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If the 40k Universe is meant to be our own, what happened to all the religious figures and deities?

Were all the old religions basically worshipping powerful Daemons?

If so, what happened to them?

Greater Daemon of Nazareth...

They were lost and forgotten in the Ages that pre-date the rise of the Emperor and any fragmentary descendents of these faiths have been subsumed into the Imperial Creed.

Left out to avoid causing offense.

I dont have a problem with that.

Long story short: Banned by the Emperor during the Unity, later replaced by the hegemonic Imperial Cult.

Besides, believing in Jesus, Buddha or Allah won't create replicas of them in the warp. However, certain states of mind induced by religion (such as revelling in illness, poverty and pain) were certainly making the Chaos Gods inmensely happy...

I thought the Emperor was every important religious/secular figure in history, guiding mankind from the shadows...

Kicked to the curb by the Emperor.

If I remember correctly, the guy set fire to the last Church on Terra personally. While the elderly priest who he had a philosophical discussion with earlier was still in it.

Guy was kind of a dick like that.

Exalted Pariah wrote:I thought the Emperor was every important religious/secular figure in history, guiding mankind from the shadows...

If he was then he was a confusing bugger

"Love thy God with all they heart soul and mind, and they neighbor as they self. "What did he say?" "He called us snakes" O.O "WHAT? STRING HIM UP!!!"
"Um head pharasee... we have no string..." "DANGIT.... well then nail him to wood or something"

"That B**** insulted me, the prophet of God, Kill her and her son!!!"

"*stare at navel, stare at naval,* The path to enlightenment is to deny oneself all desire until one becomes desireless. Why do we have these desires then? Oh uhhh beeeecause if we didnt.... then we wouldnt have desires to overcome... YA thats it!! *stare at naval stare at naval*"

" Satan is REALLY God, and God is the REAL meanie"

No consistency from the big E if he really was every religious figure in history

Considering that none of the religious figures the Emperor may have been ever said anything like that at all, it's still very possible that all of the real-world prophets, messianic figures, shamans, soothsayers, enlightened beings and so forth and so on were some aspect of the soul-matrix that became the Emperor.

They get banned by the Emperor, if you are interested there is a short story about that called: "Last Church on Terra."

And for your info: Jesus, Mohamed, Buda and others were the Emperor is disguise.

As much as I love to debate this, this is probably gonna get us all in deep gak. Let's leave it at this: the religions of today probably survived into the the Age of Strife, but would probably be unrecognizable, with the language and doctrinal changes caused by the atheism prevalent in the Dark Age of Technology. Whatever survived the Age of Strife was lost in the Founding of the Imperium (by Decree of the Emperor), although Lorgar managed to scrape together enough to write the Lectitio Divinitatus. From there, the Ministorum kept up the work after the Horus Heresy.

Exalted Pariah wrote:I thought the Emperor was every important religious/secular figure in history, guiding mankind from the shadows...

Then you thought wrongly.

English Assassin wrote:

Exalted Pariah wrote:I thought the Emperor was every important religious/secular figure in history, guiding mankind from the shadows...

Then you thought wrongly.

Actually He was. One reason He decided to get rid of religion all together is because no matter what He told people to work together, they just twisted it into reasons to fight each other. So He decided to take direct command, and the rest is history.

thakabalpuphorsefishguy wrote:

Exalted Pariah wrote:I thought the Emperor was every important religious/secular figure in history, guiding mankind from the shadows...

If he was then he was a confusing bugger

"Love thy God with all they heart soul and mind, and they neighbor as they self. "What did he say?" "He called us snakes" O.O "WHAT? STRING HIM UP!!!"
"Um head pharasee... we have no string..." "DANGIT.... well then nail him to wood or something"

"That B**** insulted me, the prophet of God, Kill her and her son!!!"

"*stare at navel, stare at naval,* The path to enlightenment is to deny oneself all desire until one becomes desireless. Why do we have these desires then? Oh uhhh beeeecause if we didnt.... then we wouldnt have desires to overcome... YA thats it!! *stare at naval stare at naval*"

" Satan is REALLY God, and God is the REAL meanie"

No consistency from the big E if he really was every religious figure in history

It could be that the emperor didn't want to be viewed as God, but people ended up doing so anyway. Wherever he went, someone would start worshiping him and making rules as they go along.

Tadashi wrote:

English Assassin wrote:

Exalted Pariah wrote:I thought the Emperor was every important religious/secular figure in history, guiding mankind from the shadows...

Then you thought wrongly.

Actually He was. One reason He decided to get rid of religion all together is because no matter what He told people to work together, they just twisted it into reasons to fight each other. So He decided to take direct command, and the rest is history.

Do you want to provide a source for that, perchance?

Just looke at these two pictures:



And tell me that they don't look alike.

Brother Coa wrote:Just looke at these two pictures:

Spoiler:

And tell me that they don't look alike.

God-Emperor of Mankind: Jesus in power armor.

Brother Coa wrote:Just looke at these two pictures:

Spoiler:

And tell me that they don't look alike.

Suddenly the Bible seems much more intresting.

Trondheim wrote:

Brother Coa wrote:Just looke at these two pictures:

Spoiler:

And tell me that they don't look alike.

Suddenly the Bible seems much more intresting.

Now that I think of it, old testament is pretty grimdark in some places.

Brother Coa wrote:Just looke at these two pictures:

Spoiler:

And tell me that they don't look alike.

They don't look alike.

Do I win a prize?

BeRzErKeR wrote:
They don't look alike.

Do I win a prize?

All right, the Emperor shaved to mislead us. He also colored his hair into black.
Happy?

Medium of Death wrote:If the 40k Universe is meant to be our own, what happened to all the religious figures and deities?

Were all the old religions basically worshipping powerful Daemons?

Well, the rise of the Emperor occurs 28000 years from now. Recorded human civilisation has only been around on Earth for 6000 or so years at the moment, and think of all the huge religions that are now forgotten. Remember, a good portion of the world used to believe in the Roman Gods just as vehemently as today's Christians believe in theirs. It's quite easy to suggest that, in 28000 years from today, all the current religions will be long forgotten or changed massively.

The Last Church, from the first HH anthology, is called the 'Church of the Lightning Stone'. It's faith seems to worship an old miracle that happened on the site, and it's certainly spoken about in a vaguely 'Christian' way, but there's no outright connection between it and Christianity. In Legion, Hurtado Bronzi also declares himself 'Catheric of faith', and I'm sure 'Catheric' is mentioned elsewhere in the series, though no details are given.

The 40k story seems to be that, whatever 'faiths' existed on Earth, they were all either completely made-up, or The Emperor in disguise. God, Allah, Mithras, Zeus, Thor, never existed, and the only powers in the universe similar were the Powers of the Warp, who can feed on worship, and this are seen as and referred to as gods.

Of course, it's possible that certain Earth factions were really Chaos-worshippers under a different name - this is certainly implied to be the case during the Age of Strife, and possibly one of the reasons that contributed the Emperor 'going public' and stopping using religions as a guiding tool...

Brother Coa wrote:Just looke at these two pictures:

Spoiler:

And tell me that they don't look alike.

All this tells me is that you don't understand the concept of allusion, let alone the difference between evidence and inference.

I don't have a source for this but I heard that every single great person of history (Jesus, Buddha, any other well known leader) was actually one of a set of functionally immortal pyskers, who would wait until they die, send their pyschic energy into the warp to gather strength then return as a different great historical figure. At a certain point when they were all alive, they decided to collective kill themselves and commit all of their energy to the warp, allowing all of them to come back into one individual, the most powerful pysker ever seen by mankind, The Emperor. Where I heard this I have no idea, but I like the theory.

Sky57 wrote:I don't have a source for this...

There's reason for that; there isn't one.

Sky57 wrote:I don't have a source for this but I heard that every single great person of history (Jesus, Buddha, any other well known leader) was actually one of a set of functionally immortal pyskers, who would wait until they die, send their pyschic energy into the warp to gather strength then return as a different great historical figure. At a certain point when they were all alive, they decided to collective kill themselves and commit all of their energy to the warp, allowing all of them to come back into one individual, the most powerful pysker ever seen by mankind, The Emperor. Where I heard this I have no idea, but I like the theory.

Partially wrong, and correct offcourse XD.

The Emperor is pretty much the result of the strongest shaman's on earth and such offing themselves and giving all their power to one child. After that it's said the Emperor showes up numerous times in history. And people, don't forget, the Emperor can change his appearence at will.

Soladrin wrote:After that it's said the Emperor showes up numerous times in history.

Oh yes? So where exactly does it say that?

English Assassin wrote:

Soladrin wrote:After that it's said the Emperor showes up numerous times in history.

Oh yes? So where exactly does it say that?

Realms of Chaos: The Lost and the Damned
Over the Millennia the Emperor watched the human race develop. He travelled the entire globe, watching and helping, sometimes adopting the persona of a great leader or advisor. In times of trouble he became a crusader, a religious leader or messiah, at other times he remained a back stage contributor to events.

Many of the guises he adopted were humble, others became monumental figures of world history or religion.

I know in the Thousand Sons book they make mention to the ancient Egyptian religion (namely Horus over throwing his father, king of the Gods). This isn't so surprising since the Sons strived to preserve knowledge, including older religions, that they might gleam meaning from.

Well, in Prospero Burns there is mention of "Catherics" which is clearly a corruption of Catholics.

However, just because the religion died does not mean the god that it was based on never and doesn't exist. I am an atheist myself but I see no reason that there could not have been an omnipotent deity that is now shaking its head sadly at the 40k universe.

The chaos gods are hardly omnipotent and live in a different dimension, and they were CREATED so they could not have made the universe. But, a being such as the Christian god, since he lives on a different plane of existence or something is outside of the entire thing, not fueled by belief or faith but just being.

Pilau Rice wrote:

English Assassin wrote:

Soladrin wrote:After that it's said the Emperor showes up numerous times in history.

Oh yes? So where exactly does it say that?

Realms of Chaos: The Lost and the Damned
Over the Millennia the Emperor watched the human race develop. He travelled the entire globe, watching and helping, sometimes adopting the persona of a great leader or advisor. In times of trouble he became a crusader, a religious leader or messiah, at other times he remained a back stage contributor to events.

Many of the guises he adopted were humble, others became monumental figures of world history or religion.

Ah, in a book written at a time when the Astartes were still mind-scrubbed criminals, the Tyranids negotiated by means of the Zoats, the Ultramarines had a half-Eldar Librarian, and the Emperor was worshipped as god before the Horus Heresy.

Even if you take it at face value, it in no way equates to positive evidence for the Emperor being (to quote Coa) "Jesus, Mohamed (sic), Buda (sic) and others", which is indeed explicitly contradicted on the same page (175, if anybody cares) where The Lost and the Damned states: "He always used his influence carefully, adopting the guise of a normal man...".