"What happens to the soul of a man who dies between the stars, far from his native world?"

-"Who's There?" by Arthur C. Clarke

I want to set down some thoughts about how to add detail to a spacefaring science-fiction RPG, with the historical development of religions. I drew my inspiration from the Dune novels and a look at how religions with recognizable elements from our day might change and spread 10,000 years later, through the important influence of a space diaspora (a dissemination or spread of people). Dune mentioned many odd religious developments such as the Orange Catholic Bible, the Missionaria Protectiva, the Dune Tarot, and a "Luddite" revolution against computers called the Butlerian Jihad.

In this article, "people" means all beings of the same spacefaring species, as opposed to science-fiction "aliens." A different religion may come from aliens, or just a different group of "people."

The Forces of Change

Here are some general working assumptions, bearing in mind that we are talking about future-fiction here. Although some real-world cases are mentioned to illustrate general concepts, no offense to current religions or their truths are intended.

1) Mutation

No religion stays the same. Over the centuries, wars and the spread of a religion to new peoples gradually mutate the "message." The plausible lifetime for a religion as humans know it seems to be about 3,000 to 5,000 years, beyond which it has little resemblance to its forebear.

Observe, for example, the Ethiopians who are Falasha Jews, a long-hidden Jewish tradition who know of the Torah, but not the Talmud texts. Some of the more Orthodox Jews are reluctant to recognize the Falashas as truly Jewish. The "parting of the ways" may have occurred 2,500 years ago or more.

Hinduism has lasted a long time, although it has also changed by internal shifts in emphasis. The Hinduism of North India resembles an ordered pantheon with a few major "prime movers." Hinduism in the southern regions of India has a greater number of goddesses, and more of the millions of possible Hindu gods. Each god had its origin as the patron spirit of one single village, or of a location, and Hinduism absorbed them all (accretion).

A similar process occurred for Greek mythology (Athena the goddess for Athens, Poseidon the god of the sea, each of Jupiter's human lovers, etc.) Each god and demi-god was at one time revered as the sole or major god of the locality, or represented a legendary hero or heroine.

In one age, the Catholic Church allowed priests to marry (one Pope was even the son of another) and allowed abortions to occur up to "quickening" (20 weeks of gestation). One can almost speak about religion in evolutionary terms such as speciation, diversification, and natural and random selections.

2) A Piece of the Action

The urge to revamp a religion is strong. Claims of religious miracles or momentous events in religious history - involving a semi-legendary past - tend to minimize the worshippers of the staid present-day. They wonder why they are not themselves privy to miracles or massive revelations in "interesting times." Therefore, one method of religious revival is to take existing beliefs and combine them with new ones, to steer the ship in a new direction (syncretism).

A prominent religious figure may find a way to do this, by changing or adding to existing doctrine (Joseph Smith of Mormonism, or Prince Gautama of Buddhism) or by fusing two existing belief-systems in close proximity (Guru Nanak of the Sikh religion, who drew from Hinduism and Islam). They will gain followers by being able to involve people of the present directly, in essence re-setting the calendar to Year 1 of a "new era." The people are told they are at the crux or turning point of history, which holds strong appeal.

Sometimes they will violently denounce the precursor religion(s). (Otherwise, why make a new religion at all?) Or, sometimes they will make surprisingly generous overtures to the past, the better to give followers of the old ways a bridge to the new. For example, Guru Nanak emphasized monotheism as in Islam, and yet at the same time, religious legend has it that millions of Hindu gods witnessed his birth and foretold his future as a great man (thus bridging the gulf between old and new). In another case, the apostle Paul appealed extensively to Greek-speaking Jews to have them adopt Christianity.

3) The Faith Bazaar

When there is more personal freedom, religions are no longer adopted through heredity, but through free-market forces. No matter how odd or alien the religion, even if it comes from aliens, a small minority will be interested in adopting it.

In Larry Niven's Ringworld novels, for example, it was mentioned that a small number of the tiger-like Kzinti aliens became Kdaptists. Kdapt belief claimed that, since the Kzinti's human enemies were winning so many interstellar wars, God must favor humans. Kdapt worship ceremonies, at the peak of a war with the humans, were performed wearing human masks, hoping to fool God long enough to win favor. Speaker-to-Animals (later called Chmeee) revealed that he had been raised a Kdaptist, although the teachings did not "take." The majority of Kzinti despised Kdaptists.

Even in our own history, radical shifts have been observed. There was an invasion of Eastern religions into North American youth in the 1960's, although not all these philosophies are considered religions in the Western sense. Some African-Americans have converted to Islam, for reasons tied to a belief in an ancestral link to Islam, or a belief that Islam has never oppressed Africans. In Japan, people are comfortable with many religions at once, marrying as Buddhists but undergoing Shinto funerals when they die.

4) To the Stars

Space travel causes many changes, some to the nth power. Anything can happen. If a tiny and weird religious minority moves off and colonizes a favorable planet, they may later number in the billions and occupy an entire arm of space, all with this particular religious character, and become a local majority. Perhaps only a persecuted religious minority, like latter-day Puritans, are motivated enough to make the Big Jump to a distant colony.

Any time there is no more cultural contact with the rest of space, a state of isolation exists. If a planet or sector is cut off, isolated from interstellar cultural currents, their religion will drift or severely mutate from the norm. Religions caught together on an isolated planet may fuse peaceably, or conversely blow the entire planet to nobody's "Kingdom Come".

There is another effect: space secularizes people. Unless one is running a fantasy RPG campaign, hyperspace jumps and cures for the Arcturus Plague are not achieved through Oms, Koans, Insh'Allahs or Hosannahs! To be able to move great distances within the cosmos, and to exploit (or prevent the exploitation of) its properties to suit humans, the Scientific Method must be turned to as the methodical way to construct theories and test observables. It therefore becomes the most efficient way of arriving at the nature of physical reality. The truth of a thing will be tied to its proven effectiveness instead of dogmatic belief.

In such an environment, religion retreats from the causal to the spiritual, emotional, or behavioral. It becomes more personal, less the product of public interaction with the world and with others, and people abandon one ancient use of religion as an attempt to explain previously unexplained physical phenomena.The harsh environment of space and the relentless physics of lack of fuel, food or oxygen may also drive home the point that miracles won't happen. Only personal effort and resources count, despite all the comforting wishing for the preservation of life.

Conversely, such circumstances may lead to fatalism and a warrior-religion like Zen Buddhism or Klingon beliefs in Star Trek. They may seriously want to seek death in battle rather than die horribly in a banal, accidental decompression or a crash instead.

5) Politics

Religion can cause grave conflicts. More correctly, religion granted temporal or secular power will assert itself over people's lives, or be affiliated too closely with a ruler. A conflicting religion will annoy the powers that be. If there is a government of guaranteed religious neutrality or secularity, then religions may coexist peacefully, and this hastens the speed of some of the previous effects.

The Inevitable Random Tables:

So, how do you generate a religious "history" of future space? The sharpest religious divisions might be between human and various alien outlooks. Within each intelligent species, a unique history may be developed, where some religions survived and some didn't.

This is a product of random selection, rather than natural selection, for I would hesitate to claim that there are specific traits which ensure the survival and spread of specific religions. Most disseminations and conversions have been intimately tied to the unrelated parallel business of the fortunes of war or politics, or the filling of ethical vacuums.

For example, in a decadent and ethnically confused Rome, many cults, including the cult of the sun-god Mithra or Mithras, were contenders to be the dominant religion of the Empire. Christianity only happened to win out. A non-violent monotheistic cult, no matter how sublime its concepts, may have been smashed by the more expansionist Mongol culture nearby and its "barbarian" religion. In another case, Zoroastrianism, a religion of peaceable and life-affirming concepts, was hounded out of Persia by Islam, and its remnant settled in India instead.

Therefore, for a species and planet or a specific spatial region, decide the religion's basic type. This is my rough classification system, contrived to come out to exactly ten categories, although some religions may fit in more than one category. Choose one, or roll on the Base Religion Table.

Base Religion Table

(Choose, or roll 1d10):

1. Animism: A belief that spirits or occult phenomena exist, tied to every single object, living or non-living. Larger or more important objects have more powerful spirits. Beliefs about what these spirits mean to people and their conduct are not well systematized. Examples: cave-man beliefs, some African religions.

2. Spirit Religion: A form of Animism where certain spirits are emphasized, and the idea that these spirits intimately influence people is advanced. A prominent priest class to manage the details may appear for the first time. Examples: Shinto (which in fact combines Animism and Polytheism), African religions, Voodoo, spiritism and the "Latcher Cult" (see below.)

3. Polytheism: A belief in many gods of greater power and influence than is normally attributed to spirits. There may be a hierarchy of gods and spirits. To varying degrees, these have a message or seek to guide people. Examples: Hinduism, Mayan religion.

4. Pantheon: A fixed and well-developed order of gods by functionality, who may be in conflict to mirror tensions in the forces of nature. Small-scale spirits may not exist at all. A pantheon may be "bipolar", having as few as two gods: one for Good, another for Evil (for these are the ultimate moral and behavioral functions). Examples: Greek, Chinese, and Viking mythology.

One could have different "teams" of gods in the pantheon. As a wild example, a group of aliens could believe in a Tricameral Pantheon. Each "team" of gods represents greater and lesser gods for Good, Evil, and the bizarre alien concept of "Pruignath," which is neither, and represents an alien statement of a remaining, uncaring component of insane, random Mother Nature.

5. Monotheism: The belief that the universe is unified under the control and purview of a single God (hence, the word can only be a proper name and is capitalized). In the Western World, this is the type most familiar to people, although the details tend toward a bipolar pantheon of beings for Good and Evil. Examples: Judaism, Christianity, Islam.

One advantage of monotheism is that different people and even aliens may rally under the same banner. If a people sincerely believe that there can only be one God in the cosmos, even for the alien species they have contacted, and are prepared to engage in the emphasis of common ground (ecumenism), then the concept unifies them, maybe even fuses them.

6. Supernaturalism: The rejection of powerful deities or spirits controlling persons, but the affirmation of various paranormal influences upon people. What these mean for people and their conduct may vary widely. Examples: UFO religions (such as the Raelians in France and Canada, the Aetherius Society, Unarius); mentalism or beliefs in psychic phenomena; astrology; auras; ritual magick; etc.

7. Personal Transcendence Religion: The rejection of ultimate, controlling deities, but the affirmation that spirits, great or small, or supernatural visitations, represent only other people in transformed states. It is believed that people will eventually achieve some sort of heaven or perfection through enlightenment or good works, and only by their own efforts, since higher beings can not aid them directly. Example: Buddhism.

8. Psychologism: A rejection of theism or spiritism, but belief in self-improvement and even supernatural transcendence through psychological techniques which themselves are occult, i.e. not founded on any scientific process or rules of evidence. Examples: EST, Scientology.

9. Atheism (or Non-Belief): Atheism is a Greek word for "no god(s)", but this could also apply to Buddhism or Jainism. Here it is used to mean no belief in gods or spirits or paranormal processes of any kind. The physical world is seen as just being there, to be dealt with as it is, and people are encouraged to set their own goals and conduct in the most auspicious way. Atheism was probably first expressed publicly by the ancient Greek, Protagoras: "Man is the measure of all things."

In cross-cultural contacts between aliens or people of vastly different religious belief, the only common ground may be a tacit refusal to discuss religion, to stick to material issues of trade or cooperation. Hence, non-belief becomes the assumed basis to achieve a mutual goal.

10. Radicalized Materialism: This is my own science-fiction concept of a category of strict non-belief. RadMats believe not only that all the universe is unified and strictly material, but supernatural belief is the only evil force there is. This may have taken root when advanced space cultures doing planetary surveys constantly observed a link between religious beliefs and technological primitivism and misery, or had experienced a horrendous past war along religious lines. RadMats have respect for science, non-believers and free-thinkers, but fanatical rejection of any kind of occultism: for example, blowing up the offices of a Web-newspaper just because they carry an astrology column.

RadMats often verge into occult and less-than-mellow rituals of their own. For example, if they accept that they will have a limited and final lifespan, they may leap into occult corollary beliefs in fanatical self-improvement, for "you only live once." It would be as if AbFlex exercise machines, Tony Robinson motivations, and courses on speed-reading or quick math were sermons inflicted upon all, instead of simply products to be sold in late-night infomercials.

A youth rebellion against RadMat would be interesting. They might go back to religion or simple non-belief and would annoy the older, "orthodox" RadMat generation, or the youthful aim may simply be to be less "uptight"!

Example: Communism had a touch of the RadMat attitude in it.

Add details to the selected Base Religion Type as you see fit.

Now that you have a religion, you may consider how far or in what way it propagates. Here is a simple scheme: roll or choose on the Propagation Table, and follow up on the Mutation Table or Isolation Table if directed. Making a choice is preferable to rolling, since each item in the tables will not really have an equal chance of occurring. The purpose of the tables is to stimulate thought on how to project a religion into the future. The reader could construct more elaborate situation tables of his own, each item having a different percentage frequency.

Propagation Table

(Choose, or roll 1d10):

1. Propagates modestly through space (following the colonization route of the species).

2. Propagates modestly through space (go to Mutation Table).

3. Propagates widely through space (go to Mutation Table).

4. Propagates widely through space, and develops a modest following among aliens encountered (consult the Mutation Table for the way the aliens practice it).

5. Propagates widely through space, and develops wide following among aliens (consult the Mutation Table for all followers).

6. A form of the religion (perhaps reduced to its basics) has gained a universal foothold in the RPG campaign's region of space (go to Mutation Table).

7. The religion has not done well; it is limited to a few systems or one planet (go to Isolation Table).

8. The religion is in retreat even on its planet of origin, or that planet is cut off from interstellar contact (go to Isolation Table).

9. The religion goes extinct except as a series of legends, or remains only in a small region of a planet (go to Isolation Table).

10. The religion goes completely extinct by the time of the game campaign, and is no longer even known (but may have left art treasures or riches to be found by space archeologists).

Mutation Table

(Choose or roll 1d10):

1. Orthodoxy: Great respect for the religion as it is, as a stable moral center. Absolutely no changes regardless of technological or cultural currents.

2. Fanaticism: Strict adherence with the urge to convert others. Religion spreads because of victory in war or economic domination or some other physical advantage of the religious group. New emphases may be added to suit the culture of the expansion. Example: Islam after its origin, Christianity brought to the New World.

3. Evolution: Concepts of ethical and moral improvement are stressed, while primitive concepts from an ancient past or concepts specific to one people or alien species are down-played. Examples: Fair legal processes now ignore religious rules to cut off the hands of criminals, or modern medical aid for dangerous pregnancies abolishes religious laws on sexual taboos or sexual segregations. Rules on circumcision are abolished if an alien species has nothing to circumcise.

4-5. Moderation: All major religious concepts downplayed or modified, particularly when it crosses over to aliens.

6. Schism: A split in the religion, with a new group springing to life as the offshoot of the old, turning the religion in a new direction. The old religion survives; treat both as separate religions for further historical processes (check again on the Propagation Table for each).

7. Phagic Schism: A split in the religion, with a new group springing to life as the offshoot of the old. The new group consumes the followers of the old group, often with much violence. The old religion is reduced or disappears.

8. Ecumenism: The religion emphasizes common ground with a different religion, causing a peaceful, equal or unequal fusion.

9. Domination: The religion has consumed (or been consumed by) the followers of a different religion, but the prevailing religion contains traces of the suppressed religion's beliefs or practices.

10. Weirdness Added: "Space is big!" Some strange new unexplained effect or "miraculous" aliens are discovered somewhere in space, which disturbs believers, reinforces supernatural belief, and may lead to Schisms or Fanaticism.

Isolation Table

(Choose or roll 1d10):

1. Time Capsule (Orthodoxy): Great respect for the religion as it is; absolutely no change in the religion in the isolated area for hundreds of years. It may end up looking bizarre when outsiders chance upon the place, even to outsiders of the same original religious current.

2. Fanaticism: Strict adherence with the urge to convert others. A visit by explorers would cause the fanatics to exert tremendous pressure on them to convert to "the Truth."

3-4. Drift: Beliefs change or evolve, not necessarily in fanatical ways. This is a totally random process; it can be considered a new religion (and may repeat a Propagation Table check).

5. Devolution: Many original concepts are lost, content is made simpler, original meanings are forgotten. It often accompanies a technological downfall. For example, people may stop worshipping a monotheism deity and start worshipping the crashed colony ship which brought them to the planet, since it contained the only chapel for the religion.

6. Type Shift: The religion may not only mutate, but change its fundamental type. A Monotheistic religion may introduce a Bipolar Pantheon, or go Polytheistic. A Psychologism may become Supernaturalism or vice-versa. Atheism may go RadMat or vice-versa.

7. Schism or Phagic Schism: As in the Mutation Table. May be less likely to occur because of the smaller, closely-knit population of an isolated religion.

8. Fusion: The local religion has fused with a different religion from other people or aliens in the area. Treat as a new religion and check the Propagation Table again. Similar to Ecumenism, but the result may be more bizarre, since it draws from a smaller, local pool of ideas.

9. Domination: As in the Mutation Table.

10. Weirdness Added: Some strange local effect particular to the area is treated as supernatural, and assumes importance in the local religion, mutating it. Attempts by technologically advanced visitors to explain the real cause of this phenomenon may upset the religion (a common Star Trek plot).

The game-masters must use their creativity as they dream up a science-fiction "future history", and choose how a fictional religion will change. If they truly want to develop religious detail, they could take a map of space from their game campaign and put arrows on it showing the migration of different groups (like many historical atlas maps do). Arrows are shown pointing together for conflicts, and an arrow can show a small group leaving if oppressed by a large one ("The best thing about space travel is that it made it possible to go elsewhere." - Robert A. Heinlein). Show arrows in different colors, where the widths of the arrows indicate the size of the migrations involved.

There is another dimension: whether people are fervent believers or only nominally of the religion. This can be shown by arrows of different shades of color intensity. People of fervent belief in one star sector may criticize and even clash with another sector with the same religious background, but a more casual belief.

The Latcher Cult, an Example