"...by the God, by all the pagan gods of the forefathers..."
-Poul Anderson, The Game Of Empire IN Anderson, Flandry's Legacy (Riverdale, NY, 2012), pp. 189-453 AT CHAPTER ELEVEN, p. 314.
Religions: human Dennitzans, Orthochristians worshiping in St Clement's Cathedral, later canonize Kossara Vymezal, who has a large tomb on Founders' Hill. Some ychani of the Black Ocean remain pagans referring not to "the God" of Merseian religion but to Afherdi of the Deeps, Blyn of the Winds and Haawan who lairs on the reefs.
-copied from Dennitza.
The Ythrian Old Faith is polytheist but the New Faith is monotheist. Merseian and Ythrian monotheisms are incompatible with each other and with any Terrestrial religions. There is no personal relationship with "the God" who favors the Race. "God the Hunter" stoops on all and is honored by giving Him a good fight.
Engels, analyzing what he called "all religion" and what I call "theistic religions," suggested four stages:
natural polytheism, personifications of natural forces;
social polytheism, personifications of social forces like war, wealth and justice;
monotheism, unified personification;
atheism, cessation of personification when external forces are scientifically understood.
A modern monotheist and atheist at least agree in not personifying thunder, fire, celestial bodies, the economy etc. Do extrasolar intelligences like Merseians and Ythrians develop through comparable stages?
6 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
The paganism of the ychani of Dennitza sounds a little bit like the three chief gods of Ys.
Alas, even if non-human intelligent races exist, all we can do is speculate on what they believe till we get OUT there!!! I've also thought of Anderson's "The Word to Space" as both how contact with one race is made and an example of a non-human religion.
Sean
I think it's more or less a historical accident that monotheistic religions are prominent now. You can have any type of civilization with any type of religion -- Japan's national faith, Shinto, is a form of polytheism with a strong animist-shamanist element, for example, and Hinduism is doing fine.
It's arguable (and Poul quoted the argument) that a monotheistic religion of a particular type is necessary (but not sufficient) for the discovery of the scientific method.
Dear Mr. Stirling,
First, I don't believe Judaism/Christianity was a mere accident. Because I believe God intervened to have Judaism founded and that His Son became Incarnate as man and founded Christianity as the ordinary means of our salvation.
Second, we do see Poul Anderson saying in both "Delenda Est" and IS THERE LIFE ON OTHER WORLDS that a true science arose on our Earth because of, but not entirely, Christianity. Other planets with intelligent life might see a true science in somewhat different ways.
Sean
You do seem to need a concept of a universe governed by a set of invariant natural laws, which can be apprehended by observation and reason.
This is essentially the worldview of Thomism with the deity subtracted, which is -philosophically- easy with that corpus because it doesn't postulate existence as purely an arbitrary product of continuous divine intervention. (Which mainstream Islam, for example, usually does.)
Dear Mr. Stirling,
And CATHOLIC scientists like Gregor Mendel, Georges Lemaitre, Louis Pasteur, etc., can do creative and innovative work in the sciences precisely because they believed God created a universe governed by natural laws.
Interesting that you too have heard of the Muslim views of the universe as an arbitrary product of continuous, moment by moment, creation. Very, very difficult for a true science to arise within such a mindset.
Sean
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