As a fantasy writer with a massive amount of work in progress at virtually all times, (not to mention my day job), I frequently toy with ideas and concepts. It’s a hobby. When I do this, I don’t necessarily consider the logic or the veracity of these concepts in relationship to the reality that I currently inhabit. I think you know the reality I’m talking about – most of us are currently in it. It’s a “shared” reality with a lot of overlap. Perception largely determines its definition, making it slightly different for each of us, but still very similar in actual operation. Gravity, for example. So far I haven’t seen anyone with the ability to ignore it. Or the personality of any given individual. I’m sure it’s perceived somewhat differently by each person who knows that individual. Perception makes reality relative to the observer in a lot of ways.
In fantasy, I don’t have to worry about gravity. Nor do I need to concern myself with the existence of a soul or a spirit or any of the other unproven faith-based concepts. This means that I am free to think about them and write about them. Which I do. And one of the ideas I’ve recently been pondering has to do with the afterlife. In this concept, a soul, or a spirit, or some other such entity – let’s call it a “non-physical mentality” exists for each person – a component of personality and memory that continues to function after death. This is fantasy, mind you, so I’m not going to argue about the existence of such a thing. It’s my story, so I get to make the rules. (That’s the fun part for me).
So what if (and that’s the key to writing fantasy – asking what if) the afterlife that these non-physical mentalities inhabit after death is determined by their faith – their belief – in short, what they THINK becomes real. And the greater their belief in that thing, whatever it is, the strong it exists. In other words, Heaven as it appears to Christians as defined by their belief actually exists. But not everyone is Christian, obviously. The Islamic, Hebrew, Buddhist, Hindu and yes, even the Greek versions of the afterlife exist as reality in this realm (which is defined by belief). Atheists who believe they won’t exist after death, don’t exist. The real problem, however, comes in with agnostics. What happens to them? They spend their entire lives not deciding on what to believe in because they simply don’t know what is real (a logical response considering the options available). And in this case, what they don’t know is that what is real is determined by them. Therefore, they enter the afterlife with the same question, and they’releft floating around in a confused muddle of minds that haven’t made a determination. I suppose this could be Hell, but it doesn’t have to be. It’s more like a constant struggle to create a defined reality – a tug of war between a multitude of minds who all want different things.
If the weight of belief defines the reality of the afterlife, the collective beliefs of each unified religion are like rafts in the infinite blackness of death. When unified, those who believe are given a place to dwell with like-minded believers. (I’m not sure HOW like minded they need to be, but I’ll work that out as I go). Shades of grey are going to exist, but they’re likely to get smeared across the unified versions of heavens, like walled gardens. I imagine the various afterlife realities would have to be full of factions. Where to draw the line?
In this story, the strength of any particular belief system would be magnified by the number of people who consistently believe in it – they make it exist by their belief – so I could have some select their version of heaven based on the largest collectives of consistent believers that hold that version in existence. Those that are closely aligned, but have slightly divergent beliefs, would probably fit into the larger versions. It would be a matter of convergence. Those that deviate slightly will be “bent” by the strength of the majority.
In short, if you want to create your version of “heaven” in the afterlife, you need to create a large number of believers in the material world. Can you alter this after death though? There’s an interesting question. And perhaps there are wars fought in the heavens over this very detail. Collect your believers and create your heaven, or join those believers who have already done so. After death, it becomes more difficult. Any specific heaven is not going to be interested in giving up their believers – they are the bedrock of their reality. Every soul counts. Every soul lost is one more brick out of the castle, one less cloud, one less… whatever it is.
I don’t know if I’ll write this. I’m sure someone somewhere has probably written something similar, not that that would stop me. One thing that makes this difficult is the sheer volume of religious research involved. Another thing that makes it difficult is the plot. What kind of plot would I apply to this environment? A war in the heavens? A struggle for unity? Agnostics beginning to create a unified reality? Or something like Dante – the escape from Hell? There area lot of options.
Anyway, there’s your crazy-ass thought for the day. Would it make a good story?
Filed under: PsychoBabble Tagged: | Afterlife Fantasy Writing, Fantasy Afterlife, Unified Religion
Good grief Dood. My first thought, after reading the bit about atheists having no afterlife because they didn’t believe in one before they died, was “How unfair! Their afterlife should be filled with the joys of being able to laugh at all the stunned ‘believers’ who’ve discovered how wrong they were!” But after reading the entire thing I’m now thinking the atheists were actually the lucky ones, because everyone else will be stuck fantasizing about a better after-afterlife in a Dante “escape from Hell” kind of way!
I actually haven’t read much afterlife based fiction, and the closest of what I have read would be Asimov’s The Gods Themselves and Zelazny’s Lord of Light. Of course, neither is actually about the afterlife, they just use tons of related metaphors.
To be honest, I was trying to think of something more interesting to do with the atheists than simply making them not exist. I mean, if they’re “gone” I can’t have them as characters. I might try to work them in as some kind of spiritual haze – a cloudy fog of energy that can be tapped by all the other spirits. Or maybe it’s farmed as a resource, like raw belief. Or maybe it’s like antimatter and destroys belief! That could be interesting – a cloud of skepticism. Then the other heavens wouldn’t want anything to do with it.
My other problem is what to do about people who believe in reincarnation. I mean, do they spend some time in the afterlife first before being reborn, or do I dispatch them right away? And what about those that believe they might come back as cows and bugs and lower life forms? Who decides how they are reborn? What happens to the rest of their soul (one would assume a Human soul to be too powerful to fit in a lower life form, so perhaps it is broken apart). And what about their memories? How are they erased (completely or incompletely)?
There are a lot of individual issues to think about.
I can just imagine all those religions courting the atheists (or fighting heavenly wars over them) the same way politicians court independents. Put the atheists in limbo or something and let the games begin.
Reincarnation — maybe the factions vote on how the soul will be reincarnated? Or fight over the right to make the determination. (“We win; he comes back as one of ours!” “You lose; he comes back as a frog.”)
And don’t forget to consider whether “all dogs go to heaven.” Or not.
The problem is that Atheists possess belief, and if belief defines the afterlife, then what they believe will define their existence. So what do they believe? I will have to research this more fully, but I think their belief is in general non-existence of an afterlife.
Agnostics don’t believe, or don’t know what to believe, so what happens to them? I think they’d be the “mass of confusion” fighting among themselves for domination and gaining small islands in the storm like a swirling cloud of stardust giving rise to occasional stars that burn out and explode. It would be like the game of life. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway's_Game_of_Life
And animals… I don’t know what they believe. They may not be cognitive that way, so perhaps they go with the agnostics, or perhaps they’re just energy drifting in the void.
A war in the heavens is a biblical fact while a mental ‘unified field’ is the main goal of Hindus. But since people are now becoming anti-religious, I don’t think those plots would create a bestseller.
Well, if I wrote best sellers, writing wouldn’t be a hobby anymore!
I wonder if I’d still enjoy it…?
Ahh…I see your point now. Writing as a profession is torturous and could even be traumatic so enjoy it as just a hobby.
It’s sad when writers write because they need to.
I guess I don’t find it sad, but maybe you mean because some of us don’t write for publication and should? In that regard, I think this has probably been going on throughout history, and there are probably many great works that that were written for the enjoyment of the author rather than the enjoyment of others. Being “unfettered” by the need to please an audience isn’t a bad thing at all. I refuse to write works because they might sell. That does’t mean I might not try to publish them at some point. But I’m not going to research the hottest selling genre and dive in. I’m going to write what I enjoy, keeping to heart the philosophy that if I don’t enjoy writing it, it probably wouldn’t have been any good for me to write it anyway.
If I wrote specifically to make money at it, I’d probably be drafting a vampire romance in a current day setting at a sixth grade reading level using generic stereotypes for characters.
To Hell with that!
I also find it funny as to who this would appeal to. Agnostics wouldn’t care to read it. Atheists would find it ridiculous. And anyone with a set religion would hate the idea of an afterlife that encompass religions other than their own. It’s got no audience right out of the gate! A sure fail.