The inhabitants of Guardon, a planet singular in its religious devotion, believe their God to be merciful and loving, eager to usher them into an eternal world of heavenly bliss. With the literalness of this belief at their religion’s core, there are strict rules concerning when each believer is required to report to a Heavenly Departure Point, request a draft of Wogazol, a painless poison, and go to God. The glorbot, a movement which believes that the planet’s religion is merely organized murder, fights a life and death struggle for the soul of a planet as they battle to overcome centuries of inertia and change forever the planet‘s misguided culture.
"You are told Guardonians are a miraculous creation of our God," came the voice of Brisko Lemtig, the Glorbot speaker. Six of his people had helped gather a crowd and now stood on the crowd’s periphery on watch for the palazi. "But where, I ask, is the miracle? If we are creations of this all-powerful God, who reigns in His heaven and waits eagerly for our return to lavish heavenly bliss on us, then there is no miracle involved. None at all. We are the products of a master-magician, who merely flexes His mind and produces an interesting trick. There is nothing miraculous about it at all. This Almighty Being, supposedly eager for our return, could simply wave His hand and surround Himself with whatever and whomever He wants. And He could do it whenever He wants without the need for Heavenly Departure Points. The Camtores would have you believe that the only reason to live is to die—and quickly—but only after amassing goods and money, which the Camtores claim a share of when you depart for heaven."
The speaker’s eyes traveled over the fifty-plus Guardonians who had congregated. He rushed on.
"What is the real miracle you may ask? The real miracle is this. There is no God." He waited for the usual sputtering that went through a crowd when he made his blasphemous declaration to subside. He went on. "Somehow in the great darkness of space, forces and elements have come together here and elsewhere to create what we see; to create what we have; to create us. This is the true, inexplicable miracle, and this miracle demands that we spend all of our energy concentrating on this life, loving each other; helping each other; making this life worth living because it is all there is; it is all we have. It is all we will ever have."
