@@trollunderbridge2292 I think maybe only as part of a ritual maybe in dire times where mages will (perhaps voluntarily) fight to the death and then eat the loser in order to effectively combine their power.
Suggestion: for the humans who worship fire, hell can not be a a place of burning torture, instead it should be a cold, dark place of roting, decay and deceased undead, something like the upside down from stranger things.
Definitely! I imagine their equivalent of 'hell' would focus more on dirtiness and decay. Some religions don't include a 'heaven and hell' equivalent, though based on their mythology, Toreinism is likely to.
Well done you've just describe the definition of hell on Hinduism. It's not some visionary hellscape or a frozen wasteland, instead for them its the void of being able to sense everything, feel everything, and do nothing as every itchy, crawly, viscous, whispers, screams are filtered in.
I think it would've also been useful to discuss universalist religions vs ethnic or closed religions. These being religious groups that believe that their beliefs should apply to everyone (such as christianity and islam) vs beliefs and practices that are only meant to apply to its own members which could be determined by things such as ethicity, heritage or earning your way in (such as baha'i, judaism and yazidism). Because this changes how these groups may understand and interact with other cultures, religions etc in their area
Definitely! Also has HUGE worldbuilding implications, especially if you have two religions in close proximity that believe their beliefs should apply to everyone. Fantasy crusades! These are topics I would like to touch on when it comes to cultural interactions.
@@WorldbuildingCorner yeah, I feel like you've only developed the early and most core characteristics of these beliefs, so there is room for growth and more detail on the more peripheral characteristics of these beliefs.
Where the Hell did you get ethnicity, heritage or earning your way in as entry requirements for Bahai Faith. You need to read more, coz you've gotten bad info/you're disseminating bad info. Bahai Faith is Universalist. It is small in number but it is the second most spread Religion on Earth. Bahai Faith strives for something they call "Entry Of Troops" i.e Mass Conversions. Not much success in West but in certain parts of world they have both in past & in present achieved that. In a couple of cases world affairs interfered/intervened eg between the Fifties & 1975 thousands of Vietnamese became Bahai ...but that was all undone by Coommunist takeover. The same thing happened in USSR even earlier. Ashkabad was home to thousands of Bahai's but that community was destroyed in Russian Civil War and then later by Stalin. Also, similar happened in China. Bahais have been rebuilding Communities in Russia & Vietnam (slowly) since the Nineties. China though still suppresses the Religion.
Syncretisation is a very cool concept! Sikhism is the example I am most familiar with, combining Islam and Hindu elements. I imagine some very cool fictional religions coming about this way!
@@KevinWarburton-tv2iy Yeah I’ve heard that too, although not “Modern” Judaism, more so how it was practiced in the past during and around the Roman Era.
Syncretization is one thing, and it's plenty interesting and an element of the hypothetical "example" you gave, but what you described with that example is actually a distinct concept called Interpretatio Graeca. It is named after the Greek tendency to do that aggressively as a matter of dogma, but it has actually been common among a lot of cultures. The Greek belief was that if they encountered, say, someone worshiping Vishnu, who held an item called a Vajra in his hand that hurled lightning bolts and whose wife was the goddess Shakti who conquers masculine and monstrous foes, that person was obviously just worshiping Zeus and his wife Hera, who chose to go by those eponyms in that part of the world. This was an important cultural habit because it was taboo to deny the existence of the gods or worship things that were not the gods, so if we were to assume that Vishnu and Shakti were NOT Zeus and Hera, the Greek would have to persecute that Indian, and that would be inconvenient for any number of reasons. But if the Indian is actually just worshiping the same gods with a different coat of paint, it is proof that the Greek and the Indian are brothers after all, just from different cultures, and they can mingle, trade and discourse freely. The Romans also adopted Interpretatio Graeca (and the two cultures enthusiastically merged their mythologies, in some cases correctly observing that two gods were the same (Jupiter and Zeus were mythologically practically identical and stemmed from the same earlier deity, for example) and in other cases conflating unrelated deities and myths (Diana and Artemis bore only superficial similarities before this merge, nevermind that Artemis myths already had a very strange and convoluted history within Greece)), and the whole "persecution of the Christians" thing came about because the Christians refused to acknowledge that their God was Jupiter/Zeus Pater and Jesus was Bacchus/Dionysus. Christians were, in fact, viewed as no different from atheists for denying the existence of the pagan gods. An interesting aside is that, with some exceptions, gods have mostly spread with languages, and their names have evolved just like any other words, so there is a hard grain of truth in Interpretatio Graeca, though ancient and especially Roman scholars often snagged on superficial details and made incorrect assessments of which gods were which. For example, we are today pretty certain that Tyrwas and Zeus and Jupiter were all developments on the same proto-indo-european deity Dyeut or Dyeut Phtr, meaning "heavenly father" in the PIE language, but when Romans encountered Gaulic (Norse) mythology, they asserted that not Tyrwas but _Thor_ was the northern analog for Jupiter, because both controlled lightning and thunder. By that time, Tyrwas was substantially less important in Norse culture than he had remained in most other Dyeus-worshiping cultures, while Thor was much more important, so this is likely another cause for the confusion, though Tyrwas was at least known to the Romans and was interpreted instead as Mars, the god of war and agriculture.
There's other variants too like deism, pantheism, panentheism. It's also possible to recognise other Gods existence while choosing to believe in/follow another or others.
Absolutely! The concept of recognising other gods tends to be seen mostly in polytheistic and nontheistic religions though, and monotheistic religions historically have tended to aggressively push away belief in other deities. But certainly it is possible!
It is sadly a myth that Buddhist societies have not been spread as part of politicized violence The Central Asian spread of Vajrayana Buddhism was often accompanied by pogroms of the religious castes of the local Tengrist/Animist populations as it spread Emperor Ashoka's reign is another example of Buddhism being spread with a heavy handed approach.
Yeah, it is also only true in a very very limited scope (modern West and Mediterranean) that polytheistic/atheistic religion is any less unifying (or violence inducing) than monotheistic religion. It ignores some of the greatest empires the world has ever known. In fact, prior to the Roman emperor Constantine, the belief in the west was that monotheism was irreconcilable with empire, which is why Christians (and before them, the Hebrew people) were so persecuted originally: everyone thought that monotheism would be the downfall of the empire!
@@adamnesico Not exactly. The mongols were Tengri during their invasions. It was only under Kublai khan and the yuans that mongolia became majority buddhist
Its worth considering that religions having philosophies is a (relatively) recent phenomena in human history, ancient religions (typically pre-Abrahamic ones) were concerned with ritual not moral guidance; that's what philosophy was for.
I don't think so. The Indo Europeans had the myth of the "Dog that guards afterlife". (Parellels to Fenrir and Cerberus) In their context, this ideas was mostly rooted on moral guidances related to bravery and strength for men, specially on rites of coming of age.
the difficulty of unification brought up with polytheism has a direct counter to minimise the issue or even turn it on its head, exemplified by pre-christian imperial roman practices thereof: the process of syncretism - a basic process which has also been very important to the development of most modern religions on earth
I'm already seeing a source of cultural tension, with the Silarin condemning gluttony and the Urakan placing spiritual significance on eating. I feel like the more zealous of the Silarin may outright declare all Urakan to be heretics.
Heretic might be too easy on them for a Silarin, cause that’d be assuming it’s the same Religion. It’d be the equivalent of having a whole society of devil worshipers! They eat their dead, so those people can’t come back to the world, let alone the whole “Cannabalism” thing! I wouldn’t be surprised if one of the Silarins declared a crusade. It’s a really interesting cultural dynamic there, with such a large cultural and religious difference between the two groups.
Man this is a fantastic video, you really had an open-minded and wide approach to religion and belief that I feel encompasses the countless possibilities of religious belief very well. Most videos on the subject are like "you can have a greek style pantheon or a christian style monotheistic god" and kind of leave it at that, maybe giving suggestions for polytheistic deities that would feel right at home in the greek or norse pantheons.
Thank you! Glad you found it helpful. I knew talking about religion could be controversial, so tried to be as impartial as possible, glad to know that came across :)
You've done well to blend the ideas of how early societies meshed religion and deities with the things they encounter and experience, but have little practical knowledge regarding. This is turning into a wonderful project, and I geniunly think you'd have some solid grounds for a very well thought out setting.
Now, one interesting collateral consequence of the cannibalism of the Urakans is that they probably will be more affected by prion-generated diseases, this could be something interesting to explore
I imagine for Alwa we can add "wasting food" to the list of sins. It's also likely that to be created after death is their worst punishment, since it consigns the deceased to oblivion rather than allowing their spirits to survive in their kin. This has likely led to some complicated interactions with the Toranists.
I'm now devising a religion based on money mixed up with cosmology) where the sun is equaled to gold, moons to silver, and earth to copper. These currencies are used by different strata for different purposes, creating of course relations of power and inequality. Banks and mints are basically temples (probably inspired by the Iron Bank of Braavos from ASOIAF), and the mining of these metals is strictly controled (often requiring the services of hired swords and staffs and bows that are my players). Theft, thus, becomes a religious rather than administrative or criminal offence, as do other money-related frauds. Metals themselves have intrinsic magical attributes - gold shines supernaturally in the sun, silver in the moon, and copper never shines at all, seemint to reject light. This serves as a miraculuous proof of the supremacy of this religion. This also explains why graves always content money of some sort - from mere imitations in poor caskets to precious metals and gems in rich ones. A lot of myths and testaments revolve around money, too
This is helpful, but a little brief. If anyone wants to make something more detailed, there are a few other concepts in religious studies that some other youtube channels like Religion For Breakfast and Lets Talk Religion tackle well. Two of my favorite examples are… why people make sacrifices (animals or objects), and why some religions have painful practices. I wouldn’t mind a few more videos on worldbuilding religion, because there can be a lot to cover!
The Return of the King! But in all seriousness, loved the vid, and this has kickstarted some worldbuilding for religions I've been sitting on for a while.
8:44 another common point of contention among polytheists is *how* a deity should be worshipped. Often the institutional sect of a particular god will be opposed by a mystical reformist sect of the same god.
I'm really curious about the relationship between the humans of Norford and the Urakan of Senanatgru. While the human religions there will obviously be different to those down south, it would be interesting to see the development of conflict between the humans, who view the Urakan method of disposing of the dead as sinful and dangerous, and the Urakan, who view the human method of disposing of the dead as wasteful and unnecessary. Obviously the humans would probably be the ones to initiate most conflicts. Would they conflate their fear of raising the dead and the Urakan practice of magic and tell stories of evil Urakan priests who use magic to raise bodies for their own ends? Would they banish the practice of magic altogether? For the Urakan, would they begin to view the use of fire as something inherently wasteful and abstain from using it? Would they only eat raw food and make pilgrimages to the coldest parts of the tundra to prove they can fight against the temptation to use fire? Alternatively, what sorts of cultural interchanges would happen? How would intrareligious conflicts develop as different groups of humans and Urakan try to find different ways to reconcile seemingly irreconcilable worldviews? So many possibilities!!
These are all questions that float through my mind often! I think the short answer is that because of their close proximity, they would likely have a mix of interactions, positive and negative. There would be humans who view the Urakan use of magical flora as positive, as a mirror to the way humans used Ignistella in the past, and there would be humans who would view their cannibalism as horrifying. There would be Urakan who view humans as wasteful traditionalists, and those who view them as doing what is necessary for their survival. That is an area of the planet I plan on focusing on a lot moving forward, so as we talk about trade, empires, and other tech/cultural advancements, all of those questions will be explored! Glad you are as fascinated and invested as I am! :)
I think that, while the humans may be irked at the cannibalism, the fact that the body is ultimately being disposed of and destroyed so it can't be reanimated would satisfy the majority of even the more devout practitioners. As for the method of disposal, it can be explained by the other group being a completely different species and that their practices are not directly applicable to humans nor are ours to them. I think there would be more conflict with the reptiles, from both of the others, because of the strict preservation of bodies both leaving them open for reanimation and being wasteful. However, on the reptile's side they may not even care what other species do with their dead, because those dead aren't going to the reptile's heaven anyway.
because the Urakan dispose of their dead in a way that destroys the body, especially in a place with few plants that spontaneously combust, they may view it as an acceptable substitute. and in an area with few combustible plants may even let the Urakan consume the human corpses as well
Very excited for the metals video. What kind of level of technology are you planning for this world? Will Locus’s “present-day” be your average medieval setting, a more industrial or modern setting, or spacefaring?
I haven't settled on an answer to that question yet! I have thought about it, but I am never satisfied with the options haha. At the very least, I would like to stop temporarily at different 'tech levels' to explore how to go about practical applications for worldbuilding at those levels.
@@WorldbuildingCorner That sounds like a good way to go about it. Go through different historical periods so that anyone can choose what kind of world their characters live in.
I’d also add that since non theistic religions are more tolerant that means they’re way more likely to accept its followers having other religions and philosophies simultaneously. This is very common in eastern and southern parts of Asia. This is practiced elsewhere but is usually kept under wraps, like Catholics practicing Vodun on the side.
Non theistic more tolerant? Tell that to all the people who died killed by nazionalists or socialists or capitalists. The wars after american revilution has been mostly non theistic.
@@RayPoreon i agree with yuval noah harari that any belief: seen as sacred Gives values Followers think it must rule the society Produces fanaticism Is a religion. Of course materialistics deny it for not be subjected to church-state separation.
@@adamnesico There's several religions that do not fit this description and there's several non-religions that do. This pretty much encompasses every political ideology as 'religion' and many niche religions(Rastafarianism, neo-paganism, several forms of Christianity) as non-religions. You also seem to be suggesting that political ideology ought to be kept separate from politics. Take a moment to consider that.
@@RayPoreon keep political fanatism away of politics would be very healthy. No more communist pharaos, no more nazionalists seeding hate, no more lobbies changing society fir their greedy goals...
I agree with you that beliefs and practices are important to religion, but I would add a third pillar (which is also very commonly used in religious studies): that of community (to have the 3 Bs -- believe, behaviour, and belonging). Personally I would say the concept of an afterlife is also more reflective than intuitive, since people are intuitively more concerned about this life and usually have to get taught any concept of possible afterlives. Reincarnation seems to be much more intuitive than an elsewhere afterlife, since the cycles of nature are something people see all around them (but I agree with you that karma is reflective and thus a framework that derived from the intuitive idea of reincarnation). Regarding polytheism, I completely disagree with the notion that people align them selves with a single deity of a pantheon there. That is too much based on a monotheistic lens. People under polytheism usually did not made a choice or alignment to a sigle deity. Since deities are in that framework not about people,but about activities or phenomena, and thus it makes no sense to align oneself to a single deity, since no person is just one single activity. And that part of the empires is weird, since the Roman empire or that of Alexandre the great seemed to be rather large. Sure, it was not really unified, but that is the beauty of polytheism, it doesn't has to, and thus it can actually thrive on the diversity, which the more unified empires of Christianity and Islam never could and thus they always lead to stagnation. Hope I was not too negative. I like your religions for your setting. And I can imagine already evil cults within Alwa, with the practitioners consuming other sentient beings to become more powerful.
Good points! I want to talk more about community when it comes to the cultures themselves, but you are right, it has a huge impact on religion. I actually took 'the afterlife' as an intuitive religious philosophy directly from research regarding religion and philosophical concepts. I suppose I also view it as intuitive as saying "the person has gone to a better place" is an extremely simple concept, and often the first answer parents give to children about those who have died, especially pets. You are 100% right that polytheistic cultures don't have people aligning with one deity (besides possibly specific priests), I may have overstated the 'choice' in the matter. In an attempt to clarify, using Greek mythology as an example, an individual who values fighting and warfare could claim to 'be seeking the favour of Ares', while another individual who values having 100 lovers is 'seeking the favour of Aphrodite' etc. In contrast in monotheistic religions there is often no 'room' for varying ideals. The point regarding empires for polytheistic religions was not that large empires cannot be forged, but rather (often, not always) struggle to be maintained and unified. The Great Schism is one of a few examples that comes to mind. No negative intent felt! Thank you for the feedback, unlike science-based topics where things are more factual, culture is a topic with varied views and I knew before I made the video that religion would be particularly contentious.
It was by the sword, but yeah I agree. Polytheism made it easier for the Romans to equate their Gods with local ones of the various peoples in their empire. Heck, a big part of why they disliked the Hebrews was because they couldn’t just squint and see Jupiter in YHWH. Not to mention the Roman concept of all the Gods giving them their right to rule, and over here in this little corner of the world there’s one God who doesn’t LIKE that! The Romans would have thought of it as being Insane!!! The Hebrews are miffed too ‘cause nobody will leave them alone and let them write their own laws. Roman Judea was a problematic province 😅
But eventually Roman religiosity declined and early Christianity came in to fill the void left over from declining religion in the empire. It wasn’t even a done deal it’d have been Christianity either, Mithraism was VERY popular Among the soldiers of the empire at the time, not to mention whatever the Greeks were doing out in the woods… But Justinian threw his support behind Christianity, so the weird state of flux Rome was in between religions gradually ceased; and over time Christianity became the dominant Religion(s) of the Empire. Addendum: There was also that worship of Isis and Cybele now that I think about it… There was a lot going on in Rome Religiously after 100 AD 😂
I'm kinda interested in the religions of Norford, Kathochusho, and Tarna'qwa now, you tease ;) Joking aside, religions are very interesting and complex things to worldbuild. I am currently undergoing the task of constructing a religion for one of my empires that is a polytheistic religion. As this an empire that's partially theocratic, placing emphasis on the dominant religion of Laduga, I have quite the task on my hands. What I do have of Laduga is very interesting though: There are many gods (Like Hinduism levels) but of them four are the most powerful: Ctungu, the sky god; Cpaiga, the earth goddess; Lgoba, the water god; and Ctinga, goddess of death who is implied in some myths to have a power over the other gods. All other gods, many of whom are the children of more powerful gods but not always, are beneath them that may embody an aspect of a god above them: as the most developed example I have, Cbado is the God of Storms, but his sons, Caguru and Mpenda, are the Gods of Thunder and Lightning, respectively, and his daughter, Chinda, is the Goddess of Rain. On of Laduga's most important core beliefs is the veneration of one's ancestors, often having their ashes spread around the grounds of their family's home. This is because, according to Ladugai teachings, those who die live on as guardians of the family in the afterlife. If you treat them with respect, they will be generous and very kind but treat them poorly in death and they will become capricious and sometimes violent, even to the point of maliciousness.
Haha they all definitely have religions! Some of those religions might expand in the future, and new ones might rise to dominate, just like our real-life religions have over time! To stoke your curiosity a little... There is a religion that revolves around the worship of a breacher that was accidentally summoned, that I believe will feature at some point in the future... but that's all I'll say for now hehe. Theocracies are fascinating, and something I'd like to touch on when I do a video on ruling bodies / government. Laduga sounds very interesting! I notice you have three gods that embody 3/4 elements, with a fire deity being notably absent. Does fire get wrapped into 'death'? I also very much like the 'family guardian' concept. It reminds me of some early real-life eastern religions. Very cool!
@@WorldbuildingCorner the fire god is tied to death, but not in the way you’d might expect: Atuni is his name and he was created by Ctinga, but his purpose is actually to create life. In the region the worshipers of Laduga dwell in, fires are common and the grass uses their ashes to germinate their seeds. By created Atuni (the mythology goes) Ctinga created a means of rebirth for the region. In addition, Atuni also acts as a psychopump, guiding souls that are cremated to Ctinga’s care so they can go to their proper afterlifes
one of the oldest faith still practice, Zoroastrianism is a interesting one. greatly influence the Abrahamic faith. it is also the opposite of pretty much all the characteristic. for example, the faith is know for its tolerance. p.s as far as i know Zoroastrianism is the oldest monotheistic faith
It's worth noting that one of the main reasons that Zoroastrianism is so tolerant compared to other monotheistic religions is actually due to another difference between it and other monotheistic religions. Zoroastrianism actively discourages converting others to the faith, meaning that most Zoroastrians must be born into the religion.
Definitely interesting! And a great example of how religions can buck their usual 'archetype trends'. Zoroastrianism daeva are also fascinating and a great source of worldbuilding inspiration.
Technically Zoroastrianism was the first ever Henotheism religion. (Possibly oldest current religion today, between it or Hinduism.) weather they went full on Monotheism I’m not 100% sure on that or for that matter when. Now Judaism is an interesting one to me. The only religion I know of that technically started Monotheism eventually moving into the henotheism thinking and eventually becoming the current monotheism idea
In the world I’m making, there are gods and goddesses and they interact with the natural world (directly and indirectly) but different cultures interpret them completely differently. They don’t even know that they worship the same gods because their practices and images of these gods are so different. The benevolent rain goddess of a landlocked culture might also be a god who’s fickle , temperamental, and brings about storms to people who settled along the coast
It’s actually been argued that the Roman Empire becoming monotheistic (with Christianity) was one oof the major factors of its downfall, so not sure monotheism being good for empires
This is an interesting comment so I wanted to reply to it. The reason the Romans fell was not because of Christianity exclusively as much as it was the multiple issues Romans had before that. Christianity was just one aspect of its collapse. The Roman’s failed cuz they refused to accept the growing faith
@@Catharsis10 definitely multiple issues, but just responding it can be a weakness not a strength, back in those times, since adopting Christianity led to more intolerance and more top-down social rules which caused tension, as well as an alternate power structure, among other things
One of my characters deeply believes that its good to allow bodies to be recycled into the environment and to let other lifeforms have a turn with the building material once the inhabitant(the soul) has abandoned it. Even better, let them continue to support the community by planting a fruit tree over them. Preservation of the corpse if you're just going to put it in the ground where nobody sees it anyways is wasteful and pointless. Preservation for scientific educational purposes is more okay. Its technically still in use. The thing they do in Star Trek where they just send the body into space, absolutely horrible. Of course this belief is partially due to him wanting to eat the freshly vacated meat.
That's cool! I have noticed anecdotally that the belief that the body should be recycled has become more popular in modern times, at least in Australia. I know this is partially influenced by our modern understanding of waste, as well as of nutrients and how things grow. I wonder whether an early (human) civilisation would pick up on those same things. I agree, it is bizarre that Star Trek, despite being so 'advanced', still preserves the corpse, in a way that is effectively littering.
This is a decent overview of religion to be a twenty minute video, but just to be clear, it is overly simplistic and contains a few errors. For instance, heresy is not the classification of the following of other religions being sinful, it's the classification of non orthodox views within a religion. For example, Puritans, despite going so far as to recognize the religious authority of the Church of England, were still considered heretics by said Church. The word you're looking for is 'pagan'. Also, monotheism is not the only type of religion that worships a single deity, it's just the most restrictive. To be monotheistic, a religions must only recognize the existence of a single deity and seeing all other deities as illegitimate. Henotheism is the worship of a single supreme deity with the recognition of other deities as being legitimate targets of worship for other people, such as in Zoroastrianism. Monalatry is the consistent worship of only a single deity, but the recognition of other deities, such as in Atenism. These later two are separate from polytheism in that the worship of a single deity is a matter of actual doctrine as opposed to being a sort of patron system such as with Hellenism. It should also be noted that there is no historical evidence polytheism results in political disunity, after all Rome was polytheistic for most of it's history, as were other major empires such as Carthage, Egypt, the Aztec, Maya, and so on. Nontheism, to be honest, isn't the best descriptions of Buddhism. Some people classify it as such, but that's because they can't divorce worship of a deity from the recognition of the existence of Deities. Buddhism recognizes the existence of deities, it simply does not see them as being worthy of worship as they are also trapped in the wheel of Samsara (if they were worthy of worship, they either wouldn't still be here or would be Buddha's who are remaining being temporarily to enlighten the rest of us out of the goodness of their hearts). And of course this doesn't even get into something like Gnosticism, in which the creator deity, Yaldabaoth, is actually a delusional/evil entity which is trapping all our higher forms in eternally suffering physical matter so he can play the divine equivalent of cops and robbers with his action figures.
i’ve been working through a concept in my world i’m building where the faith of sentient species actually creates the gods they revere, in order to have multiple religions that still produce clerics. so they can all be right! i’m still trying to figure out how to fit things like animism and non-theism into that mold while also having atheist magic like wizards and sorcerers? i might be trying to fit too much into the same world
This is actually one of my favourite concepts, wherein gods are born and die based on their worship. A 'dead god' would be one that falls out of favour, yes? So cool! I imagine that functionally, your universe has an almost 'self-fulfilling' magic system in it, where belief is inherently magical and can create the supernatural. In this case, animism may not connect ALL creatures, but rather all creatures who share the same belief. Think the Na'vi of James Cameron's Avatar. Atheism might be super dangerous in this world, borderline religious terrorism. A real, genuine threat to the gods. Also worth noting, in a system like this, paradoxes are likely haha.
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I love this concept too. It is basically used in Terry Pratchett's Discworld series. And for some inspiration (and fun) I highly recommend his novel Small Gods. 😉
I can't speak as much about 'scientific' belief/magic but animism or philosophical/ideological worship in that sort of setting typically also creates a sort of god. Animists might not have one single central diety but their worship creates pseudo divine spirits in animate and inanimate objects that given sufficient time and worship become god like to a certain degree or form a sort of divine spirit. As for things like ideologies either it doesn't do anything OR people mistakenly assign/create a figure or worship the founder instead of the philosophy. It would be like worshipping Buddha as a god of enlightenment instead of following Buddhism as a philosophy
Awesome and very insightful video. Though I can´t help but notice that the traits of different kinds of religions apply mostly to a world in which any deities worshipped either do not exist or do not proveably intervene in mortal affairs. For example, in a world where one or more pantheons of deities exist who regularly interfere in mortal affairs on a whim, such as the way Greek mythology describes it, I cannot see a truely monotheistic religion even existing, because how do you explain all that divine intervention (especially the good stuff happening to "evil" heathens) if there supposedly are no deities other than the one you worship? At most, there would be henotheistic religions, who worship only one deity but acknowledge the existence of others. Likewise, if deities help their worshippers in time of needs, a polytheistic pantheon would be more powerfully equipped to resist the encroachment of an expansionist monotheistic religion, because they have many gods on their side as opposed to just one for the interlopers. Interventionist deities might also take a dim view on missionary activity intended at converting their worshippers to a different religion. In such a world, the real-world historical trend of monotheistic religions supplanting polytheistic religions and driving them largely extinct might never occur in the first place.
Absolutely correct, I do mention in the video that a world where actual deities do exist will lead to religions being shaped almost exactly to the whims of the divine, which in the case of a world with multiple deities, would lead to a polytheistic religion. A monotheistic religion in a world with multiple deities wouldn't really make sense, unless they chose to ignore the other deities and focus on one, I suppose. Locus simply doesn't have 'real' deities, which is why the religions are described the way they are.
I am not sure about the polytheistic religions not being good for large empires. Rome was famous for appropriating the deities of other cultures for hundreds of years until it became christian. Though maybe they are an exception to the rule, but most ancient empires were polytheistic and lasted a long time.
Same with Canada. I don't see Canada tearing itself apart from religious wars with Sikhs battling catholics, catholics battling protestants, protestants battling flying spaghetti monsterites, etc
from the people that consider themselves buddhists its not that they dont believe in God... they usually believe in a mix of buddhism as well as the dominant religion of the country they are in. It tends to mix with everything from the people that i know that do the chants and what not.
This fails to address the fundamental question of how religions arise in the first place. A would-be priest might come up with an interesting story, but how does s/he garner followers and spread belief in his version of the universe's workings? It is commonly held that animism was the first religious form, and that was not discussed here either.
I recently learned that "religion" as a distinct concept is a relatively recent invention, only a few hundred years old (700 if we're being lenient, 400 if we're strict; Before this the cognates of "religion" meant "bondage by an oath") and intrinsically related to ideas like agnosticism and atheism; And that as such, it is actually very difficult to precisely define, since it's a classification for a lot of unrelated concepts while also excluding related ones (eg magical praxis and creation stories are both religion, but experimental knowledge (science) and history are not, even though to the subject of study magical praxis and science are part of the same thing and creation stories and history are part of the same thing, but magical praxis and creation stories are not part of the same thing). The definition you give, incidentally, suffers from this imprecision as well (to whit, it would include any objective scientific knowledge or beliefs). In worldbuilding "fantasy" or mythological settings, this becomes an even bigger issue. The big implication behind the term "religion" is the same sort of disdainful condescending sense of "modern, enlightened superiority" with which anthropologists used to use terms like "animistic" or "savage," namely that the difference between "knowledge" and "religion" is that knowledge is correct and religion is not (and curiously, you will be hard-pressed even in the modern day to find an exception to this; Religious people, as in, those who are not atheist or agnostic, will tend to either treat the word "religion" as synonymous with their own supernatural beliefs, or defend their own beliefs as _fact_ but leave the rest of "religion" to rot). In a mythological setting, the gods are real, magic is real, the afterlife is real and creation really happened like that (most of the time), so "religion" is really just science and history in that context, maybe with a flavour based on "religion" in our own world. Learning that "religion" is a modern construct enlightened me on all of these other things, and I feel like a lot of stuff makes a lot more sense now, like I can see what used to be a blind spot for me (both as a writer and just as a person living around other people). "Magic," while a much older term (or concept; Magus is a very old word, but also words like sorcery and miracle and witch are clearly related if distinct in various ways, and are also old), faces a similar issue of specificity in modern parlance. It seems to a modern, educated observer that we generally know how almost everything works (which is probably farcical, and it probably seemed the same way to an educated individual in ancient or medieval societies as well, who believed that many things happened because of things we now call "magic" or "supernatural" because we are reasonably certain they are not actually real), and so magic is stuff that isn't or shouldn't be possible in the real world (hence the popular interpretation of Carl Sagan's assertion that sufficiently advanced technology would be indistinguishable from magic (advanced meaning "ahead of the observer's context"), that he meant for example that going back in time and showing a caveman a smartphone would seem like the supernatural work of ghosts to him). But "magic" means, historically and etymologically, "the work of the wise," or any esoteric craft. Medicine was once considered magic, even though some people understood, more or less, how it worked, how to do it and that it actually did work; But the knowledge was limited to the handful who could understand it, so it was magic. Writing was similarly magic for a time in many cultures. Stonemasonry can be magic, carpentry can be magic, giving good advice can be magic, parting the waters of a sea can be magic, flying and turning invisible can be magic. Magic can be supernatural, but it doesn't have to be; On the other hand, if every child knows how to use mana to shoot fireballs, shooting fireballs with mana is NOT magic. It's just something people can do. (And this "true" definition still works, arguably better, with Sagan's quote, of course; Consider that in the modern day, computer programming is one of the few esoteric practices that garners real results, and for most people it is mysterious and its results profound.)
Interestingly enough, the cold can act as both a deterrant and a catalyst for cannibalism. On one hand, it could be about food conservation and whatever is nutriants are nutriants, the short growing season creates a stringent need to use up any food source available. On the other end, it can be a deterrant to cannibalism, as conserving heat would be important, mostly done by sticking together. Nobody wants to stick to someone who would consider their body a viable option of emergency food during the long, cold winters. So again, cold and cannibalism are a double edged sword.
My fantasy worlds religions are heavily based on mythology, ones religion is inspired by Greek myth, one is inspired by Roman myrh, one is inspired by Chinese myth, one is inspired by Norse myth, one is inspired by Hindu myth, one is inspired by Celtic myth, one is inspired by Persian myth, one is inspired by Sumerian myth, one is inspired by Yoruba myth, one is inspired by Inuit myth, one is inspired by Yoruba myth, one is inspired by Cherokee myth, and the last one is inspired by Japanese myth
I can see Toreinism and Dugatho coming into conflict with each other over how to handle the dead. Makes me wonder how both see the Na'qwuil, given what they do.
I don't know what monotheistic religions you were looking at but order is certainly not a driving force. The one I am apart of is noted to have a high conversion rate simply because it resonates with people and there is no need for temples or fixed locations. We have spent most of our history being persecuted for one thing or another. Sure there was a period of time where we grew corrupt and had way too much power, but that was not a defining trait of the religion and order very much less so. If anything polytheism tends to be more violent as there are numerous cases of open conflict between cults. As for the octopi I see them being much more grounded and nature focused with their skills in agriculture serving as a basis for many aspects of their society. Essentially they are nontheistic druids with a tinge of lovecraft. They practice a form of druidism that venerates the natural world around them and a slightly more focus on sleep and dreams. After all the remnants of the relics they are encountering are from a mining operation which just reinforces the connections with the earth.
@@andresmarrero8666 Any Religion can and has been incredibly violent throughout their history. One thing Christianity has done that’s great is how we ended Slavery on our own instead of being forced to, from which I won’t name any names. 👀 Ironically even if you put all the deaths that have occurred do to religious conflicts on one side and the number of people killed via Communism on another, Communism wins the Blood Bucket by a WIDE margin.
@Andres Marrero They are different. If you had said you followed the Abrahamic religion, the three primary splits would be Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
In my world building, the world is polytheistic. The “high” gods explain the natural world which goes back to the magic system I use and who can do what and how powerful they might be. The only “high” god that allows necromancy is the high god of magic, but there are limits like resurrection is done by soul transference in a ritual. The soul can only be transferred into a “non living” vessel that is like a crystal wrapped in a magical cage. It is very rarely done due to the costs involved, both real and figurative. The blessed live on as spirits and can be “trapped” in the vessels as new bodies are “constructed”. Cults in my world are all over the map…. Some good…. Some subversive. Only a few have been developed since they play a part in the stories I write. It’s a fun process.
Plus, you could also take into account how lots of religions have nothing to do with the environment they originated from. You don’t have to follow these rules exactly, they can be used quite loosely, or you can disregard them entirely.
I like the concept of a religion that believes that there used to be gods, but through the act of creating the world the gods died, and as such, there are no more gods. i have 2 cultures with similar beliefs (unrelated projects) one believes that the creator god was a massive dragon, who died after he finished creating the world and his body became the island chain the culture lives on. and that his blood became the current gods, and people. the other believes that the gods died, and that the current beings many worship as gods are either spirits, faries, demons, or ghosts. and are not to be worshiped, but may be petitioned if needed, and only in dire circumstances, as the spirits always demand something
I think it be cool that gods manifest in the other plane when enough people believe in them or a massive event happens like the rise of life creating a creation god or the giant fire creating a destroyer god
I know I'm late for the party, but I have a question. I would like to have control like in monotheistic religion but also there are in world indication towards multiple deities (mostly elemental magic and "curses"). Do you think it would work if I had few deities but one, specifically goddess of wisdom and order and stuff like that, would be seen as the most important, magic she granted would be consider strongest etc? Something like what one pharaoh (Tutanchamon's father if I remember correctly) tried to do with Amon being main god and other gods and goddesses being his subjects. Sorry for poor grammar, English isn't my mother tongue and these multiple tenses and constructions are confusing sometimes
Something like that would absolutely work. This video's description of religions was very simplistic, likely deliberately so. Treat it more as a collection of ideas than anything else, and feel free to combine them in any way that makes sense to you in your world.
Look up ancient Zoroastrianism. Nowadays it's considered a full monotheistic faith, but back in antiquity many argue it was more along the lines of an ethnic religion with one prominent, all-powerful main deity (Ahura Mazda) opposed by an Evil force (Ahriman) and aided by several lesser deities.
Just saying, I have never once heard a Christian teach the story of Jesus feeding the 5,000 with those concepts involved. The story is an example of Jesus providing for his followers even when it looks like he cannot and is taught as one of the many miracles he performed. It only relates to generosity in the sense that EVERYTHING Jesus did relates to generosity; I wouldn't call that a core message of that specific event. Nevertheless, very well-made video! I will be using this for my own worldbuilding, even when I am writing for real world religions. Breaking them down like this is exactly what I needed.
Could anyone answer a question I've got? In fantasy, could there realistic exist a mix of monotheism and nontheism in the same religion? Or would that be too contradictory?
7:09 Nope. That's simply not true at all, because not all monotheistic religions are even the same. Judaism, and sikhism are both monotheistic religions. But they don't go out their way, and proselytize their religion to anyone. There are plenty of monotheistic religions that are also very peaceful. Such as the quakers, the amish, the doukhobours, and the baha'is. So, therefore, it usually depends on which monotheistic religions that you are referring to.
Definitely correct, there are exceptions to every point throughout the discussion on religions (as well as on any concept that is cultural rather than scientific). What I discuss in the video are just trends, based on looking at the archetypes of religions as a whole.
Quakers, Amish & Doukhobors aren't really separate Religions though ...they are just more Pacifist Variants/Sects of Christianity. Bahai Faith as far as I know is the only worldwide monotheistic religion that has never ever attacked the adherents of another religion.
@@KevinWarburton-tv2iy *Quakers, Amish & Doukhobors aren't really separate Religions though ...they are just more Pacifist Variants/Sects of Christianity.* ummmm....Dude. I've already known about that.
Sorry, but I just don't see a general tendency towards extreme control of follower behavior in nontheistic religions. Confucianism and some branches of Buddhism do have strong social mechanisms of behavioral control, while Taoism and to a lesser extent Zen Buddhism even reject such societal mechanisms. Maybe I'm missing something, but this connection seems rather far-fetched to begin with. There is a reason why Eastern nontheistic religions have become popular among Western liberals over Christianity, and it's certainly not because of their high emphasis on behavioral control.
I don't think more than one contemporary sapient species could coexist on one planet. One of them would outcompete all the pothers, just like humanoids did until there was only one species left.
I would argue that the existence of magic, or especially deities, would dramatically change the possibilities. There's also things like symbiotic species, ect.
In D&D, I had found a fan-made Paladin class called "Oath of the Common Man", which is, in short words, a Paladin that defends and spread the ideals of Communism. So, to make it fit a Steampunk scenario, I offered these explanation: - The belief system is not called "Communism", but "Creed of the Common Man"; - The belief is based on the inherent holiness of the work done by every Worker - every morsel of food, every tool created, every sword, every plow, every piece of cloth, every safe road, and more, had come by the effort and knowledge of an individual, and because of that, it must be respected and rewarded accordingly; - Slavery is anathema to the CotCM - it is not only a theft of the rewards of the hard work of a Worker, but also is stealing the ability of the Worker to decide its own fate. Because of that, "Liberation Crusades" against slavery had been engaged by these Paladins; - The dogmas of the CotCM are called "The Proletarian Pentacle", and they are Equality, Community, Respect, Change and Labor; - The Paladins of the Common Man are trained and educated in the Order of the Red Star, an institution in which not only teach the holy warriors of the Common Man the dogmas and dictates of the CotCM, but is also a school, university, hospital and Worker Union for workers; - The OotRS are estabilished in Soviets, which are their equivalent for temples; - They do not worship it, but they give praise and give thanks to an entity they call "The People's Will", which is the collective gestalt formed by every dream of hopes and dreams of a better future of every worker, free or slave; - They were created by Karle Marx, a Goliath that not only had liberated his people from the slavery imposed on them by Dragons, but unified them under the Quizoal Empire, the largest nation of the known world located in the harsh and cold north; - The Paladins of the Common Man can tap into the collective knowledge of every worker who has passed away, allowing them to be incredible artisans and professionals of any kind; - Their motto is "Blessed be the People's Will, who taught my hands to Work and my Fists to Battle"; - Their battlecry is "The People's Will be done!";
*Looks at the Romans* Yeah.....may want....may want to rethink what ya said on polythesim.....just......just saying. Then theirs the Vikings, Gaul, Germania, Greece, .......just saying.
Your examples of "Non-theistic" religions are no more religions than Stoicism or Epicureanism. And even Buddhism worships the Buddha and the Bodhisattvas.
When it comes to objectively analyzing religion for the sake of trying to understand how some of it works "mechanically" let's say, for the sake of worldbuilding, I think that the issue is less number and presence of gods and rather, first, how it evolves from primitive beliefs in spirits into theo-philosophical arguments, and second, the exclusivist vs non-exclusivist and ecumenical vs non-ecumenical nature of the religions. First, in our world early human societies believed in nature spirits, tried to appease natural forces to help them survive, had fertility cults meant to promote childbirth and help the mothers and sons avoid health problems, and also ancestor worship. This kind of animism, shamanism and pantheism beliefs are at the origin of human spirituality. As societies evolved into agriculture and became more complex, so did their value systems. Religion usually became organized or semi-organized with actual priests, aside from worshiping and appeasing raw natural forces now abstract concepts and social ideas started to be personified and idolized with the development of the first polytheist pantheons, reflecting how society was becoming more complicated. Rather elaborated polytheisms existed everywhere urban societies developed on Earth, from the Middle East to the Mediterranean, India, China, Mesoamerica and the Andes. This is where things start getting complicated. In the West (meaning Mediterranean Europe and the Middle East) and in India the legitimacy of the old pagan gods became questioned in late antiquity, in India actually a lot of time before the West when the Roman Empire was already in charge. As time went on, more complex and rationalistic arguments started to be raised to explain the world, and this led in the West and India to question the legitimacy of the fickle and human-like gods. Basically, the development of philosophy led to greater scrutiny over religious beliefs, putting the old faith in question. In China this problem was sidestepped entirely because the local philosophical development sidestepped religion and instead produced a moral system based on social behaviour of the individual and groups and how government should run (basically, Confucianism. Something some people would argue isn't even a religion but I feel is the perfect example of nontheistic value system, although it historically existed alongside and superposed with traditional Chinese Polytheism), with Chinese Polytheism surviving unscathed to the side but reduced in importance. Notably, the West had its own great philosophical schools too during this phase of religious crisis with Stoicism and Epicureanism, but never became what Confucianism became because Stoicism and Epicureanism are very personal moral philosophies rather than social ones. In India this led to the birth of many anti-Vedic religious schools like Buddhism (who might fit into nontheism in some of its sects, but has way too many gods and hells in others to fit there) and Jainism, but eventually the old religion bounced back and Hinduism developed a complex theology that allowed Hindu Polytheism to survive in the modern world and Buddhism and Jainism to become minorities in India. In the West the old faiths were fully replaced by new ones who people felt made more sense and were better at explaining the world, in the battle between Christianity, Manicheism and mystery religions Christianity came on top, and later Islam further ensured Abrahamic dominance in the West. The new faiths in all cases had much more complex theological systems, appealed less to appeasing the wild forces of nature and rather present a just world held by the righteous and a good force rather than, well Poseidon and Zeus being canonically predators in the Greek Myths, and in this way appeared to make much more sense to the superstition of the past, except Hinduism as Hinduism evolved in that sense as well and thus preserved Polytheism. This is the evolution of religions historically in our world. You see that the trend is increasing theological sophistication leading nature worship to become pagan pantheons, then the pantheons to be questioned and either a wholly parallel philosophical morality develops in parallel to polytheism (China), new religions take over the old discredited religions (the West with Christianity and Islam) or the old religion bounces back and develops a theological complexity adequate for late iron age societies (India). The next part is understanding that different religions work radically different from each others. The old polytheist pantheons are usually ethnic religions, as in, they're the faith of a specific people and thus it usually doesn't even conceive the notion of converting different people. They're not ecumenical (directed at the whole world). Why would a Roman want an Egyptian to worship Jupiter instead of Ra after all? Each people has their own gods, and that's the way it is. Furthermore, many religions don't have a problem if you have different beliefs on top of their own. Back to the Roman, not only he didn't really care if the Egyptians worshiped their own national gods, but the cult of the Egyptian goddess Isis became popular in late Rome because, as far as polytheist religions care, what's wrong with adding one more god that you think will help you to the mix? You can see, they're non-exclusivist, they don't think belonging to their religion tradition excludes you from others. Ancient polytheism is usually ethnic, non-exclusivist and non-ecumenical. There are quirky cases. Ancient Judaism (not the modern one influenced by the other major monotheistic religions that came from itself) was the ethnic religion of the ancient Jews who didn't care for converting foreigners but were very clear that a Jew could only worship the God of Israel. They were ethnic, non-ecumenical but exclusivist. and likely not because they thought their god was actually the only one, but simply that there are foreign gods and you should stick to your own (so probably this could work with an exclusivist polytheism as well). Buddhism is an ecumenical religion that seeks to spread itself all over the world, but also has a long tradition of establishing itself on top of local pre-existing religions by co-opting them or take from them. Buddhism is fine with your keeping your adherence to older pagan beliefs, as Buddhist beliefs are built to exist to the side of them and on top of them. In Japan polytheistic Shintoism used to be deeply intermixed with Buddhism, the religion that talked about reincarnation and abstention from world's pleasures, since they manage to each occupy different areas of belief. In ancient India Buddhism similarly co-existed with old Hinduism and so in China, Mongolia and so on. Buddhism is an ecumenical world religion that is also non-exclusivist (although that never stopped it from trying to aggressively take away influence from the pagan priest class in favour of its monks and monasteries). The Far East is religiously confusing to Westerners because the reality there is of overlapping traditional polytheism, Buddhism and Confucian philosophy that are not fundamentally at odds with each others and thus someone could identify and partake in all of these beliefs at the same time. Finally you have Abrahamic Western religions that are what most people think as religions normally although that's actually a very specific kind of belief. Christianity and Islam are ecumenical, they're world religions that seek to spread all over the world and see conversion as a good thing that saves people's souls, and they're exclusivist, you can't be a muslim or a christian and also something else. Now, this particular combination is the only one that's likely to generate religious intolerance on its own, since you created a belief where you have to convert people or they'll go to hell, and all the other religions must go. Violence can still definitely erupt in other religions as well, but it's usually over more practical issues (Buddhists want to increase the influence of their temples at the expense of others, the Romans expect subservience to their divine emperor from the subjugated peoples for political reasons even if they don't care what else they worship, and so on). Monotheism or Polytheism is just the content of the religion, which is ultimately interpreted by men, so I don't think it actually affects intolerance directly in any real way. I don't really agree with the entire "Monotheist religions favour order and intolerance, Polytheism is divided and struggles with empires", because all religions are whatever their adherents want them to be at any given moment as long as the fundamentals aren't messed with... Too much. All religions are fundamentally unique, even if there are categories to fit them, so that's something else that has to be remembered. Zoroastianism used to be a monotheistic ethnic religion that dominated many other people and didn't really care about converting or oppressing other religiously. Confucianism was the main religion of China and China definitely never struggled with imperialism, armies, dominating others or being isolated. Oh, and finally, in a fantasy world the gods might actually be actively present in shaping things up. That's gonna add a whole new bunch of variables to an already complicated picture.
I find Most of this to be utter bullshit we have no proof of our past we go back so far and then there’s no records so, of course the only thing you can do is jump to evolution. We suddenly evolved and all the different species service center of all of the same time I would believe that we came from somewhere else more than I believe in the evolution. Not that I don’t think species do evolve over time, I think that’s possible but you cannot speak to this like it’s fact we don’t have that evidence. I believe in creation, way more than I believe in evolution, and I don’t necessarily mean creation to an invisible God a guy could be a whole group of people. A guy could be a very, super smart among us. We almost are to the point where we can create life if a.I becomes aware of itself then we have created life
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I'm now equally if not more invested in the setting than the worldbuiding advice. Cannibal bear-mages is the most metal thing I've ever heard of.
Right! Was very happy with how they turned out. Glad I'm not the only one getting super invested in the setting as it's progressing!
This led to a connection in my mind: their mages eat other mages in attempt to boost their own power, whether or not this actually works.
@@trollunderbridge2292 I think maybe only as part of a ritual maybe in dire times where mages will (perhaps voluntarily) fight to the death and then eat the loser in order to effectively combine their power.
@@WorldbuildingCornerI hope you turn this into a novel. I would read it in a heartbeat!
Suggestion: for the humans who worship fire, hell can not be a a place of burning torture, instead it should be a cold, dark place of roting, decay and deceased undead, something like the upside down from stranger things.
Definitely! I imagine their equivalent of 'hell' would focus more on dirtiness and decay. Some religions don't include a 'heaven and hell' equivalent, though based on their mythology, Toreinism is likely to.
When I was young and first heard about the concpet of an afterlife were evil people go, thats what I thought. Cold, dark and damp.
That's pretty much the Norse hell, Hel, isn't it?
For them though Hell might be Heaven ...a place of purification by Fire.
Well done you've just describe the definition of hell on Hinduism. It's not some visionary hellscape or a frozen wasteland, instead for them its the void of being able to sense everything, feel everything, and do nothing as every itchy, crawly, viscous, whispers, screams are filtered in.
I think it would've also been useful to discuss universalist religions vs ethnic or closed religions. These being religious groups that believe that their beliefs should apply to everyone (such as christianity and islam) vs beliefs and practices that are only meant to apply to its own members which could be determined by things such as ethicity, heritage or earning your way in (such as baha'i, judaism and yazidism).
Because this changes how these groups may understand and interact with other cultures, religions etc in their area
Definitely! Also has HUGE worldbuilding implications, especially if you have two religions in close proximity that believe their beliefs should apply to everyone. Fantasy crusades!
These are topics I would like to touch on when it comes to cultural interactions.
@@WorldbuildingCorner yeah, I feel like you've only developed the early and most core characteristics of these beliefs, so there is room for growth and more detail on the more peripheral characteristics of these beliefs.
Where the Hell did you get ethnicity, heritage or earning your way in as entry requirements for Bahai Faith. You need to read more, coz you've gotten bad info/you're disseminating bad info. Bahai Faith is Universalist. It is small in number but it is the second most spread Religion on Earth. Bahai Faith strives for something they call "Entry Of Troops" i.e Mass Conversions. Not much success in West but in certain parts of world they have both in past & in present achieved that. In a couple of cases world affairs interfered/intervened eg between the Fifties & 1975 thousands of Vietnamese became Bahai ...but that was all undone by Coommunist takeover. The same thing happened in USSR even earlier. Ashkabad was home to thousands of Bahai's but that community was destroyed in Russian Civil War and then later by Stalin. Also, similar happened in China. Bahais have been rebuilding Communities in Russia & Vietnam (slowly) since the Nineties. China though still suppresses the Religion.
@@KevinWarburton-tv2iy Oh sorry, I mistook Baha'i for Druze
@@Jaxrocable that confused me too lol
no offense intended, I know, but should probably edit that comment maybe
You forgot the best part of polytheism - syncretization!
"Your god? Oh, that's actually our god too."
Syncretisation is a very cool concept! Sikhism is the example I am most familiar with, combining Islam and Hindu elements.
I imagine some very cool fictional religions coming about this way!
@@WorldbuildingCorner Some argue that Islam itself is a fusion of Judaism and Christianity.
@@KevinWarburton-tv2iy Yeah I’ve heard that too, although not “Modern” Judaism, more so how it was practiced in the past during and around the Roman Era.
Syncretization is one thing, and it's plenty interesting and an element of the hypothetical "example" you gave, but what you described with that example is actually a distinct concept called Interpretatio Graeca. It is named after the Greek tendency to do that aggressively as a matter of dogma, but it has actually been common among a lot of cultures.
The Greek belief was that if they encountered, say, someone worshiping Vishnu, who held an item called a Vajra in his hand that hurled lightning bolts and whose wife was the goddess Shakti who conquers masculine and monstrous foes, that person was obviously just worshiping Zeus and his wife Hera, who chose to go by those eponyms in that part of the world. This was an important cultural habit because it was taboo to deny the existence of the gods or worship things that were not the gods, so if we were to assume that Vishnu and Shakti were NOT Zeus and Hera, the Greek would have to persecute that Indian, and that would be inconvenient for any number of reasons. But if the Indian is actually just worshiping the same gods with a different coat of paint, it is proof that the Greek and the Indian are brothers after all, just from different cultures, and they can mingle, trade and discourse freely.
The Romans also adopted Interpretatio Graeca (and the two cultures enthusiastically merged their mythologies, in some cases correctly observing that two gods were the same (Jupiter and Zeus were mythologically practically identical and stemmed from the same earlier deity, for example) and in other cases conflating unrelated deities and myths (Diana and Artemis bore only superficial similarities before this merge, nevermind that Artemis myths already had a very strange and convoluted history within Greece)), and the whole "persecution of the Christians" thing came about because the Christians refused to acknowledge that their God was Jupiter/Zeus Pater and Jesus was Bacchus/Dionysus. Christians were, in fact, viewed as no different from atheists for denying the existence of the pagan gods.
An interesting aside is that, with some exceptions, gods have mostly spread with languages, and their names have evolved just like any other words, so there is a hard grain of truth in Interpretatio Graeca, though ancient and especially Roman scholars often snagged on superficial details and made incorrect assessments of which gods were which. For example, we are today pretty certain that Tyrwas and Zeus and Jupiter were all developments on the same proto-indo-european deity Dyeut or Dyeut Phtr, meaning "heavenly father" in the PIE language, but when Romans encountered Gaulic (Norse) mythology, they asserted that not Tyrwas but _Thor_ was the northern analog for Jupiter, because both controlled lightning and thunder. By that time, Tyrwas was substantially less important in Norse culture than he had remained in most other Dyeus-worshiping cultures, while Thor was much more important, so this is likely another cause for the confusion, though Tyrwas was at least known to the Romans and was interpreted instead as Mars, the god of war and agriculture.
There's other variants too like deism, pantheism, panentheism. It's also possible to recognise other Gods existence while choosing to believe in/follow another or others.
Absolutely! The concept of recognising other gods tends to be seen mostly in polytheistic and nontheistic religions though, and monotheistic religions historically have tended to aggressively push away belief in other deities. But certainly it is possible!
It is sadly a myth that Buddhist societies have not been spread as part of politicized violence
The Central Asian spread of Vajrayana Buddhism was often accompanied by pogroms of the religious castes of the local Tengrist/Animist populations as it spread
Emperor Ashoka's reign is another example of Buddhism being spread with a heavy handed approach.
Like the Sohei of Japan.
Yeah, it is also only true in a very very limited scope (modern West and Mediterranean) that polytheistic/atheistic religion is any less unifying (or violence inducing) than monotheistic religion. It ignores some of the greatest empires the world has ever known. In fact, prior to the Roman emperor Constantine, the belief in the west was that monotheism was irreconcilable with empire, which is why Christians (and before them, the Hebrew people) were so persecuted originally: everyone thought that monotheism would be the downfall of the empire!
Mmmm who were the ones who spread vajrayana buddhism, mongols?
Je, another proofs nomads have bloodlust, no matter their religion.
@@adamnesico Not exactly. The mongols were Tengri during their invasions. It was only under Kublai khan and the yuans that mongolia became majority buddhist
@@mvalthegamer2450 I know Temujin worshiped tengri.
You confirmed what i said, thanks.
Its worth considering that religions having philosophies is a (relatively) recent phenomena in human history, ancient religions (typically pre-Abrahamic ones) were concerned with ritual not moral guidance; that's what philosophy was for.
I don't think so. The Indo Europeans had the myth of the "Dog that guards afterlife". (Parellels to Fenrir and Cerberus)
In their context, this ideas was mostly rooted on moral guidances related to bravery and strength for men, specially on rites of coming of age.
@@rafaelbastos8713 We don't know what the indo european religion looked like in practice or whether it provided moral guidance.
the difficulty of unification brought up with polytheism has a direct counter to minimise the issue or even turn it on its head, exemplified by pre-christian imperial roman practices thereof: the process of syncretism - a basic process which has also been very important to the development of most modern religions on earth
I'm already seeing a source of cultural tension, with the Silarin condemning gluttony and the Urakan placing spiritual significance on eating. I feel like the more zealous of the Silarin may outright declare all Urakan to be heretics.
Heretic might be too easy on them for a Silarin, cause that’d be assuming it’s the same Religion. It’d be the equivalent of having a whole society of devil worshipers!
They eat their dead, so those people can’t come back to the world, let alone the whole “Cannabalism” thing! I wouldn’t be surprised if one of the Silarins declared a crusade.
It’s a really interesting cultural dynamic there, with such a large cultural and religious difference between the two groups.
Man this is a fantastic video, you really had an open-minded and wide approach to religion and belief that I feel encompasses the countless possibilities of religious belief very well. Most videos on the subject are like "you can have a greek style pantheon or a christian style monotheistic god" and kind of leave it at that, maybe giving suggestions for polytheistic deities that would feel right at home in the greek or norse pantheons.
Thank you! Glad you found it helpful. I knew talking about religion could be controversial, so tried to be as impartial as possible, glad to know that came across :)
You've done well to blend the ideas of how early societies meshed religion and deities with the things they encounter and experience, but have little practical knowledge regarding. This is turning into a wonderful project, and I geniunly think you'd have some solid grounds for a very well thought out setting.
Thank you! I'm really enjoying progressively putting the setting together across the series, and glad it is enjoyable to experience as well!
Now, one interesting collateral consequence of the cannibalism of the Urakans is that they probably will be more affected by prion-generated diseases, this could be something interesting to explore
I imagine for Alwa we can add "wasting food" to the list of sins. It's also likely that to be created after death is their worst punishment, since it consigns the deceased to oblivion rather than allowing their spirits to survive in their kin. This has likely led to some complicated interactions with the Toranists.
I've just discovered this channel, and in the first second of this video I already like the energy this guy gives off. I'm subscribing.
I'm now devising a religion based on money mixed up with cosmology) where the sun is equaled to gold, moons to silver, and earth to copper. These currencies are used by different strata for different purposes, creating of course relations of power and inequality. Banks and mints are basically temples (probably inspired by the Iron Bank of Braavos from ASOIAF), and the mining of these metals is strictly controled (often requiring the services of hired swords and staffs and bows that are my players). Theft, thus, becomes a religious rather than administrative or criminal offence, as do other money-related frauds. Metals themselves have intrinsic magical attributes - gold shines supernaturally in the sun, silver in the moon, and copper never shines at all, seemint to reject light. This serves as a miraculuous proof of the supremacy of this religion. This also explains why graves always content money of some sort - from mere imitations in poor caskets to precious metals and gems in rich ones. A lot of myths and testaments revolve around money, too
Religion based on money...capitalism? 🤣
@@ChasePhifer-hj3wl pretty much, as i wanted a rather modern world)
This is helpful, but a little brief. If anyone wants to make something more detailed, there are a few other concepts in religious studies that some other youtube channels like Religion For Breakfast and Lets Talk Religion tackle well. Two of my favorite examples are… why people make sacrifices (animals or objects), and why some religions have painful practices.
I wouldn’t mind a few more videos on worldbuilding religion, because there can be a lot to cover!
The Return of the King! But in all seriousness, loved the vid, and this has kickstarted some worldbuilding for religions I've been sitting on for a while.
Glad you enjoyed the video! Good luck with your own project's religions :)
8:44 another common point of contention among polytheists is *how* a deity should be worshipped. Often the institutional sect of a particular god will be opposed by a mystical reformist sect of the same god.
I'm really curious about the relationship between the humans of Norford and the Urakan of Senanatgru. While the human religions there will obviously be different to those down south, it would be interesting to see the development of conflict between the humans, who view the Urakan method of disposing of the dead as sinful and dangerous, and the Urakan, who view the human method of disposing of the dead as wasteful and unnecessary. Obviously the humans would probably be the ones to initiate most conflicts. Would they conflate their fear of raising the dead and the Urakan practice of magic and tell stories of evil Urakan priests who use magic to raise bodies for their own ends? Would they banish the practice of magic altogether? For the Urakan, would they begin to view the use of fire as something inherently wasteful and abstain from using it? Would they only eat raw food and make pilgrimages to the coldest parts of the tundra to prove they can fight against the temptation to use fire? Alternatively, what sorts of cultural interchanges would happen? How would intrareligious conflicts develop as different groups of humans and Urakan try to find different ways to reconcile seemingly irreconcilable worldviews? So many possibilities!!
These are all questions that float through my mind often! I think the short answer is that because of their close proximity, they would likely have a mix of interactions, positive and negative. There would be humans who view the Urakan use of magical flora as positive, as a mirror to the way humans used Ignistella in the past, and there would be humans who would view their cannibalism as horrifying. There would be Urakan who view humans as wasteful traditionalists, and those who view them as doing what is necessary for their survival.
That is an area of the planet I plan on focusing on a lot moving forward, so as we talk about trade, empires, and other tech/cultural advancements, all of those questions will be explored!
Glad you are as fascinated and invested as I am! :)
I think that, while the humans may be irked at the cannibalism, the fact that the body is ultimately being disposed of and destroyed so it can't be reanimated would satisfy the majority of even the more devout practitioners. As for the method of disposal, it can be explained by the other group being a completely different species and that their practices are not directly applicable to humans nor are ours to them. I think there would be more conflict with the reptiles, from both of the others, because of the strict preservation of bodies both leaving them open for reanimation and being wasteful. However, on the reptile's side they may not even care what other species do with their dead, because those dead aren't going to the reptile's heaven anyway.
because the Urakan dispose of their dead in a way that destroys the body, especially in a place with few plants that spontaneously combust, they may view it as an acceptable substitute. and in an area with few combustible plants may even let the Urakan consume the human corpses as well
I can see them striking a compromise via cooked meat, keeping both rituals.@@WorldbuildingCorner
Very excited for the metals video. What kind of level of technology are you planning for this world? Will Locus’s “present-day” be your average medieval setting, a more industrial or modern setting, or spacefaring?
I haven't settled on an answer to that question yet! I have thought about it, but I am never satisfied with the options haha. At the very least, I would like to stop temporarily at different 'tech levels' to explore how to go about practical applications for worldbuilding at those levels.
@@WorldbuildingCorner That sounds like a good way to go about it. Go through different historical periods so that anyone can choose what kind of world their characters live in.
I’d also add that since non theistic religions are more tolerant that means they’re way more likely to accept its followers having other religions and philosophies simultaneously. This is very common in eastern and southern parts of Asia. This is practiced elsewhere but is usually kept under wraps, like Catholics practicing Vodun on the side.
Non theistic more tolerant?
Tell that to all the people who died killed by nazionalists or socialists or capitalists.
The wars after american revilution has been mostly non theistic.
@@adamnesico He said non-theistic religion, not non-theistic beliefs/ideologies. Nice strawman though.
@@RayPoreon i agree with yuval noah harari that any belief:
seen as sacred
Gives values
Followers think it must rule the society
Produces fanaticism
Is a religion.
Of course materialistics deny it for not be subjected to church-state separation.
@@adamnesico There's several religions that do not fit this description and there's several non-religions that do. This pretty much encompasses every political ideology as 'religion' and many niche religions(Rastafarianism, neo-paganism, several forms of Christianity) as non-religions.
You also seem to be suggesting that political ideology ought to be kept separate from politics. Take a moment to consider that.
@@RayPoreon keep political fanatism away of politics would be very healthy.
No more communist pharaos, no more nazionalists seeding hate, no more lobbies changing society fir their greedy goals...
This blew my mind. While it gives me a template and a few ideas, I'm mostly lost for words.
This is a great video! I'm going have to watch this a few times to make sure I catch everything
I agree with you that beliefs and practices are important to religion, but I would add a third pillar (which is also very commonly used in religious studies): that of community (to have the 3 Bs -- believe, behaviour, and belonging). Personally I would say the concept of an afterlife is also more reflective than intuitive, since people are intuitively more concerned about this life and usually have to get taught any concept of possible afterlives. Reincarnation seems to be much more intuitive than an elsewhere afterlife, since the cycles of nature are something people see all around them (but I agree with you that karma is reflective and thus a framework that derived from the intuitive idea of reincarnation).
Regarding polytheism, I completely disagree with the notion that people align them selves with a single deity of a pantheon there. That is too much based on a monotheistic lens. People under polytheism usually did not made a choice or alignment to a sigle deity. Since deities are in that framework not about people,but about activities or phenomena, and thus it makes no sense to align oneself to a single deity, since no person is just one single activity. And that part of the empires is weird, since the Roman empire or that of Alexandre the great seemed to be rather large. Sure, it was not really unified, but that is the beauty of polytheism, it doesn't has to, and thus it can actually thrive on the diversity, which the more unified empires of Christianity and Islam never could and thus they always lead to stagnation.
Hope I was not too negative. I like your religions for your setting. And I can imagine already evil cults within Alwa, with the practitioners consuming other sentient beings to become more powerful.
Good points! I want to talk more about community when it comes to the cultures themselves, but you are right, it has a huge impact on religion.
I actually took 'the afterlife' as an intuitive religious philosophy directly from research regarding religion and philosophical concepts. I suppose I also view it as intuitive as saying "the person has gone to a better place" is an extremely simple concept, and often the first answer parents give to children about those who have died, especially pets.
You are 100% right that polytheistic cultures don't have people aligning with one deity (besides possibly specific priests), I may have overstated the 'choice' in the matter. In an attempt to clarify, using Greek mythology as an example, an individual who values fighting and warfare could claim to 'be seeking the favour of Ares', while another individual who values having 100 lovers is 'seeking the favour of Aphrodite' etc. In contrast in monotheistic religions there is often no 'room' for varying ideals.
The point regarding empires for polytheistic religions was not that large empires cannot be forged, but rather (often, not always) struggle to be maintained and unified. The Great Schism is one of a few examples that comes to mind.
No negative intent felt! Thank you for the feedback, unlike science-based topics where things are more factual, culture is a topic with varied views and I knew before I made the video that religion would be particularly contentious.
Polytheism is one of the reasons Rome was so successful, since they adapted many new deities to their pantheon...
It was by the sword, but yeah I agree. Polytheism made it easier for the Romans to equate their Gods with local ones of the various peoples in their empire.
Heck, a big part of why they disliked the Hebrews was because they couldn’t just squint and see Jupiter in YHWH.
Not to mention the Roman concept of all the Gods giving them their right to rule, and over here in this little corner of the world there’s one God who doesn’t LIKE that!
The Romans would have thought of it as being Insane!!!
The Hebrews are miffed too ‘cause nobody will leave them alone and let them write their own laws.
Roman Judea was a problematic province 😅
But eventually Roman religiosity declined and early Christianity came in to fill the void left over from declining religion in the empire.
It wasn’t even a done deal it’d have been Christianity either, Mithraism was VERY popular Among the soldiers of the empire at the time, not to mention whatever the Greeks were doing out in the woods…
But Justinian threw his support behind Christianity, so the weird state of flux Rome was in between religions gradually ceased; and over time Christianity became the dominant Religion(s) of the Empire.
Addendum: There was also that worship of Isis and Cybele now that I think about it…
There was a lot going on in Rome Religiously after 100 AD 😂
I'm kinda interested in the religions of Norford, Kathochusho, and Tarna'qwa now, you tease ;)
Joking aside, religions are very interesting and complex things to worldbuild. I am currently undergoing the task of constructing a religion for one of my empires that is a polytheistic religion. As this an empire that's partially theocratic, placing emphasis on the dominant religion of Laduga, I have quite the task on my hands.
What I do have of Laduga is very interesting though:
There are many gods (Like Hinduism levels) but of them four are the most powerful: Ctungu, the sky god; Cpaiga, the earth goddess; Lgoba, the water god; and Ctinga, goddess of death who is implied in some myths to have a power over the other gods. All other gods, many of whom are the children of more powerful gods but not always, are beneath them that may embody an aspect of a god above them: as the most developed example I have, Cbado is the God of Storms, but his sons, Caguru and Mpenda, are the Gods of Thunder and Lightning, respectively, and his daughter, Chinda, is the Goddess of Rain.
On of Laduga's most important core beliefs is the veneration of one's ancestors, often having their ashes spread around the grounds of their family's home. This is because, according to Ladugai teachings, those who die live on as guardians of the family in the afterlife. If you treat them with respect, they will be generous and very kind but treat them poorly in death and they will become capricious and sometimes violent, even to the point of maliciousness.
Haha they all definitely have religions! Some of those religions might expand in the future, and new ones might rise to dominate, just like our real-life religions have over time! To stoke your curiosity a little... There is a religion that revolves around the worship of a breacher that was accidentally summoned, that I believe will feature at some point in the future... but that's all I'll say for now hehe.
Theocracies are fascinating, and something I'd like to touch on when I do a video on ruling bodies / government. Laduga sounds very interesting! I notice you have three gods that embody 3/4 elements, with a fire deity being notably absent. Does fire get wrapped into 'death'?
I also very much like the 'family guardian' concept. It reminds me of some early real-life eastern religions. Very cool!
@@WorldbuildingCorner the fire god is tied to death, but not in the way you’d might expect: Atuni is his name and he was created by Ctinga, but his purpose is actually to create life. In the region the worshipers of Laduga dwell in, fires are common and the grass uses their ashes to germinate their seeds. By created Atuni (the mythology goes) Ctinga created a means of rebirth for the region. In addition, Atuni also acts as a psychopump, guiding souls that are cremated to Ctinga’s care so they can go to their proper afterlifes
This is once again a very concise but well detailed video
Thank you! Glad you enjoyed it :)
one of the oldest faith still practice, Zoroastrianism is a interesting one. greatly influence the Abrahamic faith. it is also the opposite of pretty much all the characteristic. for example, the faith is know for its tolerance. p.s as far as i know Zoroastrianism is the oldest monotheistic faith
It's worth noting that one of the main reasons that Zoroastrianism is so tolerant compared to other monotheistic religions is actually due to another difference between it and other monotheistic religions. Zoroastrianism actively discourages converting others to the faith, meaning that most Zoroastrians must be born into the religion.
Definitely interesting! And a great example of how religions can buck their usual 'archetype trends'.
Zoroastrianism daeva are also fascinating and a great source of worldbuilding inspiration.
Technically Zoroastrianism was the first ever Henotheism religion. (Possibly oldest current religion today, between it or Hinduism.) weather they went full on Monotheism I’m not 100% sure on that or for that matter when. Now Judaism is an interesting one to me. The only religion I know of that technically started Monotheism eventually moving into the henotheism thinking and eventually becoming the current monotheism idea
In the world I’m making, there are gods and goddesses and they interact with the natural world (directly and indirectly) but different cultures interpret them completely differently. They don’t even know that they worship the same gods because their practices and images of these gods are so different. The benevolent rain goddess of a landlocked culture might also be a god who’s fickle , temperamental, and brings about storms to people who settled along the coast
Amazing, thanks you for this amazing playlist. It gives many inspiration and easy to follow knowledge.😊😊😊
It’s actually been argued that the Roman Empire becoming monotheistic (with Christianity) was one oof the major factors of its downfall, so not sure monotheism being good for empires
Why the downfall?
Monotheism doesn’t make fall empires, if not, it would had not dominated world.
This is an interesting comment so I wanted to reply to it. The reason the Romans fell was not because of Christianity exclusively as much as it was the multiple issues Romans had before that. Christianity was just one aspect of its collapse. The Roman’s failed cuz they refused to accept the growing faith
@@Catharsis10 definitely multiple issues, but just responding it can be a weakness not a strength, back in those times, since adopting Christianity led to more intolerance and more top-down social rules which caused tension, as well as an alternate power structure, among other things
Monotheism killed Rome because it caused the loss of tradition and traditional values
@@ghostdreamer7272 Roman polytheism was just as intolerant. Christians aren’t the only intolerant religion
You wouldn't happen to play Crusader Kings 3 would you. Cause these sins and virtue lookin mighty familiar.
One of my characters deeply believes that its good to allow bodies to be recycled into the environment and to let other lifeforms have a turn with the building material once the inhabitant(the soul) has abandoned it. Even better, let them continue to support the community by planting a fruit tree over them. Preservation of the corpse if you're just going to put it in the ground where nobody sees it anyways is wasteful and pointless. Preservation for scientific educational purposes is more okay. Its technically still in use. The thing they do in Star Trek where they just send the body into space, absolutely horrible. Of course this belief is partially due to him wanting to eat the freshly vacated meat.
That's cool! I have noticed anecdotally that the belief that the body should be recycled has become more popular in modern times, at least in Australia. I know this is partially influenced by our modern understanding of waste, as well as of nutrients and how things grow. I wonder whether an early (human) civilisation would pick up on those same things.
I agree, it is bizarre that Star Trek, despite being so 'advanced', still preserves the corpse, in a way that is effectively littering.
This is a decent overview of religion to be a twenty minute video, but just to be clear, it is overly simplistic and contains a few errors.
For instance, heresy is not the classification of the following of other religions being sinful, it's the classification of non orthodox views within a religion. For example, Puritans, despite going so far as to recognize the religious authority of the Church of England, were still considered heretics by said Church. The word you're looking for is 'pagan'.
Also, monotheism is not the only type of religion that worships a single deity, it's just the most restrictive. To be monotheistic, a religions must only recognize the existence of a single deity and seeing all other deities as illegitimate. Henotheism is the worship of a single supreme deity with the recognition of other deities as being legitimate targets of worship for other people, such as in Zoroastrianism. Monalatry is the consistent worship of only a single deity, but the recognition of other deities, such as in Atenism.
These later two are separate from polytheism in that the worship of a single deity is a matter of actual doctrine as opposed to being a sort of patron system such as with Hellenism. It should also be noted that there is no historical evidence polytheism results in political disunity, after all Rome was polytheistic for most of it's history, as were other major empires such as Carthage, Egypt, the Aztec, Maya, and so on.
Nontheism, to be honest, isn't the best descriptions of Buddhism. Some people classify it as such, but that's because they can't divorce worship of a deity from the recognition of the existence of Deities. Buddhism recognizes the existence of deities, it simply does not see them as being worthy of worship as they are also trapped in the wheel of Samsara (if they were worthy of worship, they either wouldn't still be here or would be Buddha's who are remaining being temporarily to enlighten the rest of us out of the goodness of their hearts).
And of course this doesn't even get into something like Gnosticism, in which the creator deity, Yaldabaoth, is actually a delusional/evil entity which is trapping all our higher forms in eternally suffering physical matter so he can play the divine equivalent of cops and robbers with his action figures.
i’ve been working through a concept in my world i’m building where the faith of sentient species actually creates the gods they revere, in order to have multiple religions that still produce clerics. so they can all be right! i’m still trying to figure out how to fit things like animism and non-theism into that mold while also having atheist magic like wizards and sorcerers? i might be trying to fit too much into the same world
This is actually one of my favourite concepts, wherein gods are born and die based on their worship. A 'dead god' would be one that falls out of favour, yes? So cool!
I imagine that functionally, your universe has an almost 'self-fulfilling' magic system in it, where belief is inherently magical and can create the supernatural. In this case, animism may not connect ALL creatures, but rather all creatures who share the same belief. Think the Na'vi of James Cameron's Avatar.
Atheism might be super dangerous in this world, borderline religious terrorism. A real, genuine threat to the gods.
Also worth noting, in a system like this, paradoxes are likely haha.
I love this concept too. It is basically used in Terry Pratchett's Discworld series. And for some inspiration (and fun) I highly recommend his novel Small Gods. 😉
I can't speak as much about 'scientific' belief/magic but animism or philosophical/ideological worship in that sort of setting typically also creates a sort of god. Animists might not have one single central diety but their worship creates pseudo divine spirits in animate and inanimate objects that given sufficient time and worship become god like to a certain degree or form a sort of divine spirit. As for things like ideologies either it doesn't do anything OR people mistakenly assign/create a figure or worship the founder instead of the philosophy. It would be like worshipping Buddha as a god of enlightenment instead of following Buddhism as a philosophy
Awesome and very insightful video. Though I can´t help but notice that the traits of different kinds of religions apply mostly to a world in which any deities worshipped either do not exist or do not proveably intervene in mortal affairs.
For example, in a world where one or more pantheons of deities exist who regularly interfere in mortal affairs on a whim, such as the way Greek mythology describes it, I cannot see a truely monotheistic religion even existing, because how do you explain all that divine intervention (especially the good stuff happening to "evil" heathens) if there supposedly are no deities other than the one you worship? At most, there would be henotheistic religions, who worship only one deity but acknowledge the existence of others.
Likewise, if deities help their worshippers in time of needs, a polytheistic pantheon would be more powerfully equipped to resist the encroachment of an expansionist monotheistic religion, because they have many gods on their side as opposed to just one for the interlopers. Interventionist deities might also take a dim view on missionary activity intended at converting their worshippers to a different religion. In such a world, the real-world historical trend of monotheistic religions supplanting polytheistic religions and driving them largely extinct might never occur in the first place.
Absolutely correct, I do mention in the video that a world where actual deities do exist will lead to religions being shaped almost exactly to the whims of the divine, which in the case of a world with multiple deities, would lead to a polytheistic religion. A monotheistic religion in a world with multiple deities wouldn't really make sense, unless they chose to ignore the other deities and focus on one, I suppose.
Locus simply doesn't have 'real' deities, which is why the religions are described the way they are.
I am not sure about the polytheistic religions not being good for large empires. Rome was famous for appropriating the deities of other cultures for hundreds of years until it became christian. Though maybe they are an exception to the rule, but most ancient empires were polytheistic and lasted a long time.
Same with Canada. I don't see Canada tearing itself apart from religious wars with Sikhs battling catholics, catholics battling protestants, protestants battling flying spaghetti monsterites, etc
Fun fact that has nothing to do with worldbuilding:
Gudizho te means f*ck you in Bulgarian
from the people that consider themselves buddhists its not that they dont believe in God... they usually believe in a mix of buddhism as well as the dominant religion of the country they are in. It tends to mix with everything from the people that i know that do the chants and what not.
This fails to address the fundamental question of how religions arise in the first place. A would-be priest might come up with an interesting story, but how does s/he garner followers and spread belief in his version of the universe's workings?
It is commonly held that animism was the first religious form, and that was not discussed here either.
I want to leave 10 likes instead of 1. Thank you so much for the helpfull material!
I recently learned that "religion" as a distinct concept is a relatively recent invention, only a few hundred years old (700 if we're being lenient, 400 if we're strict; Before this the cognates of "religion" meant "bondage by an oath") and intrinsically related to ideas like agnosticism and atheism; And that as such, it is actually very difficult to precisely define, since it's a classification for a lot of unrelated concepts while also excluding related ones (eg magical praxis and creation stories are both religion, but experimental knowledge (science) and history are not, even though to the subject of study magical praxis and science are part of the same thing and creation stories and history are part of the same thing, but magical praxis and creation stories are not part of the same thing). The definition you give, incidentally, suffers from this imprecision as well (to whit, it would include any objective scientific knowledge or beliefs).
In worldbuilding "fantasy" or mythological settings, this becomes an even bigger issue. The big implication behind the term "religion" is the same sort of disdainful condescending sense of "modern, enlightened superiority" with which anthropologists used to use terms like "animistic" or "savage," namely that the difference between "knowledge" and "religion" is that knowledge is correct and religion is not (and curiously, you will be hard-pressed even in the modern day to find an exception to this; Religious people, as in, those who are not atheist or agnostic, will tend to either treat the word "religion" as synonymous with their own supernatural beliefs, or defend their own beliefs as _fact_ but leave the rest of "religion" to rot). In a mythological setting, the gods are real, magic is real, the afterlife is real and creation really happened like that (most of the time), so "religion" is really just science and history in that context, maybe with a flavour based on "religion" in our own world. Learning that "religion" is a modern construct enlightened me on all of these other things, and I feel like a lot of stuff makes a lot more sense now, like I can see what used to be a blind spot for me (both as a writer and just as a person living around other people).
"Magic," while a much older term (or concept; Magus is a very old word, but also words like sorcery and miracle and witch are clearly related if distinct in various ways, and are also old), faces a similar issue of specificity in modern parlance. It seems to a modern, educated observer that we generally know how almost everything works (which is probably farcical, and it probably seemed the same way to an educated individual in ancient or medieval societies as well, who believed that many things happened because of things we now call "magic" or "supernatural" because we are reasonably certain they are not actually real), and so magic is stuff that isn't or shouldn't be possible in the real world (hence the popular interpretation of Carl Sagan's assertion that sufficiently advanced technology would be indistinguishable from magic (advanced meaning "ahead of the observer's context"), that he meant for example that going back in time and showing a caveman a smartphone would seem like the supernatural work of ghosts to him). But "magic" means, historically and etymologically, "the work of the wise," or any esoteric craft. Medicine was once considered magic, even though some people understood, more or less, how it worked, how to do it and that it actually did work; But the knowledge was limited to the handful who could understand it, so it was magic. Writing was similarly magic for a time in many cultures. Stonemasonry can be magic, carpentry can be magic, giving good advice can be magic, parting the waters of a sea can be magic, flying and turning invisible can be magic. Magic can be supernatural, but it doesn't have to be; On the other hand, if every child knows how to use mana to shoot fireballs, shooting fireballs with mana is NOT magic. It's just something people can do. (And this "true" definition still works, arguably better, with Sagan's quote, of course; Consider that in the modern day, computer programming is one of the few esoteric practices that garners real results, and for most people it is mysterious and its results profound.)
Suggestion: For humans who worship Earth, Hell wouldn't be underground with lakes of lava like our beliefs say. It would be either a swamp of decay.
Interestingly enough, the cold can act as both a deterrant and a catalyst for cannibalism. On one hand, it could be about food conservation and whatever is nutriants are nutriants, the short growing season creates a stringent need to use up any food source available. On the other end, it can be a deterrant to cannibalism, as conserving heat would be important, mostly done by sticking together. Nobody wants to stick to someone who would consider their body a viable option of emergency food during the long, cold winters.
So again, cold and cannibalism are a double edged sword.
Wonder what the octopus body snatchers religion is like.
All glory to the Hypnotoad!
Their religion makes more sense to unveil in a... future episode 👀
@@WorldbuildingCorner :)
@@WorldbuildingCorner you son of a gun. You tease
My fantasy worlds religions are heavily based on mythology, ones religion is inspired by Greek myth, one is inspired by Roman myrh, one is inspired by Chinese myth, one is inspired by Norse myth, one is inspired by Hindu myth, one is inspired by Celtic myth, one is inspired by Persian myth, one is inspired by Sumerian myth, one is inspired by Yoruba myth, one is inspired by Inuit myth, one is inspired by Yoruba myth, one is inspired by Cherokee myth, and the last one is inspired by Japanese myth
I can see Toreinism and Dugatho coming into conflict with each other over how to handle the dead.
Makes me wonder how both see the Na'qwuil, given what they do.
I don't know what monotheistic religions you were looking at but order is certainly not a driving force. The one I am apart of is noted to have a high conversion rate simply because it resonates with people and there is no need for temples or fixed locations. We have spent most of our history being persecuted for one thing or another. Sure there was a period of time where we grew corrupt and had way too much power, but that was not a defining trait of the religion and order very much less so. If anything polytheism tends to be more violent as there are numerous cases of open conflict between cults.
As for the octopi I see them being much more grounded and nature focused with their skills in agriculture serving as a basis for many aspects of their society. Essentially they are nontheistic druids with a tinge of lovecraft. They practice a form of druidism that venerates the natural world around them and a slightly more focus on sleep and dreams. After all the remnants of the relics they are encountering are from a mining operation which just reinforces the connections with the earth.
@Shamash•ishtar Christianity.
@@andresmarrero8666
Any Religion can and has been incredibly violent throughout their history.
One thing Christianity has done that’s great is how we ended Slavery on our own instead of being forced to, from which I won’t name any names. 👀
Ironically even if you put all the deaths that have occurred do to religious conflicts on one side and the number of people killed via Communism on another, Communism wins the Blood Bucket by a WIDE margin.
Catholic or Protestant?
@@josephperez2004 what does it matter?
@Andres Marrero They are different. If you had said you followed the Abrahamic religion, the three primary splits would be Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
Damn those were some of the most original religions I've ever "read" in any fantasy book. Now I don't know how to make mine as original lol
In my world building, the world is polytheistic. The “high” gods explain the natural world which goes back to the magic system I use and who can do what and how powerful they might be.
The only “high” god that allows necromancy is the high god of magic, but there are limits like resurrection is done by soul transference in a ritual. The soul can only be transferred into a “non living” vessel that is like a crystal wrapped in a magical cage. It is very rarely done due to the costs involved, both real and figurative. The blessed live on as spirits and can be “trapped” in the vessels as new bodies are “constructed”.
Cults in my world are all over the map…. Some good…. Some subversive. Only a few have been developed since they play a part in the stories I write.
It’s a fun process.
Plus, you could also take into account how lots of religions have nothing to do with the environment they originated from. You don’t have to follow these rules exactly, they can be used quite loosely, or you can disregard them entirely.
I like the concept of a religion that believes that there used to be gods, but through the act of creating the world the gods died, and as such, there are no more gods.
i have 2 cultures with similar beliefs (unrelated projects)
one believes that the creator god was a massive dragon, who died after he finished creating the world and his body became the island chain the culture lives on. and that his blood became the current gods, and people.
the other believes that the gods died, and that the current beings many worship as gods are either spirits, faries, demons, or ghosts. and are not to be worshiped, but may be petitioned if needed, and only in dire circumstances, as the spirits always demand something
I wish that any of this information (other than video links) was actually available on the website.
I think it be cool that gods manifest in the other plane when enough people believe in them or a massive event happens like the rise of life creating a creation god or the giant fire creating a destroyer god
I know I'm late for the party, but I have a question. I would like to have control like in monotheistic religion but also there are in world indication towards multiple deities (mostly elemental magic and "curses"). Do you think it would work if I had few deities but one, specifically goddess of wisdom and order and stuff like that, would be seen as the most important, magic she granted would be consider strongest etc? Something like what one pharaoh (Tutanchamon's father if I remember correctly) tried to do with Amon being main god and other gods and goddesses being his subjects.
Sorry for poor grammar, English isn't my mother tongue and these multiple tenses and constructions are confusing sometimes
Something like that would absolutely work. This video's description of religions was very simplistic, likely deliberately so. Treat it more as a collection of ideas than anything else, and feel free to combine them in any way that makes sense to you in your world.
@@samueldimmock694 I will, thank you very much for your help
Look up ancient Zoroastrianism. Nowadays it's considered a full monotheistic faith, but back in antiquity many argue it was more along the lines of an ethnic religion with one prominent, all-powerful main deity (Ahura Mazda) opposed by an Evil force (Ahriman) and aided by several lesser deities.
What about the cephalopod neurological parasites? I wonder what their view on religion would be in this context?
Just saying, I have never once heard a Christian teach the story of Jesus feeding the 5,000 with those concepts involved. The story is an example of Jesus providing for his followers even when it looks like he cannot and is taught as one of the many miracles he performed. It only relates to generosity in the sense that EVERYTHING Jesus did relates to generosity; I wouldn't call that a core message of that specific event.
Nevertheless, very well-made video! I will be using this for my own worldbuilding, even when I am writing for real world religions. Breaking them down like this is exactly what I needed.
I kinda feel bad for the Dugathoans, imagine one day scientists finding out that your god is just a rock
quick thing this video never talks about the octpus people what religion do they follow?
Awesome!
Thank you :)
So do the Naqil not have a religion?
Could anyone answer a question I've got?
In fantasy, could there realistic exist a mix of monotheism and nontheism in the same religion? Or would that be too contradictory?
7:09 Nope. That's simply not true at all, because not all monotheistic religions are even the same. Judaism, and sikhism are both monotheistic religions. But they don't go out their way, and proselytize their religion to anyone.
There are plenty of monotheistic religions that are also very peaceful. Such as the quakers, the amish, the doukhobours, and the baha'is.
So, therefore, it usually depends on which monotheistic religions that you are referring to.
Definitely correct, there are exceptions to every point throughout the discussion on religions (as well as on any concept that is cultural rather than scientific). What I discuss in the video are just trends, based on looking at the archetypes of religions as a whole.
@@WorldbuildingCorner Okay. Understood. 🙂
Quakers, Amish & Doukhobors aren't really separate Religions though ...they are just more Pacifist Variants/Sects of Christianity. Bahai Faith as far as I know is the only worldwide monotheistic religion that has never ever attacked the adherents of another religion.
@@KevinWarburton-tv2iy *Quakers, Amish & Doukhobors aren't really separate Religions though ...they are just more Pacifist Variants/Sects of Christianity.*
ummmm....Dude. I've already known about that.
I wonder what Kathachusho Silarins believe...
Sorry, but I just don't see a general tendency towards extreme control of follower behavior in nontheistic religions. Confucianism and some branches of Buddhism do have strong social mechanisms of behavioral control, while Taoism and to a lesser extent Zen Buddhism even reject such societal mechanisms. Maybe I'm missing something, but this connection seems rather far-fetched to begin with. There is a reason why Eastern nontheistic religions have become popular among Western liberals over Christianity, and it's certainly not because of their high emphasis on behavioral control.
I don't think more than one contemporary sapient species could coexist on one planet.
One of them would outcompete all the pothers, just like humanoids did until there was only one species left.
I would argue that the existence of magic, or especially deities, would dramatically change the possibilities. There's also things like symbiotic species, ect.
In D&D, I had found a fan-made Paladin class called "Oath of the Common Man", which is, in short words, a Paladin that defends and spread the ideals of Communism.
So, to make it fit a Steampunk scenario, I offered these explanation:
- The belief system is not called "Communism", but "Creed of the Common Man";
- The belief is based on the inherent holiness of the work done by every Worker - every morsel of food, every tool created, every sword, every plow, every piece of cloth, every safe road, and more, had come by the effort and knowledge of an individual, and because of that, it must be respected and rewarded accordingly;
- Slavery is anathema to the CotCM - it is not only a theft of the rewards of the hard work of a Worker, but also is stealing the ability of the Worker to decide its own fate. Because of that, "Liberation Crusades" against slavery had been engaged by these Paladins;
- The dogmas of the CotCM are called "The Proletarian Pentacle", and they are Equality, Community, Respect, Change and Labor;
- The Paladins of the Common Man are trained and educated in the Order of the Red Star, an institution in which not only teach the holy warriors of the Common Man the dogmas and dictates of the CotCM, but is also a school, university, hospital and Worker Union for workers;
- The OotRS are estabilished in Soviets, which are their equivalent for temples;
- They do not worship it, but they give praise and give thanks to an entity they call "The People's Will", which is the collective gestalt formed by every dream of hopes and dreams of a better future of every worker, free or slave;
- They were created by Karle Marx, a Goliath that not only had liberated his people from the slavery imposed on them by Dragons, but unified them under the Quizoal Empire, the largest nation of the known world located in the harsh and cold north;
- The Paladins of the Common Man can tap into the collective knowledge of every worker who has passed away, allowing them to be incredible artisans and professionals of any kind;
- Their motto is "Blessed be the People's Will, who taught my hands to Work and my Fists to Battle";
- Their battlecry is "The People's Will be done!";
the word 'empire' sticks out in all that. the Free Quizoal State shall have none of that
*Looks at the Romans* Yeah.....may want....may want to rethink what ya said on polythesim.....just......just saying. Then theirs the Vikings, Gaul, Germania, Greece, .......just saying.
All religions are spread by conquest, though sometimes the conquest may spread more slowly than others.
No, there's plenty of ethnic religions who don't care about making converts at all.
🙌🙌🙌
🙌🙏
♪♫♥Very Interesting !
FasterPATH
Henotheism is another one where they worship one god, how ever they admit there are other gods but don’t worship them
nontheism? u mean atheism?
I'm so dumb you're losing me man someone please help me
you are god
Your examples of "Non-theistic" religions are no more religions than Stoicism or Epicureanism. And even Buddhism worships the Buddha and the Bodhisattvas.
When it comes to objectively analyzing religion for the sake of trying to understand how some of it works "mechanically" let's say, for the sake of worldbuilding, I think that the issue is less number and presence of gods and rather, first, how it evolves from primitive beliefs in spirits into theo-philosophical arguments, and second, the exclusivist vs non-exclusivist and ecumenical vs non-ecumenical nature of the religions.
First, in our world early human societies believed in nature spirits, tried to appease natural forces to help them survive, had fertility cults meant to promote childbirth and help the mothers and sons avoid health problems, and also ancestor worship. This kind of animism, shamanism and pantheism beliefs are at the origin of human spirituality.
As societies evolved into agriculture and became more complex, so did their value systems. Religion usually became organized or semi-organized with actual priests, aside from worshiping and appeasing raw natural forces now abstract concepts and social ideas started to be personified and idolized with the development of the first polytheist pantheons, reflecting how society was becoming more complicated. Rather elaborated polytheisms existed everywhere urban societies developed on Earth, from the Middle East to the Mediterranean, India, China, Mesoamerica and the Andes.
This is where things start getting complicated. In the West (meaning Mediterranean Europe and the Middle East) and in India the legitimacy of the old pagan gods became questioned in late antiquity, in India actually a lot of time before the West when the Roman Empire was already in charge. As time went on, more complex and rationalistic arguments started to be raised to explain the world, and this led in the West and India to question the legitimacy of the fickle and human-like gods. Basically, the development of philosophy led to greater scrutiny over religious beliefs, putting the old faith in question. In China this problem was sidestepped entirely because the local philosophical development sidestepped religion and instead produced a moral system based on social behaviour of the individual and groups and how government should run (basically, Confucianism. Something some people would argue isn't even a religion but I feel is the perfect example of nontheistic value system, although it historically existed alongside and superposed with traditional Chinese Polytheism), with Chinese Polytheism surviving unscathed to the side but reduced in importance. Notably, the West had its own great philosophical schools too during this phase of religious crisis with Stoicism and Epicureanism, but never became what Confucianism became because Stoicism and Epicureanism are very personal moral philosophies rather than social ones.
In India this led to the birth of many anti-Vedic religious schools like Buddhism (who might fit into nontheism in some of its sects, but has way too many gods and hells in others to fit there) and Jainism, but eventually the old religion bounced back and Hinduism developed a complex theology that allowed Hindu Polytheism to survive in the modern world and Buddhism and Jainism to become minorities in India. In the West the old faiths were fully replaced by new ones who people felt made more sense and were better at explaining the world, in the battle between Christianity, Manicheism and mystery religions Christianity came on top, and later Islam further ensured Abrahamic dominance in the West. The new faiths in all cases had much more complex theological systems, appealed less to appeasing the wild forces of nature and rather present a just world held by the righteous and a good force rather than, well Poseidon and Zeus being canonically predators in the Greek Myths, and in this way appeared to make much more sense to the superstition of the past, except Hinduism as Hinduism evolved in that sense as well and thus preserved Polytheism.
This is the evolution of religions historically in our world. You see that the trend is increasing theological sophistication leading nature worship to become pagan pantheons, then the pantheons to be questioned and either a wholly parallel philosophical morality develops in parallel to polytheism (China), new religions take over the old discredited religions (the West with Christianity and Islam) or the old religion bounces back and develops a theological complexity adequate for late iron age societies (India).
The next part is understanding that different religions work radically different from each others. The old polytheist pantheons are usually ethnic religions, as in, they're the faith of a specific people and thus it usually doesn't even conceive the notion of converting different people. They're not ecumenical (directed at the whole world). Why would a Roman want an Egyptian to worship Jupiter instead of Ra after all? Each people has their own gods, and that's the way it is.
Furthermore, many religions don't have a problem if you have different beliefs on top of their own. Back to the Roman, not only he didn't really care if the Egyptians worshiped their own national gods, but the cult of the Egyptian goddess Isis became popular in late Rome because, as far as polytheist religions care, what's wrong with adding one more god that you think will help you to the mix? You can see, they're non-exclusivist, they don't think belonging to their religion tradition excludes you from others. Ancient polytheism is usually ethnic, non-exclusivist and non-ecumenical.
There are quirky cases. Ancient Judaism (not the modern one influenced by the other major monotheistic religions that came from itself) was the ethnic religion of the ancient Jews who didn't care for converting foreigners but were very clear that a Jew could only worship the God of Israel. They were ethnic, non-ecumenical but exclusivist. and likely not because they thought their god was actually the only one, but simply that there are foreign gods and you should stick to your own (so probably this could work with an exclusivist polytheism as well). Buddhism is an ecumenical religion that seeks to spread itself all over the world, but also has a long tradition of establishing itself on top of local pre-existing religions by co-opting them or take from them. Buddhism is fine with your keeping your adherence to older pagan beliefs, as Buddhist beliefs are built to exist to the side of them and on top of them. In Japan polytheistic Shintoism used to be deeply intermixed with Buddhism, the religion that talked about reincarnation and abstention from world's pleasures, since they manage to each occupy different areas of belief. In ancient India Buddhism similarly co-existed with old Hinduism and so in China, Mongolia and so on. Buddhism is an ecumenical world religion that is also non-exclusivist (although that never stopped it from trying to aggressively take away influence from the pagan priest class in favour of its monks and monasteries).
The Far East is religiously confusing to Westerners because the reality there is of overlapping traditional polytheism, Buddhism and Confucian philosophy that are not fundamentally at odds with each others and thus someone could identify and partake in all of these beliefs at the same time.
Finally you have Abrahamic Western religions that are what most people think as religions normally although that's actually a very specific kind of belief. Christianity and Islam are ecumenical, they're world religions that seek to spread all over the world and see conversion as a good thing that saves people's souls, and they're exclusivist, you can't be a muslim or a christian and also something else. Now, this particular combination is the only one that's likely to generate religious intolerance on its own, since you created a belief where you have to convert people or they'll go to hell, and all the other religions must go. Violence can still definitely erupt in other religions as well, but it's usually over more practical issues (Buddhists want to increase the influence of their temples at the expense of others, the Romans expect subservience to their divine emperor from the subjugated peoples for political reasons even if they don't care what else they worship, and so on).
Monotheism or Polytheism is just the content of the religion, which is ultimately interpreted by men, so I don't think it actually affects intolerance directly in any real way. I don't really agree with the entire "Monotheist religions favour order and intolerance, Polytheism is divided and struggles with empires", because all religions are whatever their adherents want them to be at any given moment as long as the fundamentals aren't messed with... Too much. All religions are fundamentally unique, even if there are categories to fit them, so that's something else that has to be remembered. Zoroastianism used to be a monotheistic ethnic religion that dominated many other people and didn't really care about converting or oppressing other religiously. Confucianism was the main religion of China and China definitely never struggled with imperialism, armies, dominating others or being isolated.
Oh, and finally, in a fantasy world the gods might actually be actively present in shaping things up. That's gonna add a whole new bunch of variables to an already complicated picture.
I find Most of this to be utter bullshit we have no proof of our past we go back so far and then there’s no records so, of course the only thing you can do is jump to evolution. We suddenly evolved and all the different species service center of all of the same time I would believe that we came from somewhere else more than I believe in the evolution. Not that I don’t think species do evolve over time, I think that’s possible but you cannot speak to this like it’s fact we don’t have that evidence. I believe in creation, way more than I believe in evolution, and I don’t necessarily mean creation to an invisible God a guy could be a whole group of people. A guy could be a very, super smart among us. We almost are to the point where we can create life if a.I becomes aware of itself then we have created life
Sir this is for worldbuilding. A fantasy