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?

[Jfdlsjfd]

In a world where fantasy supernatural beings exist as gods and they empower people to create miracles of different power level, I wouldn’t call it religion anymore, since that include faith and belief in beings or powers that can’t be proven to exist - and one doesn’t usually believe in existing objects and beings.

When you're revering the Irminsul, it can be proven to exist. You can see it, touch it, and cut it down (in the case of Charlemagne). While you can't prove it is really the axis mundi and the cornerstone and protector of your community without which you're doomed but, nobody asks you to prove it. This isn't questionned, so why would you even consider this question?

When you're sacrificing a sow during the Saturnalia wearing your pileus, it is religion. You don't need faith. You're doing an action that is propitiating the god in the same way that adding salt to your meatloaf makes it taste better. You're not having "faith", you're just hoping that the priest sacrificing the sow is doing it correctly according the appropriate rites.

While a handful of religions rely on faith, it's not a defining characteristics.

So the relationship between gods and people would transactional and uneven,

Much like many real life religions, so that would make religion an apt name for it in a fantasy world.

with a leaning toward divine fascism over the whole moral pantheon spectrum.

Sure. If you invite the gods to a feast and serve them your son to eat, thinking that they won't make the difference between a human and a pig roast, they'll punish your for your hubris. If you claim to be able to play the pipe as well as Apollo, he'll punish your for your hubris too. If you keep that nice bull for your flock after promising it to Poseidon, watch you wife... The gods might enforce rules authoritatively and harshly. But if they created the world, well, their house, their rules, so I don't think it would be fascism.

 

[John Dallman]

I think Toril is interesting that, even in a world of 'known' deities and pantheons, some people continue to not be Believers

A GM of my acquaintance includes a group of "outsiders" in his setting, who are interplanar refugees from a post-enlightenment Earth. They don't dispute that the gods of the world exist, but regard them as powerful spirits, with human-scale minds, and unworthy of worship.

That was actually a thing in 3e (having just looked it up), the soul might not even want to come back which would cause the spell to fail. I can imagine some arguments around the table if a player said "No, I'm good" after their friends spent time and money organising a raise dead for them

Long before 3e was published, it was conventional in one OD&D group I played in to use Speak with Dead before raising anyone to ask if they wanted to come back. They usually did, but if they didn't, attempts to raise them would fail, and you didn't get refunds.

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?

Two more reasons that are important in some settings:

4. They were brought up in the religion, and accept it as part of their identity/culture.
5. They want to be part of the religion's social structure, and the mutual assistance it can bring.

The latter is not something that's often important to adventurers, but can be very important to ordinary people.

I don't think the modern concept of "true faith" is likely to be significant in a world where it's clear and undisputed that many religions have reliable supernatural power.

 

[Emerikol]

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)?

The short answer is yes but there are some caveats.

Most people can't travel to other planes. Is it really true that clerics lose their powers for failing their god? Maybe clerics just have a different approach to summoning their magic and they ascribe it to their god but in fact it's just another magic system. Do the gods care or do they just give their clerics whatever they want? So many questions that depending on the answer will drive the campaign world.

If the people see a cleric that seems to be operating against his god's dictates, what are they to think if he is still casting spells? You can definitely create a world where gods exist and people still have doubts. Though I'd argue the debate is between those who just think the "gods" are super powerful beings from other dimensions and those who think they are divine. In one campaign world I ran the elves disputed the divinity of the gods.

In the middle ages of this earth, almost every last person believed in the supernatural. We don't really move off that view until the renaissance. So our own middle ages is very similar to a fantasy world when it comes to belief in the supernatural.

 

[Maxperson]

I suspect the predictable magic of of a lot of rpg fantasy world's might counterintuitively (since some of it is "divine") make people less religious. Many years ago I came to the realization that it's really kind of odd that many religions don't revolve around worshiping the sun given that it's clearly the most miraculous and important thing in our day to day lives, and that it clearly radiates power in a way that will literally blind you if you stare directly at it. Seems like the most obvious god to me. The problem is that it is also incredibly predictable, so even people without a sufficient explanation for it tend to view it as part of regular nature (many important sun gods notwithstanding, the point is that it's regularity makes it possible to not treat as divine even when it seems to check so many obvious boxes tying it to divinity). Similarly if the world is full of people who can cast magic on a daily basis maybe the miraculous in general all just gets dismissed as "a wizard probably did it" or part of the natural magic of the world, and people don't really believe in gods so much. Even if Clerics are doing magic, if an agnostic Bard can do the same magic maybe you don't necessarily believe the whole thing about gods giving them those powers.

People used to worship it as a god. Then we realized it wasn't. That said, if you walked outside tomorrow and the sun took human form before your eyes and descended to speak with you without blinding you when you looked at, healed a loved one of her incurable disease, had an aura of divinity about it, and started granting you miracles that you could call upon daily, you'd probably change your mind about the sun not being a god.

 

[Maxperson]

The biggest flaw with a lot of fantasy pantheons is given that regular people also have super powers - you'd rightly see all those guys running around claiming to be divine beings as full of it. All they are is more powerful super heroes and villains than you.

I disagree. The super powers of PCs and NPCs is not one that radiates complete divinity like gods do. Nor are the PCs and NPCs immortal and pretty much unkillable unless you are also a god.

In any 'pantheon' where a mortal can become one of them, it's even more blatantly obvious that they're nothing more than the justice league when you're the mystery men. How can they be the being that made the universe or that keep the rivers flowing when last week one of them was just the local seamstress and you knew her as a kid? That's just someone who gained super powers.

I don't know of any pantheon where a mortal can just become one of the gods. Generally it takes the gods using their power to grant godhood to the mortal, and even then the mortal is typically a minor godling and not a real cosmic power god.

The idea of worshiping that starts to break apart really fast. You might fear it. If the Superman who calls himself "Zargon, lord of rocks that go boom" gets a bad director he might start enjoying tearing down castles and watching peasants burn and you've got to hide for a decade until somebody else takes over his scheduling and he's back to saving squirrels.

Superman is not immortal or anywhere close to unkillable. Nor can he grant divine miracles to those who might follow him. He doesn't have dominion over a major aspect of nature or morality.

You might actually reach some form of animism sooner than the real world. The idea that you need to stop anthropomorphizing divinity. religion becomes instead the search for the truths to existence, a recognition that all existence is connected - matter, energy, mind and soul. We sort of call that Physics in the real world. Or Animism if you believe in the soul part. And perhaps that the concept of the divine is simply either that everything is a part of it, or its what made everything, and likely both.

You might if the gods didn't exist with the power and ability that they have. Power and ability that goes far beyond what mortals can accomplish.

That's one of the things that 4e and to an extent 5e did that I really disliked. Making gods just another fightable creature out there.

"Hey guys, what do you want to do today? You want to hunt down Lolth or Tiamat?"

3e did it right. If you went after a god without a DM given McGuffin, you died. It didn't matter if you were 1st level or 30th level.

A world where there are super powers (magic) everywhere, and you can put a scale to it all, and yet folks have also figured out an afterlife is real - even if only because they've met the neighborhood bard who's an undead intelligent mariachi skeleton (Ok, it's a character I've been itching to play) - that's a world that probably would have more spiritualism while also having less religion and faith. Faith requires and unknown, and religion is just putting a layer of politics over the mystery.

Faith does not require an unknown. All the known existence of gods would do is change the definition of faith used from the one dealing with religion to the one dealing with complete trust and confidence in someone or something.

Clerics wouldn't have faith that their god exists. They would know that. Clerics would instead have faith that their god is the best and what their god stands for is absolute, as well as that their god will support them with miracles just as they support their god in what he stands for.

 

[Voadam]

Sure. If you invite the gods to a feast and serve them your son to eat, thinking that they won't make the difference between a human and a pig roast, they'll punish your for your hubris. If you claim to be able to play the pipe as well as Apollo, he'll punish your for your hubris too. If you keep that nice bull for your flock after promising it to Poseidon, watch you wife... The gods might enforce rules authoritatively and harshly. But if they created the world, well, their house, their rules, so I don't think it would be fascism.

Apollo, Poseidon, and the other top tier Olympians explicitly did not create the world, they just currently rule it from Mount Olympus. Grandma/Great-Grandma Gaia predates them.

 

[nevin]

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)?

In such a world, everything is clear and knowable. You know that various magical powers, gods, and other similar beings exist. you know that after you die, your soul will go somewhere to enjoy eternal bliss or torment————and more importantly, you can (at least in theory) actually know and verify this, such as through the spell of Planeshift or Gate. although such spells are only available to a few of the most powerful people, they are indeed possible and exist.
In this world, miracles are cheap. If all you can do is walk on water, feed a large crowd with a few loaves of bread, or cure a few diseases, it's nothing. while not everywhere, every larger town usually has one or two people who can do it. more importantly, even if you can perform somg greater miracle, like make people resurrection from the dead, it doesn't mean much. raising the dead is a powerful spell, but there are countless powerful people who can cast it————how can you prove that you are superior to others?

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. in other words, according to Earth's concepts, they are actually MATERIALISTS AND ATHEISTS————they know that God exists and worship them, but their concepts of such things is completely different from that of magicless Earthlings. simply put,unlike our Earth,in the fantasy world,if a missionary attempts to spread faith with empty words without demonstrating any real miracles, no one will care them.

The consistent argument I've had on this for years is that you'll have more true believers. When Angels or similar beings are showing up and helping faith is a logical confirmable thing. Also the one that seems to be hardest for people to grasp. active Dieties will most likely strike down the hucksters and charlatan's so their religions should be far less likely to be corrupted or have schisms. Frustrating for some as it's such a commonly used story line. Of course this also depends on are the Dieties a closer to all knowing or Greek style more human like and only knowing what they can hear and learn.

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

I suspect the predictable magic of of a lot of rpg fantasy world's might counterintuitively (since some of it is "divine") make people less religious.

I'd say it may make them more religious. People participated in civic worship because they felt it would protect their city, even in the absence of any effect. If sacrificing to a protective god of your city unerringly caused a wall of fire to surround it when enemies attack, I'd say the net effect would be that people would participate in the rituals with even more enthusiasm.

Similarly if the world is full of people who can cast magic on a daily basis maybe the miraculous in general all just gets dismissed as "a wizard probably did it" or part of the natural magic of the world, and people don't really believe in gods so much. Even if Clerics are doing magic, if an agnostic Bard can do the same magic maybe you don't necessarily believe the whole thing about gods giving them those powers.

Thing is, until we were able to explain the natural order without resorting to gods or the surnatural to explain most phenomenons, religion was the natural order of the world. Tides didn't happened because of gravity, they happened because the Sea God breathed, or because the Moon God willed it (when a link between tides and the moon was observed). You don't say you have faith in gravity, and you wouldn't have said to have faith in the Sea God or Moon God, you'd just know that they are the cause of the phenomenon, and that, unlike gravity, you could take actions to make them favourable to you.

If the agnostic Bard can cast spells, it doesn't mean that you'd doubt suddenly the very effective spells that are cast at you by a cleric... There might be other sources of magic, but that doesn't invalidate that the cleric you just told his god is wimpy is casting Flame Strike on you after doing the proper ritual to ask for his god's intervention.

Honestly, in real life, if one could:

• touch, see, and chat with the Sun God (by casting Gate on a TV set and have a lead talk show host invite him),
• witness that natural process (like the Sun emitting light) can be altered at will by said being,
• that calling the name of this being allowed people anointed as priest of the Sun God to cause eclipses or make laser rays strike their foes directly from the sun when practicing a Sun God-provided ritual,

I am pretty sure very few people would doubt the existence of said Sun God.

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

I disagree. The super powers of PCs and NPCs is not one that radiates complete divinity like gods do. Nor are the PCs and NPCs immortal and pretty much unkillable unless you are also a god.

Also, PCs usually can't grant spells to thousands of priests -- though D&D allow for that and I disliked the idea that you could get spells by worshiping basically any abstract concept, so why not be a priest of your friend Bob, the party's fighter. I hope any sane GM would smite the character attempting this, or makes it a super cool starting heroic cult along the line of Herakles's cult.

I don't know of any pantheon where a mortal can just become one of the gods.

Being promoted to divine status by a vote of the Roman Senate would be pretty close. Also, I am not sure about Taoism, but isn't becoming immortal through your own efforts something close as well, especially if working in the celestial bureaucracy after that. The seamstress you knew as a child could litterally be running a minor aspect of the universe. In both cases, people had no trouble worshipping someone they might have known in life.

Also, ancestor cult is just literally that.

 

[Maxperson]

Also, PCs usually can't grant spells to thousands of priests -- though D&D allow for that and I disliked the idea that you could get spells by worshiping basically any abstract concept, so why not be a priest of your friend Bob, the party's fighter. I hope any sane GM would smite the character attempting this, or makes it a super cool starting heroic cult along the line of Herakles's cult.

It's not a cult thing. The Bob idea wouldn't work, because you have to have complete faith in the divine concept. Essentially, it's for things like having Taoism in D&D. A religious concept without a god being involved.

Trying to have faith in Bob the fighter as a religious figure to the point of gaining spells would be virtually impossible, and the jig would be up the first time Bob picked his nose.

Being promoted to divine status by a vote of the Roman Senate would be pretty close. Also, I am not sure about Taoism, but isn't becoming immortal through your own efforts something close as well, especially if working in the celestial bureaucracy after that. The seamstress you knew as a child could litterally be running a minor aspect of the universe. In both cases, people had no trouble worshipping someone they might have known in life.

Also, ancestor cult is just literally that.

Sure, but the argument line I was responding to was talking about these sorts of things in D&D. While a DM could set up a setting where mortals can achieve divinity on their own, generally it takes a godlike sponsor to become a god. Ao in the Realms, immortal sponsors in BECMI, etc.