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Christianity
History > -7000 to 30 AT: Pre-Spaceflight Old Earth > 7000 BT to 270 BT: The Agricultural Age
Culture and Society > Metaphysics > Religion
Culture and Society > Metaphysics > Religion
Old Earth religion based on belief in the divinity of Jesus Christ |
 Image from Wiki Commons |
Christianity is a monotheistic religion that developed during the Roman Empire and regards Jesus Christ (Yeshua ben Yosef, Yeshua of Nazareth) as God and, in traditional sects, the second person in the Trinity (the Triune deity consisting of Father, Son and Holy Spirit). It became the dominant religion in Europe and by the industrial and atomic age, thanks to aggressive missionary activity, had spread to the rest of the world, becoming the largest religion on Earth with 33% of the world's population. By the mid Information Age it had been supplanted from this position by Islam.
Christianity went into a slow decline thereafter, a process hastened during the early Interplanetary period by the emergence of the Catholic-derived Universal Church, as well as by the rise of a number of "new" or "space age" religions. However the faith refused to die, persisting in some outer solsystem religious colonies even through the Technocalypse Age. The EOCC was influential in the later dark ages of Solsys and the very early years of the Federation, especially at Saturn and some other parts of the outer system, but explicitly avoided any formal political role. While Christianity never again became a truly dominant religion among Terragens, various Christian sects and offshoots of Christianity such as the Reformed Catholic Church, the interactive Virch of Jesus Christ, and the omegist Church of Saint Teilhard, and the EOCC continue to exert influence among many modosophonts in the current era.
Doctrinally, Christianity varies widely. The Evangelical Orthodox Catholic Church has beliefs, and for its human members practices, that would have been recognized by most Christians from the first thousand years after Christ. The neoprimitive Church of the Fifth Evangelion requires a stern and literal allegiance to the revealed texts, especially the Fifth Gospel. The Church of Saint Teilhard is a lot more tolerant, and accepts inquiry into other omegist faiths as ways of deepening one's own understanding of the Omega Point. The Argelander (NoCoZo)-based Jesus The Borg takes a more funky approach, but they can be known to become aggressive to those who question their historical claims. Some Christians, like the Holy Jerusalem Creed (descended from refugees from Dionysos) state that sophonts will end up being eternally punished in hell unless they are "saved" (with special tortures being reserved for any erotocrats). The Reformed Catholic Church teaches that salvation is obtained through repentance and authentically nanofabricated church sacraments. The Church of the Cosmic Christ interprets hell symbolically, not as an actual place of punishment. All sects are in agreement regarding belief in a usually supernatural God and the divinity of Christ, who is regarded as either the, or, in the more liberal sects, one possible, means to Salvation.
As with the other Old Earth pre-singularity religions like Buddhism, Islam, Saint Marxism, and Nuagism, Christianity remains locally popular in numerous polities in the Middle and Outer regions, in predominantly human near-baseline communities in the Inner Sphere, and among some of the very traditional houses of the old core worlds.
Related Articles
- Church of the Cosmic Christ, The
- EOCC (Evangelical Orthodox Catholic Christianity)
- Jesus Christ
- Order of St. Christopher - Text by Anders Sandberg
Solarist starship religious order, founded in 5378 by Nos D388. The members are all starships (mainly relativist craft), serving the Divine Order by transporting beings, equipment and especially wormholes to where they are needed. During the Version War the ships of the order were involved in refugee transports, linelaying and scouting, their efforts gaining them a formal blessing of divine gratitude from H. H. the God Emperor. The order has since then largely been active in the Perseus rift and in the Amalgamation effort. - Reformed Catholic Church - Text by M. Alan Kazlev
Revival of the Catholic Church based on the Tradition of the Life of Christ as interpreted through the teachings of the three Holy Figures of Augustine of Hippo, Thomas Aquinas and Evangelion of Umbriel. Based on monastic biospheres, bishoprics, and vicarages throughout much of the Inner Sphere, with the largest number in the Terran Federation, and the Sophic League. There is also a small but thriving cluster of habs in the inner Perseus Arm. - Shigemasy, Vidriole
- Teilhard, Saint - Text by M. Alan Kazlev
Late Industrial / early Atomic age religious philosopher, palaeontogist, and eschatologist; propounder of an early form of Omegism. - Teilhardism - Text by M. Alan Kazlev
Christian-omegist religion popular in a few nearbaseline habitats throughout the galaxy. The relations to the teachings of the original Teilhard are often tenuous at best. - Universal Church, Universalism
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Development Notes
Text by M. Alan Kazlev
additions by Stephen Inniss
Initially published on 24 September 2001.
additions by Stephen Inniss
Initially published on 24 September 2001.
