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I find these discussions of 40K lore and past "history" to be extremely enjoyable. I imagine that religious scholars have these same type of discussions about the "old world" and the great people that lived in it. If you really think about it, there are enough people worldwide who absolutely love this hobby and it's fluff so much (myself included), that one could almost form a type of "religion" out of it.

Imagine if the 40K authors, Dan Abnett, James Swallow, etc. got together with the designers of the 40K universe and created an actual book, tome, bible, whatever you want to call it, of the complete history of warhammer 40K. That would be amazing, and I for one would love to read and study it. I don't know, maybe it's just me, but this 40K universe and all of it's colorful characters, are so much more interesting to read and learn about than Scientology, which as you know was created in 1953 by L. Ron Hubbard. One man.

Is it such a stretch of the imagination that someone couldn't do that today with 40K?

I'm going to say we should hop on the boat that the emperor of mankind was trying to get rolling and everyone be atheists, just saying

A massive book of its history: yes.
A religion: no.
Although I would like to see a book like that.

The lore includes many religions in it, worship of the Emperor, the Chaos Gods, Eldar deities, Gork & Mork, etc. To form one single religion out of it would seem problematic, no?

Who's to say that it couldn't happen though? I mean, worshiping one magical being is as good as the next, it just depends on which one an individual prefers to take comfort in, I suppose. Scientology after all was written by a . . . science fiction writer (lol) a relatively short time ago, and yet it has managed to achieve a base of followers to this day. Anything can happen when it comes to fantastic ideas dreamed up by folks.

As interested in the background of this game as I am, I unfortunately would have to say that it is too much of a stretch. Reasons behind it being too difficult would be the mythos that GW has tried so hard to establish: that there is no mythos. No canon. No overarching information core at the center of this universe.

The problem with "The Church of 40k" would be the same one we as players have: without much correction and decisive canon from the source material, the "bible" would be exceedingly simple. Look at some of the major complaints about the writing from BL, for example. Much of the time the fluff says Eldar are master manipulators, Calgar is a master tactician, Emperor is a master throne-sitter, but even the writings, the closest thing we would have to our parables, seldom (if ever) display these qualities with any kind of accuracy.

I like the idea, but don't see how it would work. You'd have to get people to follow a belief... with no actual detail... about something so far off it has almost no relevanc...y....

Ok you know what it might work.

deathmagiks wrote:Ok you know what it might work.

I see what you did there.

You know, we could start by filling the religion field in census by stating "Imperial Creed". It worked for the Jedi!

the downside is that for some countries this would have influence on policies and distribution of tax money, so maybe we should rather not

It's fine to enjoy the imaginative realm of stories created into worlds of their own such as Star Wars, Star Trek and Tolkien's Middle Earth but to go beyond that and enter the threshold of obsession with something fictional with something as fun as Warhammer seems just a TAD unhealthy...I mean we're talking about a game that revolves around plastic toys using "pew pew lasers" against each other here. Spending too much time on this already becomes a sort of idolatry, I don't see the point of trying to make a religion from something as ambiguous a setting as this considering even Black Library has a hard time trying to determine what is canon or not with hacks like Ward muddying up the waters with previously established fluff.

Then you get into the trouble of what you would DO with said religion besides becoming a cult where you funnel money from 40K fans and living in drop pod communes...

 Dumah12 wrote:
I'm going to say we should hop on the boat that the emperor of mankind was trying to get rolling and everyone be atheists, just saying

To be accurate, he was a hardcore antitheist, and wanted to convert all humans to his world view: denial of gods and worship - replaced with science, reason and logic.
Atheism wasn't enough for him, he wanted to eradicate faith-based systems.

Hey, founding a religion based on burning heretical texts, and individuals, has never done harm to anyo....

Oh...

deathmagiks wrote:
Hey, founding a religion based on burning heretical texts, and individuals, has never done harm to anyone who mattered.

Fixed that for you.

Says the witchunter

Your understanding is not required, citizen. Only your obedience.

*Signed by the Ecclesiarch, High Lord of the Imperial Faith, in the Emperor we trust*

How do you think Scientology got started?