All these people have these things in common:1. I personally regarded them as heroes. They are people who have made this world a much better place and are people I respected greatly.
2. They have all been “taken from us” way too early. They epitomize the common phrase “Only the good die young.”
3. You probably won’t meet them in Heaven because either a.) They were right, and Heaven doesn’t exist, so no one will see anyone there, or, b.) They were wrong and because they were atheists, according to believers, they will not have earned their “place beside the Lord”.
Douglas Adams
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy was one of my favorite books. Being an avid SF (as it was known in those days…to call science fiction “sci-fi” was looked down upon) fan, I was frankly overjoyed at a book which could poke fun at the science fiction genre at a time when, frankly, it was taking itself way too seriously.
In the early eighties, I had been addicted to the Infocom text-based computer games and when a game based on The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy came out, I was one of the first shoppers at Toys R’ Us (yeah, computer games were primary sold at toy stores back then!) to buy it. I remember spending an entire sleep-deprived night to the wee hours of the morning trying to get the babel fish. When I finally did, I exhaustedly jumped for joy!
George Orwell
His books awoke my own leanings towards anti-authoritarianism, anarchy and nihilism. I had first read 1984 as many a student had; as a junior-high English class required reading. I again read it in the year 1984 just for fun since it was getting so much press, especially after the Macintosh commercial.
At the time of my readings, in the midst, as we were, of the Cold War, the dystopian society the book portrays was interpreted to be a cautionary tale of what a Communist World Government would be. I knew better. I saw it, for what I thought was it’s true warning…that any nation’s bureaucratic governing body; bloated, ineffective and corrupt, could slowly adopt a policy of a brutal police state suppressing human rights to “protect” its citizenry, and engage in frivolous and costly foreign wars.
Here we are a quarter of a century later. Welcome to George Bush’s America.
Carl Sagan
I remember having to convince my family; otherwise not into scientific-educational TV shows, to watch his Cosmos series each time it aired. These were the days before VCRs and kids having their own TV…we had to reach a consensus about which program we’d watch each night. I think even my family enjoyed the show. That’s how simple-to-understand and appealing Cosmos was. As a teenager, I held subscriptions in OMNI, Discover and Scientific American. Cosmos further spurred my already-strong interest in science to new heights and that fascination survives in me still, in large part due to Cosmos and its creator, Dr. Carl Sagan.
Years later, Contact, a film starring Jodie Foster would spark my imagination and peak my interest. The movie was based on the Carl Sagan book of the same name. Soon after the film was released, I watched it about 5 times. I created an entire faux website as if it were the corporate webpage of Haddon Industries, the in-movie entity run by a megalomaniacal billionaire played by John Hurt funding the alien-contact project headed by Jodie Foster’s character.
Carl Sagan’s atheism was well-known yet it didn’t seem to deter greatly from his mass-popularity. This aided me in the days I felt ostracized for being a non-believer during the early years of my spiritual (or, literally, lack-thereof) “coming out” phase.
Issac Asimov
The epitome of “galactic empire” SF novels, the Foundation books were, and still remain, my favorites of the genre.
I still envision a day when the Foundation Series, or at least the first three books, The Foundation Trilogy will be made into a movie. Some say, when speaking of Star Wars and other “space opera” films like it, that it already has been done. I say no.
Foundation and the many books in that literary universe speak to the mass-mind of man, and the evolution of human society through many centuries of time. It theorizes that with a precise understanding of psychology, history and political science; trends in humankind’s future progress (or decline) can be plotted and assumed. This “psychohistorical” aspect, arcing throughout all the books, may be a bit too cerebral for the general cinema audience I’m afraid.
George Carlin
Last fall, when I bought my tickets to fellow atheist/comedian Kathy Griffin’s show at the Bob Carr, I noticed on Ticketmaster that there was a one-night performance for the same venue, scheduled in January, of one of my other favorites, George Carlin. I almost bought a ticket but then I saw Wicked and got that instead. Should have taken the opportunity then, but, as they say, who could have known.
I probably first saw George Carlin when he appeared on television in 1975 as the first host of the show eventually named Saturday Night Live. Yes, though I was only 12, I was allowed to stay up to watch SNL. Though his stand-up routine was definitely “toned down” for TV, it was after 11:30 pm and late night TV, then as now, was a bit more racy and raw than earlier hours. And I loved it.
In later years, I watched avidly as George took on all the foes we mutually despised: religion, censorship, authoritarianism, complacent stupidity and right-wing morons. I laughed. And I cheered him on as our valiant warrior of the humanist, rationalist cause.
George died this week and I know, though he is not smiling down on us from a shiny utopia in the clouds, we, the still living who loved him, will keep a little piece of his “spirit” in our hearts.