Editing Religion (section)

==How this impacts /tg/==
{{topquote|Thoughtful critique of organized religion is rare in fiction.  Usually it's one extreme or the other.|Youtuber "Terrible Writing Advice" (a footnote from the "MYTHS, LEGENDS, AND GODS" Episode)}}

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 - in addition to the various roles religion continues to have in society - religion is just as involved in the backstory or current lore of settings.  There are three major "modes" of /tg/ settings and related fictions: 
* Purely functional use of religion as a story device. (What we might call "Functionalists")
* Endorsement of religion and/or religious people. (What we might call "Religion is Good" types)
* Condemnation of religion and/or religious people. (What we might call "Religion is Bad" types)
For ease of categorization, writers who use these modes will also be called proponents, detractors or functionalists (who can be pro, anti or neutral).

===Religion as a story device/Functionalists===
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 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 doing that anything'''".

===Religion as a Bad Thing/Detractors=== 
There are several writers of Science Fiction and Fantasy that are of the opinion "Religion Is Bad", 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 Philip Pullman (who wrote the "His Dark Materials" trilogy partially in response to C.S Lewis' "Chronicles of Narnia" series). Whatever the genre, this comes in flavors of "The Gods are Incompetent" (more on that below), "The Gods Don't Exist" or "The Gods are Evil".  Cosmic Horror also tends to use the latter two or combine them into "The Gods are actually Incomprehensible and Destructive Aliens" ([[H.P. Lovecraft]] himself was an avowed anti-religious atheist - hence cults are recurring villains in his stories).  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.  A writer could have issues with a specific religion and single them out in their works.  Worst case scenario, the story is a preachy anti-religious wish fulfillment story, power fantasy and/or Troll Fic.  Two examples are Frank Miller's "Holy Terror" comic series against Islam and Garth Ennis' "Preacher" comic series against Christianity.  

Whatever the motivation, writers saying this message either model their fictional religions on the worst excesses of real world religious people, distorted or strawman versions of them or a fictional stand-in.  The most frequently targeted religions are Christianity, Islam, Scientology and faiths that practiced human sacrifice such the Aztec's. <!-- Let's keep the Aztecs last, because anything after will be read as practicing human sacrifice with the way the sentence is currently worded. -->  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/Proponents===
There are several Science Fiction and Fantasy writers who either are religious themselves and want to promote their worldview, look upon religion positively and put that into the story or both.  This is more common in Fantasy than Sci-fi, partly because with the supernatural being THE fundamental element of the genre, this gives 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"; that is, resemble real-life religions but with a few details changed), 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 like Narnia]].  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 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 as per "[[Belief Function|Belief Function]]" (think Morpheus' "your mind makes it real" quote, but applying at the cosmological level).  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:

* All three types 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 its group is evil because you have to commit evil deeds to be made part of the group in the first place).  
* Religion is Bad types tend to use them to say either "while they're all Bad, some are worse then others", that "Religion can be used to justify anything", use it as a strawman to tar all with the same brush or they have a personal axe to grind (either against an entire religion, a group within that religion or specific religious people the author dislikes).  
* Religion is Good types or 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). Another approach is to have a Religion of Good fighting against a Religion of Evil - either as the heroes of the story or a valued ally - to say "there is good religion, so don't tar all with the same negative brush".
** 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 (questions of whether this fosters prejudice against real-life groups and audiences and authors demanding more motive for their villains). While there are still plenty of them, they usually add some reason that justify their existence (e.g. [[Ecclesiarchy|faith in the God-Emperor]], while horrible in its own right and despite all its excesses is still orders of magnitude more benign than the Chaos it keeps at bay) or makes them at least morally neutral under their own lights (if not that of the reader/protagonist). Popular options are for them to be an off-shoot/subset of another religion and/or be taking vengeance for an injustice (real or perceived, both of which have '''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 (albeit rarer outside of Cosmic Horror) is the "Religion as a Bad Thing" route.  The story is straight up [[Imperial Truth|atheistic/"Religion is Bad" propaganda]] for the more preachy (pun intended) anti-religious writers.  It's also frequently used by writers going for [[Edgy|"edgy"]] stories with religious subject matter; in practice, both most often target Christianity or any contemporary cults.  Fictional religions or cults are usually thinly-veiled stand-ins for real-life ones and the quality of the plots themselves range from good to terrible.  
* 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 get up to no good and 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. More softly than the Incompetent/Insane/Asshole/Neutral angle, it can be said that the gods are busy with something just as if not more important or that esoteric rules bind them. 

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 two of its fundamental forces 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 (as in the TV show Babylon 5<ref>Amusingly, Babylon 5 was mainly written by a single writer.</ref>) 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.