the gods and belief

[marycatelli]

A lot of writers, constructing their religions, make the gods absolutely dependent on human belief.  Some invoke the obvious reason:  the gods were made by belief. 

And I hate, hate, hate it.

I think the worst case was Harry Turtledove's Case of the Toxic Spelldump, where the main character purports to be a Jew.  Goes to the synagogue, even.  He's an idolater.  He explicitly thinks that his belief (lumped in with others) creates that which he worships.  Silly, silly, silly.

But it's seldom better in explicitly polytheistic systems.  It seldom allows the Powers That Be to be noticeably numinous.  And, oddly enough, it tends toward the gods acting like three-year-olds.  Despite the obvious problem of -- if the humans made them like this, why oh why are the humans any better?

Comments

[dirigibletrance.livejournal.com]

In those systems, the gods area really more like Tulpas, psychic thought-forms given life and power by collective belief.

Tulpas, in and of themselves, are a pretty neat story device. As long as they're used as a monster (which is what they are, or at best a strange curiousity) rather than as a God.

In *Lady of Mazes* by Karl Schroeder the AI system which runs human society forms beings who's personality and program is based on the collective beliefs and wants of a segment of society. however, they are called Votes, rather than gods. The Votes meet every so often and that is how government policy is decided.

[marycatelli]

Especially when the humans know they're Tulpas.

[dirigibletrance.livejournal.com]

It can make for a good self reveal:

"I am your desire, in pure essence, made manifest."
"But you're scary!!"
"Yes."

[marycatelli]

As long as you can pull it off. . . .

the gods as three year olds is especially painful here for that reason.

[dirigibletrance.livejournal.com]

Yes, but if they're not labeled as gods, but instead acknowledged as being thought-constructs of psychic energy, made real, it comes out completely differently.

Tulpas are obviously not something to be worshipped, but instead feared.

[marycatelli]

yeah, well, it's when they're the gods and the writer clearly expects us to believe this that things go haywire

[persephone-kore.livejournal.com]

My first encounter with that concept was in Saberhagen's Sword series. I think I was dubious -- it was long enough ago that I'm not completely sure. A sense of shock is pretty solid in the memory. Possibly of "ew." Although it probably contributed that I've never been emotionally wild about the whole "the magic is going away forever now" bit no matter how well it's done, and Saberhagen introduced this part in the context of the belief-created gods fading away.

His was somewhat more complicated than versions I've encountered more recently, though. Some gods were created out of belief, apparently from thin air. A couple of others were sort of... transformed from other types of human creation into gods, I think at the same world-change that transformed all the nuclear explosions into demons. (I was actually quite startled to learn that the story leading up to that had been written and published before what I thought of as the main story.) And then there is the one who seems to have an entirely independent existence.

[marycatelli]

Yes, it doesn't particularly help this trope that it tends to be in the feebler cosmologies.