Even today, going out into deep water in a non-motorized vessel is pretty risky. I would imagine a sailing culture would have plenty of small ritual practices (maybe not so much superstition as lucky charms), plus some type of common religious practice can help hold together a diverse society. But when the society also has magic, that further complicates the picture. The magic is your story is mostly limited to certain people, and its not clear to me how or if the magic varies from person to person in that group or if there are special magical talents that appear randomly, or if they are obtainable by study, or maybe some are and others aren't, whatever. One of the groups that seems to have magic is associated with a religious type organization, and one is mostly definitely not. Still, if some people can turn into sharks, or penguins, or whatever, why wouldn't you believe that other people can call up rain, or that only the blood of a lamb on your door will keep the Angel of Death away from your children? And if the world is a dangerous place, but your rulers/leaders/priests have some claim to extra-ordinary power, whether religious or secular, then wouldn't it be the obligation of the good ruler to sacrifice something important to ensure the welbeing of the society?
Okay, so this reasoning has holes you could toss Quetzacoatl though, and doesn't help with your main question much at all. Religion is mostly a cultural construct that most people follow because it's What We Do to Keep Everything Going As Smoothly as Possible. But how should a True Believer de defined? As one who honestly thinks that prayer will bring rain? (It always does, eventually) Or the "prophet" who abandons his/her former life to follow a vision? Real True Believers, the visionary kind, are scary, even if you are of the same religion, and even if the RTB is not interested in having followers. Even when they're sane, they're scary.
The RTB doesn't always claim special powers, but often others will ascribe special powers to the RTB. If you're writing about both religion and magic, but don't want to merge the two, then it's an extra challenge to keep the characters and the readers from conflating the two. Ursula LeGuin's "Wizard of EarthSea" series has both, and she did succeed in portraying both as separate elements in the society, but that's not always true of some of her other work.
I also think that a lot of the things we consider "extreme" or "disturbing" in religion are there because they reflect other, deeper problems in the society and the religious reasons are the rationalization for the act.
Sorry for the rather disjointed comments. I went back and re-wrote a bit, because I wasn't really making sense. Hey, I did say in the subject line "my two CENTS", not "SENSE"!
my two cents
Date: 10 Mar 2013 02:14 am (UTC)Okay, so this reasoning has holes you could toss Quetzacoatl though, and doesn't help with your main question much at all. Religion is mostly a cultural construct that most people follow because it's What We Do to Keep Everything Going As Smoothly as Possible. But how should a True Believer de defined? As one who honestly thinks that prayer will bring rain? (It always does, eventually) Or the "prophet" who abandons his/her former life to follow a vision?
Real True Believers, the visionary kind, are scary, even if you are of the same religion, and even if the RTB is not interested in having followers. Even when they're sane, they're scary.
The RTB doesn't always claim special powers, but often others will ascribe special powers to the RTB.
If you're writing about both religion and magic, but don't want to merge the two, then it's an extra challenge to keep the characters and the readers from conflating the two.
Ursula LeGuin's "Wizard of EarthSea" series has both, and she did succeed in portraying both as separate elements in the society, but that's not always true of some of her other work.
I also think that a lot of the things we consider "extreme" or "disturbing" in religion are there because they reflect other, deeper problems in the society and the religious reasons are the rationalization for the act.
Sorry for the rather disjointed comments. I went back and re-wrote a bit, because I wasn't really making sense.
Hey, I did say in the subject line "my two CENTS", not "SENSE"!