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Religion

2020-04-17T07:50:05Z

2406:3400:20F:FFC0:A945:1FE6:1D76:A2F4: /* Somewhat special cases */

{{topquote|Science investigates; religion interprets. Science gives man knowledge, which is power; religion gives man wisdom, which is control. Science deals mainly with facts; religion deals mainly with values. The two are not rivals.|Martin Luther King, Jr}}

:'''Dracula''': ''I was called here by, huuuuumans, who wish to pay me tribute!''
:'''Richter Belmont''': ''Tribute?! You steal men's souls! And make them your slaves!''
:'''Dracula''': ''Perhaps the same could be said of all religions.''
::--An excerpt from the infamous exchange that also gave us "What is a man? A miserable little pile of secrets" in [[Castlevania#Castlevania:_Symphony_Of_The_Night_.28Castlevania_9.29|Castlevania: Symphony of the Night.]]

Because it's important to several settings and RPG systems, particularly ones that are high-profile or relevant to /tg/, we have a religion article. Let's try and keep it focused on the directly-related-to-/tg/ stuff and not descend into the pure [[skub]] that can arise in discussions of real-life religions, okay?

==Definition of Religion==
Almost since the inception of the term, scholars have failed to agree on a definition of religion. While there are some belief systems that always count as religions, some have applied the term to various things such as political ideologies, or groups when they reach a certain point. There are however two general definition systems: the sociological/functional and the phenomenological/philosophical.

The two most widely accepted are:
* "a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, that is to say things set apart and forbidden - beliefs and practices which unite into one single moral community called a church, all those who adhere to them."
* "a comprehensive worldview or 'metaphysical moral vision' that is accepted as binding because it is held to be in itself basically true and just even if all dimensions of it cannot be either fully confirmed or refuted".

As stated before, one common element that every religion which fits the criteria has is humanity's relation to supernatural forces, as all of them have at least one [[God|god]] and/or an afterlife even where there are exceptions; Buddhism doesn't have any gods but has afterlives, and Taoism doesn't have an afterlife but does have a pantheistic concept of a god as a supernatural force.

Like other terms for heavily [[SJW|debated]] [[communism|subjects]], religion and religious have also been used as insults or Snarl Words in social and political discussions (especially from the 20th century and onwards) to ridicule groups openly promoting something the user disagrees with. This snarl creates a caricature of the group to smear them by association with the worst excesses/negative stereotypes of real-world religious people (like being too preachy, judgmental, irrational, hypocritical, or pressuring everyone to convert).

==Religion vs. Mythology==
While [[Mythology|mythologies]] aren't religions in and of themselves, every religion has a mythology. While mythologies are merely the accounts of supernatural events, religions add rituals and practices that link those mythologies directly to the lives of their believers in one form or another, typically by describing how to properly serve to a god (or multiple gods, it depends) a significant role in the mythology a given religion is derived from. [[Skub|Whatever the source]], the mythology almost always predates the religion. As a result, especially since the Fantasy genre deals in supernatural beings and forces, most if not all fantasy settings have religions. Science fiction does to a lesser degree, mostly because during the Golden Age of sci-fi empiricists and secular humanists were attracted to the genre and their views often seeped into their stories. Despite this, given that most real-life societies have had religions playing a role in or since their founding, religions are still found in sci-fi.

Religions involves belief systems and practices, where an adherent can call upon the power/being the religion is focused on to give them aid in [[cleric|various]] [[Paladin|ways]], depending at the very least on the religion and the task in question. Given that religions are about people's place in the world, how it was made, ideas on how life should be lived and how humans should relate to the supernatural, they have major implications for societies. Given that people can become [[Exarch|dangerously single-minded]] about a cause, people can be become extremists about their religion, regardless of the fact that [[Heironeous|some]] are more benevolent than [[Asmodeus|others]] and in numerous cases even [[Heresy|if it involves going against the religion's teachings]]; in conjunction with the above this means religious conflicts can become widespread, long-lasting, cause carnage and also involve other elements such as politics- both in fantasy and in the real world.

==Role in Society==
A person's belief (for or against) any or all religions is a major factor in their worldview, and as such often serves as the undercurrent for all others. This is because this belief shapes people's views on the big things such as the purpose of life, how life should be lived in relation to oneself and others and what happens to people after they die. On the upside, this often leads to teachings with the goal of unity, peace, charity and co-operation as per the teachings of most religions, some of which are adapted by or also found among non-religious systems. On the downside, this can lead to clashes over how the people involved do the will of whichever beings or forces they follow, which religion should be followed or whether or not people should follow a god or religion at all. This can involve arguments and factionalizing, or in some cases worse things like pogroms and wars. Since they are an overarching and fairly common element in cultures, they often appear or are referenced in fiction.

The most common religious belief systems are the Abrahamic family of religions (primarily Judaism, Christianity and Islam) which are Monotheistic (belief in a singular God) and share many common elements and root, with - at the time this was written - Christianity being the most followed religion globally. Historically, these and other religions were frequently enshrined in law as the "state religion", giving them special privileges such as extensive influence over the government or tax exemptions. In some cases, they even took over the functions of the government entirely in a system known as theocracy; while uncommon in the present day, theocracies are still in use in places such as the Vatican and Saudi Arabia.

Within the last few centuries, due to events such as the French Revolution, there has also been a significant amount of anti-religious sentiment, which regards religion as at best redundant and at worst destructive (beyond historical grievances with specific groups within religions, reasons for this view and whether or not those arguments have any merit, shall not be discussed here). For the most part, a combination of people identifying more with their culture or nation than their religion and the concept that religion and functions of state should not interfere with each other has turned into more of a "live and let live" mentality that doesn't really support or oppose any one religion and only reacts when said religions begin actively defying the state.

Interestingly, numerous tyrannical regimes have tried to restrict or stamp out religions. This is because religious teachings put the figure/object of worship before the state in a conflict of interest, most religions teachings condemn many of the things tyrannical leaders indulge in, tyrants dislike competition for their subjects' fealty, tyrants dislike being answerable to anyone besides themselves, the tyrant may be prejudiced, or any combo of the above. While nations have ususlly tried to block specific religions deemed "false" (read: religions opposing the state-sponsored religion in any way), several nations (usually [[Communism|Communist]] states which took Marx's "religion is the opiate of the masses" quote out of context, as Marx viewed religion was a sort of protest against oppression that relieved people's immediate suffering and gave them the strength to go on living while also drawing their attention away from the class system that produced their oppression; subsequently, he believed that following the establishment of a communist society, religion would disappear as it would no longer be needed) have tried to get rid of religion altogether, albeit with horrifying [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/League_of_Militant_Atheists results] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khmer_Rouge_rule_of_Cambodia#Religious_communities each] time. Best case scenario, they sidegrade from one set of problems to another as cults of personality (commonly ones based on the ruler in charge) spring up to exploit the newly created power vacuum formerly filled by an established religion while believers who manage to survive the regime try to continue their activities in secret.

Unsurprisingly, the most religious nations are theocracies such as the Catholic theocracy running Vatican City and the Islamic theocracy running Saudi Arabia. China is - at the time this was written - the world's least religious and most atheistic country (the situation around North Korea is [[Skub|debatable]], since even though they violently supress religions [https://www.foxnews.com/world/north-korea-publicly-executes-80-some-for-videos-or-bibles-report-says to the point that merely having copies of religious texts can be grounds for execution], they also have the Kim Cult blended with the Marxist offshoot ideology Juche).

==How this impacts /tg/==
A few major ways. Since most if not every society in real-life has had religion either be the basis for its founding or play a role in it, religion is just as involved in the backstory or current lore of settings. There are three major "modes" of /tg/ settings and related fictions:
* The purely functional where religions are a story device.
* Religions and/or those they worship are portrayed positively as some sort of endorsement of religiosity.
* Religions and/or those they worship are portrayed negatively as some sort of criticism of religiosity.

===Religion as a story device===
Compared to the two types of writers found below, these writers are usually just attempting to model their work after real-world [[Mythology]] and are frequently attempting to keep their views of Religion separate from their work. Frequently comes in one of two subspecies:
* The [[Standard Fantasy Setting]] default: The world is ruled by an ordinary polytheistic pantheon, usually close to some admixture of Norse and Greek mythologies. Some of them also have a Top God - one more powerful than all the others and maybe the in-universe creator of everything - who is mostly hands-off in cosmic affairs. The gods of these religions tend to focus on specific areas (gods of [[Paladin|Justice]] and [[Druid|Nature]] are common, for subtly obvious reasons) and frequently want their followers to propagate or promote these things.
* The kind of setting they wanted to make dictated the nature of the divine. For example, in [[Exalted]] just about all the figures anybody would call a "God" (besides the Exalted) are Useless, because the Exalted (which includes the Player Characters) are the guys who were made specifically to do whatever the gods needed them to do for reasons inherent to the setting, to go with the main theme of the setting for the PCs: "You can do '''almost anything''', except ''avoid the consequences of being the one who did that anything''".

===Religion as a Bad Thing===
There are several writers of Science Fiction and Fantasy that are of the opinion "Religion Is Bad", often alongside having an axe to grind (sometimes warranted, sometimes not) with either one or more specific real-life religions. This is more common in Sci-Fi than fantasy because the focus on science appeals to the naturalist, empiricist and/or humanist worldview of such writers, with the supernatural being seen as an obstacle to that. Despite that, the view is found among some fantasy authors as well, such as the author of the book series "His Dark Materials", Philip Pullman (he wrote it as an anti-theistic and anti-religious response to C.S Lewis' "Chronicles of Narnia" series). Whatever the genre, this comes in flavors of either "The Gods Don't Exist", "The Gods are Incompetent" (more on that below) or "The Gods are Evil". Cosmic Horror also tends to use the "Gods Don't Exist" or "Gods are Evil" route, or combine them into "The Gods are actually Incomprehensible and Destructive Aliens" (for example; the author who codified the genre, [[H.P. Lovecraft]], was an avowed anti-religious atheist). This also has the side effect of inclining science fiction towards an atheistic perspective.

Another major component is personal issues of the author such as grievance or prejudice, but that's case-by-case and a major can of worms. Worst case scenario, the story is a wish fulfillment power fantasy against a religion or specific religious people. Whatever the motivation, writers saying this message often model their fictional religions on the - occasionally exaggerated - worst excesses of real world religious people and lift imagery from those religions or groups among them. Popular targets are Christianity, Islam, any faith that practiced human sacrifice (such as the Aztec religious practices), and Scientology. Cults, especially those with beliefs that mainstream religions consider unorthodox or outright heretical, are especially fertile ground for this message, albeit running the risk of being misapplied to tar other groups with the same brush.

===Religion as a Good Thing===
There are several religious Science Fiction and Fantasy writers who either want to promote their worldview, look upon religion positively and put that into the story (who may or may not be religious themselves) or both. This is more common in Fantasy than Sci-fi, partly because with the supernatural being THE fundamental element of the genre this opens opportunities to explore many aspects of religiosity. This is less common in science-fiction, but not unheard of, such as Carl Sagan's novel "Contact" where God's signature is found in the digits of pi. These authors usually put more thought into their fictional religion plus its central figure (although they have a tendency to go all "Crystal Dragon Jesus"), and try and have it be at least a somewhat good influence, although religious institutions and leaders are usually hit-and-miss affairs.

Some people make a fictional setting with figures from real-world religions, either in the real-world or [[CS Lewis|an alternate world such as Narnia like C.S Lewis did]]. Others use fictional religions that either visually resemble real-life religions or figures from them; religions that often get this treatment are the Abrahamic faiths (most often Christianity), Greek mythology, Egyptian mythology and Norse mythology (albeit often a sanitized version of the latter three). In other cases they all but abandon any form of subtlety, with the fictional religion being distinguished from the real-world religion the author follows by only a handful of minor changes. Naturally, those kinds of works tend to come off as preachy, to say the least.

Another route this uses is the route that faith itself provides the power; think of Morpheus' "your mind makes it real" quote, or the "[[Belief Function|Clap Your Hands If you Believe]]" trope. In fact, Warhammer often goes the route that the gods are powered by faith as well as from their sphere of influence which has either [[Sigmar|caused some people have risen to godhood]] or [[Ynnead|caused new gods to be born in the setting]]. In fact, this has proven the greatest weapon against Chaos in every Warhammer setting (and why the Emperor's plan to starve the Chaos Gods with atheism was doomed to fail from the start).

===Somewhat special cases===

One somewhat special case is the "Religion of Evil"; in many settings, there is a religion that is explicitly capital E Evil and seeks one of the usual "Card Carrying Villain" goals of Control, Conquest, Corruption, or Destruction. Frequently has some admixture of the worst aspects of Roman Paganism, Norse practices, the Aztec, Scientology and/or the various Abrahamic religions. They also often draw from those found in the writings of H.P Lovecraft. If this cult directly worships an individual Evil God, expect whatever makes sense for that deity to be some form of destructive activity--e.g., the cult of the God of Murder demands human sacrifice on a regular basis, with a certain portion of that explicitly being not-careful-enough cultists. Regardless, Religions of Evil can show up in all three above modes, and usually has a special purpose in all three:

* Functionalists (and, for that matter, all three) need bad guys. In particular, a group who by definition is Evil is always good for some no-need-to-worry-about-the-ethics-or-morality-of-killing fodder (based on the idea that everyone in is group is evil because you have to do evil to be part of the group).
* Religion is Bad types tend to use them to say either "while they're all Bad, some are worse then others", or say "Religion can be used to justify anything". Occasionally a prejudiced writer uses it as a strawman to tar all with the same brush or they have an axe to grind against a specific real-life religion and/or its followers.
* The sincerely religious tend to use them as analogies with fanaticism, criticize Real World cults, compare different beliefs or deal with negative aspects of religion (occasionally making jabs at competitive religions, or fellow believers the author disagrees with).
** As a side note, a lot of fantasy has moved slightly away from pure Religions of Evil, for much the same reason as [[Always Chaotic Evil]] races (audiences and authors nowdays demand more motive for their villains). While there are still plenty of them, they usually add some nuance that makes them at least morally neutral under their own lights. Popular options are for them to be an off-shoot/denomination/subset of another religion and/or be taking vengeance for a real or perceived wrong or injustice (which has '''plenty''' of real-life precedent).

[[Urban Fantasy]] writers are another special case, since almost all Urban Fantasy is set in something that might be called "the real world with a twist", with all the usual political trouble that implies. As a result, they can take one of a few routes:
* The most common route is "there are many possible explanations" and vague things up as much as possible ([[True Faith|Faith]] being the power that repels [[Vampire]]s rather than than a cross having any actual connection to a deity is a popular one).
* The second most common route (which is rarer outside of Cosmic Horror) is the "Religion as a Bad Thing" route from above. The story is straight up atheistic/"Religion is Bad" [[Imperial Truth|propaganda]], and in practice the writer often has an axe to grind against a specific religion. It's a popular choice for writers trying to be [[Edgy]] who want to include religious subject matter in their stories, and they almost exclusively go after the most established religion in the area or any new cults that have emerged at the time. Furthermore, any fictional religions will most likely be thinly-veiled stand-ins for real life religions.
* Some Urban Fantasy works with a clear correct religion exist thanks to the above mentioned sincerely religious authors, which are typically [[Chick Tracts|barely veiled proselytizing]] or [[Twilight|just straight up terrible]], though [[Monster Hunter International|there are some good ones]].
* The fourth route, taken most notably by [[Supers|DC and Marvel comics]] among others, is to take an "All Myths are True" approach: All religions are sort of true, but none have any exclusivity to the Truth, so Thor and Athena might have the Archangel Michael on speeddial when the Orochi teams up with Apep to start making trouble in their neighborhoods (because "Mikey really likes kicking serpent tail, and gets annoyed when we don't at least try to invite him to an evil serpent ass-kicking."). Differs from the "vague things up" route by being clearer on some details, and also much more gonzo. The Abrahamic God is the exception here: He's usually kept especially vague, albeit more powerful (and yet infinitely less accessible) than anyone else in the setting, and only referred to by some codephrase (Marvel likes "The One Above All", DC generally goes for "The Presence" or "whatever is behind the Source Wall").

===Miscellaneous Observations===

Doing the "The Gods are Incompetent" thing (the similar but different "The Gods are Insane", "The Gods Are Assholes" and "The Gods Don't Actually Do Anything" routes also falls under this umbrella) can go into any of the three modes; in a sincere monotheist's (such as Christian) work, it can be a "Take That" to polytheistic religions; in a "Religion is Bad" atheist's, it can be one to religion in general; in a Buddhist-influenced work, it can be a part of the whole "even the Gods are tied up in the Wheel of Karma" concept; and, even if the author is not pushing any religious message in any way, there's a neutral, plot-structural reason to go "Incompetent Gods": it can make the adventurers the Most Competent People Available since if that wasn't the case there wouldn't be anything for the adventurers to do.

If a work has multiple writers, (as frequently happens with RPG and Wargame settings, and quite a few popular SciFi/Fantasy ones as well) there's a tendency for the writers to try and pull the setting into one of the other two "modes" depending on their personal views. This leads to the theme changing from one side to the other as the story progresses. A recent example is [[World of Warcraft|the spate of retcons to the cosmology of the Warcraft universe]] and the morality of its fundamental forces/dominant higher powers, the Light and the Void. If the story doesn't get focused on a pro-religion or anti-religion message, it may end up swinging back and forth between both sides or settle in a mid-point which doesn't take a strong stance either way.

Note that members of the "Religion is Bad" and "Religion is Good" brigades will get involved in arguments over the relative morality or "goodness" of various factions in the story and the accuracy of any messages a writer presents. Often history buffs will throw their hat into the ring as well.

==Examples of /tg/ connected fictional religions==
===Warhammer 40k===
* The [[Imperial Truth]] was originally the Emperor's plan on beliefs, which he and his servants propagated throughout the galaxy during the Great Crusade. Attempting to wean mankind away from Chaos and being a firm member of the "Religion is Bad" brigade, the Emperor proclaimed there are no gods, and religion had to be abolished willingly or by force while science or reason are to be used for explaining the universe and morality. Everything transpired according to his design, except theistic religiosity in the 40k universe is the best weapon against Chaos so Emp's interstellar state atheism policy gave them a major opening. Things went from bad to worse when people started looking up to the Emperor as a god himself and [[Exterminatus|he responded accordingly]]. After the Horus Heresy and the Emperor's removal from galactic politics: the Imperial Truth was slowly shelved in favor of the Imperial Cult, to the point that espousing the teachings of the Truth is ironically considered heresy. Only a few practitioners of the Imperial Truth remain, most notably the Custodes and the Space Marines (both of whom know The Emperor better than anybody to worship him as a god. Plus, their religious autonomy.).
** The [[Imperial Cult]] is the present-day religion of the Imperium of Man, and is a mix of several Abrahamic Religions along with copious amounts of warmongering, fanaticism and xenophobia. Derived from the Lectitio Divinatus penned by [[Lorgar]] pre-HH, the Cult decrees that because the Emperor is capable of all these miracles and power: he ''must'' be a god, and why you should worship and pledge loyalty to him. Its a complete 180 from the Emperor's original teachings, and has simultaneously been responsible for damning and saving the Imperium past the clusterfuck of the Horus Heresy. It's unknown whether the Emperor still abhors godhood and religion and would abolish it the moment he could, or if he's resigned himself to becoming the very thing he fought against for mankind to persevere in these trying times. Whatever the case, he didn't want to be a god, but now he has no choice but to become one.
** The [[Adeptus Mechanicus|Cult Mechanicus]] (Machine Cult) is the religion of the Adeptus Mechanicus, placing a heavy emphasis on machines, viewing them as gifts from the Machine God called "The Omnissiah" Officially, the Omnissiah is The Emperor, which allows the Mechanicus to sidestep the more puritan pundits of the Imperial Cult (we worship The Emprah, just not how you do it). Unofficially, the Omnissiah may or may not be the C'tan god: The Void Dragon. It also has a high emphasis on the collection of knowledge, and one of the Admech's roles in the galaxy is to explore remote and uncharted regions of space to find and search for knowledge that has been lost throughout the millennia. The last of these, is guidelines on machines and knowledge. Officially, heretic(tek) and xeno works are to be abhorred and disposed of, viewing them as perversions of the holy Machine God's works. Unofficially however, more liberally-minded and higher-ranked Magos would happily hoard heretek/xeno works, seeing their potential over the more restricted and constrained works of the Mechanicus.

* Chaos is a violent and complicated henotheistic (believing in multiple gods but only worshipping one) or polytheistic religion with dozens, if not hundreds of interpretations. Even then, there's more sub-cults that worship their particular god in a specific way, either minutely or vastly different from everyone else among followers of the Big 4. And this doesn't even get into the realm of Chaos Undivided (which worships the concept of Chaos itself, instead of the individual gods) and [[Malal]]. Chaos has very little established guidelines regarding worship, apart from their patron god's/gods' general likes/dislikes, so any religious practices or rituals are either based on commands from the god/s or up to the imagination of the cult.
** Interestingly, there is a Space Marine of the Chaos faction who follows the Imperial Truth, and that is [[Fabius Bile]].

* All Greenskins worship Gork and Mork (jury's out on whether the [[Gretchin Revolutionary Committee]] do), but are too disorganized to have anything like a formal religion, though they do make effigies of Gork and Mork and call on them. The closest thing they have to tenants is that Gork favors violence, Mork favors cunning. Greenskins have gotten into fights over this, but violence is part of their nature and that of their gods. While they fight over religion, they also fight over almost any dispute anyway, and may even start a religious argument just to enjoy a good fight among themselves (though the only theological argument they can formulate is "is Gork the god of cunning or is Mork?" or vica versa). Religion doesn't play a significant role in Ork society compared to the other races.

* The Tau's creed "The [[Greater Good]]" is a specie-wide philosophy that was adopted ever since the initial unification of the Tau in the olden days. In a nutshell, the Greater Good emphasizes the co-existence of all Tau and sapient life in general into working together for a common goal to further the Tau's progress, seeing everyone's potential and hoping to utilize that for an, ahem, greater good. Personal religion isn't forbidden, but it must not contradict or override The Greater Good, and must be disregarded if it ever does so. Technically, this means Tau can be religious or non-religious, as the Greater Good is not a religion (due to lacking an afterlife and supernatural aspects, with the closest things to figures of worship being the Ethereals). This sounds all fine and dandy, but the Ethereal class, who are responsible for maintaining The Greater Good, have been shown to be less benevolent than believed and have been using their unnaturally powerful charisma to subtly oppress the Tau and use them to further their own agendas.
**The Farsight Enclaves, who have thrown off Ethereal rule, are the exception in that they have rejected The Greater Good, seeing it as the method of oppression used to keep the T'au under complete control of the ethereals. Due to this, if one considers the Greater Good a religion, The Enclaves are irreligious.
**As of the 4th Sphere Expansion disaster, Chaos Tau are starting to become a thing.
**At one point, the Earth Caste gathered Genestealer-infected Tau and studied them to see what would happen. Of course, a Genestealer cult developed and naturally they violently escaped control and surveillance. According to rumors, they've even produced a Genestealer-infected Ethereal.

* The Eldar have varying views on religiosity depending on their type. Their religion is polytheistic, with henotheistic offshoots, and Ausryan was the highest ranking god. However all of the Eldar gods were murder-raped to death by Slaanesh except for Isha (taken by Nurgle), Khaine (shattered and flung into realspace), Cegorach (hiding in the Webway) and Ynnead (born long after Slaanesh's birth). Their Pantheon's religious practices aren't fleshed out save for those of Cegorach, Isha, and Khaine, via the Harlequins and Aspect Warriors. With most of their gods out of commission, Eldar religious worship is of a deistic bent.
** Craftworlders and Exodites almost exclusively worship the original Eldar pantheon, though some engage in henotheistic worship of only one of the gods. Asuryan is more popular among Craftworlders while Isha is among Exodites, though nearly all give Khaine some tribute during war.
** Corsairs are all over the place, though Khaine is a popular choice given their more militant nature.
** Being agents of the Laughing God himself, the Harlequins' worship is centered around [[Cegorach]], whilst still paying minor tribute to the other gods.
** The new faith around Ynnead, the Ynnari, is rapidly growing but have yet to establish teachings or rituals.
** Unique among the Eldar, the Dark Eldar are irreligious for the most part and while they believe some gods exist they're too self-centered to worship them (this is canon). They're often also anti-religious to boot; a major landmark of Commorragh is a landfill of religious icons called Iconoclast's Mound, and one Wych cult - the Pain Eternal - revolves around killing religious people and destroying shrines and holy sites. The sole exception, except for Dark Eldar who stop being Dark Eldar, are the [[Incubi]] who hold [[Khaine]] in high regard.
** There are numerous rumors of a very small number of Chaos Eldar, but these are barely fleshed out and heavily classified in-universe. There have been verified Nurgle-worshipping Eldar and persistent rumors that some have embraced Slaanesh without becoming soul-food. Apart from this, some Dark Eldar have been willing to summon Chaos Daemons or work with Chaos worshippers ([[Fabius Bile|or allies of Chaos]]) to further their own ends.

* While the Necrontyr had religions before certain [[C'tan|star entities]] [[Necrons|roboticizied them]], those aren't fleshed out or detailed. Its also heavily implied the C'tan co-opted the Necrontyr religion beforehand. With the change to Necrons taking the higher though processes of most of them, any Necrons who can comprehend faith and religiosity either worship the C'tan or have become irreligious.

* The Tyranids themselves are irreligious, being spehss bugs and all, but understand at least a few of the advantages of religion. [[Genestealer]]s infect people and together they establish cults on targeted worlds, such as one worshipping "Children of the Stars", a perversion of the Imperial Cult or something else like "Celebrants of Nihilism" (yes, that's a canon Genestealer cult name). Psychic influence is often involved and, notably, the Genestealers do not consider themselves gods. Once the Tyranids arrive en-masse, the cult-gets assimilated along with all non-Tyranids willingly or not. An interesting tidbit is that the Hive Mind stops the Tyranids from attacking the cultists in early stages of the invasion and leads them on, only to later override the Genestealers' wills and and make them slaughter the cultists.

===Dungeons and Dragons===
* Among Dungeons and Dragons settings, [[Planescape]], [[Eberron]], and [[Pathfinder]] are notable for having some coherent things that could be called "Religions", rather then the usual generic Pantheism.
** Most of Planescape's Factions effectively count as religions, to the point they can produce [[Cleric]]s ([[Planescape: Torment#Fall-From-Grace|Atheist ones at that]]). Yes, even the Athar. (Perhaps ''especially'' the Athar.)
** Half of Eberron's religions aren't worship of deities. The [[Blood of Vol]] seeks to unlock the divinity within one's self and rejects the gods (if they even exist) and the [[Path of Inspiration]] seeks to improve their next reincarnation. The Undying Court worships not gods but their undead ancestors that make up their government. The [[Path of Light]], [[Warforged_Mysteries#The_Becoming_God|Becoming God]] and [[Warforged_Mysteries#The_Reforged|Reforged]] all seek to ''create'' a deity. Even some interpretations of the [[Sovereign Host]], like the one most common among dragons, don't worship them as deities. Due to the way divine casting works in Eberron, all of these can produce divine casters.
** There's a handful of religions on [[Golarion]] that aren't merely worship of pantheons. The most prominent (read: Actually has mechanical support) is the [[Prophecies of Kalistrade]], which is basically fantasy [[Star Trek|Ferengi]].

* [[D20 Modern]]'s [[Urban Arcana]], unusually for urban fantasy, has D&D deities bleed into reality alongside the monsters. You are still able to play a <s>cleric</s> "acolyte" of any real world deity despite this.

===Star Wars===
* [[Star Wars]] is inconsistent on if the [[The Force]] is a religion. The Jedi and the Sith ''could'' both be considered religions as they are considered monastic, but mix in several other traits such as being meritocratic (Jedi) and kraterocratic (Sith) and Lucas himself has axed at least one prototyped book for portraying them too much as a religion. It's also notable that the Sith were former Jedi who left the Jedi path for several reasons including [[Heresy|disagreements over the teachings of that creed]]. Aside from that, religion is nearly always a non-human tradition, something noted in a culture's historical background and never seen implying its extinction, or a scam. The religiously linked "damn" and "hell" are the two real world swear words that exist in-universe, purely because Han Solo used them in the films, and some concept of an "angel" exists because a young Anakin told Padme about them in the prequel trilogy films.
** There are rare exceptions where a religion is fleshed out and explored, and the writing goes various directions for better or worse. A notable example is the aggressive polytheistic religion of the antagonistic Yuuzhan Vong from the EU (which the story gradually revealed was long ago perverted from benevolent roots, and this perverted form takes a few cues from Islam and Aztec mythology).

===Star Trek===
* Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry had a low opinion of religion and in his vision humanity had done away with it and was better off for it and he had no interest in adding it to the aliens. However, some of the cast and crew disagreed and occasionally references and religions found their way into the show, which increased after Roddenberry's death. The Federation's culture is distinctly humanistic (extending the concept to alien species) in it's outlook in which religion is regarded as a thing of the past.
** While there are plenty of "Godlike" entities in Star Trek, almost all are treated as Sufficiently Advanced Aliens in the Arthur C. Clarke sense--and in particular, in ST:TNG, the flip side, that Picard and his crew are frequently shown to look like Gods to sufficiently primitive aliens, is gone into in more than one episode.
** The Bajorans are a highly religious alien race, with the majority following peaceful teachings and a minority of violent extremists.
*** Of some note, the Bajoran religion is of interest because their "Gods" actually exist, and can be (somewhat incomprehensibly) talked to (a rarity outside of [[Science Fantasy]]). In other words, they were frequently a method of having some religion vs. science debates where the divine entity (A) explicitly exists, (B) is explainable as "sufficiently advanced and unusual aliens", and (C) aren't jerks, just bad at communication with those of us who experience time linearly--in other words, with a deck that wasn't quite as badly stacked. The religiosity was meant to be as a way of contrasting the Starfleet personnel with the native population and to draw a parallel between Bajorans under the Cardassian Occupation and various real world recently freed oppressed religious-slash-ethnic groups.
** <s>In the fifth Star Trek movie, ''"The Final Frontier"'', some of the crew steal the Enterprise to look for God and instead find a powerful alien being impersonating God in the center of the universe</s> '''Just like there is no live-action movie of Avatar: The Last Airbender, there is totally no Star Trek 5!'''

===World of Darkness===
* Very large books could be written about religion and [[World of Darkness]]/Chronicles of Darkness. We'll just cover a few highlights:
** From [[Vampire: The Requiem]], there's the the Lancea et Sanctum, which might be best described as "Christianity for Vampires", and the Circle of the Crone, which is "Pagan Vampires". Both have Vampire miracles on tap (pun intended).
** [[Hunter: The Vigil]] has various religious organizations among the Compacts and Conspiracies, some very similar to real world ones, others...not so much.
** [[Mage: The Ascension]] has various religious Traditions, portrayed in that highly-stereotypical and highly-depending-on-the-author way typical of old WoD.

==See also==
* [[Mythology]]

[[Category:Not related]]
[[Category:History]]

Religion

2020-04-17T07:40:35Z

2406:3400:20F:FFC0:A945:1FE6:1D76:A2F4: /* Somewhat special cases */

{{topquote|Science investigates; religion interprets. Science gives man knowledge, which is power; religion gives man wisdom, which is control. Science deals mainly with facts; religion deals mainly with values. The two are not rivals.|Martin Luther King, Jr}}

:'''Dracula''': ''I was called here by, huuuuumans, who wish to pay me tribute!''
:'''Richter Belmont''': ''Tribute?! You steal men's souls! And make them your slaves!''
:'''Dracula''': ''Perhaps the same could be said of all religions.''
::--An excerpt from the infamous exchange that also gave us "What is a man? A miserable little pile of secrets" in [[Castlevania#Castlevania:_Symphony_Of_The_Night_.28Castlevania_9.29|Castlevania: Symphony of the Night.]]

Because it's important to several settings and RPG systems, particularly ones that are high-profile or relevant to /tg/, we have a religion article. Let's try and keep it focused on the directly-related-to-/tg/ stuff and not descend into the pure [[skub]] that can arise in discussions of real-life religions, okay?

==Definition of Religion==
Almost since the inception of the term, scholars have failed to agree on a definition of religion. While there are some belief systems that always count as religions, some have applied the term to various things such as political ideologies, or groups when they reach a certain point. There are however two general definition systems: the sociological/functional and the phenomenological/philosophical.

The two most widely accepted are:
* "a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, that is to say things set apart and forbidden - beliefs and practices which unite into one single moral community called a church, all those who adhere to them."
* "a comprehensive worldview or 'metaphysical moral vision' that is accepted as binding because it is held to be in itself basically true and just even if all dimensions of it cannot be either fully confirmed or refuted".

As stated before, one common element that every religion which fits the criteria has is humanity's relation to supernatural forces, as all of them have at least one [[God|god]] and/or an afterlife even where there are exceptions; Buddhism doesn't have any gods but has afterlives, and Taoism doesn't have an afterlife but does have a pantheistic concept of a god as a supernatural force.

Like other terms for heavily [[SJW|debated]] [[communism|subjects]], religion and religious have also been used as insults or Snarl Words in social and political discussions (especially from the 20th century and onwards) to ridicule groups openly promoting something the user disagrees with. This snarl creates a caricature of the group to smear them by association with the worst excesses/negative stereotypes of real-world religious people (like being too preachy, judgmental, irrational, hypocritical, or pressuring everyone to convert).

==Religion vs. Mythology==
While [[Mythology|mythologies]] aren't religions in and of themselves, every religion has a mythology. While mythologies are merely the accounts of supernatural events, religions add rituals and practices that link those mythologies directly to the lives of their believers in one form or another, typically by describing how to properly serve to a god (or multiple gods, it depends) a significant role in the mythology a given religion is derived from. [[Skub|Whatever the source]], the mythology almost always predates the religion. As a result, especially since the Fantasy genre deals in supernatural beings and forces, most if not all fantasy settings have religions. Science fiction does to a lesser degree, mostly because during the Golden Age of sci-fi empiricists and secular humanists were attracted to the genre and their views often seeped into their stories. Despite this, given that most real-life societies have had religions playing a role in or since their founding, religions are still found in sci-fi.

Religions involves belief systems and practices, where an adherent can call upon the power/being the religion is focused on to give them aid in [[cleric|various]] [[Paladin|ways]], depending at the very least on the religion and the task in question. Given that religions are about people's place in the world, how it was made, ideas on how life should be lived and how humans should relate to the supernatural, they have major implications for societies. Given that people can become [[Exarch|dangerously single-minded]] about a cause, people can be become extremists about their religion, regardless of the fact that [[Heironeous|some]] are more benevolent than [[Asmodeus|others]] and in numerous cases even [[Heresy|if it involves going against the religion's teachings]]; in conjunction with the above this means religious conflicts can become widespread, long-lasting, cause carnage and also involve other elements such as politics- both in fantasy and in the real world.

==Role in Society==
A person's belief (for or against) any or all religions is a major factor in their worldview, and as such often serves as the undercurrent for all others. This is because this belief shapes people's views on the big things such as the purpose of life, how life should be lived in relation to oneself and others and what happens to people after they die. On the upside, this often leads to teachings with the goal of unity, peace, charity and co-operation as per the teachings of most religions, some of which are adapted by or also found among non-religious systems. On the downside, this can lead to clashes over how the people involved do the will of whichever beings or forces they follow, which religion should be followed or whether or not people should follow a god or religion at all. This can involve arguments and factionalizing, or in some cases worse things like pogroms and wars. Since they are an overarching and fairly common element in cultures, they often appear or are referenced in fiction.

The most common religious belief systems are the Abrahamic family of religions (primarily Judaism, Christianity and Islam) which are Monotheistic (belief in a singular God) and share many common elements and root, with - at the time this was written - Christianity being the most followed religion globally. Historically, these and other religions were frequently enshrined in law as the "state religion", giving them special privileges such as extensive influence over the government or tax exemptions. In some cases, they even took over the functions of the government entirely in a system known as theocracy; while uncommon in the present day, theocracies are still in use in places such as the Vatican and Saudi Arabia.

Within the last few centuries, due to events such as the French Revolution, there has also been a significant amount of anti-religious sentiment, which regards religion as at best redundant and at worst destructive (beyond historical grievances with specific groups within religions, reasons for this view and whether or not those arguments have any merit, shall not be discussed here). For the most part, a combination of people identifying more with their culture or nation than their religion and the concept that religion and functions of state should not interfere with each other has turned into more of a "live and let live" mentality that doesn't really support or oppose any one religion and only reacts when said religions begin actively defying the state.

Interestingly, numerous tyrannical regimes have tried to restrict or stamp out religions. This is because religious teachings put the figure/object of worship before the state in a conflict of interest, most religions teachings condemn many of the things tyrannical leaders indulge in, tyrants dislike competition for their subjects' fealty, tyrants dislike being answerable to anyone besides themselves, the tyrant may be prejudiced, or any combo of the above. While nations have ususlly tried to block specific religions deemed "false" (read: religions opposing the state-sponsored religion in any way), several nations (usually [[Communism|Communist]] states which took Marx's "religion is the opiate of the masses" quote out of context, as Marx viewed religion was a sort of protest against oppression that relieved people's immediate suffering and gave them the strength to go on living while also drawing their attention away from the class system that produced their oppression; subsequently, he believed that following the establishment of a communist society, religion would disappear as it would no longer be needed) have tried to get rid of religion altogether, albeit with horrifying [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/League_of_Militant_Atheists results] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khmer_Rouge_rule_of_Cambodia#Religious_communities each] time. Best case scenario, they sidegrade from one set of problems to another as cults of personality (commonly ones based on the ruler in charge) spring up to exploit the newly created power vacuum formerly filled by an established religion while believers who manage to survive the regime try to continue their activities in secret.

Unsurprisingly, the most religious nations are theocracies such as the Catholic theocracy running Vatican City and the Islamic theocracy running Saudi Arabia. China is - at the time this was written - the world's least religious and most atheistic country (the situation around North Korea is [[Skub|debatable]], since even though they violently supress religions [https://www.foxnews.com/world/north-korea-publicly-executes-80-some-for-videos-or-bibles-report-says to the point that merely having copies of religious texts can be grounds for execution], they also have the Kim Cult blended with the Marxist offshoot ideology Juche).

==How this impacts /tg/==
A few major ways. Since most if not every society in real-life has had religion either be the basis for its founding or play a role in it, religion is just as involved in the backstory or current lore of settings. There are three major "modes" of /tg/ settings and related fictions:
* The purely functional where religions are a story device.
* Religions and/or those they worship are portrayed positively as some sort of endorsement of religiosity.
* Religions and/or those they worship are portrayed negatively as some sort of criticism of religiosity.

===Religion as a story device===
Compared to the two types of writers found below, these writers are usually just attempting to model their work after real-world [[Mythology]] and are frequently attempting to keep their views of Religion separate from their work. Frequently comes in one of two subspecies:
* The [[Standard Fantasy Setting]] default: The world is ruled by an ordinary polytheistic pantheon, usually close to some admixture of Norse and Greek mythologies. Some of them also have a Top God - one more powerful than all the others and maybe the in-universe creator of everything - who is mostly hands-off in cosmic affairs. The gods of these religions tend to focus on specific areas (gods of [[Paladin|Justice]] and [[Druid|Nature]] are common, for subtly obvious reasons) and frequently want their followers to propagate or promote these things.
* The kind of setting they wanted to make dictated the nature of the divine. For example, in [[Exalted]] just about all the figures anybody would call a "God" (besides the Exalted) are Useless, because the Exalted (which includes the Player Characters) are the guys who were made specifically to do whatever the gods needed them to do for reasons inherent to the setting, to go with the main theme of the setting for the PCs: "You can do '''almost anything''', except ''avoid the consequences of being the one who did that anything''".

===Religion as a Bad Thing===
There are several writers of Science Fiction and Fantasy that are of the opinion "Religion Is Bad", often alongside having an axe to grind (sometimes warranted, sometimes not) with either one or more specific real-life religions. This is more common in Sci-Fi than fantasy because the focus on science appeals to the naturalist, empiricist and/or humanist worldview of such writers, with the supernatural being seen as an obstacle to that. Despite that, the view is found among some fantasy authors as well, such as the author of the book series "His Dark Materials", Philip Pullman (he wrote it as an anti-theistic and anti-religious response to C.S Lewis' "Chronicles of Narnia" series). Whatever the genre, this comes in flavors of either "The Gods Don't Exist", "The Gods are Incompetent" (more on that below) or "The Gods are Evil". Cosmic Horror also tends to use the "Gods Don't Exist" or "Gods are Evil" route, or combine them into "The Gods are actually Incomprehensible and Destructive Aliens" (for example; the author who codified the genre, [[H.P. Lovecraft]], was an avowed anti-religious atheist). This also has the side effect of inclining science fiction towards an atheistic perspective.

Another major component is personal issues of the author such as grievance or prejudice, but that's case-by-case and a major can of worms. Worst case scenario, the story is a wish fulfillment power fantasy against a religion or specific religious people. Whatever the motivation, writers saying this message often model their fictional religions on the - occasionally exaggerated - worst excesses of real world religious people and lift imagery from those religions or groups among them. Popular targets are Christianity, Islam, any faith that practiced human sacrifice (such as the Aztec religious practices), and Scientology. Cults, especially those with beliefs that mainstream religions consider unorthodox or outright heretical, are especially fertile ground for this message, albeit running the risk of being misapplied to tar other groups with the same brush.

===Religion as a Good Thing===
There are several religious Science Fiction and Fantasy writers who either want to promote their worldview, look upon religion positively and put that into the story (who may or may not be religious themselves) or both. This is more common in Fantasy than Sci-fi, partly because with the supernatural being THE fundamental element of the genre this opens opportunities to explore many aspects of religiosity. This is less common in science-fiction, but not unheard of, such as Carl Sagan's novel "Contact" where God's signature is found in the digits of pi. These authors usually put more thought into their fictional religion plus its central figure (although they have a tendency to go all "Crystal Dragon Jesus"), and try and have it be at least a somewhat good influence, although religious institutions and leaders are usually hit-and-miss affairs.

Some people make a fictional setting with figures from real-world religions, either in the real-world or [[CS Lewis|an alternate world such as Narnia like C.S Lewis did]]. Others use fictional religions that either visually resemble real-life religions or figures from them; religions that often get this treatment are the Abrahamic faiths (most often Christianity), Greek mythology, Egyptian mythology and Norse mythology (albeit often a sanitized version of the latter three). In other cases they all but abandon any form of subtlety, with the fictional religion being distinguished from the real-world religion the author follows by only a handful of minor changes. Naturally, those kinds of works tend to come off as preachy, to say the least.

Another route this uses is the route that faith itself provides the power; think of Morpheus' "your mind makes it real" quote, or the "[[Belief Function|Clap Your Hands If you Believe]]" trope. In fact, Warhammer often goes the route that the gods are powered by faith as well as from their sphere of influence which has either [[Sigmar|caused some people have risen to godhood]] or [[Ynnead|caused new gods to be born in the setting]]. In fact, this has proven the greatest weapon against Chaos in every Warhammer setting (and why the Emperor's plan to starve the Chaos Gods with atheism was doomed to fail from the start).

===Somewhat special cases===

One somewhat special case is the "Religion of Evil"; in many settings, there is a religion that is explicitly capital E Evil and seeks one of the usual "Card Carrying Villain" goals of Control, Conquest, Corruption, or Destruction. Frequently has some admixture of the worst aspects of Roman Paganism, Norse practices, the Aztec, Scientology and/or the various Abrahamic religions. They also often draw from those found in the writings of H.P Lovecraft. If this cult directly worships an individual Evil God, expect whatever makes sense for that deity to be some form of destructive activity--e.g., the cult of the God of Murder demands human sacrifice on a regular basis, with a certain portion of that explicitly being not-careful-enough cultists. Regardless, Religions of Evil can show up in all three above modes, and usually has a special purpose in all three:

* Functionalists (and, for that matter, all three) need bad guys. In particular, a group who by definition is Evil is always good for some no-need-to-worry-about-the-ethics-or-morality-of-killing fodder (based on the idea that everyone in is group is evil because you have to do evil to be part of the group).
* Religion is Bad types tend to use them to say either "while they're all Bad, some are worse then others", or say "Religion can be used to justify anything". Occasionally a prejudiced writer uses it as a strawman to tar all with the same brush or they have an axe to grind against a specific real-life religion and/or its followers.
* The sincerely religious tend to use them as analogies with fanaticism, criticize Real World cults, compare different beliefs or deal with negative aspects of religion (occasionally making jabs at competitive religions, or fellow believers the author disagrees with).
** As a side note, a lot of fantasy has moved slightly away from pure Religions of Evil, for much the same reason as [[Always Chaotic Evil]] races (audiences and authors nowdays demand more motive for their villains). While there are still plenty of them, they usually add some nuance that makes them at least morally neutral under their own lights. Popular options are for them to be an off-shoot/denomination/subset of another religion and/or be taking vengeance for a real or perceived wrong or injustice (which has '''plenty''' of real-life precedent).

[[Urban Fantasy]] writers are another special case, since almost all Urban Fantasy is set in something that might be called "the real world with a twist", with all the usual political trouble that implies. As a result, they can take one of a few routes:
* The most common route is "there are many possible explanations" and vague things up as much as possible ([[True Faith|Faith]] being the power that repels [[Vampire]]s rather than than a cross having any actual connection to a deity is a popular one).
* The second most common route (which is rarer outside of Cosmic Horror) is the "Religion as a Bad Thing" route from above. The story is straight up atheistic/"Religion is Bad" [[Imperial Truth|propaganda]], and in practice the writer often has an axe to grind against a specific religion. It's a popular choice for writers trying to be [[Edgy]] who want to include religious subject matter in their stories, and they almost exclusively go after the most followed religion in the area. Furthermore, any fictional religions will most likely be thinly-veiled stand-ins for real life religions.
* Some Urban Fantasy works with a clear correct religion exist thanks to the above mentioned sincerely religious authors, which are typically [[Chick Tracts|barely veiled proselytizing]] or [[Twilight|just straight up terrible]], though [[Monster Hunter International|there are some good ones]].
* The fourth route, taken most notably by [[Supers|DC and Marvel comics]] among others, is to take an "All Myths are True" approach: All religions are sort of true, but none have any exclusivity to the Truth, so Thor and Athena might have the Archangel Michael on speeddial when the Orochi teams up with Apep to start making trouble in their neighborhoods (because "Mikey really likes kicking serpent tail, and gets annoyed when we don't at least try to invite him to an evil serpent ass-kicking."). Differs from the "vague things up" route by being clearer on some details, and also much more gonzo. The Abrahamic God is the exception here: He's usually kept especially vague, albeit more powerful (and yet infinitely less accessible) than anyone else in the setting, and only referred to by some codephrase (Marvel likes "The One Above All", DC generally goes for "The Presence" or "whatever is behind the Source Wall").

===Miscellaneous Observations===

Doing the "The Gods are Incompetent" thing (the similar but different "The Gods are Insane", "The Gods Are Assholes" and "The Gods Don't Actually Do Anything" routes also falls under this umbrella) can go into any of the three modes; in a sincere monotheist's (such as Christian) work, it can be a "Take That" to polytheistic religions; in a "Religion is Bad" atheist's, it can be one to religion in general; in a Buddhist-influenced work, it can be a part of the whole "even the Gods are tied up in the Wheel of Karma" concept; and, even if the author is not pushing any religious message in any way, there's a neutral, plot-structural reason to go "Incompetent Gods": it can make the adventurers the Most Competent People Available since if that wasn't the case there wouldn't be anything for the adventurers to do.

If a work has multiple writers, (as frequently happens with RPG and Wargame settings, and quite a few popular SciFi/Fantasy ones as well) there's a tendency for the writers to try and pull the setting into one of the other two "modes" depending on their personal views. This leads to the theme changing from one side to the other as the story progresses. A recent example is [[World of Warcraft|the spate of retcons to the cosmology of the Warcraft universe]] and the morality of its fundamental forces/dominant higher powers, the Light and the Void. If the story doesn't get focused on a pro-religion or anti-religion message, it may end up swinging back and forth between both sides or settle in a mid-point which doesn't take a strong stance either way.

Note that members of the "Religion is Bad" and "Religion is Good" brigades will get involved in arguments over the relative morality or "goodness" of various factions in the story and the accuracy of any messages a writer presents. Often history buffs will throw their hat into the ring as well.

==Examples of /tg/ connected fictional religions==
===Warhammer 40k===
* The [[Imperial Truth]] was originally the Emperor's plan on beliefs, which he and his servants propagated throughout the galaxy during the Great Crusade. Attempting to wean mankind away from Chaos and being a firm member of the "Religion is Bad" brigade, the Emperor proclaimed there are no gods, and religion had to be abolished willingly or by force while science or reason are to be used for explaining the universe and morality. Everything transpired according to his design, except theistic religiosity in the 40k universe is the best weapon against Chaos so Emp's interstellar state atheism policy gave them a major opening. Things went from bad to worse when people started looking up to the Emperor as a god himself and [[Exterminatus|he responded accordingly]]. After the Horus Heresy and the Emperor's removal from galactic politics: the Imperial Truth was slowly shelved in favor of the Imperial Cult, to the point that espousing the teachings of the Truth is ironically considered heresy. Only a few practitioners of the Imperial Truth remain, most notably the Custodes and the Space Marines (both of whom know The Emperor better than anybody to worship him as a god. Plus, their religious autonomy.).
** The [[Imperial Cult]] is the present-day religion of the Imperium of Man, and is a mix of several Abrahamic Religions along with copious amounts of warmongering, fanaticism and xenophobia. Derived from the Lectitio Divinatus penned by [[Lorgar]] pre-HH, the Cult decrees that because the Emperor is capable of all these miracles and power: he ''must'' be a god, and why you should worship and pledge loyalty to him. Its a complete 180 from the Emperor's original teachings, and has simultaneously been responsible for damning and saving the Imperium past the clusterfuck of the Horus Heresy. It's unknown whether the Emperor still abhors godhood and religion and would abolish it the moment he could, or if he's resigned himself to becoming the very thing he fought against for mankind to persevere in these trying times. Whatever the case, he didn't want to be a god, but now he has no choice but to become one.
** The [[Adeptus Mechanicus|Cult Mechanicus]] (Machine Cult) is the religion of the Adeptus Mechanicus, placing a heavy emphasis on machines, viewing them as gifts from the Machine God called "The Omnissiah" Officially, the Omnissiah is The Emperor, which allows the Mechanicus to sidestep the more puritan pundits of the Imperial Cult (we worship The Emprah, just not how you do it). Unofficially, the Omnissiah may or may not be the C'tan god: The Void Dragon. It also has a high emphasis on the collection of knowledge, and one of the Admech's roles in the galaxy is to explore remote and uncharted regions of space to find and search for knowledge that has been lost throughout the millennia. The last of these, is guidelines on machines and knowledge. Officially, heretic(tek) and xeno works are to be abhorred and disposed of, viewing them as perversions of the holy Machine God's works. Unofficially however, more liberally-minded and higher-ranked Magos would happily hoard heretek/xeno works, seeing their potential over the more restricted and constrained works of the Mechanicus.

* Chaos is a violent and complicated henotheistic (believing in multiple gods but only worshipping one) or polytheistic religion with dozens, if not hundreds of interpretations. Even then, there's more sub-cults that worship their particular god in a specific way, either minutely or vastly different from everyone else among followers of the Big 4. And this doesn't even get into the realm of Chaos Undivided (which worships the concept of Chaos itself, instead of the individual gods) and [[Malal]]. Chaos has very little established guidelines regarding worship, apart from their patron god's/gods' general likes/dislikes, so any religious practices or rituals are either based on commands from the god/s or up to the imagination of the cult.
** Interestingly, there is a Space Marine of the Chaos faction who follows the Imperial Truth, and that is [[Fabius Bile]].

* All Greenskins worship Gork and Mork (jury's out on whether the [[Gretchin Revolutionary Committee]] do), but are too disorganized to have anything like a formal religion, though they do make effigies of Gork and Mork and call on them. The closest thing they have to tenants is that Gork favors violence, Mork favors cunning. Greenskins have gotten into fights over this, but violence is part of their nature and that of their gods. While they fight over religion, they also fight over almost any dispute anyway, and may even start a religious argument just to enjoy a good fight among themselves (though the only theological argument they can formulate is "is Gork the god of cunning or is Mork?" or vica versa). Religion doesn't play a significant role in Ork society compared to the other races.

* The Tau's creed "The [[Greater Good]]" is a specie-wide philosophy that was adopted ever since the initial unification of the Tau in the olden days. In a nutshell, the Greater Good emphasizes the co-existence of all Tau and sapient life in general into working together for a common goal to further the Tau's progress, seeing everyone's potential and hoping to utilize that for an, ahem, greater good. Personal religion isn't forbidden, but it must not contradict or override The Greater Good, and must be disregarded if it ever does so. Technically, this means Tau can be religious or non-religious, as the Greater Good is not a religion (due to lacking an afterlife and supernatural aspects, with the closest things to figures of worship being the Ethereals). This sounds all fine and dandy, but the Ethereal class, who are responsible for maintaining The Greater Good, have been shown to be less benevolent than believed and have been using their unnaturally powerful charisma to subtly oppress the Tau and use them to further their own agendas.
**The Farsight Enclaves, who have thrown off Ethereal rule, are the exception in that they have rejected The Greater Good, seeing it as the method of oppression used to keep the T'au under complete control of the ethereals. Due to this, if one considers the Greater Good a religion, The Enclaves are irreligious.
**As of the 4th Sphere Expansion disaster, Chaos Tau are starting to become a thing.
**At one point, the Earth Caste gathered Genestealer-infected Tau and studied them to see what would happen. Of course, a Genestealer cult developed and naturally they violently escaped control and surveillance. According to rumors, they've even produced a Genestealer-infected Ethereal.

* The Eldar have varying views on religiosity depending on their type. Their religion is polytheistic, with henotheistic offshoots, and Ausryan was the highest ranking god. However all of the Eldar gods were murder-raped to death by Slaanesh except for Isha (taken by Nurgle), Khaine (shattered and flung into realspace), Cegorach (hiding in the Webway) and Ynnead (born long after Slaanesh's birth). Their Pantheon's religious practices aren't fleshed out save for those of Cegorach, Isha, and Khaine, via the Harlequins and Aspect Warriors. With most of their gods out of commission, Eldar religious worship is of a deistic bent.
** Craftworlders and Exodites almost exclusively worship the original Eldar pantheon, though some engage in henotheistic worship of only one of the gods. Asuryan is more popular among Craftworlders while Isha is among Exodites, though nearly all give Khaine some tribute during war.
** Corsairs are all over the place, though Khaine is a popular choice given their more militant nature.
** Being agents of the Laughing God himself, the Harlequins' worship is centered around [[Cegorach]], whilst still paying minor tribute to the other gods.
** The new faith around Ynnead, the Ynnari, is rapidly growing but have yet to establish teachings or rituals.
** Unique among the Eldar, the Dark Eldar are irreligious for the most part and while they believe some gods exist they're too self-centered to worship them (this is canon). They're often also anti-religious to boot; a major landmark of Commorragh is a landfill of religious icons called Iconoclast's Mound, and one Wych cult - the Pain Eternal - revolves around killing religious people and destroying shrines and holy sites. The sole exception, except for Dark Eldar who stop being Dark Eldar, are the [[Incubi]] who hold [[Khaine]] in high regard.
** There are numerous rumors of a very small number of Chaos Eldar, but these are barely fleshed out and heavily classified in-universe. There have been verified Nurgle-worshipping Eldar and persistent rumors that some have embraced Slaanesh without becoming soul-food. Apart from this, some Dark Eldar have been willing to summon Chaos Daemons or work with Chaos worshippers ([[Fabius Bile|or allies of Chaos]]) to further their own ends.

* While the Necrontyr had religions before certain [[C'tan|star entities]] [[Necrons|roboticizied them]], those aren't fleshed out or detailed. Its also heavily implied the C'tan co-opted the Necrontyr religion beforehand. With the change to Necrons taking the higher though processes of most of them, any Necrons who can comprehend faith and religiosity either worship the C'tan or have become irreligious.

* The Tyranids themselves are irreligious, being spehss bugs and all, but understand at least a few of the advantages of religion. [[Genestealer]]s infect people and together they establish cults on targeted worlds, such as one worshipping "Children of the Stars", a perversion of the Imperial Cult or something else like "Celebrants of Nihilism" (yes, that's a canon Genestealer cult name). Psychic influence is often involved and, notably, the Genestealers do not consider themselves gods. Once the Tyranids arrive en-masse, the cult-gets assimilated along with all non-Tyranids willingly or not. An interesting tidbit is that the Hive Mind stops the Tyranids from attacking the cultists in early stages of the invasion and leads them on, only to later override the Genestealers' wills and and make them slaughter the cultists.

===Dungeons and Dragons===
* Among Dungeons and Dragons settings, [[Planescape]], [[Eberron]], and [[Pathfinder]] are notable for having some coherent things that could be called "Religions", rather then the usual generic Pantheism.
** Most of Planescape's Factions effectively count as religions, to the point they can produce [[Cleric]]s ([[Planescape: Torment#Fall-From-Grace|Atheist ones at that]]). Yes, even the Athar. (Perhaps ''especially'' the Athar.)
** Half of Eberron's religions aren't worship of deities. The [[Blood of Vol]] seeks to unlock the divinity within one's self and rejects the gods (if they even exist) and the [[Path of Inspiration]] seeks to improve their next reincarnation. The Undying Court worships not gods but their undead ancestors that make up their government. The [[Path of Light]], [[Warforged_Mysteries#The_Becoming_God|Becoming God]] and [[Warforged_Mysteries#The_Reforged|Reforged]] all seek to ''create'' a deity. Even some interpretations of the [[Sovereign Host]], like the one most common among dragons, don't worship them as deities. Due to the way divine casting works in Eberron, all of these can produce divine casters.
** There's a handful of religions on [[Golarion]] that aren't merely worship of pantheons. The most prominent (read: Actually has mechanical support) is the [[Prophecies of Kalistrade]], which is basically fantasy [[Star Trek|Ferengi]].

* [[D20 Modern]]'s [[Urban Arcana]], unusually for urban fantasy, has D&D deities bleed into reality alongside the monsters. You are still able to play a <s>cleric</s> "acolyte" of any real world deity despite this.

===Star Wars===
* [[Star Wars]] is inconsistent on if the [[The Force]] is a religion. The Jedi and the Sith ''could'' both be considered religions as they are considered monastic, but mix in several other traits such as being meritocratic (Jedi) and kraterocratic (Sith) and Lucas himself has axed at least one prototyped book for portraying them too much as a religion. It's also notable that the Sith were former Jedi who left the Jedi path for several reasons including [[Heresy|disagreements over the teachings of that creed]]. Aside from that, religion is nearly always a non-human tradition, something noted in a culture's historical background and never seen implying its extinction, or a scam. The religiously linked "damn" and "hell" are the two real world swear words that exist in-universe, purely because Han Solo used them in the films, and some concept of an "angel" exists because a young Anakin told Padme about them in the prequel trilogy films.
** There are rare exceptions where a religion is fleshed out and explored, and the writing goes various directions for better or worse. A notable example is the aggressive polytheistic religion of the antagonistic Yuuzhan Vong from the EU (which the story gradually revealed was long ago perverted from benevolent roots, and this perverted form takes a few cues from Islam and Aztec mythology).

===Star Trek===
* Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry had a low opinion of religion and in his vision humanity had done away with it and was better off for it and he had no interest in adding it to the aliens. However, some of the cast and crew disagreed and occasionally references and religions found their way into the show, which increased after Roddenberry's death. The Federation's culture is distinctly humanistic (extending the concept to alien species) in it's outlook in which religion is regarded as a thing of the past.
** While there are plenty of "Godlike" entities in Star Trek, almost all are treated as Sufficiently Advanced Aliens in the Arthur C. Clarke sense--and in particular, in ST:TNG, the flip side, that Picard and his crew are frequently shown to look like Gods to sufficiently primitive aliens, is gone into in more than one episode.
** The Bajorans are a highly religious alien race, with the majority following peaceful teachings and a minority of violent extremists.
*** Of some note, the Bajoran religion is of interest because their "Gods" actually exist, and can be (somewhat incomprehensibly) talked to (a rarity outside of [[Science Fantasy]]). In other words, they were frequently a method of having some religion vs. science debates where the divine entity (A) explicitly exists, (B) is explainable as "sufficiently advanced and unusual aliens", and (C) aren't jerks, just bad at communication with those of us who experience time linearly--in other words, with a deck that wasn't quite as badly stacked. The religiosity was meant to be as a way of contrasting the Starfleet personnel with the native population and to draw a parallel between Bajorans under the Cardassian Occupation and various real world recently freed oppressed religious-slash-ethnic groups.
** <s>In the fifth Star Trek movie, ''"The Final Frontier"'', some of the crew steal the Enterprise to look for God and instead find a powerful alien being impersonating God in the center of the universe</s> '''Just like there is no live-action movie of Avatar: The Last Airbender, there is totally no Star Trek 5!'''

===World of Darkness===
* Very large books could be written about religion and [[World of Darkness]]/Chronicles of Darkness. We'll just cover a few highlights:
** From [[Vampire: The Requiem]], there's the the Lancea et Sanctum, which might be best described as "Christianity for Vampires", and the Circle of the Crone, which is "Pagan Vampires". Both have Vampire miracles on tap (pun intended).
** [[Hunter: The Vigil]] has various religious organizations among the Compacts and Conspiracies, some very similar to real world ones, others...not so much.
** [[Mage: The Ascension]] has various religious Traditions, portrayed in that highly-stereotypical and highly-depending-on-the-author way typical of old WoD.

==See also==
* [[Mythology]]

[[Category:Not related]]
[[Category:History]]

Religion

2020-04-17T07:37:43Z

2406:3400:20F:FFC0:A945:1FE6:1D76:A2F4: /* Religion as a Bad Thing */

{{topquote|Science investigates; religion interprets. Science gives man knowledge, which is power; religion gives man wisdom, which is control. Science deals mainly with facts; religion deals mainly with values. The two are not rivals.|Martin Luther King, Jr}}

:'''Dracula''': ''I was called here by, huuuuumans, who wish to pay me tribute!''
:'''Richter Belmont''': ''Tribute?! You steal men's souls! And make them your slaves!''
:'''Dracula''': ''Perhaps the same could be said of all religions.''
::--An excerpt from the infamous exchange that also gave us "What is a man? A miserable little pile of secrets" in [[Castlevania#Castlevania:_Symphony_Of_The_Night_.28Castlevania_9.29|Castlevania: Symphony of the Night.]]

Because it's important to several settings and RPG systems, particularly ones that are high-profile or relevant to /tg/, we have a religion article. Let's try and keep it focused on the directly-related-to-/tg/ stuff and not descend into the pure [[skub]] that can arise in discussions of real-life religions, okay?

==Definition of Religion==
Almost since the inception of the term, scholars have failed to agree on a definition of religion. While there are some belief systems that always count as religions, some have applied the term to various things such as political ideologies, or groups when they reach a certain point. There are however two general definition systems: the sociological/functional and the phenomenological/philosophical.

The two most widely accepted are:
* "a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, that is to say things set apart and forbidden - beliefs and practices which unite into one single moral community called a church, all those who adhere to them."
* "a comprehensive worldview or 'metaphysical moral vision' that is accepted as binding because it is held to be in itself basically true and just even if all dimensions of it cannot be either fully confirmed or refuted".

As stated before, one common element that every religion which fits the criteria has is humanity's relation to supernatural forces, as all of them have at least one [[God|god]] and/or an afterlife even where there are exceptions; Buddhism doesn't have any gods but has afterlives, and Taoism doesn't have an afterlife but does have a pantheistic concept of a god as a supernatural force.

Like other terms for heavily [[SJW|debated]] [[communism|subjects]], religion and religious have also been used as insults or Snarl Words in social and political discussions (especially from the 20th century and onwards) to ridicule groups openly promoting something the user disagrees with. This snarl creates a caricature of the group to smear them by association with the worst excesses/negative stereotypes of real-world religious people (like being too preachy, judgmental, irrational, hypocritical, or pressuring everyone to convert).

==Religion vs. Mythology==
While [[Mythology|mythologies]] aren't religions in and of themselves, every religion has a mythology. While mythologies are merely the accounts of supernatural events, religions add rituals and practices that link those mythologies directly to the lives of their believers in one form or another, typically by describing how to properly serve to a god (or multiple gods, it depends) a significant role in the mythology a given religion is derived from. [[Skub|Whatever the source]], the mythology almost always predates the religion. As a result, especially since the Fantasy genre deals in supernatural beings and forces, most if not all fantasy settings have religions. Science fiction does to a lesser degree, mostly because during the Golden Age of sci-fi empiricists and secular humanists were attracted to the genre and their views often seeped into their stories. Despite this, given that most real-life societies have had religions playing a role in or since their founding, religions are still found in sci-fi.

Religions involves belief systems and practices, where an adherent can call upon the power/being the religion is focused on to give them aid in [[cleric|various]] [[Paladin|ways]], depending at the very least on the religion and the task in question. Given that religions are about people's place in the world, how it was made, ideas on how life should be lived and how humans should relate to the supernatural, they have major implications for societies. Given that people can become [[Exarch|dangerously single-minded]] about a cause, people can be become extremists about their religion, regardless of the fact that [[Heironeous|some]] are more benevolent than [[Asmodeus|others]] and in numerous cases even [[Heresy|if it involves going against the religion's teachings]]; in conjunction with the above this means religious conflicts can become widespread, long-lasting, cause carnage and also involve other elements such as politics- both in fantasy and in the real world.

==Role in Society==
A person's belief (for or against) any or all religions is a major factor in their worldview, and as such often serves as the undercurrent for all others. This is because this belief shapes people's views on the big things such as the purpose of life, how life should be lived in relation to oneself and others and what happens to people after they die. On the upside, this often leads to teachings with the goal of unity, peace, charity and co-operation as per the teachings of most religions, some of which are adapted by or also found among non-religious systems. On the downside, this can lead to clashes over how the people involved do the will of whichever beings or forces they follow, which religion should be followed or whether or not people should follow a god or religion at all. This can involve arguments and factionalizing, or in some cases worse things like pogroms and wars. Since they are an overarching and fairly common element in cultures, they often appear or are referenced in fiction.

The most common religious belief systems are the Abrahamic family of religions (primarily Judaism, Christianity and Islam) which are Monotheistic (belief in a singular God) and share many common elements and root, with - at the time this was written - Christianity being the most followed religion globally. Historically, these and other religions were frequently enshrined in law as the "state religion", giving them special privileges such as extensive influence over the government or tax exemptions. In some cases, they even took over the functions of the government entirely in a system known as theocracy; while uncommon in the present day, theocracies are still in use in places such as the Vatican and Saudi Arabia.

Within the last few centuries, due to events such as the French Revolution, there has also been a significant amount of anti-religious sentiment, which regards religion as at best redundant and at worst destructive (beyond historical grievances with specific groups within religions, reasons for this view and whether or not those arguments have any merit, shall not be discussed here). For the most part, a combination of people identifying more with their culture or nation than their religion and the concept that religion and functions of state should not interfere with each other has turned into more of a "live and let live" mentality that doesn't really support or oppose any one religion and only reacts when said religions begin actively defying the state.

Interestingly, numerous tyrannical regimes have tried to restrict or stamp out religions. This is because religious teachings put the figure/object of worship before the state in a conflict of interest, most religions teachings condemn many of the things tyrannical leaders indulge in, tyrants dislike competition for their subjects' fealty, tyrants dislike being answerable to anyone besides themselves, the tyrant may be prejudiced, or any combo of the above. While nations have ususlly tried to block specific religions deemed "false" (read: religions opposing the state-sponsored religion in any way), several nations (usually [[Communism|Communist]] states which took Marx's "religion is the opiate of the masses" quote out of context, as Marx viewed religion was a sort of protest against oppression that relieved people's immediate suffering and gave them the strength to go on living while also drawing their attention away from the class system that produced their oppression; subsequently, he believed that following the establishment of a communist society, religion would disappear as it would no longer be needed) have tried to get rid of religion altogether, albeit with horrifying [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/League_of_Militant_Atheists results] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khmer_Rouge_rule_of_Cambodia#Religious_communities each] time. Best case scenario, they sidegrade from one set of problems to another as cults of personality (commonly ones based on the ruler in charge) spring up to exploit the newly created power vacuum formerly filled by an established religion while believers who manage to survive the regime try to continue their activities in secret.

Unsurprisingly, the most religious nations are theocracies such as the Catholic theocracy running Vatican City and the Islamic theocracy running Saudi Arabia. China is - at the time this was written - the world's least religious and most atheistic country (the situation around North Korea is [[Skub|debatable]], since even though they violently supress religions [https://www.foxnews.com/world/north-korea-publicly-executes-80-some-for-videos-or-bibles-report-says to the point that merely having copies of religious texts can be grounds for execution], they also have the Kim Cult blended with the Marxist offshoot ideology Juche).

==How this impacts /tg/==
A few major ways. Since most if not every society in real-life has had religion either be the basis for its founding or play a role in it, religion is just as involved in the backstory or current lore of settings. There are three major "modes" of /tg/ settings and related fictions:
* The purely functional where religions are a story device.
* Religions and/or those they worship are portrayed positively as some sort of endorsement of religiosity.
* Religions and/or those they worship are portrayed negatively as some sort of criticism of religiosity.

===Religion as a story device===
Compared to the two types of writers found below, these writers are usually just attempting to model their work after real-world [[Mythology]] and are frequently attempting to keep their views of Religion separate from their work. Frequently comes in one of two subspecies:
* The [[Standard Fantasy Setting]] default: The world is ruled by an ordinary polytheistic pantheon, usually close to some admixture of Norse and Greek mythologies. Some of them also have a Top God - one more powerful than all the others and maybe the in-universe creator of everything - who is mostly hands-off in cosmic affairs. The gods of these religions tend to focus on specific areas (gods of [[Paladin|Justice]] and [[Druid|Nature]] are common, for subtly obvious reasons) and frequently want their followers to propagate or promote these things.
* The kind of setting they wanted to make dictated the nature of the divine. For example, in [[Exalted]] just about all the figures anybody would call a "God" (besides the Exalted) are Useless, because the Exalted (which includes the Player Characters) are the guys who were made specifically to do whatever the gods needed them to do for reasons inherent to the setting, to go with the main theme of the setting for the PCs: "You can do '''almost anything''', except ''avoid the consequences of being the one who did that anything''".

===Religion as a Bad Thing===
There are several writers of Science Fiction and Fantasy that are of the opinion "Religion Is Bad", often alongside having an axe to grind (sometimes warranted, sometimes not) with either one or more specific real-life religions. This is more common in Sci-Fi than fantasy because the focus on science appeals to the naturalist, empiricist and/or humanist worldview of such writers, with the supernatural being seen as an obstacle to that. Despite that, the view is found among some fantasy authors as well, such as the author of the book series "His Dark Materials", Philip Pullman (he wrote it as an anti-theistic and anti-religious response to C.S Lewis' "Chronicles of Narnia" series). Whatever the genre, this comes in flavors of either "The Gods Don't Exist", "The Gods are Incompetent" (more on that below) or "The Gods are Evil". Cosmic Horror also tends to use the "Gods Don't Exist" or "Gods are Evil" route, or combine them into "The Gods are actually Incomprehensible and Destructive Aliens" (for example; the author who codified the genre, [[H.P. Lovecraft]], was an avowed anti-religious atheist). This also has the side effect of inclining science fiction towards an atheistic perspective.

Another major component is personal issues of the author such as grievance or prejudice, but that's case-by-case and a major can of worms. Worst case scenario, the story is a wish fulfillment power fantasy against a religion or specific religious people. Whatever the motivation, writers saying this message often model their fictional religions on the - occasionally exaggerated - worst excesses of real world religious people and lift imagery from those religions or groups among them. Popular targets are Christianity, Islam, any faith that practiced human sacrifice (such as the Aztec religious practices), and Scientology. Cults, especially those with beliefs that mainstream religions consider unorthodox or outright heretical, are especially fertile ground for this message, albeit running the risk of being misapplied to tar other groups with the same brush.

===Religion as a Good Thing===
There are several religious Science Fiction and Fantasy writers who either want to promote their worldview, look upon religion positively and put that into the story (who may or may not be religious themselves) or both. This is more common in Fantasy than Sci-fi, partly because with the supernatural being THE fundamental element of the genre this opens opportunities to explore many aspects of religiosity. This is less common in science-fiction, but not unheard of, such as Carl Sagan's novel "Contact" where God's signature is found in the digits of pi. These authors usually put more thought into their fictional religion plus its central figure (although they have a tendency to go all "Crystal Dragon Jesus"), and try and have it be at least a somewhat good influence, although religious institutions and leaders are usually hit-and-miss affairs.

Some people make a fictional setting with figures from real-world religions, either in the real-world or [[CS Lewis|an alternate world such as Narnia like C.S Lewis did]]. Others use fictional religions that either visually resemble real-life religions or figures from them; religions that often get this treatment are the Abrahamic faiths (most often Christianity), Greek mythology, Egyptian mythology and Norse mythology (albeit often a sanitized version of the latter three). In other cases they all but abandon any form of subtlety, with the fictional religion being distinguished from the real-world religion the author follows by only a handful of minor changes. Naturally, those kinds of works tend to come off as preachy, to say the least.

Another route this uses is the route that faith itself provides the power; think of Morpheus' "your mind makes it real" quote, or the "[[Belief Function|Clap Your Hands If you Believe]]" trope. In fact, Warhammer often goes the route that the gods are powered by faith as well as from their sphere of influence which has either [[Sigmar|caused some people have risen to godhood]] or [[Ynnead|caused new gods to be born in the setting]]. In fact, this has proven the greatest weapon against Chaos in every Warhammer setting (and why the Emperor's plan to starve the Chaos Gods with atheism was doomed to fail from the start).

===Somewhat special cases===

One somewhat special case is the "Religion of Evil"; in many settings, there is a religion that is explicitly capital E Evil and seeks one of the usual "Card Carrying Villain" goals of Control, Conquest, Corruption, or Destruction. Frequently has some admixture of the worst aspects of Roman Paganism, Norse practices, the Aztec, Scientology and/or the various Abrahamic religions. They also often draw from those found in the writings of H.P Lovecraft. If this cult directly worships an individual Evil God, expect whatever makes sense for that deity to be some form of destructive activity--e.g., the cult of the God of Murder demands human sacrifice on a regular basis, with a certain portion of that explicitly being not-careful-enough cultists. Regardless, Religions of Evil can show up in all three above modes, and usually has a special purpose in all three:

* Functionalists (and, for that matter, all three) need bad guys. In particular, a group who by definition is Evil is always good for some no-need-to-worry-about-the-ethics-or-morality-of-killing fodder (based on the idea that everyone in is group is evil because you have to do evil to be part of the group).
* Religion is Bad types tend to use them to say either "while they're all Bad, some are worse then others", or say "Religion can be used to justify anything". Occasionally a prejudiced writer uses it as a strawman to tar all with the same brush or they have an axe to grind against a specific real-life religion and/or its followers.
* The sincerely religious tend to use them as analogies with fanaticism, criticize Real World cults, compare different beliefs or deal with negative aspects of religion (occasionally making jabs at competitive religions, or fellow believers the author disagrees with).
** As a side note, a lot of fantasy has moved slightly away from pure Religions of Evil, for much the same reason as [[Always Chaotic Evil]] races (audiences and authors nowdays demand more motive for their villains). While there are still plenty of them, they usually add some nuance that makes them at least morally neutral under their own lights. Popular options are for them to be an off-shoot/denomination/subset of another religion and/or be taking vengeance for a real or perceived wrong or injustice (which has '''plenty''' of real-life precedent).

[[Urban Fantasy]] writers are another special case, since almost all Urban Fantasy is set in something that might be called "the real world with a twist", with all the usual political trouble that implies. As a result, they can take one of a few routes:
* The most common route is "there are many possible explanations" and vague things up as much as possible ([[True Faith|Faith]] being the power that repels [[Vampire]]s rather than than a cross having any actual connection to a deity is a popular one).
* The second most common route (which is rarer outside of Cosmic Horror) is the "Religion as a Bad Thing" route from above. The story is straight up atheistic/"Religion is Bad" [[Imperial Truth|propaganda]], and in practice the writer often has an axe to grind against a specific religion. It's a popular choice for writers trying to be [[Edgy]] who want to include religious subject matter in their stories, and they almost exclusively go after the most followed religion in the area; any fictional religions will most likely be thinly-veiled stand-ins for real life religions.
* Some Urban Fantasy works with a clear correct religion exist thanks to the above mentioned sincerely religious authors, which are typically [[Chick Tracts|barely veiled proselytizing]] or [[Twilight|just straight up terrible]], though [[Monster Hunter International|there are some good ones]].
* The fourth route, taken most notably by [[Supers|DC and Marvel comics]] among others, is to take an "All Myths are True" approach: All religions are sort of true, but none have any exclusivity to the Truth, so Thor and Athena might have the Archangel Michael on speeddial when the Orochi teams up with Apep to start making trouble in their neighborhoods (because "Mikey really likes kicking serpent tail, and gets annoyed when we don't at least try to invite him to an evil serpent ass-kicking."). Differs from the "vague things up" route by being clearer on some details, and also much more gonzo. The Abrahamic God is the exception here: He's usually kept especially vague, albeit more powerful (and yet infinitely less accessible) than anyone else in the setting, and only referred to by some codephrase (Marvel likes "The One Above All", DC generally goes for "The Presence" or "whatever is behind the Source Wall").

===Miscellaneous Observations===

Doing the "The Gods are Incompetent" thing (the similar but different "The Gods are Insane", "The Gods Are Assholes" and "The Gods Don't Actually Do Anything" routes also falls under this umbrella) can go into any of the three modes; in a sincere monotheist's (such as Christian) work, it can be a "Take That" to polytheistic religions; in a "Religion is Bad" atheist's, it can be one to religion in general; in a Buddhist-influenced work, it can be a part of the whole "even the Gods are tied up in the Wheel of Karma" concept; and, even if the author is not pushing any religious message in any way, there's a neutral, plot-structural reason to go "Incompetent Gods": it can make the adventurers the Most Competent People Available since if that wasn't the case there wouldn't be anything for the adventurers to do.

If a work has multiple writers, (as frequently happens with RPG and Wargame settings, and quite a few popular SciFi/Fantasy ones as well) there's a tendency for the writers to try and pull the setting into one of the other two "modes" depending on their personal views. This leads to the theme changing from one side to the other as the story progresses. A recent example is [[World of Warcraft|the spate of retcons to the cosmology of the Warcraft universe]] and the morality of its fundamental forces/dominant higher powers, the Light and the Void. If the story doesn't get focused on a pro-religion or anti-religion message, it may end up swinging back and forth between both sides or settle in a mid-point which doesn't take a strong stance either way.

Note that members of the "Religion is Bad" and "Religion is Good" brigades will get involved in arguments over the relative morality or "goodness" of various factions in the story and the accuracy of any messages a writer presents. Often history buffs will throw their hat into the ring as well.

==Examples of /tg/ connected fictional religions==
===Warhammer 40k===
* The [[Imperial Truth]] was originally the Emperor's plan on beliefs, which he and his servants propagated throughout the galaxy during the Great Crusade. Attempting to wean mankind away from Chaos and being a firm member of the "Religion is Bad" brigade, the Emperor proclaimed there are no gods, and religion had to be abolished willingly or by force while science or reason are to be used for explaining the universe and morality. Everything transpired according to his design, except theistic religiosity in the 40k universe is the best weapon against Chaos so Emp's interstellar state atheism policy gave them a major opening. Things went from bad to worse when people started looking up to the Emperor as a god himself and [[Exterminatus|he responded accordingly]]. After the Horus Heresy and the Emperor's removal from galactic politics: the Imperial Truth was slowly shelved in favor of the Imperial Cult, to the point that espousing the teachings of the Truth is ironically considered heresy. Only a few practitioners of the Imperial Truth remain, most notably the Custodes and the Space Marines (both of whom know The Emperor better than anybody to worship him as a god. Plus, their religious autonomy.).
** The [[Imperial Cult]] is the present-day religion of the Imperium of Man, and is a mix of several Abrahamic Religions along with copious amounts of warmongering, fanaticism and xenophobia. Derived from the Lectitio Divinatus penned by [[Lorgar]] pre-HH, the Cult decrees that because the Emperor is capable of all these miracles and power: he ''must'' be a god, and why you should worship and pledge loyalty to him. Its a complete 180 from the Emperor's original teachings, and has simultaneously been responsible for damning and saving the Imperium past the clusterfuck of the Horus Heresy. It's unknown whether the Emperor still abhors godhood and religion and would abolish it the moment he could, or if he's resigned himself to becoming the very thing he fought against for mankind to persevere in these trying times. Whatever the case, he didn't want to be a god, but now he has no choice but to become one.
** The [[Adeptus Mechanicus|Cult Mechanicus]] (Machine Cult) is the religion of the Adeptus Mechanicus, placing a heavy emphasis on machines, viewing them as gifts from the Machine God called "The Omnissiah" Officially, the Omnissiah is The Emperor, which allows the Mechanicus to sidestep the more puritan pundits of the Imperial Cult (we worship The Emprah, just not how you do it). Unofficially, the Omnissiah may or may not be the C'tan god: The Void Dragon. It also has a high emphasis on the collection of knowledge, and one of the Admech's roles in the galaxy is to explore remote and uncharted regions of space to find and search for knowledge that has been lost throughout the millennia. The last of these, is guidelines on machines and knowledge. Officially, heretic(tek) and xeno works are to be abhorred and disposed of, viewing them as perversions of the holy Machine God's works. Unofficially however, more liberally-minded and higher-ranked Magos would happily hoard heretek/xeno works, seeing their potential over the more restricted and constrained works of the Mechanicus.

* Chaos is a violent and complicated henotheistic (believing in multiple gods but only worshipping one) or polytheistic religion with dozens, if not hundreds of interpretations. Even then, there's more sub-cults that worship their particular god in a specific way, either minutely or vastly different from everyone else among followers of the Big 4. And this doesn't even get into the realm of Chaos Undivided (which worships the concept of Chaos itself, instead of the individual gods) and [[Malal]]. Chaos has very little established guidelines regarding worship, apart from their patron god's/gods' general likes/dislikes, so any religious practices or rituals are either based on commands from the god/s or up to the imagination of the cult.
** Interestingly, there is a Space Marine of the Chaos faction who follows the Imperial Truth, and that is [[Fabius Bile]].

* All Greenskins worship Gork and Mork (jury's out on whether the [[Gretchin Revolutionary Committee]] do), but are too disorganized to have anything like a formal religion, though they do make effigies of Gork and Mork and call on them. The closest thing they have to tenants is that Gork favors violence, Mork favors cunning. Greenskins have gotten into fights over this, but violence is part of their nature and that of their gods. While they fight over religion, they also fight over almost any dispute anyway, and may even start a religious argument just to enjoy a good fight among themselves (though the only theological argument they can formulate is "is Gork the god of cunning or is Mork?" or vica versa). Religion doesn't play a significant role in Ork society compared to the other races.

* The Tau's creed "The [[Greater Good]]" is a specie-wide philosophy that was adopted ever since the initial unification of the Tau in the olden days. In a nutshell, the Greater Good emphasizes the co-existence of all Tau and sapient life in general into working together for a common goal to further the Tau's progress, seeing everyone's potential and hoping to utilize that for an, ahem, greater good. Personal religion isn't forbidden, but it must not contradict or override The Greater Good, and must be disregarded if it ever does so. Technically, this means Tau can be religious or non-religious, as the Greater Good is not a religion (due to lacking an afterlife and supernatural aspects, with the closest things to figures of worship being the Ethereals). This sounds all fine and dandy, but the Ethereal class, who are responsible for maintaining The Greater Good, have been shown to be less benevolent than believed and have been using their unnaturally powerful charisma to subtly oppress the Tau and use them to further their own agendas.
**The Farsight Enclaves, who have thrown off Ethereal rule, are the exception in that they have rejected The Greater Good, seeing it as the method of oppression used to keep the T'au under complete control of the ethereals. Due to this, if one considers the Greater Good a religion, The Enclaves are irreligious.
**As of the 4th Sphere Expansion disaster, Chaos Tau are starting to become a thing.
**At one point, the Earth Caste gathered Genestealer-infected Tau and studied them to see what would happen. Of course, a Genestealer cult developed and naturally they violently escaped control and surveillance. According to rumors, they've even produced a Genestealer-infected Ethereal.

* The Eldar have varying views on religiosity depending on their type. Their religion is polytheistic, with henotheistic offshoots, and Ausryan was the highest ranking god. However all of the Eldar gods were murder-raped to death by Slaanesh except for Isha (taken by Nurgle), Khaine (shattered and flung into realspace), Cegorach (hiding in the Webway) and Ynnead (born long after Slaanesh's birth). Their Pantheon's religious practices aren't fleshed out save for those of Cegorach, Isha, and Khaine, via the Harlequins and Aspect Warriors. With most of their gods out of commission, Eldar religious worship is of a deistic bent.
** Craftworlders and Exodites almost exclusively worship the original Eldar pantheon, though some engage in henotheistic worship of only one of the gods. Asuryan is more popular among Craftworlders while Isha is among Exodites, though nearly all give Khaine some tribute during war.
** Corsairs are all over the place, though Khaine is a popular choice given their more militant nature.
** Being agents of the Laughing God himself, the Harlequins' worship is centered around [[Cegorach]], whilst still paying minor tribute to the other gods.
** The new faith around Ynnead, the Ynnari, is rapidly growing but have yet to establish teachings or rituals.
** Unique among the Eldar, the Dark Eldar are irreligious for the most part and while they believe some gods exist they're too self-centered to worship them (this is canon). They're often also anti-religious to boot; a major landmark of Commorragh is a landfill of religious icons called Iconoclast's Mound, and one Wych cult - the Pain Eternal - revolves around killing religious people and destroying shrines and holy sites. The sole exception, except for Dark Eldar who stop being Dark Eldar, are the [[Incubi]] who hold [[Khaine]] in high regard.
** There are numerous rumors of a very small number of Chaos Eldar, but these are barely fleshed out and heavily classified in-universe. There have been verified Nurgle-worshipping Eldar and persistent rumors that some have embraced Slaanesh without becoming soul-food. Apart from this, some Dark Eldar have been willing to summon Chaos Daemons or work with Chaos worshippers ([[Fabius Bile|or allies of Chaos]]) to further their own ends.

* While the Necrontyr had religions before certain [[C'tan|star entities]] [[Necrons|roboticizied them]], those aren't fleshed out or detailed. Its also heavily implied the C'tan co-opted the Necrontyr religion beforehand. With the change to Necrons taking the higher though processes of most of them, any Necrons who can comprehend faith and religiosity either worship the C'tan or have become irreligious.

* The Tyranids themselves are irreligious, being spehss bugs and all, but understand at least a few of the advantages of religion. [[Genestealer]]s infect people and together they establish cults on targeted worlds, such as one worshipping "Children of the Stars", a perversion of the Imperial Cult or something else like "Celebrants of Nihilism" (yes, that's a canon Genestealer cult name). Psychic influence is often involved and, notably, the Genestealers do not consider themselves gods. Once the Tyranids arrive en-masse, the cult-gets assimilated along with all non-Tyranids willingly or not. An interesting tidbit is that the Hive Mind stops the Tyranids from attacking the cultists in early stages of the invasion and leads them on, only to later override the Genestealers' wills and and make them slaughter the cultists.

===Dungeons and Dragons===
* Among Dungeons and Dragons settings, [[Planescape]], [[Eberron]], and [[Pathfinder]] are notable for having some coherent things that could be called "Religions", rather then the usual generic Pantheism.
** Most of Planescape's Factions effectively count as religions, to the point they can produce [[Cleric]]s ([[Planescape: Torment#Fall-From-Grace|Atheist ones at that]]). Yes, even the Athar. (Perhaps ''especially'' the Athar.)
** Half of Eberron's religions aren't worship of deities. The [[Blood of Vol]] seeks to unlock the divinity within one's self and rejects the gods (if they even exist) and the [[Path of Inspiration]] seeks to improve their next reincarnation. The Undying Court worships not gods but their undead ancestors that make up their government. The [[Path of Light]], [[Warforged_Mysteries#The_Becoming_God|Becoming God]] and [[Warforged_Mysteries#The_Reforged|Reforged]] all seek to ''create'' a deity. Even some interpretations of the [[Sovereign Host]], like the one most common among dragons, don't worship them as deities. Due to the way divine casting works in Eberron, all of these can produce divine casters.
** There's a handful of religions on [[Golarion]] that aren't merely worship of pantheons. The most prominent (read: Actually has mechanical support) is the [[Prophecies of Kalistrade]], which is basically fantasy [[Star Trek|Ferengi]].

* [[D20 Modern]]'s [[Urban Arcana]], unusually for urban fantasy, has D&D deities bleed into reality alongside the monsters. You are still able to play a <s>cleric</s> "acolyte" of any real world deity despite this.

===Star Wars===
* [[Star Wars]] is inconsistent on if the [[The Force]] is a religion. The Jedi and the Sith ''could'' both be considered religions as they are considered monastic, but mix in several other traits such as being meritocratic (Jedi) and kraterocratic (Sith) and Lucas himself has axed at least one prototyped book for portraying them too much as a religion. It's also notable that the Sith were former Jedi who left the Jedi path for several reasons including [[Heresy|disagreements over the teachings of that creed]]. Aside from that, religion is nearly always a non-human tradition, something noted in a culture's historical background and never seen implying its extinction, or a scam. The religiously linked "damn" and "hell" are the two real world swear words that exist in-universe, purely because Han Solo used them in the films, and some concept of an "angel" exists because a young Anakin told Padme about them in the prequel trilogy films.
** There are rare exceptions where a religion is fleshed out and explored, and the writing goes various directions for better or worse. A notable example is the aggressive polytheistic religion of the antagonistic Yuuzhan Vong from the EU (which the story gradually revealed was long ago perverted from benevolent roots, and this perverted form takes a few cues from Islam and Aztec mythology).

===Star Trek===
* Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry had a low opinion of religion and in his vision humanity had done away with it and was better off for it and he had no interest in adding it to the aliens. However, some of the cast and crew disagreed and occasionally references and religions found their way into the show, which increased after Roddenberry's death. The Federation's culture is distinctly humanistic (extending the concept to alien species) in it's outlook in which religion is regarded as a thing of the past.
** While there are plenty of "Godlike" entities in Star Trek, almost all are treated as Sufficiently Advanced Aliens in the Arthur C. Clarke sense--and in particular, in ST:TNG, the flip side, that Picard and his crew are frequently shown to look like Gods to sufficiently primitive aliens, is gone into in more than one episode.
** The Bajorans are a highly religious alien race, with the majority following peaceful teachings and a minority of violent extremists.
*** Of some note, the Bajoran religion is of interest because their "Gods" actually exist, and can be (somewhat incomprehensibly) talked to (a rarity outside of [[Science Fantasy]]). In other words, they were frequently a method of having some religion vs. science debates where the divine entity (A) explicitly exists, (B) is explainable as "sufficiently advanced and unusual aliens", and (C) aren't jerks, just bad at communication with those of us who experience time linearly--in other words, with a deck that wasn't quite as badly stacked. The religiosity was meant to be as a way of contrasting the Starfleet personnel with the native population and to draw a parallel between Bajorans under the Cardassian Occupation and various real world recently freed oppressed religious-slash-ethnic groups.
** <s>In the fifth Star Trek movie, ''"The Final Frontier"'', some of the crew steal the Enterprise to look for God and instead find a powerful alien being impersonating God in the center of the universe</s> '''Just like there is no live-action movie of Avatar: The Last Airbender, there is totally no Star Trek 5!'''

===World of Darkness===
* Very large books could be written about religion and [[World of Darkness]]/Chronicles of Darkness. We'll just cover a few highlights:
** From [[Vampire: The Requiem]], there's the the Lancea et Sanctum, which might be best described as "Christianity for Vampires", and the Circle of the Crone, which is "Pagan Vampires". Both have Vampire miracles on tap (pun intended).
** [[Hunter: The Vigil]] has various religious organizations among the Compacts and Conspiracies, some very similar to real world ones, others...not so much.
** [[Mage: The Ascension]] has various religious Traditions, portrayed in that highly-stereotypical and highly-depending-on-the-author way typical of old WoD.

==See also==
* [[Mythology]]

[[Category:Not related]]
[[Category:History]]

SJW

2020-04-17T05:29:50Z

2406:3400:20F:FFC0:A945:1FE6:1D76:A2F4: /* SJWs and WH40k */

{{flamewar}}
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{{delete|This is possibly the biggest lightning rod of shitposts on the site, so either permanently protect this accursed thing or make it so nobody can blather on about it ever again.}}
{{Topquote|The only way to win is to not read the crazy, and just fap and/or shlick to the pictures.|[[/d/]]}}
{{Topquote|People love to pretend they're offended.|Matt Groening}}
{{Topquote|Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster.|Friedrich Nietzsche}}

== Meaning ==
[[Skub]]'s final form.

'''SJW''' stands for '''Social Justice Warrior''', a term originated in the late '90s to mid-2000's, where it was originally more neutral and meant to refer to ardent or outspoken advocates of social change, usually for 'furthering' civil rights. This generally meant someone who demanded that all races, classes, genders, sexuality, and other groups (with members who can't leave voluntarily) be represented in media and treated with equal respect.

Nowadays, it has a less-than-savory connotation, especially to people within 4chan (''especially'' [[/pol/]] and /v/ - the lattermost is a partial by-product of the GamerGate shenanigans). The modern usage of SJW refers largely to people who demand that media and society be inclusive and inoffensive (in practice, usually only to groups said SJW is a part of and those whose beliefs align with them) before all else, basically trying to police all media and, by proxy, the rest of society.

SJWs also tend to chuck that aforementioned respect out the airlock as they prioritize looking and feeling "good" over actually doing good, like most zealots. They frequently employ simplistic and/or ahistorical analysis that could wring both tears and rage from any fa/tg/uy's inner history buff (and not just the ones with military vehicle fetishes, either). Such piping hot takes also open them up to "easy debunking" - often by a mix of opportunists looking for an easy 'gotcha', /pol/acks looking for an easy triggering or (perhaps most rarely) people who actually studied their shit, with bonus points if said people are left of center and/or themselves part of said minorities on whose behalf the SJWs pull this shit, even as they speak over them. Of course, the debunking may itself be poorly researched - most political discussions set the bar amazingly low, if you hadn't guessed.

In short, it's associated with activists that advocate a a view of progressive societal change that non-progressives and sometimes even progressive groups, like feminists and minority activists, perceive to be ostracizing, harmful or unnecessary. (That this is mostly subjective is why the definition is so [[skub|contentious]] to begin with.)

Expect Social Justice Warriors to show up or at least be mentioned anytime some combination of the following occurs:

*A) a popular figure does or says something considered offensive, whether legitimately so or otherwise;
*B) some asshole's trying to shut up people they're being rude to;
*C) someone is ''harmlessly'' being a bit less politically correct than people want them to;
*D) someone is being ''far less'' politically correct than the situation warrants; or
*E) there isn't enough presentation in a work for ethno-social groups that are already infinitesimal to begin with.

On that note, feel free to play a drinking game where you take a shot each time [[Nazi|Godwin's Law]] is invoked, and be sure to bid your liver farewell before hand.

Expect the affected thread and any other nearby discussion to be derailed in short order; this is becoming more and more frequent on /tg/ lately as hobbies like [[Magic: The Gathering|MTG]] and [[Warhammer 40k]] are being subjected to changes that are viewed as "progressive" and generate unholy waves of skub. This often appears in the forms of users being accused of bigotry for either not checking off enough "oppressed minority" checkboxes in character creation, or else portraying certain groups too positively. The sources are generally either the usual crowd of trolls and shit stirrers, or else actual morons who want to show off their 'good guy' badges - aka virtue signalling - and miss the point of their ideals entirely. Naturally, most people who hold similar views prefer to voice them only when appropriate to do so, and outside of the "radical" fringe, they differ from the average fa/tg/uy only by the presence of a few things they think tabletop games could be better at doing.

This can and does often lead to rifts in communities, fanbases and franchises, with creators (most often independent ones) facing harassment and death threats, and any legitimate criticisms are almost immediately lost in the mix of mob mentality - just like most of the internet.

There are plenty of examples, but the average fa/tg/uy is unlikely to care about most of them outside of the few relevant ones discussed further below.

== ...so why is this a big deal again? ==
The crux of the problem is that SJWs act as "moral guardians" to popular culture. Previous moral panics, such as the hysteria surrounding hip-hop, rock music and (most relevantly) tabletop games [[Dungeons & Dragons]] ever since each medium's creation, were driven by people who claimed to be protecting their children from the "evils" within certain works, as well as seeing enemies under every rock or choosing to die on hills that are ultimately of no consequence.

To use pen-and-paper RPGs as an example, the mostly-Christian right-wingers of the late 70s believed them to be [[Heresy|a gateway to devil worship and eternal damnation]] because of a misunderstanding. Game developers lifted elements from real-life occultism and black magic practices for themes and stories, which was mistaken for trying to promote these practices, despite Gygax being a known Jehovah's Witness. The response to this huge outcry mostly consisted of renaming or remodeling a bunch of shit (e.g. [[demon]]s and [[devil]]s were now Tanar'ri and Baatezu and in-universe occult symbols were redesigned). More concerning were a few murders and suicides by known players; given that the game wasn't as high-profile and these people were considered the face of it by some groups, these tragic events nearly damned the games by association.

This sounds ridiculous in hindsight, but the massive uproar back then was a real threat to the survival of the fledgling RPG genre, with Dungeons & Dragons foremost among the accused. For more details on that sad, stupid time, see [[Satanic Panic]].

Where most moral panics in America are often attributed and traced back said older outspoken conservative Christians, with SJWs it's different - they are generally younger, left-leaning, affiliated with new-age religions or atheists (the latter often alongside being anti-religious), and come from that lefty-hippie background of acceptance and inclusiveness. Many have turned from simply promoting acceptance of varied interests, lifestyles, and hobbies to policing them for proper behavior and raising hell when they find something they don't like. Maybe it's too objectifying, maybe it's not inclusive or diverse enough, maybe it portrays a group they disagree with in too positive a manner; either way, it is promoting bigotry and bad behavior and must be changed accordingly. Some extreme SJWs even become bigots themselves, but with different groups targeted and occasionally a "tit for tat" approach.

For the modern SJW, replace the religious issues with socio-political ones, pick a random issue somewhere in the Left (sometimes Far Left) using an advocacy dartboard, and you can find someone who is ready and willing to start petitions, run boycotts, and send death threats to the creators of Your Favorite Thing<sup>TM</sup>.

While there are many key differences, they've joined the ranks of still-existing moral guardians before them through a combination of sheer overzealousness, hatred of particular groups, the usual co-opting by corporations who use their ideologies as a new way to promote their brands and the plentiful organizations and other third parties willing to fund attention-grabbing political actions of varying effectiveness to whatever ends they may desire, whether it be for fame, name or revenge.

That said, compared to the Satanic Panic, any /tg/-related controversies that have occurred since then are hardly a blip on the radar (thankfully so) and are mostly centered around sporadic attempts at pandering by game developers trying to milk what is, to them, a new demographic.

==Further Relevance to /tg/ ==
[[File:SJW in WOTC Staff.png|thumb|right|300px|Typical SJW delusions, seeing people who hate women in places where there are none, while simultaneously implying women are idiots.]]
While SJWs mostly focus on comics, movies and video games, they've found relatively little traction on tabletop games - it's widely considered more obscure in comparison to other forms of media, thus not warranting scrutiny OR continued interest to the SJW's inner hipster. Movies are delivered as a finished product that usually cannot be tampered with, so they have to worry more about what's given to them. [[/v/|Video games]] can sometimes be modded to some extent, but are usually more at the mercy of its creators.

However, as with any game that allows GMs and their players to [[Homebrew|make up their own shit and tailor the rules and setting to their own goddamn pleasure]], the consumers are the arbiters of what is canon or relevant in their private sessions; [[Games Workshop|the companies]] simply provide the setting these sessions take place within. The 'worst' a given fa/tg/uy has to worry about is fits being thrown over given models, [[White Wolf|disingenuous pandering]] [[Vampire: The Masquerade|that's often mandated by higher-ups]] (sometimes enforced by devs and writers), and a loss in quality of [[Black Library|franchise fiction]] (as if [[C.S. Goto|a ton of]] [[Matt Ward|terrible franchise fiction]] isn't already out there). More on that later, though.

Any other debates and criticisms surrounding the medium are either nearly as old as the genre itself, or else commonplace enough that it's not even exclusive to the genre anymore. [[-4 STR]] is something of an exception in this regard, given that the term originated with tabletop itself, and there has also been [[Sociopathic diplomancer gets shut the fuck down|at least one tale of an encounter with someone]] who would very much fit the stereotype. This hasn't stopped them from ''trying'', however, to the point where numerous people in high-level positions in the development of not only [[Dungeons & Dragons]], but [[Pathfinder]], are viewed as part of the same ideological mindset, and supposedly believe that THE problem with D&D, is, of course, the fanbase itself.

While this might seem to hold water due to the nature of tabletop and PnP games, more astute fa/tg/uys and ca/tg/irls might have already noticed the aforementioned logical fallacy with this: [[/tg/|traditional gaming]] is fundamentally an insular hobby populated predominantly by its fans, who consist of a much wider spectrum of people than stereotypes dictate. Trying to ''"mandate"'' inclusiveness and force the hobby to fit a completely different audience who has no real interest (key words) is equal to spraying napalm to put out a fire.

Oldfags can only chuckle to themselves; the neckbeards of old saw people try to demonize or similarly alter their hobbies for [[Gary Gygax]]'s entire lifetime, and know that ultimately, this crap is destined to fail just as hard as previous attempts to kill their favorite hobbies off. In turn, many gamers and self-styled movie buffs who don't understand the "players make the rules" aspect of tabletop thus fail to understand the futility of forcing roleplaying fa/tg/uys to join a "fight" that cannot threaten their fun, even in spite of the stereotype of roleplayers who define themselves solely by their hobby.

The main reason this article exists at all is to detail the perceived threat to the hobby that defines the board and (more often) the annoyance caused by forcing unrelated political discussions on a board of people who are ''ideally'' just trying to play some damn games or otherwise mind their business.

Y'know, like most of the internet.

===SJWs and WH40k===
Now, you may hear complaints about wargaming, and how it has too much [[Imperium of Man|imperialism, war crimes]], [[Exterminatus|genocide]], [[Ecclesiarchy|religious extremism]], [[Inquisition|xenophobia, abduction]], [[Cadian Shock Troops|child soldiers]], [[Daemonculaba|injury and death of minors]], [[Penitent Engine|religious mind-rape driven war machines]], [[Slaanesh|rape, drug abuse, sexual exploitation]], [[Warp|supernatural horror]], etc. etc. While not mentioned by name, you can imagine those complaints had [[Warhammer 40,000|a particular franchise in mind]]. Naturally, you can also imagine the lengths they went to in order to [[Derp|completely ignore]] [[Grimdark|the entire air of black vs. black morality within the setting itself]] (with shades of super-dark grey if you're feeling [[Salamanders|gene]][[Tau|rous]]).

The three most common complaints about Warhammer 40,000 are usually: the absence of [[Female Space Marines]]; the [[Sisters of Battle]] having boob plates; and - tied for third - how 40k models and art seldom depicted non-Sisters of Battle women and non-white humans, despite lore containing multiple, numerous easily-found examples to the contrary.

Here is a handy quick-list of refutations, to make everyone's lives a little easier:

#Warhammer 40,000 originated as an ironic parody of hard-right authoritarianism, born out of the explosion of progressive UK Sci-Fi and Fantasy that erupted as a reaction to [[Ghazghkull Mag Uruk Thraka|Margaret Thatcher]]'s policies of moral regulation and strong executive power (as well as all the other shit that happened in then-living memory during the 20th Century). Warhammer 40k took the piss out of the conservative UK government in the same way ''2000AD'' did, via satire and cautionary tales - this context has been lost over time with the growing popularity of the game, the growth of the company itself, and the fact that the right-leaning political climate being satirized is no longer dominant in the UK (plus Margaret Thatcher died several years ago, and retired several more years before that). The more current political climate is, ultimately, a different beast all its own.
#Anyone who actually reads the fluff knows that the Imperium as a body doesn't care about sex or race on that level, because the encroaching forces of [[grimdark]] make any form of discrimination impractical. Women and other minorities regularly participate in every level of Imperial society. The lack of female models is a semi-regular issue that ends up at the feet of GW, who already get enough shit from pearl-clutching moral guardians about [[Hot Chicks|Sisters Repentia and Daemonettes]] to generally want to avoid gender controversy and making "redundant" models. [[Mutant|The discrimination that ''does'' happen in the Imperium]] has some credible backing, in that the Imperium is an empire of semi-justified zealots: mutation is a common symptom of exposure to [[Chaos]] or [[Genestealer|other very bad things,]] so they figure it's best to not take chances.
#:Female Space Marines also have a well-defined fluff reason for not existing: recent lore stated there were in-universe attempts that failed badly enough to warrant discontinuing them. And of the section of the actual playerbase that clamors for female Marines, you can guess how many do so [[Rule 63|with impure intent.]] At any rate, important characters have a higher percentage of female or LBGTQ+ representation than expendable meatgrinder characters. This goes for both old characters like Yarrick (revealed to be gay) and new characters like Arch Magos Exasus (who is non-binary).
#Until recently, GW was also [[Commorragh Slaves|terrible at sculpting female characters in most cases]]; the Sisters of Battle were a rare exception for years, and that's likely ''because'' they're just power-armored humans with boobplate.
#GW so rarely listened to their own customers that complaining wouldn't have changed shit no matter how obvious the problem was. Nowadays there is a MUCH better chance for more fan-interaction, but there you go: anyone looking for change should be taking it up with GW, not Warhammer fans.
#When it comes to racial representation, they've previously said that their idea was for humanity in 40k to be as ethnically and physically diverse as they are across Earth in real-life. GW said the reason for having majority white people in the art was because the early art teams were small and made art of what they knew (the UK is still populated by 95% white people, although interestingly where GW is in Nottingham is nowadays only about 65% white), and this pattern just became an unthinking habit. This is typical of a lot of fantasy work, which is often based on history or mythology from Europe or Asia where lighter skin colors are believed more common. While it is discriminatory, it's 'unconscious bigotry' as opposed to GW being actively malicious. [[Image:5zft MoOz3I.jpg|thumb|right|200px|It begins!]]
#Every Warhammer Fantasy and 40k player knows that GW is simply [[End Times|bad]] [[Abaddon|at]] [[Matt Ward|making]] [[C.S. Goto|writing]] [[Storm of Chaos|decisions]]. Asking for well-written ''anyone'' from GW is like praying for a miracle. Furthermore, some of the most interesting characters in Fantasy were female, and got written out of canon as the years went on, so best believe the fans were already outraged over that.

If you read GW's Annual report: 2015-16, you'll find there were complaints about most of the staff being male even back then. To GW's credit, they answered: "The Company does not consider that diversity can be best achieved by establishing specific quotas and targets and appointments will continue to be made based on merit." (p. 15, if you're bored enough to check). That kinda contradicts with the "principle of boardroom diversity, which was first introduced into the Code in June 2010" mentioned on the same page, but you get it.

On the other hand, it should be noted that GW has been somewhat 'addressing' things, in [[Age of Sigmar]] anyway; several human models have non-white skin tones in their official paint jobs (and most of them look laughable with it, as they're rocking classical European features. Painting grizzly white doesn't make it a polar bear, you know), the first unhelmed Sigmarine is black, there's more than one model for a Sigmarine woman, and in the early days of AoS, the most promoted faction other than Sigmarines and Khorne was the mostly female [[Sylvaneth]] led by [[Everqueen|Alarielle the Everqueen]]. Meanwhile, [https://spikeybits.com/2017/10/female-representation-40k.html GW has promised on social media to "improve female representation" in 40k], specifically referring to reducing "boob-plate" in the miniature line and artwork (which may have factored into the decision to cover up the Sister Repentia in 8th edition).

That said, it isn't all rosy of course; [[Age of Sigmar|Age of Smegmar]] 2e has a female Stormcast Eternal with warning-coloration hair done up in a [https://encyclopediadramatica.rs/Trigglypuff Trigglypuff-tier] mohawk on the front cover of the BRB, though that might not be anything other than garish visual design - the Daughters of Khaine ''could'' also be viewed as a caricature of radical feminists, probably because they're [[Drow]] with the serial numbers filed of. On the 40k side, [[Gav Thorpe]] wrote a recent book, ''Imperator: Wrath of the Omnissiah'', with a Magos who "does not identify as male or female". While this makes some sense - the Mechanicus shuns the flesh, which would presumably include gender roles - it generated a good amount of [[skub]] due to this new gender dynamic, the use of recently invented gender pronouns, how they fit into the universe, and whether or not this written in an attempt to pander to SJWs or a sign that Gav Thorpe has become one. It should be noted that, like many GW/Black Library writers, Gav Thorpe's content is by no means 100% great reads, and this might just be a case of him finding a character interesting, political views aside, and writing them very badly.

==What do???==

'''''Nothing.'''''

It's your hobby, and at day's end, any changes you make to doing what you love and loving what you do should be ultimately ''your'' decision. Don't care so much about what other people think, let alone some fanbrats and/or political brainlets who probably don't even give a shit about it to begin with. Anyone who DOES care enough about diverse characters and settings will eventually take matters into their own hands and [[Homebrew|brew some up]] [[Get shit done|themselves]], as they should. Half the fun of Warhammer is [[Your dudes|making your armies your own]] anyway, like most tabletop games, so why wait for GW to change?

The ''wrong'' response (and this is almost always true, by the way), is to insult the fans for liking something they don't like. But hey, whatchagonnado? "Pretending to be offended" can cut '''both''' ways, and complaining about people liking something you don't like is [[Twilight|almost]] [[Drizzt|as]] [[Ironclaw|popular]] [[The End Times|here]] as [[Grognard|complaining about people ''not'' liking something you love]]. And as long as someone makes their dudes "wrong," [[That Guy|''someone'']] will always be yelling.

Yet again, ''like most of the internet.''

So weigh your options and pick your battles wisely, because God knows these chucklefucks won't.

==Do They Have a Point?==
While the term represents legitimate grievances and real issues, as hinted earlier "SJW" has also seen use as a snarl word by people on the right to shut down arguments, regardless of any merit they might have. This snarl creates a crude caricature of modern leftists to smear a rather large body of people (e.g. lumping said leftists with liberals, even though not all liberals are left-wing and may participate in said smears themselves), misrepresenting any position left of the "snarler" as a threat to any cultural aspect you can think of (like say, entertainment and gaming). Sometimes it doesn't matter if the SJWs in question (or their supposed position) are even partly real, or just convenient caricatures up to and including the most blatant trolls. This use of the term is especially true of those on the [[/pol/]] side when they don't want to scare the normies - or at least let the caricatures do the work for them. After all, who's gonna pay attention to someone when they or their views are successfully cast as "[[That Guy|rocking the boat?]]"

Some fiction ''does'' have problematic elements, and all fiction has a certain degree of subtext woven into it (intentionally or not) by its creators and/or the general worldview of the day. For example, in a lot of 1950s fiction, female characters would usually be sidelined to supporting roles such as home keeper, while a male protagonist would be the guy who took charge and get shit done - even in a science fiction setting where many futurists would have speculated that women would take a greater active role in future society. Most times, writers consider the way things are done where they're from to be the way things "should" be, unless they're exploring a "what if" scenario or criticism of an aspect of their society. Tropes built around the worldview of a generation persist into the next and often serve as the foundation for that generation's works - it's part of human nature for people to write what they know, take their worldview for granted and/or follow the leader without considering the implications.

Though such tropes ''can'' serve as useful indicators of the author's beliefs and/or the cultural zeitgeist, many of these tropes also do not age well, becoming discredited in some fashion as society and attitudes towards history change over time; a fair number of MST3K episodes snark at this. Understanding how this process works, and the ramifications thereof, is a perfectly valid approach to identify problematic matters and address them in future works. This has far more practical applications than trying to be as inoffensive as possible merely for the sake of it, which often does the subject matter(s) a disservice - it is frequently an exercise in futility, and besides that, context is key. One series having [[Fantasy Armor|metal bikini armor]] is not a problem (especially if its general tone is tongue firmly in cheek), but when that becomes the norm even in more serious works, especially without justification, then it's become an issue.

Furthermore, acknowledging problematic elements in a work is not the same as a condemnation of its quality or wanting it censored because of that (usually) comparatively small element - this assumption is a classic Hanlon's Razor scenario, assuming malice where at worst stupidity may exist. The presence of certain views or "biases" in a work doesn't mean that the modern reader will instantly like or adopt said views. No one is immune to propaganda, but reading Atlas Shrugged doesn't automatically make you an individualist; being a fan of the Imperium of Man doesn't make you a militaristic theocracy advocate, reading The Lord of the Rings does not automatically make you a monarchist, and so on. Aside from tarring all people with the same brush as being easily impressionable morons, that's mostly putting the cart before the horse and attacking symptoms rather than the actual cause, i.e. what would lead someone to seek reinforcement of that particular worldview via reading or producing fiction, for instance - [[Skub|a nuanced topic that would take up a page on its own and isn't likely to be done real justice here]].

There are numerous reasons why there's "pandering" in /tg/ media, beyond the points discussed above. For one, many companies want to broaden their consumer base by taking in new demographics. As the world gets interconnected and as society becomes more diverse, there is an increasing demand by people who aren't heterosexual white men to see people who aren't heterosexual white men in Western media, be it as the hero, getting the girl/guy, or "just" being more than a sidekick (matters of representation and diversity in non-Western media - such as China's film industry or India's Bollywood - and related questions of double standards in the complaints are [[Skub|something that would warrant several paragraphs, if not their own page]]). Putting all your eggs in the established core demographic basket can be as disastrous as trying to appeal to a new demographic at the expense of that initial base (AKA "biting the hand that feeds you"). For example, the former was a contributing factor in the [[/co/|Comics Crash of 1996]], focusing too much on the established fanbase at the expense of bringing in new ones by (for example) abandoning magazine stands for comic stores, only to lose it all when they failed to appeal successfully to either while driving much of that old fanbase away.

The 'threat' to any given body of work, much less works within the domain of our hobbby, does not lie merely in conflicts between people with different political views, but more often in foolish mass-marketing mandates. And when those politics themselves become mass-marketed, the parasitic corporate practices it enables, along with framing the matter as one of a dichotomous nature - be it unintentionally, actively, dishonestly, and/or otherwise - provides further ammo to the "fringe" ideologues involved, supporters and detractors alike, that they may continue their never ending game of philosophical sportsball, and only the most short-sighted and/or fanatical sorts, especially "SJWs", consider that to be a good result.

Thankfully, some solutions are straightforward; there is absolutely no reason that you could not make the the Inquisitor in your Warhammer 40,000 campaign black. In the typical Tolkien-knockoff fantasy settings, you can include a few black characters, and the bare minimum requirement is a sentence to the effect of "their parents were from a distant land where humans look a bit different" (though Tolkien himself had ethnic diversity among humanity in his setting; the Drúedain people of LotR were non-white and opposed Sauron, while there were those among the Free Peoples who knowingly or unknowingly aided Sauron). Population dynamics, such as the oft-cited 1:1 ratio of male-to-female, suggest that there needs to be a pretty good reason NOT have a mix of characters (such as an epidemic that only effects males or females). The lack of LGBTQ+ people is often a point of contention, as it is very difficult to calculate the actual number in any population, given the inherent dangers in certain regions and the vagueness of personal gender/sexual identification. Adding said characters if they're written well and fit the story is, in general, a positive and just good business, especially for those who are transparent about the reasoning behind their works.

The problems arise with executives and other figureheads who don't know any better: some only care about lining their own pockets, and engage in the usual out-of-touch appealing to what the kids are into today without understanding the how and why of it; others fail to distinguish between diversity and tokenism as a result of push an agenda-based quota; and still others use the work to push their views and beliefs onto others, the latter two groups ignoring that their franchises are sold to people and not reductive demographic abstractions. Then there are the marketers and PR representatives who encourage this behavior in the vain hope that "new demographics" will eat it up no matter what; when this is almost inevitably proven wrong, they will double down on the pandering, which alienates those who support the view represented by not giving them what they actually wanted while further souring those who don't endorse said view.

When further combined with the tendency of sensationalist media outlets to lionize or demonize whoever they have to in order to meet their given slant's quota, as well as the presence of astroturfing and other means of manufacturing outrage in support of or against said slants, you have the recipe for a failed market or a doomed franchise at best. In a worst-case scenario, you end up creating a new set of problematic cliches and stereotypes. That the majority of fiction is political in some shape or form '''''does not''''' absolve writers of their responsibility to skillfully and properly handle what, if any, politics they acknowledge, lest we get propaganda masquerading as entertainment - and the groups they're expecting to eat that kind of slop up may very well be the first to notice.

'''TL;DR:''' '''It's complicated.''' Many of the points the SJWs raise aren't incorrect in themselves, ''but'' they are often distorted by extreme proponents and detractors alike to further their respective agendas. Regardless of your stance on the social issues in dispute, keep in mind that it's not black-and-white and that nobody is inherently trying to "destroy" anything, only change it.

== See Also ==
*[[/pol/]] - /pol/ is the largest face of the "alt-right", the yang to the SJW's left-leaning yin... if the analogy works when one side makes a habit of acting scummier as a matter of principle, and often go out of their way to one-up any bad action they see, without the excuse of at least having a good cause to hide behind. They ''pretty much'' run on the same fuel, shot-for-shot, but /pol/ uses skewed far-right principles instead. Exudes a very similar rage to their perceived enemies, but it has a chance of ranging from hilarious, to the pot calling the kettle black, to "[[Edgy|Hitler did nothing wrong]]" (lets be honest, it's mostly the last one these days).

[[Category:Meme]]

Religion

2020-04-17T04:30:14Z

2406:3400:20F:FFC0:A945:1FE6:1D76:A2F4: /* Religion as a Bad Thing */

{{topquote|Science investigates; religion interprets. Science gives man knowledge, which is power; religion gives man wisdom, which is control. Science deals mainly with facts; religion deals mainly with values. The two are not rivals.|Martin Luther King, Jr}}

:'''Dracula''': ''I was called here by, huuuuumans, who wish to pay me tribute!''
:'''Richter Belmont''': ''Tribute?! You steal men's souls! And make them your slaves!''
:'''Dracula''': ''Perhaps the same could be said of all religions.''
::--An excerpt from the infamous exchange that also gave us "What is a man? A miserable little pile of secrets" in [[Castlevania#Castlevania:_Symphony_Of_The_Night_.28Castlevania_9.29|Castlevania: Symphony of the Night.]]

Because it's important to several settings and RPG systems, particularly ones that are high-profile or relevant to /tg/, we have a religion article. Let's try and keep it focused on the directly-related-to-/tg/ stuff and not descend into the pure [[skub]] that can arise in discussions of real-life religions, okay?

==Definition of Religion==
Almost since the inception of the term, scholars have failed to agree on a definition of religion. While there are some belief systems that always count as religions, some have applied the term to various things such as political ideologies, or groups when they reach a certain point. There are however two general definition systems: the sociological/functional and the phenomenological/philosophical.

The two most widely accepted are:
* "a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, that is to say things set apart and forbidden - beliefs and practices which unite into one single moral community called a church, all those who adhere to them."
* "a comprehensive worldview or 'metaphysical moral vision' that is accepted as binding because it is held to be in itself basically true and just even if all dimensions of it cannot be either fully confirmed or refuted".

As stated before, one common element that every religion which fits the criteria has is humanity's relation to supernatural forces, as all of them have at least one [[God|god]] and/or an afterlife even where there are exceptions; Buddhism doesn't have any gods but has afterlives, and Taoism doesn't have an afterlife but does have a pantheistic concept of a god as a supernatural force.

Like other terms for heavily [[SJW|debated]] [[communism|subjects]], religion and religious have also been used as insults or Snarl Words in social and political discussions (especially from the 20th century and onwards) to ridicule groups openly promoting something the user disagrees with. This snarl creates a caricature of the group to smear them by association with the worst excesses/negative stereotypes of real-world religious people (like being too preachy, judgmental, irrational, hypocritical, or pressuring everyone to convert).

==Religion vs. Mythology==
While [[Mythology|mythologies]] aren't religions in and of themselves, every religion has a mythology. While mythologies are merely the accounts of supernatural events, religions add rituals and practices that link those mythologies directly to the lives of their believers in one form or another, typically by describing how to properly serve to a god (or multiple gods, it depends) a significant role in the mythology a given religion is derived from. [[Skub|Whatever the source]], the mythology almost always predates the religion. As a result, especially since the Fantasy genre deals in supernatural beings and forces, most if not all fantasy settings have religions. Science fiction does to a lesser degree, mostly because during the Golden Age of sci-fi empiricists and secular humanists were attracted to the genre and their views often seeped into their stories. Despite this, given that most real-life societies have had religions playing a role in or since their founding, religions are still found in sci-fi.

Religions involves belief systems and practices, where an adherent can call upon the power/being the religion is focused on to give them aid in [[cleric|various]] [[Paladin|ways]], depending at the very least on the religion and the task in question. Given that religions are about people's place in the world, how it was made, ideas on how life should be lived and how humans should relate to the supernatural, they have major implications for societies. Given that people can become [[Exarch|dangerously single-minded]] about a cause, people can be become extremists about their religion, regardless of the fact that [[Heironeous|some]] are more benevolent than [[Asmodeus|others]] and in numerous cases even [[Heresy|if it involves going against the religion's teachings]]; in conjunction with the above this means religious conflicts can become widespread, long-lasting, cause carnage and also involve other elements such as politics- both in fantasy and in the real world.

==Role in Society==
A person's belief (for or against) any or all religions is a major factor in their worldview, and as such often serves as the undercurrent for all others. This is because this belief shapes people's views on the big things such as the purpose of life, how life should be lived in relation to oneself and others and what happens to people after they die. On the upside, this often leads to teachings with the goal of unity, peace, charity and co-operation as per the teachings of most religions, some of which are adapted by or also found among non-religious systems. On the downside, this can lead to clashes over how the people involved do the will of whichever beings or forces they follow, which religion should be followed or whether or not people should follow a god or religion at all. This can involve arguments and factionalizing, or in some cases worse things like pogroms and wars. Since they are an overarching and fairly common element in cultures, they often appear or are referenced in fiction.

The most common religious belief systems are the Abrahamic family of religions (primarily Judaism, Christianity and Islam) which are Monotheistic (belief in a singular God) and share many common elements and root, with - at the time this was written - Christianity being the most followed religion globally. Historically, these and other religions were frequently enshrined in law as the "state religion", giving them special privileges such as extensive influence over the government or tax exemptions. In some cases, they even took over the functions of the government entirely in a system known as theocracy; while uncommon in the present day, theocracies are still in use in places such as the Vatican and Saudi Arabia.

Within the last few centuries, due to events such as the French Revolution, there has also been a significant amount of anti-religious sentiment, which regards religion as at best redundant and at worst destructive (beyond historical grievances with specific groups within religions, reasons for this view and whether or not those arguments have any merit, shall not be discussed here). For the most part, a combination of people identifying more with their culture or nation than their religion and the concept that religion and functions of state should not interfere with each other has turned into more of a "live and let live" mentality that doesn't really support or oppose any one religion and only reacts when said religions begin actively defying the state.

Interestingly, numerous tyrannical regimes have tried to restrict or stamp out religions. This is because religious teachings put the figure/object of worship before the state in a conflict of interest, most religions teachings condemn many of the things tyrannical leaders indulge in, tyrants dislike competition for their subjects' fealty, tyrants dislike being answerable to anyone besides themselves, the tyrant may be prejudiced, or any combo of the above. While nations have ususlly tried to block specific religions deemed "false" (read: religions opposing the state-sponsored religion in any way), several nations (usually [[Communism|Communist]] states which took Marx's "religion is the opiate of the masses" quote out of context, as Marx viewed religion was a sort of protest against oppression that relieved people's immediate suffering and gave them the strength to go on living while also drawing their attention away from the class system that produced their oppression; subsequently, he believed that following the establishment of a communist society, religion would disappear as it would no longer be needed) have tried to get rid of religion altogether, albeit with horrifying [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/League_of_Militant_Atheists results] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khmer_Rouge_rule_of_Cambodia#Religious_communities each] time. Best case scenario, they sidegrade from one set of problems to another as cults of personality (commonly ones based on the ruler in charge) spring up to exploit the newly created power vacuum formerly filled by an established religion while believers who manage to survive the regime try to continue their activities in secret.

Unsurprisingly, the most religious nations are theocracies such as the Catholic theocracy running Vatican City and the Islamic theocracy running Saudi Arabia. China is - at the time this was written - the world's least religious and most atheistic country (the situation around North Korea is [[Skub|debatable]], since even though they violently supress religions [https://www.foxnews.com/world/north-korea-publicly-executes-80-some-for-videos-or-bibles-report-says to the point that merely having copies of religious texts can be grounds for execution], they also have the Kim Cult blended with the Marxist offshoot ideology Juche).

==How this impacts /tg/==
A few major ways. Since most if not every society in real-life has had religion either be the basis for its founding or play a role in it, religion is just as involved in the backstory or current lore of settings. There are three major "modes" of /tg/ settings and related fictions:
* The purely functional where religions are a story device.
* Religions and/or those they worship are portrayed positively as some sort of endorsement of religiosity.
* Religions and/or those they worship are portrayed negatively as some sort of criticism of religiosity.

===Religion as a story device===
Compared to the two types of writers found below, these writers are usually just attempting to model their work after real-world [[Mythology]] and are frequently attempting to keep their views of Religion separate from their work. Frequently comes in one of two subspecies:
* The [[Standard Fantasy Setting]] default: The world is ruled by an ordinary polytheistic pantheon, usually close to some admixture of Norse and Greek mythologies. Some of them also have a Top God - one more powerful than all the others and maybe the in-universe creator of everything - who is mostly hands-off in cosmic affairs. The gods of these religions tend to focus on specific areas (gods of [[Paladin|Justice]] and [[Druid|Nature]] are common, for subtly obvious reasons) and frequently want their followers to propagate or promote these things.
* The kind of setting they wanted to make dictated the nature of the divine. For example, in [[Exalted]] just about all the figures anybody would call a "God" (besides the Exalted) are Useless, because the Exalted (which includes the Player Characters) are the guys who were made specifically to do whatever the gods needed them to do for reasons inherent to the setting, to go with the main theme of the setting for the PCs: "You can do '''almost anything''', except ''avoid the consequences of being the one who did that anything''".

===Religion as a Bad Thing===
There are several writers of Science Fiction and Fantasy that are of the opinion "Religion Is Bad", often alongside having an axe to grind (sometimes warranted, sometimes not) with either one or more specific real-life religions. This is more common in Sci-Fi than fantasy because the focus on science appeals to the naturalist, empiricist and/or humanist worldview of such writers, with the supernatural being seen as an obstacle to that. Despite that, the view is found among some fantasy authors as well, such as the author of the book series "His Dark Materials", Philip Pullman (he wrote it as an anti-theistic and anti-religious response to C.S Lewis' "Chronicles of Narnia" series). Whatever the genre, this comes in flavors of either "The Gods Don't Exist", "The Gods are Incompetent" (more on that below) or "The Gods are Evil". Cosmic Horror also tends to use the "Gods Don't Exist" or "Gods are Evil" route, or combine them into "The Gods are actually Incomprehensible and Destructive Aliens" (for example; the author who codified the genre, [[H.P. Lovecraft]], was an avowed anti-religious atheist). This also has the side effect of inclining science fiction towards an atheistic perspective.

Another major component is personal issues of the author such as grievance or prejudice, but that's case-by-case and a major can of worms. Worst case scenario, the story is a wish fulfillment power fantasy against a religion or specific religious people (such as the comics "Holy Terror" by Frank Miller and "Preacher" by Garth Ennis). Whatever the motivation, writers saying this message often model their fictional religions on the - occasionally exaggerated - worst excesses of real world religious people and lift imagery from those religions or groups among them. Popular targets are Christianity, Islam, any faith that practiced human sacrifice (such as the Aztec religious practices), and Scientology. Cults, especially those with beliefs that mainstream religions consider unorthodox or outright heretical, are especially fertile ground for this message, albeit running the risk of being misapplied to tar other groups with the same brush.

===Religion as a Good Thing===
There are several religious Science Fiction and Fantasy writers who either want to promote their worldview, look upon religion positively and put that into the story (who may or may not be religious themselves) or both. This is more common in Fantasy than Sci-fi, partly because with the supernatural being THE fundamental element of the genre this opens opportunities to explore many aspects of religiosity. This is less common in science-fiction, but not unheard of, such as Carl Sagan's novel "Contact" where God's signature is found in the digits of pi. These authors usually put more thought into their fictional religion plus its central figure (although they have a tendency to go all "Crystal Dragon Jesus"), and try and have it be at least a somewhat good influence, although religious institutions and leaders are usually hit-and-miss affairs.

Some people make a fictional setting with figures from real-world religions, either in the real-world or [[CS Lewis|an alternate world such as Narnia like C.S Lewis did]]. Others use fictional religions that either visually resemble real-life religions or figures from them; religions that often get this treatment are the Abrahamic faiths (most often Christianity), Greek mythology, Egyptian mythology and Norse mythology (albeit often a sanitized version of the latter three). In other cases they all but abandon any form of subtlety, with the fictional religion being distinguished from the real-world religion the author follows by only a handful of minor changes. Naturally, those kinds of works tend to come off as preachy, to say the least.

Another route this uses is the route that faith itself provides the power; think of Morpheus' "your mind makes it real" quote, or the "[[Belief Function|Clap Your Hands If you Believe]]" trope. In fact, Warhammer often goes the route that the gods are powered by faith as well as from their sphere of influence which has either [[Sigmar|caused some people have risen to godhood]] or [[Ynnead|caused new gods to be born in the setting]]. In fact, this has proven the greatest weapon against Chaos in every Warhammer setting (and why the Emperor's plan to starve the Chaos Gods with atheism was doomed to fail from the start).

===Somewhat special cases===

One somewhat special case is the "Religion of Evil"; in many settings, there is a religion that is explicitly capital E Evil and seeks one of the usual "Card Carrying Villain" goals of Control, Conquest, Corruption, or Destruction. Frequently has some admixture of the worst aspects of Roman Paganism, Norse practices, the Aztec, Scientology and/or the various Abrahamic religions. They also often draw from those found in the writings of H.P Lovecraft. If this cult directly worships an individual Evil God, expect whatever makes sense for that deity to be some form of destructive activity--e.g., the cult of the God of Murder demands human sacrifice on a regular basis, with a certain portion of that explicitly being not-careful-enough cultists. Regardless, Religions of Evil can show up in all three above modes, and usually has a special purpose in all three:

* Functionalists (and, for that matter, all three) need bad guys. In particular, a group who by definition is Evil is always good for some no-need-to-worry-about-the-ethics-or-morality-of-killing fodder (based on the idea that everyone in is group is evil because you have to do evil to be part of the group).
* Religion is Bad types tend to use them to say either "while they're all Bad, some are worse then others", or say "Religion can be used to justify anything". Occasionally a prejudiced writer uses it as a strawman to tar all with the same brush or they have an axe to grind against a specific real-life religion and/or its followers.
* The sincerely religious tend to use them as analogies with fanaticism, criticize Real World cults, compare different beliefs or deal with negative aspects of religion (occasionally making jabs at competitive religions, or fellow believers the author disagrees with).
** As a side note, a lot of fantasy has moved slightly away from pure Religions of Evil, for much the same reason as [[Always Chaotic Evil]] races (audiences and authors nowdays demand more motive for their villains). While there are still plenty of them, they usually add some nuance that makes them at least morally neutral under their own lights. Popular options are for them to be an off-shoot/denomination/subset of another religion and/or be taking vengeance for a real or perceived wrong or injustice (which has '''plenty''' of real-life precedent).

[[Urban Fantasy]] writers are another special case, since almost all Urban Fantasy is set in something that might be called "the real world with a twist", with all the usual political trouble that implies. As a result, they can take one of a few routes:
* The most common route is "there are many possible explanations" and vague things up as much as possible ([[True Faith|Faith]] being the power that repels [[Vampire]]s rather than than a cross having any actual connection to a deity is a popular one).
* The second most common route (which is rarer outside of Cosmic Horror) is the "Religion as a Bad Thing" route from above. The story is straight up atheistic/"Religion is Bad" [[Imperial Truth|propaganda]], and in practice the writer often has an axe to grind against a specific religion. It's a popular choice for writers trying to be [[Edgy]] who want to include religious subject matter in their stories, and they almost exclusively go after the most followed religion in the area; any fictional religions will most likely be thinly-veiled stand-ins for real life religions.
* Some Urban Fantasy works with a clear correct religion exist thanks to the above mentioned sincerely religious authors, which are typically [[Chick Tracts|barely veiled proselytizing]] or [[Twilight|just straight up terrible]], though [[Monster Hunter International|there are some good ones]].
* The fourth route, taken most notably by [[Supers|DC and Marvel comics]] among others, is to take an "All Myths are True" approach: All religions are sort of true, but none have any exclusivity to the Truth, so Thor and Athena might have the Archangel Michael on speeddial when the Orochi teams up with Apep to start making trouble in their neighborhoods (because "Mikey really likes kicking serpent tail, and gets annoyed when we don't at least try to invite him to an evil serpent ass-kicking."). Differs from the "vague things up" route by being clearer on some details, and also much more gonzo. The Abrahamic God is the exception here: He's usually kept especially vague, albeit more powerful (and yet infinitely less accessible) than anyone else in the setting, and only referred to by some codephrase (Marvel likes "The One Above All", DC generally goes for "The Presence" or "whatever is behind the Source Wall").

===Miscellaneous Observations===

Doing the "The Gods are Incompetent" thing (the similar but different "The Gods are Insane", "The Gods Are Assholes" and "The Gods Don't Actually Do Anything" routes also falls under this umbrella) can go into any of the three modes; in a sincere monotheist's (such as Christian) work, it can be a "Take That" to polytheistic religions; in a "Religion is Bad" atheist's, it can be one to religion in general; in a Buddhist-influenced work, it can be a part of the whole "even the Gods are tied up in the Wheel of Karma" concept; and, even if the author is not pushing any religious message in any way, there's a neutral, plot-structural reason to go "Incompetent Gods": it can make the adventurers the Most Competent People Available since if that wasn't the case there wouldn't be anything for the adventurers to do.

If a work has multiple writers, (as frequently happens with RPG and Wargame settings, and quite a few popular SciFi/Fantasy ones as well) there's a tendency for the writers to try and pull the setting into one of the other two "modes" depending on their personal views. This leads to the theme changing from one side to the other as the story progresses. A recent example is [[World of Warcraft|the spate of retcons to the cosmology of the Warcraft universe]] and the morality of its fundamental forces/dominant higher powers, the Light and the Void. If the story doesn't get focused on a pro-religion or anti-religion message, it may end up swinging back and forth between both sides or settle in a mid-point which doesn't take a strong stance either way.

Note that members of the "Religion is Bad" and "Religion is Good" brigades will get involved in arguments over the relative morality or "goodness" of various factions in the story and the accuracy of any messages a writer presents. Often history buffs will throw their hat into the ring as well.

==Examples of /tg/ connected fictional religions==
===Warhammer 40k===
* The [[Imperial Truth]] was originally the Emperor's plan on beliefs, which he and his servants propagated throughout the galaxy during the Great Crusade. Attempting to wean mankind away from Chaos and being a firm member of the "Religion is Bad" brigade, the Emperor proclaimed there are no gods, and religion had to be abolished willingly or by force while science or reason are to be used for explaining the universe and morality. Everything transpired according to his design, except theistic religiosity in the 40k universe is the best weapon against Chaos so Emp's interstellar state atheism policy gave them a major opening. Things went from bad to worse when people started looking up to the Emperor as a god himself and [[Exterminatus|he responded accordingly]]. After the Horus Heresy and the Emperor's removal from galactic politics: the Imperial Truth was slowly shelved in favor of the Imperial Cult, to the point that espousing the teachings of the Truth is ironically considered heresy. Only a few practitioners of the Imperial Truth remain, most notably the Custodes and the Space Marines (both of whom know The Emperor better than anybody to worship him as a god. Plus, their religious autonomy.).
** The [[Imperial Cult]] is the present-day religion of the Imperium of Man, and is a mix of several Abrahamic Religions along with copious amounts of warmongering, fanaticism and xenophobia. Derived from the Lectitio Divinatus penned by [[Lorgar]] pre-HH, the Cult decrees that because the Emperor is capable of all these miracles and power: he ''must'' be a god, and why you should worship and pledge loyalty to him. Its a complete 180 from the Emperor's original teachings, and has simultaneously been responsible for damning and saving the Imperium past the clusterfuck of the Horus Heresy. It's unknown whether the Emperor still abhors godhood and religion and would abolish it the moment he could, or if he's resigned himself to becoming the very thing he fought against for mankind to persevere in these trying times. Whatever the case, he didn't want to be a god, but now he has no choice but to become one.
** The [[Adeptus Mechanicus|Cult Mechanicus]] (Machine Cult) is the religion of the Adeptus Mechanicus, placing a heavy emphasis on machines, viewing them as gifts from the Machine God called "The Omnissiah" Officially, the Omnissiah is The Emperor, which allows the Mechanicus to sidestep the more puritan pundits of the Imperial Cult (we worship The Emprah, just not how you do it). Unofficially, the Omnissiah may or may not be the C'tan god: The Void Dragon. It also has a high emphasis on the collection of knowledge, and one of the Admech's roles in the galaxy is to explore remote and uncharted regions of space to find and search for knowledge that has been lost throughout the millennia. The last of these, is guidelines on machines and knowledge. Officially, heretic(tek) and xeno works are to be abhorred and disposed of, viewing them as perversions of the holy Machine God's works. Unofficially however, more liberally-minded and higher-ranked Magos would happily hoard heretek/xeno works, seeing their potential over the more restricted and constrained works of the Mechanicus.

* Chaos is a violent and complicated henotheistic (believing in multiple gods but only worshipping one) or polytheistic religion with dozens, if not hundreds of interpretations. Even then, there's more sub-cults that worship their particular god in a specific way, either minutely or vastly different from everyone else among followers of the Big 4. And this doesn't even get into the realm of Chaos Undivided (which worships the concept of Chaos itself, instead of the individual gods) and [[Malal]]. Chaos has very little established guidelines regarding worship, apart from their patron god's/gods' general likes/dislikes, so any religious practices or rituals are either based on commands from the god/s or up to the imagination of the cult.
** Interestingly, there is a Space Marine of the Chaos faction who follows the Imperial Truth, and that is [[Fabius Bile]].

* All Greenskins worship Gork and Mork (jury's out on whether the [[Gretchin Revolutionary Committee]] do), but are too disorganized to have anything like a formal religion, though they do make effigies of Gork and Mork and call on them. The closest thing they have to tenants is that Gork favors violence, Mork favors cunning. Greenskins have gotten into fights over this, but violence is part of their nature and that of their gods. While they fight over religion, they also fight over almost any dispute anyway, and may even start a religious argument just to enjoy a good fight among themselves (though the only theological argument they can formulate is "is Gork the god of cunning or is Mork?" or vica versa). Religion doesn't play a significant role in Ork society compared to the other races.

* The Tau's creed "The [[Greater Good]]" is a specie-wide philosophy that was adopted ever since the initial unification of the Tau in the olden days. In a nutshell, the Greater Good emphasizes the co-existence of all Tau and sapient life in general into working together for a common goal to further the Tau's progress, seeing everyone's potential and hoping to utilize that for an, ahem, greater good. Personal religion isn't forbidden, but it must not contradict or override The Greater Good, and must be disregarded if it ever does so. Technically, this means Tau can be religious or non-religious, as the Greater Good is not a religion (due to lacking an afterlife and supernatural aspects, with the closest things to figures of worship being the Ethereals). This sounds all fine and dandy, but the Ethereal class, who are responsible for maintaining The Greater Good, have been shown to be less benevolent than believed and have been using their unnaturally powerful charisma to subtly oppress the Tau and use them to further their own agendas.
**The Farsight Enclaves, who have thrown off Ethereal rule, are the exception in that they have rejected The Greater Good, seeing it as the method of oppression used to keep the T'au under complete control of the ethereals. Due to this, if one considers the Greater Good a religion, The Enclaves are irreligious.
**As of the 4th Sphere Expansion disaster, Chaos Tau are starting to become a thing.
**At one point, the Earth Caste gathered Genestealer-infected Tau and studied them to see what would happen. Of course, a Genestealer cult developed and naturally they violently escaped control and surveillance. According to rumors, they've even produced a Genestealer-infected Ethereal.

* The Eldar have varying views on religiosity depending on their type. Their religion is polytheistic, with henotheistic offshoots, and Ausryan was the highest ranking god. However all of the Eldar gods were murder-raped to death by Slaanesh except for Isha (taken by Nurgle), Khaine (shattered and flung into realspace), Cegorach (hiding in the Webway) and Ynnead (born long after Slaanesh's birth). Their Pantheon's religious practices aren't fleshed out save for those of Cegorach, Isha, and Khaine, via the Harlequins and Aspect Warriors. With most of their gods out of commission, Eldar religious worship is of a deistic bent.
** Craftworlders and Exodites almost exclusively worship the original Eldar pantheon, though some engage in henotheistic worship of only one of the gods. Asuryan is more popular among Craftworlders while Isha is among Exodites, though nearly all give Khaine some tribute during war.
** Corsairs are all over the place, though Khaine is a popular choice given their more militant nature.
** Being agents of the Laughing God himself, the Harlequins' worship is centered around [[Cegorach]], whilst still paying minor tribute to the other gods.
** The new faith around Ynnead, the Ynnari, is rapidly growing but have yet to establish teachings or rituals.
** Unique among the Eldar, the Dark Eldar are irreligious for the most part and while they believe some gods exist they're too self-centered to worship them (this is canon). They're often also anti-religious to boot; a major landmark of Commorragh is a landfill of religious icons called Iconoclast's Mound, and one Wych cult - the Pain Eternal - revolves around killing religious people and destroying shrines and holy sites. The sole exception, except for Dark Eldar who stop being Dark Eldar, are the [[Incubi]] who hold [[Khaine]] in high regard.
** There are numerous rumors of a very small number of Chaos Eldar, but these are barely fleshed out and heavily classified in-universe. There have been verified Nurgle-worshipping Eldar and persistent rumors that some have embraced Slaanesh without becoming soul-food. Apart from this, some Dark Eldar have been willing to summon Chaos Daemons or work with Chaos worshippers ([[Fabius Bile|or allies of Chaos]]) to further their own ends.

* While the Necrontyr had religions before certain [[C'tan|star entities]] [[Necrons|roboticizied them]], those aren't fleshed out or detailed. Its also heavily implied the C'tan co-opted the Necrontyr religion beforehand. With the change to Necrons taking the higher though processes of most of them, any Necrons who can comprehend faith and religiosity either worship the C'tan or have become irreligious.

* The Tyranids themselves are irreligious, being spehss bugs and all, but understand at least a few of the advantages of religion. [[Genestealer]]s infect people and together they establish cults on targeted worlds, such as one worshipping "Children of the Stars", a perversion of the Imperial Cult or something else like "Celebrants of Nihilism" (yes, that's a canon Genestealer cult name). Psychic influence is often involved and, notably, the Genestealers do not consider themselves gods. Once the Tyranids arrive en-masse, the cult-gets assimilated along with all non-Tyranids willingly or not. An interesting tidbit is that the Hive Mind stops the Tyranids from attacking the cultists in early stages of the invasion and leads them on, only to later override the Genestealers' wills and and make them slaughter the cultists.

===Dungeons and Dragons===
* Among Dungeons and Dragons settings, [[Planescape]], [[Eberron]], and [[Pathfinder]] are notable for having some coherent things that could be called "Religions", rather then the usual generic Pantheism.
** Most of Planescape's Factions effectively count as religions, to the point they can produce [[Cleric]]s ([[Planescape: Torment#Fall-From-Grace|Atheist ones at that]]). Yes, even the Athar. (Perhaps ''especially'' the Athar.)
** Half of Eberron's religions aren't worship of deities. The [[Blood of Vol]] seeks to unlock the divinity within one's self and rejects the gods (if they even exist) and the [[Path of Inspiration]] seeks to improve their next reincarnation. The Undying Court worships not gods but their undead ancestors that make up their government. The [[Path of Light]], [[Warforged_Mysteries#The_Becoming_God|Becoming God]] and [[Warforged_Mysteries#The_Reforged|Reforged]] all seek to ''create'' a deity. Even some interpretations of the [[Sovereign Host]], like the one most common among dragons, don't worship them as deities. Due to the way divine casting works in Eberron, all of these can produce divine casters.
** There's a handful of religions on [[Golarion]] that aren't merely worship of pantheons. The most prominent (read: Actually has mechanical support) is the [[Prophecies of Kalistrade]], which is basically fantasy [[Star Trek|Ferengi]].

* [[D20 Modern]]'s [[Urban Arcana]], unusually for urban fantasy, has D&D deities bleed into reality alongside the monsters. You are still able to play a <s>cleric</s> "acolyte" of any real world deity despite this.

===Star Wars===
* [[Star Wars]] is inconsistent on if the [[The Force]] is a religion. The Jedi and the Sith ''could'' both be considered religions as they are considered monastic, but mix in several other traits such as being meritocratic (Jedi) and kraterocratic (Sith) and Lucas himself has axed at least one prototyped book for portraying them too much as a religion. It's also notable that the Sith were former Jedi who left the Jedi path for several reasons including [[Heresy|disagreements over the teachings of that creed]]. Aside from that, religion is nearly always a non-human tradition, something noted in a culture's historical background and never seen implying its extinction, or a scam. The religiously linked "damn" and "hell" are the two real world swear words that exist in-universe, purely because Han Solo used them in the films, and some concept of an "angel" exists because a young Anakin told Padme about them in the prequel trilogy films.
** There are rare exceptions where a religion is fleshed out and explored, and the writing goes various directions for better or worse. A notable example is the aggressive polytheistic religion of the antagonistic Yuuzhan Vong from the EU (which the story gradually revealed was long ago perverted from benevolent roots, and this perverted form takes a few cues from Islam and Aztec mythology).

===Star Trek===
* Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry had a low opinion of religion and in his vision humanity had done away with it and was better off for it and he had no interest in adding it to the aliens. However, some of the cast and crew disagreed and occasionally references and religions found their way into the show, which increased after Roddenberry's death. The Federation's culture is distinctly humanistic (extending the concept to alien species) in it's outlook in which religion is regarded as a thing of the past.
** While there are plenty of "Godlike" entities in Star Trek, almost all are treated as Sufficiently Advanced Aliens in the Arthur C. Clarke sense--and in particular, in ST:TNG, the flip side, that Picard and his crew are frequently shown to look like Gods to sufficiently primitive aliens, is gone into in more than one episode.
** The Bajorans are a highly religious alien race, with the majority following peaceful teachings and a minority of violent extremists.
*** Of some note, the Bajoran religion is of interest because their "Gods" actually exist, and can be (somewhat incomprehensibly) talked to (a rarity outside of [[Science Fantasy]]). In other words, they were frequently a method of having some religion vs. science debates where the divine entity (A) explicitly exists, (B) is explainable as "sufficiently advanced and unusual aliens", and (C) aren't jerks, just bad at communication with those of us who experience time linearly--in other words, with a deck that wasn't quite as badly stacked. The religiosity was meant to be as a way of contrasting the Starfleet personnel with the native population and to draw a parallel between Bajorans under the Cardassian Occupation and various real world recently freed oppressed religious-slash-ethnic groups.
** <s>In the fifth Star Trek movie, ''"The Final Frontier"'', some of the crew steal the Enterprise to look for God and instead find a powerful alien being impersonating God in the center of the universe</s> '''Just like there is no live-action movie of Avatar: The Last Airbender, there is totally no Star Trek 5!'''

===World of Darkness===
* Very large books could be written about religion and [[World of Darkness]]/Chronicles of Darkness. We'll just cover a few highlights:
** From [[Vampire: The Requiem]], there's the the Lancea et Sanctum, which might be best described as "Christianity for Vampires", and the Circle of the Crone, which is "Pagan Vampires". Both have Vampire miracles on tap (pun intended).
** [[Hunter: The Vigil]] has various religious organizations among the Compacts and Conspiracies, some very similar to real world ones, others...not so much.
** [[Mage: The Ascension]] has various religious Traditions, portrayed in that highly-stereotypical and highly-depending-on-the-author way typical of old WoD.

==See also==
* [[Mythology]]

[[Category:Not related]]
[[Category:History]]

Religion

2020-04-17T04:21:57Z

2406:3400:20F:FFC0:A945:1FE6:1D76:A2F4: /* Religion as a Good Thing */

{{topquote|Science investigates; religion interprets. Science gives man knowledge, which is power; religion gives man wisdom, which is control. Science deals mainly with facts; religion deals mainly with values. The two are not rivals.|Martin Luther King, Jr}}

:'''Dracula''': ''I was called here by, huuuuumans, who wish to pay me tribute!''
:'''Richter Belmont''': ''Tribute?! You steal men's souls! And make them your slaves!''
:'''Dracula''': ''Perhaps the same could be said of all religions.''
::--An excerpt from the infamous exchange that also gave us "What is a man? A miserable little pile of secrets" in [[Castlevania#Castlevania:_Symphony_Of_The_Night_.28Castlevania_9.29|Castlevania: Symphony of the Night.]]

Because it's important to several settings and RPG systems, particularly ones that are high-profile or relevant to /tg/, we have a religion article. Let's try and keep it focused on the directly-related-to-/tg/ stuff and not descend into the pure [[skub]] that can arise in discussions of real-life religions, okay?

==Definition of Religion==
Almost since the inception of the term, scholars have failed to agree on a definition of religion. While there are some belief systems that always count as religions, some have applied the term to various things such as political ideologies, or groups when they reach a certain point. There are however two general definition systems: the sociological/functional and the phenomenological/philosophical.

The two most widely accepted are:
* "a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, that is to say things set apart and forbidden - beliefs and practices which unite into one single moral community called a church, all those who adhere to them."
* "a comprehensive worldview or 'metaphysical moral vision' that is accepted as binding because it is held to be in itself basically true and just even if all dimensions of it cannot be either fully confirmed or refuted".

As stated before, one common element that every religion which fits the criteria has is humanity's relation to supernatural forces, as all of them have at least one [[God|god]] and/or an afterlife even where there are exceptions; Buddhism doesn't have any gods but has afterlives, and Taoism doesn't have an afterlife but does have a pantheistic concept of a god as a supernatural force.

Like other terms for heavily [[SJW|debated]] [[communism|subjects]], religion and religious have also been used as insults or Snarl Words in social and political discussions (especially from the 20th century and onwards) to ridicule groups openly promoting something the user disagrees with. This snarl creates a caricature of the group to smear them by association with the worst excesses/negative stereotypes of real-world religious people (like being too preachy, judgmental, irrational, hypocritical, or pressuring everyone to convert).

==Religion vs. Mythology==
While [[Mythology|mythologies]] aren't religions in and of themselves, every religion has a mythology. While mythologies are merely the accounts of supernatural events, religions add rituals and practices that link those mythologies directly to the lives of their believers in one form or another, typically by describing how to properly serve to a god (or multiple gods, it depends) a significant role in the mythology a given religion is derived from. [[Skub|Whatever the source]], the mythology almost always predates the religion. As a result, especially since the Fantasy genre deals in supernatural beings and forces, most if not all fantasy settings have religions. Science fiction does to a lesser degree, mostly because during the Golden Age of sci-fi empiricists and secular humanists were attracted to the genre and their views often seeped into their stories. Despite this, given that most real-life societies have had religions playing a role in or since their founding, religions are still found in sci-fi.

Religions involves belief systems and practices, where an adherent can call upon the power/being the religion is focused on to give them aid in [[cleric|various]] [[Paladin|ways]], depending at the very least on the religion and the task in question. Given that religions are about people's place in the world, how it was made, ideas on how life should be lived and how humans should relate to the supernatural, they have major implications for societies. Given that people can become [[Exarch|dangerously single-minded]] about a cause, people can be become extremists about their religion, regardless of the fact that [[Heironeous|some]] are more benevolent than [[Asmodeus|others]] and in numerous cases even [[Heresy|if it involves going against the religion's teachings]]; in conjunction with the above this means religious conflicts can become widespread, long-lasting, cause carnage and also involve other elements such as politics- both in fantasy and in the real world.

==Role in Society==
A person's belief (for or against) any or all religions is a major factor in their worldview, and as such often serves as the undercurrent for all others. This is because this belief shapes people's views on the big things such as the purpose of life, how life should be lived in relation to oneself and others and what happens to people after they die. On the upside, this often leads to teachings with the goal of unity, peace, charity and co-operation as per the teachings of most religions, some of which are adapted by or also found among non-religious systems. On the downside, this can lead to clashes over how the people involved do the will of whichever beings or forces they follow, which religion should be followed or whether or not people should follow a god or religion at all. This can involve arguments and factionalizing, or in some cases worse things like pogroms and wars. Since they are an overarching and fairly common element in cultures, they often appear or are referenced in fiction.

The most common religious belief systems are the Abrahamic family of religions (primarily Judaism, Christianity and Islam) which are Monotheistic (belief in a singular God) and share many common elements and root, with - at the time this was written - Christianity being the most followed religion globally. Historically, these and other religions were frequently enshrined in law as the "state religion", giving them special privileges such as extensive influence over the government or tax exemptions. In some cases, they even took over the functions of the government entirely in a system known as theocracy; while uncommon in the present day, theocracies are still in use in places such as the Vatican and Saudi Arabia.

Within the last few centuries, due to events such as the French Revolution, there has also been a significant amount of anti-religious sentiment, which regards religion as at best redundant and at worst destructive (beyond historical grievances with specific groups within religions, reasons for this view and whether or not those arguments have any merit, shall not be discussed here). For the most part, a combination of people identifying more with their culture or nation than their religion and the concept that religion and functions of state should not interfere with each other has turned into more of a "live and let live" mentality that doesn't really support or oppose any one religion and only reacts when said religions begin actively defying the state.

Interestingly, numerous tyrannical regimes have tried to restrict or stamp out religions. This is because religious teachings put the figure/object of worship before the state in a conflict of interest, most religions teachings condemn many of the things tyrannical leaders indulge in, tyrants dislike competition for their subjects' fealty, tyrants dislike being answerable to anyone besides themselves, the tyrant may be prejudiced, or any combo of the above. While nations have ususlly tried to block specific religions deemed "false" (read: religions opposing the state-sponsored religion in any way), several nations (usually [[Communism|Communist]] states which took Marx's "religion is the opiate of the masses" quote out of context, as Marx viewed religion was a sort of protest against oppression that relieved people's immediate suffering and gave them the strength to go on living while also drawing their attention away from the class system that produced their oppression; subsequently, he believed that following the establishment of a communist society, religion would disappear as it would no longer be needed) have tried to get rid of religion altogether, albeit with horrifying [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/League_of_Militant_Atheists results] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khmer_Rouge_rule_of_Cambodia#Religious_communities each] time. Best case scenario, they sidegrade from one set of problems to another as cults of personality (commonly ones based on the ruler in charge) spring up to exploit the newly created power vacuum formerly filled by an established religion while believers who manage to survive the regime try to continue their activities in secret.

Unsurprisingly, the most religious nations are theocracies such as the Catholic theocracy running Vatican City and the Islamic theocracy running Saudi Arabia. China is - at the time this was written - the world's least religious and most atheistic country (the situation around North Korea is [[Skub|debatable]], since even though they violently supress religions [https://www.foxnews.com/world/north-korea-publicly-executes-80-some-for-videos-or-bibles-report-says to the point that merely having copies of religious texts can be grounds for execution], they also have the Kim Cult blended with the Marxist offshoot ideology Juche).

==How this impacts /tg/==
A few major ways. Since most if not every society in real-life has had religion either be the basis for its founding or play a role in it, religion is just as involved in the backstory or current lore of settings. There are three major "modes" of /tg/ settings and related fictions:
* The purely functional where religions are a story device.
* Religions and/or those they worship are portrayed positively as some sort of endorsement of religiosity.
* Religions and/or those they worship are portrayed negatively as some sort of criticism of religiosity.

===Religion as a story device===
Compared to the two types of writers found below, these writers are usually just attempting to model their work after real-world [[Mythology]] and are frequently attempting to keep their views of Religion separate from their work. Frequently comes in one of two subspecies:
* The [[Standard Fantasy Setting]] default: The world is ruled by an ordinary polytheistic pantheon, usually close to some admixture of Norse and Greek mythologies. Some of them also have a Top God - one more powerful than all the others and maybe the in-universe creator of everything - who is mostly hands-off in cosmic affairs. The gods of these religions tend to focus on specific areas (gods of [[Paladin|Justice]] and [[Druid|Nature]] are common, for subtly obvious reasons) and frequently want their followers to propagate or promote these things.
* The kind of setting they wanted to make dictated the nature of the divine. For example, in [[Exalted]] just about all the figures anybody would call a "God" (besides the Exalted) are Useless, because the Exalted (which includes the Player Characters) are the guys who were made specifically to do whatever the gods needed them to do for reasons inherent to the setting, to go with the main theme of the setting for the PCs: "You can do '''almost anything''', except ''avoid the consequences of being the one who did that anything''".

===Religion as a Bad Thing===
There are several writers of Science Fiction and Fantasy that are of the opinion "Religion Is Bad", often alongside having an axe to grind (sometimes warranted, sometimes not) with either one or more specific real-life religions. This is more common in Sci-Fi than fantasy because the focus on science appeals to the naturalist, empiricist and/or humanist worldview of such writers, with the supernatural being seen as an obstacle to that. Despite that, the view is found among some fantasy authors as well, such as the author of the book series "His Dark Materials", Philip Pullman (he wrote it as an anti-theistic and anti-religious response to C.S Lewis' "Chronicles of Narnia" series). Whatever the genre, this comes in flavors of either "The Gods Don't Exist", "The Gods are Incompetent" (more on that below) or "The Gods are Evil". Cosmic Horror also tends to use the "Gods Don't Exist" or "Gods are Evil" route, or combine them into "The Gods are actually Incomprehensible and Destructive Aliens" (for example; the author who codified the genre, [[H.P. Lovecraft]], was an avowed anti-religious atheist). This also has the side effect of inclining science fiction towards an atheistic perspective.

Another major component is personal issues of the author such as grievance or prejudice, but that's case-by-case and a major can of worms. Worst case scenario, the story is a wish fulfillment revenge fantasy against a religion or specific religious people the author dislikes (such as the comics "Holy Terror" by Frank Miller and "Preacher" by Garth Ennis). Whatever the motivation, writers saying this message often model their fictional religions on the - occasionally exaggerated - worst excesses of real world religious people and lift imagery from those religions or groups among them. Popular targets are Christianity, Islam, any faith that practiced human sacrifice (such as the Aztec religious practices), and Scientology. Cults, especially those with beliefs that mainstream religions consider unorthodox or outright heretical, are especially fertile ground for this message, albeit running the risk of being misapplied to tar other groups with the same brush.

===Religion as a Good Thing===
There are several religious Science Fiction and Fantasy writers who either want to promote their worldview, look upon religion positively and put that into the story (who may or may not be religious themselves) or both. This is more common in Fantasy than Sci-fi, partly because with the supernatural being THE fundamental element of the genre this opens opportunities to explore many aspects of religiosity. This is less common in science-fiction, but not unheard of, such as Carl Sagan's novel "Contact" where God's signature is found in the digits of pi. These authors usually put more thought into their fictional religion plus its central figure (although they have a tendency to go all "Crystal Dragon Jesus"), and try and have it be at least a somewhat good influence, although religious institutions and leaders are usually hit-and-miss affairs.

Some people make a fictional setting with figures from real-world religions, either in the real-world or [[CS Lewis|an alternate world such as Narnia like C.S Lewis did]]. Others use fictional religions that either visually resemble real-life religions or figures from them; religions that often get this treatment are the Abrahamic faiths (most often Christianity), Greek mythology, Egyptian mythology and Norse mythology (albeit often a sanitized version of the latter three). In other cases they all but abandon any form of subtlety, with the fictional religion being distinguished from the real-world religion the author follows by only a handful of minor changes. Naturally, those kinds of works tend to come off as preachy, to say the least.

Another route this uses is the route that faith itself provides the power; think of Morpheus' "your mind makes it real" quote, or the "[[Belief Function|Clap Your Hands If you Believe]]" trope. In fact, Warhammer often goes the route that the gods are powered by faith as well as from their sphere of influence which has either [[Sigmar|caused some people have risen to godhood]] or [[Ynnead|caused new gods to be born in the setting]]. In fact, this has proven the greatest weapon against Chaos in every Warhammer setting (and why the Emperor's plan to starve the Chaos Gods with atheism was doomed to fail from the start).

===Somewhat special cases===

One somewhat special case is the "Religion of Evil"; in many settings, there is a religion that is explicitly capital E Evil and seeks one of the usual "Card Carrying Villain" goals of Control, Conquest, Corruption, or Destruction. Frequently has some admixture of the worst aspects of Roman Paganism, Norse practices, the Aztec, Scientology and/or the various Abrahamic religions. They also often draw from those found in the writings of H.P Lovecraft. If this cult directly worships an individual Evil God, expect whatever makes sense for that deity to be some form of destructive activity--e.g., the cult of the God of Murder demands human sacrifice on a regular basis, with a certain portion of that explicitly being not-careful-enough cultists. Regardless, Religions of Evil can show up in all three above modes, and usually has a special purpose in all three:

* Functionalists (and, for that matter, all three) need bad guys. In particular, a group who by definition is Evil is always good for some no-need-to-worry-about-the-ethics-or-morality-of-killing fodder (based on the idea that everyone in is group is evil because you have to do evil to be part of the group).
* Religion is Bad types tend to use them to say either "while they're all Bad, some are worse then others", or say "Religion can be used to justify anything". Occasionally a prejudiced writer uses it as a strawman to tar all with the same brush or they have an axe to grind against a specific real-life religion and/or its followers.
* The sincerely religious tend to use them as analogies with fanaticism, criticize Real World cults, compare different beliefs or deal with negative aspects of religion (occasionally making jabs at competitive religions, or fellow believers the author disagrees with).
** As a side note, a lot of fantasy has moved slightly away from pure Religions of Evil, for much the same reason as [[Always Chaotic Evil]] races (audiences and authors nowdays demand more motive for their villains). While there are still plenty of them, they usually add some nuance that makes them at least morally neutral under their own lights. Popular options are for them to be an off-shoot/denomination/subset of another religion and/or be taking vengeance for a real or perceived wrong or injustice (which has '''plenty''' of real-life precedent).

[[Urban Fantasy]] writers are another special case, since almost all Urban Fantasy is set in something that might be called "the real world with a twist", with all the usual political trouble that implies. As a result, they can take one of a few routes:
* The most common route is "there are many possible explanations" and vague things up as much as possible ([[True Faith|Faith]] being the power that repels [[Vampire]]s rather than than a cross having any actual connection to a deity is a popular one).
* The second most common route (which is rarer outside of Cosmic Horror) is the "Religion as a Bad Thing" route from above. The story is straight up atheistic/"Religion is Bad" [[Imperial Truth|propaganda]], and in practice the writer often has an axe to grind against a specific religion. It's a popular choice for writers trying to be [[Edgy]] who want to include religious subject matter in their stories, and they almost exclusively go after the most followed religion in the area; any fictional religions will most likely be thinly-veiled stand-ins for real life religions.
* Some Urban Fantasy works with a clear correct religion exist thanks to the above mentioned sincerely religious authors, which are typically [[Chick Tracts|barely veiled proselytizing]] or [[Twilight|just straight up terrible]], though [[Monster Hunter International|there are some good ones]].
* The fourth route, taken most notably by [[Supers|DC and Marvel comics]] among others, is to take an "All Myths are True" approach: All religions are sort of true, but none have any exclusivity to the Truth, so Thor and Athena might have the Archangel Michael on speeddial when the Orochi teams up with Apep to start making trouble in their neighborhoods (because "Mikey really likes kicking serpent tail, and gets annoyed when we don't at least try to invite him to an evil serpent ass-kicking."). Differs from the "vague things up" route by being clearer on some details, and also much more gonzo. The Abrahamic God is the exception here: He's usually kept especially vague, albeit more powerful (and yet infinitely less accessible) than anyone else in the setting, and only referred to by some codephrase (Marvel likes "The One Above All", DC generally goes for "The Presence" or "whatever is behind the Source Wall").

===Miscellaneous Observations===

Doing the "The Gods are Incompetent" thing (the similar but different "The Gods are Insane", "The Gods Are Assholes" and "The Gods Don't Actually Do Anything" routes also falls under this umbrella) can go into any of the three modes; in a sincere monotheist's (such as Christian) work, it can be a "Take That" to polytheistic religions; in a "Religion is Bad" atheist's, it can be one to religion in general; in a Buddhist-influenced work, it can be a part of the whole "even the Gods are tied up in the Wheel of Karma" concept; and, even if the author is not pushing any religious message in any way, there's a neutral, plot-structural reason to go "Incompetent Gods": it can make the adventurers the Most Competent People Available since if that wasn't the case there wouldn't be anything for the adventurers to do.

If a work has multiple writers, (as frequently happens with RPG and Wargame settings, and quite a few popular SciFi/Fantasy ones as well) there's a tendency for the writers to try and pull the setting into one of the other two "modes" depending on their personal views. This leads to the theme changing from one side to the other as the story progresses. A recent example is [[World of Warcraft|the spate of retcons to the cosmology of the Warcraft universe]] and the morality of its fundamental forces/dominant higher powers, the Light and the Void. If the story doesn't get focused on a pro-religion or anti-religion message, it may end up swinging back and forth between both sides or settle in a mid-point which doesn't take a strong stance either way.

Note that members of the "Religion is Bad" and "Religion is Good" brigades will get involved in arguments over the relative morality or "goodness" of various factions in the story and the accuracy of any messages a writer presents. Often history buffs will throw their hat into the ring as well.

==Examples of /tg/ connected fictional religions==
===Warhammer 40k===
* The [[Imperial Truth]] was originally the Emperor's plan on beliefs, which he and his servants propagated throughout the galaxy during the Great Crusade. Attempting to wean mankind away from Chaos and being a firm member of the "Religion is Bad" brigade, the Emperor proclaimed there are no gods, and religion had to be abolished willingly or by force while science or reason are to be used for explaining the universe and morality. Everything transpired according to his design, except theistic religiosity in the 40k universe is the best weapon against Chaos so Emp's interstellar state atheism policy gave them a major opening. Things went from bad to worse when people started looking up to the Emperor as a god himself and [[Exterminatus|he responded accordingly]]. After the Horus Heresy and the Emperor's removal from galactic politics: the Imperial Truth was slowly shelved in favor of the Imperial Cult, to the point that espousing the teachings of the Truth is ironically considered heresy. Only a few practitioners of the Imperial Truth remain, most notably the Custodes and the Space Marines (both of whom know The Emperor better than anybody to worship him as a god. Plus, their religious autonomy.).
** The [[Imperial Cult]] is the present-day religion of the Imperium of Man, and is a mix of several Abrahamic Religions along with copious amounts of warmongering, fanaticism and xenophobia. Derived from the Lectitio Divinatus penned by [[Lorgar]] pre-HH, the Cult decrees that because the Emperor is capable of all these miracles and power: he ''must'' be a god, and why you should worship and pledge loyalty to him. Its a complete 180 from the Emperor's original teachings, and has simultaneously been responsible for damning and saving the Imperium past the clusterfuck of the Horus Heresy. It's unknown whether the Emperor still abhors godhood and religion and would abolish it the moment he could, or if he's resigned himself to becoming the very thing he fought against for mankind to persevere in these trying times. Whatever the case, he didn't want to be a god, but now he has no choice but to become one.
** The [[Adeptus Mechanicus|Cult Mechanicus]] (Machine Cult) is the religion of the Adeptus Mechanicus, placing a heavy emphasis on machines, viewing them as gifts from the Machine God called "The Omnissiah" Officially, the Omnissiah is The Emperor, which allows the Mechanicus to sidestep the more puritan pundits of the Imperial Cult (we worship The Emprah, just not how you do it). Unofficially, the Omnissiah may or may not be the C'tan god: The Void Dragon. It also has a high emphasis on the collection of knowledge, and one of the Admech's roles in the galaxy is to explore remote and uncharted regions of space to find and search for knowledge that has been lost throughout the millennia. The last of these, is guidelines on machines and knowledge. Officially, heretic(tek) and xeno works are to be abhorred and disposed of, viewing them as perversions of the holy Machine God's works. Unofficially however, more liberally-minded and higher-ranked Magos would happily hoard heretek/xeno works, seeing their potential over the more restricted and constrained works of the Mechanicus.

* Chaos is a violent and complicated henotheistic (believing in multiple gods but only worshipping one) or polytheistic religion with dozens, if not hundreds of interpretations. Even then, there's more sub-cults that worship their particular god in a specific way, either minutely or vastly different from everyone else among followers of the Big 4. And this doesn't even get into the realm of Chaos Undivided (which worships the concept of Chaos itself, instead of the individual gods) and [[Malal]]. Chaos has very little established guidelines regarding worship, apart from their patron god's/gods' general likes/dislikes, so any religious practices or rituals are either based on commands from the god/s or up to the imagination of the cult.
** Interestingly, there is a Space Marine of the Chaos faction who follows the Imperial Truth, and that is [[Fabius Bile]].

* All Greenskins worship Gork and Mork (jury's out on whether the [[Gretchin Revolutionary Committee]] do), but are too disorganized to have anything like a formal religion, though they do make effigies of Gork and Mork and call on them. The closest thing they have to tenants is that Gork favors violence, Mork favors cunning. Greenskins have gotten into fights over this, but violence is part of their nature and that of their gods. While they fight over religion, they also fight over almost any dispute anyway, and may even start a religious argument just to enjoy a good fight among themselves (though the only theological argument they can formulate is "is Gork the god of cunning or is Mork?" or vica versa). Religion doesn't play a significant role in Ork society compared to the other races.

* The Tau's creed "The [[Greater Good]]" is a specie-wide philosophy that was adopted ever since the initial unification of the Tau in the olden days. In a nutshell, the Greater Good emphasizes the co-existence of all Tau and sapient life in general into working together for a common goal to further the Tau's progress, seeing everyone's potential and hoping to utilize that for an, ahem, greater good. Personal religion isn't forbidden, but it must not contradict or override The Greater Good, and must be disregarded if it ever does so. Technically, this means Tau can be religious or non-religious, as the Greater Good is not a religion (due to lacking an afterlife and supernatural aspects, with the closest things to figures of worship being the Ethereals). This sounds all fine and dandy, but the Ethereal class, who are responsible for maintaining The Greater Good, have been shown to be less benevolent than believed and have been using their unnaturally powerful charisma to subtly oppress the Tau and use them to further their own agendas.
**The Farsight Enclaves, who have thrown off Ethereal rule, are the exception in that they have rejected The Greater Good, seeing it as the method of oppression used to keep the T'au under complete control of the ethereals. Due to this, if one considers the Greater Good a religion, The Enclaves are irreligious.
**As of the 4th Sphere Expansion disaster, Chaos Tau are starting to become a thing.
**At one point, the Earth Caste gathered Genestealer-infected Tau and studied them to see what would happen. Of course, a Genestealer cult developed and naturally they violently escaped control and surveillance. According to rumors, they've even produced a Genestealer-infected Ethereal.

* The Eldar have varying views on religiosity depending on their type. Their religion is polytheistic, with henotheistic offshoots, and Ausryan was the highest ranking god. However all of the Eldar gods were murder-raped to death by Slaanesh except for Isha (taken by Nurgle), Khaine (shattered and flung into realspace), Cegorach (hiding in the Webway) and Ynnead (born long after Slaanesh's birth). Their Pantheon's religious practices aren't fleshed out save for those of Cegorach, Isha, and Khaine, via the Harlequins and Aspect Warriors. With most of their gods out of commission, Eldar religious worship is of a deistic bent.
** Craftworlders and Exodites almost exclusively worship the original Eldar pantheon, though some engage in henotheistic worship of only one of the gods. Asuryan is more popular among Craftworlders while Isha is among Exodites, though nearly all give Khaine some tribute during war.
** Corsairs are all over the place, though Khaine is a popular choice given their more militant nature.
** Being agents of the Laughing God himself, the Harlequins' worship is centered around [[Cegorach]], whilst still paying minor tribute to the other gods.
** The new faith around Ynnead, the Ynnari, is rapidly growing but have yet to establish teachings or rituals.
** Unique among the Eldar, the Dark Eldar are irreligious for the most part and while they believe some gods exist they're too self-centered to worship them (this is canon). They're often also anti-religious to boot; a major landmark of Commorragh is a landfill of religious icons called Iconoclast's Mound, and one Wych cult - the Pain Eternal - revolves around killing religious people and destroying shrines and holy sites. The sole exception, except for Dark Eldar who stop being Dark Eldar, are the [[Incubi]] who hold [[Khaine]] in high regard.
** There are numerous rumors of a very small number of Chaos Eldar, but these are barely fleshed out and heavily classified in-universe. There have been verified Nurgle-worshipping Eldar and persistent rumors that some have embraced Slaanesh without becoming soul-food. Apart from this, some Dark Eldar have been willing to summon Chaos Daemons or work with Chaos worshippers ([[Fabius Bile|or allies of Chaos]]) to further their own ends.

* While the Necrontyr had religions before certain [[C'tan|star entities]] [[Necrons|roboticizied them]], those aren't fleshed out or detailed. Its also heavily implied the C'tan co-opted the Necrontyr religion beforehand. With the change to Necrons taking the higher though processes of most of them, any Necrons who can comprehend faith and religiosity either worship the C'tan or have become irreligious.

* The Tyranids themselves are irreligious, being spehss bugs and all, but understand at least a few of the advantages of religion. [[Genestealer]]s infect people and together they establish cults on targeted worlds, such as one worshipping "Children of the Stars", a perversion of the Imperial Cult or something else like "Celebrants of Nihilism" (yes, that's a canon Genestealer cult name). Psychic influence is often involved and, notably, the Genestealers do not consider themselves gods. Once the Tyranids arrive en-masse, the cult-gets assimilated along with all non-Tyranids willingly or not. An interesting tidbit is that the Hive Mind stops the Tyranids from attacking the cultists in early stages of the invasion and leads them on, only to later override the Genestealers' wills and and make them slaughter the cultists.

===Dungeons and Dragons===
* Among Dungeons and Dragons settings, [[Planescape]], [[Eberron]], and [[Pathfinder]] are notable for having some coherent things that could be called "Religions", rather then the usual generic Pantheism.
** Most of Planescape's Factions effectively count as religions, to the point they can produce [[Cleric]]s ([[Planescape: Torment#Fall-From-Grace|Atheist ones at that]]). Yes, even the Athar. (Perhaps ''especially'' the Athar.)
** Half of Eberron's religions aren't worship of deities. The [[Blood of Vol]] seeks to unlock the divinity within one's self and rejects the gods (if they even exist) and the [[Path of Inspiration]] seeks to improve their next reincarnation. The Undying Court worships not gods but their undead ancestors that make up their government. The [[Path of Light]], [[Warforged_Mysteries#The_Becoming_God|Becoming God]] and [[Warforged_Mysteries#The_Reforged|Reforged]] all seek to ''create'' a deity. Even some interpretations of the [[Sovereign Host]], like the one most common among dragons, don't worship them as deities. Due to the way divine casting works in Eberron, all of these can produce divine casters.
** There's a handful of religions on [[Golarion]] that aren't merely worship of pantheons. The most prominent (read: Actually has mechanical support) is the [[Prophecies of Kalistrade]], which is basically fantasy [[Star Trek|Ferengi]].

* [[D20 Modern]]'s [[Urban Arcana]], unusually for urban fantasy, has D&D deities bleed into reality alongside the monsters. You are still able to play a <s>cleric</s> "acolyte" of any real world deity despite this.

===Star Wars===
* [[Star Wars]] is inconsistent on if the [[The Force]] is a religion. The Jedi and the Sith ''could'' both be considered religions as they are considered monastic, but mix in several other traits such as being meritocratic (Jedi) and kraterocratic (Sith) and Lucas himself has axed at least one prototyped book for portraying them too much as a religion. It's also notable that the Sith were former Jedi who left the Jedi path for several reasons including [[Heresy|disagreements over the teachings of that creed]]. Aside from that, religion is nearly always a non-human tradition, something noted in a culture's historical background and never seen implying its extinction, or a scam. The religiously linked "damn" and "hell" are the two real world swear words that exist in-universe, purely because Han Solo used them in the films, and some concept of an "angel" exists because a young Anakin told Padme about them in the prequel trilogy films.
** There are rare exceptions where a religion is fleshed out and explored, and the writing goes various directions for better or worse. A notable example is the aggressive polytheistic religion of the antagonistic Yuuzhan Vong from the EU (which the story gradually revealed was long ago perverted from benevolent roots, and this perverted form takes a few cues from Islam and Aztec mythology).

===Star Trek===
* Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry had a low opinion of religion and in his vision humanity had done away with it and was better off for it and he had no interest in adding it to the aliens. However, some of the cast and crew disagreed and occasionally references and religions found their way into the show, which increased after Roddenberry's death. The Federation's culture is distinctly humanistic (extending the concept to alien species) in it's outlook in which religion is regarded as a thing of the past.
** While there are plenty of "Godlike" entities in Star Trek, almost all are treated as Sufficiently Advanced Aliens in the Arthur C. Clarke sense--and in particular, in ST:TNG, the flip side, that Picard and his crew are frequently shown to look like Gods to sufficiently primitive aliens, is gone into in more than one episode.
** The Bajorans are a highly religious alien race, with the majority following peaceful teachings and a minority of violent extremists.
*** Of some note, the Bajoran religion is of interest because their "Gods" actually exist, and can be (somewhat incomprehensibly) talked to (a rarity outside of [[Science Fantasy]]). In other words, they were frequently a method of having some religion vs. science debates where the divine entity (A) explicitly exists, (B) is explainable as "sufficiently advanced and unusual aliens", and (C) aren't jerks, just bad at communication with those of us who experience time linearly--in other words, with a deck that wasn't quite as badly stacked. The religiosity was meant to be as a way of contrasting the Starfleet personnel with the native population and to draw a parallel between Bajorans under the Cardassian Occupation and various real world recently freed oppressed religious-slash-ethnic groups.
** <s>In the fifth Star Trek movie, ''"The Final Frontier"'', some of the crew steal the Enterprise to look for God and instead find a powerful alien being impersonating God in the center of the universe</s> '''Just like there is no live-action movie of Avatar: The Last Airbender, there is totally no Star Trek 5!'''

===World of Darkness===
* Very large books could be written about religion and [[World of Darkness]]/Chronicles of Darkness. We'll just cover a few highlights:
** From [[Vampire: The Requiem]], there's the the Lancea et Sanctum, which might be best described as "Christianity for Vampires", and the Circle of the Crone, which is "Pagan Vampires". Both have Vampire miracles on tap (pun intended).
** [[Hunter: The Vigil]] has various religious organizations among the Compacts and Conspiracies, some very similar to real world ones, others...not so much.
** [[Mage: The Ascension]] has various religious Traditions, portrayed in that highly-stereotypical and highly-depending-on-the-author way typical of old WoD.

==See also==
* [[Mythology]]

[[Category:Not related]]
[[Category:History]]

Religion

2020-04-17T04:05:30Z

2406:3400:20F:FFC0:A945:1FE6:1D76:A2F4: /* Religion as a Bad Thing */

{{topquote|Science investigates; religion interprets. Science gives man knowledge, which is power; religion gives man wisdom, which is control. Science deals mainly with facts; religion deals mainly with values. The two are not rivals.|Martin Luther King, Jr}}

:'''Dracula''': ''I was called here by, huuuuumans, who wish to pay me tribute!''
:'''Richter Belmont''': ''Tribute?! You steal men's souls! And make them your slaves!''
:'''Dracula''': ''Perhaps the same could be said of all religions.''
::--An excerpt from the infamous exchange that also gave us "What is a man? A miserable little pile of secrets" in [[Castlevania#Castlevania:_Symphony_Of_The_Night_.28Castlevania_9.29|Castlevania: Symphony of the Night.]]

Because it's important to several settings and RPG systems, particularly ones that are high-profile or relevant to /tg/, we have a religion article. Let's try and keep it focused on the directly-related-to-/tg/ stuff and not descend into the pure [[skub]] that can arise in discussions of real-life religions, okay?

==Definition of Religion==
Almost since the inception of the term, scholars have failed to agree on a definition of religion. While there are some belief systems that always count as religions, some have applied the term to various things such as political ideologies, or groups when they reach a certain point. There are however two general definition systems: the sociological/functional and the phenomenological/philosophical.

The two most widely accepted are:
* "a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, that is to say things set apart and forbidden - beliefs and practices which unite into one single moral community called a church, all those who adhere to them."
* "a comprehensive worldview or 'metaphysical moral vision' that is accepted as binding because it is held to be in itself basically true and just even if all dimensions of it cannot be either fully confirmed or refuted".

As stated before, one common element that every religion which fits the criteria has is humanity's relation to supernatural forces, as all of them have at least one [[God|god]] and/or an afterlife even where there are exceptions; Buddhism doesn't have any gods but has afterlives, and Taoism doesn't have an afterlife but does have a pantheistic concept of a god as a supernatural force.

Like other terms for heavily [[SJW|debated]] [[communism|subjects]], religion and religious have also been used as insults or Snarl Words in social and political discussions (especially from the 20th century and onwards) to ridicule groups openly promoting something the user disagrees with. This snarl creates a caricature of the group to smear them by association with the worst excesses/negative stereotypes of real-world religious people (like being too preachy, judgmental, irrational, hypocritical, or pressuring everyone to convert).

==Religion vs. Mythology==
While [[Mythology|mythologies]] aren't religions in and of themselves, every religion has a mythology. While mythologies are merely the accounts of supernatural events, religions add rituals and practices that link those mythologies directly to the lives of their believers in one form or another, typically by describing how to properly serve to a god (or multiple gods, it depends) a significant role in the mythology a given religion is derived from. [[Skub|Whatever the source]], the mythology almost always predates the religion. As a result, especially since the Fantasy genre deals in supernatural beings and forces, most if not all fantasy settings have religions. Science fiction does to a lesser degree, mostly because during the Golden Age of sci-fi empiricists and secular humanists were attracted to the genre and their views often seeped into their stories. Despite this, given that most real-life societies have had religions playing a role in or since their founding, religions are still found in sci-fi.

Religions involves belief systems and practices, where an adherent can call upon the power/being the religion is focused on to give them aid in [[cleric|various]] [[Paladin|ways]], depending at the very least on the religion and the task in question. Given that religions are about people's place in the world, how it was made, ideas on how life should be lived and how humans should relate to the supernatural, they have major implications for societies. Given that people can become [[Exarch|dangerously single-minded]] about a cause, people can be become extremists about their religion, regardless of the fact that [[Heironeous|some]] are more benevolent than [[Asmodeus|others]] and in numerous cases even [[Heresy|if it involves going against the religion's teachings]]; in conjunction with the above this means religious conflicts can become widespread, long-lasting, cause carnage and also involve other elements such as politics- both in fantasy and in the real world.

==Role in Society==
A person's belief (for or against) any or all religions is a major factor in their worldview, and as such often serves as the undercurrent for all others. This is because this belief shapes people's views on the big things such as the purpose of life, how life should be lived in relation to oneself and others and what happens to people after they die. On the upside, this often leads to teachings with the goal of unity, peace, charity and co-operation as per the teachings of most religions, some of which are adapted by or also found among non-religious systems. On the downside, this can lead to clashes over how the people involved do the will of whichever beings or forces they follow, which religion should be followed or whether or not people should follow a god or religion at all. This can involve arguments and factionalizing, or in some cases worse things like pogroms and wars. Since they are an overarching and fairly common element in cultures, they often appear or are referenced in fiction.

The most common religious belief systems are the Abrahamic family of religions (primarily Judaism, Christianity and Islam) which are Monotheistic (belief in a singular God) and share many common elements and root, with - at the time this was written - Christianity being the most followed religion globally. Historically, these and other religions were frequently enshrined in law as the "state religion", giving them special privileges such as extensive influence over the government or tax exemptions. In some cases, they even took over the functions of the government entirely in a system known as theocracy; while uncommon in the present day, theocracies are still in use in places such as the Vatican and Saudi Arabia.

Within the last few centuries, due to events such as the French Revolution, there has also been a significant amount of anti-religious sentiment, which regards religion as at best redundant and at worst destructive (beyond historical grievances with specific groups within religions, reasons for this view and whether or not those arguments have any merit, shall not be discussed here). For the most part, a combination of people identifying more with their culture or nation than their religion and the concept that religion and functions of state should not interfere with each other has turned into more of a "live and let live" mentality that doesn't really support or oppose any one religion and only reacts when said religions begin actively defying the state.

Interestingly, numerous tyrannical regimes have tried to restrict or stamp out religions. This is because religious teachings put the figure/object of worship before the state in a conflict of interest, most religions teachings condemn many of the things tyrannical leaders indulge in, tyrants dislike competition for their subjects' fealty, tyrants dislike being answerable to anyone besides themselves, the tyrant may be prejudiced, or any combo of the above. While nations have ususlly tried to block specific religions deemed "false" (read: religions opposing the state-sponsored religion in any way), several nations (usually [[Communism|Communist]] states which took Marx's "religion is the opiate of the masses" quote out of context, as Marx viewed religion was a sort of protest against oppression that relieved people's immediate suffering and gave them the strength to go on living while also drawing their attention away from the class system that produced their oppression; subsequently, he believed that following the establishment of a communist society, religion would disappear as it would no longer be needed) have tried to get rid of religion altogether, albeit with horrifying [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/League_of_Militant_Atheists results] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khmer_Rouge_rule_of_Cambodia#Religious_communities each] time. Best case scenario, they sidegrade from one set of problems to another as cults of personality (commonly ones based on the ruler in charge) spring up to exploit the newly created power vacuum formerly filled by an established religion while believers who manage to survive the regime try to continue their activities in secret.

Unsurprisingly, the most religious nations are theocracies such as the Catholic theocracy running Vatican City and the Islamic theocracy running Saudi Arabia. China is - at the time this was written - the world's least religious and most atheistic country (the situation around North Korea is [[Skub|debatable]], since even though they violently supress religions [https://www.foxnews.com/world/north-korea-publicly-executes-80-some-for-videos-or-bibles-report-says to the point that merely having copies of religious texts can be grounds for execution], they also have the Kim Cult blended with the Marxist offshoot ideology Juche).

==How this impacts /tg/==
A few major ways. Since most if not every society in real-life has had religion either be the basis for its founding or play a role in it, religion is just as involved in the backstory or current lore of settings. There are three major "modes" of /tg/ settings and related fictions:
* The purely functional where religions are a story device.
* Religions and/or those they worship are portrayed positively as some sort of endorsement of religiosity.
* Religions and/or those they worship are portrayed negatively as some sort of criticism of religiosity.

===Religion as a story device===
Compared to the two types of writers found below, these writers are usually just attempting to model their work after real-world [[Mythology]] and are frequently attempting to keep their views of Religion separate from their work. Frequently comes in one of two subspecies:
* The [[Standard Fantasy Setting]] default: The world is ruled by an ordinary polytheistic pantheon, usually close to some admixture of Norse and Greek mythologies. Some of them also have a Top God - one more powerful than all the others and maybe the in-universe creator of everything - who is mostly hands-off in cosmic affairs. The gods of these religions tend to focus on specific areas (gods of [[Paladin|Justice]] and [[Druid|Nature]] are common, for subtly obvious reasons) and frequently want their followers to propagate or promote these things.
* The kind of setting they wanted to make dictated the nature of the divine. For example, in [[Exalted]] just about all the figures anybody would call a "God" (besides the Exalted) are Useless, because the Exalted (which includes the Player Characters) are the guys who were made specifically to do whatever the gods needed them to do for reasons inherent to the setting, to go with the main theme of the setting for the PCs: "You can do '''almost anything''', except ''avoid the consequences of being the one who did that anything''".

===Religion as a Bad Thing===
There are several writers of Science Fiction and Fantasy that are of the opinion "Religion Is Bad", often alongside having an axe to grind (sometimes warranted, sometimes not) with either one or more specific real-life religions. This is more common in Sci-Fi than fantasy because the focus on science appeals to the naturalist, empiricist and/or humanist worldview of such writers, with the supernatural being seen as an obstacle to that. Despite that, the view is found among some fantasy authors as well, such as the author of the book series "His Dark Materials", Philip Pullman (he wrote it as an anti-theistic and anti-religious response to C.S Lewis' "Chronicles of Narnia" series). Whatever the genre, this comes in flavors of either "The Gods Don't Exist", "The Gods are Incompetent" (more on that below) or "The Gods are Evil". Cosmic Horror also tends to use the "Gods Don't Exist" or "Gods are Evil" route, or combine them into "The Gods are actually Incomprehensible and Destructive Aliens" (for example; the author who codified the genre, [[H.P. Lovecraft]], was an avowed anti-religious atheist). This also has the side effect of inclining science fiction towards an atheistic perspective.

Another major component is personal issues of the author such as grievance or prejudice, but that's case-by-case and a major can of worms. Worst case scenario, the story is a wish fulfillment revenge fantasy against a religion or specific religious people the author dislikes (such as the comics "Holy Terror" by Frank Miller and "Preacher" by Garth Ennis). Whatever the motivation, writers saying this message often model their fictional religions on the - occasionally exaggerated - worst excesses of real world religious people and lift imagery from those religions or groups among them. Popular targets are Christianity, Islam, any faith that practiced human sacrifice (such as the Aztec religious practices), and Scientology. Cults, especially those with beliefs that mainstream religions consider unorthodox or outright heretical, are especially fertile ground for this message, albeit running the risk of being misapplied to tar other groups with the same brush.

===Religion as a Good Thing===
There are several religious Science Fiction and Fantasy writers who either want to promote their worldview, look upon religion positively and put that into the story (who may or may not be religious themselves) or both. This is more common in Fantasy than Sci-fi, partly because with the supernatural being THE fundamental element of the genre this opens opportunities to explore many aspects of religiosity. These authors usually put more thought into their fictional religion plus its central figure (although they have a tendency to go all "Crystal Dragon Jesus"), and try and have it be at least a somewhat good influence, although religious institutions and leaders are usually hit-and-miss affairs.

Some people make a fictional setting with figures from real-world religions, either in the real-world or [[CS Lewis|an alternate world such as Narnia like C.S Lewis did]]. Others use fictional religions that either visually resemble real-life religions or figures from them; religions that often get this treatment are the Abrahamic faiths (most often Christianity), Greek mythology, Egyptian mythology and Norse mythology (albeit often a sanitized version of the latter three). In other cases they all but abandon any form of subtlety, with the fictional religion being distinguished from the real-world religion the author follows by only a handful of minor changes. Naturally, those kinds of works tend to come off as preachy, to say the least.

Another route this uses is the route that faith itself provides the power; think of Morpheus' "your mind makes it real" quote, or the "[[Belief Function|Clap Your Hands If you Believe]]" trope. In fact, Warhammer often goes the route that the gods are powered by faith as well as from their sphere of influence which has either [[Sigmar|caused some people have risen to godhood]] or [[Ynnead|caused new gods to be born in the setting]]. In fact, this has proven the greatest weapon against Chaos in every Warhammer setting (and why the Emperor's plan to starve the Chaos Gods with atheism was doomed to fail from the start).

===Somewhat special cases===

One somewhat special case is the "Religion of Evil"; in many settings, there is a religion that is explicitly capital E Evil and seeks one of the usual "Card Carrying Villain" goals of Control, Conquest, Corruption, or Destruction. Frequently has some admixture of the worst aspects of Roman Paganism, Norse practices, the Aztec, Scientology and/or the various Abrahamic religions. They also often draw from those found in the writings of H.P Lovecraft. If this cult directly worships an individual Evil God, expect whatever makes sense for that deity to be some form of destructive activity--e.g., the cult of the God of Murder demands human sacrifice on a regular basis, with a certain portion of that explicitly being not-careful-enough cultists. Regardless, Religions of Evil can show up in all three above modes, and usually has a special purpose in all three:

* Functionalists (and, for that matter, all three) need bad guys. In particular, a group who by definition is Evil is always good for some no-need-to-worry-about-the-ethics-or-morality-of-killing fodder (based on the idea that everyone in is group is evil because you have to do evil to be part of the group).
* Religion is Bad types tend to use them to say either "while they're all Bad, some are worse then others", or say "Religion can be used to justify anything". Occasionally a prejudiced writer uses it as a strawman to tar all with the same brush or they have an axe to grind against a specific real-life religion and/or its followers.
* The sincerely religious tend to use them as analogies with fanaticism, criticize Real World cults, compare different beliefs or deal with negative aspects of religion (occasionally making jabs at competitive religions, or fellow believers the author disagrees with).
** As a side note, a lot of fantasy has moved slightly away from pure Religions of Evil, for much the same reason as [[Always Chaotic Evil]] races (audiences and authors nowdays demand more motive for their villains). While there are still plenty of them, they usually add some nuance that makes them at least morally neutral under their own lights. Popular options are for them to be an off-shoot/denomination/subset of another religion and/or be taking vengeance for a real or perceived wrong or injustice (which has '''plenty''' of real-life precedent).

[[Urban Fantasy]] writers are another special case, since almost all Urban Fantasy is set in something that might be called "the real world with a twist", with all the usual political trouble that implies. As a result, they can take one of a few routes:
* The most common route is "there are many possible explanations" and vague things up as much as possible ([[True Faith|Faith]] being the power that repels [[Vampire]]s rather than than a cross having any actual connection to a deity is a popular one).
* The second most common route (which is rarer outside of Cosmic Horror) is the "Religion as a Bad Thing" route from above. The story is straight up atheistic/"Religion is Bad" [[Imperial Truth|propaganda]], and in practice the writer often has an axe to grind against a specific religion. It's a popular choice for writers trying to be [[Edgy]] who want to include religious subject matter in their stories, and they almost exclusively go after the most followed religion in the area; any fictional religions will most likely be thinly-veiled stand-ins for real life religions.
* Some Urban Fantasy works with a clear correct religion exist thanks to the above mentioned sincerely religious authors, which are typically [[Chick Tracts|barely veiled proselytizing]] or [[Twilight|just straight up terrible]], though [[Monster Hunter International|there are some good ones]].
* The fourth route, taken most notably by [[Supers|DC and Marvel comics]] among others, is to take an "All Myths are True" approach: All religions are sort of true, but none have any exclusivity to the Truth, so Thor and Athena might have the Archangel Michael on speeddial when the Orochi teams up with Apep to start making trouble in their neighborhoods (because "Mikey really likes kicking serpent tail, and gets annoyed when we don't at least try to invite him to an evil serpent ass-kicking."). Differs from the "vague things up" route by being clearer on some details, and also much more gonzo. The Abrahamic God is the exception here: He's usually kept especially vague, albeit more powerful (and yet infinitely less accessible) than anyone else in the setting, and only referred to by some codephrase (Marvel likes "The One Above All", DC generally goes for "The Presence" or "whatever is behind the Source Wall").

===Miscellaneous Observations===

Doing the "The Gods are Incompetent" thing (the similar but different "The Gods are Insane", "The Gods Are Assholes" and "The Gods Don't Actually Do Anything" routes also falls under this umbrella) can go into any of the three modes; in a sincere monotheist's (such as Christian) work, it can be a "Take That" to polytheistic religions; in a "Religion is Bad" atheist's, it can be one to religion in general; in a Buddhist-influenced work, it can be a part of the whole "even the Gods are tied up in the Wheel of Karma" concept; and, even if the author is not pushing any religious message in any way, there's a neutral, plot-structural reason to go "Incompetent Gods": it can make the adventurers the Most Competent People Available since if that wasn't the case there wouldn't be anything for the adventurers to do.

If a work has multiple writers, (as frequently happens with RPG and Wargame settings, and quite a few popular SciFi/Fantasy ones as well) there's a tendency for the writers to try and pull the setting into one of the other two "modes" depending on their personal views. This leads to the theme changing from one side to the other as the story progresses. A recent example is [[World of Warcraft|the spate of retcons to the cosmology of the Warcraft universe]] and the morality of its fundamental forces/dominant higher powers, the Light and the Void. If the story doesn't get focused on a pro-religion or anti-religion message, it may end up swinging back and forth between both sides or settle in a mid-point which doesn't take a strong stance either way.

Note that members of the "Religion is Bad" and "Religion is Good" brigades will get involved in arguments over the relative morality or "goodness" of various factions in the story and the accuracy of any messages a writer presents. Often history buffs will throw their hat into the ring as well.

==Examples of /tg/ connected fictional religions==
===Warhammer 40k===
* The [[Imperial Truth]] was originally the Emperor's plan on beliefs, which he and his servants propagated throughout the galaxy during the Great Crusade. Attempting to wean mankind away from Chaos and being a firm member of the "Religion is Bad" brigade, the Emperor proclaimed there are no gods, and religion had to be abolished willingly or by force while science or reason are to be used for explaining the universe and morality. Everything transpired according to his design, except theistic religiosity in the 40k universe is the best weapon against Chaos so Emp's interstellar state atheism policy gave them a major opening. Things went from bad to worse when people started looking up to the Emperor as a god himself and [[Exterminatus|he responded accordingly]]. After the Horus Heresy and the Emperor's removal from galactic politics: the Imperial Truth was slowly shelved in favor of the Imperial Cult, to the point that espousing the teachings of the Truth is ironically considered heresy. Only a few practitioners of the Imperial Truth remain, most notably the Custodes and the Space Marines (both of whom know The Emperor better than anybody to worship him as a god. Plus, their religious autonomy.).
** The [[Imperial Cult]] is the present-day religion of the Imperium of Man, and is a mix of several Abrahamic Religions along with copious amounts of warmongering, fanaticism and xenophobia. Derived from the Lectitio Divinatus penned by [[Lorgar]] pre-HH, the Cult decrees that because the Emperor is capable of all these miracles and power: he ''must'' be a god, and why you should worship and pledge loyalty to him. Its a complete 180 from the Emperor's original teachings, and has simultaneously been responsible for damning and saving the Imperium past the clusterfuck of the Horus Heresy. It's unknown whether the Emperor still abhors godhood and religion and would abolish it the moment he could, or if he's resigned himself to becoming the very thing he fought against for mankind to persevere in these trying times. Whatever the case, he didn't want to be a god, but now he has no choice but to become one.
** The [[Adeptus Mechanicus|Cult Mechanicus]] (Machine Cult) is the religion of the Adeptus Mechanicus, placing a heavy emphasis on machines, viewing them as gifts from the Machine God called "The Omnissiah" Officially, the Omnissiah is The Emperor, which allows the Mechanicus to sidestep the more puritan pundits of the Imperial Cult (we worship The Emprah, just not how you do it). Unofficially, the Omnissiah may or may not be the C'tan god: The Void Dragon. It also has a high emphasis on the collection of knowledge, and one of the Admech's roles in the galaxy is to explore remote and uncharted regions of space to find and search for knowledge that has been lost throughout the millennia. The last of these, is guidelines on machines and knowledge. Officially, heretic(tek) and xeno works are to be abhorred and disposed of, viewing them as perversions of the holy Machine God's works. Unofficially however, more liberally-minded and higher-ranked Magos would happily hoard heretek/xeno works, seeing their potential over the more restricted and constrained works of the Mechanicus.

* Chaos is a violent and complicated henotheistic (believing in multiple gods but only worshipping one) or polytheistic religion with dozens, if not hundreds of interpretations. Even then, there's more sub-cults that worship their particular god in a specific way, either minutely or vastly different from everyone else among followers of the Big 4. And this doesn't even get into the realm of Chaos Undivided (which worships the concept of Chaos itself, instead of the individual gods) and [[Malal]]. Chaos has very little established guidelines regarding worship, apart from their patron god's/gods' general likes/dislikes, so any religious practices or rituals are either based on commands from the god/s or up to the imagination of the cult.
** Interestingly, there is a Space Marine of the Chaos faction who follows the Imperial Truth, and that is [[Fabius Bile]].

* All Greenskins worship Gork and Mork (jury's out on whether the [[Gretchin Revolutionary Committee]] do), but are too disorganized to have anything like a formal religion, though they do make effigies of Gork and Mork and call on them. The closest thing they have to tenants is that Gork favors violence, Mork favors cunning. Greenskins have gotten into fights over this, but violence is part of their nature and that of their gods. While they fight over religion, they also fight over almost any dispute anyway, and may even start a religious argument just to enjoy a good fight among themselves (though the only theological argument they can formulate is "is Gork the god of cunning or is Mork?" or vica versa). Religion doesn't play a significant role in Ork society compared to the other races.

* The Tau's creed "The [[Greater Good]]" is a specie-wide philosophy that was adopted ever since the initial unification of the Tau in the olden days. In a nutshell, the Greater Good emphasizes the co-existence of all Tau and sapient life in general into working together for a common goal to further the Tau's progress, seeing everyone's potential and hoping to utilize that for an, ahem, greater good. Personal religion isn't forbidden, but it must not contradict or override The Greater Good, and must be disregarded if it ever does so. Technically, this means Tau can be religious or non-religious, as the Greater Good is not a religion (due to lacking an afterlife and supernatural aspects, with the closest things to figures of worship being the Ethereals). This sounds all fine and dandy, but the Ethereal class, who are responsible for maintaining The Greater Good, have been shown to be less benevolent than believed and have been using their unnaturally powerful charisma to subtly oppress the Tau and use them to further their own agendas.
**The Farsight Enclaves, who have thrown off Ethereal rule, are the exception in that they have rejected The Greater Good, seeing it as the method of oppression used to keep the T'au under complete control of the ethereals. Due to this, if one considers the Greater Good a religion, The Enclaves are irreligious.
**As of the 4th Sphere Expansion disaster, Chaos Tau are starting to become a thing.
**At one point, the Earth Caste gathered Genestealer-infected Tau and studied them to see what would happen. Of course, a Genestealer cult developed and naturally they violently escaped control and surveillance. According to rumors, they've even produced a Genestealer-infected Ethereal.

* The Eldar have varying views on religiosity depending on their type. Their religion is polytheistic, with henotheistic offshoots, and Ausryan was the highest ranking god. However all of the Eldar gods were murder-raped to death by Slaanesh except for Isha (taken by Nurgle), Khaine (shattered and flung into realspace), Cegorach (hiding in the Webway) and Ynnead (born long after Slaanesh's birth). Their Pantheon's religious practices aren't fleshed out save for those of Cegorach, Isha, and Khaine, via the Harlequins and Aspect Warriors. With most of their gods out of commission, Eldar religious worship is of a deistic bent.
** Craftworlders and Exodites almost exclusively worship the original Eldar pantheon, though some engage in henotheistic worship of only one of the gods. Asuryan is more popular among Craftworlders while Isha is among Exodites, though nearly all give Khaine some tribute during war.
** Corsairs are all over the place, though Khaine is a popular choice given their more militant nature.
** Being agents of the Laughing God himself, the Harlequins' worship is centered around [[Cegorach]], whilst still paying minor tribute to the other gods.
** The new faith around Ynnead, the Ynnari, is rapidly growing but have yet to establish teachings or rituals.
** Unique among the Eldar, the Dark Eldar are irreligious for the most part and while they believe some gods exist they're too self-centered to worship them (this is canon). They're often also anti-religious to boot; a major landmark of Commorragh is a landfill of religious icons called Iconoclast's Mound, and one Wych cult - the Pain Eternal - revolves around killing religious people and destroying shrines and holy sites. The sole exception, except for Dark Eldar who stop being Dark Eldar, are the [[Incubi]] who hold [[Khaine]] in high regard.
** There are numerous rumors of a very small number of Chaos Eldar, but these are barely fleshed out and heavily classified in-universe. There have been verified Nurgle-worshipping Eldar and persistent rumors that some have embraced Slaanesh without becoming soul-food. Apart from this, some Dark Eldar have been willing to summon Chaos Daemons or work with Chaos worshippers ([[Fabius Bile|or allies of Chaos]]) to further their own ends.

* While the Necrontyr had religions before certain [[C'tan|star entities]] [[Necrons|roboticizied them]], those aren't fleshed out or detailed. Its also heavily implied the C'tan co-opted the Necrontyr religion beforehand. With the change to Necrons taking the higher though processes of most of them, any Necrons who can comprehend faith and religiosity either worship the C'tan or have become irreligious.

* The Tyranids themselves are irreligious, being spehss bugs and all, but understand at least a few of the advantages of religion. [[Genestealer]]s infect people and together they establish cults on targeted worlds, such as one worshipping "Children of the Stars", a perversion of the Imperial Cult or something else like "Celebrants of Nihilism" (yes, that's a canon Genestealer cult name). Psychic influence is often involved and, notably, the Genestealers do not consider themselves gods. Once the Tyranids arrive en-masse, the cult-gets assimilated along with all non-Tyranids willingly or not. An interesting tidbit is that the Hive Mind stops the Tyranids from attacking the cultists in early stages of the invasion and leads them on, only to later override the Genestealers' wills and and make them slaughter the cultists.

===Dungeons and Dragons===
* Among Dungeons and Dragons settings, [[Planescape]], [[Eberron]], and [[Pathfinder]] are notable for having some coherent things that could be called "Religions", rather then the usual generic Pantheism.
** Most of Planescape's Factions effectively count as religions, to the point they can produce [[Cleric]]s ([[Planescape: Torment#Fall-From-Grace|Atheist ones at that]]). Yes, even the Athar. (Perhaps ''especially'' the Athar.)
** Half of Eberron's religions aren't worship of deities. The [[Blood of Vol]] seeks to unlock the divinity within one's self and rejects the gods (if they even exist) and the [[Path of Inspiration]] seeks to improve their next reincarnation. The Undying Court worships not gods but their undead ancestors that make up their government. The [[Path of Light]], [[Warforged_Mysteries#The_Becoming_God|Becoming God]] and [[Warforged_Mysteries#The_Reforged|Reforged]] all seek to ''create'' a deity. Even some interpretations of the [[Sovereign Host]], like the one most common among dragons, don't worship them as deities. Due to the way divine casting works in Eberron, all of these can produce divine casters.
** There's a handful of religions on [[Golarion]] that aren't merely worship of pantheons. The most prominent (read: Actually has mechanical support) is the [[Prophecies of Kalistrade]], which is basically fantasy [[Star Trek|Ferengi]].

* [[D20 Modern]]'s [[Urban Arcana]], unusually for urban fantasy, has D&D deities bleed into reality alongside the monsters. You are still able to play a <s>cleric</s> "acolyte" of any real world deity despite this.

===Star Wars===
* [[Star Wars]] is inconsistent on if the [[The Force]] is a religion. The Jedi and the Sith ''could'' both be considered religions as they are considered monastic, but mix in several other traits such as being meritocratic (Jedi) and kraterocratic (Sith) and Lucas himself has axed at least one prototyped book for portraying them too much as a religion. It's also notable that the Sith were former Jedi who left the Jedi path for several reasons including [[Heresy|disagreements over the teachings of that creed]]. Aside from that, religion is nearly always a non-human tradition, something noted in a culture's historical background and never seen implying its extinction, or a scam. The religiously linked "damn" and "hell" are the two real world swear words that exist in-universe, purely because Han Solo used them in the films, and some concept of an "angel" exists because a young Anakin told Padme about them in the prequel trilogy films.
** There are rare exceptions where a religion is fleshed out and explored, and the writing goes various directions for better or worse. A notable example is the aggressive polytheistic religion of the antagonistic Yuuzhan Vong from the EU (which the story gradually revealed was long ago perverted from benevolent roots, and this perverted form takes a few cues from Islam and Aztec mythology).

===Star Trek===
* Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry had a low opinion of religion and in his vision humanity had done away with it and was better off for it and he had no interest in adding it to the aliens. However, some of the cast and crew disagreed and occasionally references and religions found their way into the show, which increased after Roddenberry's death. The Federation's culture is distinctly humanistic (extending the concept to alien species) in it's outlook in which religion is regarded as a thing of the past.
** While there are plenty of "Godlike" entities in Star Trek, almost all are treated as Sufficiently Advanced Aliens in the Arthur C. Clarke sense--and in particular, in ST:TNG, the flip side, that Picard and his crew are frequently shown to look like Gods to sufficiently primitive aliens, is gone into in more than one episode.
** The Bajorans are a highly religious alien race, with the majority following peaceful teachings and a minority of violent extremists.
*** Of some note, the Bajoran religion is of interest because their "Gods" actually exist, and can be (somewhat incomprehensibly) talked to (a rarity outside of [[Science Fantasy]]). In other words, they were frequently a method of having some religion vs. science debates where the divine entity (A) explicitly exists, (B) is explainable as "sufficiently advanced and unusual aliens", and (C) aren't jerks, just bad at communication with those of us who experience time linearly--in other words, with a deck that wasn't quite as badly stacked. The religiosity was meant to be as a way of contrasting the Starfleet personnel with the native population and to draw a parallel between Bajorans under the Cardassian Occupation and various real world recently freed oppressed religious-slash-ethnic groups.
** <s>In the fifth Star Trek movie, ''"The Final Frontier"'', some of the crew steal the Enterprise to look for God and instead find a powerful alien being impersonating God in the center of the universe</s> '''Just like there is no live-action movie of Avatar: The Last Airbender, there is totally no Star Trek 5!'''

===World of Darkness===
* Very large books could be written about religion and [[World of Darkness]]/Chronicles of Darkness. We'll just cover a few highlights:
** From [[Vampire: The Requiem]], there's the the Lancea et Sanctum, which might be best described as "Christianity for Vampires", and the Circle of the Crone, which is "Pagan Vampires". Both have Vampire miracles on tap (pun intended).
** [[Hunter: The Vigil]] has various religious organizations among the Compacts and Conspiracies, some very similar to real world ones, others...not so much.
** [[Mage: The Ascension]] has various religious Traditions, portrayed in that highly-stereotypical and highly-depending-on-the-author way typical of old WoD.

==See also==
* [[Mythology]]

[[Category:Not related]]
[[Category:History]]

Religion

2020-04-17T03:58:58Z

2406:3400:20F:FFC0:A945:1FE6:1D76:A2F4: /* Religion as a Bad Thing */

{{topquote|Science investigates; religion interprets. Science gives man knowledge, which is power; religion gives man wisdom, which is control. Science deals mainly with facts; religion deals mainly with values. The two are not rivals.|Martin Luther King, Jr}}

:'''Dracula''': ''I was called here by, huuuuumans, who wish to pay me tribute!''
:'''Richter Belmont''': ''Tribute?! You steal men's souls! And make them your slaves!''
:'''Dracula''': ''Perhaps the same could be said of all religions.''
::--An excerpt from the infamous exchange that also gave us "What is a man? A miserable little pile of secrets" in [[Castlevania#Castlevania:_Symphony_Of_The_Night_.28Castlevania_9.29|Castlevania: Symphony of the Night.]]

Because it's important to several settings and RPG systems, particularly ones that are high-profile or relevant to /tg/, we have a religion article. Let's try and keep it focused on the directly-related-to-/tg/ stuff and not descend into the pure [[skub]] that can arise in discussions of real-life religions, okay?

==Definition of Religion==
Almost since the inception of the term, scholars have failed to agree on a definition of religion. While there are some belief systems that always count as religions, some have applied the term to various things such as political ideologies, or groups when they reach a certain point. There are however two general definition systems: the sociological/functional and the phenomenological/philosophical.

The two most widely accepted are:
* "a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, that is to say things set apart and forbidden - beliefs and practices which unite into one single moral community called a church, all those who adhere to them."
* "a comprehensive worldview or 'metaphysical moral vision' that is accepted as binding because it is held to be in itself basically true and just even if all dimensions of it cannot be either fully confirmed or refuted".

As stated before, one common element that every religion which fits the criteria has is humanity's relation to supernatural forces, as all of them have at least one [[God|god]] and/or an afterlife even where there are exceptions; Buddhism doesn't have any gods but has afterlives, and Taoism doesn't have an afterlife but does have a pantheistic concept of a god as a supernatural force.

Like other terms for heavily [[SJW|debated]] [[communism|subjects]], religion and religious have also been used as insults or Snarl Words in social and political discussions (especially from the 20th century and onwards) to ridicule groups openly promoting something the user disagrees with. This snarl creates a caricature of the group to smear them by association with the worst excesses/negative stereotypes of real-world religious people (like being too preachy, judgmental, irrational, hypocritical, or pressuring everyone to convert).

==Religion vs. Mythology==
While [[Mythology|mythologies]] aren't religions in and of themselves, every religion has a mythology. While mythologies are merely the accounts of supernatural events, religions add rituals and practices that link those mythologies directly to the lives of their believers in one form or another, typically by describing how to properly serve to a god (or multiple gods, it depends) a significant role in the mythology a given religion is derived from. [[Skub|Whatever the source]], the mythology almost always predates the religion. As a result, especially since the Fantasy genre deals in supernatural beings and forces, most if not all fantasy settings have religions. Science fiction does to a lesser degree, mostly because during the Golden Age of sci-fi empiricists and secular humanists were attracted to the genre and their views often seeped into their stories. Despite this, given that most real-life societies have had religions playing a role in or since their founding, religions are still found in sci-fi.

Religions involves belief systems and practices, where an adherent can call upon the power/being the religion is focused on to give them aid in [[cleric|various]] [[Paladin|ways]], depending at the very least on the religion and the task in question. Given that religions are about people's place in the world, how it was made, ideas on how life should be lived and how humans should relate to the supernatural, they have major implications for societies. Given that people can become [[Exarch|dangerously single-minded]] about a cause, people can be become extremists about their religion, regardless of the fact that [[Heironeous|some]] are more benevolent than [[Asmodeus|others]] and in numerous cases even [[Heresy|if it involves going against the religion's teachings]]; in conjunction with the above this means religious conflicts can become widespread, long-lasting, cause carnage and also involve other elements such as politics- both in fantasy and in the real world.

==Role in Society==
A person's belief (for or against) any or all religions is a major factor in their worldview, and as such often serves as the undercurrent for all others. This is because this belief shapes people's views on the big things such as the purpose of life, how life should be lived in relation to oneself and others and what happens to people after they die. On the upside, this often leads to teachings with the goal of unity, peace, charity and co-operation as per the teachings of most religions, some of which are adapted by or also found among non-religious systems. On the downside, this can lead to clashes over how the people involved do the will of whichever beings or forces they follow, which religion should be followed or whether or not people should follow a god or religion at all. This can involve arguments and factionalizing, or in some cases worse things like pogroms and wars. Since they are an overarching and fairly common element in cultures, they often appear or are referenced in fiction.

The most common religious belief systems are the Abrahamic family of religions (primarily Judaism, Christianity and Islam) which are Monotheistic (belief in a singular God) and share many common elements and root, with - at the time this was written - Christianity being the most followed religion globally. Historically, these and other religions were frequently enshrined in law as the "state religion", giving them special privileges such as extensive influence over the government or tax exemptions. In some cases, they even took over the functions of the government entirely in a system known as theocracy; while uncommon in the present day, theocracies are still in use in places such as the Vatican and Saudi Arabia.

Within the last few centuries, due to events such as the French Revolution, there has also been a significant amount of anti-religious sentiment, which regards religion as at best redundant and at worst destructive (beyond historical grievances with specific groups within religions, reasons for this view and whether or not those arguments have any merit, shall not be discussed here). For the most part, a combination of people identifying more with their culture or nation than their religion and the concept that religion and functions of state should not interfere with each other has turned into more of a "live and let live" mentality that doesn't really support or oppose any one religion and only reacts when said religions begin actively defying the state.

Interestingly, numerous tyrannical regimes have tried to restrict or stamp out religions. This is because religious teachings put the figure/object of worship before the state in a conflict of interest, most religions teachings condemn many of the things tyrannical leaders indulge in, tyrants dislike competition for their subjects' fealty, tyrants dislike being answerable to anyone besides themselves, the tyrant may be prejudiced, or any combo of the above. While nations have ususlly tried to block specific religions deemed "false" (read: religions opposing the state-sponsored religion in any way), several nations (usually [[Communism|Communist]] states which took Marx's "religion is the opiate of the masses" quote out of context, as Marx viewed religion was a sort of protest against oppression that relieved people's immediate suffering and gave them the strength to go on living while also drawing their attention away from the class system that produced their oppression; subsequently, he believed that following the establishment of a communist society, religion would disappear as it would no longer be needed) have tried to get rid of religion altogether, albeit with horrifying [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/League_of_Militant_Atheists results] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khmer_Rouge_rule_of_Cambodia#Religious_communities each] time. Best case scenario, they sidegrade from one set of problems to another as cults of personality (commonly ones based on the ruler in charge) spring up to exploit the newly created power vacuum formerly filled by an established religion while believers who manage to survive the regime try to continue their activities in secret.

Unsurprisingly, the most religious nations are theocracies such as the Catholic theocracy running Vatican City and the Islamic theocracy running Saudi Arabia. China is - at the time this was written - the world's least religious and most atheistic country (the situation around North Korea is [[Skub|debatable]], since even though they violently supress religions [https://www.foxnews.com/world/north-korea-publicly-executes-80-some-for-videos-or-bibles-report-says to the point that merely having copies of religious texts can be grounds for execution], they also have the Kim Cult blended with the Marxist offshoot ideology Juche).

==How this impacts /tg/==
A few major ways. Since most if not every society in real-life has had religion either be the basis for its founding or play a role in it, religion is just as involved in the backstory or current lore of settings. There are three major "modes" of /tg/ settings and related fictions:
* The purely functional where religions are a story device.
* Religions and/or those they worship are portrayed positively as some sort of endorsement of religiosity.
* Religions and/or those they worship are portrayed negatively as some sort of criticism of religiosity.

===Religion as a story device===
Compared to the two types of writers found below, these writers are usually just attempting to model their work after real-world [[Mythology]] and are frequently attempting to keep their views of Religion separate from their work. Frequently comes in one of two subspecies:
* The [[Standard Fantasy Setting]] default: The world is ruled by an ordinary polytheistic pantheon, usually close to some admixture of Norse and Greek mythologies. Some of them also have a Top God - one more powerful than all the others and maybe the in-universe creator of everything - who is mostly hands-off in cosmic affairs. The gods of these religions tend to focus on specific areas (gods of [[Paladin|Justice]] and [[Druid|Nature]] are common, for subtly obvious reasons) and frequently want their followers to propagate or promote these things.
* The kind of setting they wanted to make dictated the nature of the divine. For example, in [[Exalted]] just about all the figures anybody would call a "God" (besides the Exalted) are Useless, because the Exalted (which includes the Player Characters) are the guys who were made specifically to do whatever the gods needed them to do for reasons inherent to the setting, to go with the main theme of the setting for the PCs: "You can do '''almost anything''', except ''avoid the consequences of being the one who did that anything''".

===Religion as a Bad Thing===
There are several writers of Science Fiction and Fantasy that are of the opinion "Religion Is Bad" along with having an axe to grind (sometimes warranted, sometimes not) with either one or more specific real-life religions or religion in general. This is more common in Sci-Fi than fantasy because the focus on science appeals to the naturalist, empiricist and/or humanist worldview of such writers, with the supernatural being seen as an obstacle to that. Despite that, the view is found among some fantasy authors as well, such as the author of the book series "His Dark Materials", Philip Pullman (he wrote it as an anti-theistic and anti-religious response to C.S Lewis' "Chronicles of Narnia" series). Whatever the genre, this comes in flavors of either "The Gods Don't Exist", "The Gods are Incompetent" (more on that below) or "The Gods are Evil". Cosmic Horror also tends to use the "Gods Don't Exist" or "Gods are Evil" route, or combine them into "The Gods are actually Incomprehensible and Destructive Aliens" (for example; the author who codified the genre, [[H.P. Lovecraft]], was an avowed anti-religious atheist). This also has the side effect of inclining science fiction towards an atheistic perspective.

Another major component is personal issues of the author such as grievance or prejudice, but that's case-by-case and a major can of worms. Worst case scenario, the story is a wish fulfillment revenge fantasy against a religion or specific religious people the author dislikes (such as the comics "Holy Terror" by Frank Miller and "Preacher" by Garth Ennis). Whatever the motivation, writers saying this message often model their fictional religions on the - occasionally exaggerated - worst excesses of real world religious people and lift imagery from those religions or groups among them. Popular targets are Christianity, Islam, any faith that practiced human sacrifice (such as the Aztec religious practices), and Scientology. Cults, especially those with beliefs that mainstream religions consider unorthodox or outright heretical, are especially fertile ground for this message, albeit running the risk of being misapplied to tar other groups with the same brush.

===Religion as a Good Thing===
There are several religious Science Fiction and Fantasy writers who either want to promote their worldview, look upon religion positively and put that into the story (who may or may not be religious themselves) or both. This is more common in Fantasy than Sci-fi, partly because with the supernatural being THE fundamental element of the genre this opens opportunities to explore many aspects of religiosity. These authors usually put more thought into their fictional religion plus its central figure (although they have a tendency to go all "Crystal Dragon Jesus"), and try and have it be at least a somewhat good influence, although religious institutions and leaders are usually hit-and-miss affairs.

Some people make a fictional setting with figures from real-world religions, either in the real-world or [[CS Lewis|an alternate world such as Narnia like C.S Lewis did]]. Others use fictional religions that either visually resemble real-life religions or figures from them; religions that often get this treatment are the Abrahamic faiths (most often Christianity), Greek mythology, Egyptian mythology and Norse mythology (albeit often a sanitized version of the latter three). In other cases they all but abandon any form of subtlety, with the fictional religion being distinguished from the real-world religion the author follows by only a handful of minor changes. Naturally, those kinds of works tend to come off as preachy, to say the least.

Another route this uses is the route that faith itself provides the power; think of Morpheus' "your mind makes it real" quote, or the "[[Belief Function|Clap Your Hands If you Believe]]" trope. In fact, Warhammer often goes the route that the gods are powered by faith as well as from their sphere of influence which has either [[Sigmar|caused some people have risen to godhood]] or [[Ynnead|caused new gods to be born in the setting]]. In fact, this has proven the greatest weapon against Chaos in every Warhammer setting (and why the Emperor's plan to starve the Chaos Gods with atheism was doomed to fail from the start).

===Somewhat special cases===

One somewhat special case is the "Religion of Evil"; in many settings, there is a religion that is explicitly capital E Evil and seeks one of the usual "Card Carrying Villain" goals of Control, Conquest, Corruption, or Destruction. Frequently has some admixture of the worst aspects of Roman Paganism, Norse practices, the Aztec, Scientology and/or the various Abrahamic religions. They also often draw from those found in the writings of H.P Lovecraft. If this cult directly worships an individual Evil God, expect whatever makes sense for that deity to be some form of destructive activity--e.g., the cult of the God of Murder demands human sacrifice on a regular basis, with a certain portion of that explicitly being not-careful-enough cultists. Regardless, Religions of Evil can show up in all three above modes, and usually has a special purpose in all three:

* Functionalists (and, for that matter, all three) need bad guys. In particular, a group who by definition is Evil is always good for some no-need-to-worry-about-the-ethics-or-morality-of-killing fodder (based on the idea that everyone in is group is evil because you have to do evil to be part of the group).
* Religion is Bad types tend to use them to say either "while they're all Bad, some are worse then others", or say "Religion can be used to justify anything". Occasionally a prejudiced writer uses it as a strawman to tar all with the same brush or they have an axe to grind against a specific real-life religion and/or its followers.
* The sincerely religious tend to use them as analogies with fanaticism, criticize Real World cults, compare different beliefs or deal with negative aspects of religion (occasionally making jabs at competitive religions, or fellow believers the author disagrees with).
** As a side note, a lot of fantasy has moved slightly away from pure Religions of Evil, for much the same reason as [[Always Chaotic Evil]] races (audiences and authors nowdays demand more motive for their villains). While there are still plenty of them, they usually add some nuance that makes them at least morally neutral under their own lights. Popular options are for them to be an off-shoot/denomination/subset of another religion and/or be taking vengeance for a real or perceived wrong or injustice (which has '''plenty''' of real-life precedent).

[[Urban Fantasy]] writers are another special case, since almost all Urban Fantasy is set in something that might be called "the real world with a twist", with all the usual political trouble that implies. As a result, they can take one of a few routes:
* The most common route is "there are many possible explanations" and vague things up as much as possible ([[True Faith|Faith]] being the power that repels [[Vampire]]s rather than than a cross having any actual connection to a deity is a popular one).
* The second most common route (which is rarer outside of Cosmic Horror) is the "Religion as a Bad Thing" route from above. The story is straight up atheistic/"Religion is Bad" [[Imperial Truth|propaganda]], and in practice the writer often has an axe to grind against a specific religion. It's a popular choice for writers trying to be [[Edgy]] who want to include religious subject matter in their stories, and they almost exclusively go after the most followed religion in the area; any fictional religions will most likely be thinly-veiled stand-ins for real life religions.
* Some Urban Fantasy works with a clear correct religion exist thanks to the above mentioned sincerely religious authors, which are typically [[Chick Tracts|barely veiled proselytizing]] or [[Twilight|just straight up terrible]], though [[Monster Hunter International|there are some good ones]].
* The fourth route, taken most notably by [[Supers|DC and Marvel comics]] among others, is to take an "All Myths are True" approach: All religions are sort of true, but none have any exclusivity to the Truth, so Thor and Athena might have the Archangel Michael on speeddial when the Orochi teams up with Apep to start making trouble in their neighborhoods (because "Mikey really likes kicking serpent tail, and gets annoyed when we don't at least try to invite him to an evil serpent ass-kicking."). Differs from the "vague things up" route by being clearer on some details, and also much more gonzo. The Abrahamic God is the exception here: He's usually kept especially vague, albeit more powerful (and yet infinitely less accessible) than anyone else in the setting, and only referred to by some codephrase (Marvel likes "The One Above All", DC generally goes for "The Presence" or "whatever is behind the Source Wall").

===Miscellaneous Observations===

Doing the "The Gods are Incompetent" thing (the similar but different "The Gods are Insane", "The Gods Are Assholes" and "The Gods Don't Actually Do Anything" routes also falls under this umbrella) can go into any of the three modes; in a sincere monotheist's (such as Christian) work, it can be a "Take That" to polytheistic religions; in a "Religion is Bad" atheist's, it can be one to religion in general; in a Buddhist-influenced work, it can be a part of the whole "even the Gods are tied up in the Wheel of Karma" concept; and, even if the author is not pushing any religious message in any way, there's a neutral, plot-structural reason to go "Incompetent Gods": it can make the adventurers the Most Competent People Available since if that wasn't the case there wouldn't be anything for the adventurers to do.

If a work has multiple writers, (as frequently happens with RPG and Wargame settings, and quite a few popular SciFi/Fantasy ones as well) there's a tendency for the writers to try and pull the setting into one of the other two "modes" depending on their personal views. This leads to the theme changing from one side to the other as the story progresses. A recent example is [[World of Warcraft|the spate of retcons to the cosmology of the Warcraft universe]] and the morality of its fundamental forces/dominant higher powers, the Light and the Void. If the story doesn't get focused on a pro-religion or anti-religion message, it may end up swinging back and forth between both sides or settle in a mid-point which doesn't take a strong stance either way.

Note that members of the "Religion is Bad" and "Religion is Good" brigades will get involved in arguments over the relative morality or "goodness" of various factions in the story and the accuracy of any messages a writer presents. Often history buffs will throw their hat into the ring as well.

==Examples of /tg/ connected fictional religions==
===Warhammer 40k===
* The [[Imperial Truth]] was originally the Emperor's plan on beliefs, which he and his servants propagated throughout the galaxy during the Great Crusade. Attempting to wean mankind away from Chaos and being a firm member of the "Religion is Bad" brigade, the Emperor proclaimed there are no gods, and religion had to be abolished willingly or by force while science or reason are to be used for explaining the universe and morality. Everything transpired according to his design, except theistic religiosity in the 40k universe is the best weapon against Chaos so Emp's interstellar state atheism policy gave them a major opening. Things went from bad to worse when people started looking up to the Emperor as a god himself and [[Exterminatus|he responded accordingly]]. After the Horus Heresy and the Emperor's removal from galactic politics: the Imperial Truth was slowly shelved in favor of the Imperial Cult, to the point that espousing the teachings of the Truth is ironically considered heresy. Only a few practitioners of the Imperial Truth remain, most notably the Custodes and the Space Marines (both of whom know The Emperor better than anybody to worship him as a god. Plus, their religious autonomy.).
** The [[Imperial Cult]] is the present-day religion of the Imperium of Man, and is a mix of several Abrahamic Religions along with copious amounts of warmongering, fanaticism and xenophobia. Derived from the Lectitio Divinatus penned by [[Lorgar]] pre-HH, the Cult decrees that because the Emperor is capable of all these miracles and power: he ''must'' be a god, and why you should worship and pledge loyalty to him. Its a complete 180 from the Emperor's original teachings, and has simultaneously been responsible for damning and saving the Imperium past the clusterfuck of the Horus Heresy. It's unknown whether the Emperor still abhors godhood and religion and would abolish it the moment he could, or if he's resigned himself to becoming the very thing he fought against for mankind to persevere in these trying times. Whatever the case, he didn't want to be a god, but now he has no choice but to become one.
** The [[Adeptus Mechanicus|Cult Mechanicus]] (Machine Cult) is the religion of the Adeptus Mechanicus, placing a heavy emphasis on machines, viewing them as gifts from the Machine God called "The Omnissiah" Officially, the Omnissiah is The Emperor, which allows the Mechanicus to sidestep the more puritan pundits of the Imperial Cult (we worship The Emprah, just not how you do it). Unofficially, the Omnissiah may or may not be the C'tan god: The Void Dragon. It also has a high emphasis on the collection of knowledge, and one of the Admech's roles in the galaxy is to explore remote and uncharted regions of space to find and search for knowledge that has been lost throughout the millennia. The last of these, is guidelines on machines and knowledge. Officially, heretic(tek) and xeno works are to be abhorred and disposed of, viewing them as perversions of the holy Machine God's works. Unofficially however, more liberally-minded and higher-ranked Magos would happily hoard heretek/xeno works, seeing their potential over the more restricted and constrained works of the Mechanicus.

* Chaos is a violent and complicated henotheistic (believing in multiple gods but only worshipping one) or polytheistic religion with dozens, if not hundreds of interpretations. Even then, there's more sub-cults that worship their particular god in a specific way, either minutely or vastly different from everyone else among followers of the Big 4. And this doesn't even get into the realm of Chaos Undivided (which worships the concept of Chaos itself, instead of the individual gods) and [[Malal]]. Chaos has very little established guidelines regarding worship, apart from their patron god's/gods' general likes/dislikes, so any religious practices or rituals are either based on commands from the god/s or up to the imagination of the cult.
** Interestingly, there is a Space Marine of the Chaos faction who follows the Imperial Truth, and that is [[Fabius Bile]].

* All Greenskins worship Gork and Mork (jury's out on whether the [[Gretchin Revolutionary Committee]] do), but are too disorganized to have anything like a formal religion, though they do make effigies of Gork and Mork and call on them. The closest thing they have to tenants is that Gork favors violence, Mork favors cunning. Greenskins have gotten into fights over this, but violence is part of their nature and that of their gods. While they fight over religion, they also fight over almost any dispute anyway, and may even start a religious argument just to enjoy a good fight among themselves (though the only theological argument they can formulate is "is Gork the god of cunning or is Mork?" or vica versa). Religion doesn't play a significant role in Ork society compared to the other races.

* The Tau's creed "The [[Greater Good]]" is a specie-wide philosophy that was adopted ever since the initial unification of the Tau in the olden days. In a nutshell, the Greater Good emphasizes the co-existence of all Tau and sapient life in general into working together for a common goal to further the Tau's progress, seeing everyone's potential and hoping to utilize that for an, ahem, greater good. Personal religion isn't forbidden, but it must not contradict or override The Greater Good, and must be disregarded if it ever does so. Technically, this means Tau can be religious or non-religious, as the Greater Good is not a religion (due to lacking an afterlife and supernatural aspects, with the closest things to figures of worship being the Ethereals). This sounds all fine and dandy, but the Ethereal class, who are responsible for maintaining The Greater Good, have been shown to be less benevolent than believed and have been using their unnaturally powerful charisma to subtly oppress the Tau and use them to further their own agendas.
**The Farsight Enclaves, who have thrown off Ethereal rule, are the exception in that they have rejected The Greater Good, seeing it as the method of oppression used to keep the T'au under complete control of the ethereals. Due to this, if one considers the Greater Good a religion, The Enclaves are irreligious.
**As of the 4th Sphere Expansion disaster, Chaos Tau are starting to become a thing.
**At one point, the Earth Caste gathered Genestealer-infected Tau and studied them to see what would happen. Of course, a Genestealer cult developed and naturally they violently escaped control and surveillance. According to rumors, they've even produced a Genestealer-infected Ethereal.

* The Eldar have varying views on religiosity depending on their type. Their religion is polytheistic, with henotheistic offshoots, and Ausryan was the highest ranking god. However all of the Eldar gods were murder-raped to death by Slaanesh except for Isha (taken by Nurgle), Khaine (shattered and flung into realspace), Cegorach (hiding in the Webway) and Ynnead (born long after Slaanesh's birth). Their Pantheon's religious practices aren't fleshed out save for those of Cegorach, Isha, and Khaine, via the Harlequins and Aspect Warriors. With most of their gods out of commission, Eldar religious worship is of a deistic bent.
** Craftworlders and Exodites almost exclusively worship the original Eldar pantheon, though some engage in henotheistic worship of only one of the gods. Asuryan is more popular among Craftworlders while Isha is among Exodites, though nearly all give Khaine some tribute during war.
** Corsairs are all over the place, though Khaine is a popular choice given their more militant nature.
** Being agents of the Laughing God himself, the Harlequins' worship is centered around [[Cegorach]], whilst still paying minor tribute to the other gods.
** The new faith around Ynnead, the Ynnari, is rapidly growing but have yet to establish teachings or rituals.
** Unique among the Eldar, the Dark Eldar are irreligious for the most part and while they believe some gods exist they're too self-centered to worship them (this is canon). They're often also anti-religious to boot; a major landmark of Commorragh is a landfill of religious icons called Iconoclast's Mound, and one Wych cult - the Pain Eternal - revolves around killing religious people and destroying shrines and holy sites. The sole exception, except for Dark Eldar who stop being Dark Eldar, are the [[Incubi]] who hold [[Khaine]] in high regard.
** There are numerous rumors of a very small number of Chaos Eldar, but these are barely fleshed out and heavily classified in-universe. There have been verified Nurgle-worshipping Eldar and persistent rumors that some have embraced Slaanesh without becoming soul-food. Apart from this, some Dark Eldar have been willing to summon Chaos Daemons or work with Chaos worshippers ([[Fabius Bile|or allies of Chaos]]) to further their own ends.

* While the Necrontyr had religions before certain [[C'tan|star entities]] [[Necrons|roboticizied them]], those aren't fleshed out or detailed. Its also heavily implied the C'tan co-opted the Necrontyr religion beforehand. With the change to Necrons taking the higher though processes of most of them, any Necrons who can comprehend faith and religiosity either worship the C'tan or have become irreligious.

* The Tyranids themselves are irreligious, being spehss bugs and all, but understand at least a few of the advantages of religion. [[Genestealer]]s infect people and together they establish cults on targeted worlds, such as one worshipping "Children of the Stars", a perversion of the Imperial Cult or something else like "Celebrants of Nihilism" (yes, that's a canon Genestealer cult name). Psychic influence is often involved and, notably, the Genestealers do not consider themselves gods. Once the Tyranids arrive en-masse, the cult-gets assimilated along with all non-Tyranids willingly or not. An interesting tidbit is that the Hive Mind stops the Tyranids from attacking the cultists in early stages of the invasion and leads them on, only to later override the Genestealers' wills and and make them slaughter the cultists.

===Dungeons and Dragons===
* Among Dungeons and Dragons settings, [[Planescape]], [[Eberron]], and [[Pathfinder]] are notable for having some coherent things that could be called "Religions", rather then the usual generic Pantheism.
** Most of Planescape's Factions effectively count as religions, to the point they can produce [[Cleric]]s ([[Planescape: Torment#Fall-From-Grace|Atheist ones at that]]). Yes, even the Athar. (Perhaps ''especially'' the Athar.)
** Half of Eberron's religions aren't worship of deities. The [[Blood of Vol]] seeks to unlock the divinity within one's self and rejects the gods (if they even exist) and the [[Path of Inspiration]] seeks to improve their next reincarnation. The Undying Court worships not gods but their undead ancestors that make up their government. The [[Path of Light]], [[Warforged_Mysteries#The_Becoming_God|Becoming God]] and [[Warforged_Mysteries#The_Reforged|Reforged]] all seek to ''create'' a deity. Even some interpretations of the [[Sovereign Host]], like the one most common among dragons, don't worship them as deities. Due to the way divine casting works in Eberron, all of these can produce divine casters.
** There's a handful of religions on [[Golarion]] that aren't merely worship of pantheons. The most prominent (read: Actually has mechanical support) is the [[Prophecies of Kalistrade]], which is basically fantasy [[Star Trek|Ferengi]].

* [[D20 Modern]]'s [[Urban Arcana]], unusually for urban fantasy, has D&D deities bleed into reality alongside the monsters. You are still able to play a <s>cleric</s> "acolyte" of any real world deity despite this.

===Star Wars===
* [[Star Wars]] is inconsistent on if the [[The Force]] is a religion. The Jedi and the Sith ''could'' both be considered religions as they are considered monastic, but mix in several other traits such as being meritocratic (Jedi) and kraterocratic (Sith) and Lucas himself has axed at least one prototyped book for portraying them too much as a religion. It's also notable that the Sith were former Jedi who left the Jedi path for several reasons including [[Heresy|disagreements over the teachings of that creed]]. Aside from that, religion is nearly always a non-human tradition, something noted in a culture's historical background and never seen implying its extinction, or a scam. The religiously linked "damn" and "hell" are the two real world swear words that exist in-universe, purely because Han Solo used them in the films, and some concept of an "angel" exists because a young Anakin told Padme about them in the prequel trilogy films.
** There are rare exceptions where a religion is fleshed out and explored, and the writing goes various directions for better or worse. A notable example is the aggressive polytheistic religion of the antagonistic Yuuzhan Vong from the EU (which the story gradually revealed was long ago perverted from benevolent roots, and this perverted form takes a few cues from Islam and Aztec mythology).

===Star Trek===
* Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry had a low opinion of religion and in his vision humanity had done away with it and was better off for it and he had no interest in adding it to the aliens. However, some of the cast and crew disagreed and occasionally references and religions found their way into the show, which increased after Roddenberry's death. The Federation's culture is distinctly humanistic (extending the concept to alien species) in it's outlook in which religion is regarded as a thing of the past.
** While there are plenty of "Godlike" entities in Star Trek, almost all are treated as Sufficiently Advanced Aliens in the Arthur C. Clarke sense--and in particular, in ST:TNG, the flip side, that Picard and his crew are frequently shown to look like Gods to sufficiently primitive aliens, is gone into in more than one episode.
** The Bajorans are a highly religious alien race, with the majority following peaceful teachings and a minority of violent extremists.
*** Of some note, the Bajoran religion is of interest because their "Gods" actually exist, and can be (somewhat incomprehensibly) talked to (a rarity outside of [[Science Fantasy]]). In other words, they were frequently a method of having some religion vs. science debates where the divine entity (A) explicitly exists, (B) is explainable as "sufficiently advanced and unusual aliens", and (C) aren't jerks, just bad at communication with those of us who experience time linearly--in other words, with a deck that wasn't quite as badly stacked. The religiosity was meant to be as a way of contrasting the Starfleet personnel with the native population and to draw a parallel between Bajorans under the Cardassian Occupation and various real world recently freed oppressed religious-slash-ethnic groups.
** <s>In the fifth Star Trek movie, ''"The Final Frontier"'', some of the crew steal the Enterprise to look for God and instead find a powerful alien being impersonating God in the center of the universe</s> '''Just like there is no live-action movie of Avatar: The Last Airbender, there is totally no Star Trek 5!'''

===World of Darkness===
* Very large books could be written about religion and [[World of Darkness]]/Chronicles of Darkness. We'll just cover a few highlights:
** From [[Vampire: The Requiem]], there's the the Lancea et Sanctum, which might be best described as "Christianity for Vampires", and the Circle of the Crone, which is "Pagan Vampires". Both have Vampire miracles on tap (pun intended).
** [[Hunter: The Vigil]] has various religious organizations among the Compacts and Conspiracies, some very similar to real world ones, others...not so much.
** [[Mage: The Ascension]] has various religious Traditions, portrayed in that highly-stereotypical and highly-depending-on-the-author way typical of old WoD.

==See also==
* [[Mythology]]

[[Category:Not related]]
[[Category:History]]

Religion

2020-04-17T03:55:20Z

2406:3400:20F:FFC0:A945:1FE6:1D76:A2F4: /* Religion as a Bad Thing */

{{topquote|Science investigates; religion interprets. Science gives man knowledge, which is power; religion gives man wisdom, which is control. Science deals mainly with facts; religion deals mainly with values. The two are not rivals.|Martin Luther King, Jr}}

:'''Dracula''': ''I was called here by, huuuuumans, who wish to pay me tribute!''
:'''Richter Belmont''': ''Tribute?! You steal men's souls! And make them your slaves!''
:'''Dracula''': ''Perhaps the same could be said of all religions.''
::--An excerpt from the infamous exchange that also gave us "What is a man? A miserable little pile of secrets" in [[Castlevania#Castlevania:_Symphony_Of_The_Night_.28Castlevania_9.29|Castlevania: Symphony of the Night.]]

Because it's important to several settings and RPG systems, particularly ones that are high-profile or relevant to /tg/, we have a religion article. Let's try and keep it focused on the directly-related-to-/tg/ stuff and not descend into the pure [[skub]] that can arise in discussions of real-life religions, okay?

==Definition of Religion==
Almost since the inception of the term, scholars have failed to agree on a definition of religion. While there are some belief systems that always count as religions, some have applied the term to various things such as political ideologies, or groups when they reach a certain point. There are however two general definition systems: the sociological/functional and the phenomenological/philosophical.

The two most widely accepted are:
* "a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, that is to say things set apart and forbidden - beliefs and practices which unite into one single moral community called a church, all those who adhere to them."
* "a comprehensive worldview or 'metaphysical moral vision' that is accepted as binding because it is held to be in itself basically true and just even if all dimensions of it cannot be either fully confirmed or refuted".

As stated before, one common element that every religion which fits the criteria has is humanity's relation to supernatural forces, as all of them have at least one [[God|god]] and/or an afterlife even where there are exceptions; Buddhism doesn't have any gods but has afterlives, and Taoism doesn't have an afterlife but does have a pantheistic concept of a god as a supernatural force.

Like other terms for heavily [[SJW|debated]] [[communism|subjects]], religion and religious have also been used as insults or Snarl Words in social and political discussions (especially from the 20th century and onwards) to ridicule groups openly promoting something the user disagrees with. This snarl creates a caricature of the group to smear them by association with the worst excesses/negative stereotypes of real-world religious people (like being too preachy, judgmental, irrational, hypocritical, or pressuring everyone to convert).

==Religion vs. Mythology==
While [[Mythology|mythologies]] aren't religions in and of themselves, every religion has a mythology. While mythologies are merely the accounts of supernatural events, religions add rituals and practices that link those mythologies directly to the lives of their believers in one form or another, typically by describing how to properly serve to a god (or multiple gods, it depends) a significant role in the mythology a given religion is derived from. [[Skub|Whatever the source]], the mythology almost always predates the religion. As a result, especially since the Fantasy genre deals in supernatural beings and forces, most if not all fantasy settings have religions. Science fiction does to a lesser degree, mostly because during the Golden Age of sci-fi empiricists and secular humanists were attracted to the genre and their views often seeped into their stories. Despite this, given that most real-life societies have had religions playing a role in or since their founding, religions are still found in sci-fi.

Religions involves belief systems and practices, where an adherent can call upon the power/being the religion is focused on to give them aid in [[cleric|various]] [[Paladin|ways]], depending at the very least on the religion and the task in question. Given that religions are about people's place in the world, how it was made, ideas on how life should be lived and how humans should relate to the supernatural, they have major implications for societies. Given that people can become [[Exarch|dangerously single-minded]] about a cause, people can be become extremists about their religion, regardless of the fact that [[Heironeous|some]] are more benevolent than [[Asmodeus|others]] and in numerous cases even [[Heresy|if it involves going against the religion's teachings]]; in conjunction with the above this means religious conflicts can become widespread, long-lasting, cause carnage and also involve other elements such as politics- both in fantasy and in the real world.

==Role in Society==
A person's belief (for or against) any or all religions is a major factor in their worldview, and as such often serves as the undercurrent for all others. This is because this belief shapes people's views on the big things such as the purpose of life, how life should be lived in relation to oneself and others and what happens to people after they die. On the upside, this often leads to teachings with the goal of unity, peace, charity and co-operation as per the teachings of most religions, some of which are adapted by or also found among non-religious systems. On the downside, this can lead to clashes over how the people involved do the will of whichever beings or forces they follow, which religion should be followed or whether or not people should follow a god or religion at all. This can involve arguments and factionalizing, or in some cases worse things like pogroms and wars. Since they are an overarching and fairly common element in cultures, they often appear or are referenced in fiction.

The most common religious belief systems are the Abrahamic family of religions (primarily Judaism, Christianity and Islam) which are Monotheistic (belief in a singular God) and share many common elements and root, with - at the time this was written - Christianity being the most followed religion globally. Historically, these and other religions were frequently enshrined in law as the "state religion", giving them special privileges such as extensive influence over the government or tax exemptions. In some cases, they even took over the functions of the government entirely in a system known as theocracy; while uncommon in the present day, theocracies are still in use in places such as the Vatican and Saudi Arabia.

Within the last few centuries, due to events such as the French Revolution, there has also been a significant amount of anti-religious sentiment, which regards religion as at best redundant and at worst destructive (beyond historical grievances with specific groups within religions, reasons for this view and whether or not those arguments have any merit, shall not be discussed here). For the most part, a combination of people identifying more with their culture or nation than their religion and the concept that religion and functions of state should not interfere with each other has turned into more of a "live and let live" mentality that doesn't really support or oppose any one religion and only reacts when said religions begin actively defying the state.

Interestingly, numerous tyrannical regimes have tried to restrict or stamp out religions. This is because religious teachings put the figure/object of worship before the state in a conflict of interest, most religions teachings condemn many of the things tyrannical leaders indulge in, tyrants dislike competition for their subjects' fealty, tyrants dislike being answerable to anyone besides themselves, the tyrant may be prejudiced, or any combo of the above. While nations have ususlly tried to block specific religions deemed "false" (read: religions opposing the state-sponsored religion in any way), several nations (usually [[Communism|Communist]] states which took Marx's "religion is the opiate of the masses" quote out of context, as Marx viewed religion was a sort of protest against oppression that relieved people's immediate suffering and gave them the strength to go on living while also drawing their attention away from the class system that produced their oppression; subsequently, he believed that following the establishment of a communist society, religion would disappear as it would no longer be needed) have tried to get rid of religion altogether, albeit with horrifying [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/League_of_Militant_Atheists results] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khmer_Rouge_rule_of_Cambodia#Religious_communities each] time. Best case scenario, they sidegrade from one set of problems to another as cults of personality (commonly ones based on the ruler in charge) spring up to exploit the newly created power vacuum formerly filled by an established religion while believers who manage to survive the regime try to continue their activities in secret.

Unsurprisingly, the most religious nations are theocracies such as the Catholic theocracy running Vatican City and the Islamic theocracy running Saudi Arabia. China is - at the time this was written - the world's least religious and most atheistic country (the situation around North Korea is [[Skub|debatable]], since even though they violently supress religions [https://www.foxnews.com/world/north-korea-publicly-executes-80-some-for-videos-or-bibles-report-says to the point that merely having copies of religious texts can be grounds for execution], they also have the Kim Cult blended with the Marxist offshoot ideology Juche).

==How this impacts /tg/==
A few major ways. Since most if not every society in real-life has had religion either be the basis for its founding or play a role in it, religion is just as involved in the backstory or current lore of settings. There are three major "modes" of /tg/ settings and related fictions:
* The purely functional where religions are a story device.
* Religions and/or those they worship are portrayed positively as some sort of endorsement of religiosity.
* Religions and/or those they worship are portrayed negatively as some sort of criticism of religiosity.

===Religion as a story device===
Compared to the two types of writers found below, these writers are usually just attempting to model their work after real-world [[Mythology]] and are frequently attempting to keep their views of Religion separate from their work. Frequently comes in one of two subspecies:
* The [[Standard Fantasy Setting]] default: The world is ruled by an ordinary polytheistic pantheon, usually close to some admixture of Norse and Greek mythologies. Some of them also have a Top God - one more powerful than all the others and maybe the in-universe creator of everything - who is mostly hands-off in cosmic affairs. The gods of these religions tend to focus on specific areas (gods of [[Paladin|Justice]] and [[Druid|Nature]] are common, for subtly obvious reasons) and frequently want their followers to propagate or promote these things.
* The kind of setting they wanted to make dictated the nature of the divine. For example, in [[Exalted]] just about all the figures anybody would call a "God" (besides the Exalted) are Useless, because the Exalted (which includes the Player Characters) are the guys who were made specifically to do whatever the gods needed them to do for reasons inherent to the setting, to go with the main theme of the setting for the PCs: "You can do '''almost anything''', except ''avoid the consequences of being the one who did that anything''".

===Religion as a Bad Thing===
There are several writers of Science Fiction and Fantasy that are of the opinion "Religion Is Bad" along with having an axe to grind (sometimes warranted, sometimes not) with either one or more specific real-life religions or religion in general. This is more common in Sci-Fi than fantasy because the focus on science appeals to the naturalist, empiricist and/or humanist worldview of such writers, with the supernatural being seen as an obstacle to that. Despite that, the view is found among some fantasy authors as well, such as the author of the book series "His Dark Materials", Philip Pullman (he wrote it as an anti-theistic and anti-religious response to C.S Lewis' "Chronicles of Narnia" series). Whatever the genre, this comes in flavors of either "The Gods Don't Exist", "The Gods are Incompetent" (more on that below) or "The Gods are Evil". Cosmic Horror also tends to use the "Gods Don't Exist" or "Gods are Evil" route, or combine them into "The Gods are actually Incomprehensible and Destructive Aliens" (for example; the author who codified the genre, [[H.P. Lovecraft]], was an avowed anti-religious atheist). This also has the side effect of inclining science fiction towards an atheistic perspective.

Another major component is personal issues of the author such as grievance or prejudice, but that's case-by-case and a major can of worms. Worst case scenario, the story is a revenge fantasy against a religion or religious people the author dislikes (such as the comics "Holy Terror" by Frank Miller and "Preacher" by Garth Ennis). Whatever the motivation, writers saying this message often model their fictional religions on the - occasionally exaggerated - worst excesses of real world religious people and lift imagery from those religions or groups among them. Popular targets are Christianity, Islam, any faith that practiced human sacrifice (such as the Aztec religious practices), and Scientology. Cults, especially those with beliefs that mainstream religions consider unorthodox or outright heretical, are especially fertile ground for this message, albeit running the risk of being misapplied to tar other groups with the same brush.

===Religion as a Good Thing===
There are several religious Science Fiction and Fantasy writers who either want to promote their worldview, look upon religion positively and put that into the story (who may or may not be religious themselves) or both. This is more common in Fantasy than Sci-fi, partly because with the supernatural being THE fundamental element of the genre this opens opportunities to explore many aspects of religiosity. These authors usually put more thought into their fictional religion plus its central figure (although they have a tendency to go all "Crystal Dragon Jesus"), and try and have it be at least a somewhat good influence, although religious institutions and leaders are usually hit-and-miss affairs.

Some people make a fictional setting with figures from real-world religions, either in the real-world or [[CS Lewis|an alternate world such as Narnia like C.S Lewis did]]. Others use fictional religions that either visually resemble real-life religions or figures from them; religions that often get this treatment are the Abrahamic faiths (most often Christianity), Greek mythology, Egyptian mythology and Norse mythology (albeit often a sanitized version of the latter three). In other cases they all but abandon any form of subtlety, with the fictional religion being distinguished from the real-world religion the author follows by only a handful of minor changes. Naturally, those kinds of works tend to come off as preachy, to say the least.

Another route this uses is the route that faith itself provides the power; think of Morpheus' "your mind makes it real" quote, or the "[[Belief Function|Clap Your Hands If you Believe]]" trope. In fact, Warhammer often goes the route that the gods are powered by faith as well as from their sphere of influence which has either [[Sigmar|caused some people have risen to godhood]] or [[Ynnead|caused new gods to be born in the setting]]. In fact, this has proven the greatest weapon against Chaos in every Warhammer setting (and why the Emperor's plan to starve the Chaos Gods with atheism was doomed to fail from the start).

===Somewhat special cases===

One somewhat special case is the "Religion of Evil"; in many settings, there is a religion that is explicitly capital E Evil and seeks one of the usual "Card Carrying Villain" goals of Control, Conquest, Corruption, or Destruction. Frequently has some admixture of the worst aspects of Roman Paganism, Norse practices, the Aztec, Scientology and/or the various Abrahamic religions. They also often draw from those found in the writings of H.P Lovecraft. If this cult directly worships an individual Evil God, expect whatever makes sense for that deity to be some form of destructive activity--e.g., the cult of the God of Murder demands human sacrifice on a regular basis, with a certain portion of that explicitly being not-careful-enough cultists. Regardless, Religions of Evil can show up in all three above modes, and usually has a special purpose in all three:

* Functionalists (and, for that matter, all three) need bad guys. In particular, a group who by definition is Evil is always good for some no-need-to-worry-about-the-ethics-or-morality-of-killing fodder (based on the idea that everyone in is group is evil because you have to do evil to be part of the group).
* Religion is Bad types tend to use them to say either "while they're all Bad, some are worse then others", or say "Religion can be used to justify anything". Occasionally a prejudiced writer uses it as a strawman to tar all with the same brush or they have an axe to grind against a specific real-life religion and/or its followers.
* The sincerely religious tend to use them as analogies with fanaticism, criticize Real World cults, compare different beliefs or deal with negative aspects of religion (occasionally making jabs at competitive religions, or fellow believers the author disagrees with).
** As a side note, a lot of fantasy has moved slightly away from pure Religions of Evil, for much the same reason as [[Always Chaotic Evil]] races (audiences and authors nowdays demand more motive for their villains). While there are still plenty of them, they usually add some nuance that makes them at least morally neutral under their own lights. Popular options are for them to be an off-shoot/denomination/subset of another religion and/or be taking vengeance for a real or perceived wrong or injustice (which has '''plenty''' of real-life precedent).

[[Urban Fantasy]] writers are another special case, since almost all Urban Fantasy is set in something that might be called "the real world with a twist", with all the usual political trouble that implies. As a result, they can take one of a few routes:
* The most common route is "there are many possible explanations" and vague things up as much as possible ([[True Faith|Faith]] being the power that repels [[Vampire]]s rather than than a cross having any actual connection to a deity is a popular one).
* The second most common route (which is rarer outside of Cosmic Horror) is the "Religion as a Bad Thing" route from above. The story is straight up atheistic/"Religion is Bad" [[Imperial Truth|propaganda]], and in practice the writer often has an axe to grind against a specific religion. It's a popular choice for writers trying to be [[Edgy]] who want to include religious subject matter in their stories, and they almost exclusively go after the most followed religion in the area; any fictional religions will most likely be thinly-veiled stand-ins for real life religions.
* Some Urban Fantasy works with a clear correct religion exist thanks to the above mentioned sincerely religious authors, which are typically [[Chick Tracts|barely veiled proselytizing]] or [[Twilight|just straight up terrible]], though [[Monster Hunter International|there are some good ones]].
* The fourth route, taken most notably by [[Supers|DC and Marvel comics]] among others, is to take an "All Myths are True" approach: All religions are sort of true, but none have any exclusivity to the Truth, so Thor and Athena might have the Archangel Michael on speeddial when the Orochi teams up with Apep to start making trouble in their neighborhoods (because "Mikey really likes kicking serpent tail, and gets annoyed when we don't at least try to invite him to an evil serpent ass-kicking."). Differs from the "vague things up" route by being clearer on some details, and also much more gonzo. The Abrahamic God is the exception here: He's usually kept especially vague, albeit more powerful (and yet infinitely less accessible) than anyone else in the setting, and only referred to by some codephrase (Marvel likes "The One Above All", DC generally goes for "The Presence" or "whatever is behind the Source Wall").

===Miscellaneous Observations===

Doing the "The Gods are Incompetent" thing (the similar but different "The Gods are Insane", "The Gods Are Assholes" and "The Gods Don't Actually Do Anything" routes also falls under this umbrella) can go into any of the three modes; in a sincere monotheist's (such as Christian) work, it can be a "Take That" to polytheistic religions; in a "Religion is Bad" atheist's, it can be one to religion in general; in a Buddhist-influenced work, it can be a part of the whole "even the Gods are tied up in the Wheel of Karma" concept; and, even if the author is not pushing any religious message in any way, there's a neutral, plot-structural reason to go "Incompetent Gods": it can make the adventurers the Most Competent People Available since if that wasn't the case there wouldn't be anything for the adventurers to do.

If a work has multiple writers, (as frequently happens with RPG and Wargame settings, and quite a few popular SciFi/Fantasy ones as well) there's a tendency for the writers to try and pull the setting into one of the other two "modes" depending on their personal views. This leads to the theme changing from one side to the other as the story progresses. A recent example is [[World of Warcraft|the spate of retcons to the cosmology of the Warcraft universe]] and the morality of its fundamental forces/dominant higher powers, the Light and the Void. If the story doesn't get focused on a pro-religion or anti-religion message, it may end up swinging back and forth between both sides or settle in a mid-point which doesn't take a strong stance either way.

Note that members of the "Religion is Bad" and "Religion is Good" brigades will get involved in arguments over the relative morality or "goodness" of various factions in the story and the accuracy of any messages a writer presents. Often history buffs will throw their hat into the ring as well.

==Examples of /tg/ connected fictional religions==
===Warhammer 40k===
* The [[Imperial Truth]] was originally the Emperor's plan on beliefs, which he and his servants propagated throughout the galaxy during the Great Crusade. Attempting to wean mankind away from Chaos and being a firm member of the "Religion is Bad" brigade, the Emperor proclaimed there are no gods, and religion had to be abolished willingly or by force while science or reason are to be used for explaining the universe and morality. Everything transpired according to his design, except theistic religiosity in the 40k universe is the best weapon against Chaos so Emp's interstellar state atheism policy gave them a major opening. Things went from bad to worse when people started looking up to the Emperor as a god himself and [[Exterminatus|he responded accordingly]]. After the Horus Heresy and the Emperor's removal from galactic politics: the Imperial Truth was slowly shelved in favor of the Imperial Cult, to the point that espousing the teachings of the Truth is ironically considered heresy. Only a few practitioners of the Imperial Truth remain, most notably the Custodes and the Space Marines (both of whom know The Emperor better than anybody to worship him as a god. Plus, their religious autonomy.).
** The [[Imperial Cult]] is the present-day religion of the Imperium of Man, and is a mix of several Abrahamic Religions along with copious amounts of warmongering, fanaticism and xenophobia. Derived from the Lectitio Divinatus penned by [[Lorgar]] pre-HH, the Cult decrees that because the Emperor is capable of all these miracles and power: he ''must'' be a god, and why you should worship and pledge loyalty to him. Its a complete 180 from the Emperor's original teachings, and has simultaneously been responsible for damning and saving the Imperium past the clusterfuck of the Horus Heresy. It's unknown whether the Emperor still abhors godhood and religion and would abolish it the moment he could, or if he's resigned himself to becoming the very thing he fought against for mankind to persevere in these trying times. Whatever the case, he didn't want to be a god, but now he has no choice but to become one.
** The [[Adeptus Mechanicus|Cult Mechanicus]] (Machine Cult) is the religion of the Adeptus Mechanicus, placing a heavy emphasis on machines, viewing them as gifts from the Machine God called "The Omnissiah" Officially, the Omnissiah is The Emperor, which allows the Mechanicus to sidestep the more puritan pundits of the Imperial Cult (we worship The Emprah, just not how you do it). Unofficially, the Omnissiah may or may not be the C'tan god: The Void Dragon. It also has a high emphasis on the collection of knowledge, and one of the Admech's roles in the galaxy is to explore remote and uncharted regions of space to find and search for knowledge that has been lost throughout the millennia. The last of these, is guidelines on machines and knowledge. Officially, heretic(tek) and xeno works are to be abhorred and disposed of, viewing them as perversions of the holy Machine God's works. Unofficially however, more liberally-minded and higher-ranked Magos would happily hoard heretek/xeno works, seeing their potential over the more restricted and constrained works of the Mechanicus.

* Chaos is a violent and complicated henotheistic (believing in multiple gods but only worshipping one) or polytheistic religion with dozens, if not hundreds of interpretations. Even then, there's more sub-cults that worship their particular god in a specific way, either minutely or vastly different from everyone else among followers of the Big 4. And this doesn't even get into the realm of Chaos Undivided (which worships the concept of Chaos itself, instead of the individual gods) and [[Malal]]. Chaos has very little established guidelines regarding worship, apart from their patron god's/gods' general likes/dislikes, so any religious practices or rituals are either based on commands from the god/s or up to the imagination of the cult.
** Interestingly, there is a Space Marine of the Chaos faction who follows the Imperial Truth, and that is [[Fabius Bile]].

* All Greenskins worship Gork and Mork (jury's out on whether the [[Gretchin Revolutionary Committee]] do), but are too disorganized to have anything like a formal religion, though they do make effigies of Gork and Mork and call on them. The closest thing they have to tenants is that Gork favors violence, Mork favors cunning. Greenskins have gotten into fights over this, but violence is part of their nature and that of their gods. While they fight over religion, they also fight over almost any dispute anyway, and may even start a religious argument just to enjoy a good fight among themselves (though the only theological argument they can formulate is "is Gork the god of cunning or is Mork?" or vica versa). Religion doesn't play a significant role in Ork society compared to the other races.

* The Tau's creed "The [[Greater Good]]" is a specie-wide philosophy that was adopted ever since the initial unification of the Tau in the olden days. In a nutshell, the Greater Good emphasizes the co-existence of all Tau and sapient life in general into working together for a common goal to further the Tau's progress, seeing everyone's potential and hoping to utilize that for an, ahem, greater good. Personal religion isn't forbidden, but it must not contradict or override The Greater Good, and must be disregarded if it ever does so. Technically, this means Tau can be religious or non-religious, as the Greater Good is not a religion (due to lacking an afterlife and supernatural aspects, with the closest things to figures of worship being the Ethereals). This sounds all fine and dandy, but the Ethereal class, who are responsible for maintaining The Greater Good, have been shown to be less benevolent than believed and have been using their unnaturally powerful charisma to subtly oppress the Tau and use them to further their own agendas.
**The Farsight Enclaves, who have thrown off Ethereal rule, are the exception in that they have rejected The Greater Good, seeing it as the method of oppression used to keep the T'au under complete control of the ethereals. Due to this, if one considers the Greater Good a religion, The Enclaves are irreligious.
**As of the 4th Sphere Expansion disaster, Chaos Tau are starting to become a thing.
**At one point, the Earth Caste gathered Genestealer-infected Tau and studied them to see what would happen. Of course, a Genestealer cult developed and naturally they violently escaped control and surveillance. According to rumors, they've even produced a Genestealer-infected Ethereal.

* The Eldar have varying views on religiosity depending on their type. Their religion is polytheistic, with henotheistic offshoots, and Ausryan was the highest ranking god. However all of the Eldar gods were murder-raped to death by Slaanesh except for Isha (taken by Nurgle), Khaine (shattered and flung into realspace), Cegorach (hiding in the Webway) and Ynnead (born long after Slaanesh's birth). Their Pantheon's religious practices aren't fleshed out save for those of Cegorach, Isha, and Khaine, via the Harlequins and Aspect Warriors. With most of their gods out of commission, Eldar religious worship is of a deistic bent.
** Craftworlders and Exodites almost exclusively worship the original Eldar pantheon, though some engage in henotheistic worship of only one of the gods. Asuryan is more popular among Craftworlders while Isha is among Exodites, though nearly all give Khaine some tribute during war.
** Corsairs are all over the place, though Khaine is a popular choice given their more militant nature.
** Being agents of the Laughing God himself, the Harlequins' worship is centered around [[Cegorach]], whilst still paying minor tribute to the other gods.
** The new faith around Ynnead, the Ynnari, is rapidly growing but have yet to establish teachings or rituals.
** Unique among the Eldar, the Dark Eldar are irreligious for the most part and while they believe some gods exist they're too self-centered to worship them (this is canon). They're often also anti-religious to boot; a major landmark of Commorragh is a landfill of religious icons called Iconoclast's Mound, and one Wych cult - the Pain Eternal - revolves around killing religious people and destroying shrines and holy sites. The sole exception, except for Dark Eldar who stop being Dark Eldar, are the [[Incubi]] who hold [[Khaine]] in high regard.
** There are numerous rumors of a very small number of Chaos Eldar, but these are barely fleshed out and heavily classified in-universe. There have been verified Nurgle-worshipping Eldar and persistent rumors that some have embraced Slaanesh without becoming soul-food. Apart from this, some Dark Eldar have been willing to summon Chaos Daemons or work with Chaos worshippers ([[Fabius Bile|or allies of Chaos]]) to further their own ends.

* While the Necrontyr had religions before certain [[C'tan|star entities]] [[Necrons|roboticizied them]], those aren't fleshed out or detailed. Its also heavily implied the C'tan co-opted the Necrontyr religion beforehand. With the change to Necrons taking the higher though processes of most of them, any Necrons who can comprehend faith and religiosity either worship the C'tan or have become irreligious.

* The Tyranids themselves are irreligious, being spehss bugs and all, but understand at least a few of the advantages of religion. [[Genestealer]]s infect people and together they establish cults on targeted worlds, such as one worshipping "Children of the Stars", a perversion of the Imperial Cult or something else like "Celebrants of Nihilism" (yes, that's a canon Genestealer cult name). Psychic influence is often involved and, notably, the Genestealers do not consider themselves gods. Once the Tyranids arrive en-masse, the cult-gets assimilated along with all non-Tyranids willingly or not. An interesting tidbit is that the Hive Mind stops the Tyranids from attacking the cultists in early stages of the invasion and leads them on, only to later override the Genestealers' wills and and make them slaughter the cultists.

===Dungeons and Dragons===
* Among Dungeons and Dragons settings, [[Planescape]], [[Eberron]], and [[Pathfinder]] are notable for having some coherent things that could be called "Religions", rather then the usual generic Pantheism.
** Most of Planescape's Factions effectively count as religions, to the point they can produce [[Cleric]]s ([[Planescape: Torment#Fall-From-Grace|Atheist ones at that]]). Yes, even the Athar. (Perhaps ''especially'' the Athar.)
** Half of Eberron's religions aren't worship of deities. The [[Blood of Vol]] seeks to unlock the divinity within one's self and rejects the gods (if they even exist) and the [[Path of Inspiration]] seeks to improve their next reincarnation. The Undying Court worships not gods but their undead ancestors that make up their government. The [[Path of Light]], [[Warforged_Mysteries#The_Becoming_God|Becoming God]] and [[Warforged_Mysteries#The_Reforged|Reforged]] all seek to ''create'' a deity. Even some interpretations of the [[Sovereign Host]], like the one most common among dragons, don't worship them as deities. Due to the way divine casting works in Eberron, all of these can produce divine casters.
** There's a handful of religions on [[Golarion]] that aren't merely worship of pantheons. The most prominent (read: Actually has mechanical support) is the [[Prophecies of Kalistrade]], which is basically fantasy [[Star Trek|Ferengi]].

* [[D20 Modern]]'s [[Urban Arcana]], unusually for urban fantasy, has D&D deities bleed into reality alongside the monsters. You are still able to play a <s>cleric</s> "acolyte" of any real world deity despite this.

===Star Wars===
* [[Star Wars]] is inconsistent on if the [[The Force]] is a religion. The Jedi and the Sith ''could'' both be considered religions as they are considered monastic, but mix in several other traits such as being meritocratic (Jedi) and kraterocratic (Sith) and Lucas himself has axed at least one prototyped book for portraying them too much as a religion. It's also notable that the Sith were former Jedi who left the Jedi path for several reasons including [[Heresy|disagreements over the teachings of that creed]]. Aside from that, religion is nearly always a non-human tradition, something noted in a culture's historical background and never seen implying its extinction, or a scam. The religiously linked "damn" and "hell" are the two real world swear words that exist in-universe, purely because Han Solo used them in the films, and some concept of an "angel" exists because a young Anakin told Padme about them in the prequel trilogy films.
** There are rare exceptions where a religion is fleshed out and explored, and the writing goes various directions for better or worse. A notable example is the aggressive polytheistic religion of the antagonistic Yuuzhan Vong from the EU (which the story gradually revealed was long ago perverted from benevolent roots, and this perverted form takes a few cues from Islam and Aztec mythology).

===Star Trek===
* Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry had a low opinion of religion and in his vision humanity had done away with it and was better off for it and he had no interest in adding it to the aliens. However, some of the cast and crew disagreed and occasionally references and religions found their way into the show, which increased after Roddenberry's death. The Federation's culture is distinctly humanistic (extending the concept to alien species) in it's outlook in which religion is regarded as a thing of the past.
** While there are plenty of "Godlike" entities in Star Trek, almost all are treated as Sufficiently Advanced Aliens in the Arthur C. Clarke sense--and in particular, in ST:TNG, the flip side, that Picard and his crew are frequently shown to look like Gods to sufficiently primitive aliens, is gone into in more than one episode.
** The Bajorans are a highly religious alien race, with the majority following peaceful teachings and a minority of violent extremists.
*** Of some note, the Bajoran religion is of interest because their "Gods" actually exist, and can be (somewhat incomprehensibly) talked to (a rarity outside of [[Science Fantasy]]). In other words, they were frequently a method of having some religion vs. science debates where the divine entity (A) explicitly exists, (B) is explainable as "sufficiently advanced and unusual aliens", and (C) aren't jerks, just bad at communication with those of us who experience time linearly--in other words, with a deck that wasn't quite as badly stacked. The religiosity was meant to be as a way of contrasting the Starfleet personnel with the native population and to draw a parallel between Bajorans under the Cardassian Occupation and various real world recently freed oppressed religious-slash-ethnic groups.
** <s>In the fifth Star Trek movie, ''"The Final Frontier"'', some of the crew steal the Enterprise to look for God and instead find a powerful alien being impersonating God in the center of the universe</s> '''Just like there is no live-action movie of Avatar: The Last Airbender, there is totally no Star Trek 5!'''

===World of Darkness===
* Very large books could be written about religion and [[World of Darkness]]/Chronicles of Darkness. We'll just cover a few highlights:
** From [[Vampire: The Requiem]], there's the the Lancea et Sanctum, which might be best described as "Christianity for Vampires", and the Circle of the Crone, which is "Pagan Vampires". Both have Vampire miracles on tap (pun intended).
** [[Hunter: The Vigil]] has various religious organizations among the Compacts and Conspiracies, some very similar to real world ones, others...not so much.
** [[Mage: The Ascension]] has various religious Traditions, portrayed in that highly-stereotypical and highly-depending-on-the-author way typical of old WoD.

==See also==
* [[Mythology]]

[[Category:Not related]]
[[Category:History]]