Microstory 609: Destruction of an Infidel Place of Worship

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This may come as a surprise to some Lightseers in the galaxy, but there are those who not only don’t believe in the Book of Light, but actually believe in some other thing. There are, in fact, a number of religions in Fostea that conflict with Lightseed teachings. Some have adopted belief systems from foreign worlds, others are holdouts from the religions of old, and a few even take their cues from Earthan traditions. What is strongly considered the worst of these religions is called Pantheonistry. It is also probably the strangest. Pantheonistry teaches that there is only one person in the entire universe. This single entity has been, and will be, reincarnated quadrillions of quadrillions of times, throughout history. This means that every person you encounter is actually you, either earlier in your total history...or your future. You are supposedly just one life of the multitude. The entity—which goes by many names, including Panthos—will never be able to find peace until it experiences literally every single person’s life. Pantheonistry was retained from the old worlds, but has been altered to better fit in with Fostean culture. Yet it is still very much unlike Lightseed. Fostean Pantheonistry rejects the idea that there is one entity, but instead that there are at least two, and as many as thousands. These entities are constantly clashing with each other, which is meant to explain anything from war to personal opposition. This version of Pantheonistry encourages people to find something called a “tribe” which hopefully only includes other individuals that are reincarnations of their particular primary entity. Of course, in our great galaxy, we do not discourage anyone from finding like-minded friends, but most non-Pantheonists would agree that this theoretical connection is not enough. The fact of the matter is that these Pantheonists are helping people for irrational reasons, under the belief that they are somehow the same, when really it’s just a clever disguise for charity, A few dozen tribes have been formed so far, and unfortunately, the faith is growing, which means that the number of them will only increase. The good news is that we have at least one fewer of them to deal with than we did before. The meeting house of one tribe (its name unimportant) was effectively destroyed, which excellently fulfilled the requirements for achieving the ninth taikon.