Unpopular Opinion (maybe): Religion is really hard to (world)build realistically and shouldn't be done casually, especially if you're not religious yourself.

I've been a worldbuilder for years, and I've also been a Christian for years. I've seen a lot of discussion on religionworldbuilding, and most of it is centred on, 'how can I make my (madeup/imaginary) religion sound authentic?'.<br><br>Authenticity isn't that important. What's important is accuracy. I've seen so many depictions of Christians in media, and they're basically all wrong. I've never seen an accurate depiction of Christianity in fiction. I've seen professional historians with degrees also make the same mistakes.<br><br>If you don't have any personal experience with a religion, I think you should just avoid it. It's better to not portray a religion at all than to misrepresent it, and misrepresentation is what will happen if you don't know what you're doing.<br><br>An example. In D&D there are lots of Christian analogues; they include St Cuthbert, Harrus, Heironeous and (sort of) Torm. None of these deities would really be considered Christian, because Christianity is centred on faith in the Messiah, Jesus Christ. All these deities are centred on a moral code, which is not the same thing.<br><br>There are a lot of differences between faith and morals, and this is something that worldbuilders and the general public seem to struggle with. Morals are absolute, you either follow them or you don't. Christianity isn't centred on that. It isn't centred on following rules, it's centred on following a relationship. There is no boiled down, 10 commandments style set of rules that can be used to summarise Christianity.<br><br>If you want to write a Christian character, you should first have a solid understanding of (1) what Christians believe and (2) why they believe it. If you don't have an understanding of why Christians believe something, any Christian character you write will not be realistic. The best way to get that understanding is to be a Christian, which is why I don't think people who aren't Christian should try to write about it. Not to say that you can't do it, but that you shouldn't do it.<br><br>If you want to write a fantasy religion, I'd recommend you just don't. The reason why is the same reason why you shouldn't depict a real world religion without doing your research or without (better still) being part of that religion yourself. You just won't get it right, because you don't know enough about what you're talking about (which is human religion). There's a lot more to it than just cutting and pasting from real world (or historical) religions. You have to understand how people are motivated by religion, which means you need to have that experience for yourself.<br><br>If you don't have that experience, and you still want to write a fantasy religion, that's fine, but please just be consistent. That's what I hate about D&D. If you're going to write a fantasy analogue for Christianity, you should actually understand why Christianity operates in the way it does. You should understand why the God of the Christians doesn't stop babies being raped. You should understand why Christians go to church on Sundays. You should understand how Christians answer all the usual questions you have for them.<br><br>If you don't know that, you won't be able to write it realistically. And any attempts you make to engage people who are actually religious on the topic of religion will also fail (which is why the D&D sub doesn't allow religious discussion for the most part). It's also really insulting and alienating to boiled down someone's beliefs to a couple of (misleading and inaccurate) bullet points, and it shows a deep lack of respect for (and a deep lack of understanding of) the human experience.<br><br>edit: (since I keep getting requests to do this) if you want me to (specifically) critique your worldbuild, please send me a PM. I'm happy to do this, but I don't want to use this thread to speak about specific worldbuilds. I want to use it to discuss the broader topic of religionworldbuilding.