: Re: Is no religion a bad thing? (I believe I've asked about a half dozen questions pertaining to this post-apocalyptic novel, including my "is this story too diverse" question. This sort of pertains

@Goswami879

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I don't really think it's applicable, because these people aren't exactly focused on praying or worshipping, they're consumed with the daily task of surviving in a barren world.

These are exactly the conditions under which religion thrives. The top five that, combined, occupy 70% of the human population (to say nothing of the hundreds, or thousands, of religions that humanity has occupied itself with at one point or another) were invented in extremely deadly and primitive circumstances. Life expectancy was low, "law" as we think of it didn't exist, wars were fought over whims, people died from diseases that we've forgotten about, medicine was nonexistent, and backbreaking work (or outright slavery) was a permanent occupation for 90+% of the human population. Religions, have mostly emerged from the poor, downtrodden, ignorant and destitute who need some measure of hope in a world that offers them none. Sounds a lot like a post-apocalyptic wasteland, right?

Others have pointed out that you don't need a religion to tell a good story - and that's true; it depends on the story you're trying to tell. You may be telling a story with a different goal. It might be allegorical, or you might be making a heroes journey, or you might be asking a more sci-fi "what-if" philosophical question to see what happens, or any number of other story goals. You don't need a religion for every story.

But some stories merit it. If you're trying to establish a realistic and personal setting where the focus is on characters who act much like real people, and make their decisions with all the same flaws and biases that real humans do, excluding religion is pretty odd.

Your readers may not think about it, and you're not obligated to write anything you don't want to, but you might find in the future that adding a religion to one of your drafts (not necessarily for this story) can enrich it in ways you didn't expect.

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