the Creator and the Dark One. And religion, where is it?

[Caelan Arendor]

The Creator is mentioned muliple times as the being who spun the Wheel of Time and imprisoned the Dark One. The Creator does not intervene in the world, nor is worship directed toward them. Peopl seem to talk about him, but there seems to be neither veneration, or any sort of prayer directed towards him. Isn't that somewhat peculiar?

 

On the other hand there is the Dark One, a direct opponent to the Creator and though feared by most people, there must be quite a lot of them (Darkfriends mainly) who revere and even venerate him. So these people obiously adhere to some sort of religion, even though it's the Shadow and not the Light they enshrine.

 

The group that comes closest to a religious order are the Children of the Light, though their creed is largely confined to a fanatical persecution of those they deem their enemies. 

 

It seems to me that the Creator of the universe is left wanting, since not even his most steadfast champions, the Aes Sedai, display the slightest trace of a religious inclination. Correct?

[Asthereal]

Well, the Aes Sedai actually know the Creator and the Dark One exist. Do you pray to the most powerful being you know exists? I bet he'd like it, but it's not going to get you anywhere.

The whole thing about religion is that you believe without having concrete evidence. Otherwise it's no longer religion and becomes science, politics, and so on.

[Starla Yilmaz]

It has always fascinated me that the Dark One is a very visible 'character', but that the Creator is almost absent. However, even in book 1, you can see the Creator directly communicate with Rand (please don't make me pull up the passage/page number, I'm a little intoxicated). I think the very visibility of at least the Dark One does, as Asthereal points out, negates the 'faith' aspect of religion. If religion is built on faith in the unseen, then knowing the unseen to be true beyond any doubt would negate the necessity of religion. Now, there are many philosophies in WOT, and I suppose those take the place of religious faith, but given how the Dark One and, to a lesser extent, the Creator do actually show up personally and talk/influence things, faith-based religions are, as a consequence, nonexistent.

[bringbackthomsmoustache]

Although some cultures appear to incorporate some of the more unpleasant aspects of religion - particularly the Seanchan and the whitecloaks.

[slynese]

Do you know why the creator is silent? Well, because the creator is none other than Robert Jordan.