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Dunno.

Again, sailing dangerously close to insulting people's faiths. Please accept that is not my intention.

Consider neo-paganism. There are those that claim they follow Druidic Rites. Except, the Druids weren't noted for writing things down. So a lot of it is guess work based on third party historical texts. Chances are, modern Druids are incredibly far off the mark. No reason not to practice said faith, but even so. It's just an example of how religions drift and morph over centuries.

 Beersarius Drawl wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Consider all the world religions we have evidence for.

Consider how many still survive to the present day.

Then consider how many of those haven't changed since, say, Roman times.

Chances of any surviving into 40k? I'd say virtually nil.

Your Forgetting Henry the VIII forcing the Great bible into English churches, that was written in 1539 and then King James bible re-written in 1611 so Christianity has been changed at least twice since roman times, and splintered by differing points of view Catholic/Protestant and sub groups like 7th day Adventists. so quite a bit of change since roman times I'd say.

He was a baaaaad Defender of the Faith in hindsight...

pm713 wrote:


Your Forgetting Henry the VIII forcing the Great bible into English churches, that was written in 1539 and then King James bible re-written in 1611 so Christianity has been changed at least twice since roman times, and splintered by differing points of view Catholic/Protestant and sub groups like 7th day Adventists. so quite a bit of change since roman times I'd say.

He was a baaaaad Defender of the Faith in hindsight...

The assimilation of the Mechanicus as opposed to annihilation was largely because he needed them to supply his armies.

pm713 wrote:
Although I have to say that trying to prove there are no gods is a really silly idea in a universe where there really are gods and they do spend time interfering with mortals.

That was the point though. The Imperial Truth was a lie but if enough people believed in it then it would have come true. Ridding humanity of superstition would have weakened tzeentch. Establishing a peaceful, united Imperium would have weakened Khorne (eventually). Reclaiming DAOT tech(particularly medical knowledge) would have weakened Nurgle. Not sure how he would have dealt with Slaanesh but...

Without worship and violent emotion to fuel them, the Chaos gods would slowly have withered in the warp. I doubt they would have died out completely but no mortal believers to fuel them and no cults to conduct rituals, their ability to influence the material universe would have been severely curtailed. Combine this with human mastery of the webway and you have a humanity that is pretty much completely independent of the Warp. That was the Emperor's grand plan and it scared the pants off the Chaos Gods sufficiently that all 4 of them put aside their differences to try and defeat him.

 Karhedron wrote:

pm713 wrote:
Although I have to say that trying to prove there are no gods is a really silly idea in a universe where there really are gods and they do spend time interfering with mortals.

That was the point though. The Imperial Truth was a lie but if enough people believed in it then it would have come true. Ridding humanity of superstition would have weakened tzeentch. Establishing a peaceful, united Imperium would have weakened Khorne (eventually). Reclaiming DAOT tech(particularly medical knowledge) would have weakened Nurgle. Not sure how he would have dealt with Slaanesh but...

Without worship and violent emotion to fuel them, the Chaos gods would slowly have withered in the warp. I doubt they would have died out completely but no mortal believers to fuel them and no cults to conduct rituals, their ability to influence the material universe would have been severely curtailed. Combine this with human mastery of the webway and you have a humanity that is pretty much completely independent of the Warp. That was the Emperor's grand plan and it scared the pants off the Chaos Gods sufficiently that all 4 of them put aside their differences to try and defeat him.

It's not that easy to get rid of Chaos though. Tzeentch is born of desire for change like hope for the better, Nurgle partly comes from stagnation which the Emperor provided in spades and Khorne gets power from violence and anger. The Eldar avoided that by dedicating things like war to Khaine. The Imperial truth also depends on nobody bargaining with Chaos but even if everybody believed it then they could still make deals with entities from other dimensions or just make deals without questioning it. Magnus didn't believe in gods and such but still sold something to Tzeentch.

But it doesn't really matter considering the Webway was a LONG shot and peace isn't really going to happen in 40k with Orks around.

Yea GW has always kept the Emperor's motivations and thoughts mysterious, we only ever hear 2nd hand information and supposition.

As he is, by necessity a 'big picture' man, he might struggle to understand how the stresses and pressures of everyday life can result in the hoi polloi turning to the self destructive impulses of Chaos over the duty and order he offers.

Even if there exists the possibility of some aspect of contemporary religion surviving in some form - I doubt it would be recognisable from someone in this day and age.

40,000 years is a long time. About 4x longer than human WRITTEN history. Language and mythology have ALL changed in that small time between the invention of writing and now (not to mention in the last thousand years alone).

Even writing within a language.

I've dabbled (read the first four pages of) a home study course for Middle English.

In a matter of a few hundred years, sentence structure has changed, words have drastically changed spelling (Cyning is now King, as an example).

Yes, the advent of the printed word has helped somewhat. It's certainly standardised spelling across English for the most part, barring cultural tweaks (colour/color etc).

But even so, language is always evolving. Always. My vocabulary is a real mix of slang and proper Queens English. And my slang is from various eras (mostly because I enjoy a good swear) and indeed various areas (I read Viz. You pick up a lot. Especially swearies and curses).

We can also look to 'dead' languages. Consider Welsh and Scots Gaelic. Both still have users, but they don't contain 'new' words. If you ever watch a Gaelic TV programme, you'll hear Gaelic, then say, Computer, or Helicopter.

Language shifts. The meaning of specific words shifts. I won't provide examples here, because Dakka's sweary filter, and indeed my work's sweary filter. But there are words used now where the meaning has drifted from the point it was first defined (and who knows what it may have meant in centuries and decades before)

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:


Language shifts. The meaning of specific words shifts. I won't provide examples here, because Dakka's sweary filter, and indeed my work's sweary filter. But there are words used now where the meaning has drifted from the point it was first defined (and who knows what it may have meant in centuries and decades before)

Not quite on topic, but that's something that's always irked me with me regards to 40k history. How the hell did the Great Crusade even communicate with half of the human-settled worlds they came across? These worlds had been isolated during the Age of Strife for FIVE THOUSAND YEARS! Today, here on our Earth, we would struggle massively to communicate coherently with a time traveller from 5,000 years ago - and that's on the same planet. Simply trying to imagine cultural shift and developments over that sort of time boggles the mind. Where would you even start if you encountered a society (let's assume the insane notion of a globally uniform one) whose technology broke down 4,000 years ago and had to be rebuilt on local foundations, a society that has existed for millennia in an eco-system likely vastly different from your own? There would quite probably be whole concepts underpinning the language that would be utterly alien to you.
I guess in terms of the Great Crusade, violent conquest was often the only feasible solution, followed by forced cultural and thus linguistic assimilation. Which would include force-fitting any religious doctrine into the Imperial Truth's mould.

 Beersarius Drawl wrote:

Its an interesting idea, given that the "Old" Abrahamic religions copied most of their traditions, sacred days, and even background story for Jesus from older pagan religions. Emp is more than powerful enough to perform "Miracles" it would have been easy to convince the people he was the next reincarnation of god/jesus/whatever.

Exactly, Christianity co-opted many local religious beliefs and festivals in order to aid it's spread.

I am absolutely sure that the Imperial Cult does exactly the same thing so you'll find plenty of pre-existing traditions, beliefs and modes of worship that have simply been re-branded.

 Beersarius Drawl wrote:

Why did the Emperor slaughter rather than assimilate?

The Emperor explicitly never wanted the Imperial Cult or any such thing to exist so assimilation would have been difficult.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kroem wrote:

Well apart from the one that is the true word of God... that would be exactly the same!

Only if that true word can somehow bypass the innate fallibility of men - their observations & perceptions, their memories, their ability to communicate & record those memories and so forth.

Of course, Joseph Smith already covered this. If the true word is lost then God will be angry and the new true word will be similar but slightly different.

Forget historical issues, modern religions would have either adapted to fit the Imperium (of course Jesus was the Emperor, and dying on the cross is just a metaphor for Him dying at Horus' hand) or been purged as blasphemous heresy. After ten thousand years of merciless persecution by a totalitarian theocracy that considers "burn the whole city to the ground" a proper response to finding a heretic how could anything recognizable as modern religions survive?

As I undersood the Imperial Church tends to overlay any religions with the Imperial Cult and adapts them to fit as many nations and Empires have done in the past.

As long as the religion can beleive in an all powerful being being incarnate on Terra then its all good - if not then you and your religion will have been wiped out if they can.

I imagine that as they have done over the millenium and centuries here - religions have changed, adapted................ and been absorbed into the Imperial Cult as mere creeds or sub cults - of which the Impertium has a huge number.

So all divine beings are considered the Emperor or one his Saints etc. Just reading a novel about North Korea and the Cult of the Leader there.....

Snugiraffe wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:


Language shifts. The meaning of specific words shifts. I won't provide examples here, because Dakka's sweary filter, and indeed my work's sweary filter. But there are words used now where the meaning has drifted from the point it was first defined (and who knows what it may have meant in centuries and decades before)

Not quite on topic, but that's something that's always irked me with me regards to 40k history. How the hell did the Great Crusade even communicate with half of the human-settled worlds they came across? These worlds had been isolated during the Age of Strife for FIVE THOUSAND YEARS! Today, here on our Earth, we would struggle massively to communicate coherently with a time traveller from 5,000 years ago - and that's on the same planet. Simply trying to imagine cultural shift and developments over that sort of time boggles the mind. Where would you even start if you encountered a society (let's assume the insane notion of a globally uniform one) whose technology broke down 4,000 years ago and had to be rebuilt on local foundations, a society that has existed for millennia in an eco-system likely vastly different from your own? There would quite probably be whole concepts underpinning the language that would be utterly alien to you.
I guess in terms of the Great Crusade, violent conquest was often the only feasible solution, followed by forced cultural and thus linguistic assimilation. Which would include force-fitting any religious doctrine into the Imperial Truth's mould.

Translators?

This is actually where we enter the technological unknown.

English has kind of stagnated since the printed word, and widespread literacy. Between the two, it’s established rules and that which are hard to shake off.

Yes, new words do get added. Of course they do. So it’s not a dead language. But spelling and meaning, as well as grammar, is now largely standardised and educationally enforced. Who knows what that might mean for the language in centuries to come?

There are currently words where the meaning is different according to culture. Spunk, for instance. In the US, it means gumption, Steel, and strength and that. In the U.K? Yeah. I’m not gonna say what it is. Suffice to say, when Scrooge McDuck declared he was ‘full of spunk’, I laughed childishly. Not just because I was a child, but because of what it means over here......

 Overread wrote:


That said the time scales are vast - its the 41st millennium and today we are only in the second. That's many many many thousands of years so its very likely any original texts are long gone and what might survive might be fragmented and changed so heavily that we'd not recognise it

We’re in the 3rd millennium actually.

0-999
1000-1999
2000- present.

BrianDavion wrote:I imagine a lot of these old religions that survived also ended up going the way of many old pagan religions after the rise of christianity. stamped out but many of their practices stolen and applied to the modern chruch.

Beersarius Drawl wrote:
Its an interesting idea, given that the "Old" Abrahamic religions copied most of their traditions, sacred days, and even background story for Jesus from older pagan religions.

Exactly, Christianity co-opted many local religious beliefs and festivals in order to aid it's spread.

It's problematic to use terms like 'stolen', 'copied' and 'co-opted' in reference to the transmission of socio-cultural phenomena. Religions don't, or at least extraordinarily rarely, insofar as we can see, cynically lift ideas from other systems. Practitioners of belief systems incorporate new systems (whether of their own volition or not) into their lives in ways that fit those lives and their contexts. Consequently, traditions become hybridised through time. In general, no religious hive mind or authority structures this, it's just the fluid interaction of people and ideas.

The end result is arguably similar, however.

Beersarius Drawl wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Consider all the world religions we have evidence for.

Consider how many still survive to the present day.

Then consider how many of those haven't changed since, say, Roman times.

Chances of any surviving into 40k? I'd say virtually nil.

Your Forgetting Henry the VIII forcing the Great bible into English churches, that was written in 1539 and then King James bible re-written in 1611 so Christianity has been changed at least twice since roman times, and splintered by differing points of view Catholic/Protestant and sub groups like 7th day Adventists. so quite a bit of change since roman times I'd say.

I think that there has been considerable change was exactly Mad Doc Grotsnik's point. That said, I'm not convinced new translations are significant changes in and of themselves - though many are accompanied (or instigated) by major shifts.

admironheart wrote:The King James was written by 60 Mathemeticains, Priests, Scholars, etc. And surprisingly it holds up well to comparative earlier editions....they did a good job.

It's a pretty ropey translation strewn with significant errors (though many errors are present already in the Septuagint).

There are at least 3 different versions of Inn in Hebrew..Thus a lot of confusion of the Christ birth story.

There are many problems in the nativity but none of the accounts were written in Hebrew (and it's very unlikely any of the authors read Hebrew and almost certain that none of them spoke it).

 Kroem wrote:

If you somehow managed to remove all Holy Texts from the world, then the Religions that followed would be radically different.

Well apart from the one that is the true word of God... that would be exactly the same!

I think it is possible that echos of today's religions would survive in 40k, but the timescales are so mind mindbogglingly large that it would probably be quite different to what we are used to.

Do you have any proof of this statement? Mind you I am not saying there is no true word of god. But I think it would be hard to find a texy who have not changed, or the society or language has not changed so much you can noblonger apply it in a one to one ratio. If you need experts to exlplain the historical conteperery meaning of the texts, that is a sure sign that your religion is changing. And as we all know, a lott of smaller changes over time ads up to a big change after a while.

Any such texts would need to be updated to fit within the conteperary framework. Also, there is this problem reharding the ecpert consesus of the scholars studeing it. Even if they are agreeing, is there anyway to verify if they are right? Only a gof would know.

 Niiai wrote:

 Kroem wrote:

If you somehow managed to remove all Holy Texts from the world, then the Religions that followed would be radically different.

Well apart from the one that is the true word of God... that would be exactly the same!

I think it is possible that echos of today's religions would survive in 40k, but the timescales are so mind mindbogglingly large that it would probably be quite different to what we are used to.

Do you have any proof of this statement? Mind you I am not saying there is no true word of god. But I think it would be hard to find a texy who have not changed, or the society or language has not changed so much you can noblonger apply it in a one to one ratio. If you need experts to exlplain the historical conteperery meaning of the texts, that is a sure sign that your religion is changing. And as we all know, a lott of smaller changes over time ads up to a big change after a while.

Any such texts would need to be updated to fit within the conteperary framework. Also, there is this problem reharding the ecpert consesus of the scholars studeing it. Even if they are agreeing, is there anyway to verify if they are right? Only a gof would know.

I took his one true word of god comment as a jest myself

Yeah, but it's likely to open a can of worms...

Well Catholicism still exists.

Yeah, I should point out I have no stake in this. I do believe I post to provoke. But I think it is true. My point is the interpetations warp over time. Meaning in the 40K setting any current earth religion you would incorepare would look radically different.

It is also not supported within the 40K setting that there is anything like a god in the many different defined third millennium use of the word. If your defenition of a god is just a very powerfull being then the emperor would qualify. If you lover the bar you could include Vect, primarcs, Eldrad, the hive mind etc.

Mind you theming your models in a future mockery of conteperery themed religion is a bit bad taste. Although the imperial spaceships are gothic arcitecture churches in space. And they borrow medival martyrdom iconography.

Sorry if I am proviking unecaseraly. I suppose I was looking for a mish mash of apolagetics. ^_^

 Niiai wrote:
Yeah, I should point out I have no stake in this. I do believe I post to provoke. But I think it is true. My point is the interpetations warp over time. Meaning in the 40K setting any current earth religion you would incorepare would look radically different.

It is also not supported within the 40K setting that there is anything like a god in the many different defined third millennium use of the word. If your defenition of a god is just a very powerfull being then the emperor would qualify. If you lover the bar you could include Vect, primarcs, Eldrad, the hive mind etc.

Mind you theming your models in a future mockery of conteperery themed religion is a bit bad taste. Although the imperial spaceships are gothic arcitecture churches in space. And they borrow medival martyrdom iconography.

Sorry if I am proviking unecaseraly. I suppose I was looking for a mish mash of apolagetics. ^_^

You have to realise that there are many planets and even whole systems that have only been contacted by the Imperium once or twice and although they are apart of the Imperium they have next to no influence from them, It wouldn't surprise me if not only religions still exist but new religions have been made since the time the Imperium was at its zenith.

Could be you come up with a good apolagetic as to why the emperor did not wipe out the religion. It does apear to be one of the thirst thing done when granting unification. (Or wipe them out if they do not comply.)

My point is more that what ever religion the OP was refering to, conteperarly earth religions I would asume, would warp a lott in 37 000 years. The current earth religions have already changed a lott since their insception.

furthermore new religions DO pop up, we see them all the time, chaos cults, gene stealer cults etc. (we see these most often because harmless cults don't make good stories) that said many of these cults maskurade as emperor worshipping sects. even to their members. there's a reason for this. it's a lot easier to present yourself as a sect of something then be a totally new force. people are more inclined to listen to "your god is the right god but your worshipping him wrong" then "your god is wrong dude"

Snugiraffe wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:


Language shifts. The meaning of specific words shifts. I won't provide examples here, because Dakka's sweary filter, and indeed my work's sweary filter. But there are words used now where the meaning has drifted from the point it was first defined (and who knows what it may have meant in centuries and decades before)

Not quite on topic, but that's something that's always irked me with me regards to 40k history. How the hell did the Great Crusade even communicate with half of the human-settled worlds they came across? These worlds had been isolated during the Age of Strife for FIVE THOUSAND YEARS! Today, here on our Earth, we would struggle massively to communicate coherently with a time traveller from 5,000 years ago - and that's on the same planet. Simply trying to imagine cultural shift and developments over that sort of time boggles the mind. Where would you even start if you encountered a society (let's assume the insane notion of a globally uniform one) whose technology broke down 4,000 years ago and had to be rebuilt on local foundations, a society that has existed for millennia in an eco-system likely vastly different from your own? There would quite probably be whole concepts underpinning the language that would be utterly alien to you.
I guess in terms of the Great Crusade, violent conquest was often the only feasible solution, followed by forced cultural and thus linguistic assimilation. Which would include force-fitting any religious doctrine into the Imperial Truth's mould.

True and even then that's assuming tthat there would be ONE language spoken instead of multiple languages which would be more likely.

 Kroem wrote:
Well apart from the one that is the true word of God... that would be exactly the same!

Even that one could change. I mean, what would people call God if they forgot the concept of Pasta?

BrianDavion wrote:
I took his one true word of god comment as a jest myself

It was intended as such

However, Scott-S6 did provide an interesting theological rebuttal above centred around the innate fallability of man's interpretation of the divine word!

Edit: Of course we do know this applies in 40k. The Emperors Tarrot is a way of directly communicating with the Emperor's psyke in the warp, but is highly reliant on the interpretation of the reader.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Even writing within a language.

I've dabbled (read the first four pages of) a home study course for Middle English.

In a matter of a few hundred years, sentence structure has changed, words have drastically changed spelling (Cyning is now King, as an example).

Yes, the advent of the printed word has helped somewhat. It's certainly standardised spelling across English for the most part, barring cultural tweaks (colour/color etc).

But even so, language is always evolving. Always. My vocabulary is a real mix of slang and proper Queens English. And my slang is from various eras (mostly because I enjoy a good swear) and indeed various areas (I read Viz. You pick up a lot. Especially swearies and curses).

We can also look to 'dead' languages. Consider Welsh and Scots Gaelic. Both still have users, but they don't contain 'new' words. If you ever watch a Gaelic TV programme, you'll hear Gaelic, then say, Computer, or Helicopter.

Language shifts. The meaning of specific words shifts. I won't provide examples here, because Dakka's sweary filter, and indeed my work's sweary filter. But there are words used now where the meaning has drifted from the point it was first defined (and who knows what it may have meant in centuries and decades before)

http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/futurelang.php under the "Spelling and Grammar" heading.

For example, in Year 1 that useless letter "c" would be dropped to be replased either by "k" or "s", and likewise "x" would no longer be part of the alphabet. The only kase in which "c" would be retained would be the "ch" formation, which will be dealt with later. Year 2 might reform "w" spelling, so that "which" and "one" would take the same konsonant, wile Year 3 might well abolish "y" replasing it with "i" and Iear 4 might fiks the "g/j" anomali wonse and for all.

Jenerally, then, the improvement would kontinue iear bai iear with Iear 5 doing awai with useless double konsonants, and Iears 6-12 or so modifaiing vowlz and the rimeining voist and unvoist konsonants. Bai Iear 15 or sou, it wud fainali bi posibl tu meik ius ov thi ridandant letez "c", "y" and "x" -- bai now jast a memori in the maindz ov ould doderez -- tu riplais "ch", "sh", and "th" rispektivli.

Fainali, xen, aafte sam 20 iers ov orxogrefkl riform, wi wud hev a lojikl, kohirnt speling in ius xrewawt xe Ingliy-spiking werld.

I wouldn't be surprised if Judaism still existed, as that religion has proved itself to extremely resilient over time, even under the harshest of duress.

 Beersarius Drawl wrote:

also digital records are far different to analog records.

Ayuh.

Digital records are much worse for long-term storage and retrieval.