about religion

[incidre]

Hi all.
I'm trying to create a big picture about the religion out of the bits. I'm certainly not ready with my own summary, but will post it as soon as I have something worthwile.

The first thing that jumped in my face: mundus humanitas is a religion with a very unusual prospect of salvation, no eternal life, no paradise. you live in your own children. modern, procreative but hmmm. strange.
a combination of a fate obedience (to control the masses) and biological reincarnation (to appease the nobles). okay thats clever ... but honestly would you belive that just for the sake of believing?

And where is the bad guy? I mean in every religion there is the sin, the concept of damnation. okay there is a reference of the cleansing flames ... are there any references i have missed?

[stormsweeper]

Chris Moeller (the author of the original comics) posted it here:

http://www.burningwheel.org/forum/showthread.php?t=3188

[Episkopos]

My reaction to MH was that the source material (like Faith Conquers) leave out a lot of details. I figured that was on purpose. From what we do know, it seems kind of alien, part of a future cultural development of which we are not part, and yet very human, as the theme of fatalism and how best to live with that has resonance in contemporary faiths, such as Islam and Hinduism (at least as I see them - not trying to give offense here).

We know MH is important to some people, like Trevor Faith. It is enough to give them purpose and direction in their lives. MH is also the state religion of an empire that exists only in the embers of a great civil war. MH always felt to me like it was played out, like the worship of the Greco-Roman pantheon of antiquity. In the Roman Empire in the Common Era, everyone still went to the festivals, the gods were still important, some people found it important to resist the state religion and the keepers of that religion found it important to persecute them. However, that religion didn't really satisfy people, not in their hearts, and they moved away from it, either in a more or less approved way (the cults of Mithras and Isis, for instance) or in an unapproved way (Christianity). Either way, the state religion's vital force was spent.

Maybe the Casiurgan Matriarchy has the answer. Maybe all that is needed is a reformation of the MH, or just a new devotion by the faithful. Maybe everyone will be part of the Church of the Transition in 400 years.

It might make for a good character, one who is struggling with the faith he or she was brought up to believe.

Cheers,
Billy