I didn't celebrate Easter. Actually, it's pretty safe to say I don't celebrate any holiday. This includes the holidays of my chosen religion despite the fact I consider myself at least reasonably dedicated to the faith. Yet, I don't care about the days.

I view birthdays and secular holidays in the same way. I don't really celebrate them, though I do like the occasional present on my birthday, I don't actually expect anything.

When I look at that, I realize that my worlds suffers from the same view. Given that over two-thirds of this world believes in some religion, some divine force, my worlds are remarkable in their absence of religion. It doesn't make sense, but I've had a "Here be Religions" mark on the map and history for quite a while.

It makes me wonder, how to create a religion that is probable when you don't really follow any religion. In some ways, creating a very religious individual is actually a fantasy for me, since I don't understand it myself. It is putting myself in much different shoes. I'll try it, of course, simply because I think it will make a better world, setting, and depth, but still is a challenge.

The hard part is also creating religions that conflict with each other, but from the point of the reader, are neither entirely right or entirely wrong. Religion is a wasp nest for me, but I think it is a needed one.

In writing, it is so easy to blame a religion. For me, the more obvious ones are the Wiccan writers who have the big sign "blame the Church! It is the evil!" over their words. I don't like that, I don't think anyone should be at fault, even fake religions that are usually thinly veiled real world ones.

I've been thinking about this for a while. My creative drive is coming back nicely in the last week or so, so I'm enjoying letting a surge of world-building bubble up through my thoughts. I realized my Fedran map was off and started to move civilization to the outer edges of the world. A super-continent (like Pangaea) would have a lot more deserts and tundras in the center and would therefore have less population centers. Moving everything around got me to thinking about how religions and cultures would adapt to a world like that.