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Pre-Fall Religons in EP

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TheWanderingJewels TheWanderingJewels's picture
Pre-Fall Religons in EP
I can across the entry for Pre-Fall religions in Eclipse Phase, I had to roll my eyes a bit at the declaration that most of the Pre-Fall Abrahamic Religions would lose followers or would become ghosts of their former selves. It would be more accurate to say that certain sects of said religions would fall to near nothing or disappear completely, (the more escatological sects, with a rather Definitve Apocalypse having come and gone), but the non apocalyptic sects would more than likely adapt and move on. for a fairly large list of sects For Christianity: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Christian_denominations For Jewish Sects: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judaism For Islamic Sects: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_schools_and_branches A a mild thought on each religion's Sects (I'm not going to get into an argument on theology), those that are based on pligrimage to certain areas on Earth are going to have a VERY big problem adapting as Earth is a No Go Zone (tho might make for some lucrative runs for nabbing cultural artifacts), but the non-'place' based sects will probably add a few lines about moving out to the stars and the nature of the soul with Body swapping technology. I'm about to make a few generalizations and I am not intend to step on anyone else's toes but here area few observations on some of the Abrhamic Branches I see as being likely: Christianity: Roman Catholicism will survive from sheer inertia if nothing else as Apocalypse tends to bind people closer together to have SOMETHING to cling too. I imagine the First Space Pope Arising in the Jovian Belt and Encyclicals on Transhumanism (for the negative) being issued. There is also the possibility of a second Pope within system issuing counter encyclicals, making for interesting denomination conflict. The Eastern Orthodox Church will still be around in it's varied forms, tho I'm given to wonder if they may go back to a more spartan look given the evacuation from earth. The Oriental Othordox Church may not survive simply due to the relative lack of membership nations that might have easy access to spaceflight tech during the fall. Anglicanism will more than likely survive as it is not as Apocalyptic based and due to it's rather wide spread nature. Protestantism will also survive, if nothing else to Resist the authority of the Space Pope(s). Lutheranism I can actually see making a strong come back after the Fall, with a emphasis on community and looking out for each other, as well as fighting corruption on the metaphorical level (with the HyperCorps), and physical metaphysical level with TITANS viron suferers. Baptists are going to have a bit of a problem due to a lack of rivers or other places of baptism.....thought I suppose the common dunking ones head in a station "Shower" might work. I am not too familiar with this particular sect, so bear with me. Calvinism might sink it's claws into the Jovians as it is a rather strict and 'puritan' sect, and neo-Calvinist (Read: very old school, very humorless) zealots preaching against Transhumanity in all it's variations would not be surprising. The Later Day Saints Sect might be in a decent enough position to Challenge the new Space Pope if they are able to get enough people off planet. Given that Polygamy was a suppressed (but accepted) practice could give the LDS a edge in the Long Game. As to other sects of Christianity, I fear I have little familiarity with them, and will chose not to comment. Judaism: as Judaism by in large is not based on the concept of the End Times, it will probably whether The Fall better than most, as Judaism has had to deal with metaphorical and literal apocalypses in it's history more than once. Orthodox Judaism will likely adapt better than expected, but will have some problems with body swapping technologies (the medical advances, not so much), as downloading brings the question of the soul being copied. Expect a rather intense Rabbinical argument over the matter across all sects. The Segregation of Male and Females is also going to be thrown for a loop, but as this is the most traditionalist sect of Judaism (within reason, only recently were Hasidic Orthodox allowed to shave due to the electric razor), expect them to being on the somewhat lower tech end of encounters. Conservative Judaism is the middle ground of Judaism in that keep many of the aspects of Orthodox Judaism, with a note that Judaic law is flexible due to the times, but will try to conserve as much of the original intent as possible. Also they do not consider the Torah as the literal word of God. Given this flexability, this sect will be around after the fall in relatively (all things being equal) respectable numbers. Reform Judaism is what could be called 'progressive' and is more interested in following the moral laws provided by Torah as opposed to ritual. Given the relative lack of space provided for rituals on space stations, this sect should do rather well. As a Footnote, I would expect a holiday commemorating "Terra Diaspora" to be added to the Holy Days in the Jewish Calender after the Fall. Will expound on the Islamic sects after getting some rest
A brave little theory, and actually quite coherent for a system of five or seven dimensions--if only we lived in one. Academician Prokhor Zakharov "Now We Are Alone"
Quincey Forder Quincey Forder's picture
Re: Pre-Fall Religons in EP
I would think that very few people would still consider them (religions) viable after the Fall. Doesn't mean they'll vanish, but be very minor. though, as you said, would find some ressources and followers in the Jovian Junta, as much as the Junta lets it. Military dictatorships aren't too keen on religions. Look at Altered Carbon, for exemple. Ortega told Kovacs they were a decaying sect, because they forbid the resurection through resleeving. Heck they were rioting again a proposition for a law that authorized anybody (even catholics) to be resleeved to testify in court, if needed be. Judaic sect would probably go into a new diaspora after the fall, or underground, for the most radical groups (think the STO in Caprica) I think Islam would fare a bit better, though would loose most of its fanatic branches in the Fall. exemple: the Imam in Pitch Black and Chronicles of Riddick. Saharien and nomadic muslims who made it to space could be the new missionaries, following the pattern of the Christians in the New World, several centuries back. Religions are based on memes, more or less strongs, and memes evolve. Old beliefs might reemerges, or disappear, while new ones are born. repicking my exemple of Chronicles of Riddick, the Necromongers could be born out of an religious gatecrasher who went and came back through a P-Gate, changed. it starts as a small group, a rather nasty sects that could be reccuring antagonist for an on-going open ended campaign
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Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture
Re: Pre-Fall Religons in EP
Quincey Forder wrote:
I would think that very few people would still consider them (religions) viable after the Fall.
Something most of us nonbelievers have a hard time getting is that most people are not religious because of any factual or metaphysical claims. It doesn't really *matter* whether the Garden of Eden was real or symbolic, whether God is bearded and sits in the sky or is some abstract force, how far precession has moved the astrological constellations out of synch or that key rituals like the eucharist were taken from earlier religions - the believers do not truly care about this (although they will spiritedly defend their positions), they care about community, sense of meaning, spirituality and a tie to the past. That is why religion thrives despite science having understood lightening, cured diseases or demonstrated evolution. If a religion is completely against something very useful or necessary like vaccination or egocasting, then it is going to start decaying. But most religions are very adaptable, even when it comes to things that to an outsider would look insurmountable. Just look at how the Catholic Church embraced evolution theory (a careful theological process; one reason Teilard de Chardin got into trouble was that he disregarded due process). The reason the RC was in trouble in Altered Carbon was the opposition to resleeving; other religions were doing fine.
Quincey Forder wrote:
Military dictatorships aren't too keen on religions.
What about Pinochet in Chile or Franco in Spain? Iran might be drifting towards a religious military dictatorship. It is not too much of a stretch to call the juche ideology of North Korea a religion given its supernatural elements. Juntas dislike religions that claim their power is not rightful, but not all religions do that. In the Jovian Junta bioconservative Christianity fits the ruling ideology well. As somebody joked, a religion is a cult that owns enough land. Cults are springing up all the time, but also breaking down when their leaders fail, they have internal quarrels or their memes stop thriving. A few are lucky and grow further, and eventually become big and stable enough to become religions. No doubt the Fall crashed some large groupings and filtered out anti-resleeving groups, but people will remain religious as long as they got the same cognitive architecture as now. The real long-term threat to religions might be people updating their brains not to have over-active agency detectors, temporal lobe mysticism fault modes, extreme openness to experience personalities due to serotonin-system dysregulation and cognitive biases favoring religious thinking. But for everybody patching their brain for these problems somebody else might turn them into a cool petal. And the need for community, even one based on arbitrary assumptions, will remain. Post-religious countries like the ones in Scandinavia supply many aspects of the social cohesion role of religion using welfare states (or rather, they become post-religious when people don't have to go to church to get community welfare), but the need for spirituality remains. These days relatively few Swedes believe in anything like the traditional Christian god, but they seem to be pretty convinced that whatever is "up there" has pretty firm ideas about caring for the environment, preventing drug use and prostitution, and that one should be a nice and sharing person. Try digging into their beliefs and they will not have a good theological or ethical answer, but their views affect their behavior anyway.
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King Shere King Shere's picture
Re: Pre-Fall Religons in EP
@ TheWanderingJewels, Why are you double threading? http://www.eclipsephase.com/pre-fall-religons-ep http://www.eclipsephase.com/pre-fall-religons-ep-0 Two different threads in the same topic category, same author & same initial post.
TheWanderingJewels TheWanderingJewels's picture
Re: Pre-Fall Religons in EP
umm......Typo on my part?
A brave little theory, and actually quite coherent for a system of five or seven dimensions--if only we lived in one. Academician Prokhor Zakharov "Now We Are Alone"
King Shere King Shere's picture
Re: Pre-Fall Religons in EP
You removed the last line "Conservative Judaism" (its still in the "earlier" thread), you did not correct for typos. For example the typo "pligrimage" remains. I did compared the two next to identical texts, after all. But I guess you somehow created a new thread when editing the old one, that can be called a typo too I guess. Anyway on topic, I interpreted it, that for some reason, the Titans (or some of them) aggressively persecuted the Pre-Fall Abrahamic Religions . These persecutions where thorough & managed to catch most of the persecuted. That is to say, the faithful were [u]actively hunted down[/u]. These persecutions is one of the main reasons why the pre-fall religions disappeared. Perhaps as Apocalypse was acted out, a deranged Titan believed it needed to bring people to New Jerusalem. Especially those of the Abrahamic faiths. Aggressively seeking them out & "granting" them a existence of perpetual bliss, perhaps in a provided sufficient virtual world (also known as a "lotus eater machine").
bakho bakho's picture
Re: Pre-Fall Religons in EP
I agree with Arenamontanus' point of view. If you view religion as neo-ludism/primitivism/anti-intellectualism, then yes, it will most assuredly die out in the age of such far reaching technology/science. But, from my experience, not many religions are that radical. On the contrary, they're quite adaptive. If you take the Copernican revolution for example - it was a huge change of perspective and mindset (not only astronomically) which the Church defied adamantly. They persecuted and even executed people because they advocated the heliocentric system. And yet, today, we have a statue of Giordano Bruno right there at the Campo de' Fiori where they burned him back in the day. He's literally a monument of defiance to Church dogma. I'd say that's exactly what makes a difference between a cult and a religion. A cult is made of fanatics, radicals; a religion of believers, the mainstreamers, the conformers. EDIT: Of course, that doesn't mean a Catholic or a Muslim or a member of any of the Abrahamic religions can't be a cultist. Just that most aren't.
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Decivre Decivre's picture
Re: Pre-Fall Religons in EP
bakho wrote:
I agree with Arenamontanus' point of view. If you view religion as neo-ludism/primitivism/anti-intellectualism, then yes, it will most assuredly die out in the age of such far reaching technology/science. But, from my experience, not many religions are that radical. On the contrary, they're quite adaptive. If you take the Copernican revolution for example - it was a huge change of perspective and mindset (not only astronomically) which the Church defied adamantly. They persecuted and even executed people because they advocated the heliocentric system. And yet, today, we have a statue of Giordano Bruno right there at the Campo de' Fiori where they burned him back in the day. He's literally a monument of defiance to Church dogma. I'd say that's exactly what makes a difference between a cult and a religion. A cult is made of fanatics, radicals; a religion of believers, the mainstreamers, the conformers. EDIT: Of course, that doesn't mean a Catholic or a Muslim or a member of any of the Abrahamic religions can't be a cultist. Just that most aren't.
In that same vein, however, there's no reason that you can't have some reasonable member of a cult. Not every group classified as a cult is made up of suicide nuts and psychopaths. The problem is that the term is more derogatory than academic in nature; the word "cult" was originally used as a sort of sub-classification of religions, pertaining to a specific group's unique practices in contrast to the overall religion's practices (the practice of Carnival in Brazil and Mardi Gras in New Orleans would have been called "cult practices" originally), while nowadays it simply means "not a mainstream religion". Many groups classified as cults have practices which are very similar to their larger counterparts.
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bakho bakho's picture
Re: Pre-Fall Religons in EP
Sure. Cult is most definitely a word that needs some redefining (and neutering its emotional payload).
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Cloud and Water Cloud and Water's picture
Re: Pre-Fall Religons in EP
I get the impression the authors aren't too big on/familiar with religion, and therefore didn't want to explore it's role in the setting too thoroughly. It's a bit of a shame, as I've always been fascinated with how religions have evolved and adapted to changing societies. Some of the ideas they do introduce don't make much sense. For example, Christianity and Judaism were too rigid and dogmatic to adapt, but Islam wasn't? The idea that technology could alleviate the kind of suffering Buddhists talk about is a little confused too, but I won't blame them as that's a common misinterpretation among westerners. I think it might have been best to just state that many religions went through drastic changes after the fall and left it up to players to explore from there. They did make a good call on Buddhism(sorry, "Neo"-Buddhism) being particularly suited to adapting to technologies like resleeving, as many Buddhists believe concepts like personal identity and continuity of consciousness are illusions anyway, and so wouldn't mind as much when they get shaken up a bit.
Decivre Decivre's picture
Re: Pre-Fall Religons in EP
Cloud and Water wrote:
I get the impression the authors aren't too big on/familiar with religion, and therefore didn't want to explore it's role in the setting too thoroughly. It's a bit of a shame, as I've always been fascinated with how religions have evolved and adapted to changing societies. Some of the ideas they do introduce don't make much sense. For example, Christianity and Judaism were too rigid and dogmatic to adapt, but Islam wasn't? The idea that technology could alleviate the kind of suffering Buddhists talk about is a little confused too, but I won't blame them as that's a common misinterpretation among westerners. I think it might have been best to just state that many religions went through drastic changes after the fall and left it up to players to explore from there. They did make a good call on Buddhism(sorry, "Neo"-Buddhism) being particularly suited to adapting to technologies like resleeving, as many Buddhists believe concepts like personal identity and continuity of consciousness are illusions anyway, and so wouldn't mind as much when they get shaken up a bit.
Actually, while Islam is socially rigid, it also happens to be very technologically flexible. There is a good reason why they were the center of technological advancement during the middle ages. In fact, it's current lack of technological advancement is not due to them being backwards or grasping to tradition, but rather because the largest portion of the Islamic population is concentrated in regions with a serious lack of resources. Such is the problem with desert nations. On the other hand, Christianity and Judaism has had a longtime competition with technology, ofttimes clashing on whether it should adopt or admonish its use. Especially of note is its prevalent stance against gene and nano technology, of which only the latter has any contention in Muslim communities. However, they didn't really speak anything directly ignorant about Buddhism. A major aspect of the faith is that life and reincarnation is a cycle of "suffering", and that enlightenment is the only means to break the cycle and escape reincarnation. "Suffering" is the best English word to define what Buddhists mean, because Buddhism didn't start as a faith written in the English language. Some concepts are often lost in translation.
Transhumans will one day be the Luddites of the posthuman age. [url=http://bit.ly/2p3wk7c]Help me get my gaming fix, if you want.[/url]
Young Freud Young Freud's picture
Re: Pre-Fall Religons in EP
King Shere wrote:
You removed the last line "Conservative Judaism" (its still in the "earlier" thread), you did not correct for typos. For example the typo "pligrimage" remains. I did compared the two next to identical texts, after all. But I guess you somehow created a new thread when editing the old one, that can be called a typo too I guess. Anyway on topic, I interpreted it, that for some reason, the Titans (or some of them) aggressively persecuted the Pre-Fall Abrahamic Religions . These persecutions where thorough & managed to catch most of the persecuted. That is to say, the faithful were [u]actively hunted down[/u]. These persecutions is one of the main reasons why the pre-fall religions disappeared. Perhaps as Apocalypse was acted out, a deranged Titan believed it needed to bring people to New Jerusalem. Especially those of the Abrahamic faiths. Aggressively seeking them out & "granting" them a existence of perpetual bliss, perhaps in a provided sufficient virtual world (also known as a "lotus eater machine").
I could see this happening, especially with the more dogmatic religions. It's easy to convince someone when they all have the same. In a similar Fall scenario for a world-building concept I had a few years ago (needless to say, EP reminds me of a more higher-technology version of this world I made), the artilect AIs engaged in memetic warfare against mainstream religious groups, first against the Islamic communities in their assault on the Middle East, by using psychotronic optical-visual hacks to defuse would-be suicide bombers that they had set off their bombs and greeting them with "one of their 72 virgins", who would chop them up. Later in the war, they whipped up Apocalyptic Christian imagery and, through infiltration of the media and wider use of the psychotronic hacking, convincing many of them to be "raptured" by killing themselves or surrendering themselves to be chopped up by stand-ins for Jesus or angels. However, I'm not sure if the Titans had that sick sensor of humor the Beast (one of the artilects in my world) and his transhuman compatriots have. I'm not sure what numbers of Judaism in EP would be like. Imagine that Israel (if it still existed by the time of the Fall) would likely follow the Masada route instead of fleeing their hard-fought homeland, especially if [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samson_option]the Samson option[/url] has been nullified by the Titans. While the Titans would likely not target them for religious-ethnic reasons, they would likely still be a major military power in the area and a priority target because that. If so, imagine conservative Judaism being essentially wiped out, probably existing only in small numbers and unguided revivals by untrained discoverers and cultists. I do wonder, how would the Hajj work? I imagine, given enough warning and foresight, the Black Stone could be moved and the Kaaba rebuilt on Mars or something. But, a lot of the Hajj is built around the footsteps of Muhammed, places he actually visited, which would be unaccessible due to Planetary Consortium and the Titan remnants. I could see simulated experiences of the Hajj maybe being used as replacement, but that would require some considerable leeway from religious leaders to be accepted.
Decivre Decivre's picture
Re: Pre-Fall Religons in EP
I don't know if the TITANs picked on Abrahamic religions, so much as primarily caused by their refusal to use the one technology that most other people used to escape Earth: egocasting and digital existence. Excluding those who egocasted off the planet, very few people made it off of Earth alive. Let's go a bit into detail, but remember that the book only contains approximations on population. 8 billion on Earth pre-fall, 5 million in space Post fall effects: 400 million infomorph refugees, almost 95% of the human race wiped out throughout the system (we'll assume 94.5% for the sake of these numbers). Just over 5% of the human race, given those numbers, is approximately 440.275 million people... only 40¼ million of which aren't infomorphs. The odds of many people who refuse to utilize egocasting technologies surviving in such a scenario are staggeringly slim (0.5% survival rate). This would be the most likely reason that so few members of conservative religions survived the fall. The largest majority of them are likely members of the Junta, or other bioconservative groups.
Transhumans will one day be the Luddites of the posthuman age. [url=http://bit.ly/2p3wk7c]Help me get my gaming fix, if you want.[/url]