Mortideanism
'Death. What happens when one dies? A question that all civilized peoples have tried to answer. Some claim you go to a place where you are rewarded or punished based on what you do when you're alive. Some claim that you a simply reincarnated.
'They are all wrong. The truth is that we are in a state of transformation. Humans are simply in a complicated version of a caterpillar in a chrysalis. We started as mere animi. Now we are humans. And just like the caterpillar turns into something grander after its time in a chrysalis, we become something grander when we die.
'You see, we become gods.'
Excerpt from the Sacralibor (Mortideanist Holy Book), the Book of Relanarius:
Towards the end of the Ignorant Age, the prophet Relanarius was a born a slave. He was sold to a rich man, by the name of Grumio. As a slave, Relanarius started doing the hard work around the house, but eventually Grumio took a liking to him, and started giving him the easier work. Eventually, Grumio put Relanarius on his Will as one of the slaves to be freed. And for that insight, Grumio is a Saint.
As all things must, Grumio died tragically when Relanarius was in his thirties. Some say that the cause of death was a broken heart over Poppaea, his one true love. Whatever the case, Relanarius was free from slavery. And once on the streets, he had his vision, granted to him by his Pos'eity
'Relanarius,' whispered the then unknown god. 'Listen to me. Leave this city and climb the mountain that lies thirty-three miles north of here. There I shall speak with you, and reveal many things. Go, my chosen one.'
The rest of the story features the Great Prophet Relanarius leaving the city of Muramor, and heading to the mountain. Upon arrival, he discovered the fact that the described mountain does not exist, and that the town that was 32.5 miles north of Muramor had never heard of a mountain existing there, and thought that Relanarius was insane. Relanarius therefore prayed for three days straight, looked up, and saw the mountain. And so he climbed it. And after a total of thirty-three days, returned with the creed of the religion Mortideanism.
The Creed:
The Cycle of Life begins with the animus. Some call it the spirit, some call it a soul, some call it a ghost, but the original Mortideanistic texts use spirit, as does the official church. This spirit floats around in the Priorterra. What exactly occurs in the Priorterra is a mystery that is not dwelled on much by Theologians- the point of life is to move forward, not backward.
The current part of life is known as the Apodyterium. When the mother and the father reproduce and create a child, all they do is make the 'clothes' for an animus. And during its time spent in the womb, an animus will be transported from the Priorterra into the fetus. Some believe that this occurs when the fetus begins kicking, others claim before that, and still others say it occurs as late as birth.
Then the resulting human grows up, reproduces, and dies. At the exact moment of death, the animus leaves the body. But instead of simply being an animus, it has gained experiences. It has known joy and sorrow, love and hate, virtue and ignominy. They were like a chunk of clay in Priorterra, and their time as a human has twisted that clay, folded that clay, manipulated that clay, and turned it into a pot. The exact form of the pot depends on the way it was manipulated. Thus, it has ascended.
The resulting form is the god form, the last form. It is the ultimate legacy of a person. The sum of your experiences, the reasoning behind your choices, all decide on what the resulting god will be like. Deathbed conversions to virtue and honor do mean something. They affect the resulting god just as much as what you loved your life like for the 20 years before the deathbed conversion.
The gods then go to the Aeternus. There, they gain powers according to what suits them the most. The degree of the power is also according to how well, how 'good-ly' they lived their life. They then do the things they want to.
An important aspect of gods is that they are immortal. They simply cannot die. Thus, they have no ending. And logic presents the fact that only things with no beginning have no ending. It is common sense. If it has a beginning, it has an end. If it has an end, it has a beginning. Thus, if a god has no end, it must have no beginning. Thus, they are eternal and existed before the person was born.
This is important because it means that praying to yourself makes complete and utter sense. After all, with the entire pantheon of gods up there to pray to, a person is more willing to pray to a god that will listen, and respons favorably. And who is more likely to listen than yourself? Thus, it is a common practice to pray to your god-self. Asking about life choices is a common one. After all, hindsight has perfect vision, and your god-self has all ready lived the thing you are going through.
Most people don't think about how not living your life according to how your future god-self loved it affects the god-self. It's easier that way.
World View:
A major controversy in the Sacralibor (the holy book) is that race is not mentioned. Some have taken this to mean that god-hood awaits only humans. In short, that the rest of the species are inferior and are acceptable to wipe out, kill, and be d**ks to. In short, be racist (speciesist?) to. Not all Mortadeanists hate other races, but most other people are ignorant of this fact and assume they are all racist.
Extraneous Details:
Mortideanism is a full-on religion. All religious words are based off Latin. It takes a base society something like Rome (Muramor is Romarum backward, and means 'of Rome').
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? Responses (9)
It's a bit dry, but the concept is alright. A religion in which you essentially worship your future god-self could be an interesting thing to roleplay, and is certainly unique.
As for their relations with non-human races, I think it would vary between species. It could certainly be argued that elves, who are functionally immortal in many settings, *are* their god selves already, experiencing eternity within a physical body. Dwarves, on the other hand, having sprung straight from the stone, may not be considered alive at all. It's an interesting worldview.
Forgot the vote!
Hmm,solid, if a bit dry, as Dossta says. We may have to add this concept to '30 Divine Concepts'! :)
http://strolen.com/viewing/30_Divine_Concepts
Hahaha, awesome. I would join this religion if it existed, always wanted to become a god.
But does every god join into the pantheon or do they get their own world to boss around?
If every new death creates a new god(although they have technically always existed according to this), that would be a very crowded pantheon indeed. And what happens when two persons share the same interests/suitability? Do they share their... god-ing over that particular thing or duke it out, or something?
First: if you the resulting god-self was powerful enough, you could go make a paradise. You're a god, after all. Who's going to stop you?
First and a half: you go into the pantheon, but you don't actually have to do anything with them. You could just form a group with a couple of buddies and create some walls, a beach, and a couple of 'entertainment pieces'
Second: if two people had same interests and suitability, they would simply get the same powers. There can be multiple gods of love or dancing or swimming or totalitarianism or tyranny or war or slaughter or battle or the sea or ... Or ... Or...
This is a nifty concept, and makes one wonder what happens when you go deeper.
I already know some people who worship themselves :p
Its as plausible a religion as any, and I actually recall reading something which has a similar thought to this; I don't remember where though.
It basically went something like; every time you die you are reborn as someone else, and once you experience the life of every living person, you finally become god, because you have experienced all things. So basically the waiter who was rude to you at the restaurant is actually yourself in a future or past incarnation.
Fantastic idea! I love the idea of praying to yourself and asking for your own forgiveness or whatever they end up doing.
Can you grant yourself magic or powers? That is a tangent I want to explore! :) Can you imagine asking yourself for stuff and then deciding if you should give yourself something? How fun is that?