeth glinted as he grinned. "The excitement that always comes with elections may have temporarily overpowered your good sense, but the day after the votes are cast, you'll come back to earth. The truth is that politics is a series of disappointments, and it always will be. The nature of the system practically guarantees it - it ensures that the only candidates who get into office are the ones who are most willing to do the bidding of the establishment and exploit popular prejudices. It rewards politicians who appeal to the worst in all of us - and it works, you know. Nothing unites people like a common enemy, and as far as most of them are concerned, you're that enemy. Those ads you ridiculed are more effective than you think they'll be. And the allegedly progressive ones aren't much better. Most of them are apathetic, bought and paid for; you know as well as I do how much of a disappointment they've been. And when it comes to religion, they pander to delusion just as much as their opponents. They'd never welcome you to their side. In fact, they're probably embarrassed by your support and would gladly shut you up if they could."

"It wasn't like that with Robert Ingersoll."

"Those were different times, and he was a rare exception. Every era has its flukes."

"Be that as it may. Even granting that much of what you say is true, I think you've misconstrued my position. I'm not saying that atheists are welcomed in the halls of power now. I know we're not. Religious prejudice is still much too common. I see our mission differently: effecting change not from the top down, but from the bottom up. With time and patience, we can win enough support and sympathy that politicians will have to acknowledge us. That's the same template that successful social reform movements have followed in the past. Surely not even you can deny that we've made progress. What about women's suffrage? Ending segregation?"

"That we have made progress, I don't deny," the Tempter said. "But I doubt whether we can so easily extrapolate this, as you do, to the conclusion that progress will continue. Just because past reform movements have been successful, it doesn't follow that all future ones will be successful. And I think you're going up against an opponent that's far more powerful and well-entrenched than those past movements were."

"I don't doubt that the atheist revolution will be quieter than previous revolutions, and that it may take longer," I said softly. "But it's no less real in spite of that."

"Ahh," the Tempter said, a thoughtful hiss. "And that leads into an excellent point. I want to correct a misconception in your thinking - one that skews your opinion without your being aware of it."

"And that is?" I said cautiously.

"You wrote recently of what you call 'the bubble' - the way religious groups surround themselves with the like-minded. I think that essay hit closer to home than you realized. We're all far more sensitive to flaws in others than those same flaws in ourselves, and this is a perfect example. Don't you have a bubble too? You seek out rational, skeptical people; you read their writings daily, you immerse yourself in their thinking, you surround yourself with them. Understandably so - but that colors your thinking. You look out and see so many people who think like you, and it makes you think the whole world works like that. In reality, you and your allies are a vanishing minority in a sea of obstinate, ignorant faith."

I didn't have a ready answer for that. "I have to admit, there's some justice to what you say. But I don't think I've been unduly optimistic. I'm well aware that atheists' progress still has to be weighed against the existence of a believing majority. Didn't I just say as much?"

"Yes, but I think you consider that acknowledgement just a footnote," the Tempter said pointedly, "a side consideration to an otherwise well-positioned and successful movement. In fact, it's the major obstacle facing you, and one that can very easily block whatever change you might seek. Think about it: there are churches on every street. They're woven into the fabric of society, from major cities to tiny towns. They all have congregations that meet every Sunday to receive their orders. What can atheists possibly offer to match that?"

"Organization makes people more visible and makes them appear more numerous," I persisted. "And you can't just imply that everyone in the pews is a brainwashed fundamentalist. The larger a group becomes, the more diverse its membership gets, and the more impossible it becomes to enforce one belief or ideology on every member. I know there's a hardened core of fundamentalists, but I think a large portion - maybe the majority - are there just because it's the default choice. We can sway them - and that's the value of that bubble you referred to. I prefer to call it speaking with one voice, myself. The more we speak out, the more we can peel these people off. Our efforts absolutely do have the potential to have a far greater impact than our numbers would suggest - not that those numbers are so bad, anyway."

"Deftly spoken," the Tempter said, grinning. He stood from the desk, rising so his shadow streamed out against the light behind him. "There's that optimism I mentioned. You've done a marvelous job convincing yourself, I don't doubt. But, again, you're underestimating how easy this mission will be. Even if there isn't ideological unanimity, most of those people in the pews have been religious so long it's sunk into their bones. It's part of their identity. Tell them to abandon it? You might as well try to persuade them to get a sex change! They like where they are, and except for a few outcasts, most of them will never budge."

"Change in society's opinion doesn't come about by mass conversions among the old guard. It comes from new generations who've grown up with new ideas and are comfortable with them. That's just a fact of human nature, but it's one we can work with."

"I think you aspire to more than generational change," the Tempter said accusingly. "Don't try to change your position now. But even if I were inclined to grant your point, that's where that bubble you spoke of works against you. The vast majority of believers live in isolated, insular worlds. They'll never hear of your message, or if they will, it will only be as a background annoyance, a boogeyman tossed off from the pew. You still underestimate - by far - just how durable received opinion is. Sure, you may chip off a few flakes. But that's not what you dream of. You dream of an avalanche of change, a new wave of enlightenment. That's a foolish, self-deluding dream, and it's not going to happen, not in your lifetime or any other. Those little scratches you're making aren't even enough to hurt. If anything, you're doing the religious cause a favor by giving them a visible enemy, and as I said, nothing unites people like that." He moved forward, looming over me. His grin grew wider. "Face it: you're not making a difference."

I bowed my head. "What did you say?" I asked quietly.

"You're not making a difference," the Tempter said emphatically.

I looked up, meeting his eyes. "Say that again."

The Tempter seemed to hesitate. "I meant what I said. You're not making a difference."

I took a step forward, into the pool of light from the lamp. "No difference? Really?"

"Well—"

"I acknowledge your point only as far as this," I said, advancing. "If we only talk to each other, we may underestimate the difficulty of what we've set out to accomplish. We have to be careful of that. But atheists, unlike believers, don't have a bubble. How could we? We don't have a single leader or authoritative text. We disagree with each other, often emphatically. And we don't isolate ourselves. On the contrary, we set out to engage with the world, to confront different perspectives. We welcome the debate. And when we take that light into dark places, it does make a difference. And do you want to know how I know that?"

The Tempter stared at me, but I didn't wait for his reply. "I know it because they tell us so. I hear from them when they realize they're not alone. I hear from them when they find the courage to stand up for themselves. I hear from them when they leave darkness behind and make the journey to reason. Look past the uniformity of the crowd; they're out there, and there are more of them than you think."

The Tempter took a step back. I advanced further, pressing my attack. "Have I entertained thoughts of leading a revolution? Of course. Who doesn't daydream? But I know those are fantasies. The most important work is always done at the individual level, one person to another. I've always said I'll consider my work well served if I could affect even one other person's life, and I have. But there's more to be done. How many more people do you think are out there like the ones I've spoken to? How many more are waiting for us to bring that message to them? They're ready, if only we can reach them. And that's why I write, that's what I'm fighting for. It's not to shake the foundations of society, not to make the mighty tremble - it's for the sake of compassion. That's something you'll never understand."

I stepped forward to deliver the coup de grace, but it wasn't necessary. The Tempter, a look of mingled astonishment and defiance on his face, froze and then faded into shadow. I was alone in my study, standing in the little golden pool of light on the edge of darkness.

For a moment I stood there, and then something new came to my senses. There was a faint light creeping in around the edges of the world, softening shadows, turning the black to pale gray. I shut off the lamp, then went to the window and pulled the shutters open. The world still lay in silent dreams, but along the horizon, the first glimmers of gold were rising. The dawn was coming, and light was returning to the world.

Last night I saw The Golden Compass, the movie adaptation of the first book in Philip Pullman's acclaimed fantasy trilogy His Dark Materials. The movie, like the book, is set in a fantastic and richly imagined parallel universe, similar to our own world but different in many important ways. In Pullman's steampunk world, human beings' souls live outside their bodies, in the form of talking animal familiars called daemons; the icy north is ruled by fearsome armored bears and clans of flying witches; and an evil church that extends its grip over the world battles the defenders of freethought to suppress the truth about a mysterious particle called Dust. The church views Dust as the physical evidence of original sin and wants to stamp out all knowledge of it, but a few brave scholars believe it is the gateway to a limitless infinity of possibilities.

The heroine of the movie, Lyra Belacqua, is an orphan girl raised by the masters of Jordan College in a parallel London. A shadowy organization known as the Gobblers has been kidnapping children for unknown purposes, and when one of Lyra's friends is snatched, she vows to set out and rescue him. In her quest she finds allies, including a band of traveling Gyptians seeking to recover their own lost sons and daughters; the Texan aeronaut Lee Scoresby, and a loyal armored bear, Iorek Byrnison. But her greatest help may be the instrument of the movie's title: an "alethiometer", a clockwork device given to her by the master of Jordan College which, if read and interpreted correctly, can give the true answer to any question. Ultimately, Lyra's quest takes her to the frozen wastelands of the North Pole, where she faces the sinister Magisterium and its chief agent, the poison-sweet Mrs. Coulter, and learns the truth about the evil experiments it's been conducting on the stolen children.

At least in America, there's been a minor uproar over this movie, because the book's author, Philip Pullman, is an avowed atheist who's salted the novels with anti-religious and freethought themes. (The second two books of the trilogy, The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass, pick up the plot of a literal war against God - although in the books he's called "the Authority", and depicted as an aged pretender rather than the true creator of everything.) Fulminating bigots like William Donohue of the Catholic League have demanded a boycott, and newspaper columnists have fretted that this movie's intent is to "teach atheism to children". (I don't remember hearing any complaints about how the movie adaptation of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe was intended to "teach Christianity to children".)

Predictably, the movie's producers tried to head off this criticism by watering down the anti-religious themes from the book. The evil organization, which as I recall is explicitly depicted as the Church in the original novels, is here only called the "Magisterium". Rather than an explicit struggle against religion, the heroes' opposition is depicted more as a struggle against authoritarianism. Also predictably, these changes had no effect on the self-appointed guardians of dogma, who only need to catch the merest whiff of dissent to thunder about "disrespect" and demand that the offender be censored and punished to make them feel better. Nevertheless, more of Pullman's theme was left in than I had expected, including the equation of Dust with original sin. Mrs. Coulter gives a speech in which she claims Dust came about because the first people disobeyed the Authority, although the movie does not go into any detail on who or what the Authority is. I also thought it was more than a little heavy-handed to depict all the top officials of the Magisterium as having daemons that were serpents or preying mantises (although Mrs. Coulter's golden monkey is a wonderfully evil creation).

I've read Pullman's original books, and I can definitely recommend them. They're wonderfully detailed and richly imaginative creations. Unfortunately, the movie suffers from the comparison. It wasn't bad, but the script did feel rushed and obligatory, as if the writers were trying to cram in as many events from the novel as possible. On a purely numerical level they succeeded, but the result was a plot that careened from one event to the next, dumping loads of exposition on the viewer at every turn, rather than giving the characters time to breathe. Nevertheless, some of Pullman's ideas do shine through. Lyra in particular was a great heroine, capturing the fiercely independent, defiant spirit of the books.

That said, anyone who's expecting the books or especially the movie to serve as the standard-bearer for atheism is likely to be let down. For all the great freethought ideas contained in them, they're not tightly reasoned anti-religious polemics. The books are a story, an imaginative fiction. In our world, there is no literal Authority to kill, no Dust to tell us the truth the church has tried to cover up. The story should be judged on its own merits, not pressed into service to support a real-life cause. The most we can expect from this or any other story is to encourage children to ask questions and consider new possibilities, which is all to the good. It's to be expected that even this little hint of freethinking will provoke roars of outrage from the pompous pretenders who fear alternative stories, and who can all too easily recognize themselves in the corrupt and tyrannical authority figures skewered therein.

(Author's Note: "The Desert" is a work of short fiction in several parts. If you haven't already done so, now would be a good time to go back and read the previous chapters so that you know what's going on.)

V: Epilogue

It seemed like ages ago that I had set out from my home, and the beautiful Garden that surrounded it, on a journey that brought me deep into the harsh wilds of the desert. In that barren, desolate land, I had encountered several of the lost souls who dwelt there. Most had refused to hear me, but I had successfully persuaded one of them to listen to reason and leave. Soon after, I had come to the end of the desert, believing my task was done. But on my way home, my head heavy with sleep, I had strayed from the path. Now I was lost in a dark and gloomy wood, and home seemed further than ever.

It was a wet, storm-wracked night. The forest closed around me, dark conifers whose branches dripped with rain and thickets of thorn vines that grew between their trunks. Overhead, thunder and lightning lashed at the black sky, and the rain fell like stinging needles. The twisting, narrow hollow of a path wound perilously between the trees.

My legs burned with weariness, and the desire for sleep was almost a physical pain. I longed to find my home, or at least to rest for a time, but there was no place to stop in this dark wood.

From somewhere in the darkness behind me, there was an eerie, desolate howl. I shivered and quickened my pace.

Then, up ahead, a light glowed through the night and driving rain. I hurried eagerly toward it, and the light resolved into a tiny cottage of plaster and thatch, surrounded by a dense thicket of trees. Gold light glowed from its windows, tantalizingly inviting.

I rapped hard on the heavy wooden door. "Hello! Traveler seeking sanctuary!"

Almost before I had finished saying it, the door opened silently. A man stood in the doorway, silhouetted in the glow streaming from within. "Welcome, traveler," he said with a smile.

I squinted at him. "You seem familiar. Do I know you?"

"I don't believe so," he said smoothly. "Come in. It is cold and wet, and I have a fire going within."

That was all I needed to hear, and soon I was inside, sitting before the brick hearth and holding out my hands to the heat of the flames dancing within. The interior of the cottage was a small, cozy place, plaster walls and wood beams tinted golden by the firelight. The rain lashed impotently at the windows.

"Better?" my host asked, once I had dried off.

"Much," I said gratefully. "Thank you. What do you do out in this forest? Is this your home?"

My host didn't seem to hear me. Instead he looked at my coat, hung near the fireplace to dry. "You've been to the desert lately, I see. Did any come back with you?"

Somehow, I didn't think to question how he knew where I had been or what I had been doing. "Yes, one. Why do you ask?"

"And yet," he said with a strange, sad smile, "there are millions more who remain."

"I realize that," I said, feeling a flicker of suspicion. "But I can't reach all of them, and most wouldn't listen even if I could. I do what I can; that's all anyone can ask of me."

"That is more than anyone could ask of you," said my host. "No one could accuse you of wasted effort if you were making a difference. But you're not making a difference. At best, you're dislodging a few grains of sand from a mountain. I applaud your trying to help those poor people, but that effort won't be complete - if it's ever complete - until long after your lifetime, whether you work at it or not. There will be others after you. Why not rest and leave it up to them?"

"If freethinkers of past generations had reasoned the same way," I said, annoyed, "my cause would be far behind where it is right now. They did what they could to lay the groundwork for me. Now I'll do the same to build a yet larger foundation for the future. Every generation has a part to play in this effort, and I intend on playing mine."

"Noble sentiments, but in reality it's little but masochism. You're pouring yourself into an effort for which it's not likely you'll ever get respect or thanks. Don't let others take advantage of you like that. You have a beautiful home and a Garden you love. Why not go there, close the gates behind you, and let the rest of the world see to itself? What happens out there is none of your concern."

"Deserts spread," I said ominously. "Part of the reason I do this is to protect my home. And besides, there are countless people in the desert who are unhappy, miserable - people like the one I spoke to earlier tonight. Many of them will never find their way out if there's no one to speak to them and show them the path. Should I withdraw into my home and leave them to their suffering?"

"They can find their way out by themselves if they really want to," said my host. He had moved back, standing near the fire, and his face was half in shadow; his eyes glittered black.

"But much more easily if they have a guide," I countered.

"Your concern is admirable, but in the end it's worth little. And besides, aren't you introducing them to a path that has its own traps and dangers?"

"The destination is worthwhile in the end."

"So you say." He grinned. "Many who live in the desert would not agree. They think it's their home and they couldn't imagine being happier. It's what they want. Why not leave them to it?"

"Many of them only think it's what they want because they don't know all the available options. I met someone like that today."

He shook his head sadly, but still there was that ominous glitter in his eye. "But look at the toll it's taken on you. Look how exhausted you were when I found you. Compassion is one thing, but not when it costs this much. The desert siphons away life, we both know that; if you stay there too long, you'll end up like them. No rational theory of morality would ask you to expend your own well-being in pursuit of this mad goal. You've done enough. You should return to your home and rest. You don't ever have to go back."

And now I could no longer contain my suspicion. "Who are you?"

For a second, I thought I saw a grin on his lips. Then, all of a sudden, the fire and the light went out together. I was alone in the empty, darkened cottage, the rain thundering on the windows much louder than it had a moment ago. Spiderwebs clotted with dust filled the corners. The hearth was cold and black and looked as if it had not been lit for ages.

Suddenly seized by a nameless fear, I threw open the door and staggered out into the rain. The night and the storm slashed at me as I plunged into the dark wood, whirling me around until I scarcely knew which direction was which. But I pressed on, and after what seemed like an endless time, lights beckoned me through the trees. The lights of my own home, this time. With a vast sense of relief, I threw open the gates and collapsed onto the grassy lawn.

It was not until later that I thought back on my strange meeting that night. The whole experience had the distorted, unreal quality of a dream. Who was that man who sought to lull me into complacency, or persuade me to give in to despair? He had not seemed like one of the denizens of the desert. And though I had held him off, I sensed that he had not been vanquished. Though I did not encounter him again, as the days turned to weeks, the memory of that night stayed with me; and as I looked ahead to the coming new year, I wondered what it might portend...

(Author's Note: "The Desert" is a work of short fiction in several parts. If you haven't already done so, now would be a good time to go back and read the previous chapters so that you know what's going on.)

IV: The Visionary

The faint path I had been following through the desert had long since petered out, and for several hours I had been making my own way across the sands. The fallen stone blocks of the ruined city lay well behind me, no longer in sight.

The sun had now sunk almost entirely below the horizon, and the sky had grown dark. But there were no stars to guide my way with their friendly twinkling - only a hollow void, as black and vast as infinity's maw. A near-absolute darkness had descended on the wasteland, making each labored step dangerous.

With the setting of the sun, the searing heat of the day had gone. In its place, with shocking swiftness, had come the cold. The sands underfoot, now powdery fine and black as midnight, had an icy, desolate chill. The cold air cut into my exposed skin like a knife, and silver frost sparkled in the air with each breath I took. A bone-deep weariness had settled in me after two failed encounters, and I was beginning to long for the light and warmth of my home. But I was determined to reach at least one person, and there was no way out but through. I pressed onward.

The fear was growing in me that I would not find anyone else, and with that to occupy my mind, I almost stumbled over the man before I saw him. Frail and stick-thin, clad only in shredded rags, he knelt on the sands and stretched out his hands toward the empty sky. He had to be freezing, but he gave no sign that he felt the cold.

"Hail, friend!" I called out to him. "What are you doing out here in this cold?"

The man glanced at me in startlement, as if he hadn't noticed me before. When I had first seen him, kneeling with hands outstretched, I thought he had been pleading with someone. Now I saw that his face was stretched into a blissful, vacant smile. Half-frozen tears of joy trickled down into his grimy beard.

"Cold?" he said. "I don't feel any cold. The weather is perfect. I couldn't have asked for more."

"Friend, it's freezing out here. You must be cold and miserable dressed in that. Come with me - I know a place indoors where you can warm yourself. I have a fire going."

"Thank you for your offer, but I'm fine where I am," he said dreamily. "I have all I need right here."

"Don't tell me you're happy here?" I said in shock.

"Why, of course! How could I not be? This is the best place on earth. No one could be happier anywhere else."

"How many other places have you tried?" I asked.

He looked at me in surprise, his gaze seeming to regain a bit of clarity. "None. Does that matter?"

"Yes, it does! How can you possibly know that this is the best place on earth if you haven't even looked at the alternatives? How do you know you wouldn't be even happier somewhere else? And besides," I went on, sweeping a hand around, "look at this place. Look and see it for what it is. It's a cold, barren wasteland. There's no life here, no growth, no joy. It denies you everything you truly need to be happy. You may think it's a paradise because that's what you've always been taught, but when you fairly compare what this place offers with all the others that are out there, you'll see that there are whole worlds you've been missing out on. Tell me honestly: are you really happy here, deep down inside?"

The man's look of surprise deepened. He looked around slowly, then shivered, as if noticing the cold for the first time.

"Well, to be absolutely honest," he said in a fearful whisper, "sometimes I'm not completely happy here. It gets chilly here some nights, and I feel so alone. Sometimes it doesn't seem like anyone's listening to me. I won't say this place doesn't have its faults... but isn't everywhere else even worse?"

"Nothing could be further from the truth," I assured him. "There are places outside this desert where there are gardens of water and light, overflowing with life, with plenty of friends and companionship. I can describe them to you, and I can even tell you about other people who went there and are happier now. But the only way for you to really experience what it's like is to come with me and see them with your own eyes. If you don't like what you see, you can always come back here. But truth be told, I don't think you'll want to."

The man crouched down on the black sands, wrapping his arms around his knees and shivering. "I don't know. I just don't know. At least here I know where I stand. To move to a new place, where I don't know anyone or anything, where I don't know what would be waiting for me..."

"It's natural to be afraid of such a major change. And I can't deny that it may seem to get even darker for a while if you come with me. But you have to trust me that there's light and warmth on the other side. The journey back with me may not be easy, but it's only a passing thing, and in the end you'll know it was all worthwhile."

"But, but..." He seemed to be fumbling for an excuse, searching for a way to talk himself out of it. "But everything I care about is here. If I leave this place I'll lose it all. I'd have no foundation, no hope."

"Not so," I urged him. "That's what you've been told by other people of this desert, people who want to keep you here - I think for their own pride as much as for any other reason. They've never been to the gardens; they don't know what they're talking about, and most of what they say about them isn't true. I'm telling you that everything you care about, everything that truly makes your life meaningful, is there waiting for you. There's clear air, happiness and peace, surpassing anything you could imagine. If you lose anything by coming with me, it will be something you never needed in the first place. You're not happy here. What do you have to lose? Just trust me." I held out a hand.

A strange light came into the other man's eyes. Slowly, hesitantly, he stood up. Pulling his rags around himself, he reached out for my hand. Then, silently and smoothly, his form began to unravel - uncoiling and dissipating like smoke on the wind. The last thing I saw was his face, and this time it wore not a look of dazed bliss, but a real smile, deep and warm. Then that was gone as well, and I stood alone on the black sands.

With a sense of relief, I surveyed my surroundings. In truth, I didn't know exactly where he had gone - that was up to him. But now he had a chance, and that was more than this place could ever offer. And in any case, I felt confident. There would be others to guide his way, and the path he had set out on, though little-known, was well-traveled. It would take time for him to come to the end of it, but I hoped to meet him again one day in the light of a garden of his own.

But as for me, I had to set out. The night was growing deeper, and I was weary beyond description. I was near the end of the desert, and home had never sounded so inviting.

I walked on through cold and darkness. The desert was as empty and black as if I was the only person left in it. But after a time, a glimmer of pale light impinged on my vision. A solitary twinkle appeared in the gloomy sky, then another and another. With a faint smile, I walked onward, beneath a sky filled with glorious, bright stars.

Then, from up ahead, the still, dead air of the desert stirred. A fresh breeze brushed against my face. I quickened my steps.

I crested a rise, and the end of the desert stretched out before me. Ahead was a low, sandy coast where the stark chill faded into a spray of fresh, salty air. Seagulls circled in the air overhead, their squawks and cries echoing. The surf rolled and boomed on the shore. To the southeast, the desert gave way to clusters of scraggly dunegrass and then a dark scrub forest.

I looked, then knelt down. At my feet a small flower bloomed, improbably alive in this desolate place, its red petals and leafy green stem a startling splash of color against the drab sand.

Getting my bearings, I straightened up. I had a long path to walk before I could return to my garden and my home.

(Author's Note: "The Desert" is a work of short fiction in several parts. If you haven't already done so, now would be a good time to go back and read the previous chapters so that you know what's going on.)

III: The Traditionalist

I plodded on through the desert. The heat was mind-blasting in its intensity, and I walked in a shimmering haze. My world had narrowed to placing one foot in front of the other, following the faint, almost invisible path that led onward.

But the white blast of noon was fading, and in the west, the sun was beginning to set. As it sank lower, it seemed swollen and heavy, like a dying star, and its lurid, deep red light darkened the sky and cast an eerie pall over the land. Dunes and stone outcroppings cast shadows the color of dried blood.

After a time, I noticed something that had escaped my attention. The stone outcroppings that had become increasingly frequent were not natural formations. Despite the windblown sand that had etched and half-buried them, they were still recognizably regular - the work of human hands. There were tumbled pillars, worn-down blocks, fallen walls. In growing amazement, I realized these were the ruins of a city, though clearly one that had been abandoned countless ages ago and since reclaimed by the sand. Had this desert once been a more hospitable place? Or had some group of people tried to settle in this harsh land, until its unrelenting heat and dryness had caused them to dwindle and die out?

Then, up ahead, I heard sounds - a voice. Stepping out from behind a crumbled pillar, I surveyed the scene.

The speaker stood in a sheltered lee in the corner of two ruined stone walls, both of which had sand piled behind them to the top of the walls. It was a woman, wispy and bony, her hair sparse gray and her skin wrinkled. Along one of the walls ran a long line of graves, easily dozens, each one marked with driftwood crosses or crude cairns. She stood just beyond the last grave in line, as if awaiting her turn to take her place in the earth.

I waved to her. "Greetings, friend!"

The woman glanced up and gave me a frail smile. She lifted a hand in greeting.

"I'm a visitor," I called, approaching her. "What are you doing here?"

"Here? Why, this is my home."

"This is your home?" I said in some disbelief.

She nodded. "I was born and raised here. My family has always lived here. My ancestors lived here for many generations."

"I can see that," I replied, glancing at the line of graves. "And you're sure you want to stay here?"

"Of course!" she said in shock. "This place is part of my culture and my history. It's what I've always known. Why should I leave now?"

"It seems to me," I said carefully, "that what matters is whether you're happy. Just because this place has been part of your history doesn't mean it has to be part of your future as well. You're not defined by your past. There are new vistas to seek out. Why not start a new strand of history of your own making?"

She looked horrified. "I made a commitment to live here. When I was a child, I took part in a ceremony where I pledged to all the world that this place would be my home for life. It would be a betrayal of that promise and of my family's trust for me to live anywhere else."

"Promises like that aren't binding," I said. "In the first place, you were probably coerced into making that promise at an age where you were far too young to give meaningful consent. Especially given the pressure that was put on you by your family to follow in their footsteps. You can hardly believe there's any kind of meaningful possibility for a child to go against her parents' wishes.

"But even if you had given free consent, it wouldn't matter. There are some kinds of promises a human simply can't make. To pledge that you'll stay right where you are forever and never change - that's essentially to pledge that you'll never grow or change as a person. You can't promise that even if you wanted to, and no belief system has any right to ask otherwise. The most anyone can or should pledge is to remain with a group as long as their aims and interests align. If they no longer do, we have an absolute right to seek out and associate with new groups that we can better identify with."

A scowl passed across her face. "My forefathers knew the best place. They settled here because it was right for them. Are you asking me to say I'm smarter than them, know better than them? That would be arrogant. I'd have to know everything to know what the best place is. Virtue means being humble, and humility means I stay right where I am."

"You don't need unlimited knowledge to know that where you are isn't working out and isn't the best place for you. Beyond this desert, there are gardens such as you've never dreamed of. At the very least, you can come and see them for yourself and decide if you want to stay. And besides, your ancestors were only human. They made mistakes and had limited knowledge too. It's not arrogant to assume you know at least as much as they did, and probably more, considering how long ago they lived."

Her scowl had been growing darker at my words, but now a grim, triumphant smile lit her face. "That's where you're wrong. It's not my ancestors who put me here. It's God himself who put me here. Clearly, I'm here because this is where he meant for me to be born. He knows better than you where I'm supposed to live, and that's where I'm staying."

"And what's your evidence for that?" I asked sharply. "You know God wants you to be here because that's where you are? By that logic, everyone owes their particular place in life to God's foreordained will. What about people in faiths which you consider false? Did God want them to be born there, grow up believing the wrong things, and ultimately be consigned to Hell? What about war refugees or children who grow up in abusive households? Did God want them to be there and to suffer? Your position would take free will out of the equation altogether. It would lead us to a gloomy fatalism where every person accepts all the evils in their life as God's will which they shouldn't seek to escape or change. Is that the position you want to end up at?"

The woman's expression grew cold and unfriendly. "God blessed me by putting me here because this is the right place. Those people in other places weren't so lucky. They'll just have to find their way here themselves." She crossed her arms and turned away from me, clearly indicating that our conversation was over.

"You have no idea how many other people in different places I've heard say the same thing," I answered. She didn't respond, but I had not been expecting her to. I reseated my shoulder bag and set out on my way again, leaving her alone in the ruins as the red shadows grew deeper.