Isaac Asimov on Christian Science

	[Of Matters Great and Small -- Dance of the Luminaries]

	[on the pitfalls on being a professional explainer...]

	For example, I will not conceal from you my lack of sympathy
for the tenets of Christian Science. I'm sure Christian Scientists are
fine people and I would not for worlds interfere with their happiness,
but I cannot make myself accept their denial of the reality of the
phenomenal or material world. I don't believe that disease, to take an
example, is not real and that it can be removed by faith or
prayer. [Yes, I know cures have been reported. Cures have been
reported for every conceivable kind of treatment. But what's the
overall batting average?]

	Consider, then, that immediately across the street from the
apartment house in which I live is a Christian Science church. And
consider further that on Sunday mornings in the summer there is a
steady menacing roar that I can hear even through closed windows. When
I first became aware of this, I asked questions in alarm and was told
that it was the fan of the large air conditioner used by the said
church.

	Naturally, I laughed loud and long at the thought that the
congregation should incorporate into the architectural structure of
their house of worship a device that so thoroughly refuted everything
they had to say. If the material world is not real and if the faithful
Christian Scientist can by prayer eliminate disease, cannot a whole
churchful of them pray away the sensation of heat? Do they need to bow
to the material by installing an air conditioner?

	But I laughed also out of relief that I felt no impulse to go
into the church and lecture them on this. Let it go! I would but get
myself smashed into kindling if I tried.

	[He continues with his article, a discussion of eclipses.]