Stranger In A Strange Land Summary

The story Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein describes the life of a modern day “prophet” who is born in a spaceship during an expedition to the planet Mars. His name is Valentine “Mike” Smith and although his life was short it was extraordinary. When he is 25 years old he is returned to his people on Earth and begins to live a life unlike any other. He learns how normal humans act and discovers how horrible humans truly are and believes that he can cure humanity using his martian knowledge. Mike has trouble explaining his philosophies to regular humans so he has to change some ideas and create his own religion; “I was forced to smuggle it in as a religion—which it is not—and con the marks into tasting it by appealing to their …show more content…
Mike was brought to Earth via spaceship which is different than most people who are just born on Earth to two parents and Jesus came to Earth through a woman that was impregnated by God, which is also unusual. Mike had to be brought to Earth from Mars because he was born during the first ever expedition to Mars. Similarly to Jesus, he was technically the child of three parents because he had a biological father who was not the man that his biological mother was married to. The piece “Robert A. Heinlein” in Student 's Encyclopedia of American Literary Characters further describes this relationship between the two when that state that “the title of the first section, ‘His Maculate Origin,’ is a play on the words ‘the immaculate conception’; Smith has two ‘fathers,’ his biological father (Capt. Michael Brant) …show more content…
As soon as Mike came to Earth and saw the horrible problems with humanity he began to preach his Martian, philosophical ideology, just like Jesus began to speak of his Godly philosophy when he came to Earth. Mike and Jesus both saw the greed and corruption that took place within religions that they supported and needed to put a stop to it. Frank N. Magill describes that Mike learned about a new religion of the Fosterite Church, which shares some elements of Martian belief. However, Mike’s meeting with the Bishop of the church did not go well, he ended up causing Archbishop Digby, the leader of the church to disappear because Mike believes humans are unable to follow the moral codes of his beliefs. Mike gains a group of followers who help him preach his religion. Jesus and Mike, both had a group of close followers who would go with them while they preached. Heinlein describes Mike’s closest group of disciples as the “ninth circle” and they are just like Christ’s 12 Disciples. Mike later turns his philosophy into a religion. Mike created his own religion using the philosophical ideologies he learned on Mars, but others used Christ’s philosophical teachings to adapt Judaism into Christianity. “Robert A. Heinlein” in Student 's Encyclopedia of