Any thoughts would be appreciated.
To all you more-experienced folk out there, I'd like to ask: if you've put together belief systems for your speculative world, what did you do to make them feel more authentic? Did you use a Real Life religion or religions as a base -- and if so, how did you make them differ? Did you worry that someone might look at what you wrote and say, "Well, that's just (insert religion name) with different names for the deities/demons/saints/what-have-you?
Or worse, that they'll not read it at all because they don't empathize with the main character's belief system?
Any thoughts would be appreciated.
[This message has been edited by Varishta (edited August 29, 2005).]
Look here: http://www.meta-religion.com/World_Religions/Ancient_religions/ancient_religions.htm
A made up religion is highly important in one of my projects, but the specifics of the religion were so plot-relevant that for the most part I've just let the plot drive the beliefs and ceremonies.
Anyhoo...I've not really had to deal with this myself, mostly because it just hasn't come up yet.
In creating religions, etc., I think it is important to consider how religions form. Loosely defined, Religion is man's attempt to know and please god (or gods) or to attain spiritual well-being. To start building believable religions, consider the rest of the culture you are creating and think about how these people might search for or define a diety. Do they believe in one god or many? Do they believe in making sacrifices; if so, what kind -- human, animal, plant?
Maybe they don't believe in a diety. If not, what sorts of things do they value? How do these values affect their spirituallity? How do they attain spiritual well-being or peace?
Just a few things to consider.
quote:
Did you use a Real Life religion or religions as a base -- and if so, how did you make them differ? Did you worry that someone might look at what you wrote and say, "Well, that's just (insert religion name) with different names for the deities/demons/saints/what-have-you?
Would the reader be able to empathize with such concepts, to see them in a positive light?
It's much easier to use frameworks that are more common to the Western mindset; but then you run into the "this is the same thing under a different label" issue, and risk offending someone.
I've studied comparative religion, and I've lived abroad and among people whose belief systems varied greatly from my own. You'd think this would make creating an imagined religion easier, but in a sense it makes it a lot more work.
Hopefully I'll be able to pull it off...
Varishta
[This message has been edited by Varishta (edited August 29, 2005).]
My core world has a number of religions. One of them is heavily drawn from Christianity, and (as it's in a comparatively early state) has a number of different branches, with very different approaches to dogma and doctrine. There's a prior, "classical" religion, which was in fact an artificial one, and that allows me to play with a few interesting ideas. Other religions still exist (the "new" faith not having driven all of them out - yet...), some drawn from familiar cultures (more or less), others my own creations. I'm not hugely interested in the religions themselves, but I am very interested in the way those beliefs affect people, and their motivations, so they form an important backdrop.
As an aside, in my opinion, some of the least trustworthy words in human history are "God told me to". I find it interesting to run some of my characters up against religious bigotry and intolerance. I am aware that some readers could detect an "anti-religion" bias in my work - and would probably, in particular, decide it was a bias against a particular religion. I've nothing against the theory. But I have huge reservations about the practice, and that dichotomy is an interesting one to explore.
quote:
Would the reader be able to empathize with such concepts, to see them in a positive light?
Empathize with who? The woman who has to kill herself or the society that makes her do it? The answer to the first is probably yes. The answer to the second is probably no.
Americans, most likely your primary audience, are not, as a rule, very open minded about certain aspects of right and wrong. Killing is wrong. Suicide is wrong. Death bad.
But whether or not this is a problem depends entirely upon where you what the ampathy and how you present the scenario. You never know what you can come up with...WHY do women kill themselves when theyir husbands die? And WHO needs the sympathy?
Like the Jewish mitzvot (mitzva? plural...?), a lot of the positive and negative commandments and observations that define the character of a people come directly from the things that have most challenged their lives as both individuals and as a society: certain foods or activities that have been observed to be unhealthy -- certain habits that historical enemies might have (have had) that this group has deliberately forbidden in order to differentiate themselves from said enemies -- certain things they absolutely HAD to do in order to survive, which then became religious laws. Things like that (dictated by your plot and milieau) can give them a real, believable flavor.
Maybe make it so that the word "religion" doesn't make sense in their world view; or there's no way to separate it from science, or philosophy, or culture in general (often true).
Interesting topic.
That gets into the line between religion and culture, though, and whether there even is such a thing where your characters are concerned.
I think that you should examine your religion in terms of how it answers the big three. "Whence came we? Why do we exist? Where are we going?" Most systematic moralities have to come up with answers to all these questions, to one degree or another.
Sometimes the answers that a religion gives to those questions are genuinely bigoted and intolerant. "We exist to serve God by teaching all men His only true language, which, conviniently enough, is the one we already speak." "We come from God, everyone else comes from somewhere else." "We're going to Heaven, because of our ancestry, everyone else is out of luck."
More usually, the bigotry and intolerance comes out of human nature. I notice that "irreligious" people, both genuine atheists and nominal but lackluster members of religions, are as bigoted and intolerant as anyone else, usually more so than committed members of most (but by no means all) religions.
Of course, my own anti-human prejudices are well known, so I'm hardly one to speak 
Give thought to conflicts this can create (everything ranging from semi-sarcastic banter to entire wars). People's beliefs certainly cause a full range of conflict in our world.
Also notice that in when in a character's POV, you don't want to over-emphasize their faith to the point that it sounds as if he is trying to convince himself. If he really believes it, he will make many assumptions, often without realizing it.
Something interesting in Card's Homecoming series is that the main characters are totally consumed with spiritual experiences, but they are not in the domain of the religions that are practiced in the culture in which they are surrounded.
However, I'm not too keen on the old "spiritual but not religious" cop out. I think spirituality comes in addition to religion, not instead of it. It is more of a form vs. function struggle. We continutally strive for authenticity in the function, but people always can pretend and that becomes the form. I guess in religious ritual, you just accept: this is a form. Whether it serves any meaningful function in your life is up to you.
Judaism, Islam, Christianity: Catholicism and Protestantism
These four have their origins in the same place, but each have developed differently for various reasons.
We tend to think of spirituality as being an essential part of religion because many established religions rely on the notion of "spirit" to answer important questions about the underlying nature of reality.
Not all do. There are purely materialistic religions, after all.
When does something become a religion? Tcher makes an interesting point by pointing out the "God told me to" aspect. Of course, not everyone believes in "God", Muslims believe in "Allah" (and I'm not going to get into the distinction right now), Taoists believe in the universe and all its parts as an integrated whole, and evolutionists believe in the destiny of [insert name of your species].
So really, a loaded term like "God" isn't very useful in discussing what makes religion religion. But you'll notice that each example shares certain important attributes of "God". "Allah" is simply the Arabic word which could be translated into English as "God" if it weren't blasphemous to do so. But if we move on to the harmonious universe of Taoism and the destiny of life expressed by evolutionists, they also share some important qualities.
The first is that they are larger and more important than the individual. The second is that they demand a response on the part of the believer.
These are the elements that define a religion, the believer's willing submission to some entity which is acknowledged to be superior in kind. In other words, the phrase "[insert name of superior entity here] told me to" used as moral justification for one's actions.
So, how is this important? Very simply, it tells you what religion a character really follows, regardless of background. But it doesn't tell you anything about the religion, other than the identity of that religions "God". That's where the three questions I offered earlier come in. Those questions are the reason that people seek out a religion to follow, and the answers usually provide much of the context behind the demands of a religion.
It covers all the things you should be thinking about in inventing a new people.
http://www.arthurmag.com/magpie/?p=797
It reminded me of a book I read seven years ago, Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond. Thought provoking stuff.
http://www.wwnorton.com/catalog/spring99/gunsgerms.htm
Thanks for the intelligent input, all. It's very, very helpful.
Hmm. Bene Gesserit as Vulcan.
Interesting conflation.
PS - I first read Dune about 30 years ago (whimper) and only in typing out this post have I noticed how linguistically similar "Gesserit" and "Jesuit" are.
Hmm.
[This message has been edited by tchernabyelo (edited August 31, 2005).]
Close as I can get to this is Moon-Flash, Patricia McKillip. But it still doesn't really derive religion from geography.
Now, if I had to use a basis for a real-world religion, I'd have to do a bit of research and determine which is best suited to my milieu.
But that's just me.
-Monolith-
1. Where did the world come from?
2. Why are we here?
3. What should we do to be happy?
4. What happens after we die?
5. What is our relationship with the world?
Once you have those basic questions answered, you can begin to delve into the social implications of the beliefs. For instance, if we have to confess our sins to a priest in order to be happy, there have to be priests. What is the social implication of this? What kinds of people become priests? And so forth.