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 Excommunicatus wrote:

 Beersarius Drawl wrote:

also digital records are far different to analog records.

Ayuh.

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

Why?

While the data (bits) might still be readable, it's the hardware and the methods that they use to lay down those bits that is the unreliable thing.

The rate of technological progress from punchcards to magnetic tape, to magnetic disc, to solid state drives was very rapid. So rapid that some formats, while they may still be intact and have data on them, simply cannot be read anymore because the hardware they were used with has been systematically made obsolete.

Finding somewhere that has the gear that can read a 2" magnetic tape backup for example.
Or an 8" floppy disk drive.

Still, despite data being burnt into a CD by a laser, the declared life of the data stored is about a decade or two, then there might be losses.
A hard drive can last some time longer, but without maintenance, it will eventually get unreadable.

All because of physics.

A book can last hundreds/thousands of years unattended if left in a convenient (dry, more or less constant temperature, no insects or mold) environment. Same with LP disk.

 Excommunicatus wrote:

 Beersarius Drawl wrote:

also digital records are far different to analog records.

Ayuh.

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

Yeah tell that to the idiots in my It department

 chromedog wrote:
While the data (bits) might still be readable, it's the hardware and the methods that they use to lay down those bits that is the unreliable thing.

The rate of technological progress from punchcards to magnetic tape, to magnetic disc, to solid state drives was very rapid. So rapid that some formats, while they may still be intact and have data on them, simply cannot be read anymore because the hardware they were used with has been systematically made obsolete.

Finding somewhere that has the gear that can read a 2" magnetic tape backup for example.
Or an 8" floppy disk drive.

As a singular point of entry, (data in, then stored) looking at things in isolation, you are correct.
but if you look at an interconnected world, similar to our internet, this is almost irrelevant, this is because of backups. communication logs, key logs and servers, the data is constantly being replicated, and shared and in perfect replication of the original.

This also adds in the "Fake News" aspect of false information, like our internet. but never the less the original information survives in its entirety (as a copy) for a very long time.


Edits: for grammar etc Its still probably wrong :(

An individual digital record is less resilient than a traditional written or carved document, but the digital data is more easily transcribed, assuming anyone wants to or remembers to do it. The obvious example in the UK is the BBC Domesday Project - created in 1986, almost unreadable twenty years later, as the hardware was long obsolete and almost unavailable.

A version was made available on the BBC's history website in 2011, and is now archived in the National Archives, but ironically requires Flash to work.

There's still plenty of scope for things to disappear - TV and films that never came out on DVD, for example, or old websites that archive.org doesn't crawl.

 AndrewGPaul wrote:
An individual digital record is less resilient than a traditional written or carved document, but the digital data is more easily transcribed, assuming anyone wants to or remembers to do it. The obvious example in the UK is the BBC Domesday Project - created in 1986, almost unreadable twenty years later, as the hardware was long obsolete and almost unavailable.

A version was made available on the BBC's history website in 2011, and is now archived in the National Archives, but ironically requires Flash to work.

There's still plenty of scope for things to disappear - TV and films that never came out on DVD, for example, or old websites that archive.org doesn't crawl.

Just take a look online for less well known BBC TV shows from 20 years ago, very difficult to find. If anything, the volume of digital content being created makes older content drop out of sight and then become unavailable more quickly than ever.

My personal example is the UK dub of Insektors; broadcast in 1994, released on VHS but not on DVD. I ended up burning a copy onto DVD-RAM discs ... I really should make sure I can read those on my PC.

 AndrewGPaul wrote:
My personal example is the UK dub of Insektors; broadcast in 1994, released on VHS but not on DVD. I ended up burning a copy onto DVD-RAM discs ... I really should make sure I can read those on my PC.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJKsYPxjbvgJmtIMDxu07COLubsPqz-qn

You, sir, are a gentleman and a scholar. Where's the hat-doffing smiley when you need it?

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:


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

Do the same with Science, and the same discoveries will be found again in the future.

Religion is ultimately mutable, after all. It shifts, it adapts, either through doctrine or natural 'word of mouth' drift. An example is the Christian religion not being written down for a long old time. Who knows how accurate it's teachings might actually be a result? Please note, I am not knocking people of faith. Just giving an example of how Gospel may not in fact be Gospel etc. You do you, and live your life how you think it should be lead

I take your point in the spirit in which it was intended. I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints- the central premise of which was that the Christian faith HAS changed over the millennia, and that divine revelation was required to restore it as Christ intended. The reason I bring this up is not to debate the merits here, but to point out that in a universe where gods definitely exist and divine power acts on humanity through saints and prophets, there is no reason for the religions to be so different.

Back in 30k, the word bearers found a world that had never contacted the Imperium worshipping the Emperor as a thunder god. The thunder and lightning motif was a central element of the Emperor's rise to power and the spacemarine legions (Thunder warriors, Thunder Hawks, Storm birds Storm Bolters...) the faith echoed the Imperial creed in important ways and was obvious to the reader but not to Lorgar until the end of the short story.

That the Emperor echoes real world religions in a number of ways ( divine leader, partly human - born of woman, commands the elements - especially lightning, heals by touch, sacrifices himself for all), would indicate that in the 40k universe, prophets and such have seen glimpses of his life, if they weren't actually the Emperor in disguise.

We know that for chaos- worship of the chaos gods starts spontaneously in different worlds and species through divine (profane?) revelation and takes on recognisable aspects, especially symbols and runes. While the Imperial Missionaries do twist and shift local superstitions to convert new worlds to the Imperial creed, the fact that they are so successful could be down to the fact that the worlds were actually independently worshipping the Emperor in their own way. That's what a missionary would tell you - but there's compelling reasons to accept that it may well be true, in a universe where people can spontaneously have visions of the god-emperor.

Going back to the premise- could religion x exist in a form we might recognise in the 41st millenium? Potentially. The texts might survive in some form, the religious practices could transmit culturally and if those religions were based on the visions of the god emperor, those visions could occur again.

I think this discussion should perhaps be reigned in or we could start stepping on toes that shouled not be stepped in a civrlized way. The discussion could turn into something it should not be.

I am an atheist agnostic myself. Atheist refering that I do not belive in a god, or gods. Agnostic in that i do not know. I have not been convinced by the arguments (hence the atheist part) and I have not proven inn and to just boldly assert something is not my style (hence the agbostic part.) Note that this does not mean that I think there are no gods. While there is a distinction there (what is popularly caled a strong atheist) I think the possabilaty that there are any gods is quite far fetched. Bit as i can not prove it I remain a weak atheist.

In my worldview all religions on earth that has been sugested or will be sugested are just wrong. They are powered or come about by tricks of the mind, our brains abilaty to invent explanations, and tye comfort of bellonging to a communaty.

Hence when the OP suggests that a cureent religion survives to the 40K time I belive it would have warped so much ot would be virtually unrecognisable. All religions are in my mind a copy of a copy of a copy etc. There is no true original to refer back to. A good example would be the church of mormons musical where some star wars figurines find their way into the worship and it is far removed from the original religion. But in ny mind the mormon doctrine is also wrong. There is little difderence between the starwars figurines and the reformed egyptian gold plates the mormon christian of shoot is based on. (There is also no such thing as reformed egyptian.) A copy of a copy of a copy, changing slightly each time.

Now there are two big differenses here. A person who is a practisoner or belives in an IRL religion would asume that at least one religion is real. But conflicting religions can not co-exist. (Both Mormons and Muslims can not be right as they worship the same good in vastly different ways. And either of those gods do not work with hindusiemn, and they do not remain intact within budisemn as they would not be as powerfull as they claim within the budist framework. They would just not have achieved nirvana yet.)

The other big difference is that in 40K there are gods. And there are many conflicting once. This fits more with Norse or Greek/Roman models instead christian models. 40K gods are at war and in conflict. What is a god is also very badly defined. Is the emperor a god? Are the 4 chaos gods gods, or merly just strong? Are the C'tan gods? Or is a star god merly a description? What about the eldar or ork gods? If a god is just something strong, in that case is the collected tyranid hivemind a god? All of these boils down to semantics.

Before I wrote this I asumed that any religion that survived to the 40K universe would be false. As in not true. This is just my ateismn logic. But as I realise the 40K uniniverse operates with loose defenitions perhaps curent era gods could exist. In more of a greek or norse model. I would say that homing in on that on the tabletopp can be considered offensive.

Edit: After thinking about =Angel='s comments a bit more they are actualy quite good. "The texts might survive in some form, the religious practices could transmit culturally and if those religions were based on the visions of the god emperor, those visions could occur again." Now, please correct me if I am wrong. But in mormonismn they say that the holy spirit is the revealed truth, or it reveals the truth, but the important thing is that even in other religions a small part of the throuth is present in them. Is that true? Now from an aetheist perspective that is just some form of apolagetics. But what is cool is that in your suggested 40K model any other religion just has a small part of the emperors trouth in their religion.

You have essentially taken the mormon holy spirit model and changed the emperor for god. But I have adapted an multi-god model like norse or greek/roman to explain it. As those religions had rivaling enteties and varius gods of varous phanteons. (I think the norse operate with varius phanteons within it?)

 Niiai wrote:
After thinking about =Angel='s comments a bit more they are actualy quite good. "The texts might survive in some form, the religious practices could transmit culturally and if those religions were based on the visions of the god emperor, those visions could occur again." Now, please correct me if I am wrong. But in mormonismn they say that the holy spirit is the revealed truth, or it reveals the truth, but the important thing is that even in other religions a small part of the throuth is present in them. Is that true? Now from an aetheist perspective that is just some form of apolagetics. But what is cool is that in your suggested 40K model any other religion just has a small part of the emperors trouth in their religion.

You have essentially taken the mormon holy spirit model and changed the emperor for god. But I have adapted an multi-god model like norse or greek/roman to explain it. As those religions had rivaling enteties and varius gods of varous phanteons. (I think the norse operate with varius phanteons within it?)

The Mormon (Church of Jesus Christ of latter day saints) model is that God chooses a prophet, reveals the truth to him by vision (Ezekiel), apparition(Moses), divine messengers(John the Baptist) or simply direction from the holy spirit.

The truth could be general principles of salvation (Isaiah, Paul's Epistles) or mission specific instruction(Noah, Moses)

If and when people stray from that message(apostasy), or kill the prophets, another prophet is eventually called to restore the truth.

Again, applying this biblical model to 40k, the point is that Khorne's message to Humanity has remained remarkably consistent. Through prophets, champions, 'divine messengers' (Daemons) and visions of his skull throne, his followers act and dress in a recognisable and trademarkable way.

There are numerous ways for religious practices to transmit without the existence of a god.

Assuming that any given human religion is inspired by the Emperor, visions of the Emperor or directly started by the Emperor, that gives us a way for it to transmit spontaneously without human to human evangelising.

For centuries, the Hindu Vedas were primarily transmitted orally, with a high degree of accuracy. This only became problematic when the original Sanskrit became increasingly difficult to understand, and thus there was more reliance on a written tradition, though the oral tradition still existed. Theoretically, if a certain religion devoted alot of effort to maintaining linguistic conservatism in the context of writing down texts in the vernacular, while simultaneously, ensuring that the faithful were well-educated on at least the core tenets of the faith, a religion could possibly survive intact and retain much of its original form for a very long time.

While it isn’t impossible that modern religions could survive, consider the setting.

Everything gets turned inside out. Emperor doesn’t want humans to worship gods... gets worshipped as a god. People think everything old is better, to the point they design things to look old. The Techpriests give ceremonial “whacks” to the side of computers to make them work...

Plus there’s the corrupting effects of chaos, where over the course of 40 000 years any tiny cracks in the armour of the various faiths could be twisted to the whims of chaos gods. Or more recently, Genestealer Cults.

Not impossible that there could be small covens of what we’d recognize today as modern religions, but I doubt it.

 greatbigtree wrote:
While it isn’t impossible that modern religions could survive, consider the setting.

Everything gets turned inside out. Emperor doesn’t want humans to worship gods... gets worshipped as a god. People think everything old is better, to the point they design things to look old. The Techpriests give ceremonial “whacks” to the side of computers to make them work...

Plus there’s the corrupting effects of chaos, where over the course of 40 000 years any tiny cracks in the armour of the various faiths could be twisted to the whims of chaos gods. Or more recently, Genestealer Cults.

Not impossible that there could be small covens of what we’d recognize today as modern religions, but I doubt it.

The Emperor frowned. ++Absolutely no religion or religious trappings!++ he spoke wordlessly, directly to the minds and hearts of all present. He turned to walk back up the ramp of his golden transport, his halo blazing , flanked by his golden swiss guard.

The ship lifted, spreading angelic wings to the left and right before blasting uopwards to the massive buttressed cathedral in orbit, visible in the heavens.

It also doesn’t really matter what your Good Book says, as it’s all in the interpretation.

The Abrahamic texts also include prophecies. Whether or not a given prophecy was fulfilled, and when, is down to the reader/wing of that religion.

I mean, if we look at Christianity, there are a lot of takes. Church of England, Roman Catholicism, Snake Handlers of the Appalachians, Russian Orthodoxy to name but a few and to steer entirely clear of what those differences are.

Some Pastors are Fire and Brimstone and everyone is a bunghole except them. Some are much softer. Yet all are the result of broadly the same text, and all claim their preferred version of the Bible is the inspired and infallible word of their god. And yes there is bickering between which particular strand is the most or only Christian.

And that’s just in few hundred years since printing became accessible.

Rinse and repeat over thousands of years and potentially millions of planets, with differing numbers of adherents across that span.

In short, a 40K religion could have Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism or what have you as its ancestor religion, but be incredibly different.

Even within only a few hundred years within the same denomination how you worship changes a lot. Heck at one time you were forbidden from eating meat on Sundays or working, yet now either of those things are true (although some places still restrict Sunday work).

Basically even on 1 planet with a population only just as big as a Hive City and a few hundred years we've vast temporal and spatial variation in whorship

Adding another thousands upon thousands of years, billions of people, multiple worlds and actual psy magics and you've got a ripe bed for insane change.

If you add in the Emperor burning and killing all other religions, chances are any surviving elements of modern day religion would be based upon scant surviving texts or one or two books. However they are just as likely to be worshipping the great god Coca Cola, as discovered in the ancient religious archaeological site on Earth; as they are the real religions we have today




edit - darn it Doc you tricked me into reposting on old thread brought back to life by necromancy!!!

Doc... You realize you're responding to a discussion that ended more than 3 years ago, right?

I didn’t, no. But…..nor did I purposefully commit Threadomancy.

I first got No Warning on the “thread are ded, go way” thing…and I swear this was up near the top!

Me thinks the Moderati may have hoofed someone who replied before I did, or deleted a message.

I swear this wasn’t me being dodgy!

Naws there was a spambot that bumped the thread up - I reported it - then Doc posted and then I posted cause I forgot I'd reported the thread already

So since it's been revived twice does it still count as threadomancy????

Nah, you are all good. Thread is still relevant.

 Overread wrote:
Even within only a few hundred years within the same denomination how you worship changes a lot. Heck at one time you were forbidden from eating meat on Sundays or working, yet now either of those things are true (although some places still restrict Sunday work).

Basically even on 1 planet with a population only just as big as a Hive City and a few hundred years we've vast temporal and spatial variation in whorship

Adding another thousands upon thousands of years, billions of people, multiple worlds and actual psy magics and you've got a ripe bed for insane change.

If you add in the Emperor burning and killing all other religions, chances are any surviving elements of modern day religion would be based upon scant surviving texts or one or two books. However they are just as likely to be worshipping the great god Coca Cola, as discovered in the ancient religious archaeological site on Earth; as they are the real religions we have today




edit - darn it Doc you tricked me into reposting on old thread brought back to life by necromancy!!!

Pretty much this.

Also consider that, especially in the modern day, we can easily find examples of, shall we say hot takes, of religious books, used to promote an idea.

Please note I’m again trying to keep my language neutral here, mostly so not to upset, annoy, offend or irritate anyone of faith,, but also No P&R.

Religious Doomsayers have always preached The End Is Nigh, and whilst right now we do have social problems, the facts show this is still the safest time to have been alive.

There are exponents of given texts who have clearly read it, but clearly kind of failed to take onboard any of the actual teaching (multi-millionaire evangelicals opposed to helping the poor, for a specific but not naming names for a reason example). And there are folks who follow said exponents, who rely on them for knowing what a given religious text apparently says.

I could go on, but sadly I think I’d cross both the lines I mentioned above, particularly as I’m most familiar with a specific religion, and as such I fear people would think I’m singling it out for special criticism. And we can all do without that.

There’s also the interesting emergence of New Age beliefs, ostensibly based on ancient, largely or completely extinct religions. Including entirely extinct religions which left no written record at all. Some are purely new forms of spiritual self-support. Others have…well…..rather more worrying aims.

As it looks today virtually none. Look how quickly religion changes today.
LOL greed is suposed to be a sin and yet look at the jiant corperations. The wealthy have made religion a joke.

I mean in the times of King Henry the VIII in the UK the Church of the time had phenomenal wealth, land and political power. In fact you go back in time, religions are nearly always tied to influence, power and money.

You can't spend all day in quiet meditation, reflection and prayer without having some seriously deep pockets to afford the land, housing and food (even if many of the rank and file are eating poor quality food).

I think in one of the Inquisitor books by Dan there was eluded to be a Christian painting on a ceiling hidden by another ceiling that had "rotted" away due to the acid rain on the world.

Personally I would think there's a chance of a very skewed version of Christianity being practiced somewhere on a planet that never got brought into fold. I don't think it would would be practiced in a way a modern Christian would like, and it probably would have been iterated on by newer "prophets", with "our new-testament" being treated the way the old-testament is.

I think it'd be more likely that there's imperial worlds where they use the mythos of modern religions and assert that figures like Jesus were the Emperor. Original copies would simply be seen as pre-enlightenment, written in a time before the 2nd/3rd/etc coming of the true prophet. We can see some evidence of this with "Sanguinala" being used in the setting as 40k's pseudo-Christmas.

IRL there's a lot of contradictory things in religious texts, things that would seem immoral to us, or inconsistent within the wider context of the whole, that many followers of a religion wouldn't know, or would avoid considering, to avoid the cognitive dissonance it would otherwise create. (Likely in 40k one would imagine given the gothic themes, the imperial religion's texts are mostly in high-gothic and mis-translated to the masses where convenient.)

Like when the Roman Empire came into contact with Christianity, it started with persecution, but when it became convenient/inevitable we ended up with the (you might say "bastardized") version as taught by the Roman Catholic Church.

In 40k lore, the Imperium allows for many variations on the official cannon to exist, I think the Rainbow Warriors' world Prism(??) thought of the Emperor as a giant snake.
There's likely a few other examples, but that's the one that came to mind.