Oriental Religions

[Utgardloki]

For my Atlantis project, I need to figure out how to incorporate the various religions of the real world into the Atlantis mythology I've been creating. I've figured out a lot of ideas about combining Judeo-Christian, Greek, Roman, Native American, and Norse mythologies, making some radical departures from accepted dogma.

The short version is that Yahweh and Jupiter are brothers, but since the Fall of Rome, Yahweh has increased his influence to cover almost the entire planet, while Jupiter has lost almost all of his powers.

I'd like to incorporate all the world religions into my model, but my understanding of Hindu and Shinto are nowhere near as comprehensive as my understanding of the Judeo-Christian religions. I also don't want to insult people of other cultures, although obviously this is a fantasy world in which no religion truly matches the "truth" of the gods.

My starting point is that there are four interacting groups of deities, the Atlantean, the Lemurian, the Muvian, and the Hyperborean. The Atlanteans are mainly the deities worshipped in Europe, the Americas, and the Middle East. The Lemurian deities are primarily worshipped in India, Africa, and southeast Asia. The Muvian deities are primarily worshipped in east Asia. The Hyperborians are strange deities, mainly ice related, who are almost all evil with miniscule concern for the human race.

Deities may also be primordial or ascended. The primordial deities come from the dreamlands, while the ascended deities started out as material world beings and ascended into divinity.

I have a radical thought that maybe the Japanese deity Amaterasu Omikami might be the titaness Rhea. After the war between the Olympians and the Titans, Rhea and some of her brothers and sisters who did not support Kronus went east, with their worshippers eventually ending up in Japan. I do not know if this is or is not a workable hypothesis.

 

[Rasta]

I think this is a cool idea, and could definately work.

One idea (which is simular to RQ) is to make different traditions of worship.

Monotheistic, Polytheistic, Ancestor/ Spirit Worship, and Mysticism. Perhaps you are trying to stray away from that model however. This model brings inherant conflict between traditions, which is always fun.

What you seem to be doing is to create a mono myth, where different faiths can fit neatly into one giant model of belief/ worship. This may be more work in the long run since you will have to mold and change aspects of different faiths to fit into this model.

Hiduism can both be seen as a polytheistic faith and a monotheistic faith, depnding on your POV. They literaly have millions of patron gods. Some see these as individual dieties, some see these as aspects of the one god Brahman.

Shinto can be seen as both Ancestor/ Spirit Worship, and as polytheistic. They tend to distinguish between gods and demons. One being helpfull, one being harmfull. Gods have specific functions like in polytheism, though ancestors are often "consulted" or prayed to for strength or fortune.

 

[Rasta]

More on Hinduism

Concept of God

Hinduism is a diverse system of thought with beliefs spanning monotheism, polytheism, panentheism, pantheism, monism and atheism. It is sometimes referred to as henotheistic (devotion to a single "God" while accepting the existence of other gods), but any such term is an oversimplification of the complexities and variations of belief.

Most Hindus believe that the spirit or soul—the true "self" of every person, called the ātman—is eternal. According to the monistic/pantheistic theologies of Hinduism (such as Advaita Vedanta school), this Atman is ultimately indistinct from Brahman, the supreme spirit. Brahman is described as "The One Without a Second;>& Bhaskarananda 1994</ref> The goal of life according to the Advaita school is to realize that one's atman (soul) is identical to Brahman, the supreme soul. The Upanishads state that whoever becomes fully aware of the ātman as the innermost core of one's own self, realizes their identity with Brahman and thereby reaches Moksha (liberation or freedom) Brahman may appear to people in various different forms or Ishvara, for example Vishnu, Krishna or Shiva.

The Goals of life
Classical Hindu thought accepts two main life-long dharmas: Grihastha Dharma and Sannyasin Dharma.

The Grihastha Dharma recognize four goals known as the puruṣhārthas. They are:
kāma: Sensual pleasure and enjoyment
artha: Material prosperity and success
dharma: Following the laws and rules that an individual lives under
moksha: Liberation from the cycle of samsara
Among these, dharma and moksha play a special role: dharma must dominate an individual's pursuit of kama and artha while seeing moksha, at the horizon.

 

[Rasta]

More on Shinto: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shinto

 

[Utgardloki]

Thank, Rasta. This helps a lot.

I think that since I've knocked Yahweh down from being the Omnipotent Lord of the Universe to being merely one god among many, I need to do the same to Brahma. Perhaps Brahma is a Lemurian king who achieved a very high level of being who is emulated by the rest of his pantheon.

One thing I will need to look into is how much was brought into India by the Aryan invaders and how much was aboriginal. The Aryan invaders may have Atlantean ties. OTOH, Atlantean, Lemurian, and Muvian ties do not have to match later migrations across the continents. My storyline has Rhea originating in Mu, moving to Atlantis, and then to Japan as Amaterasu Omikami.

Also, the Aryans would have origated from the edge of Atlantean influence, and may have always been under Lemurian influence in the first place. (Genetic evidence says that while the Celts took the Indo-European languages west into Europe, the Aryans themselves did not go west. They only went east and southeast into Iran and India.)

 

[Utgardloki]

[redundantly double post deleted by the Department of Redundancy Dept.]

 

[Rasta]

Thank, Rasta. This helps a lot.

I think that since I've knocked Yahweh down from being the Omnipotent Lord of the Universe to being merely one god among many, I need to do the same to Brahma. Perhaps Brahma is a Lemurian king who achieved a very high level of being who is emulated by the rest of his pantheon.

One thing I will need to look into is how much was brought into India by the Aryan invaders and how much was aboriginal. The Aryan invaders may have Atlantean ties. OTOH, Atlantean, Lemurian, and Muvian ties do not have to match later migrations across the continents. My storyline has Rhea originating in Mu, moving to Atlantis, and then to Japan as Amaterasu Omikami.

Also, the Aryans would have origated from the edge of Atlantean influence, and may have always been under Lemurian influence in the first place. (Genetic evidence says that while the Celts took the Indo-European languages west into Europe, the Aryans themselves did not go west. They only went east and southeast into Iran and India.)

Cool ideas. I like where you are going with this. Keep us posted.

 

[GianniVacca]

Adding Indian deities should be relatively easy; after all they are Indo-European too, just like the Greek/Roman and the Norse gods (as pointed out above).

Adding religious traditions from the Far East should prove much more difficult. Honestly, I do not like the ideas I've seen so far. You may want to add an altogether different tradition (as suggested by one poster), or you may consider that your Oriental peoples did worship the same deities as the other peoples in a very distant past, but that later on (for some reason that you must make up) they stopped worshipping them and started an entirely different religious tradition. One idea could be that a sage descended upon them and spread a new religion (modelled on RW India: in the beginning, Buddhism was a kind of reform movement within Brahmanism).

Hope this helps.

 

[Lord High Munchkin]

It does have to be said that Buddhism has been handled both badly and reasonably well by RuneQuest. Very poorly by 'Land of the Samurai' and (in some ways) well by 'Dragonewts: Guide to the Eravsshar'. Oddly both are by the same author.

Hinduism is relatively easy to represent. However, Buddhism, Jainism, "Philosophical" Daoism (not the separate belief system of Popular "Religious" Daoism), Mohism and Confucianism are all incredibly difficult to model in a game, as they, for example, don't believe in external sources of power (like gods etc.). Also they are focussed on moral improvement/realisation and self-awareness - which are pretty poor adventuring pastimes.

Sadly, real world non-theistic, philosophical beliefs are actually quite hard to represent. Probably the best stab at it is in the game 'Tibet' - but even that has flaws (and it's a game entirely based around the subject).

But in a fantasy world setting, do the thing that's most game-fun.

 

[Utgardloki]

I think I would not be considering bhuddism a religion, for the purposes of my purposes. Bhuddism, as I understand it, does not entail belief or disbelief in any god or gods; it is a way of travelling one's path to enlightenment and escaping the cycle of rebirth and destruction, eventually leading to nirvana.

In a game, it could be modelled on the basis of powers that are not dependent on any divinities. According to my bhuddist sources, the gods themselves are part of the cycle, and a deity may or may not be bhuddist.

Also, I am aware that there are different types of bhuddism, and who is to say that any of them know what the original Bhudda was talking about? I don't think that Bhudda is seen as a god, in the sense that Jesus and Odin and Amaterasu are gods, although some traditions say he is an incarnation of a god.

Honestly, I do not like the ideas I've seen so far.

I'd be interested in reading what you don't like about my ideas. I think they are pretty radical. For example, if Amaterasu is equated with Rhea, and Rhea is the mother of Zeus, and Yahveh is the brother of Zeus, and Jesus is Yahveh, does that mean that Amaterasu is the Virgin Mary?

This and other fun questions are mine to play with.

As far as religious practice is concerned, it is easy to find out what present and historical practices are, at least in outward form. I have learned however, that one can not assume that what one learns in one's own church applies in someone else's temple.

(In junior high school, I heard a joke about Bhuddism where a guy learning to skydive is instructed to pray to Bhudda if his parachute does not work. He jumps out of the airplane, and his parachute does not work. He prays to Bhudda, and a giant green hand comes out of the sky to save him. He says "Thank God", and the hand squashes him. -- That's the kind of thing you might expect from reading the Old Testament about the jealous and vengeful Yahweh, but it is not Bhudda's style at all.)

Historically, one needs some extrapolation, and whether or not the gods are real and who they are and what they are up to may affect how they are worshipped.

 

[GianniVacca]

Honestly, I do not like the ideas I've seen so far.

I'd be interested in reading what you don't like about my ideas.

Well, basically, you boil down all of the world's very diverse religions to a mix of Indo-European and Judaeo-Christian mumbo jumbo. I am pretty conservative when it comes to 'culture games'.

cheers

 

[Utgardloki]

Honestly, I do not like the ideas I've seen so far.

I'd be interested in reading what you don't like about my ideas.

Well, basically, you boil down all of the world's very diverse religions to a mix of Indo-European and Judaeo-Christian mumbo jumbo. I am pretty conservative when it comes to 'culture games'.

cheers

I can understand that attitude.

Myself, I can't separate the cultures when what happens on one side of the world can affect things on the other. I apparently have a storyline where an obscure Middle Eastern Deity, a sun goddess of a distant island culture, and a major god of one of the most significant ancient migratory cultures face off for an end game, with everything favoring the obscure Middle Eastern Deity. But we can't count out that supreme deity of that 1st Century hyperpower...