Questions tagged [religion]
For questions regarding the impact of religion in a given scenario or the creation of a religion for use in a fictional world.
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How would be society's reactions if scientistis created an hermaphrodite man capable of giving birth? [closed]
If genetic engineered and/or bioengineering was used to create a man with true hermaphroditism( he would also have male gender identity) who could get pregnant on his own by self fertilization or ...
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The Static Civilization: 1 creating an eternal religion [closed]
In my world, I am trying to design a civilization or culture that is basically unchanging. Well, unchanging is not the right word, rather, this civilization does not experience sudden or deep changes, ...
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What would Religion that worshipped humans be like with alien followers and why would they do so [closed]
I'm writing a story with aliens from another planet worshipping humans on earth and wanted to know why would a alien species of spider-like humanoids do that.
Especially since humans aren't that good ...
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How to appease the Goddess of Traffic Lights
Disclaimer: The following question is an in-Universe question for a wip project called "The gods of ordinariness"
My friends, I am in a spot of trouble. On my daily drive to work, I have to ...
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How to serve the gods
TL;DR: How can a mortal become worthy of being listened to by the gods?
I'm seeking a logical framework to establish a specific relationship between gods and mortals.
The Relationship:
Mortals can ...
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Would it be at all possible for a civilization to not have a concept of a god real or fake?
Now I know the cheeky answer would be "of course it's possible, it's your world, you decide what happens in it" but I'm asking this from a general point of view.
Is it really inevitable that ...
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Why would LGBTQIA+ people be sacred individuals? [closed]
In my world, there are magical humans often called wizards (their scientific name is Homo magicus) (so, they are still humans, just not Homo sapiens). They are traditionally a very religious race. ...
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How would a societies evolve where almost everyone can shapeshift into last person they have touched [closed]
In my world, every individual gains the unique ability to shapeshift into the last person they have touched upon turning 16 years old. Somethings to note is one cannot revert back to their original ...
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A religion where everyone is considered a priest [closed]
I have imagined a universalising polytheistic religion of around 5 million adherents.
The pantheon is composed of 120 deities.
A strange thing about this religion is that everyone is considered a ...
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How to spread a taboo white paper at a large scale in a Renaissance-level, medium magic world?
Context
In my world, magic has been granted to mortals by their gods.
As a result, the Church heavily regulates it, and the only legal spellcasters are clerics and clergymen. Magic use is heavily ...
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Conditions to help Paganism survive until a Revival Movement
In my world, the Northern Kingdoms are the equivalent to Europe. Like Europe, in the Middle Ages, their version of Christianity began replacing old Pagan religions and gods.
However, in my world, ...
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What conditions could help the Roman Catholic Papacy revive Paganism successfully to reduce Protestantism?
In this alternate history, the Papacy becomes worried when those such as Martin Luther began complaining about the Church's practices. At this point, Luther breaks away, beginning Lutheranism. Fear of ...
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Baal's advocate - plausible deniability for failed theophany
There's a mystical component to my world that I have been unable to resolve: Why might a divine being not reveal himself when it would otherwise be in his/his followers' best interests. My world has a ...
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How would a society be structured so everyone can die in combat?
Many ancient religions place value on dying in combat. For example, in Norse mythology, only those slain in battle are able to enter Valhalla.
In this alternate universe, a the population of a small ...
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Why would authority figures' uniforms be more colourful than average people's? [closed]
In my world, there are magical humans often named wizards. Their scientific name is Homo magicus. However, there are standard humans (Homo sapiens as you shall know).
Traditionally, wizards live in a ...
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Potential, ethically-questionable advancements in science [closed]
I'm creating a futuristic dystopia in which a religious sect decides to shun advancements in technology and science.
The reason for this is that science has evolved in ethically questionable ways. ...
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How could a misotheistic society kill belief in powered gods?
In my setting there is a religion of giants (gaians) who believe magic/the supernatural are an affront to nature and must be exterminated by any means necessary.
For magic users this isn't to much of ...
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How can I make my fantasy cult believable?
In my world, there is a notorious cult. Despite its weird (and comical) origins, it manages to be one of the most infamous cults ever in existence. Originally, it was one big cult, formed during their ...
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How would a society whose existence depends on faith deal with non-believers? [closed]
I am currently building a world where most of the realm is primordial and extremely hostile to human life with humans worship of an angel(With each angel being specific to that settlement.) warding ...
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Could utility fog be used to build a planet? [closed]
I am considering the plausibility of creating a Project involving “Gods”. These are super intelligent beings composed entirely of utility fog; clouds of nanotechnological components capable of ...
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Can I have non-evil blood mages? [closed]
I'm creating a world in which an entire continent is constructed from a monster. Drawing from Aztec mythos, I have named this creature Cipactli, and though it was slain, it's still, to an extent, ...
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In a world conquered by villainous creatures, how can a church exist that condemns them in dogma?
I am trying to marry two concepts:
The world is conquered by the traditionally villainous creatures. One country is dominated by vampire nobility, the other is ruled by fiends/devils (dukes of hell), ...
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What would the US government realistically call a scientifically-proven afterlife? [closed]
So in my world, the afterlife is proven to be an actual, physical location you can visit with the right knowledge and technology. This is in the near-future, in a (mostly) hard sci-fi setting. We ...
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Does a secondary world setting need a religion? [closed]
So I have been debating about what to do for the secondary world setting I am developing. My big question is about what to do for the in-universe religion(s). The thing is that I am mostly doing ...
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Is a highly acidic/base fast-acting glue possible?
A request for the Department of Unconventional Cleansing and Annihilation: The Senatorium has decided that a fast acting glue needs to be created which burns its victims as they are trapped in the ...
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Why would murids (such as rats and mice) be sacred animals?
In a future web-series I want to create, there is a species of massive humanoids named giants (Homo gigas) (technically, there are still humans, just not Homo sapiens). They are less social than ...
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Why would priests, priestesses, shamans, monks, and nuns have the right to marry and to reproduce? [closed]
In my world, there are magical humans often called wizards (their scientific name is Homo magicus) (so, they are still humans, just not Homo sapiens).
They are traditionally a very religious race. ...
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1
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How likely for a religion to be almost similar in a different world? [closed]
In my secondary world, one of the main religions is a vague medieval Christianity. Of course, there are differences made for it to fit in with the lore, as well as a few other major religions. After ...
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What theological problems could arise from the discovery of human like extraterrestrials and sapient non human extraterrestrials [closed]
I am working on a science fiction setting (near future and about ninety years after first contact with an alien civilization and the discovery of a bustling galactic community) and I'm wanting to ...
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How can a hierarchy within a religion alter central beliefs that have already been accepted as a core tenet to its faith?
Citizens of the Byzantine Empire worship a state religion known as Arianism, which sees the Blessed Trinity as a heirachy with God the Father, God the Son, and the lower entities that inhabit the ...
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What are the Celestial observations and mythology on a ringed planet? [closed]
I'm building a ringed world with it's rings composed of low albedo material to try and dampen the impact the rings have during night time (that is, trying so not every single night that the rings are ...
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Is a religion which allows cyborgs but not AI or genetic engineering realistic? [closed]
On an alternate Earth I am designing, the entire industrialised world is dominated by a single religion. This religion has many denominations, but in all of them both genetic engineering and advanced ...
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How to make pagan religions popular again [closed]
In my medieval fantasy world, Christianity, or at least it's parallel universe equivalent, is the most dominant religion. However, later in my world, pagan beliefs start to become popular again and ...
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How to create a custom gematria system for a world? [closed]
I just recently asked What are the origins of the various forms of Gematria? and What are the rules for constructing a gematria system? Now I am wondering how to create a custom gematria system for a ...
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What makes a religion popular? [closed]
There have been many things asking on how to make a fictional religion. As I was making my world's religion, I wondered: what would make people want to believe in it? What also gave me the idea is of ...
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Theoretically, can a real religion exist in a high fantasy world? [closed]
In my world, there are multiple religions, and one of them is Christianity. While it exists in our world, there are some differences, including:
Changing of locations and places
A few characters are ...
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Why would neurodivergent people be sacred individuals?
In my world, there are magical humans often called wizards (their scientific name is Homo magicus) (so, they are still humans, just not Homo sapiens).
They are traditionally a very religious race. ...
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How could a church maintain the illusion of an Eternal Flame for hundreds of years?
In the world I am developing, a group called the Garotakor Kobark base their belief system on a fire that has burned consistently for hundreds of years. It has been contained within a step pyramid-...
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How can a matriarchal religion support a patriarchal structure?
The Cult of the Holy Mother is a female-dominated religious organization that retains a large role in the shaping of society and affairs of the nation. The cult traces its origins to a virgin woman ...
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How can an expression of a god's power be used to authenticate the legitimacy of a sect within a religion?
The Cult of the Holy Mother is a female-dominated sect within a larger religious organization led by a male patriarch. Although the cult is small, it retains a significant role in the imagination of ...
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How can a hypostatic union be the preferred fusion between gods and mortals?
The Great Wheel is a planar cosmology which defines how the planes, worlds, and realms of the multiverse are connected to one another. Throughout this multiverse, there are various gods that exist ...
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How can the law of equivalent exchange lead to diminishing returns from sacrifices?
The astral realm is the place where magic in our world originates from. Priests of the Aztec empire can access that magical power for their own purposes through the use of spells and rituals. The ...
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Awaken after millions of years of spacetravel, what day is today, what time it is and to where should I look at? [closed]
Bob is a 30 years old man who has a religion, called Bobism that is a particular blend of Judaism, Islamism, Christianism, Buddhism, Madeupism and Wtfism. Bob is a strict rigorous practizer of Bobism.
...
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How do I create a religion unlike greek pantheon?
Most of the religions I see GMs make (& even myself) are basically just rehashed Greek pantheon-esque religions. Several gods, each one governing a specific thing, sometimes different regions have ...
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Why would great white sharks be sacred animals?
In a future web-series I want to create, there is a species of massive humanoids named giants (Homo maximus) (technically, they are still humans, just not Homo sapiens). They are less social than ...
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How can a deity's karma be corrupted by the reincarnation cycle?
Reincarnation is the cycle of birth and death that all human souls traverse in their journey to a higher state, in which they permanently leave that cycle. When the body dies, its soul ascends to a ...
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What types of conditions in an early civilization would create a religion that values joy, celebration, camaraderie and loyalty?
I’m currently in the early stages of building cultures in a high fantasy setting, and what I initially have to work with is a couple of deities- one of which embodies joy, celebration, camaraderie and ...
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Despite scientific advancements that can eliminate all birth defects, why would incest still be a taboo?
First and foremost: do we all agree that the main reason that incest or inbreeding is bad is because it leads to the passing down of recessive genes and these birth defects can severely impact the ...
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How can a deity make his desires known to his followers without communicating with them directly?
The time-stream is the normal passage or flow of time and its historical developments, within a given dimension of reality. Elder gods are all-powerful beings that exist outside this reality within ...
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Religion For Dogs [closed]
I’ve been developing a world in which humans have disappeared, and pedigree dogs have returned to their country of origin. The story is set in the UK, roughly 3 years after the event. My idea was that ...