Thought traditions in Illuminatia

The cultural practices and beliefs relating to thought traditions in Illuminatia, less commonly referred to as religion, are generally limited to non-deist, non-dogmatic traditions of rational thought relating to concerns such as the nature of and implications of The Anomaly as well as popularly-shared preferences for rituals and practices that engage in the expression and execution of charity, compassion, and altruism. The inclination of Illuminatians to adopt the varieties of thought traditions practiced in Illuminatia today can be traced back to the unnatural selection used to originally populate the Lucidus mission.

The thought traditions observed in Illuminatia are all liberal religions in respect to their lack of declaration of a single acceptable creed or absolute authority regarding one tradition's truth at the expense of any perceived untruth of another. Thought traditions generally do not profess a doctrine of theology.

The thought traditions and ritual traditions of Illuminatia are entirely non-exclusive of each other, meaning that an individual can take part in multiple traditions without any one adopted tradition conflicting with or taking precedence over the principles or understandings of another.

Shaping of thought traditions

As a consequence of the unnatural selection employed to dictate the members of the original population of the Lucidus mission, today's Illuminatian population is strongly predisposed against the adoption of a belief in any deity, supernatural narrative regarding historical accounts, or paranormal or mystic explanation the state of reality, the universe, or humanity in general. As a result, gods, demigods, and other omnipresent or supernatural figures do not exist in tradition, mythology, or lore.

This notable absence of deities in Illuminatian culture and lore, in addition to being a consequence of unnatural selection, is also a product of the knowledge and literature available to the Illuminatian branch of humanity. Through no intentional act on the part of Lucidus mission organizers, none of the original crew who populated the Lucidus mission upon departing from Earth bothered to carry any bibles, qurans, or other sacred texts with them upon leaving Earth. Religious texts were also not specified as required literature in the Lucidus mission library.

As a result of these intentional and unintentional exclusions, this literature was not available to the population of the Lucidus mission or any of their descendants. Fragments of the general gist of some of these texts survived through word of mouth and limited remote communication with Earth, however the portions that were communicated related more to the concepts surrounding various virtues of human behavior such as charity and compassion, rather than the actual details of the illustrative fictional accounts contained within these sacred texts. This situation in combination with the nature of Illuminatia's thought traditions are congruous with the secularism favored in Illuminatian culture.

List of traditions

A variety of thought traditions substitute the place in culture that was occupied in earlier Earthly civilizations by faith and belief.

Here is an incomplete listing and brief description of Illuminatia's most popular thought traditions:

• Lucidian Omniquasitheism: The idolization or worship of all beings and objects in the environment, be they living, animate, sentient, or otherwise. A Lucidian Omniquasitheist believes everyone and everything subject to any level of reverence should be recognized for its inherent dignity.

• Path of Nonrighteousness: Devotion to an aversion to absolutist principles and systems of morality. This thought tradition cultivates systems that acknowledge moderation, fallibility, and compromise.

• Illuminatian Earthly Humanism: A commitment to yielding to and learning from Earthly wisdom and Earthbound culture to inform humanist sentiments in modern day Illuminatia.

• Near-Infinite Multiversal Ideational Differentiationism (NIMID): This theory posits that there is an indefinite number of infinitely-cascading alternate realities in the multiverse and that these different paths of reality diverge from one another at any and all points at which a real or imagined change to the status quo occurs. Near-Infinite Multiversal Ideational Differentiationism, or "Nimidism," promotes the practice of positive thinking in efforts to reduce the number of negative outcomes in the multiverse as a mechanism to reduce the total amount of suffering in the multiverse.

• Multiversal Duplicativality: The theory that the multiversal duplications of Illuminatians who entered the parallel universe currently being observed still exist in their respective parallel universes by virtue of the parallel realities also being an analogue of our universe. Multiversal Duplicativists believe that whatever happened in our version of reality at the moment of The Anomaly also happened in other parallel universes, resulting in parallel universes with the same multiversally duplicated populations.

• Multiversal Nonindigenousism: The understanding that there is the possibility that none of the multiversal duplications who settled Illuminatia are originally of this particular parallel reality and that we are all interlopers in this universe. This would be contrary to popularly held beliefs that one of the three primary multiversal duplications are native to this parallel universe, although we don't know which one.

• Earthism: The belief that the work of the Lucidus mission will not be complete until Illuminatia reestablishes contact with Earth and the scientific and cultural exchange that would materialize with that contact takes place. The celebration of Illuminatians' earthly roots.

• Extensive Multiversality: The theory that the number of multiversal duplications caused by The Anomaly is significantly more extensive than the primary three multiversal duplications popularly recognized in Illuminatia, and that these multiversal duplications of other humans with ancestry on Earth could populate other regions of the Illuminatian planet and its moons, other nearby planets, or even further.

• Karmic Collectivism: The theory behind "what goes around comes around." Karmic Collectivists believe good and bad deeds done within a community are echoed to other persons and eventually affect the original doer directly or indirectly as the doer's actions have an effect on the community.

• Fecundant Ubiquity: The understanding that all Illuminatians are interconnected on several deferring levels, based on interaction, acquaintanceship, friendship, heredity, and ancestry. Fecundant Ubiquitists attempt to increase the understanding regarding the degrees of separation between all Illuminatians. They keep a registry of known interactions between people in efforts to establish the number of degrees of social separation between any two individuals, and also keep an intricate record of heredity by parentage as well as a directory of connectivity based on related interactions.

Ritual traditions

Religion in Illuminatia can also be represented by the rituals and practices that Illuminatians exhibit primarily through their actions as well as the actions of religious organizations through their ministries. Ritual traditions relate less to thought traditions or understandings regarding the nature of reality and more to the outward expression and activity relating to the tradition.

The following is an incomplete listing of the ritualistic and ministerial aspects of the thought traditions in Illuminatia:

• Near-Infinite Multiversal Ideational Differentiationism: Outreach includes seminars, retreats, and workshops to promote positive thinking and self-help colloquia teaching the avoidance of ideating negative imagined realities.

• Multiversal Duplicativality: Ministry includes the assistance of science in researching ways to bridge the divide between parallel universes/realities using advanced communication technologies, such as modulating elementary particle fields.

• Multiversal Nonindigenousism: Ministry advocates for the use of caution in reestablishing contact between Illuminatia and Earth, as the existence of an Illuminatia occupied entirely by descendants of multiversal duplications from other parallel realities could spell peril for one or both civilizations if their realities don't line-up. Nonindigenists do not necessarily obstruct efforts to contact Earth but generally simply advise caution in such efforts should they occur.

• Earthism: Ministry works to preserve the constructive cultural capital that Illuminatia inherited from Earth and to understand how knowledge of the harmony and conflict among Earth's cultures can inform Illuminatian society to better its chances of survival and quality of its existence. Earthism is also instrumental in assisting scientific efforts to reestablish communication with Earth.

• Extensive Multiversality: Ministry works to assist scientific efforts to seek contact with any other yet-unknown populations of humans—especially those making up further multiversal duplications of the Lucidus ships—wherever those populations reside.

• Karmic Collectivism: Ministry found great success taking a vocal part in establishing the Department of Karma Adjustment. Many Karmic Collectivists take a healthy obsession in observing and accounting for the deeds that are committed in a community and hypothesizing about their effects in that community.

• Fecundant Ubiquity: Ministry includes the keeping of acquaintanceship indexes and heredity directories. Rituals include the holding of an annual nationwide bacchanalia holiday, in which public mass celebrations of fertility and related activities are held in towns and cities across Illuminatia, lasting for more than 2 DU in duration and drawing millions of participants.