Here are some historical notes on the main philosophical and religious views on life in general that existed in The City in the days of Adaman:

The City Doctrine:

The life philosophy of the people in the City has been formed by a long era of manipulation of the public opinion and by a deliberate engineering of the common myth of the population. Certainly it has been evolving naturally when the central control of The City faded away, but the basic ideas are still present at the time of the story:

The source of truth is modern science, which is sponsored by the City, and as some might whisper also controlled by it. The City functions as one great corporation, with all of the citizens, human and artificial, being both labourers and clientele of the One Corporation-state that is considered to encompass alls of the Known World. The City itself is the goal of life, and everything is officially seen in function of it.

An older semi-religious version of the City Doctrine might still be of influence to some people. In this much more extreme version all human and non-human life was seen as a manifestation of the City, and selflessness for others for example was considered a service to the City itself.

The early City presidents, especially the first City president Sumwam, were explicitly considered the ‘first representative of The City’ itself, and they could speak for it as a kind of mediator. In this worldview The City has an almost divine status, and being cut off from the city (by losing ones funds) is seen as a form of death already, even if the person itself was still alive. As the saying says, ‘there’s no life away from the City’.

Over time the leaders of The City had stopped emphasising and broadcasting the the more extreme versions of City Doctrine, and switched to more moderate vision. By that time the new religions also had infiltrated the population and outcompeted the absolute control the City Doctrine had on the public opinion and mainstream paradigm.

The last City President Emon himself had a completely different agenda which seemed more focussed on his own individual goals than on the common good of The City, but it seems that no-one really took notice or cared for that.

By the time of Adaman only very weak and sometimes contradictory versions of the original totalitarian City Doctrine were around, but subconsciously they still had a lot of influence even though no-one would even recognise them by that name.

The new religions:

All of the world religions had gone extinct in the civilised world at least a century before the City time began already, even though transformed elements of Buddhism and Calvinism were still lingering in the official City Doctrine, in completely new expressions. The traditional world religions of humanity had been in decline for centuries by then, but their final eradication couldn’t have happened without a lot of violence and rewriting of history. Most information about this seemed to have been lost completely lost by Adamans time.

Ever since modernity there had been thinkers that prophecied how humanity would outgrow religion, and every time they were proved wrong. Even the totalitarian City Doctrine itself, which was in itself almost religious could not keep the human religious impulse down forever.

The way in which religion came back was completely unexpected and took The City by surprise. The cults of the new goddesses of non-being were not on the list of forbidden religions, and their missionaries were able to exploid all legal loopholes so that the movements could grow without precedent.

No-one seemed to really know where they came from, but the darkest elements of older religions seem to have merged with a form of dogmatic nihilism to form both the two twin religions of Acosmism and Amayism. Both cults had had reached mainstream around the time The City was fully established, while in their shadow the even darker cult of Fhanfhelo always remained more underground. These new religions fueled the building of more thanatoria for a while, until the population of the City dropped too drastically. In a way they completed the City Doctrine and made it worse.

Acosmism:

The basic idea of Acosmism is that there is no universe, and that everything we percieve and know is an illusion. Life itself is by definition a lie, and the only way to be honest is to kill yourself. This doctrine is personified in the figure of the goddess Acosmia, usually pictured as a dark naked woman trampling the remains of a disc-shaped arth, sun and moon.

Acosmism has a complicated set of doctrine and rituals, and priest and monks who were called as ‘Acossatvas’ who delayed their enlightenment of annihilation in death for the sake of others who were in need of being taught the virtues of non-existence.

Amayism:

Amayism goes even further, and says that everything is an illusion, even death and non-existence, but the illusion of death is preferable over the illusion of life. It has a rather complicated philosophy and strange scriptures that are generally considered incomprehensible, which made them popular among certain more intellectually-minded individuals.

‘To be or not to be is the question you should get beyond, even non-being is an illusion’ is a basic thought from the Amayists that was sometimes written on walls as graffiti.

Lady Amaya is often represented as a rounder naked woman, comparable to the Venus of Wallendorf, holding the staff of nothingness. Some mythological interpretation consider her the more mature sister of lady Acosmia.

Fhanfhelism:

The secretive cult of Fhanfelism never received the mainstream acceptance that the followers of the dark twin goddesses, and it was the only new religion to be forbidden and persecuted. Not much is known about the dark god Fhanfhelo and the ways in which he is worshipped, except that his followers would rather kill others than themselves, and it it whispered that they practice black magic.

Religion of the fundless:

Not much is known, at least not by citizens of The City, about the religion or religions of the fundless, but it is assumed that at least some of them are religious in one way or another.

It is clear though that the fundless completely reject all major religions of The City, especially The City Doctrine itself in all its forms. Acosmism and Amayism are also completely taboo among them, as they are seen as the worst excesses of the evil world of the fundslaves. Some say that the worldview of the fundless is explicitly build on the rejection of everything The City stands for, and that this principle is almost elevated to the status of religion.

A form of Fhanfhelism is said to exist among certain tribes, but it is even more taboo and it is never even spoken of.

Influences of outsider religions are also possible, but those are even lesser known they even exist.