Losing My Religion

On the latest episode of Writing Excuses, the writing prompt, and the whole episode really, was on creating religions in world building. This matched to one of my notes I had taken recently (and I apologize, I can't remember what actually sparked this idea).

That which eats us has the power to instill religion and receives worship from us.

Most religious researchers see the start of religion at the same time we notice ritual burials. That religion is an attempt to explain where we go when we die. I personally think this is a post hoc ergo promter hoc error, but there does seem to be some concurrence with burial sites. Although, this may merely coincidence as much of what we know from early history is based around ritual burials (the other major trove are fireplaces and their attendant junk pits). I think it's safe to say, any religious artifacts would not be thrown away, and any that would be burned would be indistinguishable from the normal detritus found in fire pits.

For literary worth I offer the proto-man apes from Clarke's 2001 (the book, not the movie). After they learn from the Monolith how to kill, one of the first things they use that knowledge on is the leopard that stalks them in the night. The main proto-man mounts its head on a stick and uses this to instill fear in the other tribe of proto-men.

Take for instance the power of our collective unconscious when you think of bear, wolf, and cat. All of which have one time been objects of veneration, all of which in the modern age have been pushed to the edges.

That which kills us, we venerate.

The ancient Greeks called Zeus the "Benevolent." Now, if you know your greek myths, Zeus (a relative late comer to the pantheon, BTW) is anything but benevolent. The Greeks had appellations like this for all their gods. These name tags are meant to pacify the gods and direct them to behave in certain ways. Most cultures do the same thing. In western Christianity there is the phrase, "most merciful God," usually said when entreating him to be merciful to the practitioner when that practitioner is expecting to get smitten in some fashion (either by the God or by supposed God's enemies).

In modern Christianity, post Middle-Ages, there is the obsession with the after-life. That by pleasing God we can obtain life everlasting. Failing to please God means the big Lake of Fire consumption. You can see this fascination with God-baesd retribution in the ranting of modern televangelists.

That which does not kill us only serves to make us stronger.

AIDS, bird-flu, Ebola, and a host of other parasites and diseases instill fear in our modern minds until they become almost fetish symbols. But these aren't so much religions as they occupy niches in existing belief systems. They're given supernatural powers and attributes because of our fear response. Don't see this? How many of you know a person who either won't fly or doesn't trust "them Arabs" after 9-11? How many people had discussions about H1V1, avian, or bird-flu? There has been no instances of human to human transfer. If an avian flu makes the evolutionary jump to humans, it will be devastating, for the very reason that it happens so rarely we have little resistance. Oh, and thing the fear is gone, don't count on it.

Humans have survived many diseases. The cures are encoded in us (such as malaria in Africa), transfered by mother's milk (there's a whole parcel of good things that babies get from it), and we've made artificial progress as well. Many of the "childhood" diseases were once deadly to whole populations, and some still are. Most people, however, do get over chicken-pox and the like because those of us who survived the millennia are those who are resistant. Those who survive the 1918 Pandemic either weren't exposed, or had some form of resistance. So saying the next one will be just as bad ignores that fact. There were, however, whole populations never exposed before.

So where was I? Oh yeah, religions. So what would make a good fantasy religion? I'm thinking an animistic religion would probably work best. Start there, anthropomorphize a predatory animal, mix in various dooming characteristics and you'd have it.