Religions in your writing?

[BearBear]

I saw the recent post on zorastrians and it got me thinking about the roll of religion in fiction and its relevance today.

In my writings, they're living in an alternate reality Earth, and religion was quickly pushed out in favor of science and especially genetic manipulation. When man can make a new species, who needs god?

My own beliefs are syncretist in that I pick and choose what I feel like believing based on interpretation of my experience and integration of everything I've learned, mixed in there is what I would want to believe. I am strictly against organized religion for myself based on being raised Catholic. That cured me of any notion of the righteousness of man through religion.

In my stories in the later ages, there are different subcultures one being somewhat like nature/moon/sun worship, one being based mostly on Nordic traditional religion, and one athiest scientific (but with magic of course).

Do you have any relevant religious in your writings? Is the inclusion of religion in writing sort of outdated lately? Let me know what you think, or how has your religious beliefs shaped your writings (or biased them)?

 

[pmmg]

The religions in my writing are fictional. The characters don't know what is really true or not. Religious themes abound, and things which should appear true to any appear true to many. But... The story is about a young world where religions are still new and few have taken any type of final form. I am not sure my Religious beliefs have had much to do with the story, but I do try to keep to what is true, or what would be true given the several differences between the fictional world, and the one I personally live in.

 

[ThinkerX]

The main religion in my main world is a monotheism that never quite happened on Earth, though it came close with Gnosticism, Early Christianity, Judaism, and latter paganism. The main concept is a single supreme spiritual entity who acts in the world through...call it 'signs and portents' - along with his Saints. There are a hundred or more Saintly Orders, each of which originated with a charismatic preacher or monk who gathered followers to spread the word. The Orders range from bureaucratic (Saint Mark, patron of scribes, teachers, and officials) to militant (the warrior priests of Saint Mithras, Saint Michael, and Saint Ignatius) to pastoral (Saint Andrew, Saint Sophia) and so on. Most of these Saints are long dead, but others are still out there, incognito.

Then there are the pagan religions, whose ranks include several deities incorporated into the Church as Saints. (Something that happened with Christianity as well). Other, more malevolent pagan deities became demons,

Which brings us to the 'Real Gods' - an assortment of malevolent or indifferent Lovecraftian entities.

 

[A. E. Lowan]

We write urban fantasy and have a lot of characters from different backgrounds and ages. One pair are Olmec, the Mesoamerican predecessors of the Inca, the Mayan, and the Aztec. For centuries they performed sacrifices to their gods, believing that they were saving the universe from eternal darkness every morning. Others are younger. Some are gods themselves. Some are angels, and some are demons. They all find room for faith of some sort, sometimes in deity, and sometimes in humanity. One of the series themes of our books is that it's not what faith you are, it's that you have faith that matters.

 

[skip.knox]

To address your last question, I do think it's still relevant.

In fantasy (and, to a lesser degree, SF), I see religion mostly used as a scapegoat, a convenient vehicle for portraying an oppressor. We have all sorts of stereotypes ready to hand, from corrupt clergy to institutions like the Inquisition. I've been a lifelong atheist, but I'm also a medieval historian, and I've learned to see the many aspects of organized religion, as well as the many facets of unorganized or so-called popular religion.

To me, this is a rich field for the fiction writer. To use religion only as a scapegoat is in the same boat as using other cardboard characters. To put it another way, it's not really about relevance at all. Once the reader is inside my story, it's my world. At that point, it's all about good writing and poor writing. The story doesn't need to be *about* religion, but the religious practices and, sometimes, their beliefs can add depth to a story in the same way their other behaviors and beliefs can.

 

[BearBear]

I agree to that. For me it's the rigid dogma of organized religion that really gives them the villian vibe.

 

[Queshire]

I'd say I see battle nuns and suspiciously hot priests about as often as I see evil not!Christianity though my steady diet of anime & manga might be responsible for that.

In my setting there are several orders of beings.

First and most common are spirits. Most homes have a main altar for icons or small shrines for the highest ranked spirits and any spirits important to a member of the household. Individual rooms often have a shelf somewhere with small icons for spirits specific to the function of the room like kitchen spirits to keep disease or curses away from the food or keeping an icon to a spirit of health in a child's room. Many spirits either lack the strength to manifest outside of the spirit world or only care about doing their job without bothering with humans. Others interact with those in the material plane quite frequently. In urban areas spirits often fulfill the role that AIs fulfill in sci fi. Familiar spirits act like intelligent smart phones, homes, shops and ships have spirits that monitor their condition & help manage things and so on.

Fairies, ghosts, shadow creatures and so on also count as spirits though they're not really spirits of stuff. They're essentially various glitches, viruses and independent AI floating around the cyberspace that is the spirit world.

Next up are the Gods. Some gods start out as spirits, but just as many are ascended humans, monsters or animals. The setting takes a lot from the Xianxia genre so even a chicken can theoretically refine themselves enough to become a god. At that point the origin doesn't matter. They're all gods.

To most people gods simply seem to be significantly stronger than spirits or at least freer in what they can do. They can create entire magic systems for their followers where a spirit either needs to directly assist someone wanting to use its power or at best slice off a bit of itself to provide assistance. It's said that spirits enact the laws of heavens & earth and can have a fair bit of leeway in how they enact those laws. Gods however write the laws.

These are the Greek inspired type of gods that go around messing with heroes and kings. Powerful, but generally limited in how much power they can use against non-gods since there's always some rival god waiting to take advantage of a god that commits too much power to smiting an uppity mortal.

A god doesn't technically need prayer. A god without any followers won't die, but spreading the Law they create lets them see what flaws the Law might contain and strengthen it. Many gods seek to strengthen their law until they reach a point where they can go off into the void outside reality and form their own creation using it. All the various intrigues, quests and teachings of the gods make up one big philosphical debate.

There are a few more groups of entities, but they generally don't have an impact on religious life.

 

[BearBear]

That's so cool. Having studied paranormal and supernatural, spirituality, and NDE's what you have there makes a lot of sense.

 

[skip.knox]

>it's the rigid dogma of organized religion that really gives them the villian vibe.

The thing is, organized religion isn't really very organized. It runs about as well as other human organizations--which is to say, haphazardly, by fits and starts, yet with amazing resilience. The range of both doctrine and practice in the medieval Catholic church, for example, surprises most people (at least, it surprised most of my students over a span of thirty years). And it's in all those divergences, the failures at imposing consistency, the variations among villages and even individuals, that makes for the most interesting story-telling possibilities. It's when all the villains are the same and have the same villainies, that's when we've missed an opportunity.

As for religions in Altearth, I try to spread things around a bit. Dwarves practice a form of ancestor worship--ancestor respect and honor, more like. Humans have inherited the pantheon of the classical world. Orcs are monotheist, with a sun god; their religious organization is highly centralized and authoritarian. Elves are all over the place, and it can be difficult to distinguish between philosophy and religion with them. Ogres tend to sample from many sources, but they're fairly consistent within family units.

Nobody knows what the heck pixies believe.

 

[pmmg]

Thanks Skip.

I was not sure how to respond to that statement...because rigid dogma and villain vibe kind of fit together, but the statement feels like it has a tone of it is just expected of organized religion, when that is not really true. The rigidness of Dogma and its enforcement is another of those things that is on a sliding scale, and in many times and places it could be anywhere. It is rare it meets a time and a place where it is ramped up in such a way. I feel religion gets a bad rap, particularly in our more secular culture. There is good and bad in everything, and both religion, and secular culture are not immune. To think that one provides fodder for villainy and the alternatives dont is faulty, just as is the notion that religion is not also full of a lot of good things and beauty. I tend to avoid putting anything in such a absolute tone. But I was pretty sure the poster did not mean it the way it read, so I passed...

Lady Hawk, was a good example of religion abused (though the soundtrack is terrible). But really its not the religion, but the Bishop abusing the authority given him. He made for a good villain, and used religion to impose his lust and authority. The religion itself did not carry any true messages that its was okay what he did. There are many other examples of this. The hunchback of Notre Dame is another.

 

[Prince of Spires]

Nobody knows what the heck pixies believe.

Do the pixies know what they believe?

When man can make a new species, who needs god?

I don't think these two are related. Technology doesn't remove the need for religion for many people (I say that as an atheist). I've studied physics with a deeply religious friend. Matching the rules based nature of physics with religion was pretty easy for him. God kicked it all off, and every now and then adjusts the course. But that doesn't mean science doesn't exist. We as humans have been making new species ever since we've climbed out of trees (just think of dogs, chickens and pretty much anything you eat), and yet we still need religion (as a group, not necessarily as an individual).

The one thing that might change that would be immortality. One strong reason for religion I see is the fear of death and what comes after. It's why all religions have some form of afterlife. They explain what happens when you die. Then, only if dying is removed do you also remove that need.

As for needing it in writing, it's still very relevant. Now, you don't need to write about religion, or include (much of) it in your writing. But writing is about life in general, not just about the writer. Some characters are bound to be religious. And that will at some level impact their actions. therefore, it is important to your writing.

Of course, writing fantasy, you need to ask yourself a few questions. Things like:
- Are the gods real?
- Is there only one set of gods or does each group get its own set of gods?
- Do gods interfere with the world? If so why? And are there any limitations to this interference
- How powerful and omniscient are the gods?
- Are they all aligned or do they fight each other
- etc.

 

[Queshire]

I can see where both sides come from. Religion is at its best with a narrow focus; the impact one's personal beliefs have on them and the sense of community that comes with it. As you go up in scale those elements get obscured and the loud, bad stuff sticks out a lot more vs the quiet, good stuff. It's not hard to get disillusioned with organized religion as a whole when it's like that.

 

[Puck]

If you are writing about a fantasy world based on a medieval or ancient civilisation it would seem odd if religion (of some sort) did not feature in the world building. There has never in our history been an ancient or medieval society where religion was not fairly important (and visible) in daily life.

However, not all religions (certainly not from history) are modern Christianity! In fact modern Christianity is not like medieval Christianity for a start. Most modern Christians will say that Bible study is an important part of their faith. In medieval times most people couldn't read and even those who could would have to have been very rich to afford a Bible. Therefore there was no such thing as Bible study in medieval Christianity except amongst a tiny group of religious scholars. And that is just one difference.

Therefore medieval and ancient religious were orthopraxical rather than orthodoxic - the rituals, music, incense burning, and observance of religious festivals was far more important than a detailed knowledge of theology. Your faith was largely based on what you did rather than what you knew.

I think it worth studying a range of different religions to avoid becoming Christian centric in your worldbuilding.

There's a series of books called "A very short introduction to..." - worth getting those on a few religions you are unfamiliar with like Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam etc. That will give you an overview of the sheer variety involved.

 

[Nighty_Knight]

>it's the rigid dogma of organized religion that really gives them the villian vibe.

The thing is, organized religion isn't really very organized. It runs about as well as other human organizations--which is to say, haphazardly, by fits and starts, yet with amazing resilience. The range of both doctrine and practice in the medieval Catholic church, for example, surprises most people (at least, it surprised most of my students over a span of thirty years). And it's in all those divergences, the failures at imposing consistency, the variations among villages and even individuals, that makes for the most interesting story-telling possibilities. It's when all the villains are the same and have the same villainies, that's when we've missed an opportunity.

As for religions in Altearth, I try to spread things around a bit. Dwarves practice a form of ancestor worship--ancestor respect and honor, more like. Humans have inherited the pantheon of the classical world. Orcs are monotheist, with a sun god; their religious organization is highly centralized and authoritarian. Elves are all over the place, and it can be difficult to distinguish between philosophy and religion with them. Ogres tend to sample from many sources, but they're fairly consistent within family units.

Nobody knows what the heck pixies believe.

This is one thing I am going for in my series. One of my characters is a middle aged monk, and former knight. Drawn into the story, he is still religious. But some of the antagonists in the story practice the same religion and one of them is a variation of a Templar knight. So there is a bit of variance how people see, act, and treat the same religion. Even better when the two unexpectedly end up fighting each other and the ultra religious Templar recognizes the still very religious monk both as a local monk and a knight from back in the day.

And while there are obvious catholic comparisons, I am trying to make the religion very independent of Christianity and make it its own entity. Then there are the other religions in the story.

 

[skip.knox]

>One of my characters is a middle aged monk, and former knight.
Have you read Ellis Peters? Or seen the Brother Cadfael shows?

 

[Mad Swede]

If you are writing about a fantasy world based on a medieval or ancient civilisation it would seem odd if religion (of some sort) did not feature in the world building. There has never in our history been an ancient or medieval society where religion was not fairly important (and visible) in daily life.

However, not all religions (certainly not from history) are modern Christianity! In fact modern Christianity is not like medieval Christianity for a start. Most modern Christians will say that Bible study is an important part of their faith. In medieval times most people couldn't read and even those who could would have to have been very rich to afford a Bible. Therefore there was no such thing as Bible study in medieval Christianity except amongst a tiny group of religious scholars. And that is just one difference.

Therefore medieval and ancient religious were orthopraxical rather than orthodoxic - the rituals, music, incense burning, and observance of religious festivals was far more important than a detailed knowledge of theology. Your faith was largely based on what you did rather than what you knew.

I think it worth studying a range of different religions to avoid becoming Christian centric in your worldbuilding.

There's a series of books called "A very short introduction to..." - worth getting those on a few religions you are unfamiliar with like Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam etc. That will give you an overview of the sheer variety involved.

I would just emphasise the point that Puck makes, that in the medieval period most people were illiterate. There was no easy way for them to read the religious texts that formed the basis of their faith so the rituals became important. So when you start to create your setting you need to think about things like literacy, because it will have an impact on the way people worship and follow whatever faith they have. It also has an impact on how they recieve news and information...

 

[Nighty_Knight]

>One of my characters is a middle aged monk, and former knight.
Have you read Ellis Peters? Or seen the Brother Cadfael shows?

No... I will have to check them out now.

Just reading up on them, they definitely have my interest.

 

[skip.knox]

The illiteracy is important. It means that there was ample opportunity for mistakes, variations, and deliberate deviations.

Mad Swede's point about rituals is also important. In theory, the rituals are the same everywhere, but two factors complicated matters (I'm speaking historically now). First, even the priests themselves were illiterate or barely literate, hardly understanding the Latin they memorized. In any case, they memorized only the ritual passages, which did not cover much of day to day life, nor the questions and beliefs individuals might have. Local customs tended to carry more weight than doctrinal consistency (and, indeed, even the custodians of doctrine had wide-ranging disagreements among themselves). Rather famously, some priests actually recited gibberish, under the weight of generations of mis-heard passages, taught one to the next.

Add to this poor communications. Even if some central authority wanted to enforce something (as it sometimes did), getting the job done and keeping it done was simply beyond their ability. As a result, enforcement was spasmodic and sporadic and rarely ran deep. The plain fact is, in both belief and practice there was wide variation across the continent of Europe and across the centuries. To the despair of the learned, certainly.

To me, all this means there's a wonderful palette of colors with which to paint religion among elves, dwarves, humans, gnomes, sprites, orcs, trolls, and the rest. And plenty of room to add resonance to a world. This can range from full-blown philosophical discussions, such as found in Hesse's Narcissus and Goldmund, all the way to that marvelous moment in the first Conan movie when he is talking about the gods with Subotai. It's only a few lines, but it tells us both about Conan and about the world he inhabits.

 

[Demesnedenoir]

There are many religions (all fictional) in the Sister Continents and no room for atheism because the gods are real. Every last goddamned one of them, heh heh. I was raised as nothing in particular by an atheist married to a Lutheran turned Mormon... Go figure! So agnosticism is my natural bent. But thanks to a Mormon mom I heard of Brandon Sanderson very early on, heh heh.

 

[Miles Lacey]

When I created the religion of the world in my work in progress I found that real world religions were of little use to me as the prevalent sexual orientation of my fictional world is bisexuality. Thus, the definition of the traditional family and marriage has evolved quite differently. In this fictional world the traditional family is two males and two females and their off-spring. Children have biological and non-biological parents.

No one real world faith influenced the religion of my fictional world but there are elements of Islam, Buddhism and various cultural practices, myths and legends of the indigenous peoples of the Pacific Islands thrown into the belief system. The institutions of the Faith are very loosely modelled on that of the Catholic Church. The Inquisition-like Branch IX of the Ministry of Internal Security was based on the East German secret police (the Stasi).

There is a pantheon of twelve gods: five male, five female and two transgender. The Spark - the gift of magic - which is granted randomly to about 0.5% of the world's population when they turn 16 is seen as proof the gods exist.

The gods are known by various names and the practises of the Faith vary considerably between cultures, races and regions. Even the way the clergy are oranised differs wildly throughout the world.

Only those who are gifted with the Spark can be clergy but non-magical people can serve as laypeople in a temple or shrine.

The gods are usually portrayed standing or seated around a round table to signify that they are all equal with the role of ruler being rotated among them every ten years. Every decade is named after the god who is in charge for those ten years.

Worship is very diverse and the various forms of worship are tolerated as long as they don't violate the Five Fundamentals.