Spin

Finished reading Spin by Charles Robert Wilson.

While I enjoyed it, when I read books like this, it always puts me in a strange state of mind. You have this feeling that behind the story, this is actually a subtle piece of proselytization. The author seems so sure of his view of the universe, it's like reading his personal version of a bible or manifesto.

I wonder how authors like him, and others, can be this sure. At what point did they agree to only look at the universe one way. What made them adopt this way of thinking as their personal truth?

Then I wonder if they are this sure in real life?

I wonder if this is just a desperately grasped at answer for a mind that can't conceive of anything except a mechanical universe in reaction to poorly understood or explained belief. I wonder at what point did they choose to think of themselves and mankind as supreme. I wonder at what point they decided to remove possibilities and narrow their mind.

They put up characters who believe in nothing as heroes, and portray characters who believe in anything as deluded and irrational. Which I think must echo their own lack of understanding, and a desire to do battle against the remnants of belief that they thought they had cut out, only to find it lurking in some hidden trunk of their mind.

I find it sad that they can't conceive of someone with both belief and empirical thought.

I hope that I am wrong. And I hope for a melding.