Invent a religion

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Kentuk

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I'm attracted to Science Fiction for the world building. Every good story needs an interesting world.

Please share the religions your fertile minds have imagined.

I tend to make two kinds. Bad religions that justify bad behavior and wretched societies and good religions.

Human history to date has done a fair job of producing a multitude of diverse religions, cults and sects but there has to be more to come.

Please respect other peoples imaginations and if you borrow something significant get permission and put them in your acknowledgements.

Kentuk
 

JDCrayne

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I'm not sure that this really counts, because I wrote it as part of an SF comedy that was a parody of pulps, but the action takes place inside of a hollow sphere of a world, and the rulers believe that the Dreamer encapsulated in the center of that world needs to be freed from bondage. To that end, they are accumulating power from stars so that they can set off a massive explosion at the center of the universe that will equal the Big Bang and restore primordial chaos. The Dreamer affects everyone's dreams, which are recorded in great ledgers as omens and are studied by the world's scholars, and the Dreamer is worshipped as the guiding spirit and redeemer of the world. After the great explosion, the spirits of the true believers will be united with it in joy and ecstacy forever. (Of course, it's nothing but a big computer that needs a lot of maintenance -- I told you this was a comedy!) Naturally, my Heroine thwarts their evil plans.
 

Stormhawk

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They aren't exactly a religion, but I have a group in my series called Cultists (some of their more poetic members call themselves The Order of Solstice). They're an odd group, and don't have a belief in a strange god, but a belief that continues a war that was started on lies and propoganda because they don't see any other way.

They will kill people who don't agree with their ways, and draw arbitary lines about who is human and who isn't.

They're by nature arrogant and close minded, though not all of them are like that - they draw people in by preying on their curiosity. Sad thing is, once you're one of them, there aren't a lot of ways to quit.
 

Kentuk

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Storm They sound like cultist.
Tell us more. How did they start, how are they supported, what do they get by keeping a war going?

Evil is so much more convincing if there is a how and a why lurking behind it.

Kentuk
 

Lyra Jean

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I had a friend who invented a religion in high school. It was called Cubism. They took paper and folded into a cube. The had 210 rules to follow in Cubism. One of them was worship the cube. They had a pope, bishop, and priest. It was all a practical joke because they didn't anyone would worship a piece of folded paper. They finally disbanned after they over 100 followers becuase it scared the living daylights out of them.
 

Stormhawk

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Kentuk said:
Storm They sound like cultist.
Tell us more. How did they start, how are they supported, what do they get by keeping a war going?

Evil is so much more convincing if there is a how and a why lurking behind it.

Kentuk

If this is too long, tell me and I'll delete the post...:cry:

I will try and do this without three pages of exposition. >.>

[Necessary backstory: The story takes place in a digital world. Every "person" be they human or system program are programs, just different varieties.]

They started when one man (a teacher - Abel Tarquin) and a fragment (partial program - Luti) were pulled through a tesseract (data channel) into a hidden place free from system control.

Luti immediatley realised the potential of the place while Tarquin was just having fun, treating as a kind of "planet X". They found their way back and then Tarquin decided to take his class through the "amazing place". With so many humans disappearing, the system began to notice and investigate.

Tarquin, being a reasonable man, would have complied with their requests to return to the system, but Luti saw this as unacceptable - he figured if the humans became a threat, the system programs would have to split their efforts in dealing with the fragments. He told Tarquin how "dangerous" the system was when trifled with, but Tarquin didn't believe him.

Luti murdered the teacher's girlfriend (who hadn't travelled to the hidden place) planning on blaming the system, unfortunatley, he fell victim to the system moments later. Taquin happened upon the scene, saw his girlfriend and a good friend dead, and declared war on the system.

Friends of Luti, especially a fragment named Satirev, helped this new "army" with supplies and support. Their alliance broke down when Tarquin went power mad and decided to declare war on the fragments as well.

Decades later, their numbers have greatly increased, they support themselves by hacking bank acccounts and doing supply runs. They have fragile alliances with fragments not allied with Satirev.

They keep the war going because they can see no other way of living. They continue it in the pale hope that they may one day convert enough people to their cause to make a difference. It's a hopeless cause, and that makes them dangerous.

<End of rant.>
 

Kentuk

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Cult of Freedom

Stormhawk's world

By humans you mean real people who aren't human, right?????

This sounds like a kind of independence movement. What makes it a cult?

Nifty premise, electronic beings and fragments but confusing as to physical manifestation and supply runs.
 

Stormhawk

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See? I knew I couldn't do it without three pages of exposition. >.<

In this world there are three types of programs: humans (mostly they're just civilians with nothing more than a buying a house and raising kids, normal stuff). System programs (who make sure stuff runs smoothly for the civilians) and fragments (incomplete programs who used to be system programs).

For they most part, they all look like you and me, the civilians can't tell the difference. Fragments have to make a living somehow, so they can be anything from cab drivers to the guy who does the graveyard shift at the gas station.

Supply runs - they don't exactly have Trek universe replicators in their base (the planet x place) so they have to get their supplies from the (how to put this?) outside world.

"Independence movement" Hmm. No. The series is cyberpunk, but not like most where these guys would be the heroes. They aren't. They're a disruptive element that, if their numbers grow too large and their activities too intrusive and threatening – they could cause the end of the world.

If the integrity of the digital world is threatened, the system it is connected to may disconnect it to protect the other worlds. The cultists have heard this “rumour” but dismissed it as propaganda.
 

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sunandshadow

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I've always preferred animal myths to the more common history-style religious myths, so I wanted to invent a religion with only animal 'gods'. I also wanted there to be a system where people took as their totem an animal which indicated their personality. And finally I wanted a religion which believed things were good and getting better - a progress religion with a nirvanic end of the world myth that all beings would be united into one godlike consciousness.

So I decided that there are these star serpents which are made of every animal mixed together - they have fur, feathers, scales, etc = and have sot of a collective consciousness in one body. One of these got tired and in order to rest it had to cut itself into many mortal pieces - the different types of totem animals. Then history started, and slowly the identification between the god-bits in one animal and the god bits in the other animal has been pulling them together - each time two species interbreed it produces a new closer to godlike species. People are the most advanced, being the hybrid offspring of several animals, but need to incorporate the rest before they will have fully regained their star-sepent godhood.
 

DracoMerest

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In the beginning there was time; an endless eddy in the current of potential. Occasional random gravitational fluctuations cause nothing more than a minor undulation inducing an alteration to times constant nature. The variations along the dimension of time pulsed with negligible sympathetic harmonics in reaction to the gravity anomalies.

For the eternity which is infinity, gravity and time exchanged influences, waiting for an opportunity to coincide with enough magnitude that the endlessness would be interrupted. The random potential for change in this infinite existence remained consistently at zero.

Oops, well that’s no good…
 

Silverhand

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My worlds god structure and religions are kinda complicated, but I will give this a shot.

First, my world consists of a pantheon of gods. These gods emody all of the aspects of existence (I made the aspects of existence up): order, chaos, love, hate, etc etc.

The more primal the aspect...the more powerful the god. Thus, things like order and chaos...which are part of all other things, are the most powerful dieties in Heaven.

In Heaven, the gods work in harmony. There are no good gods, even the God of Good, and there are no evil gods, even the God of Evil. My gods are all neutral gods, bent on maintaining balance within the cosmos. These gods understand that should chaos envelope everything, eventually there would be nothing left to destroy.

So where do mortals fit in all of this? Well a mortals soul is needed as a kind of divine food for the gods. Saying that, a god can only collect on a soul if it is bound in love to that particular god. Thus, a man does not fear the God of Murder. He embraces it...conforms to it....worships it...and finally slays in the name of it...all the time being in total love with it. This mechanic works the same way for order, chaos, hate, love, murder, death, etc etc. Basicly, if the soul is not in love with their particular god...there is no soul for them to collect.

Now, this leaves man in a very precarious situation. First and foremost, I have told you he is food. Secondly, men have been led to believe by their god...that his god...is The One True God. Every other god...is simply an angelic aspect of The One True God.

So why would the gods allow this to exist? Uh...why would gods care? To be blunt the gods don't care - we are simply beetles to them. It is in their best interest to allow mortals to think what they want...and to follow their own paths. Why? Because this causes strife...and strife causes war...and war causes death...which leads to souls ascending to Heaven..where the gods can feed. At the same time...the gods do not want any fanatics running around, because too many deaths leads to annhiliation of entire species of mortals, which the gods feed off of.

Now, this is where it gets tricky. There is a real God. The Heaven that I have presented to you is a false Heaven. It is partially real in the sense that God allows it to exist. Those same gods...which made mortals...are angels that God made to help run existence. As an experiment, he blinked his fingers and created them without the knowledge that they do not really exist. And...now he has sent himself...in the form of a man who devoutly follows THEM...to bring the apocolypse to the false reality.

I tried my best to keep this short and sweet. It is very very complicated...and I actually have written a thirty page paper trying to describe it all. :)
 
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sanctuary6284

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In my story people worship various spirits as well as the nine creators of the world. Little do they realize that those creators, in their own way, worship their human creations.

Lot of backstory to this too. A lot of which I'm still debating over.
 

Kentuk

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Sanctuary

sanctuary6284 said:
In my story people worship various spirits as well as the nine creators of the world. Little do they realize that those creators, in their own way, worship their human creations.

Lot of backstory to this too. A lot of which I'm still debating over.

Santucary and Silverhand bequeath to us a new catagory. (so I've always wanted to use that word and just gave into to temptation)

Imaginary worlds with real gods.

and thank you, thank you very much.
 

Silverhand

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Kent,

Heh, I am sorry I hijacked your thread. This was meant to design religions, not gods.

Saying that, my world revolves around its various religions.

The kingdom of Arsgoth, which is the regional focal point of my entire series, are devout followers of the One True God, Starsgalt. Starsgalt is the God of Law and Order, and considered the most powerful god in Heaven....by Heaven.

In designing this religion, I actually built a demographic around this kingdom, and concluded that my population is somewhere around 90%+ worshippers of this version of God.

Saying that, and due to the nature of my particular religion, a knighthood has risen to power (very similar to the Catholic Chuch) called the BreD'Morian Order (Bre=Law, D=And, Moria=Order). These guys basicly are above the law inside this kingdom.. The High Lightbrunger (Pope) is considered a King in his own right, and is feared throughout the world. These knights are allowed to crusade and inquisition at will, though they are more busy fighting chaotic devils in the north then actually killing people.

That isn't to say that they havent purged entire species from the planet. Due to the Elves long lifespan, the gods deemed them unworthy of being food. Basicly, if they dont die, then the gods cannot collect souls. Thus, under a untied Heaven's command, the Bre'Dmorians waged genocide on the Elves for better part of a thousand years.

The Bre'Dmorians, following just Starsgalt this time, also did a religious inquisition in their own country...killing anyone who did not accept Starsgalt as the One. (This was also around 500+ years ago)

Now, that is not to say these guys aren't good guys. They pride themselves on honor, courage, and protecting the innocent. Most of the world, even those that do not belive that Starsgalt is the One, consider them The Hand of God.
 

RTH

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sanctuary6284 said:
In my story people worship various spirits as well as the nine creators of the world. Little do they realize that those creators, in their own way, worship their human creations.

Lot of backstory to this too. A lot of which I'm still debating over.

Interesting concept: a neat symbiosis of creator & creation. Certainly makes the Gods less boring & answers the question: but why the he** would God need US? (apart from a cure for boredom).

Nobody ever seems to tackle that...
 

LeeFlower

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Im my WIP, the dominant faith revolves around the worship of the fire god Felor. His followers believe that he came to being inside a life-fire that lit all the stars in heaven. When he created the first human, he created her in the image of his mother, and gave her the gift of the life-fire so that she could pass it on to all her heirs.

But the life-fire grew weaker after he passed it on to humans. They, being mortal, eventually died, and with every death the life-fire dimmed. Felor, knowing that an end to the life-fire would be an end to the sun and the stars that shined down on his people, and an end to their ability to bear children, cast himself into the flames, knowing that his body, being divine, would go on burning forever. He loves his children so much that he stays in the fire, never dying and always burning.

The followers of Felor believe that when children are born, their fire (soul) comes from that divine fire. As a result, each person has as a part of their soul the soul of their god Felor. They cremate their bodies, believing that doing so frees the departed's soul to return to the life-fire, where it can rejoin with Felor. They believe that doing this will strengthen the life-fire enough that Felor will eventually be able to stop immolating himself in it, and that when that happens, he will come down to Earth to make it a paradise for all of his children.

The belief that souls return to the life-fire and that children get their souls from the same source leads to a sort of mixing-bowl reencarnation. They don't believe an individual soul will come back to life within a child, but that every new soul is made up of parts of old souls. That's how they explain how junior can have great aunt bessie's singing voice and grandma buffy's sense of humor.

I don't know where that fits into the 'good religion/bad religion' theory, though. Felor, much like the dieties I riffed on to create him, asks his children to do good in the world. But what he taught and what his followers do in his name are often very different things, as often happens here on Earth with real religions. Both my heros and my villians are followers of Felor; the villians just have a very different idea of how best to follow his teachings.
 
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