Non-theistic Spiritual Writing - what are you writing?

[Ruv Draba]

I think that the title stands for itself. Like Veinglory who complained of this recently I'm seeing a lot of posts about atheism, but not a lot of posts about atheistic writing.

I'm interested in what posters are writing. Especially, is anyone writing any athestic values-related fiction?

My last explicitly atheistic story was a Dark Ages humanistic piece involving a child of two cultures - an invading culture and an occupying culture - who was rejected by both. After running afoul of society and its laws, he ended up living in the church because it was the only way he could live outside of society - but it was a social refuge for him rather than a spiritual one. He had no belief in God (because the church condoned the injustices of the time), but was content to help his fellow man through the institution. Too solitary to be a revolutionary, he contented himself to try and make things better one day at a time. Over time he realised that he had a valuable place in the world after all: as an irreligious priest who actually loved people for who they were, rather than for who dogma said they were.

Most of my critters didn't get it. One Christian friend got irate that my main character didn't get any spiritual strength from the church. She also got annoyed at me that the MC was guilty of the so-called 'pelagic heresy': that man can be the source of his own salvation. She I think, was the only reader who got it, but just didn't like it. :)

[veinglory]

I just had a book accepted by Loose Id which uses that old idea that what appear to be gods to the characters are simply people with access to higher technology (the 'Gods' themselves are atheist). But this doesn't actually come up in this book so I am not sure it counts. In the first book they are just pretty incompetant gods.

I keep meaning to write a story about a far future where all religious texts have basically been lost and everyone is atheist. It would be one character basically reinventing religion because he is just psychologically set up that way (the atheist version of 'The Breeders'). But actually now I think most people would pretty much miss the point unless I made it strong enough to annoy heck out of them. And its never good to ask for someone's money and then annoy heck out of them : /

[Shweta]

I don't know if this counts, but here goes :)

I'm writing a fantasy novel in which people... more or less... believe in gods, but belief has dropped off some with technology changing. The characters also have to grapple with cross-cultural and cross-religious issues, and I figure at some point they will hit religious questioning (So we have sun gods, but we know the sun is an astronomical body that the planet circles, so are either of our sun gods real?)

Part of what interests me about this is -- it's a world where magic is very real indeed. When that's the case, how do characters deal with religious doubt and scientific thinking?

The setting is somewhat historical, so there's only going to be one character (at most) who will make the leap to deities being social/cultural constructs. And the other characters will not like this at all.

[AMCrenshaw]

The book I am working on now (and have been researching here in this subforum) is about a man's spiritual journey. He grows up in the Christian church, but is pushed away for many reasons (a personal injustice he witnesses concerning his first Pastor, hierarchical imposition on ekklesia, and finally a clash of vision). His vision of spirituality is relevant without God, and so his sermons reflect that view. He publically speaks out against societal injustice- credit card company exploitation, global abuse of women, inner city disparities, etc- and is active in aiding the poor, but does so for love of humanity and existence. While the Church helped him form a conscience, helped him form empathy, it didn't allow him to grow to really be himself; there was simply too much dogma forming his "identity," which had nothing to do with who he really was.

Of course by the end of the narrative he is shot and killed. It's meant to reflect the way Power asserts itself for self-preservation.

Also I've had essays and articles about Zen Buddhism published by The Phil Berrigan Institute for Nonviolence.

[William Haskins]

I think that the title stands for itself. Like Veinglory who complained of this recently I'm seeing a lot of posts about atheism, but not a lot of posts about atheistic writing.

i would think that there's a lot of talk about atheistic writing, only it's not conspicuous because it's simply writing about reality.

atheism need not be explicit.

[benbradley]

Iinteresting question - I've got a memoir in me that includes a few years of believing in God, and then having that belief fade away, falling apart like a house of cards or dissipating like a cloud turning into water vapor (I thought both similies around the time my loss of faith was happening). <Insert short explanation that turns into 100,000 words of memoir here>

I've also had ideas for including theism and atheism in fiction, but I don't think I have enough experience as a writer to write that sort of thing well (but I know I shouldn't let that stop me, and I've got at least one "trunk novel" in me). I just know I'd be too lecturing if I wrote more than a passing reference to spiritual/religious beliefs or a lack thereof.
...
I keep meaning to write a story about a far future where all religious texts have basically been lost and everyone is atheist. It would be one character basically reinventing religion because he is just psychologically set up that way (the atheist version of 'The Breeders'). But actually now I think most people would pretty much miss the point unless I made it strong enough to any heck out of them. And its never good to ask for someone's money and then annoy heck out of them : /
I'm not sure if you should let that stop you. As a reader, sometimes I WANT to be annoyed.

[Shweta]

i would think that there's a lot of talk about atheistic writing, only it's not conspicuous because it's simply writing about reality.

atheism need not be explicit.

Agreed, but is that spiritual in particular? I think Ruv's asking something a bit more specific than your interpretation -- about writing that grapples with spiritual issues from a viewpoint that isn't yay-god(s).

[Ruv Draba]

I just had a book accepted by Loose Id which uses that old idea that what appear to be gods to the characters are simply people with access to higher technology (the 'Gods' themselves are atheist). Congratulations! :)


I keep meaning to write a story about a far future where all religious texts have basically been lost and everyone is atheist. It would be one character basically reinventing religion because he is just psychologically set up that way (the atheist version of 'The Breeders'). But actually now I think most people would pretty much miss the point unless I made it strong enough to any heck out of them.It seems to me that a lot of atheistic stories are about there being no answers, or the answers being dissatisfying. One of the attractions of stories based in religious myth is that they're often emotionally very satisfying - even if they're not so satisfying intellectually.

With the critique I got with my story, the fantasists wanted to see the MC become a revolutionary Rambo sort of character and overthrow the dominant regime, which they saw as 'evil'. The religious idealists wanted the character to gain some comfort from the religion of the day. I just wanted the character to deal with the pragmatics of the situation, and realise that pragma, persistence and compassion can offer a satisfactory path though not a stellar one or an easy one.

[benbradley]

i would think that there's a lot of talk about atheistic writing, only it's not conspicuous because it's simply writing about reality.

atheism need not be explicit.
Are you not talking about secular writing, in which the beliefs of the characters/subjects, specifically whether or not they believe in God, never comes up?

Isn't it true that unless specified explicitly (or at least hinted at), a reader will see characters as having the same beliefs (and any other characteristics not specified) as the reader? So only an atheist reader would see characters in secular writing as atheistic.

[Ruv Draba]

I think Ruv's asking something a bit more specific than your interpretation -- about writing that grapples with spiritual issues from a viewpoint that isn't yay-god(s).Indeed. A murder mystery may have no religion in it (or may show religion to be corrupt) but that doesn't necessarily make it a spiritual story.

What I'm interested in are stories dealing with morality, purpose, belonging, compassion from some basis outside religious ideology. I'm especially interested in stories involving dissent with the ideology of one's own culture - just because that's a very common atheistic experience.

The MC of my story had no ideological objection to the existence of God. He simply couldn't see that God was any use to him -- God offered him nothing practical to stop two cultures from hating him. However the Church offered him a place to live outside the rules that marginalised him, so he used that in a fairly cynical and pragmatic fashion. The Church for their part didn't much care as long as he obeyed the forms and behaved himself.

[Ruv Draba]

Part of what interests me about this is -- it's a world where magic is very real indeed. When that's the case, how do characters deal with religious doubt and scientific thinking? I'm interested in that too! Just because there's magic, does it mean one needs to be superstitious? Conversely, if scientific thinking works on average but fails badly at the margins, how would people adapt to that? Would it make them more cynical? More idealistic? More judgemental or more perceptual? Do they become more concerned with physicality or symbolism? Do they become more risk-averse or more adventurous? If there are literal godlike sentiences do we go for genuine appeasement and supplication, or do we go for negotiation, seduction and coercion?

[Ruv Draba]

Iinteresting question - I've got a memoir in me that includes a few years of believing in God, and then having that belief fade away, falling apart like a house of cards or dissipating like a cloud turning into water vapor (I thought both similies around the time my loss of faith was happening). <Insert short explanation that turns into 100,000 words of memoir here>What would you see as the key tensions in that story, BenB? Moral tensions? Relationship tensions? Existential tensions?


I've also had ideas for including theism and atheism in fiction, but I don't think I have enough experience as a writer to write that sort of thing well (but I know I shouldn't let that stop me, and I've got at least one "trunk novel" in me). I just know I'd be too lecturing if I wrote more than a passing reference to spiritual/religious beliefs or a lack thereof.I think it's relatively easy to write atheistic opinion pieces. (As evidence, take a look at recent discussions). I think that it's harder to write spiritual fiction from an atheistic perspective without it becoming a polemic on religion, an anthem to materialism, or a paean to the supremacy of science.

Ian McEwan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_McEwan) often achieves it, I think, by focusing on the psychology of the unthinkable. He constantly puts people in macabre but realistic situations then just watches them unflinchingly as they react. Along the way they sometimes pick up some morality - or at least display something of the moral tensions in their circumstance. By using macabre situations he's able to take his characters outside the place where the usual social conventions and platitudes work -- which I feel, unmasks their spiritual identities.

While I wasn't consciously trying to emulate McEwan with my between-cultures story, I realise now that I used a similar sort of starting situation... Hrm...

[benbradley]

What would you see as the key tensions in that story, BenB? Moral tensions? Relationship tensions? Existential tensions?
Good question - I think it would be mostly existential. The moral stuff (seeing "upstanding" people do hugely hypocritical and immoral things) and relationship stuff (slowly learning as an adult many things about people and their common interactions I should have learned as a child and teen) are there, but I guess existential would best describe my more important epiphanies, and of learning about myself and about life in general.

I think it's relatively easy to write atheistic opinion pieces. (As evidence, take a look at recent discussions). I think that it's harder to write spiritual fiction from an atheistic perspective without it becoming a polemic on religion, an anthem to materialism, or a paean to the supremacy of science.

I can see what you're saying here... but to a slightly differen topic, the word "anthem" rings a bell (as an Ayn Rand title) - I've read the first 50 pages or so of "Atlas Shrugged" and it gives me hope - that I don't have to be a "great writer" to get published and become popular! I can already feel the lecturing tone, and I haven't even got to the "big lecture" yet.

[benbradley]

I'm interested in that too! Just because there's magic, does it mean one needs to be superstitious? Conversely, if scientific thinking works on average but fails badly at the margins, how would people adapt to that? Would it make them more cynical? More idealistic? More judgemental or more perceptual? Do they become more concerned with physicality or symbolism? Do they become more risk-averse or more adventurous?
This seems to me to be closer to the genre of fantasy than to spiritually-related writing, but is still interesting.
If there are literal godlike sentiences do we go for genuine appeasement and supplication, or do we go for negotiation, seduction and coercion?
I think it depends on our knowledge of them, or at least how much knowledge we have in general. More ignorant people would go for genuine appeasement, but science-minded people will lean towards trying to understand, even with no clue available of how a deity's "godlike powers" work. I couldn't help but have Clarke's Law (perhaps it's Clarke's Cliche' by now) that "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguisable from magic" in mind, and to use whatever tools we could in an attempt to fathom and control this entity, such as psychology and fake appeasement.

[Ruv Draba]

This seems to me to be closer to the genre of fantasy than to spiritually-related writing, but is still interesting. Fantasy has a long tradition of being a vehicle for spiritual myth. Indeed, you could argue that most religious myth contains tracts of fantasy. What's perhaps less obvious is whether there's a place for fantasy in atheist spirituality.

Certainly, Ursula Le Guin seems to think so. She identifies as an atheist (http://www.adherents.com/people/pl/Ursula_LeGuin.html) but has been happy to write about gods, and in her Earthsea series, wrote from a Taoist perspective. She's certainly written a lot of spiritual fiction.

It's important to realise that fiction (especially fantasy) is not always meant to be taken literally. It's often interpreted figuratively. While those figures can be representative of theist belief (as in CS Lewis' Narnia stories, for instance), they can also represent non-theist thought -- as is often in Le Guin's writing.

I suppose that in talking this through I'm helping to answer my own question: how do you write spiritual fiction from an atheist perspective without it being something trite. McEwan offers one approach; Le Guin offers another.

[Shweta]

I'm interested in that too! Just because there's magic, does it mean one needs to be superstitious?
If it's magic-as-technology, surely not. But that's a bit of an easy problem, so it doesn't interest me as much.

In my case, the magic is deeply shamanic. Where does that take scientific thought, when the shamans are the scientists?
Conversely, if scientific thinking works on average but fails badly at the margins, how would people adapt to that?
In my case, it just means that the scientific interpretation is way complicated, and currently beyond my characters, and they are confused :D

This is one minor thread in this novel, which might become a major thread in a follow-up if I write a follow-up and make the scientific-minded character a MC.

Fantasy has a long tradition of being a vehicle for spiritual myth. Indeed, you could argue that most religious myth contains tracts of fantasy.
I'd argue more that most religious myth is inherently fantastical, and that fantastical storytelling has always been culturally important.

But I'm just really tired of religions being "right" in fiction. That's an easy out. I don't think any religion, or any other structured belief form we've got, is "right". We just have some things less wrong than others.

I think the point that religion is emotionally satisfying is an important one. Emotional "truth" is at least as important to us embodied human critters as intellectual sense is. Probably more. So it matters a whole lot whether one can make an atheist spirituality emotionally satisfying.

What's perhaps less obvious is whether there's a place for fantasy in atheist spirituality.
I very much hope there is, because the fabulist/fantastical tendency is a marvel of human cognition.

I do wonder to what extent Le Guin's atheism is actually areligiousness. Certainly she plays a lot with Taoist/Zen/Buddhist ideas, several different Native American ideas, and Jungian philosophy (Which qualifies much better as mysticism than science).

So... er... if that's atheist spirituality, I'm an atheist. And I'm an unashamed mystic.

It's important to realise that fiction (especially fantasy) is not always meant to be taken literally. It's often interpreted figuratively.
Yeah. I'd call... some fantastical writing, at least... a literalization of figurative thought.

But it can also be as much a what-if as science fiction, and I think we've hit on three variants of atheist spirituality in fiction now.

1) What-if {there's definitely no god/the gods are really aliens/gods are really made up by priesthoods/etc}?
2) fictional writing, not necessarily about religion in any way, but with an undercurrent of atheist morality.
3) writing that deals with the sense of who we are, possibly in a metaphorical/dream-logic/fantastic way, without falling back on "something greater than us".

I feel like where I fit into this is mostly 3, a bit of 1, and something else again, cause I am touching on (and hopefully subverting) the fantasy trope of warring pantheons.



Off topic, what exactly does it say of me that I'm the "Other" person who's most comfortable in the "Pagan" and "Non-theistic" subforums?

[zornhau]

I'm writing a big fat heroic fantasy tale.


I suppose that in talking this through I'm helping to answer my own question: how do you write spiritual fiction from an atheist perspective without it being something trite.

For me, writing fantasy, it's the attitude to the gods, rather than whether they are present.

My gods are just big powerful players in whatever game is afoot. If they were to serve up a mystical experience - well, I suspect I would treat it like a drug trip. Any monotheistic gods that turn up... well, in my universe they are simply fraudsters.

How is this atheist?

Without the mystical undefinable label of being Absolute Good, gods are logically indistinguisable from other powerful entities.

[Shweta]

How is this atheist?

Without the mystical undefinable label of being Absolute Good, gods are logically indistinguisable from other powerful entities.

I beg to differ. I'd say that gods are the powerful entities a group/culture/individual happens to worship.

Now, that's not an objective definition. But it's a logically consistent one. I do agree that, objectively, if you don't happen to believe in a monotheistic setup, gods are just big spiritual critters. But I think it's worth taking culture and construal into account.

[William Haskins]

Agreed, but is that spiritual in particular? I think Ruv's asking something a bit more specific than your interpretation -- about writing that grapples with spiritual issues from a viewpoint that isn't yay-god(s).

in my view, a godless universe is devoid of "spiritual issues".

[Sarpedon]

Well, I'm attempting a fantasy. Its not specifically atheistic, however, and it exists in your standard fantasy polytheistic world...except with a difference. There's no prophesies (well, no real ones), no priestly magic, no miracles or divine intervention. In fact, its much like the real world, in that most people are religious, but there's no demonstrable grounding to their faith. There is magic and a certain amount of supernatural stuff in the world, but whether that has anything to do with a 'higher power' is unclear.

The protag is a skeptic, but not in a 'hit you over the head' kind of way. He just goes about his business without having much to do with the religious life.

I also do a little bit of a science current events blog at an atheist site, nothing special though. Frankly, I'm not sure how long thats going to last, we don't get much traffic there.

[veinglory]

I think most high fantasy simply defaults to creating theistic world like ours or like we think existed in the past. This displays a certain lack of imagination.

I have, for example, had people say there must be gods in a fantasy books in order for there to be magic. I don;t see it. Magic is something the author invents, it can work by any mechanism, or even no specific explained mechanism. We could create societies that don't fill the knowledge gap with a deity ;)

[JimmyB27]

I do wonder to what extent Le Guin's atheism is actually areligiousness.
What is the difference?



My current WiP is a fantasy too. The MC is an atheist who is believed by many to be the Messiah of the major world religion.
This really annoys him.
It annoys him even more when the girl he falls for refuses to have a relationship with him because she is a priest and the very thought of hooking up with the saviour horrifies her.

[Ruv Draba]

Without the mystical undefinable label of being Absolute Good, gods are logically indistinguisable from other powerful entities.I concur. In my view, what makes powerful creatures function as gods (whether they are creators of existence or not, whether their powers are seen as natural or supernatural), is whether we give them supreme moral authority over our lives.

It's interesting to look at Le Guin's Earthsea stories for this distinction. Some characters see some ancient, powerful and largely dormant creatures as gods, while the main character sees them simply as powerful beings. The sole difference is that their worshippers gave them supreme moral authority while the main character saw them simply as beings with whom he shared the world, and with no moral authority over him. There's a bit of moral development around this distinction in the second or third book as I recall.

[Ruv Draba]

in my view, a godless universe is devoid of "spiritual issues".I think that a lot of atheists would agree with you, but there are two ways in which I don't agree:

1) You could have a universe of spirits without gods. (I don't claim that there is such a universe, but it's still an exception)

2) If you consider spiritual issues to encompass morality, belonging, purpose, relationships and community responsibility as I do but not necessarily encompassing the supernatural, then any time you have morality, community and meaning you have spiritual issues - regardless of the world in which they exist. I know that some atheists are very uncomfortable with this viewpoint (as indeed are some theists), but I still hold to it. It's in this sense that I've been writing about the works of Le Guin and McEwan in this thread.

I acknowledge that there are some atheists who don't believe in morality or purpose, who see community as just an aggregation of individual choices and all relationships as just a set of transactions. I would acknowledge that in such a view, 'spirituality' is meaningless. But that's a rather bleak view to my mind, and not one that I hold myself.

The issue then may simply be one of definition of 'spirituality'.

[veinglory]

I quite agree with the above. For a start spiritual beings need not be gods, and also a lot of things are co-opted as spirirtual issues that apply just as much to materialist (e.g. no literal belief in intangibles like the soul) people and cultures experience as well.

[Higgins]

My last explicitly atheistic story was a Dark Ages humanistic piece involving a child of two cultures - an invading culture and an occupying culture - who was rejected by both. After running afoul of society and its laws, he ended up living in the church because it was the only way he could live outside of society - but it was a social refuge for him rather than a spiritual one. He had no belief in God (because the church condoned the injustices of the time), but was content to help his fellow man through the institution. Too solitary to be a revolutionary, he contented himself to try and make things better one day at a time. Over time he realised that he had a valuable place in the world after all: as an irreligious priest who actually loved people for who they were, rather than for who dogma said they were.

:)

That sounds like a great story. I just wonder how a Dark Age person would see the Church as condoning injustice since...if we pick say 600 AD, the Church would barely be able to enforce monastic rules and bishops would be local leaders like any others and of what would the injustice consist? There would be no overall legal system (is that unjust?) and What Church are we talking about? There really wouldn't be any overall church authority except maybe the Emperor in Constantinople.

[Ruv Draba]

In my case, the magic is deeply shamanic. Where does that take scientific thought, when the shamans are the scientists?Despite our fairly rational world sometimes we can't control events - we must simply negotiate, plead and appease. This happens in politics, but also at the margins in ecology, meteorology and the economy for instance. I can easily conceive of a shamanistic world where spirts are either sentient or half-sentient creatures one can talk to -- but yet where the world itself is very rational and even quite atheistic. Ultimately if you don't give nature spirits moral authority over you, then they're just something volatile to share your world with - like tornadoes, locusts and foreign countries.

I'd argue more that most religious myth is inherently fantastical, and that fantastical storytelling has always been culturally important.If you argued that, I'd hide behind you while you took the brickbats and rocks of theist outrage, and agree quietly. :)

But I'm just really tired of religions being "right" in fiction. That's an easy out.Yea, verily yea. We humans make even the mundane political, ambiguous and cloudy. Anyone at all, please explain to me how matters of moral authority could fail to be political, ambiguous and cloudy even when gods exist, are active and talk to you. I think that we'd have to politicise it and make it murky - or else hand back our "Descended from Primates" badge.
it matters a whole lot whether one can make an atheist spirituality emotionally satisfying.This is a core challenge, and it's the reason that I tire of antireligious polemics, anthems to materialism and paeans to the supremacy of science -- these things tend to not satisfy me emotionally and they're often either false or utterly trivial intellectually.

I want atheistic writing that I can sink my teeth into, but that is also, well... beautiful or disturbing or... hell, anything but dry and critical and superior.

I do wonder to what extent Le Guin's atheism is actually areligiousness. Certainly she plays a lot with Taoist/Zen/Buddhist ideas, several different Native American ideas, and Jungian philosophy (Which qualifies much better as mysticism than science).Well, you'd have to argue it out with her. I'm not going to try and make a case here. But her quote is. "I write about gods, I am an atheist." I don't see any contradiction with that -- or in her very erudite use of Taoism, Zen, Jungian thought or feminism. I certainly don't see a problem with atheists using mysticism in fiction (though I strenuously object to it being used in creating social policy in the real world).

So... er... if that's atheist spirituality, I'm an atheist. And I'm an unashamed mystic.Maybe Le Guin is too; I dunno. I'm not - simply by virtue of the fact that when events start to look too symbolic and aesthetically patterned, I shelve thinking about them. That's not from fear or loathing - it's a sort of respect arising from me realising that human minds see faces in clouds and meaning in tea-leaves. Knowing that some causal interpretation is very subjective I'm very reluctant to insist that it's genuine meaning, and not simply the creativity wired deeply into my head. That said, I'm equally happy to flip tarot cards or squint into my tea-cup -- but for creative purposes only. :)

1) What-if {there's definitely no god/the gods are really aliens/gods are really made up by priesthoods/etc}?
2) fictional writing, not necessarily about religion in any way, but with an undercurrent of atheist morality.
3) writing that deals with the sense of who we are, possibly in a metaphorical/dream-logic/fantastic way, without falling back on "something greater than us".Oh, this is interesting!

I think I'm strongly 3, more than a bit 2, and I'm sorta over thinking about 1 cos it's been done so much. (Then again, with all my banging on about stripping gods of their supreme moral authority, I might have to write a piece to explore that...)
"Off topic, what exactly does it say of me that I'm the "Other" person who's most comfortable in the "Pagan" and "Non-theistic" subforums?"

It sounds like you have a very rich world-view, but want your final moral accountability to rest with yourself and/or your community. Sounds pretty darn fine to me.

[veinglory]

I spent some time being an atheist pagan. I am holistic, an environmentalist, thoughtful and eclectic. That is a pretty good match with pagans, shamans, druids, wiccans etc. But I pretty much didn't talk about being an atheist and when i did I got the usual batch of counter-arguments rather than the about how I couldn;t 'really' be pagan if I elevate nothing to deity status (i.e. you can have any number of Gods... greater than zero).

However I think atheists have more ability to move between beleif systems as 'participant-observers'. I think that has been useful in writing characters who range from Wiccan to Roman Catholic. And I have also written atheist characters who at least mention that fact in passing or reference it in their thoughts.

All of my characters pretty much are what they are faith-wise, even when it causes them trouble. i hardly every write a character than undergoes a real change in what they believe. Although that is coming up in my sequel to the Nameless God where the protagonist will find that his goddess is a human being. I still haven't decided how he will feel about this exactly. Angry? depressed? Perhaps just pragmatic.

[Melisande]

I have a story growing in my mind. It has been evolving from another story that I started writing (got ten chapters into it and abandoned it because it simply didn't make any sense) and gave up on.

I have problems getting started because of my lack of education; I need my MC to be some kind of Doctor or Professor, and he needs to be in Antarctica for some reason. I don't want him to be a geologist, he could maybe be an antropologist, but then - why would he be in Antarctica during the deepest winter period? He could also (quite logically) be an ice core scientist, but I don't know enough to make that plausible.

Anyway, my MC is basically a spiritual person, however without being a church-going person. I do wish him to believe in Jesus Christ (and here I will have good help from my Brother-in-law's wife who is that kind of a person) and to have the kind of personality that is outspoken and engaged in discussions.

His colleague is supposed to be a non-believer, like I am, but someone who is not so willing to argue her POV, because she considers that she has too much to loose doing so for many different reasons.

I don't wish to tell too much about the plot because it is still too fresh an idea in my head, but to summarize it all is that these two people makes a find in the ice that is completely unexpected.

Another team (the protagonists) is sent down there to verify the data of the find. During the following months of winter and cold, the two teams enter a journey of questioning our so called fundamental thruths - both scientific and spiritual.

But, like I said, it's hard to get started without the knowledge required to make the MC believable.

[Sarpedon]

He could be a particle physicist sent there to study cosmic rays. There's a detector frozen in the ice down in antarctica somewhere.

[Melisande]

He could be a particle physicist sent there to study cosmic rays. There's a detector frozen in the ice down in antarctica somewhere.

Oh, good idea, but that would really put me in a hard spot because I know so little about physics.

[veinglory]

I grew up good friends with a scientists who was in Antartica a lot, he studied penguins (something done intermittently all year round). but it would take a lot of research to be accurate about the wghole setting. You could just take "The Thing" approach and make it all up.

[Melisande]

You could just take "The Thing" approach and make it all up.

Yup. Sounds like something I'm gonna have to do, though I really wish to be in touch with reality.

Google is going to be my new best friend...

[Ruv Draba]

That sounds like a great story. I just wonder how a Dark Age person would see the Church as condoning injustice since...if we pick say 600 AD, the Church would barely be able to enforce monastic rules and bishops would be local leaders like any others and of what would the injustice consist? There would be no overall legal system (is that unjust?) and What Church are we talking about? There really wouldn't be any overall church authority except maybe the Emperor in Constantinople.The setting I chose was Mercia in the time just after the death of King Offa, not far from the border of what is now Wales. The MC was the eldest son of a Angle father and a Waelisc mother. Neither of them cared about him -- though for quite different reasons: the father because the boy had dark hair and therefore looked like 'the slave race', and the mother because he was firstborn to a husband she resented.

A younger son had blonde hair and was favoured of both father and mother - the father because he saw his Angle blood as being stronger in that boy, and the mother because the birth of this son gave her more courtesy from her husband. I interpreted the Church as being scared of giving offense to the Angles and avoiding the tribal politics of the Waelisc across the dike - so not so nearly as stable, confident and powerful as we know it today.

I got interested in this setting because of some research I'd read about just how quickly the Angles out-bred the Britons in that region, and the speculation that they may have used some form of apartheid to avoid 'contamination' of their bloodlines. The apartheid I used was based on cultural cues (language, clothing etc...) and hair colour.

[Higgins]

The setting I chose was Mercia in the time just after the death of King Offa, not far from the border of what is now Wales. The MC was the eldest son of a Angle father and a Waelisc mother. Neither of them cared about him -- though for quite different reasons: the father because the boy had dark hair and therefore looked like 'the slave race', and the mother because he was firstborn to a husband she resented.

A younger son had blonde hair and was favoured of both father and mother - the father because he saw his Angle blood as being stronger in that boy, and the mother because the birth of this son gave her more courtesy from her husband. I interpreted the Church as being scared of giving offense to the Angles and avoiding the tribal politics of the Waelisc across the dike - so not so nearly as stable, confident and powerful as we know it today.

I got interested in this setting because of some research I'd read about just how quickly the Angles out-bred the Britons in that region, and the speculation that they may have used some form of apartheid to avoid 'contamination' of their bloodlines. The apartheid I used was based on cultural cues (language, clothing etc...) and hair colour.

That seems like an interesting topic. I'm not sure what the evidence is that the Mercians reproduced more quickly than the various local Britons. Placename evidence around the upper Thames has been used to suggest the Britons remained in evidence in that area of Mercia and if the Britons were as Celtic as people seem to think, then they were as likely to have had light hair as anyone else. Of course maybe you are right, though it is a bit ironic since the early-7th-century pagan Mercians are notorious in Bede for joining with the Christian Britons to attack the Christian Northhumbrians.

Of course (to bring in the politics of the Church) the Venerable Bede is the main source for the period, though his heros are definitely not the Mercians and he died slightly before the days of Offa's apogee.

[Zoombie]

I keep meaning to write a story about a far future where all religious texts have basically been lost and everyone is atheist.


My story takes place 2,500 years in the future and everyone is Atheist. And still, every once and a while, I'll find a "damn" or "hell" in there.

I decided one of the alien characters could say damn, hell, and god. Well, he speaks by rattling a vocal organ (somewhat similar to a rattle snake's tail tip, but with more control over the sounds it can make), and then his translator bleeps out with the most similar human words...still makes some errors every once and a while.

Presumably, my main characters are too PC to care about it.

[Sarpedon]

You know, I doubt we'll ever 'lose' the religious texts. They are too culturally significant. I expect that in 2,000 years we'll be telling bible stories just like we tell greek myths now. (and will tell them then too)

[Zoombie]

Well, the fact that the earth was devoured by a malignent bio-genetic creation called the Scourge and then was blown up...

Also, it's less that we lost them, in my story, but rather...we just don't need them anymore.

[veinglory]

I had in mind that during a cultural bottleneck religious documents, not to mention most earth culture was lost during an environmental breakdown and EMP event. So only a few hundred humans made it to space and they were atheist representatives of the last earth governemnt. Then the population expanded into verious artifial habitats. But I digress.

[Sarpedon]

What? in 2500 years there won't be weird guys like me who enjoy reading ancient myths?

[veinglory]

It is a dystopia. :)

[Ruv Draba]

That seems like an interesting topic. I'm not sure what the evidence is that the Mercians reproduced more quickly than the various local Britons.I had the original paper at one point, but here's a newspiece (http://www.hero.ac.uk/uk/research/archives/2006/early_english_apartheid.cfm) summarising it: it turns out that there's a genetic marker on germanic origin men that's over-represented in England, compared to (say) Scotland and Wales. Modelling shows the Angles outbred the Britons in only 15 generations. From this the authors suggested some sort of apartheid system. I seized on that just because we're used to apartheit based on noticable physical differences like skin colour. In fact our modern notions of 'race' seem predicated on differences in skin colour and facial features more than culture. As you rightly point out there probably wasn't a lot of physical difference between Britons and Angles. Probably, the differences were mainly cultural - but clearly important enough to them to prevent intermarriages from being successful.
Of course maybe you are right, though it is a bit ironic since the early-7th-century pagan Mercians are notorious in Bede for joining with the Christian Britons to attack the Christian Northhumbrians.The history of that area seems insanely violent. It's a pity that there are so few historical records on it.

Of course (to bring in the politics of the Church) the Venerable Bede is the main source for the period, though his heros are definitely not the Mercians and he died slightly before the days of Offa's apogee.Yes, and for story reasons I picked late in the 6th century where perhaps the records are weakest. I wanted the Angles established but massively outnumbered by Britons - so that a cultural 'fortress' mentality would hold. But I also figured that many Angles would be tempted to intermarry at that time due to a likely shortage of Anglish women immigrants, and wanted to look at what the consequences of this might be.

The story's a couple of years old. I trunked it because I was unhappy with my telling, but this discussion has rekindled my interest, so I've dusted it off for another look. If I can improve on the telling I may post it to SYW.

[Zoombie]

What? in 2500 years there won't be weird guys like me who enjoy reading ancient myths?

Actually...there is Honest Jack. He's a historian who runs the free city of Tortuga. He's funny. He's kinda fat, wears a lime green suit, and carries around a longbow for the heck of it. Got a lot of wacky stuff, that Honest Jack does. He's also the ONLY character who doesn't lie to the main characters at one point.

Huh...he really IS Honest!

And, yes, he does have a copy of Bible, the Qua-ran and whatever other religious books are out there that I can't think of the names. It's just never mentioned in the story cause he's not a very big part.

But he does exist.

[Higgins]

I had the original paper at one point, but here's a newspiece (http://www.hero.ac.uk/uk/research/archives/2006/early_english_apartheid.cfm) summarising it: it turns out that there's a genetic marker on germanic origin men that's over-represented in England, compared to (say) Scotland and Wales. Modelling shows the Angles outbred the Britons in only 15 generations. From this the authors suggested some sort of apartheid system. I seized on that just because we're used to apartheit based on noticable physical differences like skin colour. In fact our modern notions of 'race' seem predicated on differences in skin colour and facial features more than culture. As you rightly point out there probably wasn't a lot of physical difference between Britons and Angles. Probably, the differences were mainly cultural - but clearly important enough to them to prevent intermarriages from being successful.
The history of that area seems insanely violent. It's a pity that there are so few historical records on it.
Yes, and for story reasons I picked late in the 6th century where perhaps the records are weakest. I wanted the Angles established but massively outnumbered by Britons - so that a cultural 'fortress' mentality would hold. But I also figured that many Angles would be tempted to intermarry at that time due to a likely shortage of Anglish women immigrants, and wanted to look at what the consequences of this might be.

The story's a couple of years old. I trunked it because I was unhappy with my telling, but this discussion has rekindled my interest, so I've dusted it off for another look. If I can improve on the telling I may post it to SYW.

Oh! genetic markers. You could of course read the marked males in reverse and suggest that what was happening was that genetically diverse combinations (eg...incoming men with local women) were privileged socio-economically (this would fit the continuing presence of Briton placenames with the seeming expansion of the incoming male markers).
The model would be that an Angle would fix his land use by taking a local wife and these relatively high-status marriages would have more viable offspring with better prospects for networking and so on. One might use a social status model instead of an apartied model especially since placename evidence suggests the Britons remained important and the Mercians tended to ally with the local Briton principalities.

[Ruv Draba]

Oh! genetic markers. You could of course read the marked males in reverse and suggest that what was happening was that genetically diverse combinations (eg...incoming men with local women) were privileged socio-economically (this would fit the continuing presence of Briton placenames with the seeming expansion of the incoming male markers).I wondered too whether differential privilege would be enough to explain it. Here's a link to the original paper (http://www.pubs.royalsoc.ac.uk/media/proceedings_b/papers/RSPB20063627.pdf), by the way.

The model would be that an Angle would fix his land use by taking a local wife and these relatively high-status marriages would have more viable offspring with better prospects for networking and so on.That's exactly what happened in my story. A conquering Angle jumped wealth bracket by marrying a local landholding woman, but then society applied preferences to the kids who were more emblematic of 'Angle-like' virtue. In my story, the older brother got short-changed because his blood was perceived to be 'more Briton' than his younger brother's.

[Higgins]

I wondered too whether differential privilege would be enough to explain it. Here's a link to the original paper (http://www.pubs.royalsoc.ac.uk/media/proceedings_b/papers/RSPB20063627.pdf), by the way.
That's exactly what happened in my story. A conquering Angle jumped wealth bracket by marrying a local landholding woman, but then society applied preferences to the kids who were more emblematic of 'Angle-like' virtue. In my story, the older brother got short-changed because his blood was perceived to be 'more Briton' than his younger brother's.

Very interesting paper...and there's nothing inherently wrong with the methods used. I can think of lots of highly variable aspects in the data though. One fairly obvious one is that Dark age populations, especially in the 6th century may have been very low so that a small migration would have a large impact. Another point is that the invaders essentially took over the Romanized lowland areas and this difference of terrain and population density alone might account for everything. Another point is that many Britons left Britain and settled in Brittany, thus skewing the populations further.