The People of the Book

Overview

Beliefs

The overarching beliefs of The Messengers, or The People of the Book, is the intellectual reasoning and belief in one God who created the heavens and Arethil, and consequently all the aspects in between including magic and the spiritual world, even extending his domain over other gods and the aspects they preside over. This belief also includes faith that this God is not impersonal and is involved in the everyday lives of all the creatures in Arethil and guides each and every one of them. The believers in the ways of righteousness, and the non-believers to one day know Him.

They believe in the truth. Subjectivism is far from any basis for any belief they have. It is through reasoning that they believe that if there are many gods in this world that are actually limited within their chosen aspects of space, time, and matter that there had to be a being beyond them that created those very aspects of space, time, and matter.

More importantly, they believe that this God loved his creation so much that he wanted all of them to be with him in the afterlife. But he is a being of pure goodness, and evil cannot enter his presence. And the creatures in Arethil, the humans, elves, dwarves, orcs, and all of His creation have fallen from grace, become imperfect by their own choosing and do evil which is abhorrent to the creator. So in order for everybody to have salvation he sent his son to pay for the evil committed by the whole world past, present, and future. All one needs to do to accept this salvation is to become adopted into the family of God to accept the blood that was shed in their place.

Structure

The religion is small, but they value fellowship greatly. For encouragement, for aid, and for friendship.
They are very strict when it comes to leadership in the church, carefully following religious instructions for appointing elders to look out for the spiritual welfare of the congregation and make corrections or offer counseling to those who struggle or lose their way, acting as a shepherd to the sheep. But the sheep are not helpless, they arm themselves with the faith and rely heavily on the teachings of the book they follow which says each and every one of them is destined to be kings, priests, and judges when they go to be with the Father.

According to their beliefs the God that created the universe watches over them guides and protects them and also listens to them. While other religions may have designated times or conditions in which they can pray to their gods, the followers of the creator believe that their God is always listening and pray almost constantly any time and anywhere and for nearly anything.

They live off of the hope that what they believe is true and live their lives in a way that is pleasing to the creator, often denying themselves many pleasures that are deemed fine by the world. Ultimately they believe that everything pleasurable is permissible, but not everything is edifying nor necessarily good, and many things they are commanded not to do entirely. They believe all things should be done in moderation. They believe in repentance for when they do wrong, which is to completely turn around from the evil they committed and to strive to never do it again. Sometimes they fail, but the forgiveness of the creator is never ending, covering both past and future sins.

One of the main tenants of this religion is love, and it goes into great detail where it defines love. "Love does not become impatient, love is the embodiment of kindness. It is not jealous, it doesn't make itself look good, it is not proud. It is not disrespectful, it is not selfish or toxic, it is not hot tempered, it doesn't keep score. Love does not delight in evil or deals in deceptions but rejoices with goodness and truth. It's a guardian, always trusts, always hopes, and endures all hardship."

History

Background

This religion was formed around the creation of a history book. But not just any history, the history of Arethil! The origin of all of creation and what happened after compiled from other books and letters written by individuals who received divine revelation from the creator to put down what they experienced in writing.

Throughout history this religion has been through many things. Wide scale acceptance, mass rejection, open and hidden persecution. The teachings of this religion hold each individual accountable for the evil in their lives and many do not appreciate that guilt no matter its truth. There have been times where the followers were killed for their beliefs, and there have been times where they could live in peace.

Throughout all of its hardship it has survived through its message. Even when there are non to teach the message those who seek the truth are led to the book. Now it is small, but again it is slowly growing, and the message must be given to all who would hear it.

Lore

The Messengers are widespread throughout Arethil. Sometimes they form small communities and churches where they worship in fellowship with each other but many of them simply live their lives among the regular people of the land. Sometimes they can be seen praying for various things, offering prayers for others, offering blessings for crops or harvest or praying for the health of a friend or loved one. But their most defining characteristics are their love of all, including their enemies, and also what may be seen by others as a sort of self-righteousness.

Their resistance to temptation and their abstinence from the impure pleasures of the world often earn them either the admiration or distain of those around them. Some people see the light shining and can't stand it when it shines over them and reveals all their own impurities, so they do what they can to discredit and put out that light to feel better about themselves. The faith is very much on a person to person basis. If the individual is strong enough in the faith, then they will resist those attempts while also not returning evil for evil but instead trading evil for good.

Their God is powerful, but He doesn't seem to work the way other Gods do. He doesn't grant special powers to his followers. But he does seem to protect them in many ways, especially in the face of demons, spirits, and other gods, the followers of the creator seem to be gifted with an overwhelmingly strong soul and spirit to battle these threats but for the Messengers there is an overwhelming reliance on the strength of their God, and not on their own strength.

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