Bewildering Stories introduces and welcomes...

Philip Ekstrom

Philip lives on an island in thje Salish Sea, which is a bay of the Pacific in the northwest corner of Washington state. He is “mostly retired” as a physicist and has now switched to writing fiction.

“The Fate of Prophets” is complete on line as of the first instalment; readers don’t have to wait for issue 1113 to find out how the story ends!

The story has an 18th-century flavour, which is bound to attract the interest of your Managing Editor. It consists of what amounts to a debate on the nature and function of religion.

The two debaters are actually modern-day “prophets” in their own right. Paul is a clinical psychologist who is most interested in the ways in which traditional religion can support people in spiritual or emotional distress. Andrew is a physics student who rewrites ancient stories to make them compatible with the universe and life as modern science and his own experience have brought him to know them.

Can the two friends find common ground intellectually and spiritually? They can at least understand each other. That way was charted by a brilliant prophet of early modern science, whom Paul and Andrew echo in the course of their discussions: Blaise Pascal:

« Pesons le gain et la perte, en prenant croix que Dieu est. Estimons ces deux cas : si vous gagnez, vous gagnez tout; si vous perdez, vous ne perdez rien. Gagez donc qu'il est, sans hésiter. »

Let‘s weigh winning and losing when we wager that God exists. Compare these two outcomes: if you win, you win everything; if you lose, you lose nothing. Therefore wager that He is and have no doubt about it.

“Pascal’s wager” does not hold that the theological dice are loaded; he’s saying the bet can’t really exist and, in the process, he’s affirms the opposite of nihilism. We’re too limited to know whether our own existence — let alone that of the universe — has an ultimate purpose. Therefore assume that we do and it does, and that the purpose is a good one. We have everything to gain and nothing to lose.

Philip Ekstrom’s bio sketch can be found here.

Welcome to Bewildering Stories, Philip. We’re glad to have you with us.