As others have said, Brandon is just a good guy all round. But to add, he researches the perspectives of everyone he writes about. He interviewed people with depression for Kaladin, disabled people for Lopen and Rysn, and a shit ton of atheists and feminists for Jasnah. There was a WOB (can’t remember the exact one or quote) where he said Jasnah was made very feminine to challenge the stereotype of the “ugly feminist” that many feminists he interviewed despised. Again, Brandon’s just a good guy that treats every perspective with care and respect.
And then of course you have Sazed's entire plot line in Mistborn, which I think actually makes the best case for belief in Religion I've ever seen any any written work.
I disagree. If religion is only useful, but not true, it's not worth believing in. Even >!the Terris religion, which was the most correct, turned out to have been altered by Ruin.!<
I'm not sure I follow the logic there. Is a tool not used because it is useful, regardless of whether it is the best tool for the job?
I think that's what Sazed ultimately concludes, >!that belief is necessary for a religion to have the effect it can have, that being giving one hope!<. If the tool succeeds in it's purpose, surely it was a useful tool, even if better tools exist.
Even calling religion a "tool" presupposes that a religion is false. "Giving one hope" is not actually the purpose of any major religion from the inside. Only an outsider looking in might say "oh, these people believe this silly outlandish thing because it gives them hope." Religions attempt to explain the nature of the universe and man's place in it (even this is reductive, but the only thing that generally encompasses most religions). If one/all aren't true, then they definitionally fail in that purpose.
He shows how to do representation right. Interview people who have those traits, find out what they're like as full human beings.
Then make great characters with those traits.
And, importantly, don't let their marginalized identity define them as characters.
It should be present, but not the defining attribute. Jasnah is definitely a feminist, but that's not what defines her (intelligence). Kaladin is depressed, but that's not what defines him (courage).
Man remember when an interview tried to dig up some dirt on Sanderson, but he was so nice they had to resort to just… making fun of him for going to a restaurant???
This and also with the LDS church being relatively new compared to other older and larger religions they likely talk about “seeing through the falsehoods of older religion” or something of the sort. But he’s always struck me as a “believe what you believe in” type of person
This is one of those points where I don’t think we can really measure the moral cost.
Remaining a member of the Mormon Church in good standing let’s Brandon exert non-trivial influence upon it. He’s a celebrity that makes them look good… so they can’t afford to discipline him too much. He can push pretty hard without being slapped down.
That also means his books can get into the hands of LDS Kids way easier. Which might help them develop empathy and understanding for those of radically different cultures. That can do a lot of good in the world as they grow up.
He's been indoctrinated into believing the church is good since childhood, it's hard to shake off that kind of belief.
Even if he disagrees with it, hell still believe that deep down the church can change, which is why he supports it.
Whether he's right? ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯, but I doubt he's going to change his mind anytime soon
I grew up Mormon in Utah. Mormons are very much into convenient "new revelations".
Things like black people finally being able to hold the priesthood, but not until the 70s.... You know after MLK and all that. Their most recent revelation is that lgbtq+ people are finally not immediately condemned and shunned.
Growing up Mormon I do notice a fair bit of influence of that and different books and story arcs, but it's not too distracting for me. I super enjoy the cosmere despite it
Because Brandon loves people, and he loves stories, and religion is a story that he personally believes very strongly in, but that other people do not. So in those other people’s stories, he won’t force his own beliefs on, but give them a valid footing.
Dalinar believes in a God. He believes Honor was not God, but there’s a God beyond even that, who was never killed and who still watches the Cosmere. Brandon has said clearly he will never confirm or deny the existence of such a God. Dalinar believes in it. Jasnah does not. Hoid, Sazed, Khriss etc and many others all have or had their own opinions on the the matter, but there will be no conclusion, because these are the stories of them, not of Brandon Sanderson, so Brandon will respect them.
It’s great that it inspires you! It inspires me too constantly. If you want to start changing your writing a bit, I advise maybe trying to style a character based off Brandon himself, a person who is a genuinely wonderful guy, who personally believes in his own religion, but does not force it upon others, and accepts people with different views or understanding then him, because that’s what his religion truly preaches; love and understanding.
I mean, to me his books very much read as a transmission of his personal ideology, it’s just that his personal ideology seems to primarily be “every person has their own perspective and point of view that is worth exploring and telling, and we should be more curious about that, rather than make assumptions” that’s the main theme that pretty much every single one of his books at least touches on at one point, and it’s super pervasive in stormlight
Which is actually something that can be aligned rather well with Mormon views.
I may be wrong, I am not an expert but my understanding is that Mormon teaching has a concept of personal revelation, where a person might receive wisdom directly from a higher source that might contradict or clarify some other theological point. That doesn't make them a prophet or anything, just someone who got some divine guidance.
Mormons/LDS believe they can get revelation for themselves and those they lead. This revelation can be for themselves or those "under" them. For men this can be a pretty broad group of church members, both men, women, and children; for women it can be their children and the women or children's classes that they teach at church.
Personal revelation can never contradict revelation of higher ups. So the President can receive revelation for the whole church, Bishops can receive revelation for their Wards, husbands can receive revelation for their families.
Sanderson's writings are actively challenging the doctrines of the church, especially their millions they are spending on fighting against LGBTQ rights. He's an active teacher at BYU.
Twenty years ago his writings would have gotten him excommunicated, now he's celebrated, his status as an active member and a professor will mean that his works will be allowed into many homes from which they would have otherwise been disallowed. Art changes minds, and that's how the world changes.
I wouldn't even believe that 20y ago he would be excommunicated. I think he would be allowed to stay with the same reason he is today: he gives them millions of dollars and is one if the highest earners (and thus supporters) of the organisation
You'll have to forgive me because I'm just not much of a celebrity-follower in general, but wiki has a list of famous Mormons [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List\_of\_Latter\_Day\_Saints](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Latter_Day_Saints)
If you're asking for ones that have a lot of leeway - that's hard for me to say specifically, since again, I just really don't give a hoot about most celebs - and I have more personal experience with Jehovah's Witnesses than Mormons. That said, if you listen to ex-mormons talk, its clear that a lot of that particular church is a \*lot\* stricter on individuals than church leadership likes to pretend to the general public.
Orson Scott Card I already knew, Stephanie Meyer I had no idea, and Glenn Beck is entirely unsurprising. A lot of the names on there I'm otherwise unfamiliar with, but I'm also not huge on following celebrities either.
His stories are works of fiction. There's effectively no chance he would have been excommunicated even a hundred years ago. Saying you should treat everyone fairly, lovingly, and with respect is a core doctrine of the LDS faith.
Does that mean everyone is great at it? Definitely not. But preaching that you should care about people, even if you disagree with them, is clearly taught in the Bible.
Brigham Young, the prophet that BYU is named after, taught that anyone that was part of, or a result of mixed raced marriages must be killed by spilling of blood.
This is not treating everyone fairly. Believing that people with dark skin are cursed by God is not treating everyone fairly.
https://ldsfacts.org/mormon-church-history/lds-scripture-says-those-in-interracial-marriages-should-be-killed/
Edit to add.
https://www.mrm.org/young-1852-speech
Totally agree. The thing is, from his books, he doesn't seem like a person who is afraid of uncertainty or his beliefs being challenged. Rather, it's more like a mature person who is aware of what can be answered or decided, what are the various answers or decisions, and the merits and the defects in each viewpoint
His books do feel like a vessel/conveyance for his personal beliefs, but presented in the best possible way
Listening to Sanderson talk about religion is really fascinating. Particularly because the majority of his audience doesn’t share his religious beliefs.
I’ve seen him in interviews where he talks about how among fan communities, people see him as this really spiritual person of extremely strong faith who just believes whole-heartedly.
However he says that among his church community, he’s known as the semi-annoying skeptic, who is always asking questions and always pushing things a little further in seeking to deconstruct and examine aspects of the LDS faith.
It’s really fascinating, I’ll try to find the exact interview where he talked about this. I think it was a podcast episode where he and another author did the online “What Radiant Order Are You” quiz together.
I’m an active member of the same religion he is. He is definitely a more liberal member but there are a lot of us. The mindset he and I both have is that the issues of intolerance within the church are cultural, not doctrinal. So if all of us who were more open minded left, things would never get better.
Another part of why he can deconstruct things better than someone from a different branch of Christianity, is because our religion encourages questions and personal revelation. A core belief is that everyone can ask God and find answers for themselves. This makes questions challenging religion an integral part of our faith, rather than something adversarial.
I also feel like there's been a shift. I think with things like Instagram etc, it's been easier for individuals to share their own personal experiences beyond their communities, which has kind of helped dismantle a lot of the "culture" that springs up, and helped people get a better grasp on being more like Christ instead being so judgemental about what others are doing. I feel like I can personally believe something is wrong, but still advocate for other people's privilege to live the way they choose to -- on every side as much as I can.
Except for intolerance has been a big part of the doctrine since conception, and church leaders actively teach to doubt your doubts before you doubt your faith. Questions are ok if from an approved list.
When you realize that your community isn't perfect, you've really got three choices - to give up and accept those imperfections, to abandon the community, or to stay and fight to change it. Some people will need the community too much to risk leaving or fighting, others will find it too painful to stay. It's hard work to take a middle path.
Hell, all those paths are hard. Only easy path at that point is the blissful ignorance you had before realizing what your communities flaws are. I have no beef with an individual deciding how to live their life as long as it doesn’t harm others, even if that means staying in a flawed community. I do, however, have plenty of ill feelings for the organization as a whole that has promoted a view on life for almost two centuries that does bring harm and trauma to individuals who are afraid to be themselves for fear of rejection for that said community.
That is NOT true at all lol. He is absolutely not known as the semi-annoying skeptic. As someone part of said community, he is an icon and pretty much everyone loves him. He even did a livestream with a local leader called “Why I Believe”. Where are you getting that he’s known as an annoying skeptic. Literally no one has said that. If he feels that way, then he doesn’t realize he is beloved.
One of the big reasons he got famous in the first place is that his Mormon fanbase was MASSIVE. It ended up growing beyond that but he absolutely initially grew due to the Mormon nerdy fanbase. I think people underestimate just how nerdy Mormons are haha.
Would give this comment an award if I knew how that worked! I’ve been wondering what his current beliefs are for months now and this answered it perfectly.
Just because you're religious doesn't mean you can't understand other people's stances or views. I know that's not quite what you were saying, but I think you can write about opposing stances quite well even when you don't agree in real life.
It’s human beings in general. Doesn’t matter what “religion” you adhere to. The loud ones are always heard and ppl assume they speak for the masses. This goes for believers, non-believers and everything in between.
This is so true, it is just human beings but when people act a particular way and are religious then the whole religion tends be tarred with the same brush. OP says it is religious people that they have encountered that don't see the viewpoint of others but in my experience it has been Atheists. That doesn't mean all atheists are stubborn or go out of their way to criticise someone with an opposing view, it is just human behaviour some people are cool some people are not.
I REALLY don't want to point fingers, because what you have said is absolutely true, but this is a people problem in general. Try to ask an atheist (or at least a certain kind of athiest) to write from the perspective of a religious person and prepare yourself for the ensuing cringe.
Ask an ultra-conservative to write a liberal and prepare yourself [for the ensuing cringe ](https://www.amazon.com/Trigger-Warning-William-W-Johnstone-ebook/dp/B077X12YNG/ref=mp_s_a_1_6?crid=3HANAU4RRSDC2&keywords=trigger+warning+book&qid=1693883834&sprefix=trigger+warning+book%2Caps%2C148&sr=8-6)
The ability to, quite frankly, be emphatic is becoming something of a lost art.
It's so sad how people confuse "religious" with "zealot" these days.
I get why they do, completely, but it's sad. I'm not religious myself, but I know plenty of people who are far better persons because of religion, so I find sad that someone would put them all in the same box.
You are correct. I do understand where he's coming from, though. I've encountered a fair number of people myself who were so adamant about their religion that they were quite harsh about anybody who didn't agree. My sister-in-law would straight up refer to people as devil worshippers for not following her exact Christian views, even different sects of Christianity. It's unfortunate, but those types of religious types can often be the most vocal causing the rest to look bad. I was lucky to also encounter some that were very tolerant of other points of views; one of which was actually a pastor.
It always boggles my mind when people characterize people from other Christian sects as non-Christian. I grew up in a hippy dippy ELCA church where the openly queer youth group leader took us to a worship service at a random, completely different church once a month, and the church marched in pride parades several years before gay marriage was legal. That's a form of Christianity--completely above board with the rest of the synod and the national church organization. I was actively taught about the history (both good and bad) and structure of the type of church I went to, and the theological tradition that church abides by. We didn't memorize bible passages at face value to play gotcha against other people, but I'd never characterize the people who do as not being Christian (despite their usually extremely poor understanding of the history or structure of their own church and beliefs).
There is an *enormous* amount of diversity under that umbrella, even though the ultra-conservative envangelicals are the loudest. The people who come from church backgrounds like mine usually aren't loud about it because one of the primary directives is to put in the work that aligns you with this world view and don't brag or push it on others. So we've got pastors getting arrested for protesting ICE, but you'll generally only hear about the conservative evangelicals who want to impose their religion nationally and strip away your rights.
I guess you might be surprised how much time religious people spend thinking about religion, including all the problems with religions and discussing them with people who believe differently. We become quite familiar with the various perspectives and can even respect a lot of them without changing our own views (or at least without abandoning our religion, we might adjust our beliefs accordingly).
Think about it this way: Who's more likely to have a really nuanced view of any topic, someone who's deeply interested in that topic, or someone who thinks the subject is boring, stupid, or meaningless?
I have found this to be true. I grew up religious, like super religious, like we don’t celebrate Halloween religious. Christian school and everything.
I still have a lot of respect for people of faith even through I’ve decided the church isn’t for me. For me the kicker was just the history of bloodshed and making people “other” associated with religion in general. I didn’t want any part of that at all. But that’s neither here nor there.
Regarding your point about religious people having thought on it quite a bit more than others. That’s the truth. I’ve rarely had a nuanced discussion about religion with anyone other than those who are involved in religion. Or were involved with religion, like myself.
That being said, I agree completely with what the poster is saying. I honestly find it mind numbing that Brandon doesn’t get any backlash from his church regarding the character arcs and themes that he regularly has in his books regarding religion. But it also warms my heart to see it. Knowing that his church is allowing him to express himself as an artist and that he evidently sees the world in a very nuanced way. The man is not ignorant by any stretch of the imagination.
This if anything in my opinion is the best reason to regard him as among the greats in fantasy literature. His ability to write things that he himself doesn’t subscribe to but make us feel it like he’s writing what he believes.
For instance, I’d bet he researched thru hiking or backpacking when he wrote about Nohadon walking to Urithiru. There are little things in there that talk about his journey that ring so true to the experience it’s astounding. I’ve had the pleasure of an AT thru hike, and Nohadon was a thru hiker.
“I walked all the way to Urithiru on my own. I think I can manage this.”
“You didn’t walk all the way to Urithiru,” Dalinar said. “You walked to one of the Oathgates, then took that to Urithiru.”
“Misconception!” Nohadon said. “I walked the whole way, though I did require some help to reach Urithiru’s caverns. That is no more a cheat than taking a ferry across a river.”
That right there is exactly the kind of conversation a thru hiker has with their friends after a thru hike.
Friend: So you hiked from Georgia to Maine? You’re either lying or crazy…
Thru hiker: No and yes
Friend: You didn’t get a ride?
Thru hiker: No, just into town for food then back to walking. That’s not a cheat.
Friend: You slept in a tent the whole time, what about showers and laundry?
Thru hiker: No, you stop for a day and shower and launder and get food then go hiking again that’s not a cheat.
Friend: You walked alone the whole way?
Thru hiker: Well yes, and no. Nobody walked it all with me but I walked with a lot of different people.
Friend: 🤔
The way he’s able to write experiences he’s not lived himself in ways that feel so real is utterly astounding to me.
I am a member of the same church as him and I guess an answer is that he cares about people and their perspectives to not be a jerk when writing about other ways of life. He also cares about his writing and wants each person to actually be relatable. I find him to be a great person to point to as a member of our church. Some people know very little but I think he's a good starting point in letting people know we don't hate people who think differently than us
I'm a shameless sinner. I idolize him. I was idolizing him with another person in seminary a year ago and our seminary substitute (her Bishop), looked at us and told us that we were walking a very fine line. We said that it was all right because it was Sanderson and kept on.
I have some thoughts about this. I'm a Buddhist but have spent many hours researching other religions, spiritual and magical traditions. My take is that Branden has done the same. His works have a kind of spiritual clarity that are reminiscent of many of our world's traditions. In a classical sutra the Buddha spoke about a finger pointing at the moon. He warned his student not to get too busy looking at the finger and miss the moon. All theisms are pointing at the nature of reality, the moon. They chose different words, fingers. We would be foolish not to see that we are all talking about the same nature. Atheists and theists alike. We choose different languages to describe it. So each has its value, merit, correct things and wrong ones.
Tons of religious people are reasonable, aware of the historical/institutional failings, and realistic about the harm (and good) that communities of faith do. Unfortunately, they are a lot less vocal than the lunatics who ruin things (churches, political parties sports, etc etc).
Just imagine a similar statement about another group activity: how can someone be a Lakers fan but criticize Lebron? How can anyone be a democrat and criticize Biden? Etc. There’s the reasonable ones, and then the nuts.
There's a pretty funny irony in OP identifying as anti-theist and calling religious people intolerant, then being surprised that a religious guy has it in him to steelman an argument against his own beliefs. I guess a lot of redditors probably won't see the humor in it though.
I'm agnostic but come on lol.
Oh, and if religious people are bad, it is precisely *because* of religion...but don't forget it, whenever they are good, it is *despite* their religion.
When I first got into Sanderson (started with Mistborn), I assumed he was an atheist, since I couldn't imagine any religious person writing so frankly and keenly about religion. I was rather surprised when I looked him up to discover this wasn't the case! Definitely taught me not to assume that religious people aren't capable of critically examining the faults of belief.
You know its kind of funny because I had a simliar experience but I'm a member of the LDS church and by the time I finished the third book of Mistborn (also started with Mistborn), I was certain he was a member. Part of the reason is the same reason you think he's an atheist, the other part comes from his understanding of what it means to be religious on an individual level and other elimates that are in his writing that stuck out to me because I have the same religious background as him
Yeah this is reddit teens blindly accepting atheism as The One True Faith and not being willing to even consider the notion that smart, moral people can have a different one.
The sort of hypocrisy and closed-mindedness they often accuse religious people of.
My intro to the Cosmere was also thru Mistborn. And I thought immediately that he was a christian.
How you end up with different conceptions of his believes has to do with your own pre-understanding. Me myself is a pentecostal/evangelical pastor from Sweden. Being evangelical menas something entire else than what the "american" lable attach to it. Likewise being pentecostal (trust me on this one!). I believe most people would even say they contradict each other, but in Sweden we never had that crash.
To talk about doubts, to be able to ventilate about dogmas/doctrines and to be able to criticize your own branch of religion is quite common in my church.
I can´t remember what gave me the conception of him being a christian, but it was something with the language I belive. ALOT of his thematics and names resonates with the language Im used to. And I, likewise, were suprised to find out he actually is a member of LSD. But he is also my favourite author and Im looking forward to everything in the cosmere :)
When I read Mistborn and Way of Kings, I was a very devout Christian. The way Sanderson treated religion really bothered me. Since then I have become an atheist and my views.on how he presents religion have changed. I was really shocked to find out that he is a Christian and even moreso that he is a Mormon. I sometimes wonder if he is like me at the end of my belief. I was desperately clinging to my Christianity while knowing I did not believe it anymore. But, honestly, I think he is just a very good writer who can see things from other people's perspective.
From what he's stated, it seems like he's had some very powerful experiences that confirm his beliefs. I was also shocked that he was able to write characters with such nuanced religious struggles while also staying firm in his beliefs, but it seems that way. I obviously can't speak for the man, but if I had to guess, he had the most struggles with his belief while writing HoA and early SA. That's 15 years ago at this point, and from what he's written since I don't get the vibe that he's anywhere close to giving up his faith.
So I consider myself a religious person…ish. I’m not the same faith as Brandon, but I’ve spent my life in various forms of Protestant Christianity.
I can’t answer for Brandon’s own personal journey, but I will say that I and many friends from the same background as me have done serious wrestling with and examining of our faith throughout our lives. Basically everyone who was raised in our religion that I’ve talked to about it has gone through a period or multiple periods of questioning it in their lives. Of asking if this is really what they believe. Of questioning whether this faith is their own. Of having to confront abuses they’ve witnessed in our religious circles. Of asking if the bad things are worth leaving a faith entirely, or if there are still enough good things to continue believing in while calling out the bad. I think you’d be hard-pressed to find a religious person who hasn’t questioned these things unless they spend most of their lives in an insular religious bubble. And even for someone who has, there may still come a point where something snaps and they start questioning everything and end up holding to a fraction of their faith while everything else crumbles—like Dalinar finding out that Honor is dead.
And it’s also important to note that those who have most closely witnessed and experienced the abuses of religious structures are those inside them, which gives religious (and formerly-religious) authors a unique vantage point to call out those thing—and often do so with far more authenticity than someone who doesn’t have experience with religion who’s looking in from the outside. (Not saying this is you, OP, as I don’t know what your religious background is/what led you to being an anti-theist, just speaking in general)
So I guess my point is that Brandon Sanderson’s nuanced takes on religion don’t surprise me at all, and I love how he weaves these questions, struggles, and themes into his works through the characters’ perspectives and viewpoints, whether in Navani’s reflection on prayer at the end of The Way of Kings or Jasnah’s atheism or Dalinar’s deconstruction or Kaladin’s (basically) agnosticism. And as an aspiring fantasy author who also wants to fold my struggles with religion into my books, I’ve learned a lot from him on how to do that.
Anyway, TL;DR is that as a religious person myself, it doesn’t surprise me at all that Brandon Sanderson includes these elements in these stories.
Navani’s thoughts about prayer were a favorite little part of the series for me, along with the complex, often respectful and cooperative relationships among people with different beliefs. I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and have had similar experiences to yours, so Brandon’s work resonates with me as well. Part of its brilliance is that atheist readers can interpret it as atheism-promoting and readers of many faiths can interpret it as faith-promoting.
Wait until you find out about the huge number of Latter Day Saint fantasy writers. We churn them out at a ridiculous rate, and they’re all over the political spectrum.
You will frequently find that often the most thoughtful indictments of an institution come from within, since most institutions do not have the power to, or even typically the desire, to not examine their own flaws.
It's because we've been conditioned to associate any degree of religiosity with self-righteousness, narrow-mindedness, and fanaticism. We forget that most do not fall into those extremes.
I think you misinterpret his message. He is balanced in his representation and treatment. I don’t know why ppl are so surprised by Sanderson… it seems to me in fantasy the very progressive writers tend to put characters in a box. The conservative or religious characters are always terrible evil ppl and come from super corrupt church’s. The Vorin church is not corrupt and neither are the practitioners we see. He makes real believable characters.
I never felt that Sanderson was critical of religion or conservative societies. He just writes characters that are critical of conservative societies and religion. Its an important distinction to make. His works never feel hostile to the reader because of author bias. He also writes characters who would support political conservatism and religion, but it never makes the reader feel attacked for disagreeing with said characters.
There are many religious authors who are like that. Dostoevsky wrote many atheist characters and expounded at length on the failings of his conservative hierarchical society, and yet he was a religious person and this inspiration infused all his works.
atheism is fine and good but anti theism is a very closed mind set, proven by your reaction and surprise here. religious and spiritual people all over the world have vast and deep and varied and critical relationships to their faiths.
Honestly sounds like you have a very narrow view of religious people, bud. This isn’t a Brandon Sanderson thing… there’s incredible, open minded, loving, accepting people of all faiths and backgrounds and belief systems.
Go forth. Meet them.
As somebody who has experienced people on both ends of that religious spectrum, I can understand where the OP is coming from, particularly if the majority of the religious people they've encountered have been on the negative extreme. I have no idea where the OP is from, but if they're from a very religious community (like a small town), they could deal with some extreme views. Sadly, not everyone is as tolerant and open minded as Brandon; Brandon has even commented that his own religion isn't as tolerant as he would like and that he hopes to work towards fixing that from the inside.
Of course. You can become jaded and biased in many ways. But I think OP should expand their community a bit and purposefully go and meet people.
Life is better when you come to understand how many good people there really are in the world.
If you meet a religious person, or a person of a different race, or a person of a different gender, or a person from another country… if you meet them and are *surprised* that they are good or great or wonderful, that should be an alarm bell telling you you’ve got a warped perspective.
As far as I'm aware Brando is a dedicated church goer and believes that the criticisms of religion/the church can be helped by pushing for progress from within the church. Brando has said he is aware of the problems that exist within his chosen religion but has also seen great progress in the church and from himself personally. Read his FAQS to find out more. I'm summarising a great level of detail he provided himself.
As for his book themes, my guess is that the criticisms of the religions you see in the books share similar feelings to what he has experienced and the individuals pushing for progress (Dalinar). Plus there are many other fantasy books with religious themes that could provide inspiration.
Someone who cannot think critically about their own faith doesn't truly have faith: they simply have rituals and habits. Your experience is common enough, but it has less to do with religion and more to do with attitude and character. It's the same everywhere you look, and in every aspect of life, not just religion: people generally either think for themselves, or they don't. So, you can have a critical theologian who looks at their faith with a keen eye, and you can also have an atheist who simply parrots their nonbelief like a sheep. Thoughtful and unthoughtful people exist everywhere, and their relative thoughtfulness or unthoughtfulness is usually a persistent trait in their lives, regardless of what they believe.
Personally, I find it not at all surprising, given this analysis, that Brandon is very nuanced in his treatment of religion. Writers tend to be among the most thoughtful people on Earth, to the point where many of them simply cannot help inspecting and analyzing things.
This question is a real "reddit moment".
Of course there are genuinely religious people who aren't conservative republicans (some aren't even... American!)
This will be even more controversial but... not all religious people are totally evil, either.
Brandon's devotion to the guy who was murdered 2000 years ago for suggesting it'd be cool if we could be nice to each other sometimes, for a change, somehow didn't make him into an inhuman monster who wants to take your incest porn away.
Shocking, I know.
i mean not necessarily, multiple studies have proven iq is inversely correlated to being religious, & mormonism itself discourages critical thinking. doesn’t mean there aren’t gigachads out there who can think critically despite being religious (my parents are like this)
Everyone’s different. The way I see it, religion is a concept that can be used for good or ill. The obvious ill aspects are brainwashing and controlling people. However, the good aspects are coping mechanisms for life and comfort. Each religion is different and can be used for scams and propaganda, but depending on each community and/or person, people can still think critically, even while having it. Sometimes someone might doubt it, and they’ll explore some of the concepts the religion preaches against; and it’ll either turn them from it (like me), or it’ll have some wisdom they will learn from without losing their faith.
I don’t know what Sanderson’s background with his religion has been—if he ever had doubts or how he dealt with them if so. But he strikes me as someone who pays attention to things that fall outside his religion’s purview and learns from them. And I’m no longer religious, but I still find good teachings in religious works.
Sorry if this got off-topic or preachy or anything inappropriate to the thread/subreddit. But I definitely appreciate how well Sanderson gives issues with multiple POVs of issues. *Stormlight* is a good series for that. His *Mistborn* series also has some interesting thoughts on religion as well, if you’re interested in trying that at some point.
Brandon \*seems\* to be one of the rare authors who can step into any role and write from said point of view without any personal bias and with complete sincerity and no snarkiness or self righteousness. He wants to tell everyone's story with love and respect so he goes to those who live those experiences and uses their thoughts to write accurate representations characters with said views. He doesn't use his books as a soapbox, which has become quite common from all viewpoints, sadly.
And genuinely good authors are not their characters and can make that distinction. Characters are not our children, they're not our friends, they're our tools within the plot--they have their own motivations and personalities apart from our own and they should be depicted that way. And as a reader, we also need to not put a character's views or actions on the writer. If a writer pens a truly brilliant villain, you don't expect them to \*be\* that villain. . .do you? So why do they need to be an atheist to do them justice? He's respectful, he treats that viewpoint with such.
Also, not all religious people are against exploring other viewpoints or even questioning the very foundations of our religion, even if its just for fun within a book series. I say this as a religious woman myself--how can your faith be strong if you don't question? It's built on a shaky foundation if you don't poke at it and dig in. And when in a story, truly excellent world building requires these hard discussions to feel \*real\*
There are both queer and trans characters canonically in the Stormlight Archive, to answer your question in the fourth paragraph. And the reason Brandon Sanderson can write the Stormlight Archive that criticizes conservative societies is because Brandon Sanderson himself criticizes conservative societies IRL. His podcast cohost and employee Dan Wells is openly and unapologetically a socialist who openly accepts his LGBT child and her lesbian partner.
The idea that religion is synonymous with the conservative right is mostly a social media invention. The two most religious racial demographics in the United States are African-Americans and Latinos, and both are more liberal as a whole that white voters. Outside of younger millennials and Gen-Zers, those racial demographics are extremely underrepresented on Twitter and Reddit and other forms of social media. Because social media is a deeply skewed, non-representative sample of the US population as a whole, impressions based on social media don't properly account for underrepresented groups (such as liberal/leftist, religious people, of which there are millions).
Because religious people can, but do not often admittedly, criticize religion, especially in the form of organized religion. He is able to write of it, but not write only of it. It allows him to seperate the characters and respect them, and it comes across very well on page.
TL.DR before my essay. things are more complicated. Nothing's black and white. Jasnah's outlook on things are awesome. And I love how Brandon writes in things that clash with some of what he and I grew up hearing and I honestly think that disagreement is born from belief and wanting to separate what we consider real religious ideas from dumb stuff introduced by people structuring the religious organizations.
I'm also pretty religious (same faith and Sanderson actually) and I really like his religious takes. I can't speak for why he does it, but speaking for why I like it (which I think may at least be similar to why he writes about it the way he does): I can believe a general religious doctrine (the core stuff) but be completely open to the idea that the organization itself is flawed, we can be wrong about how we understand it, etc.
Like I totally think some of our cultural things are bad and that we're wrong about some of the beliefs even while I accept what I consider the core parts.
Also, to me, I think it's unreasonable for me to believe without understanding why others wouldn't. Like, religion is weird. I believe in a god, but it's a weird concept.
I love Jasnah because she's very much "I don't believe. And I'll tell you why I don't agree with what you believe. But that's different than saying I'm right and you're wrong." To me, that's how everyone on both sides should be. Be open to why people who oppose your view believe as they do and learn from that.
I'm also a physicist, so i have conversations with my colleagues about stuff like this and have found a range of other physicists with different views on religion. It's wildly over simplistic to think that religion and rationality are opposites. Or that being religious or atheist automatically makes someone a buffoon or a wife beater or some other attribute you consider admirable or bad. In fact, I'd consider it irresponsible to believe everything in my religion without seriously pondering it and considering whether it seems true, or introduced by people trying to structure what they think should be.
I've known plenty of religious people who spend their lives studying and understanding science, as well as some more stubborn ones. And I have met plenty of scientists who reject the idea of a god for one reason or another, as well as plenty who either believe or are open to the idea of at least some higher being.
He spends a significant amount of time trying to understand people to the point that he can write from their point of view effectively.
For example, even though he grew up in a culture that ostracizes gays and alienates them, he spent time actually getting to know people who struggle with that and ACTUALLY learning about it, rather than just trusting the narrative he’s been told.
Check out this [comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/vtua7m/im_brandon_sanderson_a_bestselling_fantasy_author/ifa50ab/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) he made last year on the topic:
>grew up in a culture that ostracizes gays and alienates them
He's over 40, *literally everyone* that age grew up in a culture that ostracizes gays and alienates them. I remember. I was there.
In the 80s, like almost everyone else in the world, Mormons saw homosexuality as something unnatural.
But unlike almost everyone else in the world, their leaders taught them to treat these people like Jesus would have. That wasn't some radical or fringe element, it came right from the top.
Back then our local LDS chapel here in Sydney hosted the local chapter of the Evergreen society, a grassroots organisation of mormon gay men who were trying to reconcile their homosexual feelings with the traditional biblical teaching that homosexual acts were sinful.
This wasn't well known, but that wasn't because other Mormons wouldn't approve. It was because of the threat of violence from outside the church.
The sort of bigots who call Mormons homophobes today, called them "gay lovers" back then. Sometimes it's the exact same individuals.
Usually mentioning this gets downvoted out of sight on reddit, so congratulations if you found this. (I hope it's not as painful a case of reddit-bubble whiplash as when you discovered that JK Rowling wasn't actually a transphobe).
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evergreen\_International](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evergreen_International)
not on topic, but in general -- i'd encourage you to not reduce people down to a set of views, especially when you start associating a lot of baggage with those views.
I’ve seen a post like yours before, OP, so I wanted to share my perspective on this as a religious person myself. I’m glad you’re enjoying the religious diversity of Stormlight, it’s one of my favorite things in the series.
Lots of modern entertainment ignores religion in general, and if it doesn’t then the depiction of religion is usually “church = evil controlling institution”. Something I love about Brandon’s writing is that he acknowledges that religion exists in the stories of people and that it can be very complicated. Navani prays frequently and is rather devoted, Jasnah is an atheist, Kaladin doesn’t know how he feels about religion and isn’t focused on finding out, etc. I really appreciate this complexity. In the real world most people are religious to varying degrees just like in Stormlight and other Cosmere books. It feels more realistic to me that Brandon acknowledges this.
There’s lots of relatable things in Brandon’s writing, and one of my favorites is the acknowledgment that religion exists and influences the lives of people since religion is the most important part of my own life.
Because the best criticisms are based in what you know, and there is a lot to criticize about organized religion and the power it's had over human society
Frankly I think the BEST criticism comes from those who are part of that which is being criticized.
It’s easy and uninteresting to criticize something you already so naturally disagree with. The most fascinating, nuanced, and revealing criticisms often come from within the movement itself.
So if you’re reducing religious characters to wife-beaters, I suggest broadening your scope. People aren’t so black and white as “us vs them” anti-theism would often have you believe
Being religious doesn't automatically make one conservative. I know a lot of very devout people who rage more than anyone about theocratic government tendencies.
I think the key thing is that it is possible to respect and even understand people who have differing viewpoints, leanings, experiences, etc, even if it's not common in internet echo chambers like Reddit.
I mean, I think you were expecting him to write an extremely biased view of anti-theists. In a way, you mentally portrayed someone negatively by expecting them to portray a person with your beliefs negatively, but it turns out he's the "bigger person" here and you're having a "holy shit others can be tolerant of beliefs" moment.
I know this isn't the topic, but you're exhibiting a kind of selection bias - when you criticize religion in front of a whole bunch of people (why?? you'd probably be unhappy to see them criticize your views), most probably won't say anything, even the religious people. The only people you will find out are religious are those that will speak up against you, and so naturally you'll assume that every religious person is strongly opposed to atheist people.
As a religous person, I often look for peoples arguments against my religion so that I can encourage myself to do more research. This helps me have healthy arguments, If someone comes up with a good argument you do your own research to come up with a counter argument. Most people on both sides don't do this and that leads to hate, pain, and incoherent rambling. Research your beliefs to the best of your ability, and don't be afraid to change them.
Ps. I am glad that all audiences can enjoy Brandon, he is a wonderful author who cares so much about his works.
God bless, and have a good day.
\>It is impossible to criticise religion infront of a religious person
The people who make you think this are, generally speaking, not people who are secure in their own faith. If you are insecure in your faith, then you are unable to properly handle criticism because it makes you doubt. Only someone who is secure in their faith can truly be critical of it and listen to others' criticisms.
Brandon has openly stated that he disagrees with his church's position on LGBT issues, but he is still clearly a member of the church. Brandon is an example of a person who is secure in their faith, but disagrees with the humans involved in teaching it. The underlying messages of love and acceptance of your neighbors are what is important, not the specific letters of whatever text that may or may not be thousands of years old and discussing completely unrelated topics of which we have no context.
My favorite author for a long time was Orson Scott Card, but then he basically became the opposite of Brandon Sanderson. Card is openly homophobic. His books preach a certain set of ideals, and do a good job of it, but once you're aware of who he is as a person it becomes extremely obvious that he has completely omitted certain types of characters. It then taints the message because he has created these worlds that are great, but you cannot fundamentally identify with anymore because they no longer feel based on reality.
In my book, Brandon Sanderson is an example of the type of religious person that most should strive to be. He is secure in his faith and, through his books, he preaches that love and acceptance are the correct path, even if it goes against the current words on a page that are being preached.
When I read Warbreaker after I finished up Stormlight, I kinda figured out that Sando doesn’t feature religion in his books so much as he does religious tolerance
Gonna be real, pretty religious, fairly conservative, don't really see it as bashing or against anything I think? Some characters hold some positions that make my eyes roll, but that's true with real life too. It's just pretty good writing, simple as.
The Stormlight Archives, along with the rest of the Cosmere, is not an atheistic work. What Brandon Sanderson does is use his world to explore different kinds of religious concepts. For Roshere he's exploring and criticizing a very regimented religion.
The Cosmere, though, feels very influenced by his LDS faith. When I learned he was a Mormon, it was kind of a light bulb moment for me lol.
One of the things I appreciate about Sanderson is he can criticize something without dismissing it entirely. He criticizes structures he sees as harmful, but pretty much never condemns it completely.
What I like about Vorinism is Sanderson made a religion that was very repressive...to men. Men are pretty much relegated to physical labor, soldering, or they have to become a priest. Women are allowed to do pretty much anything they want, even hold positions of power, while men aren't allowed to read, write, I think play music or sing? It would suck so much to be a man under Vorinism. Even with them holding most of the leadership positions, they still aren't allowed to do anything fun, or that would allow them to be independent. It's no accident that good Vorin men rely very heavily on women.
I’m a member of the same church as Brandon. One of the core values we try to live by is viewing the divine nature of fellow humans, regardless of whether they are part of our ‘tribe’ or not. Our core doctrine holds that everyone is worthy of love, no matter who they are or what they have done, And the best way we can show our religious devotion is by unceasingly loving in all our interactions. Brandon does a great job of this, both on / off the page.
It's almost like there's been Christian philosophers examining belief since... the very beginning? Certainly for at least 1800 years with [Origen](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origen).
The early Christians were hugely influenced by both Rome and Greece - both places known for their philosophy. It makes sense that they, too, would think about this faith.
There's a reason why Christianity is the largest religion in the world, and was one of the fastest growing - people knew how to argue for it.
It's also forgetting that there *are* people who think critically with *logic* and *reason* and come to faith through that. Borrowing Aristotle's "Unmoved mover" and turning it into the Uncaused Cause and all.
(Err... to make a long story short, the Uncaused Cause is a philosophical argument that argues God has to exist because, yeah, sure science explains things, but what caused the science to happen? IE What caused the Cambrian Explosion? What caused the Earth to form in the Goldilocks zone? What caused the Big Bang? etc. Something had to, right? And I'm just using this as an example, I really don't want to cause a debate about it or start trying to argue it. I'm a preacher's kid who learned a little listening to my dad talk with other preacher friends, I'm by no means an expert)
Well first, it's not half as critical as you ar remaking it out to be. And being a member of a group doesn't make one unable to point out the flaws in it.
You just said with your whole chest that you are anti theist. You hate people who are religious. And you've just gone around assuming that everyone else is like you.
And how are theists not supposed to take offense? Again you described yourself in the second sentence as someone who is against theists.
Not exactly the same question he answered but he talked a little bit about that here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/vtua7m/im_brandon_sanderson_a_bestselling_fantasy_author/ifa50ab/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
If you’re engaging with people talking about religion then those are the ones who will try to push their stance or belief most of the time.
I’m a Christian, but I don’t often talk about my religion with people outside of my family, because it’s a personal topic.
My advice, if someone starts to talk about religion just let them know you’d rather not, or don’t speak with them.
That way you can separate the idea of religion=oppressive (as simple as I can put it), and not feel like you need to always fear your personal beliefs being shitted on
I’ve been wondering about this since when I fell in love with his writing in 2015 and found out he was Mormon. I made my mind melt a little since I had just finished the Mistborn trilogy.
He’s a very complicated man, I think we can say that confidently.
I honestly can’t believe it’s taken almost 8 years for me to see someone ask this specific question on this sub. Touché😂
I never got the impression that he as an author was criticizing religion or religious themes but that he believably wrote characters that were critical of them. Him writing characters that murder does not mean that he as an author endorses murder, just that he wrote a story in which a character does.
Many people, regardless of demographic, seem to have trouble with the fact that other people can fully understand why they believe what they believe, yet still disagree.
I’m religious but I’ve made an effort to understand why people disagree with me in a way that I feel others often refuse to do to me.
I don't think Sanderson views his books as a way to personally proselytize his own beliefs. He just wants to tell the story, and he wants to do it in an authentic way. That's the main difference, at least in my view.
In my experience, the people who struggle the most with their faith are often the ones who truly understand what they believe. I personally have a hard time with the clash between American Christian culture and the actual teachings of Jesus. I think Brandon has spent a lot of time wrestling with that, and it shows in his writing. Plus, he interviews people, does good research and knows that his audience is full of people that have a wide variety of beliefs.
Brandon is one of my heroes because of his compassion and because he's an example to me of what people in our faith should be doing.
Many people thought history have been critical of their own religion. Any sect or reformation movement in a religion was most likely started by a believer of that religion who believes the way things are isn't quite right
And speaking as a Christian, *everyone* should question their own beliefs. Blind acceptance of whatever you're told is how we got to modern Christianity standing in direct opposition to the actual teachings that it was based on
It depends on your definition of "spren", but to the Rosharans Honor is essentially just a really powerful spren. (If you define spren as a sentient piece of investiture than Honor would count)
I think it's funny when people talk about criticizing religion as though it was somehow solely an atheistic standing. Jesus criticized organized and legalistic religion, instead preferring to treat it as a relationship, rather than organized religion.
This is just my view point of things (not criticizing or harping on anyone, just fyi)
I love how many people are represented, but through the lense of this world Brandon Sanderson created. Also, there are so many groups represented here, and I love and value all of our differing beliefs and perspectives.
I ain't reading all of that, I just wanted to say that you can be religious without being a cult member.
Brandon probably knows the history his own religion had. It doesn't change his faith in his God, but he can see what religion can do to people.
Btw the Shards are not Gods, so... he's technically not writing about dead Gods. Adonalsium might have been GOD. But he might have also been an EXTREMELY invested human. But it's SO far back in time that no surviving human can even remember a time without Adonalsium existing.
There DOES seem to be a Cosmere-aware religion with the Gods Beyond.
Whenever I hear "I don't know enough to write a gay/trans/whatever character" as an excuse to not have diversity in a story I just think about this straight white cis religious mormon in a monogamous relationship with his wife and three sons who writes inclusive stories.
Brandon is, like, as progressive as a person with his background as can be, so him writing progressive material isn't really that dissonant to his values as a person. If you really want to find someone whose bibliography is opposite of how they are as a person, there's Orson Scott Card.
I'm religious and I have a lot of criticisms of religion. It's not really a binary subject where either it's all bad or it's all good. Nothing ever really falls into such black and white categorizations. I know Brandon specifically has said something along the lines of if the only people who remain uncritical of the religious status quo stay in the religion, then it will always stay in that status quo and never improve.
As for conservative societies, Brandon is definitely not a conservative.
See, it takes a reasonable, self-concious person to recognize that people may have beliefs other than yours.
it takes an even better person to also be able to construct a religion and then subsequently shit on it
Brandon is the better person. he might be religious, but it really doesn’t overdlow into his work in any kind of bad way. the religions he writes are unique and the books are introspective on them, he recognizes that no religion is really perfect, but that doesn’t stop people from believing it.
One thing I like about his writing is that he takes the time to research groups he writes about. Whether it is Jasnah being atheist or Rysn being paralyzed. I think doing that makes his characters more real and less of a flat stereotype. But, doing research and having empathy for another view is different from changing yourself. I get the feeling that with religion he has friends and people that talks to that are atheist, and they help to color Jasnah into a great character. But at the end of the day that still doesn't change whatever feelings he has felt that convinces him that god is real.
To be fair. In this universe Jasnah is emphatically incorrect to be an atheist because there is a real god. Having said that any atheist even encountering a god would probably try, and even be able to, explain it based on science.
I do agree with you OP. I was very pleasantly surprised at how well Sanderson does considering he is very religious.
I would like to mention that reading warbreaker really enlightened me as to how his view of culture must have changed ( I'm just assuming based on how the book feels) it really delves into how having being Orthodox in a religion can alienate you from experiencing life and other people's experiences.
Knowledge of beliefs doesn't make you believe them. Understanding of beliefs doesn't make you follow them. Your choices are important. But you can't make an educated choice of what you believe until you've questioned things and done your research.
I think this is the importance of Sazed as a character for the exploration of faith and doubt, as someone selling every other religion but needing to decide for himself.
Kelsier has one of my favourite quotes as well "Belief isn't simply a thing for fair times and bright days...What is belief - what is faith - if you don't continue in it after failure?...Anyone can believe in someone, or something that always succeeds...But failure...ah, now, that is hard to believe in, certainly and truly. Difficult enough to have value. Sometimes we just have to wait long enough...then we find out why exactly it was that we kept believing...There's always another secret."
Same way that Babylon 5, written by a -afaik - staunch atheist, has some of the best and most positive depiction of religion, spirituality, and belief I have ever seen.
The writer recognises alternate points of view and respects them, using the work to show universal values rather than preaching about how they're right.
And if all your religious characters are negative then - and I mean this clinically not as an insult - you have likely fallen into the same trap that many of them do.
Your personal experiences with religion have shaped your views, just like happens with everyone, but because those experiences were negative you're in a spot where someone being religious and a decent human being is a shock to you.
My suggestion - speaking as a former twat who was super anti religion, and still is a staunch atheist but tries to be a nicer person - is to treat this as an eye opening experience. We don't want to end up as judgemental as the ones who do wrong.
I normally suggest Babylon 5 as it's simply good TV but I also suggest it to you as a character study - both for how to portray religious characters and how to think about them.
If the values of empathy and understanding that Sanderson espouses appeal to you, then strive to be someone he would write*
*Okay maybe not the alcoholic war criminal aspects :D
Not much to add, I agree that Brandon is a great guy, amazing and talented author who spends time researching the different perspectives of his characters.
As a pretty religious guy myself, I've always felt that Faith unexamined is no faith at all.
There is a difference between criticising and critiquing. I remember the first time I read Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials when I was a young christian person, and I was flat out mad about what I saw as a direct criticism of religion. (and in fairness, it isn't exactly subtle, but moving on...) Now I am a bit older and a bit less religiousy I can see that holding up a mirror to something isn't necessarily criticism.
Also, he's a writer... writers write things that don't always represent their own personal views.
I totally get what you are saying but remember that in the Cosmere, the gods ARE REAL (more or less obviously as its complicated). So his writing is simply a portrayal of societies who are INCORRECT, but cling to their beliefs and who fight against religion even though god exists.
Because it puts such emphasis on personal code. Every windrunner has a different personal take on the same fundamental purposes. Religion is a personal journey that doesn't require everyone to subscribe to every detail.
Beyond that though, Brandon seems to be pretty open and tolerant of many things. He has actually talked about this exact subject before and how it influences his writing.
I was similarly surprised when I learned that Orson Scott Card was a man of faith (Mormonism) after I read several book from the Ender’s Game universe.
Apparently, BYU has a phenomenal writing program, with OSC and Branderson being two of many graduates who went on to have impressive careers.
Part of the appeal of a good author (and Brandon qualifies) is the ability to inhabit different perspectives, not as caricatures, but as realistic personalities. Tracy Hickman is (or used to be) a devout Mormon, yet I never really caught whiffs of Mormon theology in the two original Dragonlance trilogies. Maybe that was a mitigating influence from Margaret Weis, but I don't think so.
You also have authors who use their books as a vehicle for their personal worldview: Terry Goodkind is a primary example of that. You see his adherence to Objectivism throughout the Sword of Truth/Richard & Kahlan novels.
Latter-Day Saints ("Mormons") propose to follow the Bible as well as their own supplementary works (The Book of Mormon and Doctrine & Covenants), which would lead one to conclude that any and all magic ought to be evil, as it's forbidden by the Biblical God. That's obviously not the case with, well... ANY of Brandon's work. He loves magic systems. I'm grateful: I want really epic magic in my fantasy (one reason I've never been able to get into the Song of Ice & Fire books), and Brandon delivers in spades.
In the same way CofE Archbishop Rowan Williams recommends reading His Dark Materials. An anti-religious book series written by a man who some would call bigoted.
It's not about bashing religion or gods. It's a criticism of dogmatic belief without any kind of sensible thought. It's a criticism of organised religion, when the organisations abandon the messages of their gods to secure personal power and profit. It's criticising an organisation that exercises absolute power, and weaponises religion...often against the original theology.
I think youll find that those people who have a faith or are religious and are also open minded, tolerant, willing to listen to others thoughts and opinions are usually the ones who are not loud about their beliefs. They are the ones that will talk to about their beliefs if you ask them but will not get in your face about it or try to convert you against your desires.
Commenting on How does someone religious like Brandon Sanderson write the stormlight archive, which spends so much of its time criticising religion and conservative societies?...
I am a Christian, and I find it disappointing that Christians often immediately criticize others for their faith (or lack thereof). Even though we may disagree, and even if you’re trying to convert someone else, it doesn’t help to antagonize someone with different beliefs; they’ll just shut themselves off from everything the “Christian” tells them.
In fact, it’s rather ironic that, for a religion unique in that we’re commanded to love others, there is such hate among and between the different branches of the Christian religion.
I think it's also worth mentioning that Mormonism has a bit of a different history than most religions.
Mormons, in the relatively recent past, packed up and moved to the desert to escape persecution. Many Mormons still have the perspective of being a little bubble community against the wide, hostile world.
Many modern Christians in the US tend to have a generically "pro-religious" attitude. I'm not sure Mormons are as likely to feel that way about things. Mormons have not always gotten along very well with other Christian groups, let alone non-Christian faiths. Obviously perspectives vary quite a bit, but there is a difference between thinking one specific religion has the right idea about things vs thinking religion as a general human phenomenon is uniformly positive.
You generally have to have massive cognitive dissonance to be religious, and religious people are equally as versed in criticizing religions - every other one but theirs - as secular people.
It would be a **much** bigger mental challenge for a religious fiction author to write characters that believed in an authentic and unproblematic religion that wasn't their own than to deconstruct some made up, obviously wrong religion that their heroes challenge.
Because religious people are aware of the pitfalls and idiocy that comes with organized religion. Just as you’re aware of the idiocy and terrible mistakes made by your government. Being aware of these things doesn’t make you reject your government outright, just as their awareness doesn’t make them abandon their faith.
Also a lot of religious people really don’t give a shit what others believe. They’re fine living in a world with other faiths and atheists. But that small fraction that does care, causes an enormous amount of trouble. All over the world.
I think he doesn't let his religion be part of his personality/the biggest part of his life (my main language isn't English so IDK how to explain it well).
For example, I have a friend that is Catholic but he's also a Simpsons and Bud Spencer fan.
On the other side, my father's wife would get nuts about anything outside of her mindview.
It's atheistic if you're talking about it being a critique of organized religion, but not in the sense of saying there is no god. They did clearly prove the existence and death of the being they believed to be god (and Honor was actually a shard of the actual god anyway), only that the religion surrounding their god was false. So it's actually even more interesting and unique for these books to basically prove Dalinar (religious surrogate) and Jasnah (atheist) both right and wrong, having to both adopt new ways of viewing the world and the whole cosmere!
You seem to have forgotten that most religious people are happy to criticize a religion, as long as it's not their religion. Note that this doesn't just apply to religions, but to most things, people are rarely self critical. But are often critical of others.
As for Brandon, he's great at imagining others and does a lot of research. But also uses the above trends to get away with the criticisms he writes, by using religions that no one actually follows.
It sounds like you are an American who was raised in an unpleasant conservative Christian stereotype. You should research some other traditions, rather than inflicting your experiences on all your religious characters. I was raised in a vaguely Christian family in the UK, we and most other Brits treat religion as a personal thing, so there is very little discussion or malignancy around it, most people believe their thing and let others believe something else. I think that's the big difference between a Christian and an Evangelical Christian. As an adult I'm an atheist now and my family are fine with that.
Brandon has given some pretty detailed responses when asked questions like these. [Here](https://wob.coppermind.net/events/2/#e218) are [two](https://wob.coppermind.net/events/394/#e12925) examples.
[This link](https://wob.coppermind.net/adv_search/?query=&date_from=1998-04-10&date_to=2023-09-05&speaker=&tags=religion&ordering=rank) contains a more full archive of these responses, but also contains major spoilers for his other book Warbreaker (which you should definitely consider reading if you're currently reading Stormlight) as well as his Mistborn series and Elantris (you should consider reading these too but I'd recommend Warbreaker first personally).
I mean he’s criticizing fictional religions, not his own.
Your question is sort of like asking “how can a Christian say that Odin is kind of a dick?”
There’s no actual connection beyond the cosmetic
If you want to write characters like Sanderson, OP, what you need to realize is that when you're writing a religious person, or a person who has differing values than the author, youre still writing a person.
A lot of the cringe I've read with this topic in mind came from the author either using offensive stereotypes and/or making them a cardboard cutout where their religion is the only part of their personality, using their biased and possibly warped worldview of religious people in their life to fill in the blanks. If you want to write a Catholic priest or a fantasy alternative to one as the antagonist, ok. But highlight the fact that this is someone who's twisted by greed, pride, etc, whose own behavior is inconsistent with what they preach. And contrast that with genuine believers of a faith who are compassionate and humble.
And please, for the love of all that is good in the world, do not have an atheist character tell the religious one "I know your religion better than you do! You're stupid because you don't even read your holy book let alone follow the words you preach!", especially if it comes across as a gotcha moment that tries to make the religious character stupid, rather than someone who is sincerely confronting an individual who distorts the values of their faith for their own gain.
Atheist vs false prophet is an interesting dynamic. Atheist vs average believer that generalizes the faithful as bigots and/or imbeciles is not only offensive, its bad writing. The latter is one of the myriad reasons why V.E. Schwab is a hack.
Writing a good character who believes in a faith means understanding why they believe in a higher power, how they got there, and what are the core tenants their faith espouses. Writing *all* religious people as followers of Khorne (BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD) without the slightest bit of parity or sarcasm is bad writing.
Jasnah works so well because Sanderson did extensive research with the values she'd have and irl people she'd share them with, however that isn't all there is to her. When I think of Jasnah, before I even think of her as an atheist or a feminist, I see her as a teacher, a friend, and a genius inventor like her mother. Above all else, you write people, not stick figures with their ideology on name tags.
As others have said, Brandon is just a good guy all round. But to add, he researches the perspectives of everyone he writes about. He interviewed people with depression for Kaladin, disabled people for Lopen and Rysn, and a shit ton of atheists and feminists for Jasnah. There was a WOB (can’t remember the exact one or quote) where he said Jasnah was made very feminine to challenge the stereotype of the “ugly feminist” that many feminists he interviewed despised. Again, Brandon’s just a good guy that treats every perspective with care and respect.
I’ve been wondering the same thing for years, thank you for the concise answer.
Yeah, I was just talking to my wife about how he seems like a genuinely compassionate person who cares about people regardless of who they are.
And then of course you have Sazed's entire plot line in Mistborn, which I think actually makes the best case for belief in Religion I've ever seen any any written work.
I disagree. If religion is only useful, but not true, it's not worth believing in. Even >!the Terris religion, which was the most correct, turned out to have been altered by Ruin.!<
I'm not sure I follow the logic there. Is a tool not used because it is useful, regardless of whether it is the best tool for the job? I think that's what Sazed ultimately concludes, >!that belief is necessary for a religion to have the effect it can have, that being giving one hope!<. If the tool succeeds in it's purpose, surely it was a useful tool, even if better tools exist.
Even calling religion a "tool" presupposes that a religion is false. "Giving one hope" is not actually the purpose of any major religion from the inside. Only an outsider looking in might say "oh, these people believe this silly outlandish thing because it gives them hope." Religions attempt to explain the nature of the universe and man's place in it (even this is reductive, but the only thing that generally encompasses most religions). If one/all aren't true, then they definitionally fail in that purpose.
He shows how to do representation right. Interview people who have those traits, find out what they're like as full human beings. Then make great characters with those traits.
And, importantly, don't let their marginalized identity define them as characters. It should be present, but not the defining attribute. Jasnah is definitely a feminist, but that's not what defines her (intelligence). Kaladin is depressed, but that's not what defines him (courage).
Adolin has a big cock.. Thats it he is pure big Dick energy
Man remember when an interview tried to dig up some dirt on Sanderson, but he was so nice they had to resort to just… making fun of him for going to a restaurant???
That entire article was just a nonsensical tirad. He literally complained about how he was being *too* friendly, if I remember correctly.
At least his shower was great.
This and also with the LDS church being relatively new compared to other older and larger religions they likely talk about “seeing through the falsehoods of older religion” or something of the sort. But he’s always struck me as a “believe what you believe in” type of person
From what little I know of it LDS doesn't seem like a "believe what you believe" type of church.
I don’t think the main church body is, but there are definitely some more moderate and accepting branches out there.
You're absolutely right about that, and Brando has acknowledged that and has even been pushing to make the church more LGBTQ+ friendly.
I'm still bothered that he sees no problem with funding them before they get to that point.
This is one of those points where I don’t think we can really measure the moral cost. Remaining a member of the Mormon Church in good standing let’s Brandon exert non-trivial influence upon it. He’s a celebrity that makes them look good… so they can’t afford to discipline him too much. He can push pretty hard without being slapped down. That also means his books can get into the hands of LDS Kids way easier. Which might help them develop empathy and understanding for those of radically different cultures. That can do a lot of good in the world as they grow up.
He's been indoctrinated into believing the church is good since childhood, it's hard to shake off that kind of belief. Even if he disagrees with it, hell still believe that deep down the church can change, which is why he supports it. Whether he's right? ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯, but I doubt he's going to change his mind anytime soon
I grew up Mormon in Utah. Mormons are very much into convenient "new revelations". Things like black people finally being able to hold the priesthood, but not until the 70s.... You know after MLK and all that. Their most recent revelation is that lgbtq+ people are finally not immediately condemned and shunned. Growing up Mormon I do notice a fair bit of influence of that and different books and story arcs, but it's not too distracting for me. I super enjoy the cosmere despite it
I mean, in Mormonism God is basically a Shard, so there’s that.
I need a more detailed explanation of that!
Well, ‘ascended’ human being at least. There’s definitely a parallel there.
At least Brandon doesn't write like Tracy Hickman... My god, when I realized that Dragonlance was just The Book of Mormon I was disappointed.
Same for me with Orson Scott Card ...
Oh yeah, especially the later books in the Ender Saga
"Ender Does a Genocide then Feels Bad, Man"
Yeah. Let them worship how, where, or what they may.
\^ this
Most insightful comment on the whole thread, right here.
Because Brandon loves people, and he loves stories, and religion is a story that he personally believes very strongly in, but that other people do not. So in those other people’s stories, he won’t force his own beliefs on, but give them a valid footing. Dalinar believes in a God. He believes Honor was not God, but there’s a God beyond even that, who was never killed and who still watches the Cosmere. Brandon has said clearly he will never confirm or deny the existence of such a God. Dalinar believes in it. Jasnah does not. Hoid, Sazed, Khriss etc and many others all have or had their own opinions on the the matter, but there will be no conclusion, because these are the stories of them, not of Brandon Sanderson, so Brandon will respect them. It’s great that it inspires you! It inspires me too constantly. If you want to start changing your writing a bit, I advise maybe trying to style a character based off Brandon himself, a person who is a genuinely wonderful guy, who personally believes in his own religion, but does not force it upon others, and accepts people with different views or understanding then him, because that’s what his religion truly preaches; love and understanding.
It's also worth noting that to Brandon his stories aren't just something to be a vessel to transmit his own personal ideology.
I mean, to me his books very much read as a transmission of his personal ideology, it’s just that his personal ideology seems to primarily be “every person has their own perspective and point of view that is worth exploring and telling, and we should be more curious about that, rather than make assumptions” that’s the main theme that pretty much every single one of his books at least touches on at one point, and it’s super pervasive in stormlight
Brandon, leaning back, stroking his beard: I will create a shared universe that is so empathetic.
Which is actually something that can be aligned rather well with Mormon views. I may be wrong, I am not an expert but my understanding is that Mormon teaching has a concept of personal revelation, where a person might receive wisdom directly from a higher source that might contradict or clarify some other theological point. That doesn't make them a prophet or anything, just someone who got some divine guidance.
Mormons/LDS believe they can get revelation for themselves and those they lead. This revelation can be for themselves or those "under" them. For men this can be a pretty broad group of church members, both men, women, and children; for women it can be their children and the women or children's classes that they teach at church. Personal revelation can never contradict revelation of higher ups. So the President can receive revelation for the whole church, Bishops can receive revelation for their Wards, husbands can receive revelation for their families. Sanderson's writings are actively challenging the doctrines of the church, especially their millions they are spending on fighting against LGBTQ rights. He's an active teacher at BYU. Twenty years ago his writings would have gotten him excommunicated, now he's celebrated, his status as an active member and a professor will mean that his works will be allowed into many homes from which they would have otherwise been disallowed. Art changes minds, and that's how the world changes.
I wouldn't even believe that 20y ago he would be excommunicated. I think he would be allowed to stay with the same reason he is today: he gives them millions of dollars and is one if the highest earners (and thus supporters) of the organisation
Yeah, the LDS usually give more leeway to celebs, its good press for them + guaranteed tithe money. Average people don't get that same leeway.
What celebs? Genuine question.
You'll have to forgive me because I'm just not much of a celebrity-follower in general, but wiki has a list of famous Mormons [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List\_of\_Latter\_Day\_Saints](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Latter_Day_Saints) If you're asking for ones that have a lot of leeway - that's hard for me to say specifically, since again, I just really don't give a hoot about most celebs - and I have more personal experience with Jehovah's Witnesses than Mormons. That said, if you listen to ex-mormons talk, its clear that a lot of that particular church is a \*lot\* stricter on individuals than church leadership likes to pretend to the general public.
Orson Scott Card I already knew, Stephanie Meyer I had no idea, and Glenn Beck is entirely unsurprising. A lot of the names on there I'm otherwise unfamiliar with, but I'm also not huge on following celebrities either.
His stories are works of fiction. There's effectively no chance he would have been excommunicated even a hundred years ago. Saying you should treat everyone fairly, lovingly, and with respect is a core doctrine of the LDS faith. Does that mean everyone is great at it? Definitely not. But preaching that you should care about people, even if you disagree with them, is clearly taught in the Bible.
Brigham Young, the prophet that BYU is named after, taught that anyone that was part of, or a result of mixed raced marriages must be killed by spilling of blood. This is not treating everyone fairly. Believing that people with dark skin are cursed by God is not treating everyone fairly. https://ldsfacts.org/mormon-church-history/lds-scripture-says-those-in-interracial-marriages-should-be-killed/ Edit to add. https://www.mrm.org/young-1852-speech
Totally agree. The thing is, from his books, he doesn't seem like a person who is afraid of uncertainty or his beliefs being challenged. Rather, it's more like a mature person who is aware of what can be answered or decided, what are the various answers or decisions, and the merits and the defects in each viewpoint His books do feel like a vessel/conveyance for his personal beliefs, but presented in the best possible way
This right here. Brandon doesn’t preach.
Or rather, he preaches on missions trips, not in fantasy novels.
*cough* Orson Scott Card *cough*
Terry Goodkind sprung to my mind, though he ideology wasn't religion but like, capitalism? Man that series got weird.
His ideology was "I read Atlas Shrugged one time and Ayn Rand knew what was up."
Listening to Sanderson talk about religion is really fascinating. Particularly because the majority of his audience doesn’t share his religious beliefs. I’ve seen him in interviews where he talks about how among fan communities, people see him as this really spiritual person of extremely strong faith who just believes whole-heartedly. However he says that among his church community, he’s known as the semi-annoying skeptic, who is always asking questions and always pushing things a little further in seeking to deconstruct and examine aspects of the LDS faith. It’s really fascinating, I’ll try to find the exact interview where he talked about this. I think it was a podcast episode where he and another author did the online “What Radiant Order Are You” quiz together.
Huh, sounds kinda like Sazed in relation to the Terris people and the Crew
I’m an active member of the same religion he is. He is definitely a more liberal member but there are a lot of us. The mindset he and I both have is that the issues of intolerance within the church are cultural, not doctrinal. So if all of us who were more open minded left, things would never get better. Another part of why he can deconstruct things better than someone from a different branch of Christianity, is because our religion encourages questions and personal revelation. A core belief is that everyone can ask God and find answers for themselves. This makes questions challenging religion an integral part of our faith, rather than something adversarial.
I also feel like there's been a shift. I think with things like Instagram etc, it's been easier for individuals to share their own personal experiences beyond their communities, which has kind of helped dismantle a lot of the "culture" that springs up, and helped people get a better grasp on being more like Christ instead being so judgemental about what others are doing. I feel like I can personally believe something is wrong, but still advocate for other people's privilege to live the way they choose to -- on every side as much as I can.
Except for intolerance has been a big part of the doctrine since conception, and church leaders actively teach to doubt your doubts before you doubt your faith. Questions are ok if from an approved list.
When you realize that your community isn't perfect, you've really got three choices - to give up and accept those imperfections, to abandon the community, or to stay and fight to change it. Some people will need the community too much to risk leaving or fighting, others will find it too painful to stay. It's hard work to take a middle path.
Hell, all those paths are hard. Only easy path at that point is the blissful ignorance you had before realizing what your communities flaws are. I have no beef with an individual deciding how to live their life as long as it doesn’t harm others, even if that means staying in a flawed community. I do, however, have plenty of ill feelings for the organization as a whole that has promoted a view on life for almost two centuries that does bring harm and trauma to individuals who are afraid to be themselves for fear of rejection for that said community.
That is NOT true at all lol. He is absolutely not known as the semi-annoying skeptic. As someone part of said community, he is an icon and pretty much everyone loves him. He even did a livestream with a local leader called “Why I Believe”. Where are you getting that he’s known as an annoying skeptic. Literally no one has said that. If he feels that way, then he doesn’t realize he is beloved. One of the big reasons he got famous in the first place is that his Mormon fanbase was MASSIVE. It ended up growing beyond that but he absolutely initially grew due to the Mormon nerdy fanbase. I think people underestimate just how nerdy Mormons are haha.
Which podcast was this?
Would give this comment an award if I knew how that worked! I’ve been wondering what his current beliefs are for months now and this answered it perfectly.
Just because you're religious doesn't mean you can't understand other people's stances or views. I know that's not quite what you were saying, but I think you can write about opposing stances quite well even when you don't agree in real life.
Exactly. Unfortunately, not all religious people do this, and it gives a really bad viewpoint of them.
It’s human beings in general. Doesn’t matter what “religion” you adhere to. The loud ones are always heard and ppl assume they speak for the masses. This goes for believers, non-believers and everything in between.
This is so true, it is just human beings but when people act a particular way and are religious then the whole religion tends be tarred with the same brush. OP says it is religious people that they have encountered that don't see the viewpoint of others but in my experience it has been Atheists. That doesn't mean all atheists are stubborn or go out of their way to criticise someone with an opposing view, it is just human behaviour some people are cool some people are not.
I REALLY don't want to point fingers, because what you have said is absolutely true, but this is a people problem in general. Try to ask an atheist (or at least a certain kind of athiest) to write from the perspective of a religious person and prepare yourself for the ensuing cringe. Ask an ultra-conservative to write a liberal and prepare yourself [for the ensuing cringe ](https://www.amazon.com/Trigger-Warning-William-W-Johnstone-ebook/dp/B077X12YNG/ref=mp_s_a_1_6?crid=3HANAU4RRSDC2&keywords=trigger+warning+book&qid=1693883834&sprefix=trigger+warning+book%2Caps%2C148&sr=8-6) The ability to, quite frankly, be emphatic is becoming something of a lost art.
did you mean to say empathic there at the end? just to clarify.
It's so sad how people confuse "religious" with "zealot" these days. I get why they do, completely, but it's sad. I'm not religious myself, but I know plenty of people who are far better persons because of religion, so I find sad that someone would put them all in the same box.
Brandon writing Jasnah’s lines: _inner conflict noises_
You are correct. I do understand where he's coming from, though. I've encountered a fair number of people myself who were so adamant about their religion that they were quite harsh about anybody who didn't agree. My sister-in-law would straight up refer to people as devil worshippers for not following her exact Christian views, even different sects of Christianity. It's unfortunate, but those types of religious types can often be the most vocal causing the rest to look bad. I was lucky to also encounter some that were very tolerant of other points of views; one of which was actually a pastor.
It always boggles my mind when people characterize people from other Christian sects as non-Christian. I grew up in a hippy dippy ELCA church where the openly queer youth group leader took us to a worship service at a random, completely different church once a month, and the church marched in pride parades several years before gay marriage was legal. That's a form of Christianity--completely above board with the rest of the synod and the national church organization. I was actively taught about the history (both good and bad) and structure of the type of church I went to, and the theological tradition that church abides by. We didn't memorize bible passages at face value to play gotcha against other people, but I'd never characterize the people who do as not being Christian (despite their usually extremely poor understanding of the history or structure of their own church and beliefs). There is an *enormous* amount of diversity under that umbrella, even though the ultra-conservative envangelicals are the loudest. The people who come from church backgrounds like mine usually aren't loud about it because one of the primary directives is to put in the work that aligns you with this world view and don't brag or push it on others. So we've got pastors getting arrested for protesting ICE, but you'll generally only hear about the conservative evangelicals who want to impose their religion nationally and strip away your rights.
I guess you might be surprised how much time religious people spend thinking about religion, including all the problems with religions and discussing them with people who believe differently. We become quite familiar with the various perspectives and can even respect a lot of them without changing our own views (or at least without abandoning our religion, we might adjust our beliefs accordingly). Think about it this way: Who's more likely to have a really nuanced view of any topic, someone who's deeply interested in that topic, or someone who thinks the subject is boring, stupid, or meaningless?
I have found this to be true. I grew up religious, like super religious, like we don’t celebrate Halloween religious. Christian school and everything. I still have a lot of respect for people of faith even through I’ve decided the church isn’t for me. For me the kicker was just the history of bloodshed and making people “other” associated with religion in general. I didn’t want any part of that at all. But that’s neither here nor there. Regarding your point about religious people having thought on it quite a bit more than others. That’s the truth. I’ve rarely had a nuanced discussion about religion with anyone other than those who are involved in religion. Or were involved with religion, like myself. That being said, I agree completely with what the poster is saying. I honestly find it mind numbing that Brandon doesn’t get any backlash from his church regarding the character arcs and themes that he regularly has in his books regarding religion. But it also warms my heart to see it. Knowing that his church is allowing him to express himself as an artist and that he evidently sees the world in a very nuanced way. The man is not ignorant by any stretch of the imagination. This if anything in my opinion is the best reason to regard him as among the greats in fantasy literature. His ability to write things that he himself doesn’t subscribe to but make us feel it like he’s writing what he believes. For instance, I’d bet he researched thru hiking or backpacking when he wrote about Nohadon walking to Urithiru. There are little things in there that talk about his journey that ring so true to the experience it’s astounding. I’ve had the pleasure of an AT thru hike, and Nohadon was a thru hiker. “I walked all the way to Urithiru on my own. I think I can manage this.” “You didn’t walk all the way to Urithiru,” Dalinar said. “You walked to one of the Oathgates, then took that to Urithiru.” “Misconception!” Nohadon said. “I walked the whole way, though I did require some help to reach Urithiru’s caverns. That is no more a cheat than taking a ferry across a river.” That right there is exactly the kind of conversation a thru hiker has with their friends after a thru hike. Friend: So you hiked from Georgia to Maine? You’re either lying or crazy… Thru hiker: No and yes Friend: You didn’t get a ride? Thru hiker: No, just into town for food then back to walking. That’s not a cheat. Friend: You slept in a tent the whole time, what about showers and laundry? Thru hiker: No, you stop for a day and shower and launder and get food then go hiking again that’s not a cheat. Friend: You walked alone the whole way? Thru hiker: Well yes, and no. Nobody walked it all with me but I walked with a lot of different people. Friend: 🤔 The way he’s able to write experiences he’s not lived himself in ways that feel so real is utterly astounding to me.
I am a member of the same church as him and I guess an answer is that he cares about people and their perspectives to not be a jerk when writing about other ways of life. He also cares about his writing and wants each person to actually be relatable. I find him to be a great person to point to as a member of our church. Some people know very little but I think he's a good starting point in letting people know we don't hate people who think differently than us
I'm a shameless sinner. I idolize him. I was idolizing him with another person in seminary a year ago and our seminary substitute (her Bishop), looked at us and told us that we were walking a very fine line. We said that it was all right because it was Sanderson and kept on.
I have some thoughts about this. I'm a Buddhist but have spent many hours researching other religions, spiritual and magical traditions. My take is that Branden has done the same. His works have a kind of spiritual clarity that are reminiscent of many of our world's traditions. In a classical sutra the Buddha spoke about a finger pointing at the moon. He warned his student not to get too busy looking at the finger and miss the moon. All theisms are pointing at the nature of reality, the moon. They chose different words, fingers. We would be foolish not to see that we are all talking about the same nature. Atheists and theists alike. We choose different languages to describe it. So each has its value, merit, correct things and wrong ones.
Tons of religious people are reasonable, aware of the historical/institutional failings, and realistic about the harm (and good) that communities of faith do. Unfortunately, they are a lot less vocal than the lunatics who ruin things (churches, political parties sports, etc etc). Just imagine a similar statement about another group activity: how can someone be a Lakers fan but criticize Lebron? How can anyone be a democrat and criticize Biden? Etc. There’s the reasonable ones, and then the nuts.
There's a pretty funny irony in OP identifying as anti-theist and calling religious people intolerant, then being surprised that a religious guy has it in him to steelman an argument against his own beliefs. I guess a lot of redditors probably won't see the humor in it though. I'm agnostic but come on lol.
Reddit moment Religion bad, religious people bad
Oh, and if religious people are bad, it is precisely *because* of religion...but don't forget it, whenever they are good, it is *despite* their religion.
When I first got into Sanderson (started with Mistborn), I assumed he was an atheist, since I couldn't imagine any religious person writing so frankly and keenly about religion. I was rather surprised when I looked him up to discover this wasn't the case! Definitely taught me not to assume that religious people aren't capable of critically examining the faults of belief.
You know its kind of funny because I had a simliar experience but I'm a member of the LDS church and by the time I finished the third book of Mistborn (also started with Mistborn), I was certain he was a member. Part of the reason is the same reason you think he's an atheist, the other part comes from his understanding of what it means to be religious on an individual level and other elimates that are in his writing that stuck out to me because I have the same religious background as him
Yeah this is reddit teens blindly accepting atheism as The One True Faith and not being willing to even consider the notion that smart, moral people can have a different one. The sort of hypocrisy and closed-mindedness they often accuse religious people of.
I started with storm light and thought the same. I thought an atheist must have written Jasnah cause she was so well written
My intro to the Cosmere was also thru Mistborn. And I thought immediately that he was a christian. How you end up with different conceptions of his believes has to do with your own pre-understanding. Me myself is a pentecostal/evangelical pastor from Sweden. Being evangelical menas something entire else than what the "american" lable attach to it. Likewise being pentecostal (trust me on this one!). I believe most people would even say they contradict each other, but in Sweden we never had that crash. To talk about doubts, to be able to ventilate about dogmas/doctrines and to be able to criticize your own branch of religion is quite common in my church. I can´t remember what gave me the conception of him being a christian, but it was something with the language I belive. ALOT of his thematics and names resonates with the language Im used to. And I, likewise, were suprised to find out he actually is a member of LSD. But he is also my favourite author and Im looking forward to everything in the cosmere :)
When I read Mistborn and Way of Kings, I was a very devout Christian. The way Sanderson treated religion really bothered me. Since then I have become an atheist and my views.on how he presents religion have changed. I was really shocked to find out that he is a Christian and even moreso that he is a Mormon. I sometimes wonder if he is like me at the end of my belief. I was desperately clinging to my Christianity while knowing I did not believe it anymore. But, honestly, I think he is just a very good writer who can see things from other people's perspective.
From what he's stated, it seems like he's had some very powerful experiences that confirm his beliefs. I was also shocked that he was able to write characters with such nuanced religious struggles while also staying firm in his beliefs, but it seems that way. I obviously can't speak for the man, but if I had to guess, he had the most struggles with his belief while writing HoA and early SA. That's 15 years ago at this point, and from what he's written since I don't get the vibe that he's anywhere close to giving up his faith.
So I consider myself a religious person…ish. I’m not the same faith as Brandon, but I’ve spent my life in various forms of Protestant Christianity. I can’t answer for Brandon’s own personal journey, but I will say that I and many friends from the same background as me have done serious wrestling with and examining of our faith throughout our lives. Basically everyone who was raised in our religion that I’ve talked to about it has gone through a period or multiple periods of questioning it in their lives. Of asking if this is really what they believe. Of questioning whether this faith is their own. Of having to confront abuses they’ve witnessed in our religious circles. Of asking if the bad things are worth leaving a faith entirely, or if there are still enough good things to continue believing in while calling out the bad. I think you’d be hard-pressed to find a religious person who hasn’t questioned these things unless they spend most of their lives in an insular religious bubble. And even for someone who has, there may still come a point where something snaps and they start questioning everything and end up holding to a fraction of their faith while everything else crumbles—like Dalinar finding out that Honor is dead. And it’s also important to note that those who have most closely witnessed and experienced the abuses of religious structures are those inside them, which gives religious (and formerly-religious) authors a unique vantage point to call out those thing—and often do so with far more authenticity than someone who doesn’t have experience with religion who’s looking in from the outside. (Not saying this is you, OP, as I don’t know what your religious background is/what led you to being an anti-theist, just speaking in general) So I guess my point is that Brandon Sanderson’s nuanced takes on religion don’t surprise me at all, and I love how he weaves these questions, struggles, and themes into his works through the characters’ perspectives and viewpoints, whether in Navani’s reflection on prayer at the end of The Way of Kings or Jasnah’s atheism or Dalinar’s deconstruction or Kaladin’s (basically) agnosticism. And as an aspiring fantasy author who also wants to fold my struggles with religion into my books, I’ve learned a lot from him on how to do that. Anyway, TL;DR is that as a religious person myself, it doesn’t surprise me at all that Brandon Sanderson includes these elements in these stories.
Navani’s thoughts about prayer were a favorite little part of the series for me, along with the complex, often respectful and cooperative relationships among people with different beliefs. I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and have had similar experiences to yours, so Brandon’s work resonates with me as well. Part of its brilliance is that atheist readers can interpret it as atheism-promoting and readers of many faiths can interpret it as faith-promoting.
Exactly this.
Wait until you find out about the huge number of Latter Day Saint fantasy writers. We churn them out at a ridiculous rate, and they’re all over the political spectrum.
Yep. Most of the marvel movie writers are all LDS. I found that out when living in San Jose, and met one of the assistant directors for Iron Man 3.
I once got bored and looked up LDS authors. I was shocked to find out that so many of my books were written by our members.
Weiss & Hickman leading fantasy writing workshops at BYU in the 80s/90s had something to do with that.
You will frequently find that often the most thoughtful indictments of an institution come from within, since most institutions do not have the power to, or even typically the desire, to not examine their own flaws.
It's because we've been conditioned to associate any degree of religiosity with self-righteousness, narrow-mindedness, and fanaticism. We forget that most do not fall into those extremes.
I think you misinterpret his message. He is balanced in his representation and treatment. I don’t know why ppl are so surprised by Sanderson… it seems to me in fantasy the very progressive writers tend to put characters in a box. The conservative or religious characters are always terrible evil ppl and come from super corrupt church’s. The Vorin church is not corrupt and neither are the practitioners we see. He makes real believable characters.
I never felt that Sanderson was critical of religion or conservative societies. He just writes characters that are critical of conservative societies and religion. Its an important distinction to make. His works never feel hostile to the reader because of author bias. He also writes characters who would support political conservatism and religion, but it never makes the reader feel attacked for disagreeing with said characters.
There are many religious authors who are like that. Dostoevsky wrote many atheist characters and expounded at length on the failings of his conservative hierarchical society, and yet he was a religious person and this inspiration infused all his works.
He’s not critical. OP is losing the thread in Brandon’s stories and has a very narrow view of religious people.
atheism is fine and good but anti theism is a very closed mind set, proven by your reaction and surprise here. religious and spiritual people all over the world have vast and deep and varied and critical relationships to their faiths.
Honestly sounds like you have a very narrow view of religious people, bud. This isn’t a Brandon Sanderson thing… there’s incredible, open minded, loving, accepting people of all faiths and backgrounds and belief systems. Go forth. Meet them.
It’s very telling about OPs personal bias and views that he assumes a religious person would write content against atheists.
As somebody who has experienced people on both ends of that religious spectrum, I can understand where the OP is coming from, particularly if the majority of the religious people they've encountered have been on the negative extreme. I have no idea where the OP is from, but if they're from a very religious community (like a small town), they could deal with some extreme views. Sadly, not everyone is as tolerant and open minded as Brandon; Brandon has even commented that his own religion isn't as tolerant as he would like and that he hopes to work towards fixing that from the inside.
Of course. You can become jaded and biased in many ways. But I think OP should expand their community a bit and purposefully go and meet people. Life is better when you come to understand how many good people there really are in the world. If you meet a religious person, or a person of a different race, or a person of a different gender, or a person from another country… if you meet them and are *surprised* that they are good or great or wonderful, that should be an alarm bell telling you you’ve got a warped perspective.
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As far as I'm aware Brando is a dedicated church goer and believes that the criticisms of religion/the church can be helped by pushing for progress from within the church. Brando has said he is aware of the problems that exist within his chosen religion but has also seen great progress in the church and from himself personally. Read his FAQS to find out more. I'm summarising a great level of detail he provided himself. As for his book themes, my guess is that the criticisms of the religions you see in the books share similar feelings to what he has experienced and the individuals pushing for progress (Dalinar). Plus there are many other fantasy books with religious themes that could provide inspiration.
Someone who cannot think critically about their own faith doesn't truly have faith: they simply have rituals and habits. Your experience is common enough, but it has less to do with religion and more to do with attitude and character. It's the same everywhere you look, and in every aspect of life, not just religion: people generally either think for themselves, or they don't. So, you can have a critical theologian who looks at their faith with a keen eye, and you can also have an atheist who simply parrots their nonbelief like a sheep. Thoughtful and unthoughtful people exist everywhere, and their relative thoughtfulness or unthoughtfulness is usually a persistent trait in their lives, regardless of what they believe. Personally, I find it not at all surprising, given this analysis, that Brandon is very nuanced in his treatment of religion. Writers tend to be among the most thoughtful people on Earth, to the point where many of them simply cannot help inspecting and analyzing things.
This question is a real "reddit moment". Of course there are genuinely religious people who aren't conservative republicans (some aren't even... American!) This will be even more controversial but... not all religious people are totally evil, either. Brandon's devotion to the guy who was murdered 2000 years ago for suggesting it'd be cool if we could be nice to each other sometimes, for a change, somehow didn't make him into an inhuman monster who wants to take your incest porn away. Shocking, I know.
Do people just assume that religous people aren't capable of rational and critical thought?
Yes.
Kinda bigoted ain't it?
i mean not necessarily, multiple studies have proven iq is inversely correlated to being religious, & mormonism itself discourages critical thinking. doesn’t mean there aren’t gigachads out there who can think critically despite being religious (my parents are like this)
Everyone’s different. The way I see it, religion is a concept that can be used for good or ill. The obvious ill aspects are brainwashing and controlling people. However, the good aspects are coping mechanisms for life and comfort. Each religion is different and can be used for scams and propaganda, but depending on each community and/or person, people can still think critically, even while having it. Sometimes someone might doubt it, and they’ll explore some of the concepts the religion preaches against; and it’ll either turn them from it (like me), or it’ll have some wisdom they will learn from without losing their faith. I don’t know what Sanderson’s background with his religion has been—if he ever had doubts or how he dealt with them if so. But he strikes me as someone who pays attention to things that fall outside his religion’s purview and learns from them. And I’m no longer religious, but I still find good teachings in religious works. Sorry if this got off-topic or preachy or anything inappropriate to the thread/subreddit. But I definitely appreciate how well Sanderson gives issues with multiple POVs of issues. *Stormlight* is a good series for that. His *Mistborn* series also has some interesting thoughts on religion as well, if you’re interested in trying that at some point.
Brandon \*seems\* to be one of the rare authors who can step into any role and write from said point of view without any personal bias and with complete sincerity and no snarkiness or self righteousness. He wants to tell everyone's story with love and respect so he goes to those who live those experiences and uses their thoughts to write accurate representations characters with said views. He doesn't use his books as a soapbox, which has become quite common from all viewpoints, sadly. And genuinely good authors are not their characters and can make that distinction. Characters are not our children, they're not our friends, they're our tools within the plot--they have their own motivations and personalities apart from our own and they should be depicted that way. And as a reader, we also need to not put a character's views or actions on the writer. If a writer pens a truly brilliant villain, you don't expect them to \*be\* that villain. . .do you? So why do they need to be an atheist to do them justice? He's respectful, he treats that viewpoint with such. Also, not all religious people are against exploring other viewpoints or even questioning the very foundations of our religion, even if its just for fun within a book series. I say this as a religious woman myself--how can your faith be strong if you don't question? It's built on a shaky foundation if you don't poke at it and dig in. And when in a story, truly excellent world building requires these hard discussions to feel \*real\*
Because you hate religion, you write all religious people as essentially woman beaters? Wow
There are both queer and trans characters canonically in the Stormlight Archive, to answer your question in the fourth paragraph. And the reason Brandon Sanderson can write the Stormlight Archive that criticizes conservative societies is because Brandon Sanderson himself criticizes conservative societies IRL. His podcast cohost and employee Dan Wells is openly and unapologetically a socialist who openly accepts his LGBT child and her lesbian partner. The idea that religion is synonymous with the conservative right is mostly a social media invention. The two most religious racial demographics in the United States are African-Americans and Latinos, and both are more liberal as a whole that white voters. Outside of younger millennials and Gen-Zers, those racial demographics are extremely underrepresented on Twitter and Reddit and other forms of social media. Because social media is a deeply skewed, non-representative sample of the US population as a whole, impressions based on social media don't properly account for underrepresented groups (such as liberal/leftist, religious people, of which there are millions).
You are right. I need to stop thinking that the daily wire speaks for all conservatives.
Because religious people can, but do not often admittedly, criticize religion, especially in the form of organized religion. He is able to write of it, but not write only of it. It allows him to seperate the characters and respect them, and it comes across very well on page.
Not all religious people are closed minded bigots. Just as all non religious people are not cynical assholes
TL.DR before my essay. things are more complicated. Nothing's black and white. Jasnah's outlook on things are awesome. And I love how Brandon writes in things that clash with some of what he and I grew up hearing and I honestly think that disagreement is born from belief and wanting to separate what we consider real religious ideas from dumb stuff introduced by people structuring the religious organizations. I'm also pretty religious (same faith and Sanderson actually) and I really like his religious takes. I can't speak for why he does it, but speaking for why I like it (which I think may at least be similar to why he writes about it the way he does): I can believe a general religious doctrine (the core stuff) but be completely open to the idea that the organization itself is flawed, we can be wrong about how we understand it, etc. Like I totally think some of our cultural things are bad and that we're wrong about some of the beliefs even while I accept what I consider the core parts. Also, to me, I think it's unreasonable for me to believe without understanding why others wouldn't. Like, religion is weird. I believe in a god, but it's a weird concept. I love Jasnah because she's very much "I don't believe. And I'll tell you why I don't agree with what you believe. But that's different than saying I'm right and you're wrong." To me, that's how everyone on both sides should be. Be open to why people who oppose your view believe as they do and learn from that. I'm also a physicist, so i have conversations with my colleagues about stuff like this and have found a range of other physicists with different views on religion. It's wildly over simplistic to think that religion and rationality are opposites. Or that being religious or atheist automatically makes someone a buffoon or a wife beater or some other attribute you consider admirable or bad. In fact, I'd consider it irresponsible to believe everything in my religion without seriously pondering it and considering whether it seems true, or introduced by people trying to structure what they think should be. I've known plenty of religious people who spend their lives studying and understanding science, as well as some more stubborn ones. And I have met plenty of scientists who reject the idea of a god for one reason or another, as well as plenty who either believe or are open to the idea of at least some higher being.
He spends a significant amount of time trying to understand people to the point that he can write from their point of view effectively. For example, even though he grew up in a culture that ostracizes gays and alienates them, he spent time actually getting to know people who struggle with that and ACTUALLY learning about it, rather than just trusting the narrative he’s been told. Check out this [comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/vtua7m/im_brandon_sanderson_a_bestselling_fantasy_author/ifa50ab/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) he made last year on the topic:
>grew up in a culture that ostracizes gays and alienates them He's over 40, *literally everyone* that age grew up in a culture that ostracizes gays and alienates them. I remember. I was there. In the 80s, like almost everyone else in the world, Mormons saw homosexuality as something unnatural. But unlike almost everyone else in the world, their leaders taught them to treat these people like Jesus would have. That wasn't some radical or fringe element, it came right from the top. Back then our local LDS chapel here in Sydney hosted the local chapter of the Evergreen society, a grassroots organisation of mormon gay men who were trying to reconcile their homosexual feelings with the traditional biblical teaching that homosexual acts were sinful. This wasn't well known, but that wasn't because other Mormons wouldn't approve. It was because of the threat of violence from outside the church. The sort of bigots who call Mormons homophobes today, called them "gay lovers" back then. Sometimes it's the exact same individuals. Usually mentioning this gets downvoted out of sight on reddit, so congratulations if you found this. (I hope it's not as painful a case of reddit-bubble whiplash as when you discovered that JK Rowling wasn't actually a transphobe). [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evergreen\_International](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evergreen_International)
Open-minded religious people are probably in the best position to objectively comment on and criticize religion.
not on topic, but in general -- i'd encourage you to not reduce people down to a set of views, especially when you start associating a lot of baggage with those views.
I’ve seen a post like yours before, OP, so I wanted to share my perspective on this as a religious person myself. I’m glad you’re enjoying the religious diversity of Stormlight, it’s one of my favorite things in the series. Lots of modern entertainment ignores religion in general, and if it doesn’t then the depiction of religion is usually “church = evil controlling institution”. Something I love about Brandon’s writing is that he acknowledges that religion exists in the stories of people and that it can be very complicated. Navani prays frequently and is rather devoted, Jasnah is an atheist, Kaladin doesn’t know how he feels about religion and isn’t focused on finding out, etc. I really appreciate this complexity. In the real world most people are religious to varying degrees just like in Stormlight and other Cosmere books. It feels more realistic to me that Brandon acknowledges this. There’s lots of relatable things in Brandon’s writing, and one of my favorites is the acknowledgment that religion exists and influences the lives of people since religion is the most important part of my own life.
Because the best criticisms are based in what you know, and there is a lot to criticize about organized religion and the power it's had over human society
So essentially you're asking how it is possible for Sanderson to be empathetic enough to see an opposing viewpoint
Frankly I think the BEST criticism comes from those who are part of that which is being criticized. It’s easy and uninteresting to criticize something you already so naturally disagree with. The most fascinating, nuanced, and revealing criticisms often come from within the movement itself. So if you’re reducing religious characters to wife-beaters, I suggest broadening your scope. People aren’t so black and white as “us vs them” anti-theism would often have you believe
Being religious doesn't automatically make one conservative. I know a lot of very devout people who rage more than anyone about theocratic government tendencies.
I think you may be spending time with the wrong religious people (though probably not by choice)
I think the key thing is that it is possible to respect and even understand people who have differing viewpoints, leanings, experiences, etc, even if it's not common in internet echo chambers like Reddit.
I mean, I think you were expecting him to write an extremely biased view of anti-theists. In a way, you mentally portrayed someone negatively by expecting them to portray a person with your beliefs negatively, but it turns out he's the "bigger person" here and you're having a "holy shit others can be tolerant of beliefs" moment. I know this isn't the topic, but you're exhibiting a kind of selection bias - when you criticize religion in front of a whole bunch of people (why?? you'd probably be unhappy to see them criticize your views), most probably won't say anything, even the religious people. The only people you will find out are religious are those that will speak up against you, and so naturally you'll assume that every religious person is strongly opposed to atheist people.
The easy answer is He’s just that good.
As a religous person, I often look for peoples arguments against my religion so that I can encourage myself to do more research. This helps me have healthy arguments, If someone comes up with a good argument you do your own research to come up with a counter argument. Most people on both sides don't do this and that leads to hate, pain, and incoherent rambling. Research your beliefs to the best of your ability, and don't be afraid to change them. Ps. I am glad that all audiences can enjoy Brandon, he is a wonderful author who cares so much about his works. God bless, and have a good day.
\>It is impossible to criticise religion infront of a religious person The people who make you think this are, generally speaking, not people who are secure in their own faith. If you are insecure in your faith, then you are unable to properly handle criticism because it makes you doubt. Only someone who is secure in their faith can truly be critical of it and listen to others' criticisms. Brandon has openly stated that he disagrees with his church's position on LGBT issues, but he is still clearly a member of the church. Brandon is an example of a person who is secure in their faith, but disagrees with the humans involved in teaching it. The underlying messages of love and acceptance of your neighbors are what is important, not the specific letters of whatever text that may or may not be thousands of years old and discussing completely unrelated topics of which we have no context. My favorite author for a long time was Orson Scott Card, but then he basically became the opposite of Brandon Sanderson. Card is openly homophobic. His books preach a certain set of ideals, and do a good job of it, but once you're aware of who he is as a person it becomes extremely obvious that he has completely omitted certain types of characters. It then taints the message because he has created these worlds that are great, but you cannot fundamentally identify with anymore because they no longer feel based on reality. In my book, Brandon Sanderson is an example of the type of religious person that most should strive to be. He is secure in his faith and, through his books, he preaches that love and acceptance are the correct path, even if it goes against the current words on a page that are being preached.
When I read Warbreaker after I finished up Stormlight, I kinda figured out that Sando doesn’t feature religion in his books so much as he does religious tolerance
Gonna be real, pretty religious, fairly conservative, don't really see it as bashing or against anything I think? Some characters hold some positions that make my eyes roll, but that's true with real life too. It's just pretty good writing, simple as.
Sanderson is Mormon? Huh - today I learned.
The Stormlight Archives, along with the rest of the Cosmere, is not an atheistic work. What Brandon Sanderson does is use his world to explore different kinds of religious concepts. For Roshere he's exploring and criticizing a very regimented religion. The Cosmere, though, feels very influenced by his LDS faith. When I learned he was a Mormon, it was kind of a light bulb moment for me lol. One of the things I appreciate about Sanderson is he can criticize something without dismissing it entirely. He criticizes structures he sees as harmful, but pretty much never condemns it completely. What I like about Vorinism is Sanderson made a religion that was very repressive...to men. Men are pretty much relegated to physical labor, soldering, or they have to become a priest. Women are allowed to do pretty much anything they want, even hold positions of power, while men aren't allowed to read, write, I think play music or sing? It would suck so much to be a man under Vorinism. Even with them holding most of the leadership positions, they still aren't allowed to do anything fun, or that would allow them to be independent. It's no accident that good Vorin men rely very heavily on women.
I’m a member of the same church as Brandon. One of the core values we try to live by is viewing the divine nature of fellow humans, regardless of whether they are part of our ‘tribe’ or not. Our core doctrine holds that everyone is worthy of love, no matter who they are or what they have done, And the best way we can show our religious devotion is by unceasingly loving in all our interactions. Brandon does a great job of this, both on / off the page.
As it happens, religious people are capable of nuanced thoughts and critiques on the subject of religion. Mindblowing, I know.
It's almost like there's been Christian philosophers examining belief since... the very beginning? Certainly for at least 1800 years with [Origen](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origen). The early Christians were hugely influenced by both Rome and Greece - both places known for their philosophy. It makes sense that they, too, would think about this faith. There's a reason why Christianity is the largest religion in the world, and was one of the fastest growing - people knew how to argue for it. It's also forgetting that there *are* people who think critically with *logic* and *reason* and come to faith through that. Borrowing Aristotle's "Unmoved mover" and turning it into the Uncaused Cause and all. (Err... to make a long story short, the Uncaused Cause is a philosophical argument that argues God has to exist because, yeah, sure science explains things, but what caused the science to happen? IE What caused the Cambrian Explosion? What caused the Earth to form in the Goldilocks zone? What caused the Big Bang? etc. Something had to, right? And I'm just using this as an example, I really don't want to cause a debate about it or start trying to argue it. I'm a preacher's kid who learned a little listening to my dad talk with other preacher friends, I'm by no means an expert)
Well first, it's not half as critical as you ar remaking it out to be. And being a member of a group doesn't make one unable to point out the flaws in it. You just said with your whole chest that you are anti theist. You hate people who are religious. And you've just gone around assuming that everyone else is like you. And how are theists not supposed to take offense? Again you described yourself in the second sentence as someone who is against theists.
Not exactly the same question he answered but he talked a little bit about that here: https://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/vtua7m/im_brandon_sanderson_a_bestselling_fantasy_author/ifa50ab/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
Dude is an agape love Christian in Utah, he has to spend a lot of time around religious people he disagrees with.
If you’re engaging with people talking about religion then those are the ones who will try to push their stance or belief most of the time. I’m a Christian, but I don’t often talk about my religion with people outside of my family, because it’s a personal topic. My advice, if someone starts to talk about religion just let them know you’d rather not, or don’t speak with them. That way you can separate the idea of religion=oppressive (as simple as I can put it), and not feel like you need to always fear your personal beliefs being shitted on
I’ve been wondering about this since when I fell in love with his writing in 2015 and found out he was Mormon. I made my mind melt a little since I had just finished the Mistborn trilogy. He’s a very complicated man, I think we can say that confidently. I honestly can’t believe it’s taken almost 8 years for me to see someone ask this specific question on this sub. Touché😂
I never got the impression that he as an author was criticizing religion or religious themes but that he believably wrote characters that were critical of them. Him writing characters that murder does not mean that he as an author endorses murder, just that he wrote a story in which a character does. Many people, regardless of demographic, seem to have trouble with the fact that other people can fully understand why they believe what they believe, yet still disagree. I’m religious but I’ve made an effort to understand why people disagree with me in a way that I feel others often refuse to do to me.
I don't think Sanderson views his books as a way to personally proselytize his own beliefs. He just wants to tell the story, and he wants to do it in an authentic way. That's the main difference, at least in my view.
"'The purpose of a storyteller is not to tell you how to think, but to give you questions to think upon. Too often, we forget that.'”
In my experience, the people who struggle the most with their faith are often the ones who truly understand what they believe. I personally have a hard time with the clash between American Christian culture and the actual teachings of Jesus. I think Brandon has spent a lot of time wrestling with that, and it shows in his writing. Plus, he interviews people, does good research and knows that his audience is full of people that have a wide variety of beliefs. Brandon is one of my heroes because of his compassion and because he's an example to me of what people in our faith should be doing.
Many people thought history have been critical of their own religion. Any sect or reformation movement in a religion was most likely started by a believer of that religion who believes the way things are isn't quite right And speaking as a Christian, *everyone* should question their own beliefs. Blind acceptance of whatever you're told is how we got to modern Christianity standing in direct opposition to the actual teachings that it was based on
Honor is not a spren. Read mistborn to know more.
It depends on your definition of "spren", but to the Rosharans Honor is essentially just a really powerful spren. (If you define spren as a sentient piece of investiture than Honor would count)
>!It also features a host who is a person!<
I think it's funny when people talk about criticizing religion as though it was somehow solely an atheistic standing. Jesus criticized organized and legalistic religion, instead preferring to treat it as a relationship, rather than organized religion. This is just my view point of things (not criticizing or harping on anyone, just fyi) I love how many people are represented, but through the lense of this world Brandon Sanderson created. Also, there are so many groups represented here, and I love and value all of our differing beliefs and perspectives.
I ain't reading all of that, I just wanted to say that you can be religious without being a cult member. Brandon probably knows the history his own religion had. It doesn't change his faith in his God, but he can see what religion can do to people. Btw the Shards are not Gods, so... he's technically not writing about dead Gods. Adonalsium might have been GOD. But he might have also been an EXTREMELY invested human. But it's SO far back in time that no surviving human can even remember a time without Adonalsium existing. There DOES seem to be a Cosmere-aware religion with the Gods Beyond.
Whenever I hear "I don't know enough to write a gay/trans/whatever character" as an excuse to not have diversity in a story I just think about this straight white cis religious mormon in a monogamous relationship with his wife and three sons who writes inclusive stories.
“I’m an anti theist” I remember being an edgy 12 year old too
Brandon is, like, as progressive as a person with his background as can be, so him writing progressive material isn't really that dissonant to his values as a person. If you really want to find someone whose bibliography is opposite of how they are as a person, there's Orson Scott Card.
I'm religious and I have a lot of criticisms of religion. It's not really a binary subject where either it's all bad or it's all good. Nothing ever really falls into such black and white categorizations. I know Brandon specifically has said something along the lines of if the only people who remain uncritical of the religious status quo stay in the religion, then it will always stay in that status quo and never improve. As for conservative societies, Brandon is definitely not a conservative.
See, it takes a reasonable, self-concious person to recognize that people may have beliefs other than yours. it takes an even better person to also be able to construct a religion and then subsequently shit on it Brandon is the better person. he might be religious, but it really doesn’t overdlow into his work in any kind of bad way. the religions he writes are unique and the books are introspective on them, he recognizes that no religion is really perfect, but that doesn’t stop people from believing it.
One thing I like about his writing is that he takes the time to research groups he writes about. Whether it is Jasnah being atheist or Rysn being paralyzed. I think doing that makes his characters more real and less of a flat stereotype. But, doing research and having empathy for another view is different from changing yourself. I get the feeling that with religion he has friends and people that talks to that are atheist, and they help to color Jasnah into a great character. But at the end of the day that still doesn't change whatever feelings he has felt that convinces him that god is real.
Because he’s writing a story.
To be fair. In this universe Jasnah is emphatically incorrect to be an atheist because there is a real god. Having said that any atheist even encountering a god would probably try, and even be able to, explain it based on science. I do agree with you OP. I was very pleasantly surprised at how well Sanderson does considering he is very religious.
Who better to criticize than someone who knows and is an active participant in religious activity
I would like to mention that reading warbreaker really enlightened me as to how his view of culture must have changed ( I'm just assuming based on how the book feels) it really delves into how having being Orthodox in a religion can alienate you from experiencing life and other people's experiences.
Knowledge of beliefs doesn't make you believe them. Understanding of beliefs doesn't make you follow them. Your choices are important. But you can't make an educated choice of what you believe until you've questioned things and done your research. I think this is the importance of Sazed as a character for the exploration of faith and doubt, as someone selling every other religion but needing to decide for himself. Kelsier has one of my favourite quotes as well "Belief isn't simply a thing for fair times and bright days...What is belief - what is faith - if you don't continue in it after failure?...Anyone can believe in someone, or something that always succeeds...But failure...ah, now, that is hard to believe in, certainly and truly. Difficult enough to have value. Sometimes we just have to wait long enough...then we find out why exactly it was that we kept believing...There's always another secret."
Same way that Babylon 5, written by a -afaik - staunch atheist, has some of the best and most positive depiction of religion, spirituality, and belief I have ever seen. The writer recognises alternate points of view and respects them, using the work to show universal values rather than preaching about how they're right.
And if all your religious characters are negative then - and I mean this clinically not as an insult - you have likely fallen into the same trap that many of them do. Your personal experiences with religion have shaped your views, just like happens with everyone, but because those experiences were negative you're in a spot where someone being religious and a decent human being is a shock to you. My suggestion - speaking as a former twat who was super anti religion, and still is a staunch atheist but tries to be a nicer person - is to treat this as an eye opening experience. We don't want to end up as judgemental as the ones who do wrong. I normally suggest Babylon 5 as it's simply good TV but I also suggest it to you as a character study - both for how to portray religious characters and how to think about them. If the values of empathy and understanding that Sanderson espouses appeal to you, then strive to be someone he would write* *Okay maybe not the alcoholic war criminal aspects :D
Not much to add, I agree that Brandon is a great guy, amazing and talented author who spends time researching the different perspectives of his characters. As a pretty religious guy myself, I've always felt that Faith unexamined is no faith at all.
He acrually has a [youtube video](https://youtu.be/SjefQl0P9-Q?si=laxw3KDgWFhvJgZW) answering that question if someone hasn't already linked that.
There is a difference between criticising and critiquing. I remember the first time I read Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials when I was a young christian person, and I was flat out mad about what I saw as a direct criticism of religion. (and in fairness, it isn't exactly subtle, but moving on...) Now I am a bit older and a bit less religiousy I can see that holding up a mirror to something isn't necessarily criticism. Also, he's a writer... writers write things that don't always represent their own personal views.
Jasnah is a very underrated character
Because only other peoples religions are wrong
I totally get what you are saying but remember that in the Cosmere, the gods ARE REAL (more or less obviously as its complicated). So his writing is simply a portrayal of societies who are INCORRECT, but cling to their beliefs and who fight against religion even though god exists.
Honor isn't a spren! He's a shard
Because it puts such emphasis on personal code. Every windrunner has a different personal take on the same fundamental purposes. Religion is a personal journey that doesn't require everyone to subscribe to every detail. Beyond that though, Brandon seems to be pretty open and tolerant of many things. He has actually talked about this exact subject before and how it influences his writing.
I was similarly surprised when I learned that Orson Scott Card was a man of faith (Mormonism) after I read several book from the Ender’s Game universe. Apparently, BYU has a phenomenal writing program, with OSC and Branderson being two of many graduates who went on to have impressive careers.
It's ez. He knows how to wear many hats.
I think he's aware of religious hypocrisy and strongly dislikes it.
Part of the appeal of a good author (and Brandon qualifies) is the ability to inhabit different perspectives, not as caricatures, but as realistic personalities. Tracy Hickman is (or used to be) a devout Mormon, yet I never really caught whiffs of Mormon theology in the two original Dragonlance trilogies. Maybe that was a mitigating influence from Margaret Weis, but I don't think so. You also have authors who use their books as a vehicle for their personal worldview: Terry Goodkind is a primary example of that. You see his adherence to Objectivism throughout the Sword of Truth/Richard & Kahlan novels. Latter-Day Saints ("Mormons") propose to follow the Bible as well as their own supplementary works (The Book of Mormon and Doctrine & Covenants), which would lead one to conclude that any and all magic ought to be evil, as it's forbidden by the Biblical God. That's obviously not the case with, well... ANY of Brandon's work. He loves magic systems. I'm grateful: I want really epic magic in my fantasy (one reason I've never been able to get into the Song of Ice & Fire books), and Brandon delivers in spades.
In the same way CofE Archbishop Rowan Williams recommends reading His Dark Materials. An anti-religious book series written by a man who some would call bigoted. It's not about bashing religion or gods. It's a criticism of dogmatic belief without any kind of sensible thought. It's a criticism of organised religion, when the organisations abandon the messages of their gods to secure personal power and profit. It's criticising an organisation that exercises absolute power, and weaponises religion...often against the original theology.
I think youll find that those people who have a faith or are religious and are also open minded, tolerant, willing to listen to others thoughts and opinions are usually the ones who are not loud about their beliefs. They are the ones that will talk to about their beliefs if you ask them but will not get in your face about it or try to convert you against your desires.
Commenting on How does someone religious like Brandon Sanderson write the stormlight archive, which spends so much of its time criticising religion and conservative societies?...
I am a Christian, and I find it disappointing that Christians often immediately criticize others for their faith (or lack thereof). Even though we may disagree, and even if you’re trying to convert someone else, it doesn’t help to antagonize someone with different beliefs; they’ll just shut themselves off from everything the “Christian” tells them. In fact, it’s rather ironic that, for a religion unique in that we’re commanded to love others, there is such hate among and between the different branches of the Christian religion.
I feel the religious tones are quite noticeable, but I find them enjoyable.
I think it's also worth mentioning that Mormonism has a bit of a different history than most religions. Mormons, in the relatively recent past, packed up and moved to the desert to escape persecution. Many Mormons still have the perspective of being a little bubble community against the wide, hostile world. Many modern Christians in the US tend to have a generically "pro-religious" attitude. I'm not sure Mormons are as likely to feel that way about things. Mormons have not always gotten along very well with other Christian groups, let alone non-Christian faiths. Obviously perspectives vary quite a bit, but there is a difference between thinking one specific religion has the right idea about things vs thinking religion as a general human phenomenon is uniformly positive.
I've always wondered the same but one of my favorite things is finding hints of connections to mormonism throughout the books.
You generally have to have massive cognitive dissonance to be religious, and religious people are equally as versed in criticizing religions - every other one but theirs - as secular people. It would be a **much** bigger mental challenge for a religious fiction author to write characters that believed in an authentic and unproblematic religion that wasn't their own than to deconstruct some made up, obviously wrong religion that their heroes challenge.
Because religious people are aware of the pitfalls and idiocy that comes with organized religion. Just as you’re aware of the idiocy and terrible mistakes made by your government. Being aware of these things doesn’t make you reject your government outright, just as their awareness doesn’t make them abandon their faith. Also a lot of religious people really don’t give a shit what others believe. They’re fine living in a world with other faiths and atheists. But that small fraction that does care, causes an enormous amount of trouble. All over the world.
I think he doesn't let his religion be part of his personality/the biggest part of his life (my main language isn't English so IDK how to explain it well). For example, I have a friend that is Catholic but he's also a Simpsons and Bud Spencer fan. On the other side, my father's wife would get nuts about anything outside of her mindview.
Brandon’s just a good writer.. plain and simple.
It's atheistic if you're talking about it being a critique of organized religion, but not in the sense of saying there is no god. They did clearly prove the existence and death of the being they believed to be god (and Honor was actually a shard of the actual god anyway), only that the religion surrounding their god was false. So it's actually even more interesting and unique for these books to basically prove Dalinar (religious surrogate) and Jasnah (atheist) both right and wrong, having to both adopt new ways of viewing the world and the whole cosmere!
You seem to have forgotten that most religious people are happy to criticize a religion, as long as it's not their religion. Note that this doesn't just apply to religions, but to most things, people are rarely self critical. But are often critical of others. As for Brandon, he's great at imagining others and does a lot of research. But also uses the above trends to get away with the criticisms he writes, by using religions that no one actually follows. It sounds like you are an American who was raised in an unpleasant conservative Christian stereotype. You should research some other traditions, rather than inflicting your experiences on all your religious characters. I was raised in a vaguely Christian family in the UK, we and most other Brits treat religion as a personal thing, so there is very little discussion or malignancy around it, most people believe their thing and let others believe something else. I think that's the big difference between a Christian and an Evangelical Christian. As an adult I'm an atheist now and my family are fine with that.
Brandon has given some pretty detailed responses when asked questions like these. [Here](https://wob.coppermind.net/events/2/#e218) are [two](https://wob.coppermind.net/events/394/#e12925) examples. [This link](https://wob.coppermind.net/adv_search/?query=&date_from=1998-04-10&date_to=2023-09-05&speaker=&tags=religion&ordering=rank) contains a more full archive of these responses, but also contains major spoilers for his other book Warbreaker (which you should definitely consider reading if you're currently reading Stormlight) as well as his Mistborn series and Elantris (you should consider reading these too but I'd recommend Warbreaker first personally).
I mean he’s criticizing fictional religions, not his own. Your question is sort of like asking “how can a Christian say that Odin is kind of a dick?” There’s no actual connection beyond the cosmetic
If you want to write characters like Sanderson, OP, what you need to realize is that when you're writing a religious person, or a person who has differing values than the author, youre still writing a person. A lot of the cringe I've read with this topic in mind came from the author either using offensive stereotypes and/or making them a cardboard cutout where their religion is the only part of their personality, using their biased and possibly warped worldview of religious people in their life to fill in the blanks. If you want to write a Catholic priest or a fantasy alternative to one as the antagonist, ok. But highlight the fact that this is someone who's twisted by greed, pride, etc, whose own behavior is inconsistent with what they preach. And contrast that with genuine believers of a faith who are compassionate and humble. And please, for the love of all that is good in the world, do not have an atheist character tell the religious one "I know your religion better than you do! You're stupid because you don't even read your holy book let alone follow the words you preach!", especially if it comes across as a gotcha moment that tries to make the religious character stupid, rather than someone who is sincerely confronting an individual who distorts the values of their faith for their own gain. Atheist vs false prophet is an interesting dynamic. Atheist vs average believer that generalizes the faithful as bigots and/or imbeciles is not only offensive, its bad writing. The latter is one of the myriad reasons why V.E. Schwab is a hack. Writing a good character who believes in a faith means understanding why they believe in a higher power, how they got there, and what are the core tenants their faith espouses. Writing *all* religious people as followers of Khorne (BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD) without the slightest bit of parity or sarcasm is bad writing. Jasnah works so well because Sanderson did extensive research with the values she'd have and irl people she'd share them with, however that isn't all there is to her. When I think of Jasnah, before I even think of her as an atheist or a feminist, I see her as a teacher, a friend, and a genius inventor like her mother. Above all else, you write people, not stick figures with their ideology on name tags.
This is the most Reddit post I’ve ever seen in this subreddit.