Religions

Two problems. I am incapacitated by a toothache - hopefully seeing dentist tomorrow. Secondly, this laptop gets nearer and nearer to its Ragnarok and, when it does stop working, there will be some delay while buying and starting to use a new one. There is still a lot more to post about The Day Of Their Return.

A few hopefully coherent thoughts:

I get a bit tired of the question whether a practice is or is not religious. If it looks like religion, then call it religion. The question comes up no less than three times, in relation to Cosmenosis, the Riverfolk and the Companions of the Arena. No doctrines are necessary. That is a historically recent development.

The Riverfolk chaplain (a religious term) says that their practice does not refer to gods or God but it does involve allness, unity, harmony, rites, symbols, contemplation, acknowledgment of fate, life and the transhuman. I call this monistic religion. In fact, I define religion as response to the highest transcendence, without necessarily personifying it, so the reference to the transhuman should clinch the matter if nothing else does. He says that they know that their symbols are symbols. So do any sophisticated practitioners of a religion.

Jains, Buddhists, Taoists and some Hindus deny a Creator (thus "God") and practice, variously, asceticism, yoga, magic, rituals, concentration, meditation and contemplation but not worship of the gods. They can hardly be described as not religious. The High Commander of the Companions defines religion as belief in the supernatural but I think that that is too narrow. There can be practice and experience without belief. The supernatural, if it exists, transcends the natural but there is transcendence (going beyond) in any case, e.g., human consciousness transcends animal consciousness which transcends unconsciousness.

I quoted two very different expressions of Aenean millennarianism, from Jao and Gabriel Stewart. Here is another from the ship's captain, Jao's mother:

"'You are the Firstling - our rightful leader that every Aenean can follow - to throw out those mind-stifling Terrans and make ready for the Advent that is promised - What can we do for you, lord?'"
-Poul Anderson, Captain Flandry: Defender Of The Terran Empire (New York, 2010), p. 175)

These different Aeneans express expectations. There is no need for any agreed set of doctrines. The captain does not mention the dead rising from the water or Ivar's son being more than human. But their common hope is focused on something transcendent.