Which fantastical settings handle religion well in their world building.
For example, I really liked how they handled it in Dragon Age. Both the Qun, Paragon-veneration and Chantry faith fitted seamlessly into the conditions of the world and didn’t seem like a direct copy-paste of real-world religions or spiritual philosophies, and none of them were portrayed as totally good or evil nor correct or false.
Diskworld.
Read “Small Gods” for an interesting and respectful discussion of faith, Faith, and religion.
I think it’s fairly well done in A Song of Ice and Fire.
Dune is all about religion. State religion, fanaticism, idol worship, schism; it’s got it all.
Inferno and its sequel are trips through the literal medieval Christian Hell.
A Canticle for Leibowitz shows the adaptation and survival of the Catholic Church post-apocalypse.
Hyperion and its sequels feature a heavily mutated (or, in some sense, a medieval throwback) Catholic Church as a major insititution in society, with some minor potshots at other religions.
The Deryni/Camber series by Katherine Kurtz. Not exactly what the OP wants since it is basically our Medieval Catholic Church. However, in this world magic is real and she weaves it into their worship. As well as the fact that those without magic see it as evil. Just like in European history, the church and religion are of extreme importance to the society.
Curse of Chalion by Lois McMaster Bujold. By far the best treatment of religion I have ever seen in a fantasy book, with a well-thought-out religion that contains actual theology and has an impact on the society in a way that is sometimes positive and sometimes not positive, and a lot of tension with the secular power structures, just like in this world. It is so good that it actually made me uncomfortable the first time I read it (I have been thoroughly socialized into Christianity).
Oh, alternate-universe books (these don’t quite fit the OP, but might be of interest anyway): the Kushiel books (Jacqueline Carey) are interesting (sort of an alternate Europe where the religion parallel to Christianity is quite different from Christianity and glorifies sex rather than shuns it); Kate Elliot’s Crown of Stars series also has an alternate Europe with a parallel-Christianity religion (the Crown of Stars religion is much closer to Christianity, though). Also, very much a specialized taste, but John M. Ford’s The Dragon Waiting is an alternate world in which Christianity never took hold (though still exists as a fringe religion); the chief religion in that world is a form of Mithraism.
The Elder Scrolls. Pantheons of human-centric gods, demon gods, outsider gods. I also like how the names and also behaviors of some gods depend on who is worshiping them. Like how Kynareth is a wind goddess in Cyrodiil and many other provinces, but in Skyrim she is Kyne, and become elevated to a mother goddess and becomes more Nordic. All of their information is not just learned through plot but also the myriad books lying about.
I liked the treatment in Babylon 5. Religions are around, mostly the same ones we have nowadays (for the humans, at least), and most humans are some religion or another, but it’s just one feature of many which defines the characters. Some of the alien races might seem monolithic in their beliefs, but I think this is mostly just because we’re only seeing a few representatives of each race, and it’s clear that the Narn at least have a similar diversity of beliefs as humans do.
I particularly liked the episode where each of the races on the station were making some sort of presentation about religion, and the humans presented a long line of people of various faiths.
Julian May’s fiction has featured a number of deeply religious characters and has actually taken their faith seriously and integrated it into the plot and vice versa. I recall the Pliocene Exile saga to be particularly strong in this regard. It help’s that the author clearly knows what she is talking about, especially in regards to the Catholic characters. I assume that she must have some insiders knowledge of Catholic beliefs.
Tad Williams handles religion very well, whether it’s one he made up for his fictional worlds or whether he’s using real-world religions in his books set in … the real world. I’m not sure of his own religious beliefs (if any), but he’s always very respectful and accurate when incorporating real-world religions.
I really like how Ursula Vernon treats religion in Digger. (Link leads to the first comic of the series). She has studied anthropology, and it’s used very intelligently in her work
The protagonist is a wombat who puts all her faith is science and technology. Can’t shore up a tunnel with magic, and do your calculations twice when explosives are involved.
However, the world she lives in has gods live and dead, magic powers and enchantments. All kinds of myths and folklore, all internally consistent.
As an example, there’s the Hyena people. They live in a matriarchal society, as spotted hyenas do in real life. Here’s a hyena explaining how their world came to be, and how their mythology relates with how they live in the world.
I rather liked the way Battlestar Galactica(remake) handled religion, until the finale of course :rolleyes:
It felt very realistic, a character has symbolic religious visions and dreams…while on high doses of morpha(gee what could that be?). Baltar is spoken to directly by some kind of deity, or is just batshit insane? As always proof of anything eludes all involved.
The new B*attlestar Galactica *was essentially a show about religion with some spaceships thrown in. YMMV as to how well the subject was handled.
Including an atheist, which was a nice touch.
In the book (and others in that universe), A Mote In God’s Eye, I thought was handled well.
Since the OP brought up Dragon Age, i’d like to say that Bioware’s other major IP at the moment, Mass Effect, does a great job of showing religion in a subtle, but positive, way. In the first game you can have a conversation with one of your squad members where she ashamedly admits that she believes in God, and how you respond gives you an opportunity to flesh out your own character’s beliefs to an extent. In the sequel, you recruit a deeply religious assassin who prays for forgiveness after completing a job. You even get a spam email which is a rewritten-for-an-alien-religion version of “Footprints”.
That’s the only classic diskworld book I missed, it seems like it is worth a read, though I am a big fan of the series, in most of the books religion was only good for cheap jokes and stereotypes.
That seems like an interesting book. I’ll remember to borrow it soon.
Yes, I like how it shows the darker side of religion. The elves want to wipe out humanity because they believe humanity’s attachment to the world keeps all sentients from reaching eternal and unending nirvana.
This, this was definately one of the show’s strong points. The StarTrek clone of it, DS9, also handled it well, what with an atheist literally coming into contact with a peoples’ gods.
Good except for the end. I liked how they avoiding answering the absolute reality of the experiences, and instead let the characters be changed by it.
I always liked Eddings’ Jewel Trilogy in that regard - both his depiction of a strict hierarchical (and corrupt) centralized Catholic-ey religion and the politics that go along with that, and its handling of other religions in the setting (not to mention how utterly confused some of the Church’s Patriarchs get when they get to meet an actual god of the religion next door :] )
I liked its…unkindness to organized religion but YMMV the PS1 video game Xenogears is an RPG with a scifi storyline that heavily deals with religion. Its sloppily translated but interesting, along with a “real god” appearing in the ending(upper dimensional entity accidentally trapped in our reality and used as a power source).