Religions of the World

I've been thinking of creating a world that's ruled by religious groups. They range from the Abrahamic faiths (which I focus on) to cults that I might never even heard of. The problems started piling up once I realized that there were over a hundred religions with their own unique identities. At first, I took the challenge in stride because I overestimated my abilities, but after consuming precious time reading just a hundred pages to describe the Christian faith I began doubting if I would ever finish my research.

I come here to seek your counsel. Preferably by describing the religions around the world. It is better to divide the work among ourselves so that our lives may be easier.

If there are any mistakes that I made, point it out so that I may increase in wisdom.

Let me start off by detailing how I see Christianity so far. Again, I implore you to correct me if it is needed or add some fascinating notes so that I would complete my characterization in a more satisfying manner.

1.) Christianity - Born from the womb of its mother-religion, Judaism, Christianity has gone from a persecuted Jewish sect to the most prominent religion in the world. The believers are convinced that its purported founder, Jesus of Nazareth, has died on the Cross at Calvary as the symbolic sacrificial lamb in order to forgive us of the sins that we have committed while we were yet alive and has risen again in the Resurrection to prepare a new life for us in heaven.

• Trivia:
  • The Bible - A pastiche of books from the Old Testament; (Tanakh in Jewish canon) the four canonical gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) with the narrative of the early apostles (Acts of the Apostles) with 21 letters (Epistles) that describe the early church, and the Book of Revelation that talks about the end times, which make up the New Testament. This is the book of a people, telling their side of the story in their perspective; this book gives them a common experience that helps them relate to each other. For the Greeks, it was the Iliad and the Odyssey, even if the Greek states never managed to unify in a large scale compared to the empires of its time, they still managed to find some manner of relation by means of its shared culture, in that case it was the Iliad and Odyssey, the widely known epics among the Greeks. So like the Greeks, even if Christians never quite unify (As there are so many denominations scattered about in the world) they will find a common experience in the Bible.

Huh, that reminds me, could you also describe the splits/denominations/factions within a religion? Jeez, so many conflicts, they make history hard.

Well, most of the denominations of christianity came because of this one guy called Martin Luther. No, not that guy, but a priest from the early 16th century. See, the Roman Catholics believe that the Pope is humanity's one direct line to God but Martin Luther thought this wasn't necessarily the case and went on to publish manuscripts about it.

This proceeded to cause an explosion of faiths to arise in what's known as the Protestant Reformation. Also actual explosions in the Thirty Years' War but that's another story.

It's pretty hard to describe the differences in each denomination, partially because it's often very minor and partially because there are HUNDREDS of major denominations and maybe ten times that in minor ones, not counting sects and movements.

Well, for the most part, at least in earlier era, most "man of cloth" actually are pretty civil when discussing things like different interpretation of Holy Text, how we perceived God, and things like that.

It's when things like "Donation", "Local Ruler Favor", "Administrative Rights" and stuff like that begin entering calculation that things get heated. Fast.

After all, even while Brain wants to follow Heart, Brain still have to get glucose from Stomach.

Well, you should know that there are exceptions to every single statement you made about Christianity. This is going to be the problem with every religion you try to describe. Religions are essentially emotional expressions of faith, and are not bound by a single, logically coherent doctrine.

You would be better off making up a futuristic faction of each religion and using those as your world-powers. That way you could invent the details for yourself, to fit the dramatic requirements of the story.

That might be a better idea, considering that I'm not an expert in theology. I could say that since the world changed so did the religion that they made thousands of years ago. Though I see some value in studying the religions because that's essentially the origin of the faiths that exist in the present religions, but I could say there were major modifications if I might make a mistake.

Hmm, religion is complex. There'll be too many arguments because as you said, it is an expression of faith. In reality, there is a hell of a lot of expressions of faith. Henceforth, there is a variety of splits between denominations over conflicts of doctrine. Some of the texts are known to be a bit contradictory because they were written by people, and by nature they are not perfect.

I truly wanted to write about all that, of the contradictions, of the struggles, of the faith, of the fights they took to preserve it, because I believe religion holds the ultimate story of man and god. It is the best setting that I could ever find, because it encapsulates the combination of man's vice and virtues. It is a plot in which the characters fight with themselves and question the purity of their souls, the characters fight with the environment and deal with other people's faith. Hell, the characters can pick a fight with everything and see something in it, because religion in a sense is a way for people to explain the inexplicable parts of the universe.

This story is a story that will question the answers of their doctrine. It may be hard, and it might take up a lot of my time, but there is nothing else holding me back from the answers I seek. I just have to push forward long enough to get the answer.

And you can still do all that... you just get to make shit up whenever you feel like it. It's the best of all possible worlds!

@Victor

You truly should go into theology. It's a pretty complex field these days.

@De Marquis: Huh, I can do that.

@Belisarius: I'm already into Business so I can get a salary in the future. I'm also thinking of going into Law and Philosophy, but I generally see going into a course as time-consuming and expensive, so I prefer to read books on the subject.

Hmm, "Dialogues of Faith" could be a good title for this one.

edited 25th Nov '15 1:43:08 AM by Victor_Skye

Does it need to be only about Christianity? I know a bit about Islam and can help you out with that one...

Not just Christianity OR Islam but ALL THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD.