Religion in DOOM Universe...

[Mr. T]

Heaven in Doom!

[PRIMEVAL]

If there is a heaven in Doom, why would it / they intervene with Man's wrong doings? (assuming teleportation is wrong...which probably is if Hell can be unleashed!)

[printz]

I think the real Doom Heaven is The Sky May Be :| It really stands out among the other wads so it's got to be it.

[Face23785]

PRIMEVAL said:

If there is a heaven in Doom, why would it / they intervene with Man's wrong doings? (assuming teleportation is wrong...which probably is if Hell can be unleashed!)

I'm not sure that really applies. I mean when we were cavemen, for all we knew that cave over yonder that we're gonna take shelter in cause it's raining might be a door to hell. So we wind up in hell but not really our fault, just an innocent mistake. If god holds you responsible for that, he's an asshole.

Teleportation is just a new mode of travel. If it leads to hell, innocent mistake. Now if you go to the events of Doom 3 where they're misleading subjects for the experiments and whatnot, yeah that's pretty wrong, except only a top few of the scientists actually knew what was goin on. Everyone else is innocent. Again, god is being a dick if he's just standing by watching because "hey its your fault".

[Ubik]

I think a better way to phrase the OP would be to ask about the cosmology of the Doom universe. And really, the Doom universe is so wide-open that it could be interpreted any number of ways, which makes it fun to think about.

If the plane explored in Doom corresponds directly to the Judeo-Christian concept of Hell, does it imply that Heaven exists as well? Not necessarily, since there are mythological cosmologies that have Hell without a Heaven (and others, Heaven without a Hell). But most religions/mythologies don't advocate the use of conventional weaponry against the forces of evil, so in any case it's a very non-standard interpretation. Maybe neither Heaven nor Hell makes any contact with Earth, and the teleportation incident was "first contact" between the two realities.

It could be that they're extraterrestrial/extradimensional beings simply using Satanist symbols for whatever reason... or, taking the "infinite universes" interpretation of reality, the teleportation system by sheer accident stumbled upon a universe where a world and its lifeforms evolved that way.

But "demons" just works better, if you ask me.

[Maes]

IMHO, the old Nordic and Celtic religions had nailed the whole religious/supernatural thing just right: Gods, Elves and Fairies only exist for as long as they have believers. Once the latter consider the former to be redundant/outdated, they simply move on, and the former just vanish into thin air.

I guess this facilitated the passage to Christianity, rather than meeting fierce opposition/generating clashes.

[NeoWorm]

The good vs evil dichotomy is overrated. This concept pretty much ruins every setting where its introduced because it converts everything into ugly black and white image where all of potencial diversity is reduced to simple "You are not with us, you are against us.".

But if you would introduce "heaven" is some more interesting way, it may work. I was toying with idea of religiously based setting for DooM where something akin to angels would appear - they were meant to be pretty much mindless warmachines of unknown origin with preprogrammed "seek & destroy" beahviour toward anything demon related. Plus there was religious cult that helped mankind to somewhat survive by making them believe and not lose hope.

[Maes]

NeoWorm said:

But if you would introduce "heaven" is some more interesting way, it may work. I was toying with idea of religiously based setting for DooM where something akin to angels would appear - they were meant to be pretty much mindless warmachines of unknown origin with preprogrammed "seek & destroy" beahviour toward anything demon related. Plus there was religious cult that helped mankind to somewhat survive by making them believe and not lose hope.

Sounds like the plot of Neon Genesis Evangelion ;-)

[Mexican Doomguy]

Technician said:

In the Doom Bible there are lots of references to Hell and the occult. I dislike it when people say they never put a lot of thought into Doom's story, when initially they did. Remember a lot was dropped for time, technical limitations, and for simplicity's sake.

Is DOOM Bible avaible for free or where can i but it?

[fraggle]

The Doom Bible is here, on Doomworld. You can also read about it on the Doom wiki.

[Mexican Doomguy]

fraggle said:

The Doom Bible is here, on Doomworld. You can also read about it on the Doom wiki.

Thank your very much fraggle. I'm checking it right now.

[Mexican Doomguy]

Maes said:

Then perhaps Doomguy's misadventures are but a cruel game, for the entertainment of those unseen aliens. They only place health, weapons and ammo around the place to be a bit sportsmanlike about it.

This seems to be another theory explained on the novels I guess.
I dunno, but this loosely remind me the DOOM film.

[NeoWorm]

Maes said:

Sounds like the plot of Neon Genesis Evangelion ;-)

Kinda, I wont deny I didnt get inspiration there. But NGE lacks the hell aspect and instead have huge mindfuck about earth genesis and whole role of angels in it. Of course none of that is ever explained in the series. I still think Anno is just a huge troll.