Creating religions

[Hypes]

Oh, quite an important character will meet her demise during the first few chapters of Quantum God. It's important to the storyline's progress, of course, so I suppose it's not all pure wickedness.

As another poster mentioned, it's a useful tool to keep people in suspense if you manage to remove that sense of Oh, he's going to live through it, anyway. Shock them, I say!

[I, Brian]

Originally Posted by Esioul

Hehheh!

There was a whole load of fuss there quite recently because someone got upset over the cliqueness. It doesn't seem to be so bad here, probably because there's new people appearing all the time, whereas they don't too often in that place. It's silly, I've been there for three years but I still don't feel as if I fit in there that much.

Damn right there's no cliqueness here.

I'm interested in what people have to say - I don't care if I don't know them in "real life", or haven't ever talked to them before, or what their post count is - if it's interesting it's worth responding to.

Of course, I can't respond to everything because I'm darn busy, but I try to make the effort to welcome everyone who is new.

I hope that's generally the case here. I have no time for silly little playground cliques. If people want to behave like "Absolutely Fabulous" characters they are welcome to do it elsewhere.

[Hypes]

You're probably one of the most down-to-earth and laid-back forum admins I have met in quite a few years of forum trolling, Tea-boy.

[Esioul]

Heh heh. I hate forums where people are constantly telling me off for making irrelevant, chatty posts. That's the whole point, isn't it! It's not some academic symposium!

[Hypes]

I agree - these forums, and others are free lines of communication and outlets for creativity. I don't see the reason for moderating these unless they are offensive to a majority.

[Esioul]

And of course it's impossible to be creative if you can't talk freely about anything at all.

I once went on one forum trying out a persona, who was posh, and I kept talking in long sentences, Latinate lexis etc, and they really didn't like me, so it didn't go down very well. They were convinced I was one of their friends messing around.

[knivesout]

If I may get back to religions...

Brian made a remark about Christianity featuring a god as a sacrifice. Two things happened in my head as a consequence of this.

First, I recalled reading once, somewhere in Frazer, about several pre-Christian myths that feature a god such as Tammuz or Adonis who routinely dies, usually with the onset of winter, in order to renew the earth. Like Christ is supposed to, all these gods to come back to life again, usually in spring.

This got me to thinking about how religion is often a sort of give-and-take between divinities and worshippers. It also threw the earth gods in my story into sharper perspective. While it's true that an ultra-modern humanity had turned away from them, it is equally true that they had done nothing for their worshippers in a long time. I suddenly realised that one aspect of how my story resolves itself should be by showing a mortal teaching the gods that they have to sacrifice themselves to renew the earth they have wounded, and stregthen the faith they currently hold through fear.

I was heading towards a conclusion like this anyway, but this train of thought has helped me make it more concrete. Thanks for the mental nudge!

[Hypes]

Ah, that's certainly very interesting, knivesout, can't wait to hear more about that, actually.

[knivesout]

Yes...all I have to do now is play these ideas out through the actions of believable people in a convincing world.

[Hypes]

Well, that's always the fun part, isn't it.

[Esioul]

That is interesting, Knivesout. Sacrifice really is a feature, albeit often symbolically, of many religions. All this has brought the Aztecs to mind: I think we usually think of sacrifice, I mean physical sacrifice, as something negative, at leats for the person concerned, and see that person as a victim. I'm told Aztecs actually thought it was good to be sacrificed and didn't mind at all being killed and having their skulls made into armour for people's private parts.

[I, Brian]

Originally Posted by Hypes

You're probably one of the most down-to-earth and laid-back forum admins I have met in quite a few years of forum trolling, Tea-boy.

Oh no I'm not!

As for the sacrifice issue - if I may hazard an opinion, this almost entierly originates from rural observation of the cycles of life - specifically with regards to the growing of crops. The "sacrifical deity" almost always has strong agricultural connections, usually to the grain, as expressed in symbolism relating to bread and/or wine. The rebirth connection is that these live and then die every year - an act or perpetual resurrection. As the crops live and die so we survive and thrive. The myth of Persephone is perhaps most illustrative of the principle directly, with her movement to Hades every winter - absolutely sourced from the same general mindset that formed a range of sacrifical deities, IMO.

Therefore when looking for creating your own religion in fiction, I very highly recommend you look at rural traditions. I once went through a phase of collecting books on folkore - especially local. Immensely useful for mining, and can give a real sense of authenticity.

[Michael]

Originally Posted by I, Brian

Damn right there's no cliqueness here.

I'm interested in what people have to say - I don't care if I don't know them in "real life", or haven't ever talked to them before, or what their post count is - if it's interesting it's worth responding to.

Of course, I can't respond to everything because I'm darn busy, but I try to make the effort to welcome everyone who is new.

I hope that's generally the case here. I have no time for silly little playground cliques. If people want to behave like "Absolutely Fabulous" characters they are welcome to do it elsewhere.

Good. I'm glad. I hope I'm not too new for you, either, and so far I've appreciated what you've had to say. That link on New Testament Apocrypha kept me glued for about an hour so far, and I think I'll check it out some more.

[Michael]

That sounds like a good idea, Brian. I have researched several different myth cycle's for The Defiler's Rule, and I had at least a notion of exploring Native American folklore and culture (specifically Iroquios), but maybe a little more work wouldn't hurt. Still, I should probably be careful how much I actually use, since the story is already . . . for lack of a better word . . . "eclectic." Maybe "chaotic" is a more accurate description. Sometimes just letting the story flow works, too (for the first draft, anyway).

[Michael]

I'd let to get in this sacrifice issue, too. (My cousin says he's not surprised). I thought Mercedes Lackey had an interesting application in Mage Storms (at least, I think it was Mage Storms--it's been a while). In order for the character to become King he had to participate in a ritual that would "bind him to the land." Then, if anything wrong happened, like poisoning the land, or too much bloodshed, the King would feel it as a physical pain. I only mention this because I thought it was an interesting plot device.

Incidentally, both Hypes and Knivesout are making me think too much and my brain hurts. Can you do it some more?