Are you more comfortable taking such liberties with religions that aren't practiced by you, your family, or your friends? Or do you even take into account the sensibilities of your potential readers, the potential for some to accuse you of blasphemy and/or heresy?

[I'll do it. And I enjoy catching authors at it when they do it.]

Are you more comfortable taking such liberties with religions that aren't practiced by you, your family, or your friends? Or do you even take into account the sensibilities of your potential readers, the potential for some to accuse you of blasphemy and/or heresy?

[I'd be more careful with the religion of others than with the one I was raised with because I'm more likely to ignorantly offend. I don't like to offend unless I'm trying to be offensive.]

Would you feel comfortable writing something that is openly disrepectful of someone else's faith?

I'm not sure what you mean by being "disrespectful" of other people's religions. I have been known to cast a small amount of ridicule on overly-zealous or preachy types, but that's mostly a characterization thing rather than a religious thing. I guess I'm being disrespectful of their pushiness rather than their beliefs.

But there are so many ways to be disrespectful...I could steretype, hold a set of beliefs to be crazy, show (in a work of fiction) that the beliefs are flat-out wrong...

Edited to cut back on useless rambling

I don't really have an opinion either way, other than saying that one is unavoidable and the other is usually pretty minor. If you're going to claim that Ezekiel saw an alien spacecraft (or a bunch of guys from an alternate fantasy dimension), or that the Book of Mormon was written by a time traveler stranded in prehistoric America who decided to try and transcribe his scriptures on gold plates, or that aliens build the pyramids...well, it's been done, but don't let that stop you from doing it again.

I think that it's hard to really get the point if the religious tradition you're borrowing isn't somewhat familiar to you. After all, would you even recognize the references? I'm sure we've all heard of the pyramids, but how many of us would get the point of the time traveler being named Spaulding?

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If religion is important to someone, it becomes part of their worldview. Even if it's not important to them, it shapes the culture of which they're a part, and will have an effect on their lives.

People who don't participate in that religion may misread its effects and misunderstand the worldview it represents, which can make readers who know that religion (even if they're not members) pull back from your story. If you want the reader to immerse herself into the story, that's a bad thing.

So even if you're not worried about offending someone, you should exercise caution when writing about a religion of which you're not a part. (You may also come off as an actual bigot, which will probably turn people off.)

A few years ago I read an SF book, set in modern times, in which the heads of the organized religions all got together in a conference to discuss how they would "keep power among the faithful". There are fundamental problems with that in Islam and Judaism, among others, but credibility aside, it had bad effects. It apparently never occurred to the author that a Pope or a Rabbi or an Imam might say what he does because he thinks it's true rather than because it's the way he keeps temporal power. That whole aspect of the subplot -- minor, fortunately -- suffered greatly because he had a cardboard Pope rather than a character.

On the other hand, writers like Graham Greene are known for incorporating their own religions into their writing, and to good effect. Card has used Mormonism in some of his writing.

If you want to include religious concerns, I'd make them come from someone who has your own viewpoint, so that the reader will know that the character's attitudes aren't supposed to represent her religion, but only the character's perception of her religion. It should be credible and more acceptable that way.

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Writing about someone else's religion can have moral consequences.

A type A author writing about type B characters as if they're all cynical, moneygrubbing, amoral, etc. people could color a naive reader's mentality about type B people. Similarly, a type A author writing about religion B could make people misunderstand what religion B is really all about.

As an example, I'm not a big fan of Islam, even though I know and respect a fair number of Muslims. I'd have real trouble creating the character that presented the right image of both Islam and Muslims, because the Muslims I respect most love Islam dearly, and I (putting it mildly) don't. If I erred in one direction, it would treat Muslims unfairly; and if I erred in the other, I'd create an image of Islam that would, I think, underplay the danger it represents. Both options are morally unacceptable to me.

I won't say anything nasty about someone else's religion. I do use other religions in my stories, but not to debunk them. I picked Catholic when I wanted to emphasize human rights; Judaism when I wanted to emphasize rejection of human sacrifice; Wiccans when I wanted to emphasize different interpretations of reality. It's thematic.

If I wanted to write about space aliens being worshipped, I'd make up a religion. (But I wouldn't do that, either, probably. It's been done to death and I find it boring.) I won't insult Hindus by claiming Krishna is a misunderstood starship captain. The da Vinci Code guy has every right to paint Opus Dei as a den of assassins . . . and I have every right not to read what I find offensive.

One thing I think is cool is to take a perspective I very strongly disagree with and am tempted to make fun of . . . and make that perspective *correct* in the story. I'm not much on New Age. So let MC sneer (on my behalf) at the New Agers talking about harmonic convergences and power centers and channeling, and . . . then find out they're absolutely right, the alien entities are channeling thoughts into mediums (media? ), and we'd better listen or the Earth will be destroyed.

The difference in Doyle's case is that he apologized when he found out he was wrong, whereas many science fiction authors still rather ignorantly believe that, for example, heads of religion actually do exploit their positions for power.

Also, anything that goes against what God expressly teaches (in scripture) is not a miracle, or at least a miracle originating from God (nobody ever said that satan could not perform miracles as well.) So that excludes stuff like speaking to spirits, channeling, etc.

There are specific subjects, such as prophecy, where some gray areas exist, but scripture also gives ways to discern between false and true prophecy (true prophecy being that which comes from God). For example, if something that a prophet say will occur does not, then the prophet was considered not of God (and I believe that the prophet was stoned as well.)

I think it all dpends on how you approach the topic.

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the Muslims I respect most love Islam dearly

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I'd say it's like loving your kids more than your spouse. Sure many people (women, mostly) do that and even talk about it as the preferred state, but I don't think it's right. It doesn't ultimately serve the children to love them more than their other parent. Of course, this is just an extension of the idea that we should love God (if we worship God) more than the people in our lives. If we don't, we wind up making mistakes like the High Priest Eli who by putting his sons first gave them to destruction.

I can't imagine a world in which there is no God. After all, even if nobody else qualifies in the world I imagine, I certainly do. That may seem like semantic trick, but if we can't appeal to semantics in deciding what a term means, then what exactly can we do? Besides, I was thinking of doing a web-comic about the me that lives in my imagination. Then I thought that I better not

Still, it isn't something I've never thought about before. Ultimately, for the world to exist in a coherent form, there must be at least one sentience. Where there is at least one sentience, there must be an ultimate sentience. Again, no points to me, that's written in our scriptures somewhere. Using different words. Probably more accessable ones, come to think of it.

I can't believe that anyone capable of imagining a world would be incapable of envisaging a God for that world, given that they can simply model the God on the known creator (and supreme judge) of that world. I rather doubt that anyone (professions of non-belief or not) could imagine such a world without making that connection. Even if you do claim that you don't believe in a God for the "real" world, it might be hard to deny that any world you could possibly imagine comes with a God as a necessary precondition of being imagined.

But then, I wouldn't know. After all, I'm not a non-believer.

So, yeah, in that sense any sentient character would be the god of that reality if they really were the smartest thing around. I mean, the God I believe in is much more confusing than, say, Aslan. Aslan sacrificed himself- which is the same thing that happens in every Disney movie. But sacrificing your own son, that's really mind-blowing. People regularly declare that a God who would even suggest such a thing [to Abraham] isn't worth believing in.

But then, I think the hard part for God was not killing Jesus. It was sending him to Earth in the first place, since (I believe) he was genuinely tempted and could in theory have failed. But that is not doctrinal to any of the religions I have studied (well, maybe the second part works for Muslims).

I guess I keep bringing this up, but a religion is like a character, and there will have to be a characterization of the religion and relationships of the religion to the other characters in the book in order for it to work naturally in the text (getting back to the general topic.)

I suppose that a human can sort of take a democratic middle road, imagining that top level humans are all effectively equal in sentience and nothing greater exists. I'm not sure that holds up logically, and of course it's simply false by virtue of the fact that I exist. Ants and snails can do the same if it comes to that, insofar as they "imagine" at all. Besides, while this technically isn't solipsist, it doesn't strike me as particularly intelligible.

Anyway, enough of all that. I think that the relationship of an author to an imaginary world is actually a very fruitful analogy. If we look at a religion as having a "character", that character is expressed through the imagined personality and motivations of the deity worshipped by that religion. Why do we exist? What should we do? Why should we do it? Can we do otherwise if we like? We all carry out very different forms of imagining in the course of creating imaginary worlds. And those worlds and their inhabitants are different as a result. Not superficially different, but fundamentally different in their ultimate purpose and destiny.

When you start dealing with existing religions, just make sure you understand what you are writing. Do the research like with anything else. Make sure you know the relationship between Vishna and Shiva or the different avatars of Krishna before you start spouting off something that is blatantly incorrect. That can be ahuge turnoff.

http://www.absolutewrite.com/novels/orson_scott_card.htm

In my opinion, ‘religion' is the organized structure of a 'faith' (in this context, 'faith' being the core of one's spiritual beliefs). Subsequently, 'religion' can be either crucial to a person's life or secondary, tertiary, and so on. A person might also cling to their faith without closely adhering to the tenets of their religion. In some cases, 'religion' eclipses all else (including 'faith')...essentially becoming fanaticism. At the opposite end of the spectrum, a person might reject both the tenets of their religion and their faith.

To me, there is a distinct difference between portraying an existing world religion in fiction and portraying an existing faith. More importantly, there is a great danger in specifically describing/extrapolating on the latter. Why? Because many people who would normally just shrug off comments about their religion have the tendency to fiercely defend their faith—what they believe above all else—when it is threatened. In fiction, the negative portrayal (for example) of any given religion may not necessarily belittle an individual reader's faith (depending on how much value they place on their religion). However, the negative portrayal of a particular faith...well, that's basically attacking the very foundation of someone's beliefs, if they are what one might call 'devout’…or anywhere above the watermark of apathy.

A good example of this is Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code. For the record, I am not trying to open an old can of worms by mentioning this highly controversial work, so please don't take this as a shot from the proverbial starting pistol for any hostilities...I am simply trying to paint a clear picture of what I believe to be a viable example of this subject occurring in real life.

Brown’s book delves into histories of the Catholic church, regardless of whether those histories are accepted, accurate, or otherwise. This type of storytelling is nothing new. Other authors have examined similar topics without generating nearly so much uproar (if any at all). However, Brown also extrapolates on conspiracy theories regarding not only Catholicism, but the Christian faith itself (of which Catholicism is only one ‘structure’). From said faith’s perspective, many of those plot points and speculations are decidedly negative, especially when one considers the intentionally realistic context of the novel (his opening statement, regarding the factual nature of the novel’s content, is one example of this). I’m sure I don’t need to describe the aftermath of this use of both existing religion and faith in fiction. The consequences are plain enough.

And therein lies the primary danger: consequences. Because religion and faith are such hotly contested topics in society today, it is easy to step on someone’s toes. While you shouldn’t be paranoid of doing so, it doesn’t hurt to be considerate of the beliefs of others when describing a religion and/or faith in fiction…or when extrapolating on the events and persons held dear by said beliefs. Unless, of course, your goal is to discredit those beliefs…but that is a purely ethical issue that I wouldn’t touch here with a ten-foot pole.

So, to (finally) answer your question…I would not feel comfortable “writing something that is openly disrespectful of someone else's faith.” Why? Because I would certainly not appreciate another writer doing that to me, plain and simple. That doesn’t mean it’s not going to happen, and I will weather the storm just as I always have, though I hope to steer clear of the squall more often than not.

Just my two million cents’ worth (give or take a few).

I don't think Star Trek's intent was to say we outgrew religion - I think it was demonstrating that we outgrew the need to go to war over it. I personally love my faith, but I would not feel the need to crusade against others or should we. Religion was meant to teach morals and love - not cause wars, or not to be used to cause personal wars....In my mind if we all could see that then places like Iraq, Israel and Lebannon could live together. After all take away religion and what are they fighting about? Land.....of course this is my opinion and does relflect those of any religion, the Hamel family reserves that right to deny any connection to this opinion.. )

I agree, but often the question is "what if you are attacked/imprisoned/driven out because of your faith (no matter how peaceful it is)?" All our good intentions don't really effect others' lack of respect.
I'm not saying this is likely to happen to us personally, but within the context of speculative fiction this would be a real possibility. In this case, all of the above about understanding what the religions we are portraying (based on real or imaginary ones) still apply.

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I think even the meekest mouse will fight back and even those who turn the other cheek (of which we have two) will eventually fight.

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Yes, but what form will "fighting" take?

Look at Mohandas K. Gandhi... he didn't fight in a physical way. He fought through a process of non-violent resistance. And his method worked.

There are those of us who feel the root of the real problem in any given conflict is fear. Effective resolution of conflict includes a win-win plan for your opponent. Abraham Lincoln said the best way to defeat an enemy is to make him your friend.

Not all of us believe war is intrinsically evil in the first place. And very few of us believe that it is the worst possible evil. That makes the discussion of fighting despite beliefs rather limited.

Gandhi didn't use non-violence because he believed that fighting was intrinsically wrong. What he saw was that the British would prevail in any contest of arms (as they'd done countless times all over the world). His key insight was that the British could be overcome by moral suasion. If he'd been fighting someone without those scruples, he would have chosen a different method.

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Abraham Lincoln said the best way to defeat an enemy is to make him your friend.

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Abraham Lincoln said that? When, where, and in what context?

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Abraham Lincoln said that? When, where, and in what context?

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It may be based (very loosely) on his plea to the nation in his first inagural address.

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We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.

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the Muslims I respect most love Islam dearly

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Pooka:

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Actually, they love God dearly. Islam is how they show it. The confounding of the religion with God is a common problem in the education of every believer.

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Pooka, I think I was right in saying that they love Islam. They love Islam because they love [what they understand] God [to be], and they believe that Islam -- the Koran, the prayers, the beads, the postures, etc. -- is the best way to submit one's self to Him. They love the thing that draws them closer to Him. As well they should (if they're right about its nature). (Any Muslims on the list who can address this question? My personal experience with Arab Muslims is primarily limited to well-to-do Saudis and North American taxi drivers.)

The thought that there is a difference between "right religion" (as it was once called) and serving God is a relatively recent belief -- and I'm not sure if it's coherent.

Also, regarding fighting for religion: the belief that one should not fight over theology is itself a theological position, and one that isn't held by everyone. Since theological positions can profoundly affect the way you live your life and how you interact with the people around you, some of them may well be worth fighting for (or against), depending on the stakes.

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Abraham Lincoln said the best way to defeat an enemy is to make him your friend.

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How did that Marine/rifle wedding ceremony end? We will oppose the enemy until the only enemy left is peace? It was an interesting bit in opposition to those who seem to say the greatest love is to love something not obviously lovable.

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This is my rifle. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
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So be it, until victory is America's and there is no enemy, but peace!

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In my own view, the point of religious behavior is to serve yourself. I don't think that you get any choice about whether to serve God. You will serve...as a warning to others, if nothing else

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In our culture, intellectuals have become so uniformly a-religious or anti-religious that our fiction, with few exceptions, depicts religious people in only two ways: the followers are ignorant and stupid and easily fooled, and the leaders are exploitative and cynical, manipulating others' faith for their private benefit.

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Is it possible for this guy to give an interview without sounding like a jackass.

2006 Pulitzer:

FICTION March by Geraldine Brooks
Drama: No prize

2005 Pulitzer Prize winners:
Fiction: Gilead
Drama: Doubt

All of these works portray smart serious people involving their faith in smart, serious ways. Good modern literature portrays good modern religious people, either in structure, the way Graham Greene or Michael Chabon does it, or putting it right out there in the open the way it's portrayed in Gilead. OSC's persecution complex is ridiculous.

While I do not agree with many of OSC's positions, he always expresses them intelligently. I have never heard him sound like a jackass.

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I have never heard him sound like a jackass.

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Then jackass is in the eye of the beholder.

We could go down the pulitzer and Nobel prize lists and those "few exceptions" are going to show themselves to hold a remarkable sway. If he wants to castigate high-brow fiction and the high-brows who read it, he is going to have to find a different means other than saying that they are religiously apathetic or irresponsibly negative towards faith in literature.

"Jackass" is an insult, not merely an opinion.

Only since people have decided that religious _beliefs_ don't have to affect our _actions_ has the notion of this separation taken place; but that is itself a religious position.

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In my own view, the point of religious behavior is to serve yourself. I don't think that you get any choice about whether to serve God. You will serve...as a warning to others, if nothing else

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I think that's probably also a nontraditional viewpoint, but I think I hear where it's coming from.

The reason it (the idea that you shouldn't fight over theology) can't be _strictly_ a civil or personal position is that it's informed by your theology. Only when the civil government is founded by people who think "God wants peace more than coerced conformance" -- which is a _theological position_ -- will the civil government avoid coercion. Clearly, that theological position isn't held by, say, the leaders of Saudi Arabia.

This all gets pretty nuanced, which is part of my point. Let's bring the discussion back to the questions originally asked.

I think religion is important, and (obviously) I like to talk about it. I don't think we should write to avoid offending people, whether fiction or not. I just think that we shouldn't presume that we can accurately represent someone else's thought process if we haven't been there.

We carry a lot of unexamined assumptions. That makes us reasonably likely to have un-nuanced views of other people's religions, and therefore (a) look obviously foolish to people in those religions, and (b) portray untruths about a religion or religious people -- perhaps immorally so.

Write what you know. You know how you think; you may not know how someone from another religion thinks about religious topics. (Clearly there are degrees of this.) For example, I think I could write the thought processes of (particular kinds of) Catholics or Atheists. Although I know a fair amount about Judaism and Islam, I wouldn't create a character in which I had to write about his attitudes toward his religion. I could write a character who, incidentally, was Muslim; but I wouldn't delve into religious topics inside his head.

If you're going to offend, do it without trying to be "in the head" of the character who follows the offended religion. Show the actions, if you want -- you may have effectively captured how they act -- but unless you've really been there, don't pretend to know how they think.

My $1.45.

I'll stand by his comments on the intelligensia's positions on religion, as far as they go. The problem is that he doesn't mention dissenters and agnostics, the two groups of religionists treated sympathetically by our cultural elites. The works that Tanglier mentioned are about people wrestling with their faith (or lack of same). If you look at portrayals of people who uncritically believe in God, you'll see what Card is talking about (either in the text itself, or in the "intellectual" response to it).

I happen to be in the group of people that only believes in God because there isn't any rational alternative. I'm not a spiritual giant, I'm an intellectual purist who refuses to take the non-existance of God on faith

But Card (probably like most of the faithful) regards faith as being an up-front investment. You do God's will first, then you come to understand the truth of Him.

I think that it's possible for people to believe that religion isn't the most important reason to do things. It's also possible for people to believe that religion doesn't speak to certain decisions. For instance, I happen to believe that God doesn't care whether I eat dark, milk, or white chocolate. But even in the abscence of any religious motive, I prefer dark and milk chocolates, and regard white chocolate as barely edible. There are plenty of religions (though few of them are important) which fail to claim any theological position on whether freedom of religion or religious uniformity is desireable, let alone which is more desirable. A person working from one of those religions would have to answer that question based on personal preferences or civil preferences.

Look at your primitive animist religions. What if you had a bunch of animists deciding whether to have freedom of religion? Well, very few of them have the idea that religious uniformity is very important (because primitive animism is particular rather than universal in its theology), and none of them want their own religion outlawed, so possibly they would all prefer religious freedom, even though none of their religions encompass that anymore than they preach uniformity.

As for "religious trappings" defining how one served God, have you read the Old Testament?

It's possible that I don't understand what you mean. I was thinking that by "right religion" you meant being an observant member of the particular religion of the person making the judgement. Whereas "serving God" would mean taking actions that accomplished God's purposes, whether or not you intended to do so. I suppose that Cyrus delivering the Jews from captivity would be the arch-typical example of that distinction. His role as deliverer is prophesied and lauded by the prophets, but he himself is not a Jew (let alone an observent one) and he doesn't become one. There isn't any effort made to persuade him that he should either.