{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/1827", "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it. Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.", "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'" }, "archive": "urth", "thread": { "id": 1827, "subject": "Comparative Religion", "messages": 3, "voices": 3, "first": "1999-10-08T09:51:31+00:00", "last": "1999-10-08T11:10:12+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "David_Lebling", "address": "david_lebling at avid.com" }, "date": "1999-10-08T09:51:31+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Comparative Religion", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "From: Paul C Duggan \n<>\n\nIf you look at the features of the Vironese faith, it has only a tenuous\nconnection to Christianity. Some of its features compared to Christian ones:\n\n--Vironism-- --Christianity--\npolytheistic monotheistic\nanimal sacrifice no\nhuman sacrifice (only recently abolished) no\nreading of entrails no\ntheophany as major element no, but visions have been important\nconfession and forgiveness confession and forgiveness\nsign of cross sign of addition\n\nReally, Vironism resembles nothing so much as the Roman religion, a syncretic\npopular religion based primarily on the original Roman polytheism, but open to\nany cult with a popular following. Had Christianity exhibited a willingness to\nsacrifice to the Emperor, it probably would have been absorbed into the Roman\nreligious \"marketplace.\" Popular Roman religious practice has to be\ndistinguished from the state religion, which was conservative and focused more\non the old (pre-Greek-borrowings) Italian (Latin? Etruscan?) deities, such as\nthe Lares and Penates, the Bona Dea, and so on. In Viron, Jehovah (or is it\nAllah?) has been absorbed as the \"Outsider.\"\n\nThe Romans as individuals were into Isis, Mithras, mystery cults, and so on, all\nof which were grafted onto the original pantheon. This is not unlike Hindu\nsyncretism as well.\n\nIn any case, the religions of the Whorl appear to all be parodies of Urth (or\nrather, Earth) religions, sometimes with a sting or joke attached.\nTriviguante's religion and culture are parodies of Arab culture and religion\nwith the sexes swapped, for example. The religion of Gaon (in _On Blue's\nWaters_) appears to be more-or-less a parody of Hinduism.\n\nPas/Typhon did this on purpose to divide the inhabitants of the _Whorl_.\n\nIn short, we can deduce little or nothing about the religion(s) of Urth from\nthose of the _Whorl_.\n\n -- Dave Lebling\n (aka vizcacha)" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Alex David Groce", "address": "alex_groce at gs246.sp.cs.cmu.edu" }, "date": "1999-10-08T10:57:06+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Comparative Religion", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Although (ignoring Wolfe's purposes and attributing final reasoning to\nTyphon here) the fact that the parodies are as close as they are to religions\nwe know suggests that (as I think New Sun indicates) Urth's religions are\ndescendants of Earth's religions.\n\n\n\"And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.\" John 8:32" }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "Alex David Groce (agroce+ at cs.cmu.edu)\nPh.D. Student, Carnegie Mellon University - Computer Science Department\n8112 Wean Hall (412)-268-3066\nhttp://www.cs.cmu.edu/~agroce" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Michael Straight", "address": "straight at email.unc.edu" }, "date": "1999-10-08T11:10:12+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Comparative Religion", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Fri, 8 Oct 1999 David_Lebling at avid.com wrote:\nIn any case, the religions of the Whorl appear to all be parodies of Urth (or\nrather, Earth) religions, sometimes with a sting or joke attached.\nTriviguante's religion and culture are parodies of Arab culture and religion\nwith the sexes swapped, for example. The religion of Gaon (in _On Blue's\nWaters_) appears to be more-or-less a parody of Hinduism." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "This touches on the difference I was trying to express between these two\nseries. Does one get the feeling, reading the New Sun series, that even\nin Typhon's time anyone would remember enough of Arab culture to get the\njoke of switching the sexes?\n\nThe world the Whorl came from seems more closely connected to our time\nthan Severian's world.\n\n-Rostrum" } ] } ] }