In Chiang’s story, this is far from the case. We would know to pray, we would find meaning and fulfillment, we would sleep easy knowing that there is an afterlife and that we can guarantee our way to heaven. I think all of us, believers or not, have at one point or another fervently wished that there was unquestionable evidence, that we could just know for sure - is it there or not? Surely, we’ve all thought, that would be the end of all our greatest existential problems.
Is the possibility of god worth sacrificing the relationships we already have?Īll center around one core idea: what would you do if you knew god was real?.What can religion look like, and what can non-religion look like?.Are we finding signs and clues in the world where they don't exist? Do these interpretations do more harm than good?.What does one do with a curse disguised as a blessing?.The story raises many, many fascinating questions: Yet devotion is the only path to heaven, and how do you love the thing that took everything from you? When he finds out that she went to heaven, the ambivalent man must find a way to reunite with his wife. The story centers around a man named Neil, who loses his wife during one such visitation. Some are randomly cured of diseases, others gain new ones, while still others are killed as collateral damage. It’s unclear what the goals of these visitations are, and their effects range from catastrophic to life-changing. The clearest evidence of this is that every once in a while, angels will come down for “visitations”. In the world of Ted Chiang, god’s existence is known and well-documented. And, if you’re at all interested in the question of god, I think it’s worth reading for you, too. Yet, even for me, the one glaring exception to this indifference is Ted Chiang’s “Hell Is the Absence of God”. This isn’t the writers’ fault, it’s just an inherent fault of the form - how does one connect with a character in only a few pages? Most of the time, I just find them unremarkable.
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