Work of Fiction

    You may have noticed, there was a theme of religion in the background of my story, and that might apply in other as well. Mostly for me I see religion is an interesting as a work of fiction. Most authors who use religion, usually do so in a fantasy setting, and I don’t entirely intend to break from that trend. My problem with religion is and always will be people taking it as true, even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

    Religion as a work of fiction works, it makes for interesting stories when you are able to write them in a manner as though it is true, a few authors have used real-world religions and others use religions of their fictional world.

    The core religion I use for UWoF is completely fictional, it’s inspired a bit from real world religions and does use elements and themes from real world religions.

    I have a problem with my suspension of disbelief in stories about our world, where elements from religions are true. To me if they were true, we’d live in a much different world than we do today. Our civilizations would have developed differently if we were all descended from the incestuous relations of Adam and Eve’s children.

    Given that we know a certain amount of differing genetics are necessary for humans to live healthy full lives. I mean the near incest from the European nobility created defects that many their descendants are forced to live with. If all of humanity was descendant from a pair of humans with the same genetics, Eve was made from Adam’s rib, we’d probably not have survived long enough for the flood to even come.

    Let me pause for a moment to point out that if that story was true, it’s about a man marrying his transgender self.

    Had the world been completely covered in water high enough for Everest to be covered, most plant life on earth would be gone. There would be no such thing as fresh water, as the salt water from the oceans would make all water salt water. The rapid speed at which the water came and then disappeared would displace tremendous amounts of land causing untold devastation.

    So before even trying to convince people that dinosaurs lived alongside humans in the garden of Eden, there are serious questions of how humanity survived.

    Similarly if you ask a someone who knows physics what would happen to Santa Claus if he actually reached a speed where he could visit every house in just one night, you will see how silly such a crazy thing sounds when it meets reality.

    So yea I only see religion being true in a fantasy/fictional setting, like a Song of Ice and Fire, or the Warhammer fantasy & 40k universes. I mean, how many people alive today believe Heracles and Arthur were real people? They simply aren’t they may have been inspired by real people, but that doesn’t make them real.

    Most importantly that doesn’t mean that I don’t enjoy the fiction created around them, I do like the labors of Heracles, Motre DArthur, and Homer’s epics. Just because I don’t believe them as true doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate the story being told.

    Often with religion I have a dozen or so versions of each of the stories to choose from. Like do I prefer Cain and Abel  or Seth and Osiris, do I prefer The story of Noah and the flood, or the Epic of Gilgamesh. Really I don’t really have to prefer one to the other, they are different stories though one is very likely inspired by the other, and roughly about as true.

I don’t mind religion used in fiction. I don’t mind people who understand much of their holy book is fiction. I do mind people who take it seriously.