Last updated on May 30, 2022
Conflict is the essence of drama. There’s no better way to introduce drama into a story than to add religion and philosophy when worldbuilding. Humans have fought innumerable wars and conflicts over how different people view the world.
After all, religion and philosophy are basically explanations for how the world works. For many people they provide the fundamental assumptions, truths, and axioms that they build their worldviews on.
Religion has played a major role in the daily lives of people since long before civilization and writing. Some of the first writings and the longest lasting were religious texts. According to some thinkers, most historical religions came about during the Axial Age, from the fourth through the sixth centuries BCE.
Religion and philosophy are different but related ideas. Religion is a combination of belief and practice along with some social organization. The beliefs and practices might include gods and rituals and they might not.
To be clear, the definition of philosophy I am using is a person or organization’s guiding principles for behavior. As such, one cannot separate religion and philosophy. The guiding principles of a religion comprise that religion’s philosophy.
When worldbuilding a society’s backstory, remember that religion and philosophy change over time. The Roman Empire changed from a pagan worshipping society to a Christian society over the course of centuries. The competition between these two worldviews created conflict among the various factions within the empire. Naturally, competing views provide fertile ground for stories both fictional and non-fictional.
Belief
As a writer, you can use the characters’ religion or philosophy as the theme of your story. When worldbuilding, your characters’ religion and philosophical beliefs should drive their actions, not just be window dressing. For most religious people, their beliefs give meaning to their lives.
The philosophy that underpins a religion makes up a religion’s core beliefs. That philosophy defines how people think about their religion, what it means to them, and what they believe it should mean to others. Over time a religion might stay the same but the philosophy that underpins it might change, even while staying true to the original belief.
The two main areas of belief in religion are the religion’s mythology and how followers should worship the gods.
Mythologies
By mythology, I mean the stories about the gods or heroes of a particular culture. Most people define mythology as a fictional story. In a religion, what is relevant is that the story gives meaning to people’s lives. It provides a guide to how they should act and what decisions are best. Whether the story is factually true is irrelevant.
As an example, the story of Abraham in the book of Genesis is a cautionary tale. Rather than Abraham being a role-model, he goes through a number of episodes where he makes the wrong decision. He lied about his wife being his sister and was banished. He had a child with his wife’s handmaiden who was later banished. He followed Yahweh’s order and started to sacrifice Isaac, only for Yahweh to tell him at the last minute not to.
Each of these stories is instructive: Don’t lie. Don’t marry your sister. Don’t sleep with servants. Don’t practice human sacrifice.
Religion and its underlying philosophy often provides a set of rules for ordering society and forms the basis of law. For example, the western world has the story of the ten commandments. The rules on their face make sense as fundamental rules for how to act within a society. Because the story says Yahweh gave them to the Jews, they now have divine force.
In the same way, the story of Jesus’s teachings and death on the cross might not have as much impact without the exclamation point of his resurrection at the end.
Practice
Worship of the Divine/Gods
Most people think of religious practice as the commemoration or veneration of deities or saints through meditation or prayer.
Many religions have a belief in divine beings or powers, or sacred things or teachings.
One God (monotheism): Christianity, Islam, Judaism
Multiple Gods (polytheism): Greece, Rome, Hinduism
No gods (nontheism or naturalism): Taoism, Buddhism, Shamanism, Ancestor veneration
Most religions have some form of practice, whether it be rituals in the form of sacrifices, festivals, feasts, trances, initiations, funerary services, or matrimonial services. One also finds religious themes in music, art, dance, public service, or other aspects of human culture.
While worldbuilding, it may be necessary to develop a religion’s practices, depending on the needs of your story. If a character is in the middle of a ritual, it might help to know what is going on in that ritual.
Otherwise, how religious practice presents itself in the society you are creating depends on how pervasive that religion is in the society. For example, in the United States, people make few public religious pronouncements. On the other hand, in a theocracy such as Iran or a society such as Europe in the Middle Ages, religion controls most aspects of life. As such, one would expect to see public displays of religion. In fact, the United States and modern Europe are unique in history in not having many overt displays of religious belief or ritual.
Organization
Religions are organized in many different ways, from the strict hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church to the individualist practice of shamans. A religion might splinter into sects with competing hierarchies, often with competing philosophies. One example of this is the various sects of Christianity based on often hair-splitting interpretations of holy scripture. Different castes or classes might follow different religions.
A religion’s organization or lack thereof can make a difference in your worldbuilding. Do any of your characters follow a religion or philosophy? If so, that religion’s philosophy might inform the character’s arc and personal growth. Religious people will give deference to a priest, cleric, shaman, or other religious figure. With religion a major part of people’s everyday lives, decision makers want to know if their decisions are correct.
Is your character a cleric or do you have some who are? That person might have a superior giving direction based on the needs of the church. Churches have their own agendas. The needs of a church organization creates a myriad of possibilities for conflict. A religion or religious superior might be corrupt or telling character to do something the character doesn’t think is right. A church might be one player in a political or social conflict.
Church and State
If your characters engage in the politics of your world, then they will undoubtedly encounter religious figures. In most societies in human history, church and state were inextricably linked. Even in modern secular societies, if the church and state are separate, religion and politics are not.
Throughout history, priests and clerics have acted as advisors to kings and rulers. Even the elders and chiefs of tribal societies might look to religious people or rituals for guidance in decision making. If a leader is a religious person, then they might want to confer with a higher power when making a decision that will impact their followers. In some cases, religious advisors might act based on the needs of politics while the ruler struggles with the urge to do the right thing.
Worldbuilding philosophy and religion into your story adds depth and variety. Any time you add an additional perspective to a situation, you increase the potential for conflict. In a political story, the needs of politics might conflict with the philosophical guidance of religion, either within an individual or between characters. The conflict between the needs of politics and the urge to do the right thing is an ages-old drama.
