Obliteration of Self

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Death Worship
Type of religion: Polytheistic
Founded: 1960's
God(s): Yama (Great Death), Kami (Honourful Dead)
Holy texts: Guide to the Obliteration of Self
Followers: ca. 1.9 bil.
Practised in: Eastasia
High Priest: Emperor Seito

Obliteration of Self, (Chinese: 自已的歼灭) sometimes also translated as Death Worship, called Daishi (litterally: "Great Death") in Japanese, is an artificial religion created by the Imperial Japanese government to control Eastasia by creating a political concept which makes allusions to Buddhism, the most common religion in the occupied territories, thus justifying certain social and political concepts necessary for an efficient rule and to facilitate maximum war effort by the populace. Some concepts have also been taken from Confuscianism, which supports authoritarian rule. The religion also has taken concepts from Shinto in the veneration of the Honourful Dead, great warriors, such as Kamikaze Pilots, that have become Kami by obliterating their self in sacrificing their earthly lives. The main concepts of Death Worship are: sacrificing to Yama, the omniscient god of death, worship of the Kami, the Honourful Dead, Enforced Askesis and Alms, Cleanliness of Speech and Thought, Combat Passivity and Love your Enemy.

Yama

Yama, also called by his Japanese name Enma or Chinese Yanlou is the main deity of Death Worship. Taken from Hinduism and Buddhism, Yama is the god of death, the personified death himself. Followers are urged to do sacrifices to Yama, the Anti-Father, both by sacrificing one's own life and offering slain enemies to Yama. The concept of Yama is that of an Anti-Father and Anti-Mother: Whereas your earthy parents give you life, Yama is your father and mother in death.

Enforced Askesis and Alms

Surrounding yourself with material goods is a sin in Buddhism. In Eastasia, the government ensures nobody gets too rich by confiscating many private goods and handing them to the public or to govenrmental control. Most resources are rationed Eastasia and few are available for private possession.

Cleanliness of Speech and Thought

A major concept in Buddhism is the cleanliness of both thought and speech, facilitated through continual meditation and practice. „Out of mercy“ for the people of Eastasia, the government has removed a great deal of words from the „legal“ vocabulary, so to avoid any temptations for the individual, and enforces a „cleaned“ language. The absence of any way to express certain concepts is also used to suppress even thinking of them, thus ensuring „cleanliness of thought“.

Combat Passivity

Passivity is a sin, against the soul, against divinity and against your society, which is working hard to ensure everyone's well-being! Therefore, every citizen of Eastasia is given work at hand, even under the utmost adversities and obstacles. Labour service is mandatory and each citizen of Eastasia is urged to fulfill the Labour service with full heart, spiritual and bodily effort, "or Yama will be angry".

Love your Enemy

A twisted variation of buddhist altruism forms one of the core concepts of the religion: If you want to follow Obliteration of Self, there is one important concept to understand when dealing with those not yet touched by the spirit hand of Yama: You have to love them, and help them not to live their life in their sinful ways, away from enlightenment. They do not choose to live in a sinful way. They are simply born under the wrong circumstances, away from enlightenment, were they are tempted by demons. It is the mission of the enlightened to carry the light to them, even when the demons lure them into defending themselves with arms, these arms have to be overcome. Yama will judge you upon wether you where ready to help them. So go, carry the light into the realm of the demons, free those entangled in the webs of ignorance spun by the demons! Declare war on the demons! Overcome the arms of those they have tempted! Only in death, a person such tempted can find relief from a life that only leads to the accumulation of more sin. By killing a person that is continually tempted to sin due to the physical reality that person lives in, it is necessary to kill that person in hope of achieving his or her reincarnation in a situtation without the temptation of sin. All together, since life is suffering, there is, in any case, nothing sinful about reliefing the sufferers by genocide and even ecocide (the concept of ecocide became especially important in the age of space colonialization, were the destruction of a planet's ecosystem was equated to the life on that planet obtaining nirvana, since they could not be passed on to any other lifeform of the same ecosystem (of course, by buddhist theory, nothing speaks against reincarnation on a different world, Buddhism even reinforcing the concept of rebirth on a different world, though in the spiritual, not physical, sense)).