Christianity in your writing

"Let's say for the sake of argument that in RL Christians are all-caps WRONG. Well...that doesn't change the effect Christianity has had in the world because people can believe ANYTHING if you give them a decent reason to do so."

Well, that's certainly true in this world, that is, the one we really live in. But I may have phrased myself somewhat confusedly- what I meant was, in a world in which actual Gods are walking around out in the open, there is no reason to become a Christian if, in fact, they do not have any special power as consequence of worshiping the creator of the universe.

BYW- Sharysa's story was awesome, and I strongly encourage everyone reading this thread to go and read it. Right now.

But that's what I mean. If Christianity is wrong, then all the so-called miracles people sincerely believe they have experienced are nothing more than hallucinations and delusions. Those experiences may not be real but they have a real effect on how people live their lives, and that defines the course of history. So, your gods don't have to be walking around for you to believe they exist.

Besides, as a creator, you could decide that Jehovah and Jesus DO walk around like pagan deities, just invisibly.

Alternately, Christianity is just one of MANY religions whose followers believe in what's essentially fate by a different name. "Your Capital-G God knows everything? Well, so do Odin and Zeus, honey, good for you."

Prophecies, miracles, and all-knowing deities are fucking EVERYWHERE in mythology. Christianity is just exceptionally vocal about it.

edited 22nd May '15 9:34:17 PM by Sharysa

I think they're just more surprised by it than we are.

Should this thread continue to be specifically about Christianity, or can be widen it to include all the monotheistic religions?

I wouldn't mind if we went on tangents about the other monotheistic systems, but Christianity itself still has a lot of things to talk about.

If you want to talk about monotheism in general, I'd say to just go to the Religion thread or start a new thread up.

Well, what I am trying to say applies equally to monotheism in general, not just Christianity. Which is- how long would delusions hold up in, say, a border war with a real, non-delusional God? False beliefs can only affect the course of history if they survive. If Jesus (or Jehova or Allah) aint really on their side, none of the monotheistic faiths are going to last all that long.

In the Bible itself it doesn't state that God is literally the ONLY god in existence, just the only god that Christians should venerate.

RE: The Pharaoh's priests showing off to Moses that they could turn their staffs into snakes. Moses didn't say the snakes were fake or a trick, he just turned his own staff into a snake and it ate the other two.

Many people confuse "the only god you should worship" with "the only god in existence," but there's really a sliding scale of Christianity versus Paganism.

edited 23rd May '15 1:17:08 PM by Sharysa

Well, he's the creator of the cosmos, including, presumably, all the other Gods. That would seem to imply some sort of tactical advantage, anyway.

I used Islam in one of my pre-Black series because I wanted a monotheistic religion that wasn't Judaism or Christianity but included angels, prophets, and scriptures. It was interesting but I couldn't keep using it because there's less...theatricality in Islam. It's a very minimalist religion, like Shinto.

If this group's god is more active than that group's, that doesn't necessarily mean the god in question doesn't exist. So, even if you lose a war because your god doesn't get involved, that doesn't mean you abandon the worship of that god, especially if he/she/it performs an essential (non-combat) function such as fertility. Also, we have a tendency to confirm our biases by twisting information or just outright ignoring it; people rarely believe in things because they are objectively true. And we have to remember that we're talking about how these religions can be tweaked for fictional purposes, so we needn't constrain ourselves to official or mainstream doctrine. Believe it or not, there are people who believe the show Supernatural presents how things work in real life (specifically in regard to the angels and demons and pagan gods).

Well, that works, provided the community itself survives. Wait, are you suggesting an enslaved diaspora? That's the Jews. So eliminate Christians- that religion would not have survived in it's current form without state sponsored churches somewhere. A Judaic/Christian sect might make some sense, though. Provided that they believe their God doesnt take an active role in the universe (hey, that's Gnosticism!).

edited 24th May '15 8:09:30 AM by DeMarquis

Well, I'm guessing that either depends on what translation you have, or what your interpretation is. Because I would say that The Bible DOES say that YHWH is the ONLY god in existence. In this case, Pharaoh's priests could turn their staffs into snakes because they were using the power of (Biblical) demons, not Egyptian deities. I will have to completely disagree with you here: many people confuse "the only god in existence" with "the only god you should worship".

Interestingly, you could carry that into fiction with all the other mythological gods actually existing, but being demons instead of having a different origin.

edited 24th May '15 10:46:09 AM by shiro_okami

I once saw this show on Animal Planet about animals in The Bible. It said that Moses's staff may have actually turned into a crocodile.

My work plays with that idea; most of the gods in it are "Prodigal Angels"-but not demons/fallen angels. They seek independence from YHWH, but unlike Satan, they don't actively hate him or his followers. They're basically neutral (they have compassion enough to avoid evil, but little desire to be heroic), and spend a lot of their time searching for mortals who amuse or impress them. (For example, the Death Goddess was once impressed by a doctor who "made her job much easier", and gave him a free Resurrection ticket with no strings attached).

edited 24th May '15 12:12:05 PM by Protagonist506

Unless your translation of the bible says "There are no gods other than me" rather than the original "'You shall have no gods other than me", the bible most certainly does not say "there are no other gods".

The bible is so diversely translated (right down to having modern (mis)translations that substitute "servant" for "slave" to make it look like slavery wasn't a widespread practice with scriptural laws to govern it) and interpreted, that "Christianity" in writing can be anything you want it to be - from scripturally-supported polygyny to enforced monogamy; from scripturally-supported slavery and sexism to "Christian equality".

Of course, that one only works when people are ignorant of what means what. After all, it is not exactly a secret that indentured servitude, with those in it being called servants, is a form of slavery.

Admittedly, a form of slavery with better terms than some people who work low-end jobs nowadays have (yes, really), but a form of it nonetheless. And in fact, quite a lot of things about slavery in the laws is there because a sizeable percentage of the slaves were indentured servants who'd simply worked off their debts by working for the one they owed it to or someone who'd paid it for them.

Anyway, point is, quite often it is easy to see what the author or authors had meant when they wrote something that the translators decided to change for the sake of political correctness or something of that sort, for as long as you do know at least a little bit about how things were back then.

Some things can be ambiguous, though. Because sure, it does say people should not have other gods before him/it/whatever (it does not appear to be consistent and "He" seems used as a title for "it" in this case, so I'm not going to bother guessing which form is more correct), but it might mean that people should not worship other gods because they are lesser (hence "other gods exist") or it might mean that people should not worship other gods because they aren't really gods (hence "other gods do not exist"). Sometimes interpreting that thing, translations and mishaps in the text aside, is like interpreting a prophecy.

Mind you, considering how much of this book had been written at the time when everyone and their grandma and her pet jaguar had a different deity or ten, I'm leaning towards the first possibility because elevating given religion's object of worship above those of other religions' appears much more likely than rejecting all of the other religions' objects of worship could possibly be if you were trying to convince people that yours is the right option.

Doesn't follow. Many of them are physical; miraculous healing, for example. They don't have to be divine, but what you're suggesting isn't a logical consequence. Saint Joan of Arc? Sure. The collapse of the walls of Jericho? Well, let's be blunt, there's a city there and it had walls once and unless you're arguing that we're hallucinating the city for generations and everyone who lived there is also and...

You get the point, I hope.

RE Moses' staff: Snakes are perfectly capable of eating smaller or similar-sized snakes, but the crocodile theory is terrifying.

edited 24th May '15 8:36:44 PM by Sharysa

And also cool.

So Monotheists could exist, they couldn't hold territory.

This is assuming monotheists can't expand their territory/numbers by just conquering people in the normal way.

"Your god sounds pretty full of Hirself, but I'm not going to argue with manpower/technology/resources."

Miracles are not the point. I'm showing how a creator can justify All Myths Are True without necessarily compromising Jehovah/Jesus/Allah's supposed omnipotence and omniscience. And how a creator can justify One Myth To Rule Them All. Most people don't believe in God because He works miracles in their lives but because they believe He cares about them. The same goes for pagans, except that we don't necessarily believe our gods are objectively omnipotent or omnipresent.

edited 25th May '15 8:47:20 PM by nekomoon14

Ohhh, so you ARE only keeping it to "sorting out Fridge Logic between myths."

Sorry for the mistake.

Oh no, I was responding to Night (but I forgot how much else was said between us). But yeah, that's my goal. It's like how in the TV series Supernatural, you have God (creator of the universe, the leviathans, the (arch)angels, and humans) and numerous pagan deities (who have been described as suped-up monsters in one wiki).

edited 25th May '15 10:20:41 PM by nekomoon14

There's nothing wrong with that, it's just monotheism in that setting that isnt making sense to me.

...Yay, I guess.

I'll just step in later to the discussion. I have writing to do and I accidentally got lost in worldbuilding again.