Practical Religion

I just finished reading A Guide to Jewish Knowledge by Chaim Pearl and Reuben Brookes. In it the concept that Judaism is really a collection of practices, taboos, and accepted behavior and not a religion with a clearly defined theology, is discussed to a limited extent. I think that idea applies to most religions. Religion is more about the practice than belief; granted, people perform religious practices because they believe. Throughout most of history people practiced the religious rituals of their parents and community and so a belief in the efficacy of those rituals was built up at the same time. The people's belief was invested in the rituals handed down by their ancestors, not in specific dogma or doctrine. Belief about the divine was directly related to religious practices.

So, what's my point? Well, first off, Judaism is not unique in that practice takes precedence over theology. And second, related to D&D/RPGs, too often the religion of a country or setting is defined by the gods or pantheon worshiped and what they believe, and too little focus is given to how religion affects the lives of the people, particularly the PCs. When talking about religion in D&D too much focus is given to belief and not enough is given to practice. There were some good blog posts I read recently about how to build a religion based around rituals and taboos first, before even looking at belief, but I don't remember where I read it exactly. My takeaway is that we should develop a system of laws and taboos, and ritual and festival, etc when developing new religions for D&D instead of focusing so much on the gods and their dogma.