religion and non-religion

[kaigou]

Currently writing a scene in which the pivotal/cultural religion of the story's world takes center stage. This is rather odd for me, and I'm wondering if it is for anyone else.

For the most part, I'm an apatheist. For me, I don't disbelieve a god, nor believe; I just don't care. I live my life according to ethics and principles (not morals), and try to do good in this lifetime with no hope nor care for any after-life rewards. If there are, fine; if not, fine. Which really amounts to: I don't like ritual, I don't like organized religion, I don't care much for massive displays of faith/belief, or the trappings of either. I kind of look at all of it... not with a jaundiced eye so much as a disinterested one. Some people require ritual, especially of a social nature. I'm not one of them.

No surprise then that the religion I've devised for my central culture is a relatively ritual-free religion. It has a lot in common with Shinto, in that very few elements are public (no weekly sunday get-together), most of it's not just personal but also private/solitary. But for the story, it's also crucial that this religion have an obligatory aspect, as well. Certain people are considered automatically priests, and it's not always within the person's say. It's somewhat like the old European tradition that the youngest son always entered religious orders -- there wasn't much choice to the role. It was pretty much set from birth, fated.

Which, seeing how I'm rather lukewarm about ritual, it wouldn't be a surprise that obligatory ritual gets my goat even faster. Yet here I am, doing a scene in which a culture explains and justifies its obligatory ritual. And for the story's purposes, it's not right for me to subtly imply via the narrative that this is a wrong thing; to be true to the story, this must be seen as a right [for that religion and its adherents] thing.

It'd be very easy to write a story in which religion (any religion) gets its comeuppance, or gets dissed or shown to be wrong in some way. I've seen that, too, when some religions -- usually ones written as seriously-close analogues to existing/real religions -- are portrayed by authors who don't believe in that religion. It feels like a failure of empathy on the author's part, because they'd rather demonize the non-Christian (or non-Pagan, or non-Western, or non-Eastern) religion than see it from the other side. (For the record, I hate those stories even more, oddly. I don't like any religion demonized, even if that sounds strange given my intro.)

It actually feels harder to write -- believably -- characters who really do cherish, and respect, and feel obligated to fulfill, a set of religious precepts. It's like I can't quite see ever being so deep-down in it that I couldn't understand how one could not be, or believe, such-and-such. Like people I knew in college who tried desperately to convert me (since apparently Episcopalian doesn't really 'count' as A True Believer) -- they were absolutely flabbergasted, even genuinely hurt -- that I couldn't seem to see how So Very Important the issue of "what you believe" really was. To them, yes, but to them, their belief was an all-encompassing thing and thus I, as someone whom they otherwise felt something in common with or whatever, must therefore also have the same something inside me that would call me to belief just as strongly as it called them. If that makes sense. (It did in my head.)

That's really hard for me to write. I can't write strong-faith characters believably. (I could say fanatic, but with the caveat that my personal attitude kind of skews the grading curve; I'm so far below "casual religion" that someone who does church once a week and sometimes on Wednesday night get-togethers is practically a fanatic in comparison.) I have an even harder time writing someone trying to justify their fanaticism, which on a good day might just be Very Strong Belief.

Anyone else deal with this in stories, or read a work where you get the idea the author's dealing with it? Or the opposite -- an author with Strong Beliefs struggling to write non-believer characters? Any tips, ideas, something to help me make sure I'm not dissing characters who in all other ways deserve to be non-demonized and treated respectfully?

Comments

[majoline]

I've been (very slowly; I need a beta) writing a Paganism in action fanfic. Writing religious stuff believably without losing readers is hard work and I had to take a break for a while from it.

I'd say if they're Shinto/hard polytheist/animist types, don't forget that ritual isn't something that happens all the time. Yes, they might drop small offerings off at shrines/their personal altar, but otherwise, big occasions aren't as common as going to church on Sunday.

For instance, us Druids meet for the cross-quarter days. That means that we all are expected to convene only eight (8) days a year. Yeah, there are weddings and funerals and conventions, but otherwise religious stuff happens at home and is small.

I guess I'm arguing that you might not have to write "strong-faith" people, rather "strong-practice" people. They don't do it much, they might not even believe it at all, but the cakes and ale and candles have to arranged just right, don't you know!

A good RL example of rituals like that are Scouting ceremonies. There are candles and ritual lighting and flags and everything. Then everyone goes home and goes about their business, if that makes sense.

[law_nerd]

Would it help to think of ritual as procedure?

Some people outline, then write. Some people just write. Some companies manage projects, others just do things. Some coders test accessibility and usability and function and ensure that code is commented and documented and clean ... others use the world as their beta-testers and code name the actual release version "Service Pack 2".

Religion is trying to figure out project management where the project incorporates the known world and it's people, and where cause and effect are not always particularly obvious. Ritual is the procedural bits that seem to cause the right effects (wow, the sun rose again this morning!), or at least not cause the wrong ones (oops, no sunrise, let's not do THAT again!).

Um... which is to say, damn but you ask interesting questions... sufficiently so that after a week of 20 hour days of teaching, marking and teaching some more, trying for an answer seems like more fun than going to bed. Quality of answer, however, may be affected by lack of sleep. Apologies.

[staranise]

What if it were for some other abstract ideal? When we worship "love", it permeates our society's entire way of thinking; you have to ~find someone~, participate in romantic days (both publicly universal, like Valentine's, and private-but-expected, like anniversaries), undergo certain ceremonies; even people who deliberately choose to do none of that are aware of what they're contravening. Or when we worship "health", it changes everything we do--we're willing to change what we eat, to have our chests cut open, to revile our bodies, to fundamentally change our whole ways of being. We're willing to endure open-heart surgery because we believe it will help.

This is the same social process as religion. Some religious people have had direct contact with the spiritual--and some people have known true love or excellent health. Some never have, but pursue these rituals, these dates and diets and blessings, in the vain hope that someday they will. Some have reasoned objections, or unreasoned rejection, and some are mostly apathetic but don't go against the grain.

[clarentine]

I'm with you on most of that - I really just don't care about religion on a personal level, never have felt the need for that net to catch me if I fell in the course of my life. And I find myself exploring in my own writing what it means to believe. What belief means. Not really how it works, because for the characters the how is beside the point; they simply believe. (Of course, from the author perspective, the how becomes important if you want a reader to accept the logic behind your story!)

I don't know if there's any way in which religion should be approached differently than you'd approach any other variation in character - to me, religious belief is only one aspect of what makes each character distinct, and so long as they're fully fleshed out as a person, I think you'll have done well in respectfully treating their religious beliefs. No one person is the same as any other.

[metanewsmods]

Hello, would you mind if we included this in the next metanews link roundup?

my two cents

[ratoncito]

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"!

Uh, hi... do you still care?

[everbright]

Ah, I just wanted to pipe up and say, don't discount social pressure hard-coding thoughts into your character's heads. As above, the reason for the belief is probably derived from some form of pattern recognition turned up to 11, and then diluted and mutated as the culture has different needs over the years. The reason the person is following the belief is because they've heard and enacted these strictures since before they hard hard and fast rules about how the world works (childhood,) AND because their family and friends all believe this too. The people they love and trust are cross checking the character's subjective reality according to how are all taught. The religion reinforces the social structure reinforces the religion, etc, etc.

Homer though the seas were wine dark, because ancient Greeks didn't want/need the concept of blue. Their 'objective' reality and ours are totally different, but within their own culture everyone is reinforcing that reality. Your character may not see the other option, because there IS no other option in their worldview.