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Grek
 Image from Steve Bowers and Anders Sandberg |
Grek is a religion whose gods are based on mixture of the ancient gods of Greece and Rome during the Bronze Age on Earth.
Arising in the early 4000's, the founders of the Grek religion were mainly obsessed bionts and cyborgs seeking a link to a seemingly simpler past. They rank the different gods by their perceived rank of power and date of emergence into archailecthood. Though the main gods (Jupiter, Mars, Venus, and others) are on a level with the great archailects, many of the lower gods are lessr archai, and there are even some mere transapient gods.
Almost none of the AIs that the Greks worship play an active role in the religion, and most would rather have nothing to do with it. The fact that many of the high level AIs are reluctant to let themselves be known complicates matters to where some of the gods might not exist altogether, while still others might not be mentioned. Most large systems have their local temple to pray to their system's god, in addition to areas to pray to Jupiter and the other dieties. The temples are usually built in classical Greek style. The names given to the gods are based on their rank of power and/or any imagined or real affections they have for a certain activity. For example Jupiter/Zeus is given to the most (apparently) powerful AI while names like Bubona are given to less powerful AIs. The duty of each god has changed to be more relevant to modern times also. For example, in classic times, Stata Mater was the goddess who protected humans from fires, but today she is now given the responsibility of protecting life from nanoswarms. Gaia is usually referred to as Terra, the goddess of Earth. The total number of Grekans is about 50 billion, but recently it has had a surge of converts and may be headed to be one one of the major religions.
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Development Notes
Text by Anders Sandberg
Initially published on 31 October 2001.
Initially published on 31 October 2001.
