Re: Constructed Religions

Some years ago I decided to start on a thoroughly worked constructed
religion for a world that I was designing.  I am still working on it but
it has taken a life of its own.

I decided I wanted to start from religious texts because it seemed to me
that few con religions start from that point - conreligion from below
rather than above, if you like.  Reading up on sacred texts I noted that a
number began with ritualistic and hymnic texts and then developed
secondary texts as interpretation and commentary.  I started raiding
anthologies of sacred texts for articles that fitted the criteria of the
scenario of the religion I wanted.  When I ran on of books I "closed the
canon" and set about harmonizing them by translating them into rough latin
then from that into English then into a language based on the
Indo-European roots I found at the back of an edition of the American
Heritage Dictionary.

Anyhow the Constructed Religion:

I call it the Amenite Religion (Once my mother and I were waiting for a
bus on a bench "provided by the Amenities Society", she misread it and
thought it was provided by a religious group - I think she meant
Amish/Mennonites - but the name Amenite for a pseudo-religion stuck in my
mind until I needed it).  Amenites would consider themselves monotheists
because their worship God (Jevos) but they also venerate lesser divine
figures called the Holy Ones, the most important being the Goddess Medva.

According to Amenite texts, God appeared when the disordered universe
became conscious.  After a time God divided the universe into its basic
components, light and darkness, sea and sky.  In this action the
semi-divine beings appeared, divided between the Holy Ones and Demons.
God entered into the ordered universe and the last of the Holy Ones, the
Goddess Medva created herself from the light of God's presence.  She
defeated the Demons and imprisoned them under the sea, then she lead the
first human beings out of the earth which God created on top of the sea,
and she established the rituals for the proper worship of God.  The
Amenites consider the observance of ritual and moral law as
world-affirming.  Twice a day they are admonished to recite the three laws
of the Straight Way and meditate on the inutterable Name of God - a
curious paradox because each believer must discover the Name of God for
themselves it cannot be passed on.  God is invisible and unknowable, but
the Goddess Medva acts as a mediatrix between God and humanity, she is
represented as a sensual warrior woman.

According to Amenite tradition, the sacred texts, called the Ortra were
encoded by the prophet and martyr Mannus, but some parts, such as the Life
of the Prophet, seem to be written after his death.

- andrew.

Andrew Smith, Intheologus                       hobbit@earthlight.co.nz
Q. Why are there so many Smiths in the Phone Book?
A. Because they all have telephones!

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