Could you elaborate a bit on what you mean by "as bitter as this"? Reading the story with no context, it seems almost reverential to Christianity:
We're in the far future and space-faring humans still worship the old religion(s). A supernova that occurred roughly during the time of a key event in the religion's history turned out to have killed off another distant civilization. There is an observation that bad things can happen to good civilizations and how that doesn't square with a benevolent creator deity.
Do you perceive one of these as harsh criticism or was there some other issue in the text that I missed?
We're in the far future and space-faring humans still worship the old religion(s). A supernova that occurred roughly during the time of a key event in the religion's history turned out to have killed off another distant civilization. There is an observation that bad things can happen to good civilizations and how that doesn't square with a benevolent creator deity.
Do you perceive one of these as harsh criticism or was there some other issue in the text that I missed?