Religion
Posted: Wed Feb 03, 2010 11:54 am
Religion in the Terran Sphere
Despite a general rise in education levels, standards of living, theological questions involving non human life-forms and general secularization of society, religion never the less endures as a powerful influence. About half of the population of the Terran Sphere still subscribes to some form of Religion or another. As a general rule, like most things, human religion is considerably more diverse than it was in the first century.
Abrahamidic Religion
Despite the rise in secularity and non montheistic faiths, Monotheistic Abrahamidic faiths are still prominent, make up in total about a third of the active religions today. Of which, the largest groups remain Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
Christianity: The most successful Abrahamidic faith is that of Christianity, with some 80% of Abramahidic faiths in existence being generally classified as Christians. Of all the Abrahamidic Religions, Christians were the most likely to take to interstellar travel in the Pre-FTL age, as most sects of Christianity have no real reason not to do so in their theology. Also notable was the flexibility of Christian Theology, which has opened up Christianity to non human species to a much greater degree. Christian Theology differs massively, from very liberal churches to extremely strict sects.
The largest group of Christianity is Protestantism, making up slightly less than 35% of all Christians in the Terran Sphere. There are now over two thousand sub branches of Protestant Christianity with numbers in the tens of millions. Theology and structure differs immensely. The Largest Protestant denomination is the First Interstellar United Church, with its roots in Anglicanism which was born out of the second. It has over 120 billion members.
Catholicism and Orthodoxy (Primarily Russian) are tied for second place with each having around 15% of Christendom. In both cases, the Patriarchs and the Pope had authorized the establishment of Hierarchies in other star systems; including (in the case of Catholics) allowing the leaders of non solar catholic churches the position of Pope. This has led to some instances in the FTL age, as the Holy See of Rome has often created contradictory decrees with those of the Holy Sees in other star systems, as well as theological deviations and certain practices and rituals. In 2065, over three hundred popes attended the first Holy Council of Terra in an attempt to re-unify the Catholic Church and discuss theological issues. Of these, some eighty three re-unified with the Vatican, although a compromise was met in which each system’s head bishop retains the position of pope and the Vatican’s pope has the title of the Pontifex Primus. The rest either united into several new catholic churches with different or remained independent. Other Catholic churches which due to distance, or political/theological differences did not attend generally either became independent. Despite this the Roman Catholic Church is the largest Christian body in existence. Although politically neutral, the Roman Catholic Church has met with hostility in some cases as it is Sol based, which puts it at odds with states which are active political rivals with Sol system.
Orthodox Christianity has made some attempts to unite itself with various discussions at seven consecutive councils of Constantinople. However, unlike Catholicism there is no overarching drive to re-unification among the Orthodox Churches. The United Orthodox church exists, but it is far less extensive than the Catholic Church and the authority of the Patriarch of Terra (based out of Constantinople) over priestly activities outside of Sol System is minimal.
Mormonism has been moderately successful, with several planets being populated being initially colonized by offshoots of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. About 5% of Christianity is Mormon. Besides that, there are a large number of smaller churches which have evolved on paths which distinctly separate them from the mainstream of Christian theology. Neo Arianism in praticular has become popular.
Judaism: Judaism has done well over the last 2,000 years, with about 5% of all subscribers Abrahamidic faith being Jewish. On many worlds there are Jewish Enclaves among Gentile society as well as a fair number of systems where Judaism is the main religion. This came out of the Interstellar Exodus movement in the 5th to 10th centuries AT, in which a fair number of Jews left sol system to start up what they considered to be perfect Jewish societies elsewhere. Today there is much controversy and debate among Jews and especially leading Rabbis over theological issues and matters of Jewish law.
Islam: Islam has on the whole has fallen back in terms of its status as an Abrahamidic religion. This is the case due to a lack of expansion, in sol system Islam remains a prominent faith and has resisted general secularization to a greater extent than Christianity but a major peace of theological baggage has held back the expansion of Islam, which is that of the Hajj. STL interstellar travel made the Hajj a practically impossible task for anyone outside of Sol System. Very few Muslims ever joined colonization programs and of those few, most of them were generally quite moderate that went along with other non Muslim groups. In nearly 18 centuries of STL colonization, only twenty one worlds were colonized exclusively by Muslims, less than half the number colonized by Jews, and of those twenty one two failed completely, one regressed significantly and one developed an offshoot religion which eventually displaced Islam in that system. Muslims which lived among non Muslim societies evolved on its own accord. In some cases Islam was abandoned or died off and in a few cases it became predominant, but the most likely scenario was that it developed as a minority faith alongside other religions and secularism. The fact that in most places Islam became a minority religion among various other faiths has had a great affect on the majority of modern islam
Since the Development of Hyperdrive, the Muslims have attempted to expand their faith and have met with some success as well as colonizing several worlds in the Outer Expansion Sphere. Never the less, Islam still makes up for only about 10% of the Abrahamidic world. Islam has faced some resistance in expanding outward as it is ultimately considered a Terra centric religion, wich often alienates it from potential converts in independant star systems and can alienate it from nations which have little regard or an anamosity towards the Homeworld. It also has had some serious theological issues, while the violent extremist fundamentalism of the first century has died out along with Wahabi Islam, there are still issues involving non Human baselines and radically divergent sects of Islam that some consider heresy. Ijtihad has become a nessesity for the survival of Islam in this era.
Splinter Faiths: Along with the traditional trio of Judaism, Christianity and Islam there have emerged various other faiths from them. What constitutes them is an issue which theological professors have endlessly debated on, but it is generally agreed that when a new holy book has been added to the canon/one is removed and/or that a certain figure is the/a messiah or another prophet of god it constitutes a new religion. These have been surprisingly common, normally appearing on worlds were society is hit by some sort of major setback (a destructive war, major natural disaster, problems in the development phase of colonization). A few have managed to combine two existing religions while others have even managed to bring in polytheism in some way or another to faiths with their roots in Abrahamidic Religion.
Despite a general rise in education levels, standards of living, theological questions involving non human life-forms and general secularization of society, religion never the less endures as a powerful influence. About half of the population of the Terran Sphere still subscribes to some form of Religion or another. As a general rule, like most things, human religion is considerably more diverse than it was in the first century.
Abrahamidic Religion
Despite the rise in secularity and non montheistic faiths, Monotheistic Abrahamidic faiths are still prominent, make up in total about a third of the active religions today. Of which, the largest groups remain Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
Christianity: The most successful Abrahamidic faith is that of Christianity, with some 80% of Abramahidic faiths in existence being generally classified as Christians. Of all the Abrahamidic Religions, Christians were the most likely to take to interstellar travel in the Pre-FTL age, as most sects of Christianity have no real reason not to do so in their theology. Also notable was the flexibility of Christian Theology, which has opened up Christianity to non human species to a much greater degree. Christian Theology differs massively, from very liberal churches to extremely strict sects.
The largest group of Christianity is Protestantism, making up slightly less than 35% of all Christians in the Terran Sphere. There are now over two thousand sub branches of Protestant Christianity with numbers in the tens of millions. Theology and structure differs immensely. The Largest Protestant denomination is the First Interstellar United Church, with its roots in Anglicanism which was born out of the second. It has over 120 billion members.
Catholicism and Orthodoxy (Primarily Russian) are tied for second place with each having around 15% of Christendom. In both cases, the Patriarchs and the Pope had authorized the establishment of Hierarchies in other star systems; including (in the case of Catholics) allowing the leaders of non solar catholic churches the position of Pope. This has led to some instances in the FTL age, as the Holy See of Rome has often created contradictory decrees with those of the Holy Sees in other star systems, as well as theological deviations and certain practices and rituals. In 2065, over three hundred popes attended the first Holy Council of Terra in an attempt to re-unify the Catholic Church and discuss theological issues. Of these, some eighty three re-unified with the Vatican, although a compromise was met in which each system’s head bishop retains the position of pope and the Vatican’s pope has the title of the Pontifex Primus. The rest either united into several new catholic churches with different or remained independent. Other Catholic churches which due to distance, or political/theological differences did not attend generally either became independent. Despite this the Roman Catholic Church is the largest Christian body in existence. Although politically neutral, the Roman Catholic Church has met with hostility in some cases as it is Sol based, which puts it at odds with states which are active political rivals with Sol system.
Orthodox Christianity has made some attempts to unite itself with various discussions at seven consecutive councils of Constantinople. However, unlike Catholicism there is no overarching drive to re-unification among the Orthodox Churches. The United Orthodox church exists, but it is far less extensive than the Catholic Church and the authority of the Patriarch of Terra (based out of Constantinople) over priestly activities outside of Sol System is minimal.
Mormonism has been moderately successful, with several planets being populated being initially colonized by offshoots of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. About 5% of Christianity is Mormon. Besides that, there are a large number of smaller churches which have evolved on paths which distinctly separate them from the mainstream of Christian theology. Neo Arianism in praticular has become popular.
Judaism: Judaism has done well over the last 2,000 years, with about 5% of all subscribers Abrahamidic faith being Jewish. On many worlds there are Jewish Enclaves among Gentile society as well as a fair number of systems where Judaism is the main religion. This came out of the Interstellar Exodus movement in the 5th to 10th centuries AT, in which a fair number of Jews left sol system to start up what they considered to be perfect Jewish societies elsewhere. Today there is much controversy and debate among Jews and especially leading Rabbis over theological issues and matters of Jewish law.
Islam: Islam has on the whole has fallen back in terms of its status as an Abrahamidic religion. This is the case due to a lack of expansion, in sol system Islam remains a prominent faith and has resisted general secularization to a greater extent than Christianity but a major peace of theological baggage has held back the expansion of Islam, which is that of the Hajj. STL interstellar travel made the Hajj a practically impossible task for anyone outside of Sol System. Very few Muslims ever joined colonization programs and of those few, most of them were generally quite moderate that went along with other non Muslim groups. In nearly 18 centuries of STL colonization, only twenty one worlds were colonized exclusively by Muslims, less than half the number colonized by Jews, and of those twenty one two failed completely, one regressed significantly and one developed an offshoot religion which eventually displaced Islam in that system. Muslims which lived among non Muslim societies evolved on its own accord. In some cases Islam was abandoned or died off and in a few cases it became predominant, but the most likely scenario was that it developed as a minority faith alongside other religions and secularism. The fact that in most places Islam became a minority religion among various other faiths has had a great affect on the majority of modern islam
Since the Development of Hyperdrive, the Muslims have attempted to expand their faith and have met with some success as well as colonizing several worlds in the Outer Expansion Sphere. Never the less, Islam still makes up for only about 10% of the Abrahamidic world. Islam has faced some resistance in expanding outward as it is ultimately considered a Terra centric religion, wich often alienates it from potential converts in independant star systems and can alienate it from nations which have little regard or an anamosity towards the Homeworld. It also has had some serious theological issues, while the violent extremist fundamentalism of the first century has died out along with Wahabi Islam, there are still issues involving non Human baselines and radically divergent sects of Islam that some consider heresy. Ijtihad has become a nessesity for the survival of Islam in this era.
Splinter Faiths: Along with the traditional trio of Judaism, Christianity and Islam there have emerged various other faiths from them. What constitutes them is an issue which theological professors have endlessly debated on, but it is generally agreed that when a new holy book has been added to the canon/one is removed and/or that a certain figure is the/a messiah or another prophet of god it constitutes a new religion. These have been surprisingly common, normally appearing on worlds were society is hit by some sort of major setback (a destructive war, major natural disaster, problems in the development phase of colonization). A few have managed to combine two existing religions while others have even managed to bring in polytheism in some way or another to faiths with their roots in Abrahamidic Religion.