This following blog will be regarding religion, a touchy subject for many but I'll try not to offend anyone on my third post on this site... Mostly this will just be speculative fiction, with lots of 'what if's.
These friday blogs are primarily meant to be annotations on my other blogs, particularly my wednesday blog, the last of which had strong religious themes that don't necessarily reflect my true opinion. In reality, the gods in my story were used as a narrative device and I don't intend on them featuring any other time in my story, apart from perhaps next week when I explain the origins of the more fantastic races in my setting.
It doesn't take a genius to figure out that my story is set in the future of this world, and although I mention that humanity had lost it's faith, you could be forgiven for thinking otherwise at the present time when the news is dominated by stories of muslim terrorists, american extreme christians, and mayan prophecies; but as explored in American Gods by Neil Gaiman, many worship technologies and tradition for traditions sake rather than the core philosophies of respective religions and their origins.
It is implied that every God that exists or has ever existed is present in my setting, with appearances from the big bearded man in the sky to the warriors dripping with blood in the jungles, and everything in between. However, if a god is truly omnipotent then they could easily manifest themselves as all of these at once, and could just be doing it as a point that no religion can be proved or disproved, so forget about the man and concentrate on the idea. Generally a good idea for those that believe in goodwill to all men and being generally nice to each other, not so much for those that believe god must be appeased with regular ritual sacrifice. I hope that this is the message that whatever god there is in reality wants to be conveyed, and the fact I just received a large tax rebate may enforce the fact that they approve of me acting prophet... Although I am also ill at the moment as well as having cut my tongue on a throat lozenge, so perhaps not.
I also believe that the humans' response to this is entirely within the realms of probability. I can't see everyone accepting that all religions are true, and there will be hundreds of people trying to dismiss it as some form of propaganda or aliens or something. I see no flaw in the gods' method- surely everyone will unite in peace and harmony if they see that in a way, everyone's right so we can get on with life. But humans are unpredictable, and we know it would instead cause chaos, which could well be why no gods have revealed their presence thus far in real life. In my experience, atheists are stubborn and would dismiss it as a hoax, agnostics wouldn't know what to believe with everything going on, and believers wouldn't want to admit they wasted their lives believing in something false- perhaps making them the most dangerous, as they try to make up for the things they were forbidden to do in their previous belief system.
Another product of all gods existing simultaneously, or being one and the same, would mean that the 'evil' gods still exist too which is where the apocalyptic aspect comes in. Think of all those blood-soaked jungle gods, Loki, Set, and the various destroyers all rolled into one and how they would respond to being ignored by humans- especially once the 'good' gods have allowed them to do as they wish. I see the gods as wanting to create a clean slate, meaning exterminating the parasites currently infesting the planet- though those level-headed enough to believe the evidence in front of their own eyes would be spared, much like Noah (the similarities have only just struck me...). In this new world, the animals without a voice would have their place as well- it has long been thought that those that can't object either lack the capacity to know what is happening, or don't care, but I do not believe this is the case which is why another fundamental theme of all my stories is giving animals a voice. Not all embrace this gift, as you will see next week, but will those that learn of their new power use it as intended, to speak out against oppression and express their gratitude in words, or abuse it to take control as humans once did?
At this point, I feel the need to say that I'm not an insane animal rights campaigner, and that many animals look like they do enjoy being around humans (dogs, cats, horses etc.) and some look like they probably do lack the mental faculties to experience the pain that we would feel in their situation (cows, fish etc.). But that doesn't mean there aren't exceptions.
I'm not sure what else I can add without offending people, so I'll leave with my own religious belief. I'm not affiliated with any organised religion, as they have all done wrong in the past and any religion that worships 'human' prophets isn't for me- whether the prophet is Jesus, Mohammed, the Dalai Lama, or whatever. There may well be a god or many gods, but they have a whole universe to run and probably aren't concerned with a tiny insignificant race on a small blue planet. As it is, I'm content to believe that the universe just sort of happened, but am happy to speculate on the possibility of gods.
On wednesday next week, I will continue the origin story with how my fantasy races came to be, and friday I will hopefully enlighten you on real-world origins of some fantasy creatures and why I picked them for my novel.
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