[Novel] This is so peculiar...
Now, here is absurdity for you.
I am fundamentally an agnostic; twelve years of compulsory religion classes will do that to a person. I get the concept of Deity in general, but I'm not that big on organized religion. I'm consistent about this. When I was dying in the hospital, my reaction to a priest asking me if I wanted the Anointing of the Sick was, "Not really, but--okay, Father. If it'll make you happy."
Does that give you an idea?
So why the hell is this blasted novel I've been battling for the past month--or the past couple of years, if we're talking about the original idea and subsequent world-building, in addition to writing--turning out to have so much to do with religion?
Not any one religion, mind you. I have no time for preaching for or against any particular faith, unless we're talking about the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. That, I like. Tracts bore me.
It's just that...well, here's the situation.
Picture a world where a corporeal entity exists who determines every aspect of everyone's life. Job, love, family, whatever. You can choose to try to disobey--people, being people, do this. Problem: this has a terrible tendency to end badly. Not, please note, because disobedience is wrong or evil per se. No. It's simply that the entity has things planned out for maximum effectiveness. And it doesn't appreciate interference.
"Effectiveness," you say. "What kind of effectiveness?" Well, the kind that serves the entity best. It plans people's lives for what will, in the long term, provide it with the greatest amount of what it wants from people:
Food.
It eats emotion--and not only nice emotions, either. It's perfectly capable of creating a catastrophe simply to get a veritable ocean of emotion...and does. Wars, famines, plagues, disasters--these are feasts to the entity. It wouldn't mind gorging itself constantly, either, but that's not really practical--it would wipe out all the humans doing this, and then it would starve. So the disasters--the "feasts"--are more or less sporadic.
Naturally, people don't know why the entity does what it does. Some think that the entity and its reasons for doing things are unfathomable; some think that it plans people's fates for their own good. Many fear the entity and its wrath; a lot just accept it as a normal part of life and don't think about it too much. Some people try to find loopholes in their fates, or risk everything to guarantee that the entity will make an exception in the case of a person they love. Many view the entity and its imposition of order on the world as part of its ongoing battle with Chaos. And there are quite a number of people who make it a point not to know what their fates are at all.
The priests and priestesses, by the way, are not uniformly faithful, fanatic, pious, good or evil. They vary about as much as any other group of people. False prophecies aren't unknown...though a priest or priestess who lies about a person's fate will be punished by the entity, and not in some vague afterlife, either. Right here. Right now. It has enough trouble with already with those who want to ignore it; it doesn't need people doubting it. People have to believe in and obey it, or it'll have a lot more difficulty than it currently does obtaining food.
I should mention at this point that the entity isn't omnipotent or omniscient. (This is simple practicality; I've seen enough omnipotent, omniscient Sues and Stus to know that they're plot killers.) Yes, the entity is knowledgeable and is capable of great foresight, as well as powerful manipulation of people's lives. But it doesn't know everything. It doesn't understand everything. It's still capable of being surprised.
In addition, there are several competing belief systems. One strongly agricultural country, in addition to following the dictates of the entity, also has weather gods, which are popular even if not sanctioned by the entity's priests and priestesses. A race of nonhumans believes that the entity is a demon, not a god, and, as a result, doesn't think very highly of humans who obey it. And a fair portion of the human population would qualify as atheists; they know that the entity exists, as that's unavoidable, but they don't worship it, or consider it a god in any way. The atheism doesn't make them any better or worse than any other people on this planet, either.
And all of this affects other things, like politics, culture, foreign relations...you get the idea.
I repeat...how did I end up with such a religious fantasy?
I am fundamentally an agnostic; twelve years of compulsory religion classes will do that to a person. I get the concept of Deity in general, but I'm not that big on organized religion. I'm consistent about this. When I was dying in the hospital, my reaction to a priest asking me if I wanted the Anointing of the Sick was, "Not really, but--okay, Father. If it'll make you happy."
Does that give you an idea?
So why the hell is this blasted novel I've been battling for the past month--or the past couple of years, if we're talking about the original idea and subsequent world-building, in addition to writing--turning out to have so much to do with religion?
Not any one religion, mind you. I have no time for preaching for or against any particular faith, unless we're talking about the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. That, I like. Tracts bore me.
It's just that...well, here's the situation.
Picture a world where a corporeal entity exists who determines every aspect of everyone's life. Job, love, family, whatever. You can choose to try to disobey--people, being people, do this. Problem: this has a terrible tendency to end badly. Not, please note, because disobedience is wrong or evil per se. No. It's simply that the entity has things planned out for maximum effectiveness. And it doesn't appreciate interference.
"Effectiveness," you say. "What kind of effectiveness?" Well, the kind that serves the entity best. It plans people's lives for what will, in the long term, provide it with the greatest amount of what it wants from people:
Food.
It eats emotion--and not only nice emotions, either. It's perfectly capable of creating a catastrophe simply to get a veritable ocean of emotion...and does. Wars, famines, plagues, disasters--these are feasts to the entity. It wouldn't mind gorging itself constantly, either, but that's not really practical--it would wipe out all the humans doing this, and then it would starve. So the disasters--the "feasts"--are more or less sporadic.
Naturally, people don't know why the entity does what it does. Some think that the entity and its reasons for doing things are unfathomable; some think that it plans people's fates for their own good. Many fear the entity and its wrath; a lot just accept it as a normal part of life and don't think about it too much. Some people try to find loopholes in their fates, or risk everything to guarantee that the entity will make an exception in the case of a person they love. Many view the entity and its imposition of order on the world as part of its ongoing battle with Chaos. And there are quite a number of people who make it a point not to know what their fates are at all.
The priests and priestesses, by the way, are not uniformly faithful, fanatic, pious, good or evil. They vary about as much as any other group of people. False prophecies aren't unknown...though a priest or priestess who lies about a person's fate will be punished by the entity, and not in some vague afterlife, either. Right here. Right now. It has enough trouble with already with those who want to ignore it; it doesn't need people doubting it. People have to believe in and obey it, or it'll have a lot more difficulty than it currently does obtaining food.
I should mention at this point that the entity isn't omnipotent or omniscient. (This is simple practicality; I've seen enough omnipotent, omniscient Sues and Stus to know that they're plot killers.) Yes, the entity is knowledgeable and is capable of great foresight, as well as powerful manipulation of people's lives. But it doesn't know everything. It doesn't understand everything. It's still capable of being surprised.
In addition, there are several competing belief systems. One strongly agricultural country, in addition to following the dictates of the entity, also has weather gods, which are popular even if not sanctioned by the entity's priests and priestesses. A race of nonhumans believes that the entity is a demon, not a god, and, as a result, doesn't think very highly of humans who obey it. And a fair portion of the human population would qualify as atheists; they know that the entity exists, as that's unavoidable, but they don't worship it, or consider it a god in any way. The atheism doesn't make them any better or worse than any other people on this planet, either.
And all of this affects other things, like politics, culture, foreign relations...you get the idea.
I repeat...how did I end up with such a religious fantasy?