YAP CENTRAL - Theology and Fictional Religions
Religion
Probably one of my favorite parts of worldbuilding is theology and religion. It allows you to make insanely interesting plot points, culture, and more just with a piece of writing from here. To start off with writing religion, it is important to know the different types of theology or beliefs to write a fictional religion. (Something I will say is that theology and culture is WAYYYY more important than the insanely cool creation myth you have in your head. Well get around to that eventually, but first we need to go one step at a time.) What you're choosing here is pretty much what kind of higher power the followers of a religion will believe in.
Part 1: Theology and Belief System
To start off writing a religion, the most important thing to do is to figure out what type of religion it is. There are a few types that you can go with
Monothestic - Belief in ONE God, and no other associates or equal deities. Often times, a God in a religion like this will be potrayed as the all knowing creator of everything, and having complete power over the universe. Monothestic belief is the defining value of religions like Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Zoroastrianism, and Sihkism as they all believe in and worship one God.
Polythestic - Believes in MULTIPLE Gods, there can sometimes be a really large amount of deities within a polythestic belief system who all have the tendancy of representing a specific aspect of nature. Examples of this would be the Ancient Egyptian pantheon, Greek Mythology, Norse Mythology, Germanic Paganism, Pre-Islamic Arabian Religion, or Hinduism (which is an umbrella term but it has a bunch)
Nonthestic - Doesn't believe in a deity, but believes in a kind of higher power or spiritualism. Examples of this would be Daoism (which believes in a higher power type of energy called the Dao)
Animist - Believes everything in the world has a spirit within it. An example being Japanese Shintoism which believes that spirits called Kami can inhabit all objects.
Dualist - Generally refers to religions that belief in two things: A force of good and a force of evil, with the religion centralizing around the force of good. The religion Zoroastrianism also falls into this category despite being a monothestic religion.
There are some other variants of religion type, but these are probably the more important ones you'll see. Once you've chosen one of these, you can move on to practices and values.
Part 2: Practices and Values
Values are people's sense of morals and what they believe is right and wrong, the values you create for a religion will define how the followers of a religion will practice their faith. Cultural customs will often times be determined by the values of a religion, hence why it is such an important aspect of worldbuilding. Based on the theology you've chosen, it is important to create values based around that belief system.
Giving a quick example here: Say you've created an Animist religion where there are spirits that reside in all things in the world. As a result, you could decide that those spirits are all seeing as they exist basically everywhere. You could create a religious value where lying is a intensely grave Sin, the reason for this could be the spirits would casting misfortune on the person they catch lying. You values will need to make sense with the theology you've chosen, and have an actual reasoning for it. A daily prayer could be a value with the reasoning being that the deity or deities of a religion demanding prayer as an act of worship.
Once you've chosen your values, it is then time to write about what people actually DO in the religion as part of worship. Based on your chosen theology and values, you will need to build practices around them. If you've made a monothestic religion, do they pray to their God? Do they make offerings? If yes, is it required to be done in a specific religious institution? If your system is polythestic then do they need to make multiple offerings to each deity in their pantheon, or just one? How many times do prayers need to happen?
Questions like this actually give your religions their identity more than any mythology. The best example I can provide would have to be in Islam where many Muslim women wear hijabs or other coverings as part of their faith, mostly because of values surrounding modesty. You can come up with basically anything to achieve an identity for your religion, but it is also important to keep it in line with the values of your belief.
Part 3: Mythology
Mythology is probably where most people have fun when writing religion. This is where you will be able to put a creation myth you've had sitting in your head to use. Mythology is used to explain the unexplainable in the world, and is often told through stories within a religious text. You could use mythology to explain the values of the religion, use it to explain where the belief system came from, and more. These myths could be contained within a religion's scripture or holy text, along with a myth explaining where the book came from.
There isn't really much to add, you could entirely do whatever you want here and write your own stories. What is important is that the your scripture and myths reflect the values of your religion. Example being the story surrounding the Golden Calf in Abrahamic texts, this myth establishes that cult images and idols are forbidden within the religion. Any stories you do write should either explain the status quo of the world and explain aspects of nature, or explain/establish certain values within the religion.
There are some additional things you may consider to make what you've written feel more real. In many religions that have existed across time, they have often absorbed the mythology of neighboring cultures and incorporated it into their beliefs. To list some examples: Nordic mythology is an evolution from the Germanic Paganism pantheon, Djinns as a concept have existed since Pre-Islamic times and are acknowledged under Islam, The Epic of Gilgamesh has a story that is strikingly similar to the Noah's Ark story in the old testament. When writing your religion, you could take inspiration from events that have happened in your world's history, and have it turned into a myth within the religious text.
EXAMPLE
Say that a village was in the radius of a very massive earthquake that caused lots of property damage. If the population didn't have knowledge of earthquakes beforehand (be it their society doesn't have the scientific knowledge to do so) They may explain by saying that they have angered the god of the Mountain due to a lack of offerings to it. If the religion develops into a larger one with more established beliefs, they could have a section in their religious text about the time they offended the mountain god by not providing it with enough offerings.
Your mythology may also be used to provide spiritual closer, explaining that there is a higher power in the universe, explaining what happens after death, what happens to non-believers, etc. It is important to play around with different aspects of local history and regional features as potential means of influencing the mythology of what you've written.
Part 4: Imagery
Imagery is exactly what it sounds like: Images or objects that represent something within a religion. Most religions in the real world have some symbol that represents their religion due to a signifigance that it holds within the religion. Examples being the Star of David representing Judaism, Tori gates very closely being associated with Shintoism, or the Om in hinduism representing Vedic beliefs. When writing your own, create a symbol that would represent the religion you've written in a way that lines well with the theology you've constructed.
Conclusion
Get very creative with what you do when writing fictional religions, generally if something seems more "out there" and foreign, it has the tendancy of being wayyy more interesting because of how different it is comparing it to real world religions. There are probably other aspects that could be covered here like wheather or not your its has a centralized church or not, but personally I feel that would need to be covered as its own topic.
Monothestic - Belief in ONE God, and no other associates or equal deities. Often times, a God in a religion like this will be potrayed as the all knowing creator of everything, and having complete power over the universe. Monothestic belief is the defining value of religions like Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Zoroastrianism, and Sihkism as they all believe in and worship one God.
Polythestic - Believes in MULTIPLE Gods, there can sometimes be a really large amount of deities within a polythestic belief system who all have the tendancy of representing a specific aspect of nature. Examples of this would be the Ancient Egyptian pantheon, Greek Mythology, Norse Mythology, Germanic Paganism, Pre-Islamic Arabian Religion, or Hinduism (which is an umbrella term but it has a bunch)
Nonthestic - Doesn't believe in a deity, but believes in a kind of higher power or spiritualism. Examples of this would be Daoism (which believes in a higher power type of energy called the Dao)
Animist - Believes everything in the world has a spirit within it. An example being Japanese Shintoism which believes that spirits called Kami can inhabit all objects.
Dualist - Generally refers to religions that belief in two things: A force of good and a force of evil, with the religion centralizing around the force of good. The religion Zoroastrianism also falls into this category despite being a monothestic religion.
There are some other variants of religion type, but these are probably the more important ones you'll see. Once you've chosen one of these, you can move on to practices and values.
Part 2: Practices and Values
Values are people's sense of morals and what they believe is right and wrong, the values you create for a religion will define how the followers of a religion will practice their faith. Cultural customs will often times be determined by the values of a religion, hence why it is such an important aspect of worldbuilding. Based on the theology you've chosen, it is important to create values based around that belief system.
Giving a quick example here: Say you've created an Animist religion where there are spirits that reside in all things in the world. As a result, you could decide that those spirits are all seeing as they exist basically everywhere. You could create a religious value where lying is a intensely grave Sin, the reason for this could be the spirits would casting misfortune on the person they catch lying. You values will need to make sense with the theology you've chosen, and have an actual reasoning for it. A daily prayer could be a value with the reasoning being that the deity or deities of a religion demanding prayer as an act of worship.
Once you've chosen your values, it is then time to write about what people actually DO in the religion as part of worship. Based on your chosen theology and values, you will need to build practices around them. If you've made a monothestic religion, do they pray to their God? Do they make offerings? If yes, is it required to be done in a specific religious institution? If your system is polythestic then do they need to make multiple offerings to each deity in their pantheon, or just one? How many times do prayers need to happen?
Questions like this actually give your religions their identity more than any mythology. The best example I can provide would have to be in Islam where many Muslim women wear hijabs or other coverings as part of their faith, mostly because of values surrounding modesty. You can come up with basically anything to achieve an identity for your religion, but it is also important to keep it in line with the values of your belief.
Part 3: Mythology
Mythology is probably where most people have fun when writing religion. This is where you will be able to put a creation myth you've had sitting in your head to use. Mythology is used to explain the unexplainable in the world, and is often told through stories within a religious text. You could use mythology to explain the values of the religion, use it to explain where the belief system came from, and more. These myths could be contained within a religion's scripture or holy text, along with a myth explaining where the book came from.
There isn't really much to add, you could entirely do whatever you want here and write your own stories. What is important is that the your scripture and myths reflect the values of your religion. Example being the story surrounding the Golden Calf in Abrahamic texts, this myth establishes that cult images and idols are forbidden within the religion. Any stories you do write should either explain the status quo of the world and explain aspects of nature, or explain/establish certain values within the religion.
There are some additional things you may consider to make what you've written feel more real. In many religions that have existed across time, they have often absorbed the mythology of neighboring cultures and incorporated it into their beliefs. To list some examples: Nordic mythology is an evolution from the Germanic Paganism pantheon, Djinns as a concept have existed since Pre-Islamic times and are acknowledged under Islam, The Epic of Gilgamesh has a story that is strikingly similar to the Noah's Ark story in the old testament. When writing your religion, you could take inspiration from events that have happened in your world's history, and have it turned into a myth within the religious text.
EXAMPLE
Say that a village was in the radius of a very massive earthquake that caused lots of property damage. If the population didn't have knowledge of earthquakes beforehand (be it their society doesn't have the scientific knowledge to do so) They may explain by saying that they have angered the god of the Mountain due to a lack of offerings to it. If the religion develops into a larger one with more established beliefs, they could have a section in their religious text about the time they offended the mountain god by not providing it with enough offerings.
Your mythology may also be used to provide spiritual closer, explaining that there is a higher power in the universe, explaining what happens after death, what happens to non-believers, etc. It is important to play around with different aspects of local history and regional features as potential means of influencing the mythology of what you've written.
Part 4: Imagery
Imagery is exactly what it sounds like: Images or objects that represent something within a religion. Most religions in the real world have some symbol that represents their religion due to a signifigance that it holds within the religion. Examples being the Star of David representing Judaism, Tori gates very closely being associated with Shintoism, or the Om in hinduism representing Vedic beliefs. When writing your own, create a symbol that would represent the religion you've written in a way that lines well with the theology you've constructed.
Conclusion
Get very creative with what you do when writing fictional religions, generally if something seems more "out there" and foreign, it has the tendancy of being wayyy more interesting because of how different it is comparing it to real world religions. There are probably other aspects that could be covered here like wheather or not your its has a centralized church or not, but personally I feel that would need to be covered as its own topic.
There isn't really much to add, you could entirely do whatever you want here and write your own stories. What is important is that the your scripture and myths reflect the values of your religion. Example being the story surrounding the Golden Calf in Abrahamic texts, this myth establishes that cult images and idols are forbidden within the religion. Any stories you do write should either explain the status quo of the world and explain aspects of nature, or explain/establish certain values within the religion.
There are some additional things you may consider to make what you've written feel more real. In many religions that have existed across time, they have often absorbed the mythology of neighboring cultures and incorporated it into their beliefs. To list some examples: Nordic mythology is an evolution from the Germanic Paganism pantheon, Djinns as a concept have existed since Pre-Islamic times and are acknowledged under Islam, The Epic of Gilgamesh has a story that is strikingly similar to the Noah's Ark story in the old testament. When writing your religion, you could take inspiration from events that have happened in your world's history, and have it turned into a myth within the religious text.
Say that a village was in the radius of a very massive earthquake that caused lots of property damage. If the population didn't have knowledge of earthquakes beforehand (be it their society doesn't have the scientific knowledge to do so) They may explain by saying that they have angered the god of the Mountain due to a lack of offerings to it. If the religion develops into a larger one with more established beliefs, they could have a section in their religious text about the time they offended the mountain god by not providing it with enough offerings.