religion in sci-fi/fantasy....

does this turn you off? do you try to incorporate it in your story? if so, do you instill your own beliefs or, if more appropriate, the beliefs of a system that's more likely to exist that may not be your own? do you use religion in a metaphoric/symbological way, or is it just there as a function of that society?

is putting heavy religion into your story playing with fire?

i'm sure this has changed, but it seems to me that most alien species come from a one-world religion, if it's mentioned at all. that's always stood out to me as being unrealistic because it strongly implies that there's also a one-world culture. it rather seems one-dimensional world-building. worse is that all aliens have 'grown up' to the point where religion is a laughable concept. it might work for an hour-long episode, but a book i hold to a higher standard.

i especially like the comment about how easy it is to screw religion up. there's always something about it that goes unaddressed as far as the reader is concerned, eh? at least that's the risk you run. i've found that writing religious-based stories it sometimes has a snowballs effect in that the religious angle begins to overwhelm the commentary i began with.

also a thing to consider is that there are also 'fundamentalists', which seems to be the extreme. therein lies your terrorists and crusaders and inquisitioners and people who refuse medical treatment (okay, i'm sure my definition of 'fundamentalists' is off-base for anyone who cares to correct my ignorance). the point is there are extremists and people who take a religion literally or view it as more allegorical and open to interpretation. how can you explain snake-handlers?

that's another good pick: buddhism isn't a religion, it's a philosophy. you're right, too, when you say that in a complex society, it seems like lazy writing to have only a single religion. i'm not saying it's implausible, but it borders that considering a lot of alien characters presented have so many human traits. when basically a human character is presented, the only difference being they've got funny faces, there seems to be a lot of over-simplification involved in their fictional culture. and it's funny when you've got alien races you watch on a t.v. show for five years and in the end really don't know that much about their society beyond a few rather generic episodes that basically scratches the surface of a single aspect of their society. i think delving into these societies just a little deeper has been star trek's major boon.

true, i don't need a detailed history lesson, but it would be nice to see an orc craft a crude shrine and pray in the woods before a battle to illustrate that there's a culture there, too, that's not simply killing and avarice. in our own history, religion has been the major impetus for a lot if not most of world events (and still is, i guess). religion dictates thoughts and action, so to remove that incredible influence leaves something lacking to me. especially in fantasy, i think religion for the characters has been very downplayed more often than not. certainly, i find frodo hard to connect with because of his asexual, agnostic-seeming stance (though you could argue frodo is queerer than a three dollar bill, that aspect isn't overt, i think).

without a religious stance and no sexual attitude, man, what the hell do you base a character on, anyway? lol. 'uh, psychology.' hardly. you might get lucky with a character without religion or sex, but that's all it would be, luck. 'uh, philosophy.' oh, and sex and religion doesn't strike at the heart of a philosophy? sex/religion are basic character foundations, so why do people so often ignore these? oh, yeah-- they write boring, unrealistic characters who rely on setting more than story.

try this as a pick-up line: 'hey, baby, i have no religious stance nor do i have any discernable sexual proclivities. wanna, ya know, get a vanilla milkshake?' yeah, you're probably not going to get a lot of action with that. so, how is it characters are able to accomplish their goals? 'uh, determination.' determination based on what? you can't have a good character determined for determination's sake. 'jake steel was determined to be a starship captain.' okay, why? 'just cuz' don't fly over the course of four-hundred pages.

religion, too, is so important because it's usually the basis of a character's philosophy. aetheist or agnostic connotes certain character traits to me. so, if old jake is determined to be captain from an aetheistic standpoint, now you're starting to build a character's framework. as long as the details don't contradict that attitude (giving enough room for character growth), that's probably a good start. if he's rather a womanizer, or not, hey, that's almost a character.

i say all this and can prove myself a fool (or more so, heh heh) by looking at some otherwise great characters which are sometimes hard to pin down. captain kirk, i'm looking at you. a womanizing star captain with somewhat shady methods of operation. i don't think it's ever been satisfactorily settles what religion, if any, kirk belongs to. indeed, he seems very self-serving much of the time. sure, he's basically a good guy, but you also know the only reason he isn't banging every yoeman who saunters by with a four-inch thick clipboard is because he'd be thrown out of starfleet faster than he could say, 'but that green woman came on to *me*!' yeah, sure she did, kirk, sure she did.

i don't think kirk has much of a religious sense to him. certainly there's an arrogance attached with hot-shot commanders, and with so much power over people's lives there may be a self-worshipping attitude, so maybe his apparent agnostic leanings work best for that character. he knows he's not a god, but, damnit, he probably has had to go through a spell where he thought he was pretty close to it.

maybe that's good characterization after all. at least in kirk's case there's an implication there that some things i've read and seen lack terribly. as a reader, it's helps me develop a sense of the character without being told (which is a good thing, right?) if these major aspects are alluded to. without allusions, where's the character?

moon, i hope this clarifies things: i have my opinions as to what creates a good character, a few of the major ones being sexual attitude and religion. those don't have to be shown outright, per se, but writers allude to, or at least should, i think, to these things by character actions/thoughts/conversations. i think often writers don't really know these things about their characters themselves until situations unfold, but good characters to me still aren't ambiguous by the end of a trilogy. in other words, i should have enough clues to piece together a character as a believable person (or alien, ghost, whatever). (as an aside, this is probably a large reason why i hate children characters, because they always tend to have it all figured out or have not one challengable opinion.)

like it was said, buddhism, as far as my research has borne out, is a non-religion religion. philosophy and religion go hand in hand (i'm deliberately leaving psychology, social pressure, and medical conditions out of the mix as i feel these tend to be the results from phil. and rel.), but there's a noticable difference. generally, most people's religion is given to them and that's what they grow up with. (i like saying no one ever woke up in salt lake city one morning and said, 'you know what, i think i'm a muslim!') since religion is by-and-large a part of growing up, philosophy stems from that upbringing. so, in a mundane case, a child is taught religion, and having that almost inbred basis (show me where you can escape a society'ss dominant religion), your philosophy is greatly influenced by that. of course, that's a general statement, but the 'well, i know 50 people who proves that's not true' doesn't impress me.

my personal philosophy is based on what i consider to be fact because i don't have a religion to tell me how to think. so, i'm often proven wrong (albeit i admit it's not easy getting me to that point, lol). but i'm an uninteresting character, truth be told (good thing i'm still good-looking). it's worth noting (at least i believe this to be true) that there's quite a bit of difference between faith-based 'truths' which can't be verified as opposed to factually-based philosophical opinion. the two compliment each other in a character, no (i'd say there's also an inherent conflict)? if i don't have a strongish sense of either, nor of sex, i get bored with that character.

plenty of folk think scientists are aetheist. not true. surveys say the majority of them have a faith. likewise, while i think most people consider philosophers as people trying to reason their way into aetheism, that's not true, either: most philosophers, i dare say, would claim philosophy brings them *closer* to their god (or so i've read by some philosopher over the years).

if there's a religion in a person's life, a religion the person actually believes in and follows, everything else is a trickle down effect, eh? religion dictates sexual practice and beliefs. sexual freedom or repression affects a person's personality (which like philosophy and religion, personality and psychology i think are one another's best friend and worst enemy). how a person spends his time and spends his money is greatly dictated by religion.

so, if i know a character is a devout catholic, i know a lot about that character. if you want to have him banging every secretary in his corner office, you can't call him devout. that's not just an exception of the character's beliefs, it's really a contradiction of the writer themselves, not of the character. 'devout, except for...' would be okay, but to denote a character as one thing and start picking him apart without foreshadowing or any basis for doing so is bad writing to me. conflicted characters are great as are characters who go against their normal ways of being-- those things just need to be justified.

i hope that helps, moon. i'm rather unclear as to what you're unclear about, though, lol.

that's an excellent line: 'i believe people are religious by nature....' are they? are people more 'religious by nature' a thousand years ago as opposed to a modern culture? and has that 'nature' been forced upon people, creating a false culture people otherwise wouldn't have considered were the concept of gods and religion not taught to the in the first place? were i completely ignorant of religion, i'd eventually wonder what a church is and why there are five of them in my neighbourhood. were i raised on an island totally without any concept of any religion, i wonder if i'd ever think there was a higher power without being told. you've pricked an excellent vein there, my friend. kudos. in that situation, i wonder what priorities i'd give my character. would sex become an overwhelming factor sans anything other than a safety issue? why do we not screw around on our wives, just because we promised her and God we wouldn't? why is it when a guy screws around, he's a dog, yet when a woman does it, it's usually a case of her 'not getting the attention/emotional support she needs at home'? lol. i just threw those last sentences in there.