5.8 KiB
[Q][D] Does anyone know of fiction positing a purely secular world?
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Author: u/Jon_Freebird *
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URL: https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/2pmsbs/qd_does_anyone_know_of_fiction_positing_a_purely/
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Score: 5
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Created: 2014-12-18T00:33:19
Post:
A world where religion has either died out or never appeared to begin with.
Comments:
u/BekenBoundaryDispute [+5] (13 minutes later)
The Invention of Lying is the first thing that comes to mind. Spoiler:
u/None [+7] (2 hours later)
It was an interesting movie, probably under-appreciated, but I feel like the sudden shift in attention to the "Creating a religion" aspect of it was a waste of a really cool idea. Especially when the protagonist used his skill to do better at his job, by creating fake stories from history. It felt nice and rational, like he was really being creative with his ability.
u/TimTravel [+1] (2 days later)
Yeah, I'd recommend the first half of the movie. The second half was a little circlejerky.
u/aeschenkarnos [+6] (7 hours later)
JRR Tolkien's Hobbit and Lord of the Rings are almost completely devoid of overt religion. People engage in ritual behaviours, and there are clear supernatural events going on, however there seem to be no characters with the social role of priests (except maybe the Wizards to some extent), and commonplace religious activity like praying and worshipping, wearing religious symbols, making reference to divine entities etc is absent from the story.
I'm aware that the Silmarillion and other works expand on the Middle Earth pantheon, however in the two major books, the world might as well be completely secular.
u/Solonarv [+8] Chaos Legion (9 hours later)
It's also debatable whether gods existing as a matter of fact makes the world non-secular.
u/aeschenkarnos [+2] (9 hours later)
Good point; but there is no reverence expressed in those stories. It's like the way we view black holes bigger than our solar system: a moment of "whoa, dude" contemplating it, and then we get on with our lives. To religious folks, their religion is front-and-centre and they think about it multiple times daily.
u/Jinoc [+2] (a day later)
Elbereth is the name of a divinity, and her name is used a number of time as a battle cry against evil.
u/ulyssessword [+4] (2 hours later)
I have a feeling that it shows up incidentally a lot, but I can't think of anything that focuses on the lack of religion.
u/MadScientist14159 [+2] WIP: Sodium Hypochlorite (Rational Bleach) Eventually. Maybe. (2 days later)
It would be hard to focus on lack of religion for obvious reasons.
"Hey, are you religious?"
"The fuck does 'religious' mean?"
"No idea."
u/ulyssessword [+2] (2 days later)
Hard, but not impossible. The Bayesian Conspiracy of EY's is quite obviously religious-like, but equally obviously non-religious. If someone were to make a novel with a similar premise I could call it focusing on the lack of religion.
Another scenario would be sci-fi forensic anthropologists examining extinct religions in the context of their own (secular) world. If you're willing to stretch the definition of "secular" than it could also be fantasy anthropologists comparing our current religions (that don't work) to their own rigorously tested religion-like systems.
There's also a lot of room for dystopias. Simply make everyone part of one specific cult or ideology and have typical religions expressly banned.
u/TimeLoopedPowerGamer [+2] Utopian Smut Peddler (7 hours later)
Is it religious to obey the commandments of obviously superior beings who regularly and provably walk among people, influencing daily events directly? Does worshiping processes and ideals, such as money, honor, or freedom count? What does "world" mean? Earth? Is this no mentions of religion occurring at all?
Lots of wiggle room here.
Most sci-fi books (especially the "hard" ones, and many from the golden age) feature purely secular worlds, as their writers were much more likely to be interested in the secular aspects of society than
boringother genre fiction writers usually are. Gods and religion are usually not mentioned in short stories about a first FTL journey, for example. That's where I'd look for discussions of pure secular societies, though a lot of fantasy counts in a looser sense.
u/MoralRelativity [+2] (17 hours later)
Star Trek? (The Federation, anyway.)
u/Ardvarkeating101 [+2] Father of Learning (9 days later)
The Polity by Neal Asher. When you can actually live forever, promises of life after death become a bit silly
u/STL [+1] (3 hours later)
As I recall, Deepness's Spiders don't have any religion.
u/Chronophilia [+3] sci-fi ≠ futurology (17 hours later)
A "Church of the Dark" is mentioned a few times. I don't remember them detailing their beliefs, but they're certainly in favour of not messing with the natural order.
u/Bowbreaker [+1] Solitary Locust (20 hours later)
The "evil" ones did.
u/PeridexisErrant [+1] put aside fear for courage, and death for life (12 hours later)
Aside from "lots of science fiction" - go read The Dispossessed, it sounds like you'd be interested - not many spring to mind.
I guess the catch is that it takes quite deep worldbuilding to noticeably leave our religion without feeling forced so either it's just not mentioned because it's not relevant anymore, or assumed to be 'like reality unless noted'
u/None [+1] (a day later)
Does it count as religion if the deity is demonstrably real and measurable? Or is that still science?