An idea for witches and hellenic/nonhellenic polytheists/monotheists, make a sigil that represents your god/goddess/deity’s name. For non witchy mono/polytheists, use all the letters in your deity’s name to create a symbol, and draw that symbol on things you wish to dedicate to your deity.

False God

Taylor Swift: “…False God…”

Monotheists: *le gasp*

Interesting

Anonymous asked:

Hi, I want to write a book that is mainly set in a North Indian inspired country. The stories plot revolves around the perversion in organized religion and I wanted to have the belief system be monotheistic and resemble a more western faith. Can North Indian cultural resemblance coincide with a western inspired belief system?

Using a South Asian culture and religion without systemic privilege in western society to demonstrate problems in western organized religion seems insensitive at best. It could possibly coincide if you wanted to talk about predatory evangelical practices in some underdeveloped countries, however this would also be an iffy subject considering that South Asian Christian communities are oppressed in Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh.

Additionally, in India, the majority religion is Hinduism. It is not monotheistic.

Sikh conceptions of god are the closest to panentheism in academic terms, and some western academics call it monotheistic. However Sikhi is an oppressed religion in both South Asia and the West. Do not base the belief system on Sikhi.

Islam is an oppressed religion in India and the West. Do not base the belief system on Islam.

If you want to write about the issues within organized religion in “western faiths,” then write about western faiths in their respective countries. If you mean “white evangelical Christianity, then write about “white evangelical Christianity.”

- SK

If you are trying to show the perversion of Western-inspired organized monotheistic religion, why would you choose a region of the world that is known for polytheism in their religious traditions? Think about why you chose North India for your country’s basis, and your personal bias relating to North India. For that matter, North India has a variety of traditions and religious adherence across the states–try to specify and find a particular state, or even a particular city, to focus on. It will make your research much more targeted and effective.

Remember that the religious beliefs of a particular region are entwined with the local culture; motifs in art, architecture, literature, etc. will usually have references to a region’s particular organized religion and mythology. Substituting in a monotheistic religion to a culture shaped by polytheistic/pantheistic tradition is going to leave you with gaps in your world that can’t be fully explained away in a narrative considering these issues.

There are examples of ‘monotheism’ that are native to India; some regions particularly worship one major deity and view the others as lesser to their chosen deity. Others come closer to panentheism, as SK said, or even a sense of philosophical atheism. However, the influence of Western-inspired monotheism, which I’m going to call ‘evangelical Christianity’ as SK stated previously, came with colonialism and the intentional subjugation of the native faiths. 

Reference the following posts for a little more background on that:

• Drawing inspiration for Magic from Disparate Sources: Hinduism, Māori culture, and Japanese Buddhism

• Alternative History Where British Didn’t “Ruin The World”
  

Using India, or any of South Asia, as a way to demonstrate the problems with Christianity/pseudo-Christianity/any of the other Abrahamic faiths would be ingenuine to both the existing traditions of these faiths and the region you’re trying to insert them into. On the surface, it seems like you want to take the elements of a different culture that looks pretty to you, and use them to contextualize an issue that you feel strongly about personally. 

The best-case scenario, if you were to continue with this idea, would involve heavy coding on both sides, and the reconciliation of monotheism with a cultural background that isn’t based on monotheism. It would take a colossal amount of work for anyone to do this justice, with respect to the culture of origin. You would have to essentially remove or explain away many of the cultural elements that are integral to properly writing/coding a North-Indian inspired society. This would probably take away from your main point about the corruption of organized faith, unless you can manage to create a loosely-inspired religion that can still achieve the message you are trying to get across. With that comes extensive work in worldbuilding, coding, potentially conlanging, etc.

You need to think about why you chose a region that is known for not being monotheistic in order to reflect the problems of organized monotheistic faith. The best solution, at this point, is coming up with a different setting, preferably one that didn’t face colonization and religious assimilation. Also, think about why you chose to portray the flaws of organized monotheism in the first place.

 ~ Abhaya

The son of God conceived immaculately and born on December 25, his fate, to triumph over death.  Sound familiar?  A clue: it’s not Jesus.

The deity in question above was Mithras, who for centuries had been one of the most popular deities in the world, favored by soldiers and sailors his cult found its way to the common people in distant corners of the Empire.  

“dying gods” were all the rage in late antiquity, and when the Roman empire sought to consolidate its many cults into a state religion (what would become institutional Christianity) they took a ‘fusion’ approach.  

Religion seems to continuously combine the new with the old, even for all its usual claims to immutable and eternal truth.  Just as the figure of Christ coalesced out of an environment of religious diversity, a millennium and a half prior the figure of Yahweh can be found coming to prominence from an obscure position in the polytheism of Ugarit (Bronze Age Canaan) - but that’s a story for another time.

Here I will post some images of Mithras 'lord of the universe,’ surrounded by the zodiac and 4 quadrant figures akin to the iconic evangelists, as well as the same scene rendering Jesus in Mithras’ place.  The images, separated in their creation by centuries, tell of a transition but also of a persistence of a certain archetype.  As a motif, this can be said to have emerged out of antiquity but to have persisted since thanks to Christendom.