History Main / SinglePreceptReligion

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* Unitarian Universalism. Its proponents would say that it eschews the dogmatic cruft that plagues most flavors of Christianity and focuses on the positive message that is common to them all. Its detractors would call it this trope.

[[quoteright:321: [[WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}} https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/3473290421_34587dc139.jpg]]]]

* ''Literature/TheBelgariad'': Surprisingly common, given that the main characters are in regular contact with the deity Aldur and are opposing another deity with the covert support of another five. The worship of Nedra, for example, seems to boil down to a few rules involving money. The Bear-Cult's core beliefs are, in most cases, tied to overt racism and the grand plan of whichever villain is manipulating them that week. Torak's religion is heavy on ritualised gestures of devotion but no real philosophical substance beyond reflecting [[ItsAllAboutMe Torak's own arrogance]]. Possibly justified given that the protagonists are mostly in service to Aldur, who doesn't have a culture to serve him, so they're too tied up in their duties to delve into any aspects of theology that aren't directly related to the mission.

** ''[[Literature/TheDarkSideOfTheSun]]'', also by Terry Pratchett, features a less comedic version - the religion of Arte Sadhim has the "One Commandment", which is eventually stated to be "You Will Not Waste".

Subtrope of ArtisticLicenseReligion. Related to FridgeLogic.

* This is played with in ''MasterOfSpaceAndTime'' by RudyRucker. One of the main characters wishes up a door to a parallel world where he can have an adventure. The world is controlled by a cult run by ''Literature/ThePuppetMasters''-like slugs. The cult has three teachings, God's Laws, which are "1. Follow Gary. 2. Be Clean. 3. Teach God's Laws". One character describes it as "A thought virus. A parasitic system that propagates itself."

* "The Church" in Literature/TheDarwathTrilogy and Literature/TheWindroseChronicles by Creator/BarbaraHambly has no visible theology other than "wizards are evil", and no connection with the real life of the people, and no discernible purpose beyond making people, and especially Our Heroes, miserable.

* ''Series/{{Kings}}'': The show is maddeningly vague on what sort of church "Reverend Samuels" heads, and why a population of no visible ethnicity thinks that "God gave this land to us."

* The reformed pagan faiths in ''[[VideoGame/CrusaderKings Crusader Kings 2]]'' arguably fall under this category. Though they take their inspiration from real-world religions, none of them (with the possible exceptions of [[Myth/ClassicalMythology Hellenism]] and [[Myth/AztecMythology Aztec Paganism]]) ever achieved the level of organization and theological sophistication implied by the in-game reformation events. The game doesn't provide the player with many details about the reformed faith, beyond a few lines suggesting that a church hierarchy and holy book have been established.

* ''BillAndTedsExcellentAdventure'' The (future) Church of Bill and Ted has but one single commandment [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVXGC896Jdw "Be excellent to each other and party on, dudes."]]

** Arguably justified, as many previously-core tenets, such as the strict caste system, were dropped during the Cardassian Occupation and are now viewed as quaint dogma by most.

** The pen and paper rpgs do a good job of establishing its tenants.

* "The Church" in Literature/TheDarwathTrilogy and Literature/TheWindroseChronicles by Creator/BarbaraHambly has no visible theology other than "wizards are evil", and no discernible purpose other than to make Our Heroes miserable.

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* The Church of the Holy Light in ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft''. People follow it like a deity and it's set up rather like Catholicism, but the actual beliefs of the religion are never really elaborated upon in the game.
** The pen and paper rpgs do a good job of establishing its tenants.
* The [[http://dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/Chantry Chantry]] in ''Franchise/DragonAge'' is an unusual example. It has immense detail in its history, hierarchy, style and so on, but its actual teachings are pretty much limited to "Magic exists to serve man, not to rule over him." This seems rather odd in a role playing game which often asks the player to express either devotion or disdain for the chantry, despite knowing virtually nothing about it beyond it being the religion of the land.
** The Chantry's main reason for existing is spread the teaching of its prophet Andraste to the entire world in the hopes that their creator-god will return to humanity after leaving when Andraste was betrayed and executed.
* Neither the Path of Light nor the Path of Dark of (old verse) VideoGame/MightAndMagic had any real detail given to them. They both had priests, the Path of Light was vaguely good (and has a thing against undead) and the Path of Dark was vaguely evil (and has a thing for undead), and they had predecessor religions involving (respectively) the Sun and the Moon in some way, but beyond that...

* When Bender is being worshiped by tiny aliens in the ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'' episode "Godfellas", he issues only one Commandment: God Needs Booze.

* Unitarian Universalism. Its proponents would say that it eschews the dogmatic cruft that plagues most flavors of Christianity and focuses on the positive message that is common to them all. Its detractors would call it this trope.

* The [[http://dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/Chantry Chantry]] in ''Franchise/DragonAge'' is an unusual example. It has immense detail in it's history, hierarchy, style and so on, but it's actual teachings are pretty much limited to "Magic exists to serve man, not to rule over him." This seems rather odd in a role playing game which often asks the player to express either devotion or disdain for the chantry, despite knowing virtually nothing about it beyond it being the religion of the land.

** later episodes showed that the Silence were actually a splinter sect of the Papal Mainframe that became obsessed with that one line.

In RealLife, religions tend to be built up of a vast number of different things and can take such a variety of forms that it can be very hard to pin down exactly what the word 'religion' ''means''. As such, when someone needs one for a story, it can be very easy for them to to throw together any old thing and call it a religion. The reasoning is that as long as it ''looks'' the part people will fill in the details for themselves. This generally leads to a lot of works featuring religions that look an awful lot like [[FantasticCatholicism Christianity]], [[StarWars Buddhism]], or similar, with what those people believe [[CrystalDragonJesus roughly copied]], though, in some cases, the writer will chose to create their own from scratch to suit their needs. Either route can result in vast and detailed histories and belief systems that are complex enough (or at least seem to be), to draw us in and immerse us in the writer's vision.

* On ''{{Dinosaurs}}'' the Elders start looking for a belief system simple enough to be understood by the dumbest individual. The winning entry is one based on the world being created by a potato.

* Universal Unitarianism. Its proponents would say that it eschews the dogmatic cruft that plagues most flavors of Christianity and focuses on the positive message that is common to them all. Its detractors would call it this trope.

* ''BillAndTedsExcellentAdventure'' The (future) Church of Bill and Ted has but one single commandment [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVXGC896Jdw "Be excellent to each other and party on, dudes"]].

** The Ferengi belief system seems to be founded on the idea that the gods offer a beneficent afterlife to the rich; the Rules of Acquisition, while sometimes treated as religious doctrine, are more like The 285 Habit of Highly-Effective Ferengi than anything else.

** The Ferengi belief system seems to be founded on the idea that the gods offer a beneficent afterlife to the rich; the Rules of Acquisition, while treated as religious doctrine - at least by Quark - are more along the lines of secular laws.