Religions
The main religion on the Disc appears to be polytheism. Most inhabitants seem to believe in all the gods, and to worship whichever seems likeliest to help them. This is shown in Going Postal, when the goddess Anoia suddenly gains a large following after she appears to have granted Moist von Lipwig a large sum of money. However some individuals and families worship the same god for generations, regardless of promises or outcome; for example, the Maccalariat family are said in Going Postal to have been Anoians for generations. Most of the Dunmanifestin gods have their own priests and temples, but no organised religion as such. There are, however, several organised religions on the Disc. Some of these, such as the Young Men's Reformed-Cultists-of-the-Ichor-God-Bel-Shamharoth Association, are mentioned only in passing, but a few are discussed in more detail.
Read more about this topic: Religions Of The Discworld
Famous quotes containing the word religions:
“The ancients adorned their sarcophagi with the emblems of life and procreation, and even with obscene symbols; in the religions of antiquity the sacred and the obscene often lay very close together. These men knew how to pay homage to death. For death is worthy of homage as the cradle of life, as the womb of palingenesis.”
—Thomas Mann (1875–1955)
“All religions have honored the beggar. For he proves that in a matter at the same time as prosaic and holy, banal and regenerative as the giving of alms, intellect and morality, consistency and principles are miserably inadequate.”
—Walter Benjamin (1892–1940)
“Those who believe in their truth—the only ones whose imprint is retained by the memory of men—leave the earth behind them strewn with corpses. Religions number in their ledgers more murders than the bloodiest tyrannies account for, and those whom humanity has called divine far surpass the most conscientious murderers in their thirst for slaughter.”
—E.M. Cioran (b. 1911)