> > Which got me to thinking. If I wrote this story to take place in the real world, people would obviously see that I'm opposed to this religion, and this lifestyle, and so on and so forth - but if I wrote it as a fantasy, with religious systems I worked out instead of Christianity and other religions simply given goofy names, would people be more willing to accept this story?
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> As an avid Discworld reader, it strikes me that this is pretty much exactly what Terry Pratchett does. I suppose he doesn't exactly oppose any religion or lifestyle, fantasy or otherwise, but in "Carpe Jugulum" (which is a book about vampires taking over a small mountain kingdom, just for the record) there are a lot of very interesting and, indeed, controversial issues brought up. Religions in particular get quite a punching in this book, and although Pratchett exaggerates and twists until no-one could pin him down at all, it is still abundantly clear that he is looking sarcastically at different religions.

If you think "Carpe Jugulum" looks sarcastically at religion, Pratchett's "Small Gods" will just about make you burst into flames. I thought "Small Gods" was quite a departure from his usual style -- just as funny, but in a *much* more serious way.

In my opinion, the way Pratchett gets away with some of the things he says in his book (at least, *I* thought he got away with it. Some might not agree) is because of the overriding love of humanity which comes through in all his books. The reason the Discworld books are so funny is because I can look at almost every single character and think "Yes, people would do that. I know people exactly like this." But there's no malice in any of these portrayals, and no cynicism. He's a very acute observer of human nature, and I don't think you can achieve that without having a genuine love of people. When reading "Small Gods", for example, I never came away with the impression that Pratchett is against religious people, or God, or religion itself -- only some of the things that we imperfect and endlessly interesting human beings have done with it.

I think there are very few authors I have read who manage to combine wit, respect for their characters, and sometimes very pointed social criticism so effortlessly as Pratchett does. If you want to write something which states your opinion about beliefs and institutions that many people hold dear, I don't think there's a better way to go about it. Otherwise you run the risk of simply saying "YOU ARE RONG AND YOU SUCK." And then nobody will read your book except for those who already agree that certain people ARE RONG AND THEY SUCK, and even those people are never going to gain any insights into why you think so.