he wrote.
"A mere bagatelle, dear colleague. I am exactly where I choose to be."
"You loathsome data virus!"
"Now, now! At the moment I am here as a birthday virus. May I send a special greeting?"
"No thanks, we've had enough of them."
"But I'll be quick: all in your honor, dear Hilde. Once again, a very happy fifteenth birthday. Please excuse the circumstances, but I wanted my birthday greetings to spring up around you everywhere you go. Love from Dad, who is longing to give you a great big hug."
Before Alberto could write again, the sign C: had once again appeared on the screen.
Alberto wrote "dir knag*.*," which called up the following information on the screen:
* * *
22:34
Alberto wrote "erase knag*.*" and switched off the computer.
"There--now I have erased him," he said. "But it's impossible to say where he'll turn up next time."
He went on sitting there, staring at the screen. Then he added:
"The worst of it all was the name. Albert Knag ..."
For the first time Sophie was struck by the similarity between the two names. Albert Knag and Alberto Knox. But Alberto was so incensed that she dared not say a word. They went over and sat by the coffee table again.
Spinoza
God is not a puppeteer
They sat silently for a long time. Then Sophie spoke, trying to get Alberto's mind off what had happened.
"Descartes must have been an odd kind of person. Did he become famous?"
Alberto breathed deeply for a couple of seconds before answering: "He had a great deal of significance. Perhaps most of all for another great philosopher, Ba-ruch Spinoza, who lived from 1632 to 1677."
"Are you going to tell me about him?"
"That was my intention. And we're not going to be stopped by military provocations."
"I'm all ears."
"Spinoza belonged to the Jewish community of Amsterdam, but he was excommunicated for heresy. Few philosophers in more recent times have been so blasphemed and so persecuted for their ideas as this man. It happened because he criticized the established religion. He believed that Christianity and Judaism were only kept alive by rigid dogma and outer ritual. He was the first to apply what we call a historico-critical interpretation of the Bible."
"Explanation, please."
"He denied that the Bible was inspired by God down to the last letter. When we read the Bible, he said, we must continually bear in mind the period it was written in. A 'critical' reading, such as the one he proposed, revealed a number of inconsistencies in the texts. But beneath the surface of the Scriptures in the New Testament is Jesus, who could well be called God's mouthpiece. The teachings of Jesus therefore represented a liberation from the orthodoxy of Judaism. Jesus preached a 'religion of reason' which valued love higher than all else. Spinoza interpreted this as meaning both love of God and love of humanity. Nevertheless, Christianity had also become set in its own rigid dogmas and outer rituals."
"I don't suppose these ideas were easy to swallow, either for the church or the synagogue."
"When things got really tough, Spinoza was even deserted by his own family. They tried to disinherit him on the grounds of his heresy. Paradoxically enough, few have spoken out more powerfully in the cause of free speech and religious tolerance than Spinoza. The opposition he was met with on all sides led him to pursue a quiet and secluded life devoted entirely to philosophy. He earned a meager living by polishing lenses, some of which have come into my possession."
"Very impressive!"