Help with my religion!

[synobal]

Okay so I'm an atheist I'll say that right now, sorry if it offends anyone but that is where I come from. So writing about religion or creating religion for my fantasy setting is -hard- because almost all my religions tend to end up being extreme in their negative aspects. I'm trying to avoid that and so far I think I've done a decent job. I could be wrong who knows.

So here is my first religion as I've gotten it written in my outline.

(click to show/hide)

Each major noble family believes that their souls are simply pieces of a deity, sent to earth to inhabit the bodies of their family to experience life and gain knowledge and wisdom. When they die their spirit rejoins the deity with all their accumulated knowledge and experiences. Many hold that the greatest worship they can give their deity is to simply die having experienced and learned the most possible out of life.

The peasants worship the noble families deity, and believe that when they die their spirits are punished or rewarded for the work they did for the noble family.

I'm not sure what to call this, I'm leaning towards nobleism? (noblism?) but I dunno yet. Does anyone know if there are any real world analogs to this religion? I'd done a bit of research and nothing seems to really touch upon it.  Any thoughts or comments are appreciated.

[Snowleopard]

That sounds like a wildly mutated form of ancestor veneration, synobal.
Maybe try the word Patrician instead of Noble.  Noblism sounds a bit like elitism.
I hope that helps.
Suggestion: The main rule in this section is to 'not' post your writing so JB sees it.
(If he happens to read something by someone else that he was planning to use in one of his stories - he then can't use it because he wouldn't be able to prove that he had the idea first.)
Just put your idea in Spoilers and that way JB can't accidentally run across it.

[synobal]

Hmm Patricianism I dunno when you use a word like Patrician you're sort of promising a certain 'society' to your reader. Yes I have nobles, but do I have Patrician? Which are roman nobles. My fantasy setting doesn't really use Romantic society as a base, it's an idea but I don't want to make a promise to the reader I can't keep.

[Snowleopard]

Just a suggestion, synobal.
Use whatever word works for you and fulfills your promise to the reader.

[MClark]

Here are some thoughts, hidden by spoiler. Is this ok, or is sending a PM better?

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Sorry if I'm too blunt, but here are my comments.
My first thought was why would a deity need human knowledge or experience? They're gods. Wanting or needing human knowledge doesn't sound like Zeus or Odin or Q to me.  Then I turned it around and thought of the deity as more of an alien spirit trying to learn about humans. Then the idea became more interesting and believable to me.  Tieing the return of souls to a form of ancestor worship (dying might be called Rejoining the Family), may make it more believable also. This is a data point of one, of course, so take it or leave it. You could also include both ideas. Maybe the nobility think of it as more a partnership with this ancestral spirit, but the peasants worship the spirit more as a god?

Questions you may want to consider - (Don't necessarily tell me the answers). 1. Since the spirit wants more experience then I would think killing younger noblepersons is considered a foul crime - robbing the spirit of experience. Then of course killing children is worse and abortions are the worst of all. 
2. So would magic spells that extend life be considered a good thing - more knowledge or experience accumulated - or a bad thing  - the spirit doesn't grow by your experience the longer you stay alive. Or you could have different sects that each adhere to one of these beliefs.
3. Does the knowledge go back to the spirit anywhere the nobility dies or does the nobility have to die in a temple or the central family temple. the answer feeds back to question 2, also. And question 1, also.
4. What about the peasants? Usually, the male nobility are going to get jiggity with the peasant women, so does the spirit send bits of itself to the part noble-part peasant folk?
5. What about when noble families interbreed? A Bourbon marries a Hapsburg, which noble spirit settles into the progeny?  Where does it go when the person dies?
6. If its an alien spirit does it try to screw with the host, just to have new experiences? "So what happens if a Montague falls in love with a Capulet? Lets find out."

I would echo snowleopard, that it sounds like an odd form of ancestor worship but like nothing I've heard of, but then I don't know much about comparative religion.

Very creative.

[MClark]

You may have already heard this, but here is the writingexcuses podcasts on Religion in World Building.

http://www.writingexcuses.com/2008/08/10/writing-excuses-episode-27-world-building-religion/

[synobal]

Thanks MClark, I've listened to, the pod cast already and it helped some. Your questions helped more though.

[Snowleopard]

Here are some thoughts, hidden by spoiler. Is this ok, or is sending a PM better?

(click to show/hide)

Sorry if I'm too blunt, but here are my comments.
My first thought was why would a deity need human knowledge or experience? They're gods. Wanting or needing human knowledge doesn't sound like Zeus or Odin or Q to me.  Then I turned it around and thought of the deity as more of an alien spirit trying to learn about humans. Then the idea became more interesting and believable to me.  Tieing the return of souls to a form of ancestor worship (dying might be called Rejoining the Family), may make it more believable also. This is a data point of one, of course, so take it or leave it. You could also include both ideas. Maybe the nobility think of it as more a partnership with this ancestral spirit, but the peasants worship the spirit more as a god?

Questions you may want to consider - (Don't necessarily tell me the answers). 1. Since the spirit wants more experience then I would think killing younger noblepersons is considered a foul crime - robbing the spirit of experience. Then of course killing children is worse and abortions are the worst of all. 
2. So would magic spells that extend life be considered a good thing - more knowledge or experience accumulated - or a bad thing  - the spirit doesn't grow by your experience the longer you stay alive. Or you could have different sects that each adhere to one of these beliefs.
3. Does the knowledge go back to the spirit anywhere the nobility dies or does the nobility have to die in a temple or the central family temple. the answer feeds back to question 2, also. And question 1, also.
4. What about the peasants? Usually, the male nobility are going to get jiggity with the peasant women, so does the spirit send bits of itself to the part noble-part peasant folk?
5. What about when noble families interbreed? A Bourbon marries a Hapsburg, which noble spirit settles into the progeny?  Where does it go when the person dies?
6. If its an alien spirit does it try to screw with the host, just to have new experiences? "So what happens if a Montague falls in love with a Capulet? Lets find out."

I would echo snowleopard, that it sounds like an odd form of ancestor worship but like nothing I've heard of, but then I don't know much about comparative religion.

Very creative.

That works just fine MClark.  It's not expounding on an idea as you're doing that's the trouble it's more people's own fiction that JB has to watch out for, as I understand it.  And yes, sometimes it can be a fine line.
This thread by Mickey Finn explains it.
http://www.jimbutcheronline.com/bb/index.php/topic,15778.0.html

[Paynesgrey]

Consider sniffing around both Ptolemaic and Shinto traditions, as your world's religion seems to combine some elements of both. 

[Kali]

It's not an uncommon belief, actually, among pagans.  As Sagan put it (though he'd spin to hear it used for religious purposes), "We are a way for the cosmos to know itself."  It doesn't have a name that I know of, though.  Sorry.

[The Deposed King]

Reminds me of Raven Strike by Patricia Briggs.  where her gods were split asunder into multiple pieces of themselves never to be recombined again for fear dark forces would enter the world.  all the deities except one did this voluntarily.  The others weren't sure he'd say yes and if he had time to prepare could resist and the world would fall.  So while there were lots of pieces of certain gods floating around as Mages or Bards or Healers etc and whenever someone with a mantle died it would pass to a new born child.  This warrior god was only in like 7 peices and the people carrying his mantle had a disturbing tendency to go insane.

So I guess the question is,  do your noble families only decend by blood line or does the mantle pass outside the family and thus someone who would otherwise be peasant born become part of house Swahili instead.  And is there prejudice against outsiders joining hte family.  Plus what would happen if a child of a noble born didn't recieve a mantle.  Would he be half noble?  A trusted famiily retainer?  Part of a secret league of retainers who felt they were wronged and a subversive element out to topple the nobles from power and install themselves?


The Deposed king

[FlaggerX]

There are a couple of issues here.  One, if only an elect matter then societies will develop mechanisms to help these people learn and grow.  The successful will be better at it because knowledge is power.    Of course that means anyone opposing your favored God, will not want these elect to be successful.   They may become targets.    And how will this gathering of knowledge benefit/affect the living?  There must be some kind of feedback loop or the whole thing doesn't matter.