On Sat, 18 Sep 2021 05:37:47 +1000, Alex Goodwin
<xxxxxx@multitel.com.au> wrote:

>Comments interspersed - have been busy in offline life.
>
>On 12/9/21 9:47 am, Jeff Zeitlin - editor at freelancetraveller.com (via
>tml list) wrote:
>> As the DGP religious profile generation process has some flaws, and is not
>> open to "public" use, I am attempting to work up an alternative from first
>> principles.
>Hear, hear!
>>  One of the aspects that I have come up with is what I am
>> calling the "model" of the religion, and have come up with the following to
>> define it. Please critique and discuss.
>>
>> There is some prefatory material that defines some of the terms I use; I
>> have not included that material here. If you need clarification of a term,
>> please ask.

>"Prefatory"?  Typo, or something _else_ you've stumbled across/are
>cooking up?

"Prefatory - of the nature of a preface or introduction". Here, the omitted
material simply expounds (and expands) on the first sentence, and includes
some definitions.

>>
>> * * * * *
>>
>> Model
>>
>> The goal for any religion is to provide a common worldview to bind a
>> society into a cohesive whole. Part of that common worldview involves the
>> rules for interacting with the religion itself. We call this the Model of
>> the religion, and have identified three basic possibilities:
>
>My first reaction here was to conflate 'society' with 'polity or large
>chunk thereof' and then ask 'why are you assuming a roughly 1:1 mapping?'.

Not necessarily. For example, the Amish ("Pennsylvania Dutch") are a
society within the intent of my usage. The religion binds the society
together, but it also somewhat _defines_ who members of the society are.

>My second reaction was 'Hang on, it's one Zeitlin, J.  _Ask_ before you
>make a goose of yourself.'
>
>>
>> Propitiatory
>>
>> The purpose of devotional activities is to either induce the Deitic
>> Principle to favorable action, or to deter the Deitic Principle from
>> unfavorable action. This includes devotional activities where no specific
>> request is made, such as prayers of thanks or of acknowledgement of
>> suzerainty.
>
>EXPN 'Deitic Principle'?  A prefatory (sic) element?

Yes, it's one of the terms I defined in the omitted material. Short form,
not entirely accurate, you can read it as "god(s)", except that it also
applies to religions where there is no specific distinction between god(s)
and not-god(s) (e.g., pantheism, but not panentheism). It can also apply to
"lesser" entities; for example, in many Christian denominations, the
entities referred to as 'saints' would be included in the Deitic Principle.
>Otherwise, that seems to come across as implicitly assuming monotheism. 
>IIUC, doesn't that rule out the majority (at least by number) of Terran
>religions, past and present?

No; I specifically wrote the definition of 'Deitic Principle' to allow for
a nonsingular entity.

>>
>> Ethical
>>
>> The purpose of devotional activities is to maintain society as a whole in a
>> functional mode viewed as positive, or to remind devotees of the need to so
>> maintain the society. This includes self-focussed activities that are
>> intended to make one a "better person" to the extent that the normal
>> behavior of the "better person" is favorable to maintaining society as
>> above.

>See comment above re "society".

See reply to same :)

>>
>> Transcendental
>>
>> The purpose of devotional activities is to bring oneself closer to some
>> idealized state, representing a "perfection" of the self, or to a state
>> where there is no distinction between the self and the Deitic Principle.
>> Occasionally, this is interpreted to focus on becoming "more/better than
>> human" or to develop abilities that are considered exceptional (for
>> example, psionics). (For individuals other than humans, substitute
>> appropriate species identifier, e.g., "more/better than
>> Vargr/Aslan/Virushi/Gurvin/etc.)

>Maybe substitute "baseline" for the specific species?

... Maybe. I'll see if I can find a wording that I like for that.

>>
>> A Note on Hybridization
>>
>> It is actually unusual for an "organic" religion (that is, one that
>> developed naturally, rather than being specifically 'designed') to be
>> purely in one of the three classes; often, a religion will change as the
>> society does, and a religion that might be classed as 'Ethical' may well
>> have 'held over' elements that would suggest a 'Propitiatory' model (e.g.,
>> prayers before and after meals), or one that is principally
>> 'Transcendental' may also have elements of an 'Ethical' model regarding how
>> the Improved self should interact with those who are less Improved. Even
>> 'designed' religions may have 'mixed' aspects, as the designers will often
>> take acceptable aspects of other religions into their own for multiple
>> reasons, including increasing the "comfort levels" of the devotees
>> (familiarity of ritual) or deception (influence non-devotees and
>> prospective devotees toward the belief that the new religion is a
>> variation/reinterpretation of an older, more acceptable one).

>I see you've noted some rank ordering of those three metamemes
>(Propitiatory / Ethical / Transcendental) already - I'd suspect even a
>designed religion that lasts long enough (however long that may be)
>would incorporate (whether by design or evolution) elements from the
>other metamemes.  Otherwise, it would become an ex-religion, ceasing to
>be, and whose memetic processes are now only of interest to historians.

Less a "rank ordering" than an "evolutionary ordering", and I will freely
admit that such ordering is based on the pattern established here on Earth,
now and in our past.

>How would a single-metameme-dominant religion, as a class, vary from one
>where two of them are roughly equal in import?

Mostly in the style of ritual, and possibly the role of clergy. Both of
those are to be covered in other sections of the document.

Right now, I just want to make sure that I have an exhaustive (or very
nearly so) partition of Models (or metamemes, as you've put it).

(Note that "pantheism" actually can fall at both ends of the evolutionary
model - once you achieve the goal of a transcendental religion, you might
come to the realization that God Is Everything And Everything Is God,
putting it at the end of the evolutionary path (post-transcendental
pantheism) - or it could be at the beginning of the model, where "primitive
pantheism" comes before you realize that the world works according to
rules.)

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