Amitra Schwols
asked
Lois McMaster Bujold:
I have to say - I'm jealous of a religion that has a Bastard in it, and a guaranteed miracle at the end of your life (that everyone can see). Did you create the religion in the Chalion books from whole cloth, or did you model it after an existing religion or religions?
Lois McMaster Bujold
A combination. The social aspects of religion, how humans use religion to organize themselves to carry out various social functions, are pulled from a lifetime of observation and reading; the mystical likewise from readings across several real-world religions. The underlying theo... call it theography, I made up myself, and is very contrary to most real-world religions.
The gods of Chalion are not, and are generally understood not to be creator-gods, but evolved and evolving from matter that came first. They are not deities people can give bribes to in the form of sacrifices for material-world favors, or to punish people one does not like either before or after death, both early motivations for religious beliefs. (Although I'm sure some people, being people, try anyway.) They are however about a non-material afterlife, although not one that is easy to understand or describe. "Union with god" is meant rather literally, here.
Ta, L.
The gods of Chalion are not, and are generally understood not to be creator-gods, but evolved and evolving from matter that came first. They are not deities people can give bribes to in the form of sacrifices for material-world favors, or to punish people one does not like either before or after death, both early motivations for religious beliefs. (Although I'm sure some people, being people, try anyway.) They are however about a non-material afterlife, although not one that is easy to understand or describe. "Union with god" is meant rather literally, here.
Ta, L.
More Answered Questions
Mickey
asked
Lois McMaster Bujold:
Heading to Dublin for WorldCon 2019 tomorrow with questions all planned for your kaffeeklatsch, only to discover you won't be there! So glad to see there's an alternative that you're active on, so I can ask my questions here instead. Since I'm character-limited, I'll split them into multiples. First question: do you have a page where you publish your con schedule, or does one have to dig through your blog?
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