"But, damn it, you're not gods." "No, but have your gods ever saved you before?" "I don't know. No, of course not." - Walter Tevis

"I want you to save the world, Mr. Newton."
Newton's smile did not change, and his reply was immediate. "Is it worth saving, Nathan?"

One of my books says that at times men have worshiped the ocean as a god. I can understand that easily. Yes.
But the Baleens would never have understood such a thing; they would have called the idea “blasphemy.” The God they worship is an abstract and ferociously moral thing, like a computer. And the compelling, mystical rabbi, Jesus, they have turned into some kind of moral Detector. I want none of that, and none of the Jehovah of the Book of Job, either.

What is my Individuality good for, anyway? And is it truly holy, or was I only taught that because the robots who taught me were programmed by someone, once, to say it?