Silent Hill Heaven

Some type of creationism?
I know where the red and yellow god are based off of, but what of the
The man offering up the serpent, and the woman the reed ? And the Holy Mother?
It sounds somewhat like creationism... Does anyone know?

Creationism is the belief that all that there is was created by an all powerful, supernatural being, whereas here the supernatural being is created by people, who existed before her. So no.

Silent Hill 3 has nothing to do with the Sect of the Holy Mother.

It's been said before, but I think it's worth spreading around: The creation myth of SH3 is based on the events of SH1, maximized to the greatest grandeur.

The Adversary wrote:Silent Hill 3 has nothing to do with the Sect of the Holy Mother.

The Bringer of Paradise, or the Goddess of serpents and reeds?
My question is what REAL religion is it based off of?

If anything, I'd say it's most based off of American evangelical Christianity, specifically the millennialist brand. Recall that SH3 was completed in 2003 and, by this time, the disturbingly popular Left Behind series was more than halfway through its run. I recall there being a Korean article wherein a news team came to America to investigate the Rapture-obsessed brand of evangelical Christianity, and they ended up rather disturbed by the things they found. I expect the Japanese would feel similarly.

The cult, as seen in SH3, has a particular obsession with the next world and, coupled with it, an equivalent disregard for this one (Leonard Wolf runs around killing people in this world because it doesn't matter what he does here). Like the evangelical megachurches (specifically, the white, middle-class ones), the congregation is taught that this world doesn't matter, while the pastor leading the congregation siphons in those same "worthless" material goods to line his pockets. Vincent probably has some long-term investments despite his likely sermons about the imminent end of the world. There is a split between those who believe it's their solemn responsibility to ensure everyone goes to Paradise (Claudia) and those who believe the damned are wholly deserving of their damnation (Leonard).

So yeah, despite the mythology being based on the events of Silent Hill, the aim and focus of the religion is American evangelical dispensationalism.

Thanks, that's pretty interesting.

I've always tried to think of which religion in the game could be stemming from and I never could put two - and - two together. Kenji makes good sense with everything written up there as well as the interpretation of the evangelical churches that are all over the media and have their own network. Not that I'm bashing any religion I just agree fully with what Kenji was going with.

"The religion of Silent Hill references various elements of different religions such as the origins of Christianity, Japanese folklore, and Aztec rituals. Original Native American beliefs have to do with animals and spirits that dwell in places, and borrowing their power to make oneself stronger. The names of the gods have Mayan and Aztec motifs. Using the strange pronunciations as a reference, I thought up original ones." -Lost Memories: Silent Hill Chronicle

In the context of the game, The Order was influenced by Native American beliefs, Christianity, and Judaism.

Thanks bro, that answers my question

there you see that they really thought about the silent hill universe a lot.

What I never understood about the Order's religion including the story of creation is who created the people? Since the world was chaotic and the people wandering aimlessly, where did the world come from and where did the people come from first? Maybe "god" did create everything first, but then when the people offered their "gifts" up to the sun, this caused the "god" to be manifested into our physical dimension to restore order in the physical planes. Then once it was completed, the "god/goddess" died only in her physcial form because of the amount of energy used and her physical body could not contain such a great power for a long period of time. Thus, she went back to her higher spiritual form just waiting to be reborn for another period of time in order to "work" more within this physical realm. This is my guess and reasoning behind it otherwise it makes no sense to me! What about you guys and gals?

Scanman22 wrote:What I never understood about the Order's religion including the story of creation is who created the people?
[...]
This is my guess and reasoning behind it otherwise it makes no sense to me! What about you guys and gals?

I think this is apparent in many creation myths that don't completely play into the creatio ex nihilo idea that everything was created by one almighty God alone. This is most apparent in many non-monotheistic religions, as that not one source is the origin of all. In many indigenous North American myths there existed "people" before the advent of the world as it is now. The creation myth in SH3 describes the beginning as "In the beginning, people had nothing.", which is similar to how many Native American religions (South and North) saw the beginning in a form of primordial chaos.

Going by what is given from SH2 onward, it is not unlikely to assume that a lot of the creation myth is an amalgamation of Native and Christian beliefs which mixed during the time of the settlers. SH2 also implied that there was a first phase of settlement which came before the current people, so it's quite likely that the indigenous religion had already been affected by Christianity at the point when the later founders of the Order came around.

It is also said about man that "They fought endlessly, but death never came. They despaired, stuck in the eternal quagmire.", which implied a form of quasi-immortality. So these "people" were not exactly the form of humans as they live today, but rather an origin race from which current humanity descended.
Then follows the scene of Birth through sacrifice "A man offered a serpent to the sun and prayed for salvation.", so the sun was clearly deified, but the myth does not clearly define it as a god.
Again if we assume that Christianity and indigenous beliefs mixed in this religious construct, then any god higher than God had to be crossed out of the origin myth.

This is comparable to how Amaterasu Ookami became considered the highest god in existence, and the personification of the sun in Japanese myths, when the emperors bloodline was connected to her in the restoration period. The creation myths of Japan mention many legendary periods before her, but many of them were more or less ignored when religion was streamlined.

Remnants of a former creation myth can be found in the presence of fellow gods, portrayed as Gods creation and/or transformed into the Christian concept of angels. Those would be Lobsel Vith and Xuchilbara, as well as the presence of Valtiel as Gods midwife.

Thinking about it, if the Order is ever featured again in a game in one way or the other, I'd find it interesting to find more apocrypha and forbidden tomes about their beliefs, portraying more of the conflicting myths behind their religion.

Scanman22 wrote:What I never understood about the Order's religion including the story of creation is who created the people? Since the world was chaotic and the people wandering aimlessly, where did the world come from and where did the people come from first?

The basic idea, the hidden reasoning here, is that everything comes from people. It's basically a reversed creationist idea. People brought the birth of God, not the other way around. Moreover, if you notice, it practically depicts the main idea of the Silent Hill series. As we know, the Order's God(s) exist only in the Otherworld, only because a community projects the image.

When the Native Americans first came in touch with the power of the town, they didn't know what it was or how to interpret it. Later on, after years of progression people started to reference the power as God's power. And naturally, the power manifested their interpretation by actually creating God.

To sum up, God was created because of man's need for God.

Now, about who actually created man doesn't really matter within the context that we're referring to, does it? The SH universe deals with the mythology from the moment the mithology started, and that is the final point of people's despair and pain, the exit from the eternal quagmire. Therefore, there is no notion of who or what created them before the beginning of the mythology, as there is no necessity because of the reasons I just pointed out.

Silent Hill's power is more of a spiritual kind. It brings out or amplifies your own subconsicous thoughts and desires. There is no proper God still residing in those places. Except maybe in SH2 where James references the old Gods that still exist due to the events that may have taken place decades or centuries before. so yes, i do agree with the reverse -creationist idea.

SHF wrote:

The Adversary wrote:Silent Hill 3 has nothing to do with the Sect of the Holy Mother.

The Bringer of Paradise, or the Goddess of serpents and reeds?
My question is what REAL religion is it based off of?

slightly off topic but:

"A man offered a serpent to the sun, and prayed for salvation.

A woman offered a reed to the sun, and asked for joy.

Feeling pity for the sadness that had overrun the earth, god was born from those two people"

ive always believed that those two represent Alessa and Walter, and that the reason why the "God" that was born in SH1 and SH3 can be "killed" by a mere human is because the God was weaker due to being summoned only using the one ritual and not the two together.