[Gary Wassner]

Good title, right?

Are we religious people, we fantasy fanatics? What do we believe in? Do we believe in God? Is that what draws us to fantasy? The feeling of transcendence? The spirituality of magic? Of a force that operates above and beyond our human consciousness? Is it really any different conceptually than the traditional systems that dominate our cultures? If we are tantalized by magic, are we just religious bastards? Is magic our God? Or nature? Or some other unnamed power that we pray to?

We may appreciate the fact that much of today's fantasy questions our belief structures. But fantasy itself, as a genre, seems always to presume that there is something greater than us out there. That we anthropomorphize often in our books and find esoteric words and descriptions for this otherness is telling.

So what do we really believe in?

[Archren]

My flip answer is that since the magic used in most fantasy novels is just science and technology without all the icky math (often magic always works the same all the time, can be taught and studied. The only difference is that SF treats science as democratic (anyone can learn to use it), while fantasy treats magic as hierarchical and priviledged (only those born with the "talent" can use magic), (apologies for the nested parentheses! :D )), so really fantasy people are obviously into science, secularism, materialism and feudal hierarchies (but no icky math!). :eek: :D

Do we really have to get into all this again? Weren't 170+ pages of controversy and big words enough? :p

BTW, I finally got around to reading "Wizard's First Rule" by Terry Goodkind, and thus quickly remembered why I don't usually read epic fantasy. Not really my thing. However, he had an interesting world: magic, souls, an afterlife (underworld, spirits of ancestors, etc.) but no gods of any kind running around. I thought it was an interesting choice to have all this supernatural stuff, but no more-powerful-than-any-human deities running around.

[juzzza]

I think we (humans) have a need to understand the nature of things and provide an explanation for any given phenomenon, including existence.

Even if we take a relativist view, that reality belongs to the individual, we still need to understand what the hell we are doing here. It kills us, not to know the answers, which is why even a whacky hypothesis for our existence, say 'we are an experiment, created and placed here by aliens'... is still preferable to not having an answer at all. Maybe that is why history embraced the theory of evolution and before that, the wonderful fantasy series, The Bible, as gospel (no pun intended).

So whilst I have never asked myself why I read fantasy or linked it to my ontology, I guess I just like seeing what people come up with as far as rules go, but then... whilst many authors create worlds and create the rules in these worlds, how many actually even speculate why people are on the earth or the alternate world/universe/reality?

The old 'why are we here?' question is still rarely answered or explored in fantasy. Sure, we get gods and demons and all manner of creatures and magic... but why?

[Gary Wassner]

I'm curious though, when you go to sleep at night, in the darkness, in the solitary world of your own thoughts, do you believe that you are truly alone?

I know that I have at least two voices in my head. At least. One is fact based, governed by reason and logic, and one is faith based. They reside simultaneously, though they are mutually exclusive. Go figure? It's that contradiction that I wonder if others share?

Archen, I didn't want to rehash that discussion at all. I am sincerely curious as to what people here think of when they think beyond the physical world. What shapes their gods take. I am trying to understand how we get our minds around these ideas and how we make them accessible. I wasn't looking for a debate.

[juzzza]

I don't sleep :D

But I know what you mean. I think even the most hardened anti-religious relativist, would be delighted if an answer to the big question was presented. And I appreciate you can be a relativist and have faith in God, not disputing that.

If God paid us a visit tomorrow and explained what the hell is going on, the relief would be immense for everyone, not just the believers.

I have faith, sure. But it's not in the Bible and it's not in the Church. I have faith in people, in myself and more importantly... in the belief that we will never know the answer and do you know why? Because there isn't anyone who could ever explain it to us and Science is not going to come up with the answer looking in at ourselves at a DNA level.

Education is the answer for mankind, not religion imho. Education is freedom and the future for our race. If the Church had tried to educate the planet as enthusiastically as they tried to make its populace believe, this place would be a very different landscape... and environment.

[Gary Wassner]

I don't sleep either. But I spend lots of time in the dark, in the wee hours of the morning, thinking. And these are the kinds of things that I think about.

But what keeps you going? What helps you to find the right way to do things? You believe in mankind (well you're a father just like me, so I get that totally) but what does that really mean? You want to make the world safe for them? Kill all the bad guys, the bogeymen hiding under the beds? In a relativist world, what distinguishes the good from the bad? When you are up at night (not sleeping) how do you decide what side you are on?

[Hereford Eye]

I love that question: why are we here and what do we hope to gain? Was first introduced to it as part of a management seminar on how to attend meetings.
I'm on Juzzza's side if he constitutes a side. I will go with people and avoid religion wherever possible. Cannot find the heart to believe in a religion whilst believing in powers greater than humanity is no trick at all. St. Augustine's five proofs of the existence of god still work for me. What doesn't work for me is what the monotheistic religions did and are doing with the answer.

Why isn't this treated in fantasy? That was one your questions, right? If a writer posits a society with laws and social structure, gods running about, but no religion, e.g., Eddings, has that writer not treated the subject? Does he give a why? He talks to an eternal struggle between good and evil and humanity's role in same. That, for me, is fantasy that attempts to deal with the issue. Did he have all the answers? Hell, no! No one does.

H.G. Wells addressed the problem as well in The Time Machine which is more sf than fantasy until the last page but he did it in the manner Juzzza advocates in his post. He left it up to the people, in this case his readers. What 10 books would you take back to the future? Would the bible be one? Or the Koran? Dr. Spock on child rearing? Plato's Republic? What would you take to build a society of which you could be proud? How about John Austin's The Province of Jurisprudence Determined? At least you would be able to distinguish between moral and legal precepts while maintaining the indepence of both.

I propose that any group of people will organize themselves along some kind of ethical and moral lines. It is essential to communal living. If we hypothesize a social organization in a fantasy story, then are we not continuing the human condition in fictional form? Whatever we say about that society tells us why they are there. Is there any doubt the role of the races in LotR? And does that not lead us to a moral position with respect to Middle Earth, both the one Tolien intended and the one we came away with?

How do you write a story and not expose your beliefs?

[Gary Wassner]

Yes, I agree so much. These questions are most definitely treated in fantasy whether intentionally or not. But they are the same questions that religion attempts to answer, for better or for worse, in its own more organized fashion.

Great question, Hereford: what books would you bring back to the future with you? Great question. Would we need dogma at all? I can't think of any but those that would help me to ask more questions, help me to think. I don't need instructions on faith. Faith isn't something that should be taught or can be taught. Rules can be, methods can be, medecine and science can be. Faith? It shouldn't be. It seems silly to talk about teaching it. That's why I asked in the beginning if people could clarify what they personally, in their private moments, think when they think about these things. What shape does your God take? We all have gods afterall.

[juzzza]

But what keeps you going? What helps you to find the right way to do things? You believe in mankind (well you're a father just like me, so I get that totally) but what does that really mean? You want to make the world safe for them? Kill all the bad guys, the bogeymen hiding under the beds? In a relativist world, what distinguishes the good from the bad? When you are up at night (not sleeping) how do you decide what side you are on?

I don't want to make the world safe for them, I just want to keep them safe. I think there is a difference. It won't be me that changes the world but it might be my Son or Grandson (or daughter, sorry Georgia!)

That's the great thing about being a relativist, only my hyperreality matters lol, so my perspetive of right and wrong is quite correct, Gary! How many bad guys do you have to kill before you become one yourself?

I'm on my side and now, my children's side. With a sense of right and wrong and respect, that I will try and pass on to my kids... along with my temper and love of music!

I simply don't ask myself the questions, I 'do' rather than 'question' although I recognize that underlying desire to understand why?

[Hereford Eye]

I keep coming back to the interconnectedness of everything. Wrap it all up into one big ball and you have the creative force. God or goddess, I don't know that it matters except that I will always refer to the creative force as the goddess because it annoys so many monotheists when I do.
How do you picture such a god? A singularity works as well as any other image. What's a singularity look like? A black hole, of course, which has not much image save for a lack of light like a blind spot in your vision. To overcome that detail, the symbol for inifinity works for me.