Blue Planet

Religion and Culture 2199

Religion. The major Earth religions are Popular Buddhism/New Age (or New Buddhism), Catholicism, American Evangelicalism and Fundamentalist Islam of the United Islamic Republic (UIR). Other smaller religions are liberal Islam and liberal Christianity, Judaism and the other Eastern religions. The liberal versions of Islam and Christianity are responses to the fundamentalist and militant versions of their religions, which themselves are responses to the United Islamic Republic and the consequent spread of Islam, and to the scientific secularisation of society. Religion is not a shrinking force, nevertheless it feels besieged. People subscribe to these systems out of tradition, fear, disorientation, alienation or in the case of the UIR, because it is the law.

The Blight left many religious believers feeling an End was at hand, and afterwards, others believed we were failing in caring for God's creation, or the Blight was a divine punishment. Intersellar colonisation has at once challenged religious world views that maintain Earth as central to Gods plans, but at the same time it is also confirmation of God's greatness. The Wormhole is often seen as divine planning.

American Evangelicalism (AE) has a strong hold is some parts of the US politics, and it rails against Augmented Reality (AR) and genetic modification of foeti especially, seeing these as violates of the sanctity of life and challenges to God's plan. It generally opposes other scientific advances, and was a big influence in the moratorium on nanotech and the outlawing of embodied AI.

The psychological shock of the Blight has left many people reeling, groping for solace in religion. AE is too extreme for many to stomach however, and even AE is typically the religion of the Augmented Reality disconnected underclass. Extremist, anti-technology and scaremonghering, AE is expecting the Blight (as Pestilence and Famine) to be the 1st and 2nd Horsemen of the apocalypse. AE anticipates that the GEO will collapse resulting in a final World War between the remaining powers. Ironically, many AE are not American, AE being popular with those disconnected people throughout the world in the Free Zones or the fringes of AR society who have a luddite mentality and long for salvation and the old way of life.

Catholicism is on the opposite spectrum. It is typically the religion of AR cultures and it has a large AR presence, offering many Catholic programmes and virtual worshiping spaces, all impressively splendid. Its basic ideals and values are still the same and the Church is still very rich, though it has lost many of the worlds poor to AE, but gained Westerners who fear Islam. It manages to interpret scientific advances as Gods will and is resisting religious apathy, atheism and hedonistic, immortality seeking hedonism. Catholics send missions to Luna, Mars, the Belts, and Poseidon. It is mainly powerful in the AR class of Southern Europe, South America and the US.

Popular Buddhism/New Age is a major religion world-wide in AR cultures, especially in those who reject the prejudices of Catholicism and find AE and Fundamentalist Islam frightening, violent and strict. There are many rich gurus and PB/NA programmers offering AR spaces, aesthetics and lifestyles which believers subscribe too. It is a decentralised religion, with no real organisation, prone to fads and scares. It offers some basic ethical and spiritual structure to secular lives in an age where science and space-exploration dominates. PB/NW is flexible and consumer oriented and provide simpl and sentimental explanations for life and death.

Fundmentalist Islam has spread throughout the Middle East, Africa, and Asia ensuring the minority status of once huge religions like Hinduism and Sikhism, even the once great China has succumbed. As Asia and Africa were hit worse by the Blight, many believers of the Eastern religions died and the power bases of these religions went with it. The UIR incoporates most of India, parts of China, parts of Eastern Europe and most of North Africa including Egypt. The blasted and toxic wastes around and in Israel are no longer a concern now that Jerusalem is mainly ruin and Palestine gone and the Syrian heights radioactive. FI sends missions to the Earth's solar system and Poseidon.

The Great Mosque at Mecca is the largest building in the world (other than the SkyHook) and was rebuilt after it was hit in the nuclear war. The Great Mosque and the Stone at Kaaba exist in AR, allowing Muslims to pray their en-masse during their daily prayers. Those that do not live in AR, or do not live on Earth either pray in the direction of Mecca, or they face the sky.

Liberal Islam works on the fringes in the FI UIR, and has some acceptance is the AR class of the UIR. LI can be found in AR generally and works closely with liberal Christianity, probably for mutual survival. These liberal groups provide leftist critiques of the Fundmentalist religions, though people with these sympathies are typically drawn to atheism and PB/NA.

Judaism is a broken religion. During the Blight, anti-sematism in many countries prevented Jews from getting food, resulting in a great many Jews starving. In Israel the UIR attempts to take food shipped from the US, as well as rescue Jerusalem resulted in a nuclear exchange between the UIR, Israel, the US and China that killed many Americans, Chineses, Israelis and Muslims, leaving a radioactive boundary around Israel and dotting the country, China, North America and the surrounding Middle East with toxic Free Zones. Jerusalem was accidentally destroyed, smashing Jewish morale and increasing AE expectations of Apocolpyse. The US then abandoned Israel to protect and feed its own citizens. The Jews in the US also suffered from AE anti-semitism and starved in droves. However, this was brief and the political struggle turned in their favour. The worlds Jews are now living almost exclusively in the US and Israel. Many Israelis fled to the US. Those that remained are violent, embittered and sickly. Those Jews that survived in the US have mainly taken up Orthodoxy and are almost fanatical, clinging to their shattered religion. Jewish terrorists are planning to destroy the Stone at Kaaba in Mecca, probably with a nuclear weapon or hi-jacked space-ship.

The Eastern religions survive alongside atheism, FI and AE amongst the decimated populace. Northern Europe and Australia are strongly secular, mainly unconcerned about religion. Smaller, newer religions belong to technophiles who worship the new technologies, or claim cyborg tranformation and finally uploading is apotheosis. Many of these believers live in the more stable Free Zones where cyborgs are more accepted or a way of life. A smaller scientific sects known as "Incipit Singularity" seek to contact outlaw AIs and help them develop into super AIs in the hopes that they will become benevolent rulers of humanity who will provide the way to a safer future, the promise of immortality and ensure that accidents like the Blight will never happen, guiding scientific advance into a Golden Age. These scientists are secretive and have infiltrated the GEO and Incorporates.

All of these religions can be found on Poseidon, having been taken there by the Athena colonists, missions and Re-Contact colonists. Certain religions like Buddhism and New Rastafarianism are enjoying a revival there, and the fin philosophy of Song has a big influence on colonists and natives.

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