Most humans believe in something powerful, important, meaningful, beyond physical matter, more than human, something divine. The divine dictates meaning, morality, and ethics. Its essence is power. The divine manifestation is that which is sacred, holy, sublime, numinous, heavenly, transcendental, celestial, ineffable, creative; the divine is the pattern for everything that exists. People see evidence of divinity in the endless reaches of interstellar space, a lover's eye, the harmony and melody and rhythm of music, or in their own heart, in a dream, in other people, in money, or in any uniquely beautiful and pleasurable thing. The divine can manifest itself in many forms, both intelligent and not so intelligent ones. However, manifestations of divinity are united by the way that they draw an emotional reaction from people.
People have discovered a divine essence almost everywhere they looked. The sun, moon, earth, rivers, oceans and clouds have been divine. Humans found gods in rocks and wells, hillocks and caves, trees and mushrooms, in the spring planting, the fall harvest, in the cold of winter and the baking heat of summer, in the desert, mountain, arctic plain, and the steppe. Gods have stood for human preoccupations and emotions, lust, anger, laughter, even for emotions we no longer recognize, such as melancholy. Gods have symbolized abstract concepts such as separation, love, craft, and community.
On the other hand The Primal Order is straightforward in its definition of a deity. A deity is a being with a soul composed of primal base. Its soul, its center, its will is primal base; its body is made of primal flux and matter held together by its will. A god is immortal unless destroyed by the violent actions of other gods. A god may wield primal power, and a non-god may not (as with all rules, there are exceptions to this).
But this book is about mortals, not about the gods. It looks at things from the perspective of an educated believer, not from wide-eyed rustic naivete, and not from atheistic cynicism. What is the truth about the gods? How can we find our course between the mathematically precise yet emotionally empty definition of the gods as the guys with the primal flux and the belief that a god lurks under every rock and behind every stem of grass?
Sacred Narrative revealed that the Truth about the Divine is to be found in Myth and Legend. Mythic and legendary truth is unique for each religion, but it follows a universal pattern. Let's explore this pattern.
When designing a campaign world you have quite a few choices to make about the divine entities in it. These can be confusing and the results of various choices might not be obvious. Hopefully with this chapter we can help clear up some of this likely confusion and help make the choices a fun part of campaign design, rather than a baffling, random decision.
Some religions, the monotheistic ones, teach that there is a single divine presence. The goal of believers in such a religion is to join the divinity by worshipping it perfectly, and eventually by submerging their personalities into the superior existence of the divinity.
There is a fundamental difference between religions that recognize a single divine essence and those that recognize many pieces of the divine essence.
Some campaign worlds will be designed so that the gods may act personally. These gods have bodies. They have game values. You can fill out a character sheet for them, as you can for any other character. Such gods are Immanent. Their existence is immediate and proof of it is simple.
"Yes Aurelia is real, as real as you. How can I doubt her? I saw Aurelia kill the monster right there. That sacred pond is on the spot where the goddess touched the ground with her spear. The point of her spear cut the bedrock as if it were paper and a spring of pure water bubbled through the hole. This barren patch is where she burned the monster's body. That beautiful tree always has flowers. She was standing on that spot when she became engulfed in light, and when the light dimmed the tree was standing there with flowers bending the branches almost to the ground."
In other campaign worlds the gods may be cosmic forces rather than individuals. They do not have standard character sheets. They may control a sphere of activity but are unable to intervene physically in mortal affairs, forcing them to depend on allies and servants. They may grant powers or even influence natural events but cannot appear or act in bodily form. Mortals can reach them in dreams and mythic quests but physical contact is impossible. Such divinities are Transcendental.
One of the first tasks you will have to decide as the designer of campaign religions is whether the gods are immanent or transcendental. This choice will affect the flavor of your campaign.
Immanent divinities lend themselves to ancient time periods and polytheistic societies. The ancient Greeks and Egyptians believed in immanent divinities. A campaign world with immanent divinities will not have many atheists. Proof of the gods is obvious, as are the benefits of worship and patronage. Worship and religious ritual will be commonplace. In addition the obvious nature of divine power will prompt people to worship all the gods, rather than believing exclusively in one. Some people might follow one divinity, obeying the god like a patron, but gods are unable to make sane people believe that other gods do not exist.
Transcendental divinities lend themselves to medieval time periods and monotheistic societies. Christianity, Islam, and Judaism are monotheisms that believe in a transcendental divinity. In these religions God dwells apart from the universe and only exerts Himself in our world through natural phenomena and mortal actions. Faith is required of mortals who worship a transcendental god. The existence of the divinity cannot be proved through reason or the senses, so the believer must have faith. In contrast to immanent divinities, transcendental divinities encourage the development of religions that acknowledge a limited number of divinities. In a campaign with only transcendental divinities most religions will be monotheistic, dualistic, or duotheistic. Atheism may be common, especially among city dwellers, as will be missionary activity among non-believers.
It's also possible to mix immanent and transcendental divinities in your campaign. This allows traditional pagan polytheistic religion and Judeo-Christian style monotheism to coexist in your campaign. Or, instead of mixing immanent and transcendental divinities on the same plane, you might state that gods are transcendental in the mortal world but immanent somewhere else. The gods live in some other world. The Primal Order calls this a non-intervention plane. The mortal world is a non-intervention plane where divinities can't come for some reason, but the divinities rule their own worlds or planes, which exist someplace else.
What is the "body" of a divinity?
A divine presence can manifest itself in many different forms. Believers see gods in many things, in rocks and wells and trees, strong men and beautiful women, in thunder, rain, and summer sun. The gods are not restricted to one form or set of forms. They can manifest as anything they like. The Greek gods often manifest themselves in human shape, but they can appear in other forms if they like. Zeus appeared as a swan and a shower of gold in addition to his usual appearance as a strong, distinguished gentleman of middle age. In addition he could choose whether or not to display his glorious divine nimbus, which would instantly blind mortals and drive them mad.
The Habitat God is actually the world in which we live. He or she is also the alternate reality that we can visit in dreams and mythic quests.
Belief in an alternate reality is one of the universals of religious experience. Religious people have long visited it in dreams and visions and religious trance. Modern scientists may have trouble accepting it for lack of empirical proof, but it is a social fact. Cultures and societies have made it apparent throughout history that they took the existence of an alternate reality for granted. Depending on who is doing the naming, this alternate reality is called otherworld, underworld, supernatural world, heaven, hell, astral plane, ethereal plane, spirit world, and so on.
The alternate reality is right here, right now. It intersects our ordinary reality everywhere. But you can't see it while we're also looking at the mundane world. If you have ever seen one of those pictures in which the image changes depending on the angle at which you view it you will know what this alternate reality is like. If you look at it one way it's a happy face. From another direction it's a political ad. The alternate reality may be reached in a religious experience, such as a trance, a vision, or some lucid dreams. Every culture seems to have their own version of the alternate reality, so that you share an alternate reality with other people who think like you. The main difference between the alternate reality and ordinary dreams, as attested by religious people who have been to the otherworld, is that dreams are fragmentary, incomplete and confusing, but the alternate reality is real. It is solid. The alternate reality is memorable. Unlike the land of dreams you won't forget it after a visit.
In many societies this alternate reality is believed to be the dwelling place of the gods and ancestors and other, minor beings. In the belief systems of hunter-gatherer peoples the alternate reality is a divine presence. This divinity is the otherworldly version of the habitat. In the mythology of people living in a forest, this divinity is the forest. The forest is magical, alive. Every plant and animal, ranging from the smallest flowers to the largest predators, from orchid to jaguar to monkey, all things are a part of the same divine presence. Through the intermediation of the divine habitat all things in the forest have a covenant with each other. The hunter passes through the forest and asks the branches where to find game, and the branches answer.
For simplicity's sake, let's designate the divine habitat by making it a proper noun, capitalizing it to Habitat. The divine center of the forest is Forest. The divine center of the desert is Desert. Ocean, the god, lives in the middle of the habitat called Ocean. By treating it as a proper name, we can begin to understand how hunter-gatherers view their world. To them, the world is alive.
The Desert has dominion over the desert, but more than having power in the desert, this divine entity is the desert. Undulating dunes compose its body. Its anger is the sandstorm. Its moods are weather patterns and natural phenomena. Every plant and animal that dwells in the desert is a part of It. Every mortal who dwells in the desert must join It or be alone. The Desert is itself a completely magical environment.
The Habitat is a prodigious shapechanger. It can take on any or all of the characteristics of anything within its own domain. It can be a woman, a child, a man. It can be beautiful or ugly. It can be a ray of light piercing the forest roof, sudden rainfall in the desert, or a sudden fire ignited by lightning. It can be a lily or a mushroom. It can be a grizzly bear or a cobra. It can be anything within its domain.
The Habitat may act in a self-aware, intelligent fashion, or it may react automatically, like an animal or the weather. Some people believe that deities are self-aware, others believe they are not. This is something that you can decide for your own campaign. Do you want the gods to order their own affairs rationally, to rule wisely and conserve their power, or do you want them to act as they must? Do fate and their own nature control them, or do they have free will? Make your decision, but don't worry too much. You can always change your mind later. The gods should act strangely. They should not be predictable. That is a given. However, unless the players actually roleplay on the level of the gods they should never be able to tell whether the gods behave strangely because they are crazy, idiotic, ruled by fate, or if they act eccentric because they are so much more intelligent than we are that all their reasoning is incomprehensible to us.
In the interior between Ungava Bay and Hudson's Bay is a distant country where no Indians will go under any consideration for the following reason. There is a range of big mountains pure white in color formed neither of snow, ice, nor white rock, but of caribou hair. They are shaped like a house and so they are known as Caribou House. One man of the Petisigabau band says there are two houses. In this enormous cavity live thousands upon thousands of caribou under the overlordship of a human being who is white and dressed in black. Some say there are several of them and they have beards. He is master of the caribou and will not permit anyone to come within some one hundred and fifty miles of his abode, the punishment being death. Within his realm the various animals are two or three times their ordinary size. The few Indians who have approached the region say that the caribou enter and leave their kingdom each year, passing through a valley between two high mountains about fifteen miles apart. And it is also asserted that the deer hair on the ground here is several feet in depth, that for miles around the cast-off antlers on the ground form a layer waist deep, that the caribou paths leading back and forth there are so deep as to reach a man's waist, and that a young caribou going along in one would be visible only by its head.
F.G. Speck, Naskapi, The Savage Hunters of the Labrador Peninsula (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1935), p. 84
Some gods manifest themselves in natural phenomena and objects within the world. They are elemental deities. They may be apparent in sunshine, storm, wind, rain, snow, thunder, drought, or plenty. Gods may confine themselves to a single river, lake, or spring. They may be found in a meadow, or in all the meadows in the world. They may be found in a boulder, a tree, or a circle of mushrooms.
Some gods are anthropomorphic. Their guise is that of a mortal, a human or elf or dwarf or baboon or hobbit or something else. How many races exist in the world of your campaign? The gods may take the form of any of them. Gods are protean; they are natural shape-changers. Whether traveling among people or speaking with visionaries in dreams, gods often take a shape that is pleasant and like that of their worshippers. Among humans a god will manifest as a human. Among elves a god will manifest as an elf. A god among intelligent yaks will look like an intelligent yak, albeit an exceptionally strong and handsome one.
Anthropomorphic gods frequently manifest themselves to look like their mortal worshippers, yet change something to set themselves apart. They may manifest as very tall, very strong, or very beautiful. Some gods take form with oversized body parts, such as the Venus of Willendorf with her hugely oversized breasts and buttocks, or Pan with his enormous phallus. The Egyptian gods often set themselves apart from mortals with the heads of animals. Ra wore the head of a hawk. Thoth wore the head of an ibis. Set wore a jackal's head.
Some anthropomorphic gods choose to manifest themselves in mortal emotions rather than mortal shapes. These gods exhibit a truth, raw emotion that is as basic and as important to the schemes of the world as the natural phenomena which support Elemental Gods. They may embody hate, love, anger, melancholy, lust, disgust, or any other emotion. For example, Ishtar was the goddess of love in Babylon and other parts of the fertile crescent, much like Isis and Aphrodite. When her sister Ereshkigal imprisoned Ishtar in the underworld love went out of the world. Humans ceased to care, animals didn't reproduce, and plants withered. Only after Ishtar was released could things return to normal. Only by her absence was her presence known.
The precise nature of existence after death is obscured from normal people, though shamans and mystics can visit the alternate reality. Stories told by shamans and others who visit and return from the alternate reality describe it as an otherworld with villages where virtuous and important ancestors dwell. When they die virtuous people can hope to join the ancestors in the alternate reality. Thus virtuous people can join the ancestors and continue to interact with their descendants, who offer them respect and worship.
Usually Virtue refers to the qualities that a culture perceives to be useful, not to qualities that we might see as virtuous. Thus a kleptomaniac belonging to a tribe of thieves would make it to ancestor status while a generous person who never lied or stole would not. However if you want to change this for your own campaign you are free to do so. Ancestors may be chosen by criteria that survivors think are inappropriate. In such a system the kleptomaniac would not become an ancestor, while the truthful person would. Survivors in such a culture would be unlikely to believe that someone who never lied or stole could become an ancestor, however, and might think the story was a practical joke then proceed to treat the new ancestor as if he or she were the thief. What an ironic case of mistaken identity that would be.
Finally, some gods are symbolic. They personify things that are more abstract than emotions and the elements, things which are only possible within the minds of mortals. They are the force behind a philosophical conviction or a way of life. Their guise is that of a way of life or a philosophical conviction. Whether they manifest as basket-making, artistry, love, the way of the universe, justice, communism, or an eternal search for Juju Juice, they are the philosophy they espouse. They may in addition take other forms, but if other forms would conflict with their essential message they might never do so.
Socrates taught that there was an Otherworld, the world of forms. That world was the source of everything in our world. Each concrete thing in our world was but a pale imitation of the sacred, pure form that existed in the Otherworld. A chair, for instance, crafted of wood with four legs, cross slats for support, a seat and a back, was the expression of the original form. In the world of forms existed the organizing ideas, the forms, for Chair, Table, Rug, Man, Woman, Tree, Horse, and for everything else with a concrete reality. In addition to these models for concrete items in our world, the Otherworld contained the forms for Thunder, Darkness, Storm, Wind, Light, River, Ocean, and all natural phenomena, for emotional states and expressions such as Smile, Shout, Pleasure, Madness, Anger, and Jealousy, and even for social conventions and roles such as Tradition, Justice, Maidenhood, the Line of Division, Democracy, Ruling, King, Queen, Janitor, and President. According to Socrates, for everything that exists in our world there is a sacred, pre-existing, perfect form in the Otherworld by which it may be judged and to which it may be compared. To trivialize the concept somewhat, the world of forms is a cosmic dictionary with entries that define anything and everything that exists.
This idea of a world of pre-existing, perfect forms which serve as templates for all items and actions sounds a lot like our definition for the Realm of Myth. Forms, like the actions of gods in Mythtime, define the actions which occur within linear time. They define Truth, for anything that matches its Form is True. The only thing that's missing is the Sacred aspect of the Realm of Myth. Using the example of myth, we expect the world of forms to be sacred, powerful and active as well as truthful. However it isn't. The world of forms is identical to the world of myth, with which the Greeks were already familiar, with one exception. There was no room for sacredness or gods in the world of forms. The forms sprang into existence without divine hands or wills to shape them. Socrates didn't mention any gods as he taught the concept, and for this crime, for teaching the youth of Athens his philosophy which seemed to the elders to be an atheistic mockery of their own beliefs, he was condemned to death and drank the hemlock.
If Socrates had taught that the world of forms was created through the actions of gods then he would have merely expressed an idea common to religious Greeks. All things were defined by the gods. In Myth the gods have assembled a sacred cosmic dictionary which contains the definitions and proper forms for everything, every object, every emotion, every ritual, every social organization and principle.
How are divinities related to each other? What is divine society like? Do they form families? Do they have clans? Do they pal around together?
The Divine manifests itself in many forms. It also manifests itself in groupings of gods, and through oppositions and pairing of the gods imparts a message to believers.
Ancestor worship exists to keep the ancestors happy and to guide people who die to their traditional, happy place in the afterlife. Almost all religions include ancestor worship in some form or another. When developing a religion you should assume that some form of ancestor worship is practiced and just decide how complex and complete it is. Funeral rituals will be a good indication of the complexity and inclusivity of the cult of ancestors. If funeral rituals are complex and seen as important then there is some ancestor worship, however it is disguised. If funerals are cursory and simple, then the position of ancestors is a low one.
In some cultures ancestor status may be a reward for a life lived extraordinarily well, and not something that everybody can expect. For example, Saints in the Catholic church are venerated as respected ancestors, but ordinary people are not, except on occasion by members of their immediate family. Some unusually good or powerful people may deserve more complex arrangements than others. These are the people expected to be powerful ancestors. Other, ordinary people may get basic or cursory treatment and will go to whatever part of the afterlife they can find.
The first task of ancestor worshippers is to perform the correct rituals to convey the spirit of a dead person to the correct part of the afterlife. This is likely to be a complex funerary ritual. It may take a few hours, days, or weeks. Some rituals take as much as a year. For example the death of an apparently healthy Zulu priest would be followed by several weeks in which the villagers took medicines to avert the evil which took him and a month of mourning for the villagers, with no work or sexual intercourse allowed. For the great widow (traditional Zulu men marry several women, the eldest of whom is the great wife) this period of mourning lasts a year. Several purificatory rituals are performed during the year. At the end of a year the villagers sacrifice an ox and eat it in a ceremonial feast, symbolically distributing the spirit of the headman throughout the village. Only after an entire year of ritual may the spirit of the former priest join the other revered ancestors and receive the divine power that makes him a full-fledged ancestor.
The second task of ancestor worshippers is to worship their ancestors. This may be as simple as the practice of Chinese peasants who burn sticks of incense before altars representing their ancestors, or as complex as the Zulu ceremony just above. Symbolically, ancestor worship lends a face and a personality to a bloodline. It gives life to the family or clan center. It provides a focus for family and clan loyalty which is clearer, less confusing, and less likely to change than a network of attachments to many relatives.
In return the ancestors involve themselves in their lives of their descendants. They are positive presences, both constructive and creative. They give blessings and good fortune to those who please them. They punish those who wrong or ignore them. The ancestors are wise, and if someone is unlucky or accursed because of offense given to the ancestors it is believed to be the unlucky person's fault. Where the ancestors are involved justice received is justice earned.
So-called primitive, archaic, or pre-literate peoples, hunter-gatherers, fisherfolk, and nomadic herders, have a different conception of the world than do the civilized people who might read this book. By and large, they see the world as an inherently magical place, and everything in it as alive. Rocks, trees, animals, all are alive, all think, all are animate. We call this world view Animism, and the closely related view that all things are divine we call Pantheism. An animistic view of the world sees existence as a massive cooperative exercise; each and every one of us has a part to play in the ongoing life of the world. Fruit takes nutrition from the soil and the sunlight and eventually gives the gift of life to an animal which eats of it. Eventually the animal gives its life so that another animal may survive. All things are part of this cycle, humans as much as any animal. Eat and be eaten is the law of the world.
Animistic religion is characteristic of people who have not developed classes in their society, who roam rather than building permanent settlements, and who harvest the world rather than cultivating plants and animals.
They usually have a conception of a very distant creator God that lives far away in the sky, and probably doesn't even give a fig about humanity, one way or the other. The creator God is often seen as being beyond good and evil, a being of unrestrained creativity and destructiveness, such as Shiva who inhales and devours armies, exhales and imparts life in as many, on and on, every day of the universe's existence. The ancestors' spirits, on the other hand, are closely connected with the people and very interested in their welfare. They cannot produce the kind of miracles (thunder, earthquakes, volcanoes, monsoons) that the creator God can, but their services are very useful, and they can occasionally serve as intermediaries with more powerful spirits or even with the creator.
Pantheistic religion involves one god, who created (our part of) the world, and who is the living spirit of the world. Pantheist religion often includes shamans as the primary religious specialists. Shamans are the ones who actually travel to the Otherworld to visit and obtain blessings from the god of the habitat. The god would probably look like a powerful animal in the habitat or a chief or powerful warrior. It would be a Habitat divinity. See above for more on this matter.
Typical of much agriculturist religion, polytheism sees the world as an inimical place where mortals are forced to work long and hard so they may survive. The gods control the powers of nature, such as rain, storm, and sun, and natural processes such as birth, growth, and death. Polytheistic religion involves many gods, and most worshippers worship all of them. When they have a problem they will beg a blessing of the god most appropriate to their goals. Because each year brings new problems, polytheists think it's a good idea to stay on good terms with all the gods.
When a religion elevates a single god to the position of universal ruler and then brings a number of other deities under the supreme god's wing, then you have a Henotheism. Whether the supreme god is the leader of a vastly inferior pantheon of gods, or the supreme god is the only divine spirit allowed to claim the title of god and all the lesser spirits are called angels and devils and spirits, it is still Henotheist. Henotheism invariably results from conquest when one people conquers another and absorbs their gods into subservient or hostile roles in its religion.
Typically a civilized development of polytheistic agricultural religion, dualism perceives the world as an eternal war between the armies of good and evil. We are good; our enemies are evil. The world may have been created by the Good God, in which case the Evil God tries to tempt people away from the right path and into a horrifying otherworld. Alternately, if the creation story says that the world was a creation of the Evil God then the Good God's mission is to purify mortal spirits, to allow them to loosen their divine spark from the dross mortal existence, so they can win their release from the cruel, evil world. Generally the god of good rules the sun, rain, life, healing, love, and birth, while the god of evil reigns over the dark earth, storms, disease, strife, and death.
Typical of the religion of pastoral nomads, and almost always patriarchal in outlook, monotheism sees the world as a competition for scarce resources between the tribe and all others, who are evil and outsiders. The patron god of the tribe is jealous of other gods and does not allow his people to worship them. The origin myths reveal that the patron god also created the world and the tribe, while other people, and the universe outside the boundaries of the world proper, were created by demons or tricksters.
In a nomadic society, the patron god claims only one tribe. But if nomads settle into agriculture or city dwelling they may lose their old religion. If they retain their religion it is because their tribal god is everybody's god, the only god for the whole world. Such a universal monotheism requires evangelical behavior such as missions and crusades from believers, and it is also likely to eventually evolve into Henotheism as the religion takes in converts and absorbs some of the features of Polytheistic and Pantheistic religions.
A mixture of pantheism and dualism, duotheism posits the existence of two opposing gods, who work both together and against one another, and who are also part of one another. Together they rule the entire world: One is male and one female; one is the sun and one the moon; one is multiple and the other, solitary; one is active and one passive; and so on. Duotheist gods might be represented as a two-faced being, or by the moon or another symbol of constant change.
[need picture of yin-yang symbol]
EXAMPLE: Probably the best known example of this kind of mutually dependent relation is the Taoist idea of yin and yang. According to Chinese tradition, Yin represents the female portion of creation, passive, dark, evil, and weak, and Yang represents the male portion of creation, active, light, good, and strong. [Can you tell that traditional Chinese culture prefers men to women?] The symbol shows that the two "fish" together make up one concept. They are joined, indivisible, not separate. Also, each fish contains a small bit of its opposite, there's a white (yang) eye in the black (yin) fish and a black (yin) eye in the white (yang) fish. This symbolizes that yin and yang are not completely opposed, they encompass each other.
The typical result of city dweller religious cynicism, atheism takes the stance that there are no gods to work for or against mortal interests. According to atheism gods are neither immanent nor transcendental, they are imaginary and irrelevant. Everything that happens can be explained by natural forces that mortals can explain and eventually control. Anything that can't be understood is the result of coincidence or luck.
Can you have a religion without gods? I think you cannot. Religion is handed down from the gods. Religion requires the gods, and they require religion. People who claim that religions exist without the gods forget something. They forget that the gods are not mortals, that the gods may manifest many different ways. A god may manifest itself as a philosophy. There is nothing to stop it. If a god wanted to manifest itself as Baseball, Motherhood, Apple Pie, and the American Way there's no reason it can't. If such a manifestation is consistent with divine goals then a god could and would. There would be no way for a mortal to detect the presence or absence of a god behind a concept.
Many people define religion as a set of beliefs that are held strongly. For instance, people may say of a woman who enjoys regular exercise at a gymnasium that "exercise is her religion." Does this mean that she worships her barbells? No. Does she pray to the mat? No again. Does she want to be more like her quadriceps? Yet again, no. Does she see the gym as something alien, other, spiritually important? For the last time, no. All these "no's" indicate that she does not worship exercise. It is not her religion. On the other hand, if she did find spiritual solace in exercise, if the other people working out symbolized divine perfection, if she frequently invoked a spiritual presence to help her finish her workout, then this could be a religion. Religion requires more than strongly held beliefs. It requires a spiritual component.
In Greek Philosophy literally means the "love of knowledge." Philosophy is a technique for searching out the truthful face behind the universal facade. It searches for meaning in the cosmos. It searches for the purpose of human life, much as does religion. The difference between religion and philosophy is that philosophy does not acknowledge a divine portion of the universe, and it does not prescribe rituals. In a philosophical system Truth is discovered by intelligent exploration rather than revealed by a divine entity, and right action is determined by individual choice rather than divine proclamation.
The big question about philosophies tailored for characters in roleplaying campaigns is this: Is the belief system divinely inspired and powered or not? A belief system that has no special power to it does not require a divine agent to power it. A belief system that has power to it does require a divine source of power.
In the land of Burmark a powerful group called the Sisterhood of Virtue. The Sisterhood refuses to acknowledge a god by name. That is one of their core beliefs. They believe that one can attain perfection through a sort of pseudo-inaction, yielding to a flow that guides them, fulfilling their needs but never acting self-consciously. They call this the Flow, and revere it as a superior way of thinking and behaving. Does the Flow give them abilities that normal people do not have? Are the plans of those who would oppose them inhibited by the Flow? The designer of Burmark must decide on the effects of their belief in the Flow.
If the designer chooses to give those who follow the Flow major advantages over others or unique magical powers then I'd expect a divinity behind the Flow. This divinity might be all but unknown as the force behind the Flow, or it might be entirely secret, but it supports the Flow. The benefits might work out to as little as a small bonus in certain actions or as much as total invincibility in war.
If the designer chooses to give those who follow the Flow no benefits or very minor ones, then the Flow would have no divine source of power. If they receive no bonuses to actions or a very small bonus then that can easily be explained by their superior concentration. The benefits of concentration vary from campaign to campaign. If the benefits of the Flow are easily explained with superior concentration then there is no need to back it with a divine source of power.
Science is often held up as the opposite of religion. It is rational where religion is mystical. It is accreted knowledge, not revealed. The scientific method states nothing in absolutes. Proof is the criterion, not truth. Only falseness can be proven, never truth. Seen in this light science is indeed different from religion. It is a technique to help people refine their skills to do things. However, religion is not a technique. Religion is a way of life, it is a complex of beliefs that govern our relationship with the world. Religion and the scientific method are two completely different things. But what about scientists? Scientists, dressed in their white lab coats, making proclamations about the Big Bang that announced the creation of the universe, begging the question of what created the Big Bang, aren't they the equivalent of medieval priests arguing over how many angels could dance on the head of a pin? Scientists rule over issues of life and death from cloning and test tube babies to research on the atom bomb and germ warfare. Scientists have shown that bodies traveling through the air obey the laws of conservation of momentum and gravity, and in fact they are not propelled by air spirits pushing them along. We take the statements of scientists as if they were holy writ. Scientific studies on the genetic origin of homosexuality, on the beginnings of consciousness, on the nature of suffering in a coma, these things are heard by people outside the laboratory and they are believed with the same acceptance and fervor with which religious truths were believed in ages past. Scientists are priests who see the face of the divine universe and pass the truth that is thus revealed to those outside the holy laboratory, the lay worshippers of the religion of science. They inherit the mantles of Pythagorus and Plato, who expounded on the nature of the universe in ancient Greece. They are directly descended from the magi, the wise men, the Neo-Platonians of the Darian Empire who compiled the religious arts of Astrology, Alchemy, Numerology, and Ceremonial Magic in order to better worship Thoth and Hermes Trismegistus.
Some religions teach that there is a divinity inside every mortal. They say that every man and woman is a god. Buddhism, for example, posits that the divine presence within every mortal may be brought to the fore by suppressing thought, by concentrating on stillness and allowing the god within to shed its mortal shell like a snake sheds its skin--revealing itself in all its divine, spiritual beauty. Buddhists teach that when the divine self breaks forth it experiences nirvana, nothingness, cessation of all. What does this have to do with gods? If gods are external entities, how can they be internal? Once again, a divine presence, a god, is capable of manifesting itself as anything. In this case, we can say that the god has chosen to manifest itself as the concept of a perfectly clear mind. By concentrating on the divine manifestation, by worshipping it, drawing near, and finally achieving perfection, the mortal may achieve union with the divine presence. Whether this is a maturation of the divine presence within the mortal or the mortal soul invoking the divine presence into it is semantics. It could happen either way. We can expect mortals, being proud and occasionally foolish, to be certain that a divine presence lurks within them. Whether or not this is True is another matter. You'll have to look in Myth for the answers to that.
Many people find it easy to compartmentalize religion. They believe one thing today and a different thing tomorrow. You may find that this tendency to compartmentalize religious beliefs is perfectly fine in your game world, or that it is unsatisfactory. While realistic this tendency might convey more world-weary cynicism than many people want to deal with in what is after all a game intended for amusement. Make your decision based on what you and your players prefer. If you want to change it some time in the future, that's your prerogative.
Example from the Shoshone Indians of the plains. In the 1800s they followed several different religions simultaneously, with conflicting myths and beliefs. Their mythology dates from their days as forest dwellers and features many animals and things not to be found on the plains where they dwell. It includes a habitat divinity and ancestor and animal spirits. Their religion is based around the worship of an all-powerful sun god, in typical nomadic fashion. This sun cult disagrees in many particulars with the myth based religion, and in fact has its own mythology based around the sun god. In addition they practice peyotism, the worship of the spirit of peyote which grants them visions and miraculous abilities.