I have never heard of Imajica until now. That must be spanish right? what is the concept of this? Can I also add just for a laugh it does sound like the feminine for the word Mejico?
No, you're the one saying that religion has no place in fiction. At least, you seem to be saying that. What are you saying?
No, not Spanish, just the author's creative license. From my blog... John Furie Zacharias is no ordinary mortal, though he’s pretty sure he’s as ordinary as they come. He becomes entwined in the machinations of secret societies, assassin angels, and realms beyond Earth. He goes by the nickname Gentle - a bit of foreshadowing - and eventually comes across the idea that he may, in fact, be the Second Coming. Yes, that second coming. But this is Clive Barker, so don’t expect any humble genuflecting or deference to religious sentiments. This is the same man who brought us the Hellraiser series. In this story, God is not what we think. Earth, The Fifth Dominion, has long been separated from the other four dominions and stories have grown strange and distorted from that long ago time when we knew better. God (of the Abrahamic flavor) is not a creator, but a conqueror named Hapexamendios. A power-hungry warlord who burned an unhealing scar across the dominions in order to ensconce himself alone and quite mad in The First Dominion, what you and I refer to as Heaven. Jesus was his first son, but he didn’t come to save us from our sins; he came to save us from Daddy. Gentle's circle of friends includes many in the Rainbow Community, whom he loves and holds dear. In his otherworldly adventures, he comes across a shapeshifting angel named Pie'oh'pah whose original reason for coming into the story is as a hired assassin with Judith, a friend of Gentle’s, as target. Later, Pie'oh'pah becomes Gentle’s lover. Pie'oh'pah’s gender is never a fixed thing, especially with regards matters of sex, though most of his/her time is spent in the guise of a strikingly handsome black man. But, when you’re tasked with saving the world from God, and God’s a baddie, not a goodie, and also your own daddy, the exact gender of your angel assassin lover is pretty far down the list of things to worry about.
What I am suggesting for myself is a story free of religion for an idea to toy with. I gave what I consider a reason is that whilst religion is man made it is therefore perhaps exempt in fiction on the basis of that. Again I am just speculating. I mean many stories have religion based within their plots, Jane Eyre spring to mind, although the story is fictional and so for me I kind of question the validity of fiction versus reality. It is either all fiction or nothing. These are my views. You are in no obligation to accept them or to agree with them it is there for discussion.
So your fiction doesn't include human beings, or cities, or clothes, or weather, or any other element of the real world?
No that is not possible. What I was thinking is that religion is one the cannons most influential of everyday life cultures have to grips and not, and so whilst the writer needs to write using everything else that reflects reality such as everything you listed, religion may not included because it tends throw the reader back into reality,albeit brief, and the story suddenly pulls away from being fictional for whatever long or short it may be. Another way of putting it is that whilst we may not know a Jane Eyre in real life because it is a fictional character we most definitely know what religion is. Again these are just thoughts.
Considering you started a thread that religion = racism I'm really glad you don't include it in your stories.
We all have some kind of value hierarchies. What ever is in the top of your personal value hierarchy is different than what is under it. The top thing creates the typology and order of values under it. You can call the top thing your personal god. You can call the typology your personal religion. Propably there are many people that share your god and your religion. So... It is personal but not private. Even atheism is a religion. I has many gods: Dawkins, Reason, I, Pleasure, Marx, Science, Denial... To think "I leave religion out of my texts" is like thinking that "I leave culture and or language out of my texts". It just tells that the scale, the meaning and everything else about that concept is not clear. "Blessed are the..."
You can call the typology your personal religion, but most people don't. Seriously, if we're willing to twist words in any direction that suits us, it's pretty hard to actually discuss anything.
Ah but if you say Denial then by order of elimination religion must be through? non? I am also surprised Darwin did not get a mention. Also another thing personal is not shared.
We know what cities are. What clothing is. What weather is. What people are. We know that Jane Eyre was a woman--women exist in reality. The novel includes men--men exist in reality. We know that she was part of a society that existed in reality. We know that she was part of a class that existed in reality. We know that she wore dresses and shoes--dresses and shoes exist in reality. We know that she lived in a house--houses exist in reality. She ate food--food exists in reality. The institution of marriage was important in Jane Eyre--marriage exists in reality. Why is religion the one and only thing that makes fiction not-fiction?
This is also incorrect, but we probably have too many discussion threads already. @katina , have you ever considered expressing your feelings AS feelings, rather than as absolute statements of fact? I might say, "I don't like red wine." I don't say, "We know that red wine is not good." Are you able to see the difference between those two statements?
Ok lets reverse the scenario and take it from your point of view Jane Eyre is not real. I will never meet such a character in the plot she has been written in. I will also never meet Rochester. I will never meet someone called Jane Eyre joined in Matrimony with Rochester in real life. It is not going to happen because the story is fiction. If one then implies religion is part such fictional setting then one is implying it is fictional too. It is then a NON win win situation. In other words religion is either disrupting the flow of the fictional chain of thought when one is reading the book or it is completely lost on translation and becomes fictional itself then ultimately obsolete.
You're not responding to any part of what I said. Jane Eyre is full of things that exist in real life. You are plucking just one of those things--religion--out and saying that it doesn't belong. But MOST of what is presented in Jane Eyre exists in real life. Why does any of the rest belong? Why doesn't the presentation of men, women, shoes, clothes, weather, and houses, ALSO make fiction not fiction? If I alter your statement as follows, why am I wrong? If I am wrong, why are you right? Jane Eyre is not real. I will never meet such a character in the plot she has been written in. I will also never meet Rochester. I will never meet someone called Jane Eyre joined in Matrimony with Rochester in real life. It is not going to happen because the story is fiction. If one then implies shoes are part such fictional setting then one is implying shoes are fictional too. It is then a NON win win situation. In other words shoes are either disrupting the flow of the fictional chain of thought when one is reading the book or shoes are completely lost on translation and become fictional themselves then ultimately obsolete. Jane Eyre is not real. I will never meet such a character in the plot she has been written in. I will also never meet Rochester. I will never meet someone called Jane Eyre joined in Matrimony with Rochester in real life. It is not going to happen because the story is fiction. If one then implies houses are part such fictional setting then one is implying houses are fictional too. It is then a NON win win situation. In other words houses are either disrupting the flow of the fictional chain of thought when one is reading the book or houses are completely lost on translation and become fictional themselves then ultimately obsolete. Jane Eyre is not real. I will never meet such a character in the plot she has been written in. I will also never meet Rochester. I will never meet someone called Jane Eyre joined in Matrimony with Rochester in real life. It is not going to happen because the story is fiction. If one then implies weather is part such fictional setting then one is implying weather is fictional too. It is then a NON win win situation. In other words weather is either disrupting the flow of the fictional chain of thought when one is reading the book or weather is completely lost on translation and become fictional themselves then ultimately obsolete. Jane Eyre is not real. I will never meet such a character in the plot she has been written in. I will also never meet Rochester. I will never meet someone called Jane Eyre joined in Matrimony with Rochester in real life. It is not going to happen because the story is fiction. If one then implies grass is part such fictional setting then one is implying grass is fictional too. It is then a NON win win situation. In other words grass is either disrupting the flow of the fictional chain of thought when one is reading the book or grass is completely lost on translation and become fictional themselves then ultimately obsolete.
Incorrect how? @katina , have you ever considered expressing your feelings AS feelings, rather than as absolute statements of fact? I might say, "I don't like red wine." I don't say, "We know that red wine is not good." Are you able to see the difference between those two statements?[/QUOTE] I get what you are saying. The first statement is about taste the second is about general knowledge and so both are correct and have a different message. I guess I am not expressing myself correctly. What I am trying to discuss is the concepts of fiction and reality. In order to give fiction an identity it should rule out the tell tell signs of reality such as religion,politics, hierarchies because these are what constitute the major cannons that shape everyday life. Fiction is different. One must let to imagine other new venues in order to expend.
No, both are NOT correct. That's my point. The fact that I don't like red wine doesn't mean that red wine is bad. My opinion does not determine what is fact. I'm trying to tell you that your opinion does not determine what is fact. It feels as if you have trouble understanding that. You might like cats better than dogs. That doesn't mean that it's a fact that cats are better than dogs. You might not like science fiction. That doesn't mean that it's a fact that science fiction is bad. You might not like apricots. That doesn't mean that it's a fact that apricots are bad. That's YOUR opinion. That doesn't make it true. You may dislike essentially all fiction ever written--because essentially all fiction ever written fails your test above. But that doesn't mean that all fiction ever written is actually bad. Fiction should include some new elements, yes. That doesn't require that absolutely every part of a fictional work must be so new as to be incomprehensible. Most of any fictional work is familiar. That allows the reader to fully absorb the part that is new. Have you ever liked any fictional work whatsoever? If so, can you name it?
But I really like red wine. So if I read you say that red wine is not good, I lose confidence in what you're saying, because you're making something subjective into something absolute.
Religion is one of those fascinatingly fundamental aspects of humanity. It's been around since... well, forever. Before human beings were worshiping Marduk and his defeat of Tiamat, we were praising the sun, and the other elemental forces of nature beyond our comprehension. We were making stories to understand things. We were transforming the unknown into the known, chaos into order. It's really an incredible aspect of our species. We love stories, and when we don't really understand something, we create something unique to supplement our real knowledge. Not to mention it's been the basis for so many truly awe inspiring things; we've burned people alive for religion, caused massive wars, torn out people's still beating hearts, willingly sacrificed our own lives. I don't think the importance of religion can be minimized. I don't care to write about the real religions of the world, but I adore creating fictional religions; creating a society, finding out what it's values are, what aspects of their environment are mysterious, and transforming those aspects into Gods and stories. I love creating bible-esque stories, and texts, and tenants. The other day I learned that people in Barcelona once all spoke with a lisp because the King had one, and nobody wanted him to know he had a problem--how hilarious would it be to make an entire mythos out of such a thing? I think religion is a great way to wrap up a culture's values, ideas, fears, and triumphs into an entertaining info-dump. One biblical kind of story in your fantasy world can surmise an entire empire's history, and goals. It's really a very useful tool as far as I can say, and it certainly has a place in my fiction.
Of course religion can play a part in fiction, and due to how saturated our* culture is by religion, even its absence can be a religious statement. Let's take a few examples from popular fiction (TV and movies). In the Star Trek universe, religion plays almost no role. I think there may be some religions among the alien races, but every time the crew of the Enterprise meet a god, it turns out to be an advanced alien or a computer. There's no suggestion of the supernatural that's not eventually explained away, which is a pretty atheist perspective on things. In the TV show Malcolm in the Middle, the parents consider placing their kid in a private school. The family is portrayed as stereotypically American lower-middle class, but when they're in the office of a church-run private school, one of the kids asks his brother "Why is there a (lower-case) 't' on the wall?" in reference to the plain Christian cross. This shows a profoundly non-religious family living in a society where religion is A Thing. Finally, in The Simpsons, religious observance plays a part of the family's weekly life. They go to church every Sunday, but seem pretty uninterested in the whole deal except in that it's what they are supposed to do. However, in the feature-length movie, God is explicitly shown to be real when a beam of light from above strikes Grandpa Simpson. He shifts to avoid it, but it continues to track him and he's gifted with what turns out to be an accurate if cryptic prophecy of events to come. So little to no religion in Star Trek, barely observable background religion in Malcolm, and an active God in the Simpsons, and all of them fictional and reasonably successful. *"our culture" being quite broad on this board.
Personally? Well, I'm a religious person, I make no secret of that. I used to be an atheist, but my past mistakes are my problem so...yeah I like to think I outgrew that phase of my angst filled teenhood. In terms of actual story-telling, then yes I do tend to factor religion into my stories. Organized faiths are omnipresent throughout history and, unlike say the Star Trek writing crew, I have no delusions about how everyone is suddenly going to throw away millennia of belief and personal faith to worship at the throne of Christopher Hitchens lol To put it into more perspective, many characters I have in my stories are religious, some more than others, and generally I don't go the route of all religion must be some kind of "silly superstition" only practiced by fanatics. Also I tried to explore some of the more fanatical elements of atheism, frankly, as having seen both sides of that coin I can attest that they can be just as or more crazy than some religions. I actually mentioned this in a thread about "who was the craziest race or faction in your stories" and I mentioned the Faithless, a bizarre cult-like race of beings who live in a post-scarcity galaxy spanning empire and want to annihilate any race they view as "superstitious" and so genocide is their basic strategy of first contact. The Faithless have a kind of Oceania/Doublethink kind of thing going on, and want to wipe out all religion so their Serfs, their proletariat, don't realize there is something else to believe in than the absolute power of the state which has developed a kind of cult of personality around their near-immortal Tribunal. And if ANYONE questions the logic in this, read about the Soviet Union for five minutes, and realize I basically copy-pasted their history and set it in space. That also doesn't mean I have ever portrayed ALL atheists as being sociopathic one-party dictatorships. One of the primary heroes in a story I wrote is an agnostic, in that he openly admits he "doesn't give a fuck", in his own words, about religion or God as he feels like his life is shit. Of course he's a genetically engineered half-wolf hybrid bred for warfare used in a gladiatorial combat arena on a planet ruled by a corporate aristocracy since birth. So he's less of an "agnostic" and more of a person who had the worst conceivable life imaginable and so he genuinely doesn't care, that being said, he's also genuinely a hero and a good-hearted warrior, so his open disdain for God and lack of faith is never portrayed as somehow making him BAD or inhuman. Quite the contrary he's a primary character and view-point hero. I like to think that, while I have faith and while I admit I don't view atheism as some kind of utopian ideal the way Gene Roddenberry would, I also don't treat atheists as inherently evil or immoral. And yes religious does feature in my characters and many of the story arcs, but not as a primary focus outside of a few characters, and not as some kind of ideal or perfect solution either.
Well there is a made up religion in my WIP that has nothing to do with any that are commonly followed today, and it is alien since it is practiced by an alien species. But generally I don't write about it, but when writing war it gives it a bit of something extra to the element, ya know?
