Question about Religion and the Cosmere

[Ammanas]

So I am not very good about the tiny details about the cosmere so forgive me if I make any mistakes while posing me question. Are any of the religions in the cosmere actually aware of Adonalsium? It seems that they worship shard holders. So in Roshar we speculate/know that the Almighty is actually Tanavast or Honor. In Mistborn they worship those who at one point held Ruin or Preservation or both. I am not so good about the other ones...do I understand this correctly?

Edited June 14, 2017 by Ammanas

[Pagerunner]

Religions are interesting in Brandon's books. It would be simple if people just worshipped the Shards of their planets. But they don't - they worship all sorts of things, and they very rarely know the truth behind what they are worshipping. We have not seen Endowment directly worshipped on Nalthis. In T'Telir, they worship the Returned; in Idris, they worship Austre, who is not Endowment. On Sel, the Fjordell Empire worships Jaddeth, who will rise from beneath the ground... which some of us think is actually the developing soul of the planet itself, which has begun to achieve sentience (base don the Ars Arcanum, of course). On Roshar, the Heralds are often viewed as gods (and I think the Divine Attributes in the Ars Arcana are referring to the Heralds, not to Honor and Cultivation). Religions in the cosmere can develop in many ways: proscribed by a higher power (like Pathism or Sliverism), a response to a higher power (the Purelake religion, where I see Honor as the true one they worship and Odium as the one they pay lip service to), created by an individual (Survivorism), or just developed from the natural world (like Sazed's religions that worshipped the stars or colors or what-not, or the Pantheon of Sixth of the Dusk). Shards will often be responsible for one of the first two kinds, but the second two kinds have also come about.

So, the question is, are there any religions that were either proscribed by Adonalsium or a response to Adonalsium? I don't think we've gotten a good look at any people groups who would not have had a more recent of influential interaction with another Shard. Who might still remember Adonalsium from before the Shattering? Yolen is a good candidate, but we haven't seen them. Minor Shardworlds, like First of the Sun, might not know of Adonalsium, if he was even the one to create them, but they definitely wouldn't have forgotten Adonalsium in place of a new Shard.

The God Beyond (or the Unknown God, as he is sometimes called) is an interesting candidate. It has popped up on many worlds, but quite telling is that Hoid uses the term. So, either it's a new religion that Hoid picked up, or it's something that predates the Shattering. Maybe Hoid has been the one accidentally propagating it the entire time!

One last thought. If you track down the sample chapters for the Liar of Partinel, you will get a glimpse into Hoid's origin, before the Shattering. (Brandon did not like how the book turned out, so it's not canon, but there are many elements that will still be canonical when the Dragonsteel series finally gets written.) The gods had already died, and the inhabitants of Partinel cursed by "the Betrayer." (I believe Hoid references this somewhere in Stomrlight, saying he came from 'a land where gods have died.') Adonalsium might not have even been worshipped on Yolen. There is a lot we have yet to learn.

So, after all that theoretical stuff, no, outside of potentially the God Beyond, I don't believe we've seen any religions that worship Adonalsium.

[Axsaul]

@Ammanas not to my knowledge. The only characters that even seem to be aware of Adonalsium are world hoppers, 17th shard and such. Maybe once we get Dragonsteel we can see culture before the shattering but I don't think we have a "religion" devoted to Adonalsium as of yet. Some others may know more than I. 

[Weltall]

There is the possibility that the God Beyond that is worshipped (or at least mentioned) on several world is either a dim memory of Adonalsium or an independently derived idea that there is something beyond the visible gods or forces in any given setting which just happens to nicely match up with the history of Adonalsium and the Shards. Or Adonalsium's Cognitive Shadow, if it has one. But to be clear, we don't know this for sure, just that it's possible and even if it is, it wouldn't be a conscious worship of Adonalsium.

[Axsaul]

11 minutes ago, Pagerunner said:

One last thought. If you track down the sample chapters for the Liar of Partinel, you will get a glimpse into Hoid's origin, before the Shattering. (Brandon did not like how the book turned out, so it's not canon, but there are many elements that will still be canonical when the Dragonsteel series finally gets written.) The gods had already died, and the inhabitants of Partinel cursed by "the Betrayer." (I believe Hoid references this somewhere in Stomrlight, saying he came from 'a land where gods have died.') Adonalsium might not have even been worshipped on Yolen. There is a lot we have yet to learn

So, is Liar of Partinel worth reading? I had seen some people say Brandon does not recommend it, since it may influence our perception of Hoid in a way he doesn't want. 

I've given some consideration into reading it and am definitely interested, I just didn't want to get too caught up in a character and story that may not end up being canon. 

[Pagerunner]

You cannot read the whole thing; you can find get the first few chapters. It's not great, and there's no satisfying arc for anyone or anything. But the little we have lets you get some useful insights into some pieces of life that have appeared in Stormlight, Warbreaker, and Arcanum Unbounded.

[Ammanas]

@Pagerunner I already gave you a upvote, but just wanted to say you gave a fantastice answer. I never put 2 and 2 together about Purelake and some of the other info was either new or expanded for me.

Many thanks to everyone else who took time out of there day to help with the question as well.

[Weltall]

1 hour ago, Pagerunner said:

The gods had already died, and the inhabitants of Partinel cursed by "the Betrayer." (I believe Hoid references this somewhere in Stomrlight, saying he came from 'a land where gods have died.') Adonalsium might not have even been worshipped on Yolen.

It's from Warbreaker, in response to Siri asking him where he learned his storytelling technique.

But yeah, from the little of Liar that we have access to we don't know what the Yolenese knew or thought about Adonalsium at that point in time. Maybe someone who's read Dragonsteel Prime has an idea what's known/believed about Adonalsium shortly before the Shattering but if such a thing is in the book that's (sort of) available the vast majority of us don't know it and anyone who does couldn't talk about it.

[+hwiles]

@Weltall @Pagerunner

I would say, yes, it's indicated pretty strongly and directly that the Unknown God is Adonalsium by Sanderson in the AoL annotations:

For those who are really interested, here's the wiki article on early Gnostic beliefs in early Christianity...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnosticism#Highest_God

For those who just want the quick and dirty of it all:

1. Sanderson stated that the philosophy of The Unknown God is intended to be somewhat analogous to some of the Gnostic beliefs in early Christianity.  The philosophy is also slowly spreading through the Cosmere.
2. Those Gnostic beliefs basically promote an idea that there is one true God, who has literally been referred to in real life as "The Unknown God," the true divine driving force of the universe from which all things originate (more-or-less anyway, I'm trying to paraphrase like 12 full-length religious texts)
3. They also state that there are lesser manifestations of The Unknown God that they call "Aeons"
4. SPECULATION: The "Shards of Adonalsium" are intended to be somewhat analogous to these "Aeons"
5. SPECULATION: The Philosophy of The Unknown God probably didn't exist until after the Shattering (at least, if it did it was probably very different), else the aspect of the philosophy relating the Shards to Unknown God wouldn't really make sense.

The information we have is mostly just hints and winks and it's more than implied that most of the people who reference The Unknown God don't have much real knowledge of Adonalsium.  That said, religions in the Cosmere never have all of the facts right, but they all possess some manner of truth; generally, they even possess some historical truth.  That, combined with the statements from Sanderson lead me to conclude that Adonalsium is* (was?) almost certainly The Unknown God.  Something else to keep in mind is that the concept (religion?) of The Unknown God has probably evolved tremendously during its propagation.