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Making a religion...

Varamyrr

Minstrel
Hello,

In my current WIP I'd like to feature several religions. Now, I must admit that I'm not really into religion but I do believe that it can move people. Since I consider it as necessary in my story, I was wondering how you can make a religion believable. In other words: how do you make a religion?

kind regards,
Vara
 

Griffin

Minstrel
There is a wide range of beliefs at there. You have to ask yourself numerous questions. Without knowing the society you are trying to design a religion for, I am just throwing out important questions.

1) Monotheistic or polytheistic? Typically, older civilizations and "uncivilized" societies follow polytheistic faiths to explain everything. With Greek lore, if a couple was trying to conceive a child, they would pray to Aphrodite for help. This is a great place to start.

2) Passive or Active God(s)? Does the divines sit back and intervene when necessary? Or are they involved every single aspect?

3) Gender of Deities. In patriarchal societies, the god is typically male. But the god can be female, both, or neither.

4) Da Rules. Christianity and Judaism have the Ten Commandments. Within most faiths, there are central rules. Murdering is a big no-no even within ancient Babylonia. Lying and stealing are also among those. Basically, anything that can cause a rift within the central society is seen as a "sin."

5) Rituals and Temples. There is always a place of worship and stuff to do. Sacrificing cows or dancing naked in the woods. This really depends on the deities themselves. Prayer and hymns have been around for over 4000 years [probably even longer].

6) Who's the boss? Is the head priest the central leader [like the Pope]? Or is the king chosen by divine right?

That's all I got for now.
 

Chilari

Staff
Moderator
Think about what ground-level beliefs your society should have. These might be based on what you need in the story, or based on worldbuilding. For example, if your society is largely illiterate, there might be a belief that writing held magical properties. If there is no way for people to get justice against those who have stolen from them because there's nothing resembling a police force, they might believe in karma, or alternatively that they can call upon a supernatural force such as gods or the ghosts of the dead to deliver justice through curses or judicial prayers (which can be represented physically). This is the sort of stuff that'll be easiest to weave into the lives of the characters, unless you have a priest character, because it's the sort of thing they'll think about, use in their language and interactions, the sorts of things that are the core of belief. People really believed judicial prayers worked, for example; we've found written tablets proclaiming the power of a goddess who struck him down with fever as a curse for stealing a cloak, or proclaiming innocence of a crime on the basis that they've fallen ill so must be cursed (I wrote an article about it - see my sig)

Remember not all religions have rules. Societies often have rules; the various law tablets and legal procedings recorded from ancient Greece and Rome attest to this, but as far as their beliefs were concerned, the gods didn't forbid murder. They might take revenge on someone who murdered their favourite mortal, but they were equally likely to encourage their favourite to murder, in Greek legends anyway. Again, society forbade murder and various other crimes but often the gods did not. The Olympian gods were believed to be petty, uninterested in promoting love and harmony, changable and very capable of holding grudges. They were believed to get in fights amongst themselves and use mortals as pawns in their power struggles, careless of the effect it had on anyone else, even callous. It was a way of explaining the randomness of reality while still enabling the hope that a single person's actions could impact upon unpredictable events like whether a ship would survive bad weather at sea, by making dedications and offerings and sacrifices to the gods.

Gods are often linked to elements of the world - Apollo the sun god, the god of prophecy; Artemis the virgin goddess of the hunt; Poseidon god of the sea; Athena, a warrior goddess who also patronised feminine crafts, and so on. Some had anthropomorphic features like being represented as an animal, or having the head of a jackal, or being able to turn into an animal. Often thay had multiple facets - Apollo being a good example. So don't feel you need a new god for every aspect of the world. Use one that covers a variety of losely connected elements.

Also I'd recommend Karen Armstrong's A History of God. She looks at the three monotheistic religions of earth for the main part, but goes into the origins of these religions far back beyond their inception, at the roots of religious belief from thousands of years ago. A remarkable read.
 
Don't focus too much on the deities and the structure of the religion - remember to also focus on what the religion means to the society, what purpose it serves and how people in general benefit from it.

Not a lot of people know this these days, but back in the old days, the clergy was the closest thing to scientists. They were the people who could read and write and were actually encouraged to stop and contemplate the world. They were the teachers, the scholars and the philosophers. The first universities were established by the church, the early hospitals were founded by religious orders, most historians in medieval times were monks, etc.

Also, don't confuse piety for supersticion - it's perfectly possible to combine religious faith with a healthy degree of common sense. Don't divide all religious characters into saints, hypocrites, closet agnostics or zealots. Write the characters as real human beings who just happen to have a god they believe in.
 
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Shockley

Maester
The most important thing, as far as I'm concerned, is whether the gods are personifications of nature (ie, mythopoeic) or outside of nature (transcendent).

Everything else can be built around the answer.
 

Ravana

Istar
Rule #1: If the gods actually–and demonstrably–exist, the religion is exactly the way they want it to be.

Which means your first decision is whether or not the gods are real. Your second is whether or not they interact with the world and their followers on a regular basis in obvious, unmistakable ways.

Gods that are remote and impersonal may or may not have the same effect. But a god that, when angered at your behavior, can show up in front of you, grab you with two of her arms and start slapping you upside your head with two more, all the while running down your defects of piety, character, genetics, proclivities and hygiene in a voice that echoes throughout not only the temple but the entire city… yeah, you'd better believe the religion will follow the god's dictates. :eek:

Which means, if you go this route, you need to decide what the god wants, based on the god's nature, personality and motives.

If the gods are remote, non-interactive, or cannot be shown to exist (whether or not they do exist thereby becoming irrelevant), then anything goes, as far as mortal practices are concerned. In the end, this route is a lot easier to cope with.
 
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A

Astner

Guest
Step 0.

Think of the how the religion is intertwined with the setting and how it will affect the story.

Step 1.

What kind of religion is it? Is it atheistic, monotheistic, or polytheistic?

Step 1, a.

If atheistic – like Buddhism – what distinguishing principles does it have to make it a religion? Does it feature demons or spirits?

Step 1, b.

If theistic, what deities are involved and what are their purpose? Are they associated to certain elements or other conceptual aspects? Are the gods real? If so; Where are they located? Do they communicate with man - if so, what way?

Step 2.

How does it answer the questions concerning the meaning of life?

  1. Who am I?
  2. Where did I come from?
  3. Why am I here?
  4. What awaits me after death?

Step 3.

What does the religion teach about the world; Is the moon a deity? What are dreams?

Step 4.

How is the religion imbedded in society; Who practices the religion - and what happens to those who don't? Who finances it - and why are people interested in financing it?

Step 5.

Is there any direct reward to the devote practitioners? Magic? Insight?

Step 6.

Are hallucinatory drugs used to enhance the experience of prayer during certain ceremonies and whatnot?

Step 7.

Does the religion solely focus on the spiritual or can the material be of absolute value? What about the bones of a saint or sage, or the first scroll of canon scripture?

__________________________________________________

When you've answered these questions then you've effectively created the religion. After that you can start designing it in terms of temples, priests, ranks, commandments, and so on.
 

gavintonks

Maester
There are around 127 religions some quite obscure and verbal like Easter Island
Christianity has 35 000 ism within the umbrella as each person makes their own version

The premise of a religion is a belief in god and how god is represented
The pantheon of gods represent key management areas and the chief is always a thunder god
modern religion is about how many prophets and their lives and whether they are human or not

Most people understand religion as the aspect of recognition spring autumn birth and death and how they are celebrated, ceremony or some pre written manor in which it is planned
Our basic religion is about reigniting the sun, so a sacrifice is required to ensure the sun shines out of winter

creation is not really a religion nor are many people, as religion requires worship and request, give the gos something so he/she does something for you
 

Chilari

Staff
Moderator
...the chief is always a thunder god

Going to have to contest that one. I'll concede that some chief gods have been thunder gods - Zeus, Jupiter and Thor, for example, but given that Zeus and Jupiter are the same guy I'm not sure we can count them separately. Meanwhile various other pantheons exist - from Egyptian to Aztec to Hindu to pre-Roman Celtic and beyond. I don't recall there ever being any mention of thunder amongst those, that I am aware of. Many of them were heavily associated with animals in some way - snakes and jackals and crocodiles and bears.
 

Ireth

Myth Weaver
Going to have to contest that one. I'll concede that some chief gods have been thunder gods - Zeus, Jupiter and Thor, for example, but given that Zeus and Jupiter are the same guy I'm not sure we can count them separately. Meanwhile various other pantheons exist - from Egyptian to Aztec to Hindu to pre-Roman Celtic and beyond. I don't recall there ever being any mention of thunder amongst those, that I am aware of. Many of them were heavily associated with animals in some way - snakes and jackals and crocodiles and bears.

Very true. Ra, for example, was a sun god rather than a thunder god. Can't recall who the chief Celtic god was... Cernunnos, possibly, Lord of the Forest? Also that's not even getting into any religions centered on a Mother Goddess, who are typically seen as more affiliated with earth and nature rather than air and thunder.
 

Shockley

Maester
I can only think of three 'thunder' gods that actually lead their respective pantheons: Zeus, Jupiter and Perun. Agni is arguably an example of this, since his PIE roots indicate that he was, at one point, worshiped as the same divinity that would late come to be recognized as Perun, Thor, etc. Agni is, however, currently worshiped as a fire god.

A better simplification would be that a sky god is almost always the ruler. Sometimes this is manifested as thunder or storms or the sun, but the general theme of the sky is intact.

Some religions (for example, the Nordic variation of the IE mythos) took little time to supplant the original sky god with a new god who better suited their needs (in this case, the sky god Tyr was replaced by Odin - Tyr even loses the sky god position he maintains as Tyz and Tiu).

As to who the chief god of the Celts was, most likely that would depend on tribe. It wasn't Cernunnos, as that is a mostly modern appellation to a motif *possibly* representing a god, not a complex concept of a god. Your best bet would be Lugus, who had many different names to many different people.
 

gavintonks

Maester
even yawah is a thunder god, I have a table somewhere with all the gods from the beginning of the times we know of them, and the whole aspect of thunder/ lightening and sun is the power of creation from nothing
 
Everyone pretty much said everything I was going to but if you want your religion to be very "realistic" then try to use it to explain things. For example, take the Egyptians (or anyone really) who didn't have an understanding of the way the world/universe works. They looked up and saw the sun. They didn't realize it was a ball of gas burning billions of miles away, but instead thought it was a God. Cultures use deities to explain why things happen. Why does it rain? Gods. Why is there night? Gods. To quote a character from one of my novels, "What man does not understand, he creates a god for. Only when man truly understands everything will he then become a god."
 

Shockley

Maester
even yawah is a thunder god, I have a table somewhere with all the gods from the beginning of the times we know of them, and the whole aspect of thunder/ lightening and sun is the power of creation from nothing

Depends on your interpretation of Yahweh, since there are several legitimate points of contention on that. I personally associate him more with Ea/El/Enlil, for several reasons: Linguistically, they all connect back to the 'il' of Enlil. Elohim, El-Shaddai, etc. The linguistic evidence tracks back. Secondly, the divinity was seen as (A) the god who brought the floods which almost destroyed humanity and (B) the god who confused the languages due to the pride of man. Mix that in with Amurru (which is also linguistically related to El-Shaddai, through his alternate name Bel Sade), who was a mountain god (explaining the importance of Sinai and a lot of the dialogue of Exodus), and you have a pretty clear picture of the origin of Yahweh without injecting the idea of a thunder god.

Either way, I still maintain that I can only produce three pantheons that have thunder gods at their head. If you have an example of one that isn't Jupiter, Zeus or Perun, I'd love to see it.
 

Ireth

Myth Weaver
Either way, I still maintain that I can only produce three pantheons that have thunder gods at their head. If you have an example of one that isn't Jupiter, Zeus or Perun, I'd love to see it.

If a fictional example counts, there's Manwe from Tolkien's Silmarillion. He's the Lord of Winds, and governs the sky and clouds. Though not specifically a thunder god per se, he creates weather in collaboration with Ulmo, the Lord of Water (whose domain includes rain, snow, etc. as well as oceans, lakes and rivers). But again, they're not real-world deities, so yeah.
 

gavintonks

Maester
For other uses, see God of Thunder (disambiguation).

Polytheistic peoples of many cultures have postulated a Thunder God, the personification or source of the forces of thunder and lightning; a lightning god does not have a typical depiction, and will vary based on the culture. Frequently, the Thunder God is known as the chief or king of the gods, e.g. Indra in Hinduism, Zeus in Greek mythology, and Perun in ancient Slavic religion; or a close relation thereof, e.g. Thor, son of Odin, in Norse mythology.

In Greek mythology, The Elysian Fields, or the Elysian Plains, the final resting places of the souls of the heroic and the virtuous, evolved from a designation of a place or person struck by lightning, enelysion, enelysios.[1] This could be a reference to Zeus, the god of lightning/Jupiter, so "lightning-struck" could be saying that the person was blessed (struck) by Zeus (/lightning/fortune). Egyptologist Jan Assmann has also suggested that Greek Elysion may have instead been derived from the Egyptian term ialu (older iaru), meaning "reeds," with specific reference to the "Reed fields" (Egyptian: sekhet iaru / ialu), a paradisiacal land of plenty where the dead hoped to spend eternity.[2]

The Egyptians gods are actually planets and the reeds are the milky way as in heaven so on earth, hence all the great religeous structures are represented on earth.


Ancient Near East

Teshub (Hurrian mythology)
Adad, Ishkur, Marduk (Babylonian-Assyrian mythology)
Hadad (Levantine mythology)

Eurasia

Tarhunt (Hittite/Luwian mythology)
Zeus (Greek Mythology)
Brontes (Greek mythology)
Jupiter, Summanus (Roman mythology)
Taranis (Pan-Celtic); Ambisagrus, Loucetios (Gaulish mythology)
Þunraz (Germanic mythology; Anglo-Saxon Þunor, German Donar, Norse Þórr)
Thor (Norse mythology)
Perun (Slavic mythology)
Perkūnas (Baltic mythology)
Perëndi (Albanian mythology)
Gebeleizis (Dacian mythology)
Zibelthiurdos (Thracian mythology)
Ukko or Perkele (Finnish mythology)
Horagalles (Sami mythology)
Indra, Parjanya (Hindu mythology)
Aplu (Etruscan mythology)
Atämshkai (Moksha mythology)

East Asia

Lei Gong (Chinese mythology)
Ajisukitakahikone, Raijin (Raiden-sama, Kaminari-sama), Tenjin (kami) (Japanese mythology)
Susanoo (Japanese mythology)

Americas

Thunderbird (Native American mythology)
Tlaloc (Aztec mythology)
Chaac (Maya mythology)
Apocatequil (Incan mythology)
Cocijo (Zapotec mythology)
Aktzin (Totonac mythology)
Haokah (Lakota mythology)
Tupã (Guaraní mythology)

Africa

Set (Egyptian mythology)
Shango (Yorùbá religion)
Oya (goddess of hurricanes, consort of Shango in Yorùbá religion)
Azaka-Tonnerre (West African Vodun/Haitian Vodou)
Mulungu
Xevioso (alternately: Xewioso, Heviosso. Thunder god of the So region)
Sango (Nigerian mythology)

Oceania

Polynesian mythology

Haikili (Polynesian mythology)
Tāwhaki (Polynesian mythology)
Kaha'i (Polynesian mythology)
Te Uira (Polynesian mythology)

Micronesian mythology

Nan Sapwe (Pohnpeian mythology)

Australia

Mamaragan (Aboriginal mythology)
 

gavintonks

Maester
The Venus of lespugue is the coloured in milky way female side, the nascar lines are the dark spaces in the milky way, the ancients understanding of the cosmos is frightening in its complexity, the incas created a stone calender accurate for 26 000 years.
there are always 3 aspects to religion
1 - the common man / stuff done and said for them
2 - the priests and initiates
3 - the inner circle teachings and secrets

the egyptians were ruled by deceased spirits at times it is written in the history but we do not believe it possible, statues spoke to people when they made offerings and libations and ancestors still commune with their families as part of the belief structure in africa even now

the african belief is god is so busy doing god things he has no time for humans
2 - he sent nature spirts to look after the weather and animals
3 your own deceased family has your best intentions at hear so discuss living tivia and who you should marry etc with them
 

gavintonks

Maester
In Slavic mythology, Perun (Cyrillic: Перун) is the highest god of the pantheon and the god of thunder and lightning. His other attributes were fire, mountains, the oak, iris, eagle, firmament (in Indo-European languages, this was joined with the notion of the sky of stone), horses and carts, weapons (the hammer, axe (Axe of Perun) and arrow) and war. He was first associated with weapons made of stone and later with those of metal.

Like Germanic Thor,[citation needed] Perun is described as a rugged man with a copper beard. He rides in a chariot pulled by a goat buck and carries a mighty axe, or sometimes a hammer. The axe is hurled at evil people and spirits and will always return to his hand.

the horses are the clouds that carry the sun in the morning and evening, so a human embodiment is the sun / son riding a white horse but its true meaning is the empowered sun weather it will shine after winter and crops will grow
 

gavintonks

Maester
there are thousands of false gods and prophets as well

The storm god, Baal, was a West Semitic import to Egypt. Late Bronze Age texts discovered at Ras Shamra (ancient Ugarit) on the Levantine coast, from which his cult spread, indicate that by 1400 BC, Baal had displaced the god El to become the most important god in the local pantheon.



However, the meaning of Baal is "owner" or "lord" and in the earliest of times it is questionable whether the word was used as a title for important local gods in general, or as a proper name to a specific god. Particularly at first, this name was probably given to completely different gods. Over time, the term seems to have been applied to agricultural gods in a variety of locations. There is a great confusion amongst scholars concerning the these deities called "Baal", or sometimes Bel, and their natures and origins. In fact, this god's survival through a vast period of time provides us with a complex trail marked by considerable theological difficulties.



Of the many "Baals" we find referenced, perhaps the most important, or at least the one most associated with Egypt, is the god who dwelt on Mount Sapan (hence Baal-Zaphon) in Northern Syria, and it should be noted that the following discussion relates to him more specifically then to some of his other identities. The equivalent of the Amorite deity Adad, or Hadad, he was a centrally important deity of the Canaanites. He was considered the son of a less well attested god named Dagan (others have identified him as the son of El), who was himself a god of agriculture and storms. Baal was the source of the winter rain storms, spring mist and summer dew which nourished the crops. However, Baal also became associated with the deity of other sites such as Baal Hazor in Palestine, Baal-Sidon and Baal of Tyre (Melkart) in Lebanon.
 
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