Any Atheists Considering Religious Fiction?

Well I'm still trying to decide between what's honestly like 6 plots tossing around in my brain, but one of them is a story with very religious themes about a 17-year-old Catholic girl whose parents abandon her, she meets her guardian angel, and she ends up finding refuge in a nondenominational Protestant megachurch, and it's a sort of coming-of-age story. Except that I'm an Atheist, so I don't actually believe in God at all, much less Christianity. It doesn't bother me, I just think of it like people who don't believe in magic writing fantasy stories, but I think it's kind of funny and…ironic.

So how about it? Any other Atheists giving fictional spirituality a try for a month?

To an extent, the "God" of my story is actually the Universe, and its actions are a form of its function rather than an implication of higher intelligence, but the parallels are there to be drawn and I'll certainly be trawling the Religion board for any religious theories or phillosophies to incorporate into the story.

Yeah. Was kind of wary writing a synopsis, because I was worried my plot might come across very anti-Christian (atheists fighting against the second coming of Christ), but it's more of a thing about how the world right now would react to the legit second coming, and is more about letting people be to do and believe what they want, more than any particular side of the argument being 'right'. For example one of my MCs is a deeply atheist teenage idiot (pretty much me five years ago, when I first started NaNo) who takes advantage of the situation by becoming a celebrity anti-Christian and trying to turn the world to atheism, and pushing away his christian girlfriend in the process. Some of my better MCs turn to Christianity, some of the antagonists are atheists, and vice versa.

I'm defending this so much, haha. Just a pretty tricky topic to cover, there's crazy die-hard followers on every side, whether atheist, Christian, Muslim... but there's plenty of amazing people of all faiths who just want to get by with their own beliefs. That's what my novel's about, just slightly worried it could very easily be misinterpreted as an atheist attack on Christianity.

This is my first foray into anything dealing directly with religion. It's inspired by Neil Gaiman's, American Gods and Good Omens, and a little Dogma (Kevin Smith's movie). It should be a fun novel to write since the ideas are just pouring into my brain. I'll be posting my synopsis on my profile later.

I'm writing a young adult fantasy novel set in a land with a fictional religion. The religion violently represses those who can use magic, and the MC ultimately rejects the religion and flees the country.

I think (regarding atheists writing religious fiction) that it depends on your intent. I doubt that atheists could write anything that would appeal to people who ARE religious (who are looking for that kind of appeal), because the consciousness is so different, and that comes across in one's stories. In this sense the externals are not what make a book "religious"... but if the person writing it is practicing and sincere, that spirit will come through. Our worldviews are all through the stories we write, and we can't tap into a world we aren't actually a part of. Imitate it, explore it, wonder at it through various lenses, maybe, but we can't really transmit it. Can't give what you don't have, etc. There are all kinds of sorts of fiction I could never write or be at ALL convincing with...

I was raised in a strongly anti-theistic household (overt message - organized religion is the root of all evil, subtext - religious people are idiots) and have mellowed a great deal since then.

I'm writing a book where strange, apparently supernatural, events are happening. My MC is (initially) casually religious. I'm thinking the events will take her on a spiritual journey, which will probably strengthen her faith in the end (not completely sure where it will lead her, but that's what it's looking like now). Looks like it will be a murder mystery as well...

I'm doing a fictitious story about a group of people who die and become human/angel hybrids. But my Angels are from the grigori mythos. Of angels who have sex with mortal women. Creating a race of what have been described as giant hybrids. These are their later bloodlines. Only the newest generation in the families of the 23 bloodlines. So if you have a child you lose the ability and it passes down to your first child etc. The Grigori race though in mine are the first aliens and only aliens to discover Earth. So it's more Angel are actually a species, Alien.

That's all I got at the moment. Don't think it's that religious.

I'm doing a dark comedy with religious themes. Not to say that it's heavily religious, but I do feature moments in 'the Ethereal' (Heaven, Hell and Purgatory) as well as minor characters such as self invented demons and angels, God and The Devil makes appearances, and the main character for my nano is Death. However I'm hoping that my own look on it will be less of an 'atheist trying to write something she doesn't believe in', and more of a 'writer doing her own take on a well known belief'.

Mine is a story about a god (unclear whether it's THE God of any particular religion) contacting the world through the internet. Both the main character and I myself are atheists. There's nothing wrong with writing a story like that, and it should be easy to do.

On a side note, I've never been religious before.

It was reported a while back that Ricky Gervais was writing a sitcom about an atheist who dies and then goes to heaven which is a refreshingly undefensive point to start a comedy series.

You know, some of the most interesting and spiritual films were made by atheists ... Pasolini and Bergman lost their faith and spent a big part of their film career examining that. If you had a religious background even as a child it's a very potent topic to you.

I thought I was alone tackling this one!!

I'm not religious (and I say that because I consider myself in a further state of doubt and skepticism than a typical atheist), but I've had this story in my mind about a Jewish family for years now. This year, i decided to go ahead and write it.

My story centers on the youngest son of the family who is disabled and who also happens to be gay. His family has varying degrees of acceptance of this fact from the older brother that doesn't care to the older brother that thinks its blasphemous. Then, he falls in love with a man who is struggling to find his way BACK to religion after rebelling.

I know every direction I WANT the story to go in, but I have absolutely no idea how to start it.... so I've started a second nano piece in my usual genre, fantasy, to keep myself busy.

Another challenge I'm facing is that I wasn't raised religious at all. No church, no synagogue, no Buddhist temples, nothing. So I'm drawing purely on research (albeit I almost converted to Judaism when I was younger).... so if anyone reading this happens to know about Judaism, lets be buddies in case I need help! lol ;)

As an Atheist (Secular Humanist, really, but who's keeping track?) who is also a religious studies graduate, I find that anything I write ends up with a heady dose of religion of some kind. I just find the variety of religious experience out there to be absolutely fascinating.

Man, having a True-Believin' Christian main character has been the most awkward thing for me to figure out in my novel... having been raised atheist and will probably never stop being one.

But really, my main character is just a foil to play against my true love, of writing about all things evil and Satanic >3>

Not yet, but I started pretty much the same thread last year, when I was considering it! Though, it was going to be a fantasy world. The religion would have been based on the Abrahamic religions, so sort of an 'alternate' universe dystopian type of story, with strong elements of faith and trust in God. Oh, and it was also typing in elements of the-- er, forget what it's called, but before World War II when Jewish children were taken by train and ultimately to families in Britain, in an effort to keep them safe.

But I ended up doing something else.

I am! I'm an atheist and a religion student writing a very Paradise-Lost-inspired novel about the war between Heaven and Hell and young angels/demons that get mixed up in the war and a prophecy and a lot of stuff that's bigger than they are. So I won't need to draw on any religious experiences, but I will get to draw on a lot of the religious research I've done and play around with Biblical allegories, which is a lot of fun for me.

I personally think there's absolutely nothing wrong with writing a religious novel as an atheist, and I think it's kinda similar to me being an atheist religion student--a lot of people assume that my major must mean I'm either deeply religious or trying to "disprove" or "knock down" religion, whereas I just find it a really fascinating subject I don't happen to believe in. It's okay if you want to explore it--your novel is your own personal work!

I don't really consider myself an atheist, just someone who believes in a general God (or numerous Gods, I'm not picky), but not organized religion.
My story deals with the Christian God and the "real" reason for the great war in heaven. One of my favorite sayings is 'The victors write history' and I wanted to explore that more. I also really like the plot point that the Christian God forgives everyone their sins as long as they ask for it, but does that also include Lucifer?
I'm really excited to be writing it and all the research I've been doing on it is so interesting.