MR 061: Faith Stealer

So much lucidity.... So much lucidity.... Am I listening to Doctor Who or Discworld right now? This setting feels like a Discworld set up. It kind of goes in a Discworld direction as well, with a more incomprehensible Doctor Who style ending.

Like Discworld, we have a city where religions coexist in peace. The Doctor, Charley and C'Rizz need to declare a religion to get in. C'Rizz actually IS religious, but the Doctor and Charley are not. So the Doctor declares that they are of the "Tourist" faith. They worship C'Rizz. Naturally, that religion starts to spread throughout the interfaith center. They hear someone on the street preaching tourism and saying "C'Rizz be praised." And it only gets even more silly from there.

From the very beginning this was clearly a bad idea. The interfaith center seeks to promote interfaith dialogue or some such. But the nature of faith is belief without evidence. If you're a zealot and truly believe in your religion, why would you tolerate other faiths? The very idea doesn't make any sense. Your religion is right and everyone else is wrong. If you want them to follow the one true way, you shouldn't tolerate anyone else's beliefs.

The religions that we see are quite unique and interesting. We have a religion where they constantly sing a chant and that chant in and of itself IS their god. There is the Church of Kabari, which worships an extremely versitle household product that can be eaten or used as wallpaper or a hat. It was quite entertaining seeing the Bishop of this religion getting offended at seeing the kabari used as wallpaper in another church because he considers it sacred. There is the Shrine of Serendipity, which worships happy accidents. Anytime something accidental happens and they get hurt they are eccstatic. Indeed, when their shrine burns down they were overjoyed. "May obstacles cover your path."

There are a few other religions that are just mentioned by name for gags like the Microbaptists, the Divine Gas, and The Temple of the Ever Open Door (which has closed its doors for services). The main religion here, though, is the Church of Lucidity. It was a small cult when it entered the interfaith center and is growing rapidly. They dream the divine dream and create crystals in their dreams, the sacred objects of their faith. They recruit people who are depressed and looking for meaning, as all religions do. But then that small cult that recruited people who were depressed grew up and became the dominant religion.

The Church of Lucidity is spreading very rapidly. Indeed, it has become the most popular religion in the interfaith center very rapidly. There are regular sleep riots where people show their worship for Lucidity, sleep walking and talking. The director of the interfaith center has seen conversion swings before, but nothing like this. Banning the religion would go against everything the interfaith center is supposed to stand for. But the Church becoming the dominant and then sole religion in the interfaith center ALSO goes against everything the interfaith center is supposed to stand for. As I said, this was always a bad idea. Religions compete with each other for followers and if one grows to become dominant, it will have the power to take over all the others. This is not science. There is no agreed upon universal objective truth. For religion, truth is relative. Faith is based on nothing. So who's to say which religion is true?

C'Rizz gets pulled into the Church of Lucidity and tries to strangle Charley in his dream, remembering killing his girlfriend in Creed of the Kromon. So the Doctor takes him to the "de-faith center." The very idea is quite silly. They pull all your ideas out of your brain to get you to stop being religious. You've "believed too much." This, too, feels like a Discworld idea. The Doctor doesn't want him treated, but the de-faith center employee does so anyway. He tries to pull all of the Lucidity beliefs out of C'Rizz's mind, but they overwhelm him and take him over.

It turns out the Church of Lucidity is preying on people, stealing their minds and collecting them in crystal form to feed a weird crystalline entity from another dimension who eats thoughts dreamt during REM sleep, lucid dreaming. I know, it's an incomprehensible monster. The point is that people are getting pulled into this religion only to have their minds sucked out while they sleep. The director of the interfaith center tries to ban the Church of Lucidity, going against what she believes in, but she gets killed by the head of this church.

There's a part where the Doctor and Charley are lucid dreaming as well and they see what they want to see, the TARDIS so they can escape. Charley has the Doctor take off in the illusion and it disappears around them. I liked this little scene. I also liked the Doctor saying "oh ye of too much faith."

How else is faith defeated? With cold hard truth. The Doctor realizes that the leader of the religion isn't real. He was created by the weird crystalline entity to head the church. He disappears in a puff of logic and then the creature gets banished back to wherever it came from. The Doctor appoints a new head of the interfaith center and they get out of there.

This was a cute one. I enjoyed focusing on C'Rizz just a bit more. We know that he's susceptible to cults because he's already religious and we know he's haunted by his girlfriend's death. We could have guessed this already so we didn't learn THAT MUCH about C'Rizz to be fair. Still it's something. I liked the setting and the story. Despite the more incomprehensible ending, it didn't ruin it. I liked the meditation on faith itself. Faith is based on nothing but feelings and so it's inherently not going to get along with other faiths. It's very much a means of division between people, yet another way to pull people towards their own communities and away from other communities.

The religions themselves were quite fun and it was enjoyable to see C'Rizz pulled into a different faith than his own. His brain was taken from him and he just preached for Lucidity, helping to make it the dominant religion. The other religions can not exist in the might of Lucidity. I also liked what Charley said. This feels like a religious stock exchange. May the strongest faith win.