Editing Religion (section)

===Miscellaneous Observations===

Doing the "The Gods are Incompetent" thing (the similar but different "The Gods are Insane", "The Gods Are Assholes" and "The Gods Don't Actually Do Anything" routes also falls under this umbrella) can go into any of the three modes; in a sincere monotheist's (such as Christian) work, it can be a "Take That" to polytheistic religions; in a "Religion is Bad" atheist's, it can be one to religion in general; in a Buddhist-influenced work, it can be a part of the whole "even the Gods are tied up in the Wheel of Karma" concept; and, even if the author is not pushing any religious message in any way, there's a neutral, plot-structural reason to go "Incompetent Gods": it can make the adventurers the Most Competent People Available since if that wasn't the case there wouldn't be anything for the adventurers to do. More softly than the Incompetent/Insane/Asshole/Neutral angle, it can be said that the gods are busy with something just as if not more important or that esoteric rules bind them. 

If a work has multiple writers, (as frequently happens with RPG and Wargame settings, and quite a few popular SciFi/Fantasy ones as well) there's a tendency for the writers to try and pull the setting into one of the other two "modes" depending on their personal views.  This leads to the theme changing from one side to the other as the story progresses.  A recent example is [[World of Warcraft|the spate of retcons to the cosmology of the Warcraft universe]] and the morality of two of its fundamental forces the Light and the Void.  If the story doesn't get focused on a pro-religion or anti-religion message, it may end up swinging back and forth between both sides (as in the TV show Babylon 5<ref>Amusingly, Babylon 5 was mainly written by a single writer.</ref>) or settle in a mid-point which doesn't take a strong stance either way.  

Note that members of the "Religion is Bad" and "Religion is Good" brigades will get involved in arguments over the relative morality or "goodness" of various factions in the story and the accuracy of any messages a writer presents.  Often history buffs will throw their hat into the ring as well.