Stranger in a Strange Land

"religious questions" was not successful, as some religious questions did not seem to Mike to be questions with any meaning to them (such as "Creation") and others seemed to him to be "little" questions, with obvious answers known even to nestlings-such as life after death.
                Jubal was forced to let it go at that and passed on to the multiplicity of human religions. He explained (or tried to explain) that humans had hundreds of different ways by which these "great learnings" were taught, each with its own answers and each claiming to be the truth.
                "What is 'truth'?" Mike asked.
                ("What is Truth?" asked a Roman judge, and washed his hands of a troublesome question. Jubal wished that he could do likewise.) "An answer is truth when you speak rightly, Mike. How many hands do I have?"
                "Two hands. I see two hands," Mike amended.
                Anne glanced up from her knitting. "In six weeks I could make a Witness of him."
                "You keep out of this, Anne. Things are tough enough without your help. Mike, you spoke rightly; I have two hands. Your answer was truth. Suppose you said that I had seven hands?"
                Mike looked troubled. "I do not grok that I could say that."
                "No, I don't think you could. You would not speak rightly if you did; your answer would not be truth. But, Mike-now listen carefully-each religion claims to be truth, claims to speak rightly. Yet their answers to the same question are as different as two hands and seven hands. The Fosterites say one thing, the Buddhists say another, the Moslems say still another-many answers, all different."
                Mike seemed to be making a great effort to understand. "All speak rightly? Jubal, I do not grok it."
                "Nor do I."
                The Man from Mars looked greatly troubled, then suddenly he smiled. "I will ask the Fosterites to ask your Old Ones and then we will know, my brother. How will I do this?"
                A few minutes later Jubal found, to his great disgust, that he had promised Mike an interview with some Fosterite bigmouth-or Mike seemed to think that he had, which came to the same thing. Nor had he been able to do more than dent Mike's assumption that the Fosterites were in close touch with human "Old Ones." It appeared that Mike's difficulty in understanding the nature of truth was that he didn't know what a lie was--the dictionary definitions of "lie" and "falsehood" had been filed in his mind with no trace of grokking. One could "speak wrongly" only by accident or misunderstanding. So he necessarily had taken what he had heard of the Fosterite service at its bald, face value.
                Jubal tried to explain that all human religions claimed to be in touch with "Old Ones" in one way or another; nevertheless their answers were all different.
                Mike looked patiently troubled. "Jubal my brother, I try ... but I do not grok how this can be might speaking. With my people, the Old Ones speak always rightly. Your people-"
                "Hold it, Mike."
                "Beg pardon?"
                "When you said, 'my people' you were talking about Martians. Mike, you are not a Martian; you are a man."
                "What is 'Man'?"
                Jubal groaned inwardly. Mike could, he was sure, quote the full list of dictionary definitions. Yet the lad never asked a question simply to be annoying; he asked always for information-and he expected his water brother Jubal to be able to tell him. "I am a man, you are a man, Larry is a man."
                "But Anne is not a man?"
                "Uh ... Anne is a man, a female man. A woman."
                ("Thanks, Jubal."-"Shut up, Anne.")
                "A baby is a man? I have not seen babies, but I have seen pictures- and in the goddam-noi-in stereovision. A baby is not shaped like Anne and Anne is not shaped like you . . . and you are not shaped like I. But a baby is a nestling man?"
                "Uh ... yes, a baby is a man."
                "Jubal ... I think I grok that my people-'Martians'-are man. Not shape, Shape is not man. Man is grokking. I speak rightly?"
                Jubal made a fierce resolve to resign from the Philosophical