In a fantasy world filled with magic and miraculous beings, will the religious concepts of the locals be completely different from the human of Earth?

[Tonguez]

If people only obey and worship gods for the following reasons:
1. Afraid of being punished by God
2. Hope to exchange God's grace through service
3. hope their services can be exchanged for an eternal happy afterlife, or to avoid eternal torment after death.

If people obey and worship gods for those purpose, is this considered true faith?
————It implies that if God cannot do it anymore, or if a more powerful God appears (and challenge and kill the previous one), the faithful believers who were loyal yesterday will immediately change sides and worshiping a new master.
is this FAITH?

In Polynesia it was common for an old ineffective diety to be rejected and replaced by a new more effective god (the old gods idols would be burned and their spirit ritually cast out to sea, often inside the shell of a coconut). Indeed in the 19th Century this was seen in a lot of syncretic beleifs merging Native and Biblical beliefs into a new canon.

Of course in a polytheist society its easier to shift from one god to another while still having the other god around in reserve. Taputapuatea in Raiatea (Tahiti Nui) is famous for the shift from worship of the supreme god Ta'aroa to the War god Oro.
Oro was cast as son of Ta'aroa and Ta'aroa kept around as the god of the Creation and the Sea.

I'm not sure of examples from other cultures except to note that the Roman nymphs and Genius loci were once worshipped until replaced or syncretised with Greek dieties. The whole Titanomachy of the Greeks and the Aesir/Vanir split in Norse myth might be remnants of similar shifts.

 

[Sepulchrave II]

Of course in a polytheist society its easier to shift from one god to another while still having the other god around in reserve. Taputapuatea in Raiatea (Tahiti Nui) is famous for the shift from worship of the supreme god Ta'aroa to the War god Oro.

The worship of otiose supreme deities is often replaced by more glamorous war gods and storm gods.

Aztec – Ometeotl to Huitzilopochtli
Norse/Germanic – Tyr to Odin/Thor
Rome – Jupiter to Mars
Mesopotamia – Anu to Marduk/Ninurta/Nergal
Canaan/Israel – El to Yahweh

 

[pemerton]

In our world, there is no magic, and even if miracles do exist, they are purely accidental or in the subjective imagination of believers.
the missionaries on Earth spread faith with empty words rather than true miracles, because there are no miracles on Earth

These claims are obviously not universally accepted.

Which is what matters, even if the claims are true. Human behaviour is shaped by beliefs and culturally received understandings ("subjective imagination").

 

[Anonym]

These claims are obviously not universally accepted.

Which is what matters, even if the claims are true. Human behaviour is shaped by beliefs and culturally received understandings ("subjective imagination").

and even they believe in their faith which claim they would enter the heaven after death,they still sh*t their pants while the Death coming for them.

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

The biggest issue with D&D religion is:

1. Many players are not close to any type of religion or faith;
2. Almost no one knows how polytheistic religions worked and how intertwined into everyone’s daily life was connected to religion and faith.

Playing a game and players having their characters saying, “yeah, I don’t put much stock in the gods” is a modern concept and a bit mind blowing to me. Clerics can literally do magic.

That’s like saying, “yeah, I don’t put much stock in wizard magic”

If magic is ubiquitous, priests would be part of the religious cog, tending the temple or the shrine so that people could make offerings. I imagine farming deities would be the most widely worshipped and “evil” death deities would be central to funeral rites.

In a land where mortals can become demigods, people would be skeptical of anyone claiming to be the hand of a specific god unless they could prove themselves but, on the other hand, a person’s deeds are directly rewarded. A temple might pray to attract such an individual in a time of crises by praying to their god.

In any case, I feel getting players to leave modern concepts of faith and religion makes the fiction worse. Especially when there isn’t a clear creation story in most campaigns. Players have an idea of a cleric and choose a random god that doesn’t fit the pantheon so it makes it all a bit less believable.

 

[Kichwas]

I think D&D as a whole would have been better without clerics and divine magic.

I agree.

Not just D&D though. I don't like them or their equivalents in any tRPG.

I'm fine with nature and spiritual forms of magic that circle around it. But anthropomorphizing it gets weird.

Plus, people don't like it when I make this opinion (some folks get extremely mad about this view), but concepts like clerics and paladins feel too much like what we see in the modern world as inquisition to terrorist behavior - you're out there killing heretics and non-believers in the name of religion. That may have seemed cool in the 70s when we had the fiction of thinking it was ancient history we could re-imagine, but it didn't age well as the world got more interconnected and aware.

D&D is kind of all about playing serial killers. But that one is just too... close to home / icky now.

I note that most fantasy fiction doesn't use 'holy warriors' because fiction writers seem to be a little more aware of that being a bit of a land mine topic. They'll throw in wizards and mystics and powerful magical beings. But rarely a divine champion as that just gets people thinking in the wrong direction.

Despite being more of a 'fanatic' Paladins / Champions / Seraphs (or whatever a given tRPG calls them) can be 'rescued' easier by making them advocates of ideals. Socio-political causes like "justice, freedom, tyranny, conquest", or people with deep meditative focus that have harnessed the magic of the world into that.

But Clerics are more on the nose problematic. They're not "Friar Tuck", they're the Inquisition. A Friar Tuck wouldn't seek violence even if he had magical powers. If he did do violence, it would not be in the name of a divine, but in spite of it. As a Friar Tuck figure - being one of the rare "clerics" of folklore but NOT fantasy, is a spiritual aid to his community rather than one out there smiting the unbelievers.

Again. Tuck isn't from fantasy. Fantasy writers usually avoid that hot potato.

 

[zarionofarabel]

2. Almost no one knows how polytheistic religions worked and how intertwined into everyone’s daily life was connected to religion and faith.

You could ask one of the 1.2 billion Hindus that live on planet earth, they might have some insight into how it worked.

 

[SkidAce]

I present to you....the Athar.

Mimir net - Athar

 

[Sepulchrave II]

You could ask one of the 1.2 billion Hindus that live on planet earth, they might have some insight into how it worked.

Hindus may identify with a wide array of worldviews, including polytheism, pantheism, panentheism, pandeism, henotheism, monotheism, monism, as well as agnostic, atheistic, or humanistic perspectives.

Only 7% of Hindus identify as polytheistic- i.e. believing in multiple discrete gods.

 

[bloodtide]

this question is: in a fantasy world (such as Toril) filled with magic and miraculous beings, will the religious concepts of the locals be completely different from those of the human of Earth(which a magicless world)?

Very different, but also the same.

In such a world, everything is clear and knowable.

It is not. The whole Afterlife is vague, and a bit of a mystery. So are most things. Mortals don't really know hard facts about the afterlife, it's more rumors.

In a fantasy world where magic and countless miraculous beings actually exist, people even the lowest peasants won't believe your empty words; they demand proof, tangible power..

Well, this is not exactly how faith works. Sure the magic tricks were cool, but they are not really what faith and religion is all about.

For a D&D world, even more so one like Toril, Religion is more a way of life: what you think and feel and ARE. And that has a name: one of the gods. It's not so much the god telling you what to do, it's you aligning yourself with the god.