Conversion of Paul the Apostle Acts says that Paul was on his way from Jerusalem to Syrian Damascus with a mandate issued by the High Priest to seek out and arrest followers of Jesus, with the intention of returning them to Jerusalem as prisoners for questioning and possible execution. The journey is interrupted when Paul sees a blinding light, and communicates directly with a divine voice. The account continues with a description of Ananias of Damascus receiving a divine revelation instructing him to visit Saul at the house of Judas on the Street Called Straight and there lay hands on him to restore his sight
Hell Is the Absence of God single SF story of 2002". Conversely, John C. Wright called it a "trite antichristian propaganda". Elf Sternberg has compared the novelette to C. S. Lewis's "The Great Divorce", saying that although Lewis is a supporter of God, Chiang is "far more ambivalent". In a review of Chiang's "Stories of Your Life and Others" in "The Guardian", English fantasy author China Miéville called "Hell Is the Absence of God" the showpiece of Chiang's collection. He wrote that despite the story's religious underpinnings, there is no "moralistic "Sturm und Drang", and Chiang "does not descend to the finger-wagging one might expect from