Hello again fellow readers. On the cutting board this week is The Nine Billion Names of God and how Marx's ideas on society functions in terms of culture, economy, religion, etc. First off let me just talk about how excited I was to read this story. Being a HUGE fan of 2001: A Space Odyssey, as you probably have read in one of my previous blogs, as soon as I saw Arthur C. Clarke I could not wait to dive into the story. Although relatively short, I really enjoyed the story and how it flowed. It read very quickly, but in a good way. This was the reason I chose to analyze this story for this week. I really understood where it was going, leaving me with virtually no confusion, as with stories we have read in the past. This story mainly focuses on religion and essentially the purpose of mankind on earth. To the monks in the story, the purpose of man is to discover the true name of God. If this can be achieved, God will end the universe, thus ending the human race. Upon learning this, the two computer programmers, of course, think this is a bit absurd and make plans to escape the blame at the end of the process. Marx had a relatively "anti religious" view on religion. He viewed as a downfall of society and that it held back innovation. The monks in the story have been told of this mission to find the name of God, a mission that has been passed down for centuries through many generations. They have no choice whether to give the mission a rational thought of whether it makes sense or not. Are they to go against something their ancestors began thousands of years ago? How could they possibly do that? The westerners, however, who have been employed to run the computer that will eventually discover the correct combination, think about this in a much different way. Marx's ideas would obviously favor those of the computer programmers and their plan to escape before a possible failure of the end of the universe, as the monks have predicted. Marx feared an outbreak of chaos as a result of religion, something seen in this very story. Its hard to say religion is necessary, but even harder to say it should be forbidden. I believe Marx had some innovative ideas, but something more in the middle seems most effective. Before I conclude, I have to mention that last line. A real mind fuck, excuse the language. Falling stars? I guess one would conclude that the universe has begun to end. But what if that's not what the author meant? What did he mean? I am personally a big fan of leaving the reader with a cliffhanger. (see Shutter Island) Gives the story much more flavor.