Now, a specific example of exploring religion that I like in Speculative Fiction?
That's easy. Warhammer 40K.
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Yes, a tabletop war game with endless tie-in novels, many of them shoddy pulp. Yet there are some really good novels that explore the setting, where the state religion plays a key role in everyone's lives. The Imperium worships the God-Emperor of Mankind, an immortal human psychic who himself was, before he became a living corpse on life-support, a militant atheist who did his best to annihilate religion and replace it with scientific humanism in the hope that it would allow humanity to peacefully unify. In that, he Epic Failed. Now the Imperium is a strident theocracy that punishes heresy of any sort with torture and execution. (How are these nutjobs the heroes, you ask? By comparison.)
So a couple of the novels really delve into the religious faith of certain characters -- Gaunt of the Gaunt's Ghosts series gets this in particular -- and the funny thing is, we know that not only is their religion fake, but that their deity hated the concept of religion, and had a special loathing for being worshipped as a god. They know none of that. Yet that faith still allows characters to accomplish amazing feats, and helps them resist the allure and corruption of the dark gods filling the setting. (There actually are gods, you see. They're just horrific monstrosities.)
The Last Church (http://1d4chan.org/wiki/The_Last_Church) by Graham McNeill is the single best exploration of religion in the 40K context. It's about the last priest in the last church on Earth, having a long conversation with the Emperor when he comes to burn down the church. And you can read it online for free! Although the formatting is a little wonky.
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branchandroot
3/3
Date: 2012-09-08 05:47 pm (UTC)That's easy. Warhammer 40K.
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Yes, a tabletop war game with endless tie-in novels, many of them shoddy pulp. Yet there are some really good novels that explore the setting, where the state religion plays a key role in everyone's lives. The Imperium worships the God-Emperor of Mankind, an immortal human psychic who himself was, before he became a living corpse on life-support, a militant atheist who did his best to annihilate religion and replace it with scientific humanism in the hope that it would allow humanity to peacefully unify. In that, he Epic Failed. Now the Imperium is a strident theocracy that punishes heresy of any sort with torture and execution. (How are these nutjobs the heroes, you ask? By comparison.)
So a couple of the novels really delve into the religious faith of certain characters -- Gaunt of the Gaunt's Ghosts series gets this in particular -- and the funny thing is, we know that not only is their religion fake, but that their deity hated the concept of religion, and had a special loathing for being worshipped as a god. They know none of that. Yet that faith still allows characters to accomplish amazing feats, and helps them resist the allure and corruption of the dark gods filling the setting. (There actually are gods, you see. They're just horrific monstrosities.)
The Last Church (http://1d4chan.org/wiki/The_Last_Church) by Graham McNeill is the single best exploration of religion in the 40K context. It's about the last priest in the last church on Earth, having a long conversation with the Emperor when he comes to burn down the church. And you can read it online for free! Although the formatting is a little wonky.