So, something that I have been thinking about recently is my state's religion. I really wanted to keep my state secular, but eventually caved and choose a state religion that mostly defined what I felt would be appropriate (our religion is "sorry for the inconvenience").
The reason I have been thinking about this recently though is that there are a few issues that pop up, from time to time, where the state religion is centred. The problem is that I do not envision my state's religion to act in ways that are assumed by a lot of the issues where religion is implicated.
For example, there is an issue that pops up from time to time where some missionaries enter a remote and off-limits island and are killed by its inhabitants (the people on the island are known to be hostile to outsiders and are primitive in nature, in a way that I believe is inspired by the North Sentinelese people). I do not imagine a religion that is sorry for the inconvenience to really be all that much into evangalism, and yet, there it is!
I wonder if there could be a way to better define the state religion (even internally only) as a means of ensuring that issues better correspond to how the religion is assumed to act. For example, some simple defining characteristics could include:
Evangelist (Proselytising) / Non-Missionary (Non-Proselytising)
Polytheist / Monotheist / Ancestor Worship / Place based Worship / Spiritual / Atheist
After-life / Reincarnation / No After-life
Strong social structure and enforcement of religious norms / Relaxed social structure and limited enforcement of religious norms.
Conservative / Liberal / Mixed
Literalists (of sacred texts / religious histories) / Allegorical or Poetic (views of sacred texts / religious histories)
I recognise that this maybe difficult to implement, but thought I would suggest it regardless.
